A Deadly Cliche (A Books by the Bay Mystery)

poked from his mouth in an attempt to moisten his lips. Betty dribbled some water from a washcloth over the chapped skin. He shook his head, signaling for her to let him be. “Missed. You. Livie.” He swallowed, coughed weakly. Olivia wanted to send her breaths into his body, to give him this chance to say what needed to be said. He struggled, but managed to push out a few more words. “So many mistakes . . . I’m sorry, my girl.”
    He sank deeper into the pillows. He’d given everything to tell her of his regret. There was nothing left.
    Olivia wasn’t ready for him to go. There were things she wanted him to hear now. “You can’t leave yet!” she yelled, the sound reverberating too loudly in a room where death hovered, filling every space. “You can’t leave me alone again!”
    There was a tremor from the hand she held. “Not. Alone.” He did not open his eyes. The words were barely audible. Olivia leaned in, smelling the rotten odor of his spent body. In one last whisper, an exhalation actually, Olivia’s father said the word, “Brother.”
    And then he died.
    Olivia thought something in the room would change, that she’d feel her father’s spirit as it left the confines of his body, but there wasn’t even a stirring of the air. All was silent except for a sniffle, which came from Kim.
    The noise reminded Olivia of the presence of the other people in the room and she swiveled with agonizing slowness to look at Hudson.
    How did I not see it before? she thought, taking in the dark, unreadable eyes, the square jaw line, the handsome, rugged features. Hudson was bulkier than Willie Wade had been, but he had the Wade family’s height and the scattering of freckles across the nose and cheeks. There was no doubt he was Willie’s son.
    And Olivia’s half brother.
    Releasing her father’s hand, Olivia stood up and crossed the room. She drew close to Hudson, waiting for some feeling of instant affection to sweep over her, but there was already too much churning inside for her to connect with him at this moment. Shock, grief, disbelief, and a thousand questions crowded her mind.
    Hudson’s eyes were moist with tears. He glanced at the form in the bed and then at Olivia and bit the edge of his lip.
    This small movement gave him the appearance of a little boy, unsure of himself and his future, and Olivia recognized in him the same fears and struggles she’d known as a child.
    They were connected after all.
    She reached out and brushed the back of his hand with her fingertips before leaving the room, her father’s words reverberating in her mind.
    Not alone.
    Olivia spent an hour sitting on the dock, stroking Haviland’s black curls and watching the harbor traffic. A flock of Canadian geese flew overhead and she tracked their flight until their V was just a dark smudge on the horizon.
    Later, once her father’s body had been collected by the funeral home, Olivia, Kim, and Hudson sat in the garden together. They drank coffee laced with spiced rum and went over the burial details. After that, Kim left the siblings in order to prepare to open the restaurant. Olivia didn’t see anything strange in the Salters working that night. She hated the thought of spending her night in idleness. She didn’t want to lay herself open to the full force of her grief.
    Hudson asked her to stay for supper, his pleading eyes belying his gruff manner. She agreed and was surprised by Hudson’s skill in the kitchen.
    “It must have been a big shock to you, to learn that you had a half sister,” she said as he poured oil into a frying pan.
    His mouth curved into the ghost of a grin. “I’d have thought it was a joke coming from another man, but Dad wasn’t much for telling jokes.”
    “Why didn’t you tell me when I first got here?”
    He shrugged. “He wanted to be the one to do it. I almost told you when you first came in, but it seemed real important to him.”
    Olivia nodded. She liked that Hudson could hold things close to his chest.
    “Have you ever thought of living elsewhere?” she asked him after finishing a delicious dinner of grilled grouper and homemade hush puppies.
    He nodded as he plated steamed muscles and handed them off to Kim. “All the time. I want my kids to have more than I had growing up here.”
    Olivia watched Kim pass through the swing door, a heavy platter in each hand. “And your wife?”
    “She doesn’t have it easy, but it’s all we’ve got.”
    Olivia poured Hudson a shot of