Death on the Coast, M Comley [book club books TXT] 📗

faced Mark. “We haven’t seen you around, Mark. In fact, you’re listed as a missing person. Want to give us an explanation?”

Mark’s face was passive. “No.”

“Just ‘no’? You’ve had Lucy here pretty worried, you know.”

“She looks fine to me.”

“I’m not here to get into a marital disagreement, but I’m concerned by your recent strange behavior, as well as a few things that connect you to a murder scene.”

Mark fell silent.

“You have anything to say about that?” Brendon prompted.

“No.”

“Perhaps you should come down to the station and have a talk about that.”

Mark’s gaze drifted between Brendon and Lucy. “I’d rather not.”

Lucy jumped in. “Why are you here? Are you home?”

Mark shook his head.

Brendon took charge. “Okay, that’s it. Mark, we can do this by the book, or you can hop in the back seat of the squad car without restraints.”

Mark’s shoulders dropped with reluctance. He peered over his shoulder into the garage and then reached back and lowered the door. Without giving Lucy so much as a glance, he ambled back to Brendon’s squad car and waited at the rear door for it to be opened. Brendon glanced at Lucy quickly with a look of concern as he opened the door and shielded Mark’s head.

He shut the door and studied Lucy. “Stay home. I mean it.”

She nodded, although she was disappointed. She had so many questions and felt entitled to some answers. She could only hope that Brendon would fill in the gaps when he was done with Mark.

Feeling at a loss and in desperate need of distraction from the questions bombarding her mind, Lucy decided to drive over to Tina’s apartment and take a look at her wedding gifts. Tina lived in a small, four-apartment complex with an exterior that showed the abuse of many years of storms. The parking lot was unpaved, but had plentiful potholes, so maneuvering to find an area where her car wouldn’t break an axle was challenging.

“Hi, it’s me,” she called, tapping on the door as she opened it. “Tina?”

The apartment looked as though a tornado had run through it. Tina, who was usually very neat and organized, appeared in the hall doorway; her mascara smeared over her cheeks and her hair in dirty strands on her shoulders.

“Bad timing?” Lucy asked, unsure what she was witnessing.

“No, perfect, really. Scott just left.”

Lucy stepped closer and saw that Tina had definitely been crying. “Oh my gosh, what’s wrong? Are you sick?”

“No, although I’ll say my stomach isn’t feeling great. No, Scott and I broke up. He’s gone and not coming back.”

“What? Oh, Tina, you’re not being serious, are you?”

“Why would I lie about a thing like that?”

“Oh, geez, I don’t know what to say.” Lucy hugged her sister, and with an arm over her shoulders, she led her into the small, dingy kitchen. Pulling out one of the two chairs at the Formica table, she gently pushed Tina onto it. Most of the mess seemed confined to the living room, so Lucy spotted the teapot, filled it, and set it to boil. “You want to talk about it?” she asked, pushing aside the cans in the only food cupboard in her desperate search to find some herbal tea. She finally spotted a smashed little box at the back and dragged it out, the faint odor that it still emanated telling her that it was hardly fresh.

Nevertheless, Lucy brewed two cups and sat across from her sister, offering half of the Snickers bar she kept in her purse to go with the drinks. They both dipped their candy in the steamy liquid, contemplating how much Tina was willing to confess and how much Lucy would pry. They knew that it was only a matter of time before their mother showed up. Between the sisters, it would be better if things were presentable and whatever rift had taken place quickly masked.

Lucy began. “Are you physically okay?”

Tina grimaced. “If you’re asking if he hit me, no, of course not. He did throw some things, but he is a lousy shot, so none of them hit me.

“Want to share what was behind all this?”

Tina shrugged. “It was silly, really. It was a cozy moment, and out of the blue he asks me how many boys I’d ‘been with’ before I met him.”

Lucy’s mouth formed an ‘O’ as that was one question no one wanted to hear. “Did you tell him?”

“Sort of. I mean, that’s what married couples are supposed to do, aren’t they? Feel the ability to be completely honest with one another and forgive and forget?”

“Theoretically, yes,” Lucy replied, thinking about Mark. “In reality, it doesn’t always work that way. Maybe newlyweds should avoid that conversation until they’ve had a bit of time together?”

“You think?” Tina groaned with mockery, gathering her hair and twisting it into a bun at the back of her head.

“Do you think he’ll come back?”

“Who? Scott? Oh, yeah. He always does.” Tina’s tone was self-assured.

“You mean this isn’t the first time?”

“Oh, heck, no. Scott and I fight all the time. Not sure if we’re incompatible or just enjoy the making up part.”

Lucy jerked a little at that. How was it that she was learning so much about relationships from her younger sister who was sitting there pregnant, barely married, and in a disaster of a mess in the house?

“Well…” Lucy dipped the rest of her candy bar in the tea and swallowed it. Wiping her hands, she said, “Let me get busy and see if I can right some of this for you while you take a shower. Mom is liable to drop in, you know.”

“She knows all about it,” Tina supplied in a deadpan voice.

“Mom knows?”

Tina nodded.

“Where have I been all the time this has been going on?”

Tina shrugged and popped the last bite of her candy into her mouth, then she stood and gathered their dirty cups. “You might want to ask yourself that question.” She winked and headed down the hallway to shower and get cleaned up.

Lucy searched until she found a