Whisper Beach by Shelley Noble Read Free Book Online

mind.”
    â€œWe’ll pay you back,” Van said without even thinking.
    Dorie snorted. “You think I can’t afford to replace a few measly crab puffs? Eat up, girls, then we’ll send out for some real food. And not from the Blue Crab, either.”
    She looked over her shoulder as if she heard something. But there was nothing— or more accurately—no one there.
    Suze cleared her throat. “Uh, we saw Harold when we got here.”
    Dorie nodded.
    â€œHe was . . .” Suze shot an agonized look at Van.
    â€œCarrying suitcases,” Van finished.
    â€œOh?”
    â€œYou knew he’d be gone, didn’t you?”
    Dorie came into the room. “Suspected. That man’s like clockwork. You almost get a decent chunk of time out of him and he gets the wanderlust.”
    Harold had always been a philanderer. Van would have kicked him to the curb years ago if she’d been married to him. The Listers had kids, but Van had met only two of them and that had been years ago.
    â€œPicked a hell of a time to run off, though. Now I gotta find somebody or -bodies to help me close up for the winter.” Dorie gave them an over-the-top innocent look.
    Van frowned at her. Suze might still be here to help, but Van would be long gone when it came time to close the restaurant. She might be able to spare a weekend here or there.
    Suze unfolded herself from the chair and stood. “What’ll it be? White zinfandel?”
    â€œSure, that’s good.”
    While Suze went to get the wine from the kitchen, Dorie sat down in the other chair facing Van and reached for a cube of cheese. “So where do you want to begin?” She finished with an expression that Van recognized all too well. As teenagers they had quailed beneath that look. Well, everyone except Harold, who would just slap her on the butt, call her babe, and get the hell away.
    Van didn’t think she’d be able to escape so easily. “How about with Clay Daly’s death? How did he die and what’s going to happen to Gigi and the kids? She has a couple, right?”
    Dorie nodded distractedly as she looked over the remains of their snack. She finally decided on a mini egg roll and popped the whole thing in her mouth, wrinkled her nose. “I’m thinking Italian. How long are you staying?”
    Taken aback by the abrupt change of subject, Van said, “At least through tomorrow. I promised Gigi to come see her in the morning—maybe a week. If that’s okay.”
    Dorie’s eyes flew heavenward. “All right then. Since Gigi will try to color it pink, I’ll give you the real facts. She and Clay were one of the families on the bay that got flooded out when Sandy hit.” She raised her voice. “Hey, Suze, look in the cabinet next to the coffeemaker and bring those take-out menus.”
    â€œSo the Reader’s Digest version is, they got flooded, they screwed up the FEMA papers, cause Mr. I-Don’t-Need–No-Help Daly tried to do everything himself.
    â€œThey moved in with Gigi’s mother and father. But Clay got it in his head looters were going to steal everything from the house and moved into the RV in the driveway. If you ask me, Clay had just gotten enough of Amelia.
    â€œThen he lost his job ’cause the damn machine shop where he worked closed up and never reopened. Then his unemploymentran out, and he started acting crazy. Sitting out front with a shotgun at night. Hammering and sawing like he was going to rebuild the house himself, which he couldn’t do because, besides the fact that it had been condemned for being structurally unsound, it was growing killer black mold.
    â€œLast week, he climbed up on the roof, God knows why. Roof gave way and he fell and broke his neck. You know the rest.”
    Suze came back with a glass and corkscrew in one hand, the bottle of white zin in the other, and a stack of menus wedged under her chin. As she put