Deceived - Laura S. Wharton Page 0,3

hand on his sagging shoulders. No words were needed now.

Sam left the building without purpose. His boat was a wreck, his car was impounded, and his best friend was dead. “What did Lee have that somebody wanted?” he pondered.

Before long, he found himself a block away from Jenny’s. He crossed over to the beach and slowly stepped through the soft sand closest to the diminishing dunes. Every time a storm ripped through here, the beach lost a little more ground to the ocean. Often, while Lee and Sam had enjoyed the view of tourists roasting like pecans on the beach just steps away from his screened porch, Lee had said that fragile ecosystems like these barrier islands seemed to be magnets for three things: hurricanes, developers, and nuts. “All the nuts roll downhill to the coast,” Lee had joked.

Sam happened to think he was right. As the sun peeked over the ocean’s dark gray edge, Sam saw a few tourists already lining the beach with their obnoxiously bright coolers, towels, and umbrellas. May was warming up fast. It wouldn’t be long before the road was bumper-to-bumper with traffic and the beach was filled with visitors who all wished they were locals. Little do they know, Sam thought.

Jenny was sitting on the porch, one leg slung over the arm of the wide wicker chair and the other planted on the floor. Sam waved as he approached her.

Jenny unenthusiastically waved back, then absentmindedly ran her fingers through her short curly blond hair. Coming closer, Sam noticed a thin line of rubber laying across her legs. On the floor was a pie cutter-like tool.

“Hey, Jen, just wanted to see how you were doing today,” Sam called through the door. “What are you doing?”

“Lee had a long list of honey-do’s around here, so I thought I might as well get to them this morning, seeing as how I need something to do to keep my mind off of…things.” She got up and unlatched the screen door to let him in. “The only problem is I don’t know how to do half of what’s on his list. Take this, for instance.” She pointed at the top of the door where a screen was partially blown out. “Am I supposed to pull the whole door off its hinges and take it apart, or can I fix it while it’s on there? That’s why these things were on his list, not mine.” She collapsed in the chair again and started sobbing, her eyes already puffy and red.

Sam focused on the door so as not to join in her distress. He gently took the rubber strip out of her clutch and began to repair the door while she cried. Once it was done, he pulled up a white plastic chair and sat down beside her.

“Jen, there are no words I can tell you right now that will make things better. Lee was a good man and a good friend. I miss him too.” Sam gently placed his hand on Jenny’s shoulder, and she put hers on top of his hand.

“Thanks, Sam. When Andy came last night, he said you couldn’t come by. But you and Lee were together. Do you know what happened?” She was hopeful.

“No, I really haven’t had a chance to look into things yet, but I promise you I will find out who did this, Jen.” He hesitated before continuing. “Jen, when I walked up to your condo last night, I thought I heard somebody in your den looking for something in the desk drawer. I couldn’t see who it was in the darkness. Had you asked Andy to get something for you?”

Jenny looked puzzled. “I…don’t think so. Andy was with me.”

Not wanting to alarm Jenny, Sam changed his tack. “I must have been seeing things.”

“Why did this happen, Sam?” Jenny asked pointedly, as if hearing the news of her husband’s death for the first time.

“That’s the thing. Lee and I weren’t working on anything major, so I thought maybe he had told you about something he had going on.”

Jenny shook her head and wiped at her eyes with the sleeve of her bright yellow T-shirt. “We had a policy around here about him not telling me how his day was. I really didn’t want to know anything more than when he was coming home.” Jenny looked down at her hands, then up at the fixed screen door. “We were talking about fixing this place up to see what we could get for it, so