Twenty-Two

Betsy O'Keefe poked at a slice of warm apple pie. She was at a table in the far corner of the café, the only one without any window at all. She didn't want Luke to see her. Luke would disapprove of her apple pie. He seldom ate out. He worried about food poisoning. Normally she didn't have to worry about him seeing her, but he and Stick Monroe had gone for a walk together.

The café was crowded, but Betsy thought she looked like all the other tourists in her stretchy pants, windbreaker and walking shoes. Except she was alone. None of the tourists were alone.

"Hey, Betsy."

"Kyle." She was so relieved at seeing him she almost made a fool of herself. "Please, sit down. How are you feeling today?"

"Like shit." But he smiled, wincing in pain as he did. His swelling was down, but his bruises had blossomed, blues and purples oozing out across his face. Teddy Shelton had done a job on him. Betsy noticed last night that Luke hadn't mentioned to Kyle that he even knew Teddy, never mind that Teddy was on his payroll. "Sneaking out for pie, huh? Good for you, Betsy."

"Can I order anything for you? Pie, a milk shake- anything?"

"No, I'm fine." Despite his ordeal, he was in reasonably good spirits. "Chris used local apples. She has this thing about picking just the right apples for her pies. She likes Cortland, Baldwin, Northern Spy-I forget what else. Not Macs. She says they're best for eating. Me, I used to think an apple's just an apple."

"She's a wonderful cook," Betsy said. "And I noticed she was there for you last night."

"Yeah, after she thought I stood her up for dinner."

"I know from your perspective this doesn't matter right now, but truly, Kyle, you're very fortunate you weren't hurt worse."

"I know." He reached over and grabbed a bit of crust from her plate, eating it on the less-injured side of his mouth. "Betsy, do you think if she were alive, Olivia would object to my documentary?"

"I don't know. Probably."

"Why?"

"She was a private person, and she was very careful with what she let people know about her. She realized she couldn't control what they said, but she could try to keep them from learning all her secrets. Her books were her way of communicating with the world. For her, that was enough."

"Think she had any secrets?"

"We all have secrets, Kyle."

He tried smiling again. "Not you, Betsy."

She thought of herself breaking into Luke's files. "Everyone, Kyle. It's just that my secrets don't matter."

"You're the good nurse," he said. "You'd never divulge a patient's secrets, even if you knew them. Right?"

"That's right. I admire your tenacity, Kyle, but I can't let you interview me about my relationship with Olivia. That would be unethical. I was her caretaker for two years. She was a wonderful employer. That's all you need to know."

"Think you can get me up to her attic? Talk Zoe into letting me up there to take a look?"

Betsy didn't know whether to laugh or slap him. "What could you possibly think is in that attic?"

"That's just it. I don't know. I bet no one knows."

His ordeal last night hadn't lessened his zeal for his topic one iota, as far as Betsy could see. "I guarantee Olivia knew."

"But she had trouble getting around the last few years. Come on, Betsy, when's the last time she was up there? Two flights of stairs, hauling boxes. Damn, she was a hundred, you know?"

Betsy didn't remember Olivia ever going up to the attic, ever sending anyone up there with instructions as to what she wanted thrown out, not in the two years Betsy had worked for her. But she resisted catching Kyle's enthusiasm. "Zoe inherited the house-"

"Olivia's been gone for a year. Before Zoe left she didn't have the time or the inclination to clean out the attic. Look, who knows what I'll find. Maybe nothing, maybe just an old picture I can use that no one else will have. The smallest things can make a huge difference, lift a documentary like this from the mundane to some-thing-I don't know, something at least Maine public television might want."

Zoe and J. B. McGrath entered the café, both looking young and fit and almost smug to Betsy. But she didn't know if that was fair. She still regretted her encounter with Zoe yesterday, but the attack on Kyle- even if he refused to call it an attack-had put it out of her mind.

Kyle fingered a sugar packet, deliberately avoiding their eyes. "Just my luck those two found me last night. An ex-detective and an FBI agent." He spoke in a low voice, as if he thought they might hear him all the way from the front of the café. "You should have heard them grilling me while I'm bleeding and out of my head."

As far as Betsy was concerned, Luke's only child was smart and well-intentioned, but also a spoiled young man. "You told them the truth, didn't you?"

His dark eyes, Luke's eyes, settled on her, reminding her of his father's arrogance, his sometimes casual cruelty. But Kyle wasn't abused as a boy, and had no excuse. Not that anyone did, Betsy thought. She stared at her pie and wished she'd stayed in her stateroom and read a book.

But Kyle laughed suddenly, softly. "Easy, Betsy. I'm not going to bite your head off. I'm just doing a documentary on a famous local writer. I don't know anything about Teddy Shelton, and I don't want to know anything."

She nodded, relieved. "Fair enough."

"And I'm not that interested in who killed Patrick West. Not to sound heartless, but we all know it was a drug dealer or some dumb-ass Mainer out shooting birds. Oops, missed."

"Kyle!"

McGrath and Zoe took a table vacated by two tourists, and Kyle glanced at them, waved slightly and calmed down. He gave Betsy an apologetic look. "I'm sorry. That was uncalled for."

But she was appalled, unwilling to let him off the hook that easily. "Patrick West didn't deserve to die the way he did. Look how young Christina is. Neither sister will have their father at their wedding, at the birth of their first child."

"I should be more diplomatic-"

"You should be nicer."

He got up and leaned across the table, coming very close to her face. "With the father I have, I have to work at nice, Betsy.You know that.You sleep with the bastard."

She gasped, shocked, but he walked away, greeting

J.B. and Zoe pleasantly, thanking them for their help last night. Betsy couldn't listen. She stared at the remains of her pie and fought back tears. Why didn't she just leave Goose Harbor? She had enough money, not nearly as much as Luke did, but enough for a fresh start somewhere else. She could get a nursing job in Portland, or another caregiving job almost anywhere.

But I want a life.

She didn't know what that meant anymore. It was always something she'd put on hold for the future. When she worked for Olivia, she promised herself she'd have a life after Olivia passed on. It'd be her last full-time caregiving job. She'd enjoyed Olivia's company and didn't mind the work, but it left her no time for anything else. Or no energy, at least. Now she had Luke, and even if he had his quirks, for the most part he was quite good to her. And he had so much money. She'd struggled to make ends meet all her life. Was it wrong of her not to want to struggle anymore?

She had no one to talk to, no one to ask but herself. She'd lived with her mum until she died and had never made very many friends, not close ones. Damn it, she was lucky to have a man like Luke Castellane. Count your blessings, her mum would tell her.

What would Olivia say? She'd had her soft spot for Luke but was hardly blind to his faults.

Suddenly feeling bloated and old, Betsy pushed her plate aside and left money for the pie and the tip on the table. Her money. Not Luke's.

When she reached the parking lot, she realized J. B. McGrath was behind her. He was eating the last of a little bag of oyster crackers. "Zoe had me out kayaking. I'm starving." He was good-looking in a rugged sort of way and had such an easy manner, but Betsy wasn't misled. This was not an easy man. He walked next to her as she headed toward the water. "Kyle's looking better."