LIGHT IT UP

Sea Smoke Island ~ Book 4

Excerpt

Later, she swung by the firehouse to pick up her brother Noah, whose truck needed new brakes. He slipped into Marigold’s blue Frontier, waving goodbye to the other firefighters as they filtered out of an all-hands meeting about the recent spree of arson fires. 

“Clambake?” Noah asked, holding his hands over the heater vent in the dash. “I could use a beer.”

“Clambake it is.” Marigold steered the truck toward the main wharf. The Clambake Grill was located on a cliff overlooking the wharf, a prime location that meant it was always mobbed in the summer. Even in the middle of winter, it did a fairly steady business of islanders desperate to get out of the house. 

Island fever was a real thing on a remote island like Sea Smoke. Marigold often wondered how previous generations, who’d settled the island before the ferry boat began operations, had managed. Or those who had lived there before electricity was brought to the island through the underwater cable. 

She shuddered at the thought of a long island winter without any Netflix, let alone the regular TV channels that had been the only winter entertainment for decades. 

“You’re quiet tonight,” Noah said, as she drove down the dark road, lit only by her headlights and the occasional glow of a porch light nestled in the woods. 

“I had a weird convo with Aunt Dorothy.” 

“She’s losing her marbles, isn’t she?” 

Marigold didn’t bother to suggest a more polite way to put it. What would be the point? It summed up the situation pretty well. “It’s not that. She kept mentioning Ollie. But she said she wasn’t supposed to talk about him.” 

Noah drummed his fingers on his thigh. He was even taller than she was, and even blonder. Her hair was more of a strawberry blond, while his was bleached light by so many summers on the ocean. “Well, it’s true, isn’t it?” he said dryly.  “It’s the one thing always guaranteed to make Mom shut down. Then Dad would get upset and storm out of the house, and it would be up to you and me to make dinner. The name Ollie always makes me think of instant ramen.” 

Marigold snickered in that childish way that Noah could always bring out in her. It felt like sacrilege to talk about her lost brother in terms of ramen noodle soup. But Noah had a point. The pattern he described had happened every time either of them had asked about Ollie. “You’re a jackass,” she said easily. 

“So they tell me,” he answered, without rancor. Even though they were twins, their personalities were very different, compatibly so. She was calm and levelheaded, while he was more restless and wild. “Did Aunt Dorothy say anything about Ollie?” 

They reached the Clambake Grill, where she parked between Duffy’s motorcycle and Ernie O’Shea’s GMC truck. After five years as a constable’s assistant, she knew most of the vehicles on the island, especially those that belonged to people who might end up in the lockup after a night of drinking. Which wasn’t a small number. 

She waited until they were inside, settled at a small table and watching three of the Clyde cousins play darts to answer his question. 

“Not really. It was more about how she seemed. Scared, basically. She made it sound like if she talked about Ollie, she might get hurt.” 

“By who?” Noah took a sip of his beer, which left a bit of foam on his upper lip. He licked it off like a milkshake. “Mom and Dad don’t like talking about Ollie, but they wouldn’t threaten her. Well, Dad might, just out of sheer spite because they hate each other.” 

“They don’t hate each other.” 

Noah waved that off. “Close enough. Too bad she’s probably going to have to move in with them at this point.” 

As usual, their thoughts had followed the same path.

“She could always move in with us,” Marigold suggested, hiding her smile behind a sip of beer. 

“Oh hell no, don’t even—” After his automatic first reaction, Noah broke off with a grin. “You have an evil streak, have I ever told you that?” 

“Yup. But everyone knows you’re the evil twin. That’s never been in doubt.” 

“Oh yeah?” Noah stood up and tapped a spoon against his beer bottle to get everyone’s attention. It probably wasn’t needed, as a towering wall of muscle like Noah tended to draw eyeballs no matter what. “Need a general consensus here. Who’s more evil, the twin who puts out all the fires or the one who puts you in the drunk tank?” 

A chorus of laughter and shouted answers to that question rang through the restaurant. The clear answer was that Marigold was the evil one. 

Marigold stood up and took a bow. “Thank you,” she said, holding her beer bottle as a microphone. “Thank you very much. I’d like to dedicate this honor to each and every one of you who thanklessly downed beer after beer until you would have driven off the dock if I let you get behind the wheel. Seriously, I could never have done it without you.” 

More laughter and a few jeers followed. She had the feeling that she might have some work to do later tonight. Davey Randolph was already practically falling off his stool. She caught the bartender’s eye. Jasmine Cho was working tonight, moonlighting from her regular gig at the Lightkeeper Inn. Marigold gestured with her chin at Davey. Jasmine nodded and drew a line across her throat, meaning he was already cut off. 

