Di’s hair was the exact shade of vivid auburn it had been the last time Hope had seen her. And the time before. If her baby sister had her way, she would have frozen time back in 1984. The days when Madonna was starting to make her mark and the world was ga-ga about another girl named Diana. To hear her sister tell tales, the days before Hope had run away, were nothing short of idyllic. To Di, they most likely were. But for Hope, they’d been stifling.
And now she was back. Under this roof. Feeling every one of her parents’ rules pressing down on her. Their expectations.
Lowering the brush, she took a moment to pull one long silver hair from the bristles. It glinted in the beam from the flashlight. As much as she missed the vibrancy of her red head, she loved the gleam of her hair now. Yes, her gray marked the years, but the silvery strands were also a symbol of her personal liberation. She’d be damned if she let anyone put her in a box, or change her with their promises of magic in a bottle.
Besides, she never lived up to her family’s expectations before, and she didn’t see much point in trying now. Attempting to rewrite history would only lead to frustration for everyone. She was who she was, and Diana and the good people of North Shore would have to deal with her for a short time.
There was a not-so-gentle knock on the door. “Ms. Elliot? Ma’am?”
Hope grimaced and dropped the hair into the empty wastepaper basket beside the sink. Tossing the towel toward the pile of wet clothes on the floor, she wrenched open the powder room door with more force than was strictly necessary.
“Mrs. Elliot,” she announced.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Elliot.” Firefighter Graham held her mobile phone out for her to take. “I entered my father’s contact information. Mick McInnes.”
Hope blinked, then a giddy laugh bubbled out of her. “Your father happens to be a master electrician named Mick McInnes? I guess I am back in Chicago after all, Toto.”
The younger woman had the good grace to chuckle as well. “Yeah, well, I wouldn’t be a native if I didn’t know a guy who knows a guy, right?”
Hope stooped to place her hairbrush and other essentials back into her bag, then pulled out the comfortable Tod’s moccasins packed for traveling. Smiling, she zipped the case shut and extended the handle as she rose. “I appreciate your help, Ms. Graham.” She paused a moment as she wriggled her bandaged feet into the shoes. “But you’re not a McInnes. Perhaps I should call you missus?”
The other woman grinned, then gestured toward the door. “I was missus for about five minutes. I’m a mizz now, but I kept the Graham part for my son’s sake.”
“Either way, I do appreciate your service.” Hope closed and locked the door behind her. “You have my mobile number for the inspector?”
“Yes. He’ll be in touch to arrange a walk-through. As soon as he clears the property, you can contact whoever you’d like to look at the wiring. I wouldn’t advise throwing the main switch until someone does, though.”
Hope chuckled and looked up at the night sky. She hadn’t the first idea where the main switch for the electrical service might be, or how one would even go about “throwing” one. Clouds hung overhead, but they were lighter and thinner than before. To the west, polka-dot patches of stars played peek-a-boo with the cloud-hazed moon. Pulling the bag behind her, she dug the key to the rental car from the pocket of her purse and clicked the fob to unlock the doors. She then shoved her suitcase unceremoniously into the back seat.
With one last wave to the firefighters in the truck, she climbed behind the wheel. The beams of her headlights caught the slap-dash X of caution tape Ms. Graham started stringing the moment she turned the deadbolt. She waited for the young woman to climb into her seat in the truck, the engine idling and the heater blowing full-blast.
Behind the wheel of the fire engine, Bobby executed an impressively nimble turn. Seconds later, her rescue unit roared off into the now-quiet night. Sighing, Hope pulled her mobile from her bag and stared down at the display. The absolute last thing she wanted was to explain all of this to Diana and Dick-the-dick.
Pressing the button to activate the virtual assistant, she spoke clearly and distinctly into the handset. “Directions to the nearest hotel.”
Only a couple of seconds ticked by before the automated voice responded. “There are fifteen hotels in a five-mile radius.”
Hope rolled her eyes, beyond all need or desire to make even the smallest decisions. “Closest to my current location.”
A beat passed, then her new best friend chirped up with a perky, “Calculating route to Four Seasons Hotel, North Shore.”
“Yeah, good choice.” Smiling, Hope put the car in gear and cranked the wheel. Once again, she was making an escape.
Chapter 3
“I don’t know how this could have happened. We’ve never had any trouble before.”
Diana threw her hands up to emphasize her distress. Hope’s sister had never discovered the power of a soft-spoken word, or subtle prompt. In this, they were alike. The Winston girls both sprang from the bigger-is-better school of thought, but they had different agendas. Hope liked to stir up trouble. She railed against all forms of restraint, particularly those sanctioned by their parents. Diana liked to swoop in and play the dutiful daughter, a role she played to the hilt.
Hope cradled the ginormo-super-grande caramel macchiato from a drive-thru as if she might absorb energy through the paper cup. She’d stopped on the way to meet the fire inspector at the house, knowing she’d need fortification against the inevitable onslaught.
They stood in the courtyard, Hope’s bland beige rental car parked across from Diana’s gleaming white Mercedes-Benz. The coffee was barely lukewarm, but Hope didn’t care. The drink was caffeinated, and holding the cup kept her from slapping her semi-hysterical baby sister.
“The whole place could have burned to the ground! Then what would we do?”
Diana didn’t seem the least bit concerned by the thought that the occurrence might have killed Hope. For her part, Hope had to admit escape didn’t sound too terribly bad at the moment. She was tired. Her feet hurt. Hell, everything hurt. All she wanted was a few more hours of sleep, but a nap didn’t appear to be a possibility. Her sister was an early riser and believed everyone else in the world should be as well.
Diana had been up and at the house at the crack of dawn, only to find the place cordoned off with caution tape. After a nearly sleepless night, Hope had been awakened by the bleat of her mobile phone. There was nothing as bracing as waking to the sound of her sister in full meltdown mode. Opera singers dreamed of hitting some of those notes.
When she first arrived, Diana had been fretting about the yellow caution tape stripping the finish off the old front door. Since then, she’d gone off on tangents railing against Mother Nature, the village’s emergency services, and even God Almighty. Hope tuned most of the harangue out when she got down to the lawn service hired to prune the trees.
Two hours sleep. Three, if she counted the bit when she drifted off before the storm. Jet lag. Shock. No wonder she couldn’t hang on to the thread of the conversation. What she and Diana had been engaged in for the last thirty minutes could not be considered conversation. Mostly, this was a one-woman show.
