Page 87 of The House Beyond the Dunes

“Who are you, Stevie Palmer?”

The front doorbell rings and startles me. I grab my phone, rise, and look toward the tall windows bracketing the front door. The shadows shift. I move to within ten feet of the door and pause. My heart pulses. Then the shadows move again, and I see Devon staring back. Her smile is fixed and broad, her eyes wide. She’s always so cheerful. She waves, holds up a bottle of wine.

“I saw your lights on,” she shouts. “Shame to spend New Year’s alone. It might even be bad luck. So here I am!”

All I can think about is Stevie and Kyle.

Devon is grinning. Normally, I would send her away. But she’s ready to drink and maybe talk more about Kyle.

I unlock the front door and open it. “Devon.”

She holds up her bottle in an I-come-in-peace kind of way. Mascara smudges under her eyes, and she’s wearing bright-red lipstick that looks freshly applied. The red is like mine. “Hoping you’ll share a couple of glasses with me. And for the record,nois not an option.”

I laugh quietly. “Maybe one drink. I’ve already had a couple of beers.”

“A couple of beers?” She laughs. “Girl, that’s barely a warmup.”

“I’m a lightweight when it comes to booze.”

“It’s New Year’s Eve. What better time to have fun, even if it hurts tomorrow?”

As she moves past, I see the lights in Reece’s house. I scan the windows, hoping to see him pass in front of one, but there’s no sign of him.

“Looking for Reece?” Devon asks.

I close the door. “I see his lights are still on.”

“He’s been working nonstop since he arrived on Friday.” She shakes her head, drops her voice a fraction as if we are coconspirators. “Kind of a crazy guy. In more ways than one. But mostly good.”

And I’d been ready to do God-knows-what with him a half hour ago. “I guess that’s true for most of us.”

She raises the bottle in a toast. “No truer words.”

Devon is bubbly, upbeat as she moves toward the kitchen, clearly very comfortable with the house. She knows it better than I do, maybe even Kyle.

But I’m so curious about Kyle and Jeb now. “There are degrees of crazy. Define Reece’s brand of crazy.”

Devon sets her bottle on the counter, then shrugs off her coat and lets it fall on a barstool. “He’s a good guy. Don’t get me wrong. But he marches to his own drummer.”

I suppose she assumes I’m clued-in on more than I really am. “I still don’t understand.”

“When we were growing up, he was always in fights. Drugs got ahold of him, and he did some time in jail. Kyle tried to help him, but Reece pushed Kyle and everyone else away. Finally, he reappeared about eight years ago. Clean and sober-ish and ready to make amends for his past. He’s really gotten his act together.”

Telling Devon about the beers Reece and I shared or how fast we got seminaked feels akin to snitching.

And I’m only interested in pressing Devon for more details about Kyle and his family. Devon, I suspect, won’t need much prodding. She’s primed to talk. “I hear abut.”

Devon reaches for a towel and wraps it around the top of the champagne bottle. She twists.Pop.“Kyle and Reece shook hands a few years ago and said bygones and shit, but Kyle kept his distance from Reece. Whatever happened between them must have been bad.”

“Did it have anything to do with Jeb?”

“Why do you ask that?” she asks.

“I don’t know. I understand he died last summer. Kyle never said anything to me, but it must have been hard to lose his brother.”

“Yeah, it was. Kyle took that hard. Hell of a way to kick off the July Fourth holiday.”

“Reece said he overdosed.”

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