Homecoming

A Downeast Novel

“Where thou art, that is home.”

—Emily Dickinson

 

Chapter 1

They rode home from the wedding in stunned silence. After a gorgeous day celebrating their dear friends Victoria and Shannon, Kara Torrington had received a phone call from her mother.

You and Dan need to come home. Your brothers have been charged with murder.

Her parents weren’t interested in getting her home to Maine as much as they were in her husband, a successful criminal defense attorney who specialized in getting wrongly accused people exonerated.

Kara wasn’t sure if her brothers fell into that category. Some of them had been raising hell from the minute they were born, and she wasn’t at all surprised to hear serious trouble had found them, although she was shocked to hear that Kirby was one of the two who’d been charged.

Keith? That wasn’t as much of a surprise, but Kirby… He’d never been in any kind of trouble. She was fairly confident Keith would turn out to be responsible for whatever circumstances had landed them both in jail, accused of the worst possible crime. Not that she thought Keith was capable of murder. At least she hoped he couldn’t have done something like that.

Kara had seven brothers and three sisters but wasn’t particularly close to most of them. Not anymore. However, she talked to Kirby regularly and was truly shocked to hear he’d been arrested for anything, let alone murder.

Relocating to Gansett Island to run a division of the family business several summers ago had been the smartest move Kara could’ve made for herself. It had gotten her out of the hornet’s nest of family drama, away from her sister Kelly, who’d casually stolen Kara’s boyfriend—and then married him—and Gansett had brought Dan Torrington into her life. He was, without a doubt, the best thing to ever happen to her. And she never would’ve met him if Kelly—and Matt—hadn’t stabbed her in the back.

While things had worked out well for Kara on Gansett, where she’d made the kind of friends that made a life complete, the thought of going home to Maine and being surrounded by the unruly Ballard family was the last thing in the world she wanted to do, especially when she was seven months pregnant.

She placed a hand on her rounded belly and gasped when the baby gave a hard kick.

“Is Bruiser playing soccer again?” Dan asked as he parked the Porsche he’d inherited from his late brother, Dylan, in the driveway.

“He’s playing something.”

He reached over to put his hand on top of hers. “Does it hurt?”

“No, it’s just weird to have someone moving around in there.”

“Wait for me.” He got out of the low-slung car, came around to the passenger side and offered her a hand out.

Without his help, she wasn’t sure she would’ve been able to get out on her own. The pregnancy had left her feeling ungainly and off-balance.

Inside, she went straight to the bedroom and retrieved suitcases from the back of the closet.

Dan came up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders. “Babe.”

“What?”

“Look at me.”

She turned to face him.

“We don’t have to do this.”

“What do you mean?”

“We’re under no obligation to go there or to deal with any of this. You’re in the third trimester. We have a perfectly good reason to tell them we can’t make it.”

Kara stopped to consider that. She was sorely tempted to use her pregnancy as an excuse to stay put on Gansett Island. She’d worked so hard to build a life for herself separate from her family, even if she still worked for the family business.

Everything was better from a distance.

She might’ve stayed away if her Kirby hadn’t been charged. He had to be freaking out, and there was nothing she wouldn’t do for him.

“I can’t let Kirby get swallowed up in whatever Keith has done. We have to go for him. He was my best friend growing up.” When tears threatened, she did her best to contain the emotional overload, which was harder than usual thanks to the pregnancy.

Dan put his hand on her face and caressed her cheek with his thumb. “Then that’s what we’ll do, but please know that I’ll throw myself in front of anything or anyone who tries to hurt you, and I won’t be nice about it.”

She smiled. “It’ll be amazing to have someone sticking up for me for once.”

“Baby, I will always stick up for you.”

“Are we still talking about my family?”

Grinning, he leaned in to kiss her. “Of course we are. Where has your dirty mind gone?”

“Right.” She rolled her eyes. “My dirty mind. You’re the one who’s made me this way.”

“That’s a slanderous accusation.”

“It’s not an accusation—or slander—if it’s the truth. My lawyer husband taught me that.”

Dan laughed. “Touché.”

The friendly bickering with him helped to keep her mind off where they were going and why as they finished packing.

Kara received a text from her grandmother, Bertha. Heard you’ve been summoned.

You heard correctly.

Are you okay?

Never better.

You don’t have to do this.

I wouldn’t if Kirby wasn’t involved.

I figured you’d say that. Text me your ETA. I’ll pick you up.

