Love, Scars, & Shooting Stars

Chapter Ten

The headlights of Cameron's truck cut a swath through the gathering darkness as he headed for home on Monday night, tired but satisfied with the progress he had made on the old house over the past few days. He had to admit that hiring Julie Callahan was turning out to be a pretty good decision on his part. She was a quick study, a hard worker and, despite having a vaguely wary disposition, she had a great rapport with the customers. Hell, she'd even held her own with the shamelessly flirtatious Elden Wills, who fancied himself quite the ladies' man in spite of his 86 years. When Cam had told Julie on Tuesday that she had the job, she'd asked to start immediately, and by noontime on Thursday, Cameron had sensed that she preferred to work alone. Still, there was that one glaring lie she'd told him in regards to her current residence, and because of that he wasn't quite sure if she could be trusted. He thought he'd been doing a fairly good job of masking his suspicion, until he'd run out of excuses for hanging around and she'd called him on the carpet for it. She had seemed genuinely hurt that he would even suspect such a thing as stealing from her, and remorse had led him to take the risk of leaving her alone to close up. Granted, he'd stopped in on his way home late that night, just to reassure himself, and had been relieved to find everything as it should be, with not a cent missing. Subsequent check-ins over the weekend had yielded the same outcome, and it was becoming easier by the day to ignore the voice of doubt that whispered in the back of his mind. Plus, Saturday's receipts had revealed a third straight day of record sales, so how could he be anything but pleased with the way things were turning out?

Cameron had been making it a point to stop by on his way home at night, long after closing time. One, he didn't want his new employee to think that he was checking up on her—which, of course, he was—, and two, he felt awkward being in such close quarters with her. Julie Callahan was beyond-reluctant to talk about herself, which made small talk pretty much impossible, and she seemed to have a knack for being in the exact same spot that he intended to be in, at the exact same moment that he intended to be there. Two clumsy collisions behind the cash register plus one near-miss with a hot tray was all it took for Cameron to see that Two is not always better than One. Or maybe he'd just been a One for so long that that was all he knew anymore...

Swinging into a parking space outside the eatery, Cameron made a mental note to check the safe for change and small bills. He'd forgotten all about going to the bank on Friday afternoon, and he'd noticed an abundance of twenties and fifties in Saturday's cash-up, so the petty cash was bound to be running low. Mondays were generally a bit slower, of course, and the restaurant was closed on Sundays—an unusual choice of the original proprietor that the locals had come to accept and Cameron hadn't bothered to change—but still, he'd rather be on the safe side. But as he loped up the three steps and turned his key in the lock, it wasn't coins and dollars that were on his mind, it was Julie Callahan. He wondered what she and her son had done the day before, and how she had spent her first day off in Lloyd's Harbor.

Or where she spent it, he amended as he swung the door open and slipped inside. Because she's definitely wasn't at The Colony Inn.

Cameron knew that much for certain, because The Colony Inn had closed eight months ago, when Bert had succumbed to cancer and his wife Ellie had moved to Vermont to live with their daughter. He had heard through the grapevine that Bill's nephew was planning to take over the business sometime next year, and a cleaning crew or service vehicle could occasionally be seen on the premises, but no rooms were being rented out, despite Julie Callahan's claims to the contrary. Granted, Cameron had pretty much baited her into the lie, but what reason she would have for continuing it Cameron couldn't imagine. Whatever she was hiding, he'd all but convinced himself that it was of no consequence to him. She showed up for work on time, she did her job, and she wasn't stealing him blind, so whatever she did outside of work was her business, right?

Cam sat down in the office and opened the safe, shaking his head in disbelief as he took in the day's sales figures, which were nearly double those of a typical Monday. He attributed a large portion of the boon to the natural curiosity that seemed to crop up whenever a new face appeared in town, and it probably didn't hurt that Julie Callahan was—as Bill Platt had put it when Cam had stopped in to buy gas that morning—a 'real looker', which likely brought a larger-than-usual group of guys up from the local boatyard.

Not that it matters to me, Cam thought, locking the safe up again and exiting the office. Any business was good business, and as for Julie Callahan's physical attributes, well... As far as Cameron was concerned, she was a dependable, hard-working employee and nothing more.

After closing up the shop and climbing back into his truck, Cameron headed for home. Despite his best efforts, he couldn't get Julie Callahan out of his mind. There was something about her, something about her story that just seemed... off. Stopping at the only flashing red light in town, Cameron absently drummed his fingers on the steering wheel as he waited for an oncoming car to pass through the intersection. Staring out through the windshield, Cam instantly recognized the battered red jalopy as it zipped through the path of his headlights, as well as the face of the shaggy-haired boy sitting stonily in the passenger seat. He glanced at the clock on his dash. 9:58 p.m.

"Where the heck is she headed at this time of night?" he mumbled to himself, and before he could think twice, he turned and followed the red glow of her taillights into the distance. "Not to The Colony Inn, that's for sure."