Beckett's Convenient Bride. Dixie Browning
had someone. She had her paternal grandparents. She would probably even put in an appearance at their fiftieth anniversary party. She made a habit of dropping in unannounced every few months, partly out of a sense of duty, but mostly because it irritated her grandfather so. She would stay for half an hour and then leave. Leaving was the best part of all, because she could.
And because she knew it drove her grandfather wild. It wasn’t his granddaughter he wanted, it was what she represented—the last link with his only son. And she ought to feel sorry for him, she really should, only she couldn’t. She knew him too well.
So maybe she’d skip the party and get herself a dog.
Maybe she’d get a dog and take it to the party.
Or maybe she’d invite Keefer, the surf-bum she’d shared a house with last summer. It would serve him right. Her grandfather, not Keefer, who wouldn’t have been impressed if she’d told him she was a royal princess. Three things impressed Keefer. Good grass, big surf and big bazongas.
Kit didn’t have big bazongas. She practically didn’t have any at all, not that it mattered. An author-illustrator of two published children’s books with another one almost finished, her first book, Claire the Loon, had been optioned for television. When she’d first been notified, she hadn’t believed it. When it had sunk in, she’d walked three feet off the ground for a week.
Of course nothing had come of it so far. Odds were, nothing ever would. She’d been told by her agent not to get her hopes up, as far more books were optioned than ever made the final cut, so other than treating herself to a mammogram, an eye exam and half a gallon of Tin Roof Sundae ice cream, she hadn’t spent a penny of the option advance. It was in the bank earning a pathetic rate of interest.
Her real bread and butter, not to mention her rent and her art supplies, came from waiting tables. It was the perfect job. In season, the tips were easily enough to live on, yet the hours allowed her plenty of time to write. As there were usually job openings all up and down the Outer Banks in season, she was able to pick up and move as often as she liked if she needed a fresh locale.
That was just one more thing her grandparents disapproved of. No permanent address. They called her lifestyle immature, among several less flattering things. Perhaps it was. More likely it was her own brand of claustrophobia. Whatever it was called, she had a deep-seated need to prove her independence, and for the last seven years she’d been doing just that.
Not the way her mother had, with alcohol and lovers. Her grandparents never failed to remind her of her mother’s twin weaknesses at every opportunity. Both, Kit was convinced, were a result of being married to a man who had all the warmth of an empty igloo. The irony was that Kit had just enough of her father in her—not his cruelty, but his steely determination—to defy her grandparents and build a life for herself. And although she felt justly proud of her small publishing accomplishments, there was no room in her pragmatic, hardworking, self-supporting lifestyle for artistic temperament.
Okay, so she enjoyed being able to dress any old way she pleased. So she liked old cemeteries. After working eight hours a day in a noisy restaurant, with clattering cutlery and people constantly making demands, she found old burial grounds restful.
Besides, it came under the heading of research. Both her published books had been ghost stories, involving pirates and shipwrecked sailors as well as children and animals. It was her thing. Her bag, as Keefer would say. Start with a quirky animal personality, throw in a large helping of local history and a dash of fantasy, and voilà. Gretchen’s Ghost was going to be her best yet.
After repacking her backpack, checking to see that she’d left nothing behind, Kit headed for the parking lot on the other side of the church. She had just reached the old wrought-iron gate when the stillness was rent by the sound of a single gunshot.
Startled, she froze and waited. A hunter? In March? At this time of evening? Wasn’t that illegal?
Besides, who would hunt in a place like this?
When she heard the sound of someone speeding away she let out the breath she’d been holding. That’s what it had been—an engine backfiring. That funny whining sound it had made when it was racing off probably meant it needed tuning.
Admittedly, one of the occupational hazards of being a writer of fiction, especially fiction that edged over into fantasy, was that a single backfire could instantly become a pirate landing or an invasion from another planet.
The church was used only for summer revival meetings, but the security light was still in service. Now the pink glow shone down on the graveled parking lot, empty except for Ladybug, her orange-and-black, hand-detailed VW. So much for the invasion from Mars, she thought ruefully as she dodged a patch of weeds.
She was nearly halfway to her car when she spotted what appeared to be either a shadow or an even larger clump of weeds.
Not a shadow. There was nothing nearby to cast such an oddly shaped shadow. And not weeds, either, it was too solid.
A trash bag? A big, injured dog? A deer?
Oh, no—someone had shot a deer!
Maybe the poor thing wasn’t dead—maybe the Fish and Wildlife people could…
After the first few steps she froze. Then, sick with dread, she crept closer. “Omigod, omigod, no, please,” she whispered, backing away.
It was an old man, and he was obviously dead. There was a black hole in the middle of his forehead and a dark trickle of something that looked like blood trailing down his cheek from his left nostril.
Kit’s snack of almonds and dried apricots threatened to turn on her. She swallowed hard and muttered, “Gotta get help, gotta get help!”
But where…? Who? Murder didn’t happen in a place like Gilbert’s Point, it just didn’t.
But it had. And suddenly she realized that whoever had done it had to have seen her car. There couldn’t be more than one like it in the entire county—maybe in the entire world.
She stared at the vanity plate she’d bought with part of her first advance: KITSKIDS. If anyone wanted to find her…
Edging around the still form lying on the weedy, badly graveled parking lot, she hurried to her car. Throwing her pack onto the other seat, she locked the doors, keyed the ignition and ground the starter.
Don’t panic.
Cell phone. Why the devil hadn’t she bought herself one of the pesky things and learned how to use it. Everyone knew how to use a cell phone.
Everyone but Kit.
But even if she’d had a phone, she didn’t know the sheriff’s number. Wasn’t there some automatic gizmo you could punch to get help in an emergency?
One of the reasons she didn’t own a cell phone or a computer or any of the other gadgets everyone else in the world took for granted was that she was no good with gadgets.
“Nine-one-one, you ninny!” Any child knew how to dial nine-one-one. Don’t panic, don’t panic.
She would go home and dial nine-one-one and tell whoever answered that there was a dead man out at the old church on Cypress Mill Road. And they would ask her name, and she would have to go in and testify, and her grandfather…
Oh, shoot.
There was no one in sight when she raced up the steps and slammed inside the unpainted frame house she’d rented only a few months ago. Slinging her backpack toward the table, she grabbed the phone and started dialing, hardly remembering to breathe.
Answer, answer, answer the blasted phone!
Someone answered. A woman who sounded as if she resented being disturbed. “There’s a dead man in the cemetery—no, I mean in the church parking lot out on Cypress Mill Road!”
“Name, please?”
“Name! I don’t know his name! I just told