LITMIR.BIZ

      Chapter One

      Ben Griffin lifted five-year-old Roxanne out of the bathtub and wrapped her in a thick blue towel. He sat on the closed lid of the john with her and helped her dry off. She had his dark eyes and hair, though hers hung in thick ringlets—when it wasn’t snarled in knots.

      “I wanted to wash my hair,” she complained as she held tightly to Betsy, a small rag doll with black button eyes and a painted heart-shaped mouth. “Julie Callahan Griffin made that,” he used to remind himself when the pain of her loss had been so enormous he had to say her name or burst. The doll was never more than a hand’s span away from Roxie, awake or sleeping.

      “We washed your hair yesterday,” Ben reminded her.

      “Vannie gets to wash her hair every day,” she argued.

      “Vannie has very short hair. And she blows it dry.” Vanessa was seven, and the decision to cut her hair had come at the end of the summer, when she’d returned from camp. She hadn’t explained why she wanted to cut her long, golden-brown hair, but she’d been adamant.

      Since their mother had died a year and a half ago, Ben had done his best to allow them whatever was in his power and wouldn’t hurt them.

      Roxie swung her head from side to side so that her long hair flew out. It would have slapped him in the face if he hadn’t drawn back.

      She giggled, then declared, “I don’t want to cut my hair.”

      “I don’t blame you,” he said, helping her into lavender flannel pajamas patterned with pink kittens and blue puppies. “It’s very pretty.”

      “Can I wear lipstick to Marianne’s tomorrow?”

      Marianne Beasley owned and operated the day care where Roxie spent several hours every day.

      “Nope,” Ben replied. She asked this question every night. “Sorry.”

      “Can I get my ears pierced?”

      This was a new question. Having finished putting her pajamas on, he turned her toward him to look into her eyes. They were bright and frighteningly intelligent. “Do you even know what that is?”

      “Yeah,” she said, pulling her little lobe out for him to see. “A lady sticks it with a needle and it doesn’t even hurt! She puts a little hole right there and you can wear different earrings in them every day.”

      “No,” he said, knowing he had to say it firmly or she’d be cajoling him all night long. “You have to wait until you grow up a little more.”

      She looked indignant. “I’m five! Paloma has pierced ears, and she’s only four!”

      “I’m sorry. That’s the way it is.”

      “Can I have ice cream before bed?”

      He lifted her onto his hip and carried her downstairs, wondering if part of her strategy was to ask for the impossible, knowing she could bargain him down. Ice cream at night sometimes gave her a stomachache, but tonight he’d risk it in the interest of making her feel less deprived.

      The telephone rang when he was halfway down the stairs.

      “I’ll get it!” Vanessa shouted.

      When he rounded the corner into the kitchen, he saw that she was already dressed for bed. She used his bathroom at night and always got herself ready without fuss. He wondered if she was the only second-grader in the world with a tidy sock drawer and clothes on hangers instead of all over her room.

      He worried a little about her efficiency at such a tender age but reminded himself that Julie had been a stickler for tidiness and order. Vanessa came by it naturally.

      “He’s right here, Grandma.” Vanessa put her hand over the mouthpiece and handed the telephone to him. “Grandma’s having trouble with a guest,” she whispered.

      “Thank you.” He put Roxie on her feet. “Van, can you scoop up some ice cream for you and Roxie?”

      She looked surprised. “At night?”

      “Just tonight.”

      “How come?”

      “Because I said so.”

      With a shrug, Vanessa pulled open the door of the side-by-side refrigerator and delved into the freezer at the bottom.

      “Ha!” his mother said into his ear. “You used to get upset when I gave you that answer, and now you’re doing it. The best revenge is watching you become me.”

      “Thanks to the gender difference,” he said, backing onto a stool near the counter, “that’ll only go so far. What’s up?”

      “Well…” She made a small sound of distress. “I’m not entirely sure. Do you know Natalie Browning?”

      “No,” he replied. He’d never been wild about his mother buying a seven-bedroom house and turning it into a bed-and-breakfast, inviting complete strangers to be locked in with her at night without benefit of any information about them except their names. “Why?”

      “I think she’s a celebrity in the East. Her driver’s license says Philadelphia. When I asked her what brought her to Dancer’s Beach, she said something about needing to hide out from cameras and publicity.”

      “Interesting.” He watched Vanessa struggle with the ice cream scoop, and was about to get up and help her when she went to the sink and ran it under the hot water. She tried again and the ice cream scooped out easily. He wondered if Julie had taught her that. What a kid. “Never heard of her.”

      “Well, she arrived yesterday looking as though her only friend had died. And I haven’t seen her since, except peeking out from behind her door. Today I haven’t seen her at all.”

      “Have you knocked? Or called?”

      “She doesn’t answer.”

      “Maybe she’s just sleeping.”

      His mother sighed. “I think it’s worse than that. She had a terrible cold, so I mixed her a hot toddy with my apricot brandy. I left her the bottle, and I haven’t seen her or it since.”

      “Sounds as though you have a guest on a bender, Mom. What do you want me to do?”

      “I told her she could have that room for only one night. It’s reserved for a pair of honeymooners who are due in less than two hours. Would you…come and talk to her? Beautiful women always respond to handsome men.”

      “Mom…” He groaned. She was always finding some excuse to introduce him to some young woman or get him invited to some event where single women would be present. Between her and Marianne Beasley, who came on to him at every opportunity, he was clutching his bachelorhood with both hands.

      “It has nothing to do with that!” she said firmly. She’d always read his mind. He hated that she could still do it. “I’m simply trying to take care of a difficult matter in a discreet and civilized way. I don’t want to call the police or make a fuss, because she looks like a woman who’s had enough trouble, but if you’re too busy for me…”

      “The girls are just out of the bath,” he pleaded, “and eating their snacks before bed.”

      “I said that was fine,” she repeated stiffly. He could imagine her, wounded look in place on her carefully made up face, spiked white hair even spikier in her imagined state of neglect. “If you’re too busy, I’ll just—”

      “We’ll be there.” He

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