Books by Davis Bunn
Miramar Bay
Firefly Cove
Moondust Lake
Tranquility Falls
Tranquility Falls
DAVIS BUNN
KENSINGTON BOOKS
www.kensingtonbooks.com
All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.
Table of Contents
Also by
Title Page
Copyright Page
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
CHAPTER 42
CHAPTER 43
CHAPTER 44
CHAPTER 45
CHAPTER 46
CHAPTER 47
CHAPTER 48
CHAPTER 49
CHAPTER 50
CHAPTER 51
CHAPTER 52
CHAPTER 53
CHAPTER 54
CHAPTER 55
CHAPTER 56
CHAPTER 57
CHAPTER 58
CHAPTER 59
CHAPTER 60
CHAPTER 61
CHAPTER 62
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018
Copyright © 2020 by Davis Bunn
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
Library of Congress Card Catalogue Number: 2019953567
Kensington and the K logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.
ISBN: 978-1-4967-2499-1
First Kensington Hardcover Edition: April 2020
ISBN-13: 978-1-4967-2501-1 (e-book)
ISBN-10: 1-4967-2501-8 (e-book)
CHAPTER 1
Daniel sat in his usual place at the back of the classroom. The church basement was frigid, which suited newcomers sweating off a hard night or facing the thought of another sober day. Daniel rarely made more than two AA meetings a week. But this one, today of all days, he never missed. He considered it an annual ritual, starting this day here, marking another year clean and sober. Such small triumphs were a huge part of his new world.
Maintaining his normal calm was harder today. Added to the prospect of what lay ahead was the text Daniel had just received from his sister. He had not heard from Lisa in over a year. Her message simply read that she was arriving in a half hour and they had to meet. Immediately. Which left Daniel worried that Lisa wanted to join him for this annual ritual. The prospect had him sweating as hard as the newcomers.
When the meeting broke up, a woman seated around the curve of chairs made a beeline straight for him. It didn’t happen so often anymore. Four years out of the limelight was an eternity in the world of television stardom. Daniel watched her approach and mentally retreated into his safe little shell. No matter what she said or how she came on to him, he would stay shielded.
Only this time his friend and former sponsor was there to block the lady’s arrival. “You’re new, aren’t you?” Travis was African American, six years older than Daniel’s thirty-five, and a former linebacker with the LA Rams. When his knee went out, Travis had discovered the glory of combining prescription painkillers with sour mash. He’d been clean for nine years and counting. “Can I help you with something?”
“I just want to speak with—”
“We don’t do that here.” Travis held up a hand wide as a shovel. “Anonymous means exactly what it says on the sign out front.”
But addicts were not people who were big on restraint. Obsessive behavior was part of their personality. The woman tried to shoulder past him. She might as well have tried to move the church off its foundation. “I’m not going to bother him.”
“That’s right, you’re not.” Gentle as he could, Travis spun her about. “Coffee and doughnuts are to your right, and the exit’s to your left. Those are your only choices.”
“But—”
“You have yourself a good and sober day, now.” When he was certain the woman was well and truly gone, Travis turned around and asked, “You okay?”
“Never better.” Which was at least partly the truth. “You?”
“I’m not the one looking at another visit to the Ninth Step.” He referred to the ninth stage of AA sobriety, making peace with past mistakes and the people who littered that dark road. Travis gave him a moment to respond, then asked, “You ready to head on out?”
Today would mark the fourth time Travis had made the journey. Daniel replied, “You don’t need to come. Goldie’s waiting in the car.” Goldie, his dog, had been found in the local rescue shelter, the name stamped on a tattered collar. Kimberly, his late fiancée, had gone with a friend who was looking for a pet. But Kimberly was the one who had come home with Goldie. Four weeks later, Kimberly was gone.
“Dog or no dog, I’m not letting you do this on your own.” As they started toward the exit, Travis said, “There’s this lady, she works for Miramar Township. I’m telling you, man, the lady is a definite ten. Ricki wants to get you two together.” Ricki was Travis’s wife, and a mover and shaker in the Miramar community. “The lady’s been divorced for seven years, almost as lonely as you.”
“Today’s not a good time.”
But Travis blocked that easily enough. “Ricki’s outside waiting. You’ll need to tell her that yourself. If you dare.”
* * *
When Daniel stepped through the church doors, Ricki stood by his pickup, chatting happily with one of the church staffers. Goldie had managed to slip through the truck’s partially opened window and sat contentedly by Ricki’s feet. Daniel said, “Handle this blind date thing for me, I’ll owe you big-time.”
