Passing Through Paradise by Susan Wiggs Read Free Book Online Page B

computer, his eye going to the spidery lines marking the coast.
    He traced his finger from the port of Paradise to Blue Moon Beach. Six nautical miles. North by northeast. Maybe his luck was about to change.
    “Let’s go, Zeke.”
    The dog scrambled to the sliding-glass door and bolted the moment Mike cracked it open. Zeke vaulted ahead, leaping through the cockpit deck and onto the creaking dock, sniffing like crazy. Like he hoped to find something different in a place that never changed.
    Mike followed more slowly and stood in the hushed aftermath of the storm, listening to the hiss of the sea and the restless crying of gulls, watching the twilight glitter on the gale-churned water.
    And thinking about Sandra Winslow again.
    Who the hell was she, and why had Victor married her? He never made a random choice in his life, and he rarely made mistakes. That was supposed to be Mike’s specialty. But a year ago, Victor had wound up dead and Mike lived alone now, his only company a poodle with a bad haircut.
    The air held the sort of chill found only at the brittle edge of the New England coast. Mike turned up the collar of his parka and shoved his hands deeper into his pockets.
    “Hey, Mike.”
    He turned to see Lenny Carmichael coming toward him on the dock. A flat fisherman’s cap made Lenny seem even shorter and squatter than he was, so that he resembled a railroad spike someone had hit with a hammer. He moved with the ambling gait of a man who was never far from the sea. And he wasn’t. His father was a lobster fisherman; Lenny had joined the family business as soon as he was old enough to drop out of school.
    “Hey.” Mike nodded his head. “What do you know?”
    “I heard you were up at the lighthouse, fixing a broken window.”
    Privacy, Mike reflected, was in short supply in Paradise. “Yep,” he said. “Hell of a way to spend the afternoon.”
    “We missed you at Schillers. Archie bought everyone a round in your honor. You should have been there. You’re off to a good start, Mikey. There was never any doubt.”
    Mike thought it strange that people still held a high opinion of him, even after all these years.
    “Gloria sent you this.” Lenny set down a loosely closed cardboard box. “She made too much, like always.” He spoke with the flat, elongated Rhode Island accent the locals all tried to lose if they wanted to get somewhere in life. Lenny, of course, didn’t want to go anywhere. Neither did Gloria. She liked feeding people. Especially guys who’d been dumped by their wives.
    Mike knew what he’d find in the box. A big, boiled lobster worth seventy-five bucks in a Manhattan restaurant, a couple of dinner rolls, potatoes swimming in butter. At first, Mike had been embarrassed by Gloria’s charity. To be honest, it had pissed him off. But a pissed-off guy could never intimidate Gloria Carmichael. She was married to Lenny, after all.
    “Be sure to thank her,” Mike said. “She doesn’t have to keep feeding me, though.”
    “I’ll tell her thanks, but not the other,” Lenny said. “She was just saying she’s sick of looking at the rotten railing of our front porch. I bet she’ll be calling you soon.”
    “Tell her I don’t accept cash, checks or credit cards. Only food.”
    “She’ll love that. What can I say? My old lady likes cooking better than sex.”
    “Maybe that’s why the restaurant’s such a hit,” Mike suggested. A couple of years back, Gloria had opened a summer shack up at Point Judith, selling lobster rolls and egg salad sandwiches to tourists from Boston and New York.
    “I’d rather have the sex,” Lenny grumbled.
    “I hear you, buddy. I hear you.”
    “So,” Lenny went on, “things are going okay for you.”
    Considering the lightning speed of the local gossip network, Mike decided he’d best let his old friend know what he was up to. “I got a lead on a big job off Ocean Road. On Curlew.” He pretended the idle comment had just occurred to him. “I’m