I hate the reason for this, but I’m THRILLED I get to see you today.

Likewise, my love. Safe travels.

She cleaned of anything that would spoil in their absence out of the fridge and put a few things in the freezer. Stephanie McCarthy would water Kara’s plants since she and her husband, Grant, who was Dan’s best friend, had keys to their house.

While Dan walked the garbage out to the curb and took their bags to the car, Kara looked around at the cozy little cottage they called home, wondering how long it would be until they returned.

Soon. They’d be back soon because this was their home. It was where they belonged.

She was giving her screwed-up family a week, two at the most, and then she and Dan were coming home to Gansett.

 

Their pilot pal, Slim Jackson, had warned them that the climb out of Gansett Island and the flight itself would be bumpy since the atmosphere was still churned up from the recent hurricane.

Kara held Dan’s hand as tightly as she could without hurting him. She hated flying on a good day, and this was most definitely not a good day.

Erin, Slim’s wife and Kara’s friend, looked back at Kara from the copilot seat. “Are you okay?”

“I’ll be better when we land,” Kara said with a grimace. Pregnancy had made her nauseated for months, and the bumpy air wasn’t helping.

“Nothing to be afraid of,” Slim said. “Think of it as potholes on a rough road.”

Kara appreciated his attempt to defuse her anxiety, but the only thing that would relax her would be a safe landing in Maine, where a whole new reason for anxiety would present itself. This would be the first time back to Maine since leaving. Since she’d moved to Gansett to start the company’s launch business in the island’s Great Salt Pond, she’d found the peace and harmony that’d been sadly lacking in her life while growing up as one of eleven Ballard siblings.

The thought of going back to Maine for any reason made her sick. That her family was counting on her husband to fix a terrible situation for them only made everything worse.

Before her mother had called them home, had she given any thought whatsoever to how they’d stood by Kelly after she made off with the man Kara had planned to marry? Were they recalling the big fancy wedding they’d thrown for Kelly and Matt after their treachery? Kara would bet her life they never thought about any of that, especially at a time like this when the family name and everything it stood for faced the greatest threat yet.

The mighty Ballard Boat Works Company that employed a thousand locals and accounted for a huge chunk of the Downeast economy would take a huge hit if the Ballards’ sons were convicted of murder. The charge alone might be enough to ruin three generations of hard work and sacrifice in building a successful, well-regarded business.

Her dad used to tell them that it only took one fuckup to ruin everything for all of them. He must’ve been having a complete meltdown with two sons charged with murder. Not that Kara believed for a second that Kirby had anything to do with such a thing. She wished she could be so certain about Keith, but she barely knew him, and what she did know of him wasn’t good.

Kara tried to tell herself she didn’t care what became of the business or her family, but she did. And she was angry with herself for caring after everything they’d put her through.

“Hey,” Dan said, drawing her out of her thoughts. “Are you okay?”

“Sure,” she said with an edge of sarcasm. “I’m on the roughest flight of my life on the way to the last place on earth I want to go so my hideous family can shamelessly use my wonderful husband to defend my brothers, one of whom could be guilty, for all I know. Sure, everything is just dandy.”

“It’s going to be okay, honey. I’ll be right there with you, and as soon as we get this dealt with, we’ll come right back to the island where we belong. I’ve already got my best people in LA working on getting as much info as they can about the charges, so try not to worry.”

“It’s hard not to worry. I don’t want to be there, as you know.”

“I get it, love.”

“They’re using you.”

“You think I don’t know that? The minute my name is attached to the defense, this case becomes a whole new ballgame for the prosecution.”

“That’s what they want, and I despise that.”

“It’s fine. I’ll do what I can for them and be on my way.”

“Nothing is ever that simple with my family.”

They’d been scheduled to go to Maine a couple of years ago, after Kara stored the launches for the winter, and they’d almost made it when she’d changed her mind about taking the best thing in her life to the worst place. She hadn’t wanted the Ballard stain to touch her relationship with Dan and had managed to keep contact with her family to a minimum since they’d been together. They’d canceled that trip at the last minute, so this would be the first time Dan had ever been to Maine.

Some of her family had come for the wedding. Three of her brothers had ended up in jail the night before after a bar fight. Dan thought she hadn’t heard about how he’d gotten them out on the morning of the wedding and threatened them with grave consequences if they did anything to ruin her big day. Kara’s friend Tiffany Taylor, wife of Gansett Police Chief Blaine Taylor, had told Kara about the trouble her brothers had gotten into and how Dan had taken care of it.

