She crossed the porch that should be painted orchid, knocked on the door—then just opened it and walked in.

“Barbara Ellen, Cody! It’s CiCi and friend.” She called out over the sound of hammering from up the staircase tucked to the right of the living room.

The living room boasted a wood-burning fireplace and wide-planked floors he guessed were original, freshly sanded and sealed. It opened straight back to the kitchen, where he expected they’d put a lot of effort into modernizing. The peninsula, the prep island, the counters—sticking with gray in granite—and definitely new cabinets in a clean, simple white.

He didn’t know why anyone who wasn’t a cooking maniac needed a six-burner stove or double ovens, but they looked impressive.

“Go ahead and wander,” CiCi told him. “I’ll call them again.”

He couldn’t stop himself and walked back toward the kitchen, noted the double barn-style doors, slid one open. He definitely couldn’t buy the house, he reminded himself. Not only for obvious reasons, but because he wasn’t worthy of a kitchen with a pantry big enough to hold enough supplies to withstand an alien invasion.

Why had they put those cool Edison lights over the peninsula? He really had a weak spot for those lights.

He turned as he heard someone coming down the stairs, chattering all the way.

“CiCi! I barely heard you with all the noise. Cody’s redoing one of the bedroom closets. I don’t know what I’d do without that boy.”

She was a tiny woman, and made Reed think of a busy bird as she gave CiCi a hug, still chattering.

“He’s staying a whole month this time. And he’s going to come back this winter to finish up, if need be, so we can get the house on the market come spring. Spring’s the best time, everybody says, though I had my heart set on listing it before the first of the year. I’m going home with him when he leaves, to start looking for a little place, maybe a condo. I don’t know, but I know I just don’t want to spend another winter here alone.”

“We’ll miss you, Barbara Ellen. Come meet my Reed.”

“Oh my goodness, of course! How do you do? CiCi’s told me all about you.” She put her little hand in Reed’s, smiled up at him with dark brown eyes through dusty glasses. “You’re a policeman. My uncle Albert was a policeman in Brooklyn, New York. CiCi said you remember my house from when you came to the island as a boy.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Well, it’s some different now in here. Cody’s been working like a mule.”

“It looks great.”

“I hardly recognize the place. It’s just not mine anymore. But I will say the kitchen’s a treat. Let me get you some tea and cookies.”

“Now don’t worry about that.” CiCi patted her hand. “Cody tucked a pretty little powder room under the stairs here, didn’t he?”

“He did. That boy’s so handy. I don’t know what I’d do without him.”

Singing Cody’s praises, Barbara Ellen—nudged by CiCi—showed off the first floor. Reed had to steel himself against the views of the woods, the water. With CiCi leading, they headed upstairs.

Four fricking bedrooms including a newly remodeled master suite. Gas fireplace, killer views, attached bath nearly as big as the bedroom in his old shitcan.

Everything about the house pulled at him, and pushed against his reality. He met the handy Cody, talked a little construction before CiCi waved him off.

“Go on up to the widow’s walk.”

“Oh yes, you should!” Barbara Ellen agreed. “It’s the crown of the house. I don’t go up anymore. Just don’t trust myself on the narrow stairs, but you should take it in.”

Narrow, yes, but sturdy—Cody at work again, Reed thought.

Then he stepped out onto the circling deck, and couldn’t think at all.

He could see everything. The water, the woods, the village, CiCi’s amazing house to the west, then the fanciful lighthouse to the east. The world in all its color and beauty spread out for him like one of CiCi’s paintings.

It could be his.

Not once, he thought, in all the houses he’d walked through, studied, considered, had he ever felt not that it could be his, should be his, but already was.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” When he, without thinking, dragged a hand through his hair, his shoulder snarled.

“It’s crazy. I’m crazy.” He rubbed absently at his shoulder. “Maybe not. Shit. Investment property. What about that? Rent it out during the season, use it for long weekends, for vacation time off-season. What’s wrong with that?

“Can’t do it. Can’t,” he muttered as he took one more stroll around the railed deck. “Can’t.”

