"And thank you, too, Paul. You've been walking a fine line in this thing, and I appreciate your neutrality. I know Frye's Cove isn't always easy on newcomers."
He laughed. "No, it isn't, but it certainly helps being married to a Frye, even if no one around here would ever admit it makes a difference. Now, don't go and tell Sally I said that. You know how discreet she is about using her family name." He winked as he pulled open the driver's door of his car. "I'll see you around."
"Sure. And thanks for bringing me my bike."
"Where would Piper Macintosh be without her bicycle?"
She watched him slide back into his car, then gave him a ten-minute head start before charging off to Hannah's housing complex, debating whether to limit her poison hunt to jugs of springwater or open it up to everything in her aunt's townhouse.
* * *
Chapter 13
There were moments when Clate felt as if he were caught up in one of the Miss Marple murder mysteries Irma liked to read, only without a murder. This wasn't one of them.
He walked on the beach right at the point where sand and water met and tried to concentrate on the soothing rhythms of the waves. The tide was in. After returning from the hospital, he'd walked down to the water. A sunset of vibrant oranges and reds fired the entire sky. This beauty and solitude were why he'd come to Cape Cod, not to get embroiled in Macintosh family troubles with a chestnut-haired woman he couldn't get out of his mind.
Tension gnawed at every muscle, every fiber of his body. Nothing about what was going on in Frye's Cove felt neat and tidy, eventually to be resolved in a drawing room gathering. He sensed that events were getting more and more unpredictable, on the verge of spinning out of control altogether.
Or maybe it was just having made love to Piper Macintosh. He was losing perspective, objectivity.
Ultimately, it was possible that everything could be laid at the feet of an eighty-seven-year-old woman whose body and mind were failing, and the difficulties her family, particularly her grandniece, had accepting that hard fact.
The calls were the most disturbing of the odd events of the past days. Buried treasure, rumors, mysterious digging and herb cuttings—connected or unconnected—weren't necessarily sinister. They could even, deliberately or not, be Hannah's doing. But the calls resisted easy explanation. As cynical as he could be about the bonds of family and community, Clate didn't believe that even a slightly dotty, ever-determined Hannah Frye would terrorize her niece.
With a snarl of impatience, he plunged up the narrow strip of beach into the far reaches of his land. No, an old woman's desire to see her niece hooked up with him didn't explain everything going on in pretty little Frye's Cove. He didn't need a body through the ceiling to convince him. He knew.
The cool breeze off the water, the quiet of this unpopulated stretch of Cape Cod, finally penetrated, soothed. He came to a small inlet and could see across the calm water to the wildlife preserve adjoining his property. For a moment, he stood still, listening to the water and shorebirds, watching the scrub pine and oak and wild grasses shift in the breeze. He'd never been obsessive. He would look at the facts, consider theories and rumors, and decide what to do.
But he'd also never been one to meddle in other people's families. He preferred to act alone and trust his instincts, to maintain and use to his advantage the objectivity and perspective of an outsider.
In Frye's Cove, he was an outsider. He could move his entire company up here, bring up his dogs and every scrap of furniture he owned, and he would remain an outsider. The Southerner. That rich guy from Tennessee.
He smiled, surprisingly amused at the thought.
He returned to his house along the same route, half expecting to find the Macintosh men on his doorstep. If Piper told them even half of what had been going on out on her dead-end road, they wouldn't be pleased. But his doorstep was empty, and he was alone, dusk upon him.
He stood out on his terrace, swatting at bugs and wondering about buried treasure.
Then he spotted Piper slinking through the break in the hedges. She had a shovel slung over one shoulder and had on overalls and a flannel shirt that made her look like a lumberjack. Her hair was pulled back with a red bandanna. She hesitated for a half second, seeing him, then kept coming.
She stopped on the lower terrace and slid the shovel off her shoulder, jabbing it into the ground. Even from a distance of yards, Clate could see the paleness of her cheeks, the drawn look around her mouth. The determination.
"Hannah says I should try near the honeysuckle," she called to him. "She's not sure it was the wisteria after all."
"She's not," he said, keeping his tone mild.
"What does a seven-year-old know about wisteria?"
"A fair point."
She didn't seem to hear him. "I had a cup of coffee and a huge piece of strawberry shortcake before I came over. I'm hyper enough to dig up the whole yard if I have to."
"You think the treasure's here?"