Page 116 of Secrets Along the Shore

CHAPTER

THREE

I walkover the slate tiles of the courtyard in front of The Ink & Ivy, past the outdoor tables, to the heavy iron-studded front door Grace had shipped from across the pond. More gas lamps burn on either side of it, affixed to walls crawling with English Ivy with dangling tendrils seeking out the window boxes overflowing with pastel impatiens.

I push through into a large room resembling something out of a Dickens novel. Polished, dark wood is everywhere—the bar, the square tables lined with chairs and benches, the floors. Exposed beams crisscross the ceiling. The large, multi-paned windows aren’t old, but most definitely look it, given the warbled glass and rough frames. Two wood-burning fireplaces on opposite sides of the room are going strong, despite that it’s early May and in the low seventies outside. Poofy couches with plaid blankets face both hearths. Painted portraits and landscapes in rustic gold frames adorn the walls, but the pièce de résistance is the books.

Books, books, and more books fill an entire wall of shelves made of the same dark wood. The shelves soar to the ceiling, their heights accessible by the rolling ladder on a brass track, which countless children—and adults—have taken for a spin. There are two distinct sections of books. One consists of new books for purchase, ordered and stocked by Grace, of a wide and sometimes odd variety. The other is a library of free books from a variety of sources, including contributionsby pub patrons, as well as the fruits of Grace's perennial estate-sale habit.

As if all that wasn't enough to get you here, Grace Dean is also the best cook in town. Her kitchen is second-to-none, serving a nightly special five days a week in addition to the regular menu. Given that my cooking is awful enough to make Gordon Ramsey swear off food for life, I usually eat here all five days and sometimes take enough home for leftovers on Sunday and Monday, the only days the pub isn’t open.

Grace is standing behind the bar to my right, wiping it down. When she looks up, a grin splits her face. “Come here, you!” she bellows, coming around the bar to wrap me in a hug.

I’m five-three on a good day and Grace is five-eight with at least thirty pounds on me, so when I say “hug” I mean a full-out, arms-trapped, can-hardly-breathe hug. It’s spectacular. Like getting a hug from a mother, something I haven’t experienced in ten years.

She pulls back, beaming, her face framed by her bright blond hair, pulled on top of her head in a billowy mound and secured by a plastic clip. Wrinkles line her face, though there are far fewer than most would have at sixty-two. Grace could pass for twenty years younger if she wanted to, though she never would. She doesn’t care about those sorts of things. “Not everybody gets as many birthdays as I have. I’m gonna wear ’em like badges,”she says.

I think she may be the wisest person I’ve ever met.

“I heard the news,” Grace says, moisture welling in her eyes. “It’s over.”

Grace has listened to me vent about the burden and responsibility, frustration and fear regarding these murders and finding the devil behind them for over two years. Like James, she understands what the verdict means for me.

“Finally,” I say, shoving down the pesky swell of emotion threatening to crest again.

She reaches back toward the bar and hands me a glass of iced tea. It may be an English pub, but we are in Alabama. If you’ve ever had straight up sweet tea in the South, you know it’s enough to send you into a diabetic coma. I’m from Boca Raton originally, and though that'ssouthern Florida, it's not the same as “the South.” Despite living here for a decade, my insulin levels still haven't adjusted. I prefer something more like “quarter-and-three-quarters” tea, which is what’s in the glass, because Grace knows that about me.

Along with almost everything else.

“Just poured it. Ice hasn’t even had a chance to melt,” she says as I take a swig and realize for the first time how thirsty I am. “You hungry?”

I nod. “Can I get the special?” I don’t ask what it is because it doesn’t matter. Grace’s food always hits the mark.

She smiles knowingly, her red-lipsticked mouth pulling up at one corner. “’Course. It’ll just be a minute.”

“Is he here?” I ask.

Grace nods, then tilts her head toward a table in the far corner of the room against the windows. “For an hour. Didn’t want to be late.”

“Huh. That serious?”

“Seems so.” She shoos me in his direction. “Go on. I’ll bring your food out soon as it’s ready.”

It’s not quite five o'clock. Only six patrons are scattered between the tables and bookshop area, all of whom I know. It's the standard lull before the pub’s busy dinner hours when half the community dumps inside. I nod at the ones who catch my eye, but don’t stop to say hi because I'm on a mission.

I sidle up to the table Grace pointed out and find my client deeply involved in a game of “Clash of Clans” on his iPad.

“You winning?” I ask, sliding into a chair opposite him.

He doesn’t look up. “Not right now.”

Jake Dean is Grace’s nine-year-old grandson and one of my absolute favorite people in the world. He frowns, taps the screen a few more times, then sets the iPad aside. His long-lashed doe eyes shoot right over the top of his Coke to find me. “Thanks for coming.”

“Of course. It sounded important.”

“It is.”

I’ve known Jake since he was born, and even better since his single dad—Grace’s son—skipped town in search of more drugs and left him with her. He’s my buddy, and I’d do anything for him, includingagreeing to a client meeting on the final afternoon of a week-long trial.