CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER THREE

Marie mentally smacked herself. Less than thirty seconds ago, she’d dared to ask if this day could get any worse. Here was the answer. She opened her mouth but no words came out.

“Ms. Fortune, are you still there?”

“Um…”

That was all she could muster as thoughts of her Great-Aunt June came crashing through her mind.

Aunt June had been a very eccentric woman. Marie had heard her first dirty joke from Aunt June, had swiped her first drink of alcohol at June’s house (a sip of whiskey), and had been enamored with June’s house. It had, in fact, been Aunt June’s home that instilled the dream of one day opening a bed-and-breakfast into Marie’s head.

June was ninety-eight years old but never stayed in one place for very long. She had been living on the coast of Maine for the last thirty years or so but frequently traveled to Florida, Puerto Rico, and, of all places, Wyoming. She’d always been one of Marie’s favorite relatives and they had been rather close during her middle school years. And when her mother split the scene when Marie was in her teens, Great-Aunt June had stepped in as a surrogate mother of sorts for a while.

Despite all of that, Marie had not seen her in almost two years, when June had come through Providence. Those two years suddenly felt very long indeed. But oddly enough, the days and weeks from her childhood spent in June’s house felt close enough to reach out and touch. They cascaded before her like some weird kaleidoscope: the insane amount of books, the huge sitting room, the candles, the smells of wood polish and the ocean, warm sand between her toes. She could easily recall building sandcastles on the beach behind the house, trying to mimic the spires and columns of the house behind her. And she could still feel the anticipation of riding up that winding driveway to the house, literally bouncing in her seat with excitement.

Standing there with the phone in her hand, she could suddenly smell the oolong tea and partially burnt scones June had made whenever she would visit that old house out on the coast of Maine, just past Ogunquit.

The memories were broken up by the fact that the police would call

her

of all people. It made no sense.

“Ms. Fortune? You okay?”

The deputy’s voice broke her out of the wavering world of memories. “I’m here. Just…processing.”

“I can imagine.”

“How did it happen?” Marie asked, fighting back tears for the second time that night.

“We think she went peacefully in her sleep. An afternoon nap, perhaps. Her neighbor called us and said June hadn’t been answering her phone for the last two days and didn’t answer the door when she came knocking. We just now found her, perched in a chair.”

“Who else have you called?”

“Aside from the neighbor, you’re the only one.”

“What about other family members? I mean…we use to be close, but not recently.”

But even as she asked about potential family members, she understood perfectly. Given the nature of her family, it made sense she’d be the only one to get a call.

“Your number and email address were on her fridge,” Deputy Miles said. “The neighbor says she spoke very highly of you. And since we can’t find an address book, cell phone, or anything else with contact numbers, you were the only one to call.”

“Yeah, I imagine she didn’t have an address book,” Marie said. “Or a cell phone.”

The thought of Aunt June trying to use an iPhone brought a shaky smile to her face. June had many mottos for life, one of which had been:

“When the angel Lucifer fell from heaven, he landed in technology.”

“Well, the neighbor says there really isn’t much family that she knows of,” Miles continued. “Can you think of anyone that might be well-suited to take care of the arrangements

?

Seems like the poor lady was all by herself.”

“She was. But that’s how she preferred things. She was the very definition of an introvert.”

“And there’s no one else you can think of that might want to know the news?”

Sadly enough, Marie couldn’t. As a matter of fact, Marie’s mind seemed fully locked down as a very specific memory of her Great-Aunt June sprang to mind. Marie could picture one perfect summer day, sitting on the back porch and watching the white caps of the waves coming in. June had come to her and told her that her mother may not be coming back for her—that her mother had disappeared and no one knew where she was.

At first, Marie had thought it was one of June’s classic jokes—like the time she’d convinced Marie that the large squirrel that had once played in the front yard was actually a mutated cat. She’d insisted on this with such passion and confidence that Marie had actually believed the stupid squirrel was a cat for an entire summer.

But the grim quality to June’s face as she conveyed this news to her fourteen-year-old great-niece was something different. The thin line of her lips had told Marie it was the truth.

The police had never even found her mother’s car. No evidence at all.

“I’m sorry…Ms. Fortune?”

“Sorry. I did it again, huh?”

“Yes. It’s okay.”

Marie shook thoughts of her mother’s disappearance away. This was not about her mother. She’d wasted enough of her life dwelling on that. This was about Aunt June, being found dead in her dreamlike home.

“I will, of course, do whatever is needed to help with the funeral,” she said. “Wait…she’s being buried, right?”

“Not sure yet. We’ll need to find her last will and testament for all of that. Do you think you might know one way or another?”

“I’d hate to guess. Aunt June was…well, she was different. There was one point where she wanted to donate her body to science to help morticians get better at makeup. There was another time she wanted her ashes stuffed into a bottle rocket and blasted out to sea. There was once talk of her being turned into some sort of compost pod and used to feed several lilac trees somewhere in Virginia.”

Deputy Miles chuckled. “She sounds like one hell of a lady.”

“She really was.”

“So I’ll make a note that you can be contacted if help is needed. You okay, Ms. Fortune?”

“I will be,” Marie said, as they ended the call.

But really, she wasn’t sure how true that was. She felt tears coming on as her heart drooped a bit.

She tried to prevent the tears from coming full force. She thought of June’s old house, of how the kids back then had thought the place was haunted. She thought of the day she told June this little rumor and how they’d started singing the

Scooby Doo

theme song. The theme song got stuck in her head and brought on a series of little chuckles that spared her from the tears.

She walked to the bedroom and lay down rather hard, the day’s events all piling up on her. No job. No Chris. And now, no Great-Aunt June.

One thing prevented an absolute sob-fest, though: picturing her Great-Aunt June’s manor and that beautiful coastline. She’d be going back there for sad reasons, but still…

She was going back.