At the River’s Edge Read online

  At the River’s Edge is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  A Ballantine Books eBook Edition

  Copyright © 2014 by Marti Robb

  Excerpt from On Sunset Beach by Mariah Stewart copyright © 2014 by Marti Robb

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of Random House, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.

  BALLANTINE and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.

  This book contains an excerpt from the forthcoming book On Sunset Beach by Mariah Stewart. This excerpt has been set for this edition only and may not reflect the final content of the forthcoming edition.

  ISBN 978-0-345-53842-0

  eBook ISBN 978-0-345-54559-6

  Cover design: Scott Biel

  Cover image: Britt Erlanson/Cultura/Getty Images

  www.ballantinebooks.com

  Ballantine Books mass market edition: February 2014

  v3.1

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Recipes

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Other Books by This Author

  Excerpt from On Sunset Beach

  Diary ~

  I keep thinking about that expression, “bucket list.” It seems that, these days, everyone has one—present company excluded. My, the things people want to do before they die … well, let’s just say, to each his own.

  Now, I have to admit that I’ve never really thought about it—my life is full and I’ve done pretty much everything I’ve wanted to do. I married my soul mate, had three terrific kids, and raised them in this wonderful town surrounded by love and family and friends in abundance. I have my work—my newspaper, passed down through several generations and entrusted to my care. I’ve been to Paris and Rome, and Dan and I celebrated our twentieth anniversary in Egypt, before travel there became so dicey. I’ve seen pretty much what I wanted to see and done most of what I wanted to do. So no bungee jumping from the Eiffel Tower or scuba diving with sharks for me, thank you. Someone in my circle of friends actually has those two on her list—not for me to say who, of course, but it’s got me wondering if that person wishes to meet her maker sooner rather than later. If she passes anytime soon, you can be sure I’ll be asking those who have already passed if Bungee Jumper a/k/a Swims with Sharks arrived banged and bruised or missing a limb or two.

  That Ouija board does come in handy at times.

  It would be nice if the weather this year would make up its mind—winter or spring? Cold enough to freeze your Winnebago one day, melting all over the place the next. At the risk of sounding like an old fogey (someone called me that just the other day. Cheeky little bugger!), I miss the old days when winter meant three months of cold weather that gradually gave way to spring. This warm-cold-warm-cold nonsense has the trees and the spring bulbs not knowing if they’re coming or going. Clay—that would be my son-in-law—said last week he’s covering his peach trees at night because he’s afraid the buds will pop too soon and he’ll end up losing his entire crop to a freeze. Some say it’s global warming; others insist it’s just nature following an age-old pattern. Either way, it’s annoying the devil out of me. Now, I’m not one to wish away my life, but I could happily skip right through February and March and get right to April.

  And of course, this year spring will bring a wedding many of us have been looking forward to. Jesse Enright and Brooke Bowers are tying the knot in April. Poor Brooke was widowed far too young—these recent wars have been devastating to our young generation. For her to have found love again—and with such a wonderful young man—well, I couldn’t be happier for them. Our invitation arrived yesterday and I was delighted to be included in their big day. Of course, I will cover the wedding for the newspaper. Some think it’s old-fashioned, but the St. Dennis Gazette has been covering weddings in this town for over one hundred years, and I’m going to keep that tradition alive for as long as I own the paper. Which will be until I leave this world, because I’ll never sell it. I was hoping that one of my children would take it over someday, but I’m not holding my breath. Daniel is perfectly happy running the inn, and Lucy’s event planning business is going great guns. Yes, of course, there’s always Ford, but I can’t see my youngest settling down to run a small-town newspaper. I’ll even go out on a limb here and predict that, after years spent living in all manner of places as a UN Peacekeeper, chances are that running the St. Dennis Gazette is not on Ford’s bucket list.

  ~ Grace ~

  Chapter 1

  SOPHIE Enright stared at the two flat tires on the driver’s side of her car and wondered if she’d ever had a worse day in all her thirty-two years.

  It started when both the victim and the star witnesses for the assault case she was prosecuting failed to appear in court and were nowhere to be found. The judge had given her until four o’clock to produce them, and when she couldn’t, he dismissed the case.

  It was never a good day when that happened.

  She opened the trunk of her car and peered inside. One spare, two flats. She slammed the lid, got into the car, called her boyfriend, Christopher, and listened while the phone rang, then went to voice mail.

  “I’m on the fourth level of the parking garage with not one, but two flat tires. My case went into the tank after my victim and my witnesses failed to show and I was forced to endure a blistering tirade from Judge Palmer. I’m parked in my usual spot. Bring food.”

  She disconnected the call, then dialed for roadside assistance.

  “I’ll need your guy to bring a spare,” she said after being told that they had someone on the road in her area.

  “Not a problem,” the dispatcher assured her. “Hang tight right there and we’ll have you fixed up in no time.”

  Sophie sighed and searched her bag for the paperback novel she’d started over the weekend, grateful that she had enough gas in the tank to keep the heater running. She opened one window for a little fresh air, then settled back into her heated seat to read. After twenty minutes, she tried Christopher again. Still no answer. Thirty more minutes passed, and she called the dispatcher once more.

  “He’s on his way,” she was promised. “He’ll be there any minute.”

  “Any minute” turned out to be fifteen, but once help arrived, both spares—hers and the one the driver brought with him—were changed and she was free to go.

  She glanced at her watch: seven twenty. Cursing softly under her breath, Sophie turned the key in the ignition and started out of the parking lot. She drove down to the second level, which was now empty except for a black BMW sedan off by itself on the far side of the garage.

  A black BMW sedan that looked uncannily like Christopher’s.

  She drove slowly around one concrete post, then another, and stopped
in front of the car. How many black BMW sedans—complete with a UPenn sticker on the right rear bumper—could there be in the courthouse lot at this hour?

  Sophie figured that Christopher—also an assistant district attorney—must be working late. She started to dial his number once again, then decided to surprise him in the office. She parked next to him and got out, slammed her car door, and had taken three steps in the direction of the stairwell when she heard voices coming from the BMW. Without thinking, she walked around the car and looked into the backseat.

  “Oh, crap.” Christopher’s voice.

  “What?” a woman asked. “What is it? Chris, where are you going?”

  The back passenger-side door opened and Christopher—her Christopher—emerged, his shirt unbuttoned, one hand zipping his pants and the other slamming the door to keep whoever was inside, inside.

  “Sophie, I … I can explain …,” he stammered.

  “No, actually, you can’t.” Sophie’s stomach knotted and her mind went blank. She took several steps back, then got into her car and poked the key into the ignition with shaking hands.

  “Sophie, wait … wait …” Christopher’s voice trailed behind her as she pulled away.

  “You asshole!” Tears rolling down her face, she yelled as loudly as she could, even though he couldn’t have heard. “You are a total and complete asshole.”

  She slammed a hand on her steering wheel for emphasis. Her phone began to ring and she knew who it was without looking at the caller ID.

  “I’m only answering because I want you to know what a dickweed I think you are.”

  He sighed heavily as if exasperated. “Dickwad.”

  “What?”

  “I think the word you want is dickwad.”

  Funny, but that professorial tone that she used to think made him sound intellectual suddenly seemed obnoxious.

  “Whatever,” she snapped.

  “Sophie—”

  “Can it. We are so done.”

  She hung up.

  She blew the red light at the corner and felt a momentary touch of relief when she realized there were no cars coming from the opposite direction and no police officers to flag her down. Since starting at the DA’s office seven years ago, she’d been careful not to do anything that might cause her embarrassment when she had to face the cops in court. Getting stopped for running a red light would be one of those things … especially at that moment when she knew her mascara was running and her face was a blotchy mess from crying. Hardly the professional image she’d worked so hard to create.

  The street in front of her condo was slick with the cold rain that had been falling since early afternoon, and she was lucky to find a parking spot close to her door. She hopped out and dodged puddles. Water splashed up on her legs and her skirt anyway, but she barely noticed.

  The red message light was flashing on her phone, but she ignored it. She dropped her briefcase near the door and kicked her shoes halfway across the room. Then she went straight into the bathroom, turned on the shower, peeled off her clothes, and tossed them back into her bedroom, where they landed on the floor.

  “Bastard!” She stepped into the steam and cursed softly under her breath as the hot water stung her back, stood under the steady stream until her skin began to pucker.

  Reluctantly, she got out, dried off, and pulled on her oldest sweats—gray fleece washed so thin the fabric was almost see-through in places—and an oversized navy tee. She went into the spare bedroom, where she stored things she either had no immediate use for or didn’t have time to deal with, and found a large box that had delivered a down comforter back in November. She’d been filling the box with clothes she planned on taking to a thrift shop, clothes which she now dumped unceremoniously onto the floor.

  She dragged the box into her bedroom and tossed in all of Christopher’s belongings that he’d left at her place. She opened her closet and tossed in his robe along with a few extra shirts, then added clothes from the dresser drawer she’d been happy to empty to make room for his jeans, underwear, and a few sweaters. She spied a book that rested on the table next to his side of the bed—a political thriller—and tossed it in. It landed spine out, the pages splayed atop his jeans. She hesitated, fighting the urge to smooth the creases and close the book, but she resisted after reminding herself that she’d been the one to recommend it to him.

