feet on the pavement alternated with the cadence of her breathing. She tried to imagine absorbing the beauty of the day through her pores, somehow keeping it with her. Maybe that was the magic of this place—that even after you left, you could take it with you. Maybe that was why George still thought about it even after half a century had passed.
We haven’t spoken in fifty-five years.
A lifetime, she thought. George and his brother had let a lifetime slip by. Last night, she’d suggested they call Charles Bellamy—he was listed in the local phone book. George had balked and looked tired. “When Ross comes,” he’d said.
Ross. The favored grandson. She hoped like hell the guy was on his way. For that matter, where was the rest of George’s family? According to George, his sons and daughters-in-law expected him to return to the city in a matter of days.
This morning, George had been out of sorts. He’d stayed close to the house, only venturing to the porch or dock to catch the sun’s early rays. There was no further talk of Charles Bellamy, and Claire didn’t bring it up. For the time being, George was in no shape to face the emotional turmoil of a reunion with his long-lost brother.
Her plan for the day was to let each hour unfold at a pace that seemed to suit her patient. In the resort’s eclectic library, she had read up on Camp Kioga, trying to fill in the blanks for herself. There was a multivolume scrapbook filled with photos of people and events connected to the resort. It had started out as a big agricultural parcel at the north end of the lake, deeded to the Gordon family to settle a debt. The camp itself had been founded by Angus Gordon in the 1920s. Kioga was, as far as anyone knew, a fake Mohawk word which Angus claimed meant tranquility.
The campground was later run by Angus’s son and then inherited by his granddaughter and her husband. The current owners’ names had leaped off the page at her: Jane and Charles Bellamy.
Exploring the woodland trails that wound through the area, Claire imagined the past here, and wondered if she would ever learn the reason for the brothers’ estrangement. A brother shared a person’s history and background the way no one else ever could. Yet something had torn George and Charles apart. Something had made George walk away and stay away for fifty-five years.
She was so lost in thought that she didn’t notice someone approaching from an oblique angle behind her. At the last second, she spied a shadow—large male, baseball cap, arm outstretched—and reacted instantly, with all the force and decisiveness she’d learned in her self-defense training. In a fluid movement she turned, right leg kicking out at groin level, the heel of her left hand crunching upward into the assailant’s face. In less than a second, he was down, doubled over, and she was running for her life, her every nerve lit by adrenaline, the pepper spray in hand.
Claire gauged that she was about five minutes from the spot where her bag was hidden, going at top speed. As for George Bellamy, he would have no idea what became of her.
She felt bad about that. She hoped he’d find his brother, and she hoped the Bellamy family wouldn’t drag the old guy back to the city and force him to submit to brutal treatment.
The concern wasn’t enough to stop her.
A shout from her assailant, however, definitely was. “Tancredi,” he said, his voice a rasp of pain.
The single word—a name almost never uttered—froze her. It brought back everything she had left behind, including the person she’d been before she’d disappeared.
She allowed herself a quick look back.
Her assailant was on all fours, struggling to rise. Good. On all fours, he wouldn’t be drawing a weapon.
The baseball cap had fallen off him, revealing a mane of salt-and-pepper hair.
Oh, God. Mel. It was Melvin Reno, the only person Claire trusted with her secrets.
She instantly switched direction and ran to him, dropping to her knees by his side. “Are you insane?” she asked. “You huge idiot, you shouldn’t have sneaked up on me. I could have done you permanent damage.”
“Maybe you did.” He glowered at her through tears of pain.
“Sit,” she said, noting the shocky gray cast to his face. “Pull up your knees at a forty-five-degree angle and put your head between them.”
With a groan, he complied.
“Breathe in through your nose,” she instructed. “Out through your mouth.”
“I think you broke my face.”
“Is your breathing okay?”
“Just peachy.”
“Then it’s probably not broken.”
“I guess that’s the advantage of being a nurse,” he said, his voice muffled. “You can kick a guy’s ass and then put it back together again.”
“I was doing exactly what I was trained to do. By you, I might add. Fight, run, ask questions later but don’t believe the answers, isn’t that what you always say?”
He nodded without raising his head.
“How bad is the pain?” she asked. “Subsiding any?”
“Depends,” he muttered. “What if I say no?”
“Then you might need to be checked out. An ultrasound can determine whether or not there’s a testicular fracture.”
“A fracture? A fracture?”
“If there is, you’ll need surgery. Mel, I’m so sorry.”
“In that case, the pain’s going away.”
She winced, watching him try to catch his breath. He was the one person who could connect the dots between the quiet, studious Clarissa Tancredi of the past and the present-day Claire Turner.
And she had just kicked him in the balls.
“Sorry about kicking you in the balls,” she said again.
“I’m not looking for sympathy,” he said. “If the target had been anyone but me, I would say I’m proud of you for knowing the moves.” He lifted his head and she studied his face—blunt features, kind eyes, a roughhewn handsomeness that had probably been more refined in his youth. It was a good face, approachable and trustworthy. There were few blessings in the life Claire had been given. But Mel Reno was one of them.
He slowly climbed to his feet and limped to the side of the trail at the water’s edge, taking a seat on the ground. “So anyway,” he said, “thanks for the warm welcome.”
“What were you thinking?” she said, annoyed. “What are you doing here? Is everything all right?”
“Give me a minute.” He looped his arms around his drawn-up knees.
She studied him, relieved to note his coloring and respiration already seemed to be easing back to normal.
He took a deep breath and relaxed a little. “I called you yesterday. Why didn’t you call me back?”