Travis grinned in response. “Not a chance in the whole wide world.”
“Isn’t that what sponsors do? Handle?”
“Best you not suggest to Ricki that her wanting to hook you up with a friend threatens your walk down the straight and narrow. Ricki might see that as a good reason to go ballistic.”
As soon as she spotted Daniel, she hugged the woman and hurried over. “Did Travis tell you about my friend?”
“Today’s not a good—”
“I’m telling you the same thing I did my man when he tried that line on me this morning.” Ricki was a statuesque beauty in her late thirties. She was tall and sloe-eyed and had run hurdles and relay for the US Olympic team. When Travis had been at his weakest, Ricki had stood by him and given him a reason to crawl out of that dark cave. “It’s time you woke up.”
Travis stepped around to stand beside his wife. He made Ricki look as small as a porcelain ballerina. “Might as well go with it, my m
an. Treat it like a trip to the dentist.”
Ricki looked up at her husband. “Did those words actually come out of your mouth?”
But Travis wasn’t done. “Fighting just don’t do a thing but prolong the misery.”
“Oh, you.” Ricki gripped her husband’s arm and swung it back and forth. It was like tugging on a tree trunk. “I’m telling you what’s the truth. It’s time you returned to life.”
“Girl, do you even hear yourself?” Travis tried to reclaim his arm, but Ricki refused to let go. “The man is about to go visit the grave of his one true love, and you’re hooking him up with another lady.”
“That’s exactly what I’m doing.” Ricki kept swinging her man’s arm.
“Look at him. The man is not interested.”
“That’s because Daniel hasn’t met her yet.”
Travis shook his head. “Like a dog with a bone.”
“Only because I’m right, and you two know it.” She glared at Daniel. “You just wait ’til Chloe hears how you’re acting.”
Chloe was their teenage daughter. She was strong and beautiful, like her parents, and considered Miramar to be the most boring place on the planet. Forcing her to live there was all the justification Chloe needed for being perpetually sullen. Daniel said, “I have to go.”
“You’re coming over for dinner tonight,” Ricki said. “That’s not an invitation, it’s an order.”
* * *
Up until that moment, Goldie had been tracking the conversation as though she understood every word. Labradoodles were known as the smartest breed going, though they were not officially a breed at all. Daniel was amazed at the number of people who felt it was their duty to stop him on the street and lecture him about his dog, like the two of them couldn’t possibly survive without some additional fact or criticism. It was usually an older person, somebody who had been born cranky, who’d spent years waiting for the chance to poke him in the chest and tell him how fortunate he was, or what a travesty of a dog Goldie was, something. All he could say for certain was, Goldie had seen him through some very rough times and in the process had become his best friend.
Goldie chose that moment to swivel about, inspect the empty street, and give a soft whoof.
Daniel had long come to trust the instincts of his almost silent dog. He was about to ask what it was when he heard it too.
So did Ricki. “What is that?”
Travis smiled at Daniel. “Sounds to me like the bad old days.”
Then the silver-gray rocket appeared at the road’s far end, downshifted, and blasted around the corner, doing maybe eighty miles an hour but handling the curve like it was planted on rails.
“Yep,” Travis said. “All the trouble that money can buy.”
No one, really.
Their mother had called Lisa her changeling, and had not always meant it in a positive manner. Lisa had learned early on how to shape her energy and her beauty to fit the moment. She’d started modeling at fourteen. Nowadays she lived by the principle that the world could be molded to suit her mood. Daniel thought she played at life like an electric butterfly, flittering from one experience to the next. Her one constant was Marvin, a Jewish entertainment lawyer who endured Lisa’s mercurial ways with stolid good cheer. Marvin loved Lisa enough to accept that she would never change. She in turn remained with Marvin. Their friends said it was as close to a perfect marriage as LA allowed.
There were two distinct downsides to Lisa, two elements that marred the oh-so-perfect image she showed the world.
One was her rage. It did not surface very often, but when it did, Lisa treated the world to a scorched-earth policy.
The other issue was Nicole, their daughter. Mother and daughter had a relationship that could best be described as molten. Daniel’s niece basically had nothing whatsoever in common with her mother. Nicole was by no means unattractive. She was simply not in Lisa’s league. Nicole was placid and reserved and watchful. The people who populated Lisa’s world tended to dismiss Nicole with an empty smile. Nicole, in turn, thought they were Hollywood dodos and not worth the space they occupied.
