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  “Especially off season,” he said. “To tell you the truth, I wouldn’t be able to do it. No way.”

  They were now passing through mostly pitch pine and black oak forests. They also passed Gull Pond, which was north but near Long Pond, where they had kayaked that morning. As it was their first trip to Cape Cod, they had been pleasantly surprised by the many freshwater ponds with crystal-clear water so close to the ocean on one side and the bay on the other. They’d asked a local about them and had been told it had something to do with glaciers back in the Ice Age.

  Gross Hill Road dead-ended into Newcomb Hollow Beach, and as they pulled into the parking lot, they were encouraged. A lot of bedraggled people were heading from the beach to their cars, carrying an enormous quantity of gear, including beach chairs, sun umbrellas, and impressive coolers that made the Murphys’ Styrofoam model seem embarrassingly chintzy. Some were tanned regulars, but most were clearly burned visitors.

  “Ouch,” said Emma, looking at one adolescent girl who appeared as pale as the Murphys. “She’s going to be sorry tonight.”

  “We’re in luck,” he exclaimed, pulling into a vacant slot remarkably close to the pathway that led from the parking lot to the beach up over an impressive fifty-foot grass-covered dune. As usual, Juliette was excited at the prospect of being on the beach, so she was first out of the car and impatient as Emma and Brian unloaded. Despite her agitation, she was willing to accept carrying the bag of corn and most of her toys in addition to Bunny. While Emma carried the cooler and towels, Brian handled the grill, the briquettes, and the aluminum beach chairs.

  It was late afternoon and the sun streaming over their shoulders painted the entire scene in a rich, golden glow. Everyone they passed leaving the beach was wearing their pandemic mask, as were the Murphys. When they crested the dune, Emma and Brian paused to take in the dramatic sight of the wide, sandy beach and the large expanse of the Atlantic. The breeze was onshore, and it carried the sound of the two-to-three-feet-high waves as they broke. Since the tide was going out, there were numerous tide pools, which Juliette loved, since she was a bit intimidated by the ocean. Capping the impressive scene were large cumulus clouds that hung over the vista like dollops of whipped cream.

  “Which way?” Juliette called over her shoulder.

  “What do you think?” Brian asked Emma.

  “I’d say north,” she responded after glancing in both directions. “There’s less people. And there’s a good-sized tide pool directly in front.”

  “To your left,” he shouted to Juliette, who had already run down toward the water’s edge.

  They set up their camp about a hundred feet north of the path and up against the steep dune embankment. While Brian struggled with the grill, Emma put sunscreen on Juliette before handing the spray can to him. After tossing Bunny onto one of the towels, Juliette immediately bounded off for the tide pool.

  “Don’t go in the waves until I’m down there with you,” he yelled to her, and she waved back to signal that she had heard.

  “When do you think we should eat?” she asked.

  Brian shrugged. “It’s up to you. Just give me fifteen to twenty minutes’ notice to get the briquettes fired up.” He poured them into the grill and closed the lid. “Meanwhile, let’s join Juliette.”

  For the next forty-five minutes they ran in the wash from the surf, either chasing or being chased by Juliette. At one point he managed to get Juliette to venture out into the breakers with him holding her hand, but he could tell she really didn’t like it, so they quickly went back to the tide pool. Shortly after, Brian could see that Emma was already back preparing the corn at their campsite, which was now in shadow. Taking the hint, he told Juliette it was time to start the barbecue and that he would race her with him running backward. Delighted at the prospect of beating her father, Juliette took off with a squeal and, mostly thanks to Brian getting a late start, gained a commanding lead.

  “I’m afraid we have some unwelcome visitors,” Emma announced the moment they came running back.

  “What do you mean?” he asked. He glanced around, mostly skyward. On their previous visit to Newcomb Hollow Beach they’d had a run-in with a few very persistent seagulls and had been amazed at the birds’ boldness.

  “No seagulls,” she said, reading his mind. “Mosquitoes.”

  “Really?” he questioned. He was surprised, considering the significant onshore breeze.

  “Yes, really,” Emma said. “Look!” She raised her left arm and pointed to the base of her deltoid muscle. Poised and obviously preparing to bite was a black mosquito with white markings, but before the insect could do its worst, she slapped it with an open palm. When she pulled her hand away, she could see that the creature was reduced to a tiny bloody corpse, indicating it had already bitten someone else but still wasn’t satiated.

  “I don’t think I’ve seen a mosquito like that,” Brian said. “Rather distinctive coloring.”

  “I have,” Emma said. “It was an Asian tiger mosquito.”

  “How the hell do you know about Asian tiger mosquitoes?”

  “During one of my ESU Academy medical lectures, we learned about arboviral disease and climate change. The lecturer specifically talked about Asian tiger mosquitoes, which used to be restricted to the tropics, but now have spread widely northward all the way up to Maine.”

  “I never got that lecture,” he complained.

  “Times have changed, old man,” she said with a laugh. “Remember, you were two years ahead of me.”

  “What’s arboviral disease, anyway?”

  “Remember reading about yellow fever and building the Panama Canal? Well, yellow fever is an arboviral disease.”

  “Yikes,” Brian said. “Has there ever been yellow fever in the USA?”

  “Not since 1905 in New Orleans, if I’m remembering correctly,” Emma said. She abruptly ran her fingers through her hair and then waved her hand above her head. “Uh-oh, I can hear more of the bastards. Aren’t they bothering you?”

  “Not yet. Juliette, do you hear any mosquitoes?”

  Juliette didn’t answer, but like her mother, she suddenly waved her hands around her head, suggesting she was hearing them.

  “Did you bring the bug spray?” Emma asked with urgency.

  “It’s in the car. I’ll run and get it.”

  “Please,” Emma said. “The sooner the better. Otherwise we are going to be miserable.”

  With no further urging, Brian grabbed his mask, jogged down the beach, and then went up over the dune. As he expected, he found the can of OFF in the glove compartment. When he got back to the beach less than ten minutes later, Juliette was again in the tide pool.

  “I tell you,” Emma said as she began to apply the repellent, “these winged bastards were aggressive while you were gone. I had to send Juliette down to the water.”

  “I tried to be quick.” He took the spray and applied it as Emma had done and then called Juliette back from the water’s edge to protect her as well.

  Once the Murphys had the mosquitoes at bay, they were able to get back to their barbecue. The corn cobs went on the grill first, followed by the hamburger patties, and finally the clams. By the time the food was cooked and served, the entire beach was in the shadow of the dunes even though the ocean and the clouds were still in full sun.

  After they had eaten their fill and partially cleaned up, Brian and Emma relaxed back into their respective beach chairs to finish the prosecco, have dessert, and savor the view. The setting sun, which was out of sight behind them, was tinting the puffy clouds pink. Juliette had retreated back down to the edge of the tide pool to make sandcastles in the damp sand.

  For a while neither spoke. It was Emma who finally did. “I hate to break the spell,” she said, turning to Brian, “but I’ve been thinking. Maybe we should consider heading back to New York a little early.”


  “Really? Why? We’ve got almost another week with the cottage.” He was surprised by her suggestion since coming to Cape Cod for vacation had initially been her idea, and they all seemed to be enjoying it immensely. Even the weather was cooperating.

  “I’m thinking that maybe if we were back home we could do something to possibly drum up some business.”

  “Do you have some new idea of how?” he asked. “What little work we had in the late spring totally dried up in July.”

  Eight months earlier, Brian and Emma had retired from the NYPD to start their own personal protection security agency, which they appropriately called Personal Protection LLC. They had begun the firm with high hopes of success, considering the level of training and experience they had after being NYPD ESU officers—Brian for six years and Emma for four years, on top of each having been a regular police officer for five years. At the time of their retirement from the NYPD, both were sergeants and Brian had already passed the exam for lieutenant with flying colors. A consulting firm that they had hired at the end of the previous summer to advise them had projected rapid success and expansion for Personal Protection after supposedly taking all potential factors into account. Yet no one could have predicted the Covid-19 pandemic, which had reduced the demand for their services to almost nothing. In fact, during the last month they’d had no work whatsoever.

  “No, I haven’t had any sudden brainstorms,” Emma admitted. “But I’m starting to feel uneasy and guilty about us up here lazing around, enjoying ourselves, not knowing what the hell the fall is going to bring. I know we needed a break after being cooped up all spring with the pandemic, especially Juliette, but we’ve had our fun. I’m ready to go back.”

  “The fall is clearly not going to be pretty,” he said. “As soon as the United Nations Week got canceled, I knew all our projections went out the window. That week alone was going to put our company on the map.” With their professional connections with the NYPD, they had had hundreds of referrals, seeing as United Nations Week was an enormous strain on NYPD resources. Back in December they were concerned about having enough manpower to cover even half of the requests.

  “Aren’t you worried about how we are going to weather this pandemic with all the talk about a fall surge?” she asked. “I mean, we’re already behind on our mortgage.”

  Both Brian and Emma had been thrifty and fiscally conservative even as children. When they started working for the NYPD, they’d saved more than their friends and colleagues, and also invested wisely. When they had married following Emma’s graduation from the ESU Academy and just before Juliette’s birth, they’d been able to splurge on one of the few freestanding, Tudor-revival, single-family homes in Inwood, on West 217th Street. It was a mere block away from her parents’ home on Park Terrace West. The house was their only major asset besides the Subaru.

  “A lot of people are behind on their mortgage payments,” Brian countered. “And we spoke with our loan officer. Plus, we do have some cash receivables. The mortgage is not going to cause a problem. I think we’ve made the right choice to keep our cash to cover our other major business-related expenses, like Camila’s salary.”

  Camila Perez was Personal Protection LLC’s only employee. When the pandemic exploded in the New York area, she’d moved in with the Murphys and had been living with them ever since. It was one of the benefits of having a house with adequate living space. Over the course of the spring she’d become more like family than an employee. The Murphys had even encouraged her to come with them to Cape Cod, but she had responsibly declined in order to handle anything that came up in relation to the company. During the previous week, there had been a couple of inquiries about Personal Protection providing security for some high-end fall weddings in the Hamptons.