She and Noah sat back down and resumed their conversation as if no interruption had occurred. 

“It made me wonder if there was more to Ollie’s death than we know,” she told Noah. “She made it sound like something’s being covered up.” 

“What’s to cover up? He took a skiff out in a storm and capsized, got swept out to sea. That kind of thing happens a lot. There’s a reason that fishing is one of the most dangerous jobs you can have.” 

True. Marigold had been so relieved and grateful when Noah had quit fishing that she’d actually gone to church to say thank you. 

“I know, I know. But Aunt Dorothy—” 

“Aunt Dorothy has dementia. You can’t take anything she says literally. If we did, we’d also have to arrest the nonexistent grasshoppers that keep getting in her hair. The other day she was covering her ears because the sky was filled with World War Two bombers. Should we alert the Air Force?” 

Marigold dug her teeth into her bottom lip. It hurt to hear these details of her aunt’s mental state. “This felt different,” she muttered. 

“Well, if you’re worried about it, can’t you investigate?” 

“Investigate a non-crime that happened over thirty years ago, before there was even a constable out here? Where would I even start?” 

Noah shrugged. He wore a thick gray cable-knit sweater that an ex-girlfriend had made for him. He had quite a few of those—both sweaters and ex-girlfriends. “Ask Mom and Dad?” 

“Now I know you’re the evil twin.” 

Noah laughed, showing zero signs of regret. “I’m busy with all these damn fires. Maybe you could get those podcasters on the job.” 

“Finally, a good idea.” Heather McPhee and Gabby Ramon ran a true-crime podcast called Dirty Rotten Bastards that had tackled a few unsolved island mysteries. They’d probably jump at this one. “But Heather and Luke are on their honeymoon and Gabby’s somewhere working on a story. Maybe when they get back.” 

“Right. It’s not like Ollie will be more dead if you wait a few weeks.” 

Perfectly in sync, they both drank from their half-empty bottles. “Is there anything you remember that might be helpful?” she finally asked him, the taste of hops bitter on her tongue. “Maybe you overheard Dad or Mom say something?” 

Noah thought about it, rolling his beer bottle between his hands. “It’s such a hands-off topic. I always thought that was strange. Ollie was twelve when he died. That’s nearly a teenager. There was a whole lifetime that happened before we were born. You know what I realized the other day?” 

“What?” 

“I’ve never even seen a photo of him. Have you?” 

She jerked in surprise. “No. Wow.” 

“That’s strange, right?” 

“Maybe it’s because Mom gets so upset every time his name is spoken aloud. Maybe Dad put away every reminder so she can function like a normal person.” 

“Maybe.” He looked up suddenly, light in his dark blue eyes. “Have you ever asked Aunt Dorothy if she has photos of him?” 

“Damn, Noah. That’s your second good idea in the past five minutes. Don’t hurt yourself.” 

He pretended to clutch his aching head. “It burns, it burns.” 

“Back to your previously scheduled idiocy then,” she teased. “Okay, enough about Ollie. Which of your prize crew of amateur firefighters might be setting fires so they can play the hero?” 

“Not funny.” Noah glared at her. He was always fierce about his crew. They were a tight-knit group, even though none of them were professional firefighters. Or maybe because they weren’t. Everyone was volunteering their time because they wanted to protect the island. 

Unless someone had another motive.

“I actually wasn’t trying to be. To me it seems like the most likely scenario.” 

“Well, leave it to the hotshot who’s going to come solve the whole thing for the local yokels.” He downed the rest of his beer, then caught someone’s eye from across the room. “I gotta go. Mary Beth wants me.” 

Marigold glanced that direction, and saw the woman in question cross her legs slowly and seductively. It was the kind of move she herself could never pull off. She’d probably fall off her stool if she tried.

“That’s all she has to do, cross her legs and you go running?” 

“Like a dog to a bone,” Noah said cheerfully. 

“You are a dog.” 

“Who’s about to bone.” 

She pretended to throw up. “So go. Jeez. Just be quiet when you get back. I hate getting woken up by all your burping and farting.” 

He tapped a fist against his chest and let out a burp. Of course. God, brothers. 

And then she wondered if Ollie had been able to burp on command like Noah did, and why he’d taken that rowboat out in the middle of a nor’easter, and if he would have been a good big brother, the same questions she’d asked so many times, along with a new one. Why weren’t there any photos of Ollie Olson?