Setting the bacon and pancakes in the barely warm oven, she went to turn the horses out. They had finished eating and were eager for the sunshine that the clearing sky promised. Looping a rope around Bucky’s neck, she led the big buckskin out, letting the two mares follow him. As she was shutting the gate, Ryan’s red truck had pulled off the road and into their long lane, Rock with his head out the window. Above Ryan’s truck, the sky over the sea was truly brightening.
“We can start framing the living room this morning,” Ryan said. “Don’t know how far we’ll get. Don’t know whether Scotty will want Dillon to help us or work with you-you can rip out the Sheetrock between the two bedrooms this morning, take out that wall.” It amused her to be giving the owner of the house orders. Charlie was, with some experience behind her, turning into a fair carpenter. The tear out would be an exercise in violence that might help Charlie work off some of her anger at Patty’s death. And they were both eager to finish Charlie’s new studio. Charlie couldn’t wait to bring her desk and easel over from the barn, her drafting and work tables and boxes of art supplies that were stacked in the grain room inviting the mice to sample her inks and paints and her expensive drawing paper.
The kitchen was warm, its bright colors always welcoming. Red and blue pillows were scattered on the window seat, and the breakfast table was set with red place mats. Charlie was dressed this morning in a pale blue sweatshirt and jeans; blue always helped to cheer her.
“You sleep?” Ryan said.
“A little. You have breakfast?”
Ryan nodded. “Rock and I had leftover steak. I had an orange and some kiwis, but he likes his kibble.” She sipped her coffee. Standing in the kitchen, the two women looked out at the increasing brightness as the clouds blew south, and watched Ryan’s uncle Scotty pull in, his old white truck muddy halfway up the sides. Dillon Thurwell was with him, the girl’s red hair catching the light as he turned in the yard to park. Someone usually picked her up in the village; she couldn’t drive yet and it was a long bike ride. Dillon worked with them on weekends and when she wasn’t in school. With their fiery red hair, Scotty and Dillon might have been related, though they were not. The big, burly Irishman and the slim young girl got along like a pair of redheads, too. The two waved, pulled on their work gloves, and headed for the covered lumber pile, where they began pulling out two-by-fours, stacking them along the foundation for the new living room. When they had maybe two dozen placed, Scotty stood explaining something to Dillon, talking with his hands as he always did, making Ryan laugh. In a minute they headed around the far side of the house where their tools were stored underneath.
Dillon, having worked with Scotty through Christmas vacation, seemed to like this new twist in her life. The fourteen-year-old had learned quickly once she had knocked the chip off her shoulder. She’d settled in well to help with cleaning up the debris, filling the tarp-covered Dumpster that had been hauled up to the site; and in the old living room, which would become the new master bedroom, she was learning to mud and tape drywall. With the constant rain, all work seemed twice as hard-taking out the demolished drywall and wood scraps, hauling new building materials into the mudroom, trying to keep the house halfway clean. And then draining the foundation for the twenty-by-thirty-foot living room so they could at least frame the walls. The earth within was still a pool of mud, but the concrete foundation was firm and deep.
“I always wanted a swimming pool,” Charlie said, looking out at the mud where the living room would rise.
“Don’t knock it. Bring in a masseuse, add a steam room, you can make a bundle. Harpers’ spa, restorative soaks in Molena Point’s rare and rejuvenating beauty clay.” But Ryan looked at Charlie shyly, a bit embarrassed by making jokes this morning. “You promised to help the senior ladies with their garden today, if it didn’t rain. Will they go on with that, after last night? And even if they feel up to gardening, will the ground be dry enough?”
“Should be nice and soft to get the weeds out. They’ve never had a problem with slides on that hill; there are railroad ties to retain it. Somewhere underneath there’s supposed to be a shoulder of granite running along above the canyon.” Charlie pushed back her unruly red hair. “The ladies will be up to it. Work is better than sitting around grieving. While they weed, I’m going to take out whatever geraniums they don’t want; I can pot them until we finish building. Those overgrown pelargoniums are magnificent.”
“You have so much time to garden. Five commissions pending for animal portraits, the picture book you’re working on, your own repair and cleaning business to oversee, to say nothing of the fact that you’re working for me on the house.”
“You can’t spare me this afternoon? Call it my lunch break.”
Ryan laughed. “I can spare you. It comes out more even, for framing, with just Scotty and me, and Dillon doing the odd jobs.”
Finishing her coffee, Charlie rinsed her cup and headed for her soon-to-be studio. Ryan and Charlie and Max had planned the renovation together, the three of them taking their time, paying attention to how the sun would slant into the new great room with its high rafters and stone fireplace, how much more view down the falling hills the raised floor would allow. Standing in the front yard on ladders, they had made sure how much of the sea and the village rooftops would be visible.
While the old living room became a large new master suite, their present bedroom would be Max’s study. The two smaller bedrooms would become Charlie’s spacious studio, and she could hardly wait. The renovation might seem wild to some, but to Charlie and Max and Ryan, it made perfect sense. By the time the phone rang at eleven-thirty, Charlie had finished the tear out and, with help from Scotty, had finished putting up the new drywall. She was drunk with the big new space; she wanted to whirl around shouting and swinging her arms, she could hardly wait to cut through the wall for the large new windows with their north light; but that would have to wait until the weather settled. Hurrying into the kitchen, she picked up the call.
“It’s Wilma. We haven’t found Kit, no one’s seen her. I just�”
Wilma didn’t sound at all like herself. “She disappeared before� right after the murder. I didn’t tell you last night, I thought�” Charlie’s aunt, a tall, capable, no-nonsense former parole officer, was not given to a shaky voice and tears. “We’re headed out to look again, Lucinda and I. Pedric is already out, after just a few hours’ sleep.”
“I can join you. I-”
“No. I just� wanted you to watch for her as you head down to the seniors’. Dulcie and Joe aren’t nearly as concerned as we are. They say she’s been gone before.”
“The last time, she turned up in the middle of a double murder,” Charlie said. “I’ll look out for her, and leave my cell phone on. Call me if I can join you.” Charlie didn’t like to see her aunt so upset. Those three cats were so dear, so very special. And Kit was so damned headstrong. How could Joe and Dulcie not worry? And how did you look for one small cat, if she didn’t want to be found?