That’s what he did. He took care of things. He took care of her, and he’d do that in Maine, too. She was certain of it, but if he was off dealing with the mess her brothers had made, he couldn’t be with her every minute of every day while they were there, which would leave her on her own to fend them off.

The thought of dealing with her family took her right back to the years of growing up in the midst of mayhem—and not the good kind.

Kara had seen how other families functioned, especially since she’d arrived to live and work on Gansett. She’d become close to the McCarthys, a family of six siblings and numerous cousins who were the best of friends. Her family wasn’t like that. Sometimes she wondered if they’d sooner stab each other in the back than share confidences.

She blamed the family business for most of the strain.

For as long as she could remember, several of her siblings had been competing to be the one to take over for their father when he retired. Kara couldn’t imagine wanting anything badly enough to fight with her own family members over it. The only thing she’d ever wanted that much was Dan, and she’d always fight for him and their relationship. Nothing else had ever meant as much to her as he did, and she was determined to keep him and their marriage as her top priority in Maine.

The business had come between multiple generations of her father’s family. She had an uncle she barely knew thanks to the rift that’d led her parents to buy out her father’s brother at tremendous financial pain. Once his brother was out of the picture, her father had made a huge success of the business, but at what cost? He was estranged from his brother, and now his own kids were going to end up fighting over the business.

In addition to her sister’s treachery, part of the reason she’d wanted to leave Maine in the first place was because she couldn’t bear to be part of the discourse on what would become of the business after their father retired or died. Even though she’d worked for the company for years, Kara wanted nothing to do with any of that, and it’d been a relief to get away from the constant drama.

The very thought of dealing with that again made her feel sicker than pregnancy and a rough flight put together. In the years she’d spent living on Gansett, she’d found a peaceful, happy life that was in stark contrast to what she’d experienced in Maine. She would protect that hard-won peace, no matter what.

Her phone chimed with a text from her cousin Renata Ballard, who was six months older than Kara and had been among her closest friends growing up, even after their fathers had fallen out.

Heard you and Dan have been called home to deal with the brothers. I’m sorry. Can only imagine how you must be feeling.

Renata and Dan had met many times over the years via FaceTime, becoming friends one call at a time.

I’m pissed to be summoned, pissed to be on the bumpiest flight ever. Generally pissed.

Don’t blame you. You guys can stay with me if you need a place to crash.

That’s so sweet of you, but I’m pretty sure Bertha would be crushed if we didn’t stay with her.

Of course she would. No problem at all. Let me know that you’re all set tho. I’m excited for some time with you and to meet your hubby in person.

Thank you for giving me a reason to look forward to this trip from hell.

There’re lots of people here who love you and will be there to support you through this.

I appreciate that. I’m so worried about Kirby. There’s no way he had anything to do with this.

I’ve been thinking the same thing.

Do you know what happened?

One of the summer residents was found dead, and Keith/Kirby were the last two people seen with her. That’s all I know so far. She was 21.

OMG.

Kara went cold all over as the news settled on her along with the realization that the scandal would have all of Hancock County talking about the Ballard family and the sons who might’ve killed a young woman.

“Renata said the victim is a twenty-one-year-old summer resident.”

“I know. I read the local news report.”

Of course he was already working the case, knowing how badly she’d want to get back to Gansett as quickly as possible.

“I’ll cover all the bases, babe. Don’t worry.”

“Are you licensed to work in Maine?”

He nodded. “We were preparing to take a case in Maine about five years ago, so I got licensed there. Unfortunately, the defendant died of cancer before his case could be heard, so this’ll be my first case in Maine. I’ve worked in thirty other states over the years. I got licensed in Rhode Island when Grant asked me to help with Charlie’s case.”

That was the case that brought him to Gansett originally. Charlie was Stephanie’s stepfather, and Dan helped to get him released after fourteen years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit.

“Hearing the victim in the Bar Harbor case was a summer resident makes me more anxious than I already was. The summer people tend to be wealthy and keep to themselves. They usually don’t mix and mingle with the locals. Often, they’re long gone by this part of September, back to their real lives in New York or Connecticut or wherever they came from.”

“That’s good to know.”

Kara’s mind raced with scenarios that would’ve put thirty-seven-year-old Keith and thirty-one-year-old Kirby in the path of the twenty-one-year-old woman who’d been murdered.

A sense of dread overtook her as she braced herself for landing and to deal with the storm that awaited her on the ground.