As he went back down, he heard CiCi asking Cody what he planned to ask.

“Well, once we get the last bathroom up here gutted and redone, and the last bedroom remodeled, a little more trim here and there, and some this and that. Give everything a nice, fresh coat of paint, and some more landscaping…”

He named a price that made Reed wince. Not because it was out of his range, but because it wasn’t that much out of his range.

“Of course,” Barbara Ellen put in, with a twinkle of a smile toward Reed, “if somebody wanted it before we put it on the market, saved us that trouble, those fees, we’d adjust that price. Wouldn’t we, Cody?”

“Some, sure. But we’ve still got the work left.”

“What if you didn’t?” Reed heard himself ask, knew he’d just tied a rock to his leg. “I mean, if you didn’t gut the bathroom, add more landscaping, the paint, the bedroom. If, say, you finished what you’re doing in here with the closet, and that was that?”

“Well now.” Cody sniffed, rubbing his chin. “That’d make a difference, wouldn’t it?”

Enough of one, when Cody ballparked another figure, to tie on the next rock.

He didn’t commit—wouldn’t let himself. He needed to run some numbers, give some hard thought to what it would mean to his life. He’d never afford a house in Portland if he did this. But … he didn’t want a house in Portland.

“You want it,” CiCi said as they rode home.

“I want a lot of things I can’t have. Like you.”

“What if you could?”

“Have you? Pedal faster.”

She laughed her glorious laugh. “I’m mad for you, Delicious. You said, and I agree, a cop lives where he works.”

“Yeah, that’s a sticking point.”

“What if you could do that? Live and work on the island. Chief Wickett’s retiring. He isn’t saying so officially as yet, but he told me. He’s giving it until February, maybe March, so he’s telling the island council next month. To give them time to find his replacement.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Chief of police? That was just more craziness.

CiCi let it drop on him, then blithely went into her studio.

So he took a solo walk on the beach, hoping the air would blow his brain back to sanity.

He sat on the rocks and brooded. He walked some more.

When he finally went back, CiCi sat on the patio, a cozy throw over her legs and a bottle of wine, two glasses, on the table.

“You need a nice glass of wine.”

“I can’t be a police chief.”

“Why not? It’s just a title.” She poured the wine.

“It’s not just a title. It’s being in charge of a department. It’s administrative.”

She patted a hand at the chair next to hers. “You’re smart, and the current chief would work with you until you got your rhythm. You’ve told me enough over these past days and entertaining evenings for me to know you’re not happy in Portland. You’re not happy with the box your own chief or captain or whatever put you in. Get out of the box, Reed.

“You have a purpose,” she continued. “Your aura absolutely pulses with it.”

“My aura pulses with purpose?”

“It does. And you’d fulfill that here. You’d also fulfill your just-as-essential purpose of working on the investigation of that Hobart psycho. The off-season here isn’t without work for a police chief, but you’d have that time and space.”

She looked at him. “Tell me you’re happy where you are, and I’ll stop.”

He wanted to, but shook his head. “No. I’ve thought about transferring, but there’s Essie. And some others. My family.”

“You’re less than an hour from your friends and family here. You want that house. I don’t have to be psychic to know that because it was all over you. But since I am a little bit psychic I know you’ll be happy here, happy in that house—because it’s your place. Clear as day. You’ll have your purpose, your home. You’re going to find the love of your life.”

“I already did,” he interrupted.

She reached over and took his hand. “You’re going to find the one who’ll share that home with you. You’re going to raise a family there.”

“I can barely afford the house. Who knows if I’m qualified for chief of police, or if the island council would offer me the position?”

She smiled over the rim of her glass. Silver hoops with bloodred drops glinted at her ears. “I have some not inconsiderable influence. We need good, young, bright blood in the job. And here you are.”

“You’re biased because you love me, too.”

“I do, but if I didn’t think this was right for you, for the island—not even just right for you, but the answer—I wouldn’t have spoken with Hildy yesterday.”