Daniel had not seen his niece or her mother in four years, since the day Lisa had banned him from ever communicating with her or her family. Another sample of his sister in a rage.
When Lisa sprang from the car, the word that came to Daniel’s mind was incandescent.
She did not speak. Nor did she actually look at anyone directly until Goldie greeted her with a cautious whoof. Then Lisa wheeled about and glared at the dog with such intensity, Goldie backed up between Daniel’s legs and cowered.
Which gave Nicole time to get out of the car, race around, and hide behind Daniel and his dog.
Lisa proceeded to open the Ferrari’s minuscule trunk and dump an amazing amount of clothes and gear on the sidewalk by his feet. It was like watching a clown act at the circus, twelve jesters tumbling out of a car the size of a tuna can. Clothes and teen cosmetics and laptop and phone and shoes and schoolbooks and two satchels and more clothes.
Finally, Lisa slammed the trunk shut and stormed over to Daniel. He could feel Nicole take a two-fisted grip on the back of his shirt and hated how she crouched in genuine terror. From her mother.
Electric friction turned Lisa’s white-gold hair into a witch’s hat. “You owe me.”
Daniel nodded. That much was certainly true. “Lisa, you’re scaring your daughter.”
His sister gave off a cackle that Daniel thought came straight from the Night of the Valkyries. “She’s lucky she’s not dead.”
Without another word, his sister wheeled about and headed back for the car.
“Wait. Where are you going?”
She paused long enough to shoot another laser-guided bomb, this one directed at her daughter. “To try and save my marriage.”
No one moved until the Ferrari vanished from sight. Lisa’s rage was that strong.
CHAPTER 2
As Lisa’s car whined into the far distance, Daniel heard the sound of quiet snuffling. He turned around and saw Nicole struggling to hide her sobs.
Daniel was still searching for the right response when Ricki wrapped her arms around the girl and said, “We got you, honey.”
“It wasn’t my fault,” Nicole said.
“Of course not. And even if it was, your mama has no right—”
“All I did was have a gene test.”
Travis asked Daniel, “Say what?”
The day flashed into clarity, like a broken lens knitting itself back together. Daniel said, “Nicole has insisted for years that Marvin isn’t her dad.”
The two of them, Travis and Ricki, would have made a comic pair if the moment had not been so serious. Two strong and intelligent people reduced to standing there in slack-faced shock, their mouths twin round O’s.
“I called the hotline of that website,” Nicole said.
“Ancestry.com,” Daniel said.
“No. The other one. Twenty-Three and Me. They sent me the sample kits.” She turned slightly, not exactly a shrug, but enough for Ricki to release her. “I knew I was right.
And now I have proof.”
Travis studied the sky, the pavement, the parking lot. Daniel said, “So you told them, and now you’re—”
“Why don’t you two just get on down the road,” Ricki fastened a hand on Nicole’s shoulder, her tone sharp. “Let us get on with living.”
“I just said—”
“I know what you were saying, and I know what you were thinking, and I don’t know which is worse.” Ricki fastened a hand on Nicole’s shoulder and steered her around. “When was the last time you had something to eat, child?”
“I don’t know.” The sniffles returned. “Yesterday, I guess.”
“You like pancakes? Of course you do. You just come with me.” Ricki glared at the two men. “Don’t y’all have someplace better to be?”
Daniel watched them walk away. “When did I become the bad guy in all this?”
Travis was already gathering a load of Nicole’s gear. “Sometimes you just got to accept that all the world’s problems are your fault. Come on, let’s get ourselves gone.”
* * *
On the three previous anniversaries, Travis had insisted on driving them in his Escalade. Daniel’s F150 twin cab had more than enough room, even for Travis. But Daniel’s former AA sponsor liked to be in control for this particular jaunt. His aim was to get Daniel there and back, safe and sober. Let his pal know Daniel didn’t face this alone. Even if he thought Daniel was just adding to the list that no longer existed. The one that was headed Reasons to Go Get Wasted.
But today Ricki had their SUV and was off doing whatever it took to convince Nicole that she had not single-handedly tossed a grenade into her mother’s version of happy-ever-after.
As soon as Daniel pulled into the cemetery’s main lot, Goldie poked her head between them, gave a single whoof, then started scratching at the rear door. Which was amazing. They only came here once each year. And Goldie had only been six months old when the accident had claimed Daniel’s fiancée. But every year it was the same. As soon as the cemetery came into view, Goldie was frantic to get out there. He cut the motor and watched Goldie fit her entire body through five inches of open window.