Sand Sharks

CHAPTER

1

By marriage, the husband and wife are one person in law.… If the wife be injured in her person or her property, she can bring no action for redress without her husband’s concurrence.

—Sir William Blackstone (1723–1780)

I should never have suggested perfume. If I’d stuck to something plain vanilla like a lacy bed jacket or some pretty note cards or even a box of assorted chocolates, it would have been fine. But no. I had to stop at a cosmetics counter in Crabtree Mall for a tube of my favorite moisturizer and say to Cal, “What about that?”

“That” was a small white porcelain bottle shaped like a single perfect gardenia.

My stepson shrugged and said, “Okay,” plainly bored with this shopping trip. He and Dwight were going to drive up to Virginia the next morning. Dwight hoped to finish cleaning out the house Cal had inherited from his mother and to put it on the market, before driving on up to Charlottesville to teach a couple of sessions at a law-enforcement training seminar. Although Cal would be staying with a friend while Dwight was gone, he would certainly be seeing his grandmother during the visit. Yet he was no more enthusiastic about buying her a gift than he had been for the new jeans and shirts and sneakers he so desperately needed.

Cal turned nine last month and he’s going to be as tall as his dad. A recent growth spurt now puts him almost shoulder-high to me, which means that he’s outgrown almost every article of clothing he owns except for socks and the oversized Carolina Hurricanes T-shirt he was wearing—a shirt I have to wash by hand so as not to fade the team signatures on the right shoulder.

“Is that a gardenia scent?” I asked the clerk behind the counter.

“Sure is!” she chirped, and spritzed the back of my hand with a sample bottle.

“What do you think?” I asked Cal, holding my hand under his nose.

He took one sniff and went pale beneath his freckles. His brown eyes filled with sudden tears and he slapped my hand away, then bolted from the store and out into the mall.

Belatedly I remembered that smells can be even more evocative than music and I realized that I had thoughtlessly brought back all the grief and terror he had felt when Jonna died. He hadn’t reacted at all to the first few blooms of the season that I had cut for our dining table last week, had even given them a cursory sniff, their sweet aroma diffused by cooking odors. But here on my hand? In concentrated strength just when the return to Virginia had to be on his mind?

Six months of healing ripped away in a moment by the exaggerated smell of gardenias that must surely evoke the circumstances surrounding his mother’s death.

I took some of the clerk’s wipes and scrubbed the back of my hand till it was almost raw and every trace of the gardenia perfume was gone, then I grabbed our shopping bags and hurried out into the mall to find Cal.

I was halfway down the long space and beginning to panic before I finally spotted his red Hurricanes shirt. He was scrunched down beneath an overgrown ficus plant outside a video store. His back was against the wall, his shoulders slumped, and his face was buried in his arms, atop his drawn-up knees.

I so wanted to go put my arms around him and say how sorry I was, but he usually reacts awkwardly to my hugs and kisses or else shies away completely, and this wasn’t the time to try again. Not when I was the reason he had fallen apart. There was a bench several feet away, so I parked the shopping bags and sat down to wait for the worst of his misery to pass.

A mall guard paused to look inquiringly at him and I caught her eye.

“It’s okay,” I murmured softly.

She grinned. “Can’t have the video game he wants, huh?”

I smiled back as normally as I could and she moved on. If only Cal’s hurt could be eased by something as simple as an electronic game.

Eventually, he raised his head and looked around. He did not immediately see me among all the people passing back and forth and his eyes darted apprehensively from one face to another until they met mine. Was that resentment or resignation on his face?

Whichever, there was nothing I could do about it, no matter how much my heart ached for him, no matter how much he missed his mother. He was stuck with me—had been stuck with me ever since Jonna was murdered back in January and he came to live with Dwight and me, less than a month after our Christmas wedding.

I held out the bag with his new sneakers and he dutifully got up and walked over to help.

“That’s enough shopping for one day,” I said briskly. “Let’s go home.”

As soon as we were in the car, he stuck the buds of his iPod in his ears and stared out the window without speaking.

Normal behavior.

What wasn’t normal was the way he unplugged one ear after we had been driving a few minutes and looked over at me.

“Do I have to go to Shaysville? Can’t I stay with Aunt Kate while y’all are gone?”

Kate is married to Dwight’s brother Rob, and she keeps Cal during the week while Dwight and I are working. Unfortunately, Kate and Rob and their three children were flying up to New York the next day to spend some time in the city. Kate still owns the Manhattan apartment she shared with her late first husband and the tenant was happy to have her and her crew to come dog-sit while he went off to Paris for a week.

When I reminded Cal of this, he went to Plan B. “Then can I go with you?”

Another time and I might have been thrilled that he would choose me instead of Dwight, but this?

“What’s going on, honey?” I asked gently. “Don’t you want to see your grandmother and your old friends?”

He sank lower in his seat and didn’t answer.

“Your dad’s going to need your help with the house, Cal.”

“No, he won’t. He’s got Uncle Will, so why does he need me? I won’t be in the way at your meeting, Deborah. Honest. I can stay in the pool or watch television or something.”

“Is this because of your Aunt Pam?” I asked.

He turned back to the window and stared out at the setting sun without answering.

Jonna’s sister is bipolar and his last experience with her had been a terrifying ordeal. No wonder he was apprehensive about the possibility of a repeat.

