The Chesapeake Diaries Series (272 page)

Frost cake and cover with as much coconut as the cake will hold.

C
RAB
C
AKES À LA
B
LOSSOMS

¾ cup plain breadcrumbs

1 pound fresh crabmeat, drained well, picked over

¼ cup mayonnaise

3 tablespoons chopped fresh chives

1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

1 teaspoon lemon juice

Zest of one lemon

Salt and pepper

1 large egg, beaten to blend

Paprika

¼ cup olive oil

Place ½ cup of the breadcrumbs in a shallow dish. Mix the crabmeat, mayonnaise, chives, Worcestershire sauce, mustard, lemon juice and zest, and remaining ¼ cup breadcrumbs in a medium bowl to blend. Season with salt and pepper. Mix in the egg.

Form crab cakes into several rounds—the number of crab cakes depends on the size you want them to be. Coat them with the breadcrumbs in the dish, then sprinkle with paprika.

Transfer crab cakes to a baking sheet, cover, and refrigerate for 1 hour.

Heat the oil in a heavy large skillet over medium heat. Working in batches, add crab cakes to skillet and cook until golden brown and heated through. Time will be determined by the thickness of the cakes.

Transfer crab cakes to a paper towel–lined plate and let rest for a moment before serving.

L
ILLY
C
AVANAUGH
’
S
C
URRIED
C
HICKEN
S
ALAD

2 cups diced cooked chicken

1 apple, peeled and diced

1 cup diced pineapple

¼ cup raisins

½ cup shredded coconut

Combine all ingredients.

Add the prepared dressing.

Refrigerate at least one hour before serving.

D
RESSING

1 tablespoon curry powder

2 tablespoons chicken broth

1 cup mayonnaise

2 tablespoons chutney, including syrup

Add the curry powder to the broth and simmer for about 30 seconