Summer at Seaside Cove Read Online Free PDF Page A

door. At first the key didn’t want to cooperate, then neither did the door. Sweaty, frustrated, and pretty much ready to scream, Jamie threw all her weight against the wooden panel. It burst open and only by grabbing the rusty knob did she manage not to fall on her face.
    â€œ ’Cause busting my nose would have been the rotten cherry on this moldy piece of pie,” she muttered. She picked her way around a washer and dryer of dubious workability, then over a pile of faded plastic beach pails and deflated inner tubes to reach the circuit breaker panel. The rusted metal door—was everything rusty around here?—squeaked in protest when she opened it. She leaned closer and saw that all the light switches as well as those for the stove and fridge had been tripped. Obviously last night’s storm, rather than an unpaid electric bill, was the culprit. She flipped them all to the on position, then closed the panel.
    After locking the storage room door, she hiked up the stairs again. “All these damn stairs better result in buns of titanium,” she grumbled. She entered the kitchen, nearly gagging at the strong stink, and hit the light switch. The ancient fluorescent fixture in the ceiling hummed, sputtered, and blinked for several seconds, then flooded the room with harsh light that didn’t do it any favors.
    â€œWhoa, you are a lady best seen only in the dark,” she murmured, running a fingertip over the worn countertop. She halted when she came to the sink, which, the light now revealed, held the source of the horrible stink.
    A mesh bag filled with clams.
    Very dead clams.
    Jamie closed her eyes. “My life sucks.”
    A low growl of thunder sounded, making it official. Her life sucked and even the heavens agreed.
    Doing her best to breathe through her mouth, she quickly searched the kitchen cabinets. The first one, in addition to assorted pots and pans, yielded three rusty cans of pork and beans that no doubt carried botulism. “Good to have on hand in case I feel the need to off myself,” she muttered. Or someone else. Like Nick Trent.
    She continued searching, finding cutlery, glasses, dishes, a roll of paper towels that had clearly gotten wet at one point, a yellowed roll of masking tape, three candles and a box of matches—that only contained two matches—a map of North Carolina dated 1962 (probably the same year those pork and beans came into the house), a phone book from 1978, three sand-encrusted pennies, and in the last cabinet, a stash of plastic grocery bags bearing the face of a smiling pig and the words Piggly Wiggly.
    â€œAt last something is going right,” she said, pulling out a handful of bags. She tripled up three bags, shoved her hand inside, then used her free hand and her teeth to tie the handles at her wrist to fashion a makeshift glove. Grabbing a few more bags in which to put the clams and she moved to the sink and grabbed the mesh bag.
    Oh. Dear. God.
    Lifting the dripping bag released a whole new level of stench. Holding her breath, Jamie placed the mess inside several Piggly Wiggly bags and quickly turned on the faucet to rinse the sink. With her lungs starting to protest, she clutched the stinking bag of clams and hotfooted it across the kitchen, out the door, and down the stairs. She looked frantically about for the trash bin and nearly wept with relief when she found it on the far side of the house. She lifted the top, tossed in the offending bag and her makeshift glove, slammed down the lid, then sucked in a massive breath.
    â€œDone,” she gasped.
    Now it was time to see to Cupcake, which meant fashioning a temporary litter box. Which meant a quick trip to the beach for sand. After grabbing two of the beach pails from the storage room, she headed down the block and across the street, toward the narrow pathway marked by a sign that read Beach Access.
    The sandy path led between two oceanfront homes, one named Starfish, the other