  “You are obviously handling this all better than I am,” Emma confessed. “I’m impressed that you’re able to compartmentalize so well.”

  “Truthfully, I’m not doing that great. I’m worried, too,” he admitted. “But my worry comes mostly in the middle of the night when my mind can’t shut down. Out here on the beach with the sun and surf, thankfully it all seems so far away.”

  “Do you mind if we continue talking about this now, while we’re enjoying this glorious scene? Or do you want me to shut up?”

  “Of course I don’t mind,” Brian said. “Talk as much as you want!”

  “Well, what’s bugging me at the moment is whether it was a good idea for both of us to leave the NYPD together,” she said. “Maybe one of us should have remained on salary.”

  “In hindsight that might have been prudent,” Brian agreed. “But that’s not what we wanted. We both felt an entrepreneurial tug to do something creative and outside the box. How could we have decided who would have the fun challenge and who would have had to continue slogging with the same old, same old? Draw straws or flip a coin? Besides, I’m still confident it is all going to be just fine as soon as this damn coronavirus disaster works itself out. And we’re certainly not alone. Millions are caught in this pandemic squeeze.”

  “I hope you are right,” Emma said with a sigh, before quickly slapping the side of her head. “Damn! Those mosquitoes are back. Why aren’t they biting you?”

  “No clue.” He reached behind her chair for the can of OFF and handed it to her. “I guess I’m just not as sweet as you,” he said with one of his typical mischievous smiles.

  CHAPTER 2

  August 19

  It was the raucous sound of a flock of seagulls loudly arguing with one another out in Wellfleet Harbor that awoke Brian after yet another pleasant night’s sleep. Rolling onto his back, he looked out the window through the white sheer curtain fabric, wondering what time it was. He looked at his phone and saw that it was 6:25. Glancing over to Emma’s side of the bed, he saw that she was already up, like almost every morning lately, and he smiled in anticipation of the pastries that would be waiting for him once he got out of bed.

  With the birds still squawking in the distance, Brian got up to use the cottage’s single bathroom, but just before entering from the common hall, a glance into the living room surprised him. He could see Emma fast asleep on the couch. Being that she was an early riser, he guessed she’d possibly had a poor night’s sleep, perhaps from worrying about their precarious financial situation, a subject she’d been raising every day since the night of their barbecue. Fearing he was correct, he made it a point to be as quiet as possible. Coming back out of the bathroom, he had another idea that would make it even less likely he’d disturb her. He’d be the one to head out and get the pastries. Whatever the reason was that had her sleeping outside of their bed, he thought she deserved as much time to rest as she wanted.

  After silently pulling on some bike shorts and a shirt, Brian checked to see if Juliette was stirring. She wasn’t, which he expected. With the amount of exercise she’d been getting combined with being allowed to stay up later than usual in the evening to play board games, she must have been exhausted. Satisfied, he carried his bike shoes while tiptoeing through the living room. As carefully as he could, he closed the otherwise noisy screen door without a sound, pleased he’d managed to leave without waking his wife.

  Cycling past the Wellfleet Harbor, he could see the source of the seagulls’ frenzy, which was still ongoing. Fishermen were cleaning their catches. Beyond the harbor, Brian passed through the attractive downtown of Wellfleet with its well-maintained period buildings, some of which were hundreds of years old, and he was particularly enamored of those with neo-Grecian Doric columns.

  Unfortunately, most of the rest of the trip was on the main highway, which lacked the scenery of the smaller roads. But it wasn’t far and there was almost no traffic. To get maximum benefit from the exercise, he cranked up his speed, arriving at the bakery in less than fifteen minutes. Although the shop had yet to open, there were already several people waiting as a testament to its popularity.

 
Twenty minutes later, Brian was back on his bike, now heading north. When he arrived at the cottage, he returned his bike to the garage and then entered as quietly as possible. To his surprise, Emma was no longer on the couch. Instead, she was now back in their room curled up in a fetal position on the bed, and though her eyes were open, she didn’t stir upon his arrival.

  “I feel terrible. I had a very bad night.”

  “I’m so sorry, my sweet,” Brian said as he sat on the edge of the bed. “What’s wrong?” He was surprised to see her sick, because she was the most resistant of the three of them when it came to winter colds and other ailments. The usual progression was Juliette first, probably picking up something at preschool or at one of her playdates, and then she’d give it to him. More often than not, Emma wouldn’t succumb, despite being the major caregiver.

  “I just feel awful all around,” Emma managed.

  “Do you feel feverish?”

  “Yes. I’ve had chills and I’ve been sweating.”

  Gently Brian reached out and placed his palm on her forehead. There was no doubt in his mind that she was burning up.

  “I’ve also been vomiting,” Emma continued. “I’m surprised I didn’t wake you.”

  “I wish you had,” he responded worriedly.

  “Why?” she said with seeming irritation. “What would you have been able to do?”