High Noon in Sandbridge

Chapter 1-2

The phone was ringing as Scooter climbed up the stairs to their home above the restaurant. He tripped on the last step; ever since they’d had to replace the staircase and most of the second level balcony, the stair was just a little steeper than his legs expected on autopilot.

He cussed, scrambled to his feet, and got into the house, but the phone disconnected with a sharp click as he picked it up.

“Hmph,” he said. It probably wasn’t anything important. He only maintained a landline at all because of the restaurant—the combination meant they were on a cheaper phone plan than if they disconnected the house line. No one ever called on the residential line; both he and Andy had cellphones that they used for personal stuff. The only calls Scooter got to the landline tended to be cold sales calls, political robocalls and wrong numbers.

Still, it was late for any of those. He frowned down at the phone. He picked up the handset—the answering machine had broken years ago and he’d never bothered to replace it—and checked the callback number: 678-555-7100.

“Andy?” Scooter called out. His husband had been just locking up downstairs and was probably on his way up. “Babe, do you know what Mace’s work number is?” Because Andy always knew; it was freaky the way you could give him a set of numbers and he’d remember it months later.

“Uh…” Andy’s voice was distant, getting louder as he climbed the stairs. “It’s 678-555-7102, for the nurse’s station.” He came in and shut the door. “Why?”

“I think she called,” Scooter said. He was still staring down at the handset. It was weird that she would have called the house phone from work; Mace had his cellphone number, and usually called from hers, when she called. Well, maybe she’d broken her phone, in which case she might be calling him to attempt to convince Andy and him to replace it. Again. She was pretty notorious for it; phone calls from Mace ended up with the inevitable question—

“What’s she want us to buy her this time?”

Yeah. That.

“I dunno, she hung up before I got here,” Scooter said. Well, if she had lost her phone, the house number would be the one she’d remember; it hadn’t changed in at least thirty years; maybe longer. He was just pondering whether to call her back or let her stew until morning—it had already been a long damn day—when the phone rang in his hand.

He cursed, startled, and then stabbed at the answer button. “Hello?”

“May I speak to Mr. Winston Stahl, please?” The voice was a woman’s, cultured and silk-smooth, and no one he’d ever heard before. If Mace’d given his name and number to some hospital charity fundraiser, he’d…be pissed, but realistically, he probably wouldn’t do anything. He was too tired to think of something sufficiently nasty at the moment.

“This is he,” Scooter said, more or less on autopilot.

“Hello, Mr. Stahl,” the woman said, staying formal. “This is Doctor Ellen Huang. I…have some distressing news for you, sir, regarding your daughter.”

“Excuse me?” Scooter wiggled a finger in his ear and then put the phone back to it. “I don’t have a daughter—”

“This is Mr. Winston Stahl, 100 Sandfiddler Road?”

“That’s me, but—”

“And Mary-Alice Stahl is your daughter?”

“My sister,” Scooter corrected. “Our Dad’s been dead about four years now. I got th’ same name.”

“Mr. Stahl,” Huang continued, “I’m afraid I have some bad news for you. I would have waited until the sheriff’s department contacted you, but since you live in Virginia…”

“Yeah,” Scooter said. Everyone knew about Georgia and Virginia police; Scooter personally knew of several deadbeat dads who’d relocated to Georgia because of the difficulty in legal conversation between the states. He stepped back a few paces and almost fell in one of the kitchen chairs.

Andy c****d his head, watching Scooter carefully, a small line of worry forming between his brows. He came over to stand in front of Scooter, leaning against the table and picking up Scooter’s free hand.

“Your sister was involved in a violent episode that took place in our emergency room this evening,” Huang said. “A narcotics addict had self-injured, and while under our care, acquired a pair of medical scissors. When Ms. Stahl went to check his blood pressure, he stabbed her in the throat—”

“Oh, God, is she all right?”

“We had the entire trauma team working on her—she was one of our own—but I’m afraid we could not stop the bleeding in time. She died from a combination of blood loss and asphyxiation. I’m—”

The phone dropped out of his fingers. “What? What?”

Andy caught the phone just before it hit the floor and lifted it. “Hello? I’m Mr. Stahl’s husband, who—” His lips thinned and his eyes widened. “Oh, God. What—Yes. No, but—Okay. I understand. Hang on.” He brushed his knuckles lightly down Scooter’s face. “Honey?”

“No,” Scooter said. He wasn’t sure what he was denying. The whole thing. Everything. All of it. “No.”

Andy took a breath. “Okay, honey, I’ll take care of it.” He turned his attention back to the phone. “He’s…Yeah. How long ago did it happen? Uh-huh. And it’s the middle of the night—where’s her daughter right now? Has she been—Yeah, no, I honestly couldn’t say…As a matter of fact, Scoo—Winston is the guardian of record, unless she’s updated her will in the last six months. Yeah. We’ll make arrangements to be there as soon as possible. Where can I get in touch with you in the meantime? Okay. And the babysitter, do you—Okay. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. I’m…I’m sorry.” He hung up the phone and set it gently on the table. “Scooter, honey.”