With my left hand on the steering wheel, I reached over and touched his shoulder. “You absolutely do not have to worry about her, honey. She’s still in the hospital and won’t be coming out anytime soon. I promise.”

I gave him a couple of miles to process my assurance, then added, “Jimmy Radcliff’s going to be really disappointed if you stay home.”

Jimmy’s dad, Paul, is the chief of police up in Shaysville. He and Dwight are old Army buddies and Paul had promised to take Cal and Jimmy camping on the New River while Dwight attended his conference.

Some of the tension went out of Cal’s small frame. “Okay,” he said with a nod.

“Pam’s a big part of it,” I told Dwight when we lay in bed that night, “but I think he may be dreading the house itself. It’s going to make him remember Jonna and what his life was like before she died, so cut him a little slack if he gives you a hard time, okay?”

He stopped nuzzling my ear long enough to murmur, “Okay,” then turned his attention back to where his hands were and what they were doing and after that, I have to admit that I did, too.

“I’m gonna miss you,” he said later when we lay face-to-face in the darkness with our legs entwined.

“Me, too, you,” I said, kissing his chest.

“This is your first judges’ conference since we got together.”

Uh-oh.

Dwight and my brothers were inseparable as kids and I’ve known him since I was a baby. After he and Jonna split and he came back to Colleton County to become Sheriff Bo Poole’s second in command, we would hang out together whenever we were at loose ends and not seeing anyone. I used to cry on his shoulder about relationships that went nowhere and he would unburden his guilt about missing Cal’s childhood and whether or not he should take Jonna back to court to amend the custody arrangements. He was smart enough not to give details about his romantic entanglements but I always talked way too much about mine, some of which did indeed begin with the summer conferences at the beach or end with the fall conferences up in the mountains.

“Remember that you’re a married lady now,” he growled. “Or should I ask Judge Parker to keep an eye on you for me?”

Luther Parker was the first black judge elected in our district and he takes a semi-paternal interest in me.

“You can ask,” I said, “but he’s in bed every night by nine o’clock.”

“Just see that you are, too,” he said. “Alone.”

I laughed. His tone was light, but I heard the tiniest touch of apprehension in his voice.

Nice to know your husband doesn’t take you for granted, right?

Will called the next morning to confirm the time and place to meet with Dwight. He’s three brothers up from me and makes his living as an estate appraiser and an auctioneer. Even though he’s never had any formal training for either, he’s pretty savvy and seems to know instinctively the value of a piece of furniture or a porcelain figurine. Occasionally he messes up on the worth of a chest or a family portrait, “But hell,” he says, “that’s what keeps the fancy-pants dealers coming to my auctions. They think I’m so ignorant that they’re going to get something good for pennies on the dollar. Once in a while they might do, but most times they wind up buying what I’m selling for more than they meant to spend. It all evens out.”

After Jonna’s death up there in Virginia, he offered to go through the house with Dwight and to help move everything of sentimental or monetary value back down here so that we could get a better sense of what might be important to Cal someday and what could be disposed of now. This was the first chance they’d had to go up and even now it was only because of that training seminar up in Charlottesville.

Dwight planned to help Will load the truck, list the house with a real estate agent, go to the seminar on Monday and Tuesday, then pick Cal up on his way home on Wednesday, the day before I was due to get back.

Cal understood that the house and most of the furniture had to go, and he was enough a child of the age to be interested in how much money might wind up in his college fund when everything was sold. At least that’s what we hoped.

“Peanut butter or chicken salad?” I asked him now as I opened a loaf of whole-wheat bread to pack a lunch for them.

He frowned at the carrots and apples I’d pulled from the refrigerator. “Dad and I always stop at McDonald’s,” he said, referring to the times he and Dwight had driven back and forth to Shaysville whenever it was Dwight’s weekend to have him.

“This is better for you guys,” I said lightly, mindful of my new nutritional responsibilities to a growing boy.

Dwight entered the kitchen, freshly shaved, and carrying his duffel bag. “Ready to hit the road, buddy?”

He set the bag by the back door and went over to pour himself a final cup of coffee.

Cal immediately took advantage of his turned back and said, “Can we stop for lunch in Greensboro, Dad? Like we always do?”

“Sure thing,” Dwight said, completely oblivious to what was going on here. “Uncle Will’s never said no to a cheeseburger.”

“Fine,” I said and shoved the stuff back into the refrigerator. I did not slam the refrigerator door and I did not stomp out of the room.

“Something wrong?” asked Dwight, who had followed me into our bedroom.

“Not a thing,” I snapped. “I love being overruled in front of Cal.”

“Huh?”

“I told Cal I was packing y’all a healthy lunch and then you came in and said you’d stop for greasy cheeseburgers and french fries.”

“I did? Sorry, shug. You should have said something.”

“Right. And make myself the evil no-fun stepmother again? Thanks but no thanks.” I headed for our bathroom to take a shower.

“Oh, come on, Deb’rah. What’s the big deal? An occasional cheeseburger’s not going to kill him.”

I paused in the doorway and made a show of looking at the clock. “You’d better go if you’re going to meet Will.”

“Deb’rah?”

I ignored his outstretched hand and slammed the door between us, half-hoping he’d follow, but before I had fully shucked off my robe and gown, his truck roared past the window.

And no, dammit, I was not crying.