LITMIR.BIZ

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job, as the one left behind, was to be there for Rose. Period.

      She wasn’t herself right then. Who knew, maybe she wouldn’t ever be exactly herself again. But her role in her mother’s life would not—could not—change.

      “Never say never, Em. You have a life to live,” Rose said, sadness mingling with the compassion in her tone. “You have to go where it takes you.”

      “My place is here. With you.”

      “I hope it is. But if it’s not, you have to go.”

      Her mother was talking crazy. She wasn’t going anywhere.

      “You don’t mean that. You need me here.”

      “Yes.” Rose’s expression was completely sober. “But my life doesn’t take precedence over yours. Or it shouldn’t. And I’ve begun to see that maybe, in spite of all of my intentions to the contrary, it has.”

      Emma didn’t know what to say. Her mother was right about one thing. She did have a life to live. And she hadn’t been living it.

      Any other time her mother’s words would have frightened her. Tonight, they seemed to make a confusing kind of sense.

      * * *

      CHRIS SKIPPED THE CHURCH meal that followed the funeral, though he did keep his head low—in deference to his mother who would be disappointed in his manners if she were still alive—as he made his way back to the new black Ford truck he’d bought the previous spring.

      He wasn’t in a hurry to be anywhere. Late-afternoon sunshine usually signaled waiting his turn to meet with Manny, Comfort Cove’s lobster dealer, and exchange the day’s catch for the current pitiful rate of three dollars per pound. And then there were always things to do on board the Son Catcher to occupy his time until dusk—like keeping the aging engine running until the economy recovered enough to shoot lobster prices back up to a price lobstermen could afford to work for.

      Today, for the first time in memory, the dock didn’t call to him. His first Friday off in months and, while he missed the water, the exertion, the thrill of the catch, the dock was not a happy place that day. They’d lost one of their own.

      It could happen.

      Wayne Ainge had been far too young to die. By all accounts he’d worshipped the ocean. And she’d been fickle to him.

      He might have been driving aimlessly, but Chris’s new truck already seemed to know Chris. Without any conscious decision making, he ended up at Citadel’s, an upscale lounge and eatery in the middle of Main Street, the part of the tourist district the city council had sunk all the city’s money into.

      Fishermen didn’t frequent Main Street.

      Chris parked in his usual Friday-night spot—albeit a few hours earlier than normal—and, pausing to check out the thronging visitors on both sides of the street he slowly pocketed his keys, went inside and took a seat at the bar.

      He was one of two people there. The other, a woman of indiscriminate age, eyed him up and down as though analyzing how much he’d bring per pound.

      “Hey, Chris, what’s up?” Cody, the bartender, distracted him from a mental rundown of random ways to avoid hookers. “I’ve never seen you in here before dark.”

      “Day off work,” Chris said, shrugging, and then remembered his attire. He looked just as he always did on Friday nights—like a white-collar business man relaxing after a long week of work. Not like a man from the docks after a long hard day. “Pour me a double,” he said.

      A good bartender, Cody reached for the bottle of high-end scotch that Chris favored and poured twice the amount of Chris’s preferred drink without saying another word.

      Tipping his glass to the younger man, Chris sipped, in memory of a twenty-year-old kid he’d barely known. And to men that he’d known all his life. Fellow lobstermen, fishermen, who risked their lives every day earning a living in spite of the vagaries of an ocean that was more powerful than all of them.

      And halfway through the glass of amber liquid, he drank to her, too. To the mighty Atlantic. The ocean. The reason he would never have a woman in his life.

      CHAPTER THREE

      “I HAD A CALL, MOM.” Emma was helping her mother make a chicken Caesar salad she didn’t want. Because it was her and Rose’s favorite meal. A feel-good meal. Security food.

      “From who?”

      She had to start living her own life—and she wasn’t even sure what that meant. To date, her life consisted of responsibilities and “shoulds” and protecting Rose. She had to be free from some of that—free to take a chance or two. To be spontaneous in spite of dangers.

      Free to want.

      Rob had been naked in their bed, her bed—on sheets she’d purchased and laundered—with another woman.

      Because Emma was so lacking? She’d never had an orgasm. Was that her fault? Or his?

      “Emma?”

      Rose’s brow was wrinkled as she glanced her way. “What?” Thank God Rose couldn’t read her thoughts.

      “You said you’d had a call. I asked who from.”

      Back on track. Not that the coming conversation was going to be any easier than the silent one she’d been having on and off with herself since noon that day. “From a detective. Here in Comfort Cove. His name’s Ramsey Miller.” None of which mattered. Get to the point.

      Was she not woman enough to hold on to a man? Not adventurous enough? Not wild enough?

      Rose wasn’t moving. Her hands, holding part of a roasted chicken breast and a knife, were suspended in midair. Midcut. “Tell me.” When she finally spoke, her tone was biting.

      Emma knew she shouldn’t have started this. Not tonight. There was no reason to put her mother through more days and weeks of anguish while hope battled with reality. Reality always won. They knew that.

      And yet, she really should tell Rose about Miller’s call. At some point, the detective might need to speak with her mother.

      “No one knows anything about Claire,” she said quickly.

      At the sink, she turned on the cold water to rinse the lettuce.

      “What, then?” Fear entered Rose’s tone. Emma had known it would. That happened to a woman when her baby was stolen out of her home in broad daylight.

      She thought about the box of forensic evidence that had gone missing from the police station. It was the reason for Miller’s initial call more than a month before. The last time Emma had seen the box containing her and Cal’s and Claire’s belongings, she’d been four years old.

      Miller had no idea who’d taken the evidence or why.

      But Rose would draw her own conclusions. And she would inevitably get her hopes up. Emma knew how it worked. Not just because she’d lived close to her mother all these years, but because she lived with the same ups and downs.

      If someone had stolen the evidence from her sister’s case, could it mean that Claire was still alive? Still out there?

      Or, conversely, did it mean that her baby sister was dead and buried and her abductor wanted to make certain she stayed that way?

      “Emma, you’re scaring me.” Her mother still held the chicken and the knife.

      Emma had moved on to mixing the oil and spices for the dressing, putting them together just the way they liked. Soft scents from the loaf of fresh Italian bread warming in the oven wafted around them.

      She wasn’t up to this conversation. As a good daughter, she had to let her mother know what was going on because she couldn’t guarantee that Frank wouldn’t call. She didn’t think he would. But he knew where Rose lived.

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