The Chesapeake Diaries Series Read Online Free Page A

say.” He picked up the grater and resumed working on the block of cheese. “I mean, do I call and say, ‘Hello, my wife was murdered a few years ago and I have all these clothes of hers that I was wondering if you’d want’?”
    “That’s pretty much it, yeah.” Mia finished putting on the sweater and buttoned it halfway up, then rolled up the sleeves. “I’d forgotten how much taller Melissa was than me.”
    Grady glanced over his shoulder and smiled. “You’re a peanut, next to her.”
    An awkward silence followed. Finally, Grady said, “So tell me a little more about this cop who’s marrying my sister.”
    “Chief of police, remember?” She unwrapped a tea bag and asked, “Cups?”
    “Next cabinet to where you’re standing.” He pointed. “Okay, so he’s chief of police. Tell me about him. What’s his background? What’s his family like?”
    “Spoken like a true big brother.” She opened the cabinet and found a mug. “Okay. Well, let’s see. He’s former military and he—”
    “What branch?”
    “Army. Special Forces.” The water had begun to boil and she turned it off.
    Grady nodded without turning to look at her. He’d known more than a few Delta Force veterans. He wondered if he and Beck had any friends in common. “Keep going.”
    “He was a cop someplace else before St. Dennis. Actually, his dad had been chief of police there and he’d recommended Beck for the job when he semi-retired.”
    “They let him do that?” This time Grady did turn around. “They let this guy name his own son as his successor?”
    “Hey, it’s a small town. His father, Hal, was—is—very highly regarded, and Beck was a good cop and had great references. He was the best candidate they had, and before you say I’m prejudiced, I heard that from someone who doesn’t particularly like Beck.”
    “Well, I guess I can see it. Small town, he probably lived there all his life—”
    “Uh-uh.” She shook her head. “Beck grew up around Chicago. When he was almost fourteen, his mother brought him to live with his father.” She paused to pour hot water into her mug. “I should preface that by saying that Hal didn’t know he had a son with Beck’s mother. She never told him. They’d fallen madly in love when she was just eighteen, but he’d gotten drafted and shipped off to Vietnam before she knew she was pregnant. She was engaged tosomeone else at the time, and her parents made her marry the guy she was engaged to. His mother went through with the wedding but the marriage didn’t work out.”
    “How much of this are you making up as you go along?”
    “None. I swear. From what I’ve heard, Beck was a very wild and uncontrollable kid from the time he was ten or twelve. Right about that time, his mom remarried. That’s when she took Beck to Hal and left him there.”
    “Wait a minute. You mean, she just …”
    Mia nodded. “Rang the doorbell, handed over Beck’s birth certificate, and told Hal he was going to have to take things from there because she couldn’t handle his son.”
    “And she just left?”
    “Yep.”
    Grady checked the water for the macaroni to see if it had reached the boiling point yet.
    “Doesn’t sound as if he comes from a very stable background, Mia.”
    “Sorry, pal, but this pot is not about to call that kettle black, if you get my drift. Not after Brendan.”
    “You do have a point there.” Brendan had shattered any illusions anyone might have had about the Shieldses being a model family.
    “Anyway, Hal took Beck in and really turned him around, though I did hear from some of the people in town that Beck was a bit of a hellion when he first arrived. But Hal hung tough.” She sipped her tea. “He’s an amazing man.”
    “Hal or Beck?”
    “Both of them.”
    “And the mom?”
    “I’ve never met her. Beck has no contact with her at all, though I think she’s tried to contact him from time to time. Birthday cards, stuff like that. And I think his sister