“I don’t…” Scooter stared at the phone as if it was an alien artifact that had just appeared on the end table. “I don’t understand.” How could she just be gone? It didn’t make sense, he’d just…they’d just only recently started to try to form any sort of relationship at all, after being essentially estranged for most of their lives. Mace had been a teenager before her brother was even born, already resentful and hostile with parents and location. The addition of a sibling that she was supposed to look after and take care of had just cemented what had already been a rocky start.

In other circumstances, maybe Mace would have been more mother to him than sibling, but not in the Stahl household. Mace had pretty much loathed him from the get-go and wasn’t shy about telling him so, either. It had been mutual—Scooter had called her “Malice” more often than her preferred “Mace.” But they were trying—had been trying. Past tense now, because—

Scooter chewed on his lip until he could taste blood, eyes flickering from spot to spot as he tried to hold onto some sort of control. He didn’t cry anymore. Well, only once, since his Ma had died and—yeah, he didn’t like to think about that much. He and his father had some issues left unresolved their whole lives.

Mace had cried though; he remembered. Sobbed hysterically and had to be dragged away from their mother’s coffin. At the time, Scooter remembered having the uncharitable thought that Mace was crying from rage, from not being able to make Lorraine understand, for not making Lorraine sorry enough.

He blinked. Lost it, just a little. One tear slid down his cheek and he couldn’t decide whether or not to angrily brush it away or just ignore it and pretend it hadn’t happened.

“…honey.”

Oh. Right. Scooter wasn’t alone in the room the way he was with his crazy shattering thoughts. Without quite meeting Andy’s eyes, Scooter reached for him. Thank God for Andy, because Scooter really did not want to be alone in this world without any family. Later, he would think about Jason and Kat and Jeff and Debbie and D’ante and Elaine and Melissa and Melissa’s son, Jordan, who made up the Dockside family. But right now, there were only a few Stahls left in the world. Scooter. And Andy…and—

“Oh, f**k. Where’s Billie? Is she okay?”

“With the babysitter right now,” Andy said. “Mace was on the night shift, so…Dr. Huang said they decided not to wake her up to tell her. The next few days are going to be rough enough, and it’s not like they were going to be able to bring her in to say goodbye, not…” He took a hard breath, stopping his rambling. “She’s at the babysitter’s, sleeping. Dr. Huang is calling the babysitter now. I’ll let both of them know as soon as we have an itinerary.”

“Right,” Scooter said. “Yeah, okay, that…we should call Jason, he’ll…” Well, it wasn’t like Jason had ever considered Mace a sister. Scooter’s parents had fostered Jason after his mom died, but Mace had left home very shortly thereafter, and she had resented the intrusion of Jason even more than she did Scooter. But they would need Jason to take over Dockside while they were gone. Again. For another funeral. There weren’t a lot of Howards left, either.

Jesus.

“And plane tickets, we can get bereavement…well, it’s not like we’ll need that, honestly. Just first class.” That was at least something; Andy—and by way of marriage, Scooter—were actually multi-millionaires, even if neither of them took anything like advantage of it, partly because they didn’t want too many people to know. First class tickets, though, no one in Sandbridge would even ask. Of course Scooter would have to fly down for his sister’s funeral, and if anyone even noticed they were in first class, well, last-minute flights, you took what was available.

Scooter was okay, he was fine, he was making plans.

He took a deep breath, as if to express that to Andy and shocked himself by bursting into tears.

“Oh, baby,” Andy said, and Andy’s arms were around Scooter, pulling him close, holding him tight, rocking, just a little. “Honey, I’m so, so sorry.”

It was strangely reminiscent of the last time Scooter had wept. Andy holding him up and apologizing in his ear. When he’d thought he lost Andy. He grabbed a handful of Andy’s shirt, pulled him tighter. Thank God for Andy. “It’s unfair,” he managed. That was always Mace’s refrain, too, and that thought got him going even harder, sobbing until he couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t see. Somewhere in there, Andy managed to get them over to the sofa to sit.

Scooter finally, finally managed to choke it off.

When he looked up, Andy was not dry-eyed either. “It sucks,” he said, his voice rough. “It sucks so much.” He brushed Scooter’s hair back carefully. “And it’s going to keep sucking for a while.” He closed his eyes, took a couple of breaths, opened them again. “I’ll handle all the arrangements,” he offered, “unless you want something in particular. Okay?” He hesitated, head c****d as he considered. “You want to call Jason, or do you want me to?”

“I’ll do it,” Scooter said. He considered the handset that Andy had put down for only a second, then pulled out his cellphone. For one thing, Jason probably wouldn’t answer if it popped up from the houseline, he doubted Jason had the number in his contacts list. And…Scooter wasn’t sure he remembered Jason’s number anyway.

Also…Scooter eyed the phone warily as if it might bite him. He was suddenly having really, really bad associations with that phone. He didn’t particularly want to touch it again. Not…not right now.

He tapped the icon for Jason—a snapshot of Jason standing with his surfboard—and waited.

“Scooter.” Jason’s voice was muzzy with sleep. “Hey, what…is everything okay?”

Scooter took a deep breath. “No. No it is not.”