Read Online Marty Ambrose - Mango Bay 02 - Island Intrigue by Marty Ambrose - Free Book Online Page B

you,” she said over and over.
    I gulped hard, my eyes bordered with tears.
    “Thanks a lot, Mallie.” Nick now stood next to me.
    “I came along for the ride.” I shrugged, turning away,
not wanting him to see how much I was affected by the
touching scene. I was Mallie Monroe, flaky and carefree,
totally unsentimental, not the type of person to start sobbing over a mother and son reuniting. I didn’t let myself
get involved like that. “It was nothing”
    “Not to me-or them”
    I didn’t dare look at him. All my defenses were down,
and that could be dangerous. The last time it happened
was Valentine’s Day in Orlando, after my boyfriend de
jour had left to “find himself” out West. I ended up at my
Airstream around 2:00 A.M. with a butterfly tattoo on my ankle and my hair dyed with electric blue streaks.
Fortunately, the tattoo was a wash-off kind and the dye
temporary. A lucky escape.

    “Oh, there’s Wanda Sue” I pointed to my landlady,
closing in on her daughter and grandson. Without waiting for a reply, I jumped off the boat and headed toward them.
    “How can Sally Jo and I ever thank you, Mallie?”
Wanda Sue gushed as she gave me a long, hard hug.
    “No need. I’m just happy that we were able to bring
Kevin home all safe and sound” I smiled down at him.
    “I’ll be forever grateful,” Sally Jo joined in. Her face
was a younger version of Wanda Sue’s, all right. Same
wide mouth, snub nose, and over-plucked brows. “My
son means everything to me”
    “Detective Billie did all the work. I just … uh …
threw him a rope.”
    “She did more than that,” he said as he approached
us, his hard-planed features softened for once. “Let’s
go inside. It’s cold out here, and we need to talk”
    “Where’s Tom?” Sally Jo scanned Detective Billie’s
face. He didn’t answer. She bit her lip and blinked several times, her eyes welling with tears.
    Wanda Sue looked at me. I cast my glance downward.
    Silently we trooped into the marina office, our silence
telling them what they needed to know. Then Kong’s excited yapping greeted me. I scooped him up and clutched
him to my chest. He was the one constant in this crazy,
sad day. My canine life preserver.

    The rest of the evening passed in a blur. We huddled
near the space heaters while Detective Billie took care
of the arrangements for the Coast Guard to retrieve Tom’s
body. Eventually Kevin fell asleep in his mother’s arms,
and my head began to droop like a wilted flower. After
the adrenaline rush of Kevin’s rescue, exhaustion hit and
drained the energy from my body.
    “Why don’t you go home?” Nick finally said to me.
“There’s nothing more you can do here. After Wanda
Sue and Sally Jo identify the body, I’ll take them home”
    I turned to Wanda Sue. “You going to be okay?”
    “We’ll be just fine,” she said, her hands trembling.
“We got our boy back-that’s something.”
    With leaden feet, I exited the marina office, still
carrying Kong. What had started out as your average
Coral Island morning had turned into a day fraught with
a missing boy, miscast ropes, and a dead man. Major
bummer.
    I nuzzled the top of Kong’s head. At least Kevin was
safe. But, then again, his father was dead. And, in spite
of my fatigue, I wanted to know what had happened.
    The next morning, I awoke to the jangling of my faux
leopard-skin Princess telephone. It had cost $19.95 at a
discount store and had one of those cheap, shrill rings
that sounded like squeaking brakes on a rain-slick road.
But since I was still living from paycheck to paycheck, it
would do just fine.
    “Hello.”

    “Mallie, how are you? It’s your mother.”
    Oh, no.
    “Are you still in bed? What a sleepyhead.”
    I opened one eyelid to check the clock on my nightstand. “Oh, yeah. It’s almost six-thirty. The day is practically over.” Kong licked the side of my face, as if to
reassure me. I held the phone up so he