Page 69 of The Magic We Made

“Oh, right.” I step halfway outside to join them on the porch because Frankie is now rushing around, exclaiming about me holding the door open because “the cat might get out.”

“That cat’s not interested in getting out,” I look over my shoulder to tell her. “She’d have to abandon her children, and she doesn’t seem like a deadbeat mom to me.”

“Still.” Frankie joins me on the porch, closing the front door behind her. “What are you doing here, boys? Does your grandmother know where you are?”

The boys exchange amused looks. I think the looks are more due to my outfit than Frankie’s question. The temperature has fallen enough since yesterday that it’s gotten pretty cold outside—at least, cold to a guy wearing nothing but an apron over boxer briefs.

“Yeah, Gran knows,” Sammy says. “Why are you dressed like that, Mr. Merit?”

“I told you to call me Ash.” I’m already beginning to freeze my ass off. “How did you know I was here?”

“Oh,” Eddie says. “We saw you go in last night.”

“And we never saw you come out,” adds Robby.

“Gran says she’s not surprised,” Sammy announces, and I have the pleasure of seeing Frankie blush to her hairline as he goes on, “She says Dr. Giovanni deserves to have a little fun after everything she’s been through this year.”

“Oh, sweet Jesus.” Frankie has opened the front door to go back inside, but not before whispering to me, “Thanks. I have to move now.”

Her embarrassment is so adorable that I want her to stick around so I can enjoy it some more. But I have work to do.

“I’ll take care of it,” I assure her. As soon as she closes the door behind her, leaving me alone on the porch with the boys, I say to them, “Okay, number one, you need to tell your grandma that you spoke to me, and I said I was only at Dr. Giovanni’s last night to fix her fuse box. But then I went home. This morning—way before you guys woke up—I came back over because I forgot something.”

“Your pants?” Eddie scoffs. No one is pulling the wool over this sophisticated ten-year-old’s eyes.

“I’m serious.” I give the boys my sternest look. “If you guys ever want to have a girlfriend, it’s important to learn that you have to respect women. Treat them nicely, and they’ll treat you the same way.”

“Dr. Giovanni is yourgirlfriend?” Sammy’s eyes are huge.

“I want her to be,” I tell them. “So don’t screw it up for me. Tell your grandma what I said. Now... where’s the boat?”

They show me. I have to go inside and put on real clothes first, because the boat is down by their own dock, and I don’t want to give Mrs. DeLong any more hot gossip—or embarrass Frankie further—by parading around her neighborhood in the spaghetti apron.

“See this?” Eddie says, pointing with a stick at the name painted on the side of the boat—The Kraken. He and his brothers had found it, he’d explained, floating free while they were out fishing earlier that morning, then seized it and tied it to their grandparents’ dock so they could show it to me.

“Yeah, I see it.”

The Krakenis a runabout, only ten feet long. Its small single engine is missing, either from being stolen—unlikely—or from having fallen off and sunk to the bottom of the lake—likely, giventhe age and dilapidated state of the rest of the boat. I check it thoroughly for clues but find nothing.

Which in itself is a clue. No one leaves nothing on their boat—unless they’ve got something to hide.

“You sure this is the boat you saw at my dock yesterday?” I ask the boys when I’m done with my inspection.

“Yeah.” Eddie pokes the boat some more with his stick. “This is the Blancos’ boat.”

“The Blancos?”

“Yeah. They used to live in your house before they moved. Somebody stole this boat from them.”

“Yeah.” Robby’s cheeks are very pink from the cold. “The Blancos didn’t report it to the police or anything because they said it wasn’t worth it. Also, they were moving and didn’t want it anymore anyway. Gran thought maybe it just floated away.”

Sammy shakes his head firmly. “It was stolen! I heard it start up the night it disappeared—”

“You couldn’t remember that,” Eddie scoffs. “It was last year. You were only four.”

“I remember stuff from when I was four,” his brother rages back. “Plenty of stuff! Like the time you steered Gran’s kayak into the—”

“Okay, that’s enough of that.”