  She was tempted to remove a few key pages so he’d never know who the bad guy was and how he’d set up the hero, but even her wrath wouldn’t permit her to deface a book.

  “You’re lucky I have a conscience,” she muttered.

  She tossed in a pair of sneakers she found under the bed, then returned to the bathroom for his toothbrush, shaving stuff, and the body wash he preferred over hers. Her apartment stripped of everything that was his, she pushed the box into the back hall, then dragged it down one flight of steps. She opened the back door and shoved the box out, positioning it so that it sat directly in front of the trash cans.

  Sophie trotted back up the steps, phone in hand, texting as she climbed:

  Your stuff is in a box behind my building. The trash men come at nine.

  She hit send just as she arrived at her door.

  She’d hoped that the purging of her apartment would make her feel a little better, but she still had that huge lump in her throat and that gnawing pain in the pit of her stomach. She considered calling a friend, thinking that maybe some sympathy would make her feel better, but she stopped midway through dialing the number. She couldn’t face the actual telling of what happened, couldn’t bring herself to speak the words. It hurt too damned bad.

  I caught Chris with someone …

  She frowned. She’d been so focused on him that she’d ignored his partner. Now she found herself wondering who that someone might have been. Was it someone she knew?

  She tried to recall the voice she’d heard coming from the backseat—had it been familiar?—but in her shock, she hadn’t paid close enough attention. Though she gave it her best effort, she couldn’t make the voice play back in her head.

  The phone rang again, and Christopher’s voice filled the apartment for the fourth time. This time she sat and listened. This was the man who only two nights ago had declared his undying love for her. The man she thought she was in love with. The man she might even have built a life with.

  She listened to his words of apology—at one point she even thought he might be shedding a few tears—and his sworn oath that “she” meant nothing to him. That it hadn’t been planned, that it had just happened.

  “The way your car ‘just happened’ to be parked in the darkest, most remote part of the garage?”

  She rolled her eyes in disgust and left the room before he finished his message. She had reports to write explaining that day’s debacle in the courtroom. Her heart might be burning and her insides in an uproar, but there was still work to be done.

  It had been a long, rough night, and the morning found Sophie feeling almost as angry and hurt as she had the night before. She awoke with a massive headache, killer circles under her eyes, and a grumbling stomach. She scrambled an egg and forced herself to eat it, then popped a few Advils.

  “This is no day to spare the concealer,” she murmured as she applied her makeup in front of the bathroom mirror.

  She put on a red cashmere sweater under her gray suit, and while ordinarily red heels would have been frowned upon in her ultraconservative office, today she felt they were a necessity. She brushed her black hair from her forehead and popped gold discs into her ears. She might feel like crap, but she was determined to look like a million dollars.

  There was something about looking good that always made her feel better. And she did. Right up until the minute that she walked into the conference room for an early morning meeting and saw the smirk on the face of one of her co-workers.

  The smirk was like a shot to Sophie’s gut.

  Anita Hayes. I should have known.

  Sophie glanced aw
ay as if she hadn’t noticed, and she kept her gaze on the memo she’d been handed even when Christopher entered the room and Anita moved over to give him a place to stand next to her. Sophie continued to act the professional, listening attentively though an ocean’s roar of pain filled her head and she could feel Chris’s eyes on her the entire time. Finally—mercifully—the meeting ended, and though she wanted nothing more than to bolt from the room, she walked leisurely to her office and closed the door, pretending not to notice the looks of sympathy from several others as she passed. But once the door was closed behind her, Sophie leaned back against it, squeezed her eyes tightly shut, and wished that the roof would fall on her head.

  It took less than two minutes for her desk phone to buzz. She debated the possibility of ignoring it, but it could have been someone important. Like her boss.

  “Soph, it’s Gwen.” Sophie’s best friend in the office apparently hadn’t been blind to what was going on. “What the hell?”

  “I’ll tell you at lunch.”

  “It’s my day in district court,” Gwen reminded her. “I won’t be here. Tell me now.”

  “Christopher and Anita were …” Sophie sighed. “I caught them together in the backseat of his car. In the parking garage.”

  “In the parking garage? Chris and Anita Hayes?” Gwen all but gasped. “Is he nuts? She’s the office skank.”

  “Apparently he didn’t get that memo.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to pretend I don’t know either one of them. What else can I do?”

  “You’ve got more balls than I do. If George did that to me, I’d be off and running for some nice quiet corner where I could nurse my broken heart and suck my thumb in peace. Right after I sent him screaming into the night with a fork in his eye.”

  “Running away doesn’t solve anything, and while I do love the image of Chris with something sharp painfully protruding from his face, I’ve prosecuted enough domestic violence cases to know I don’t want to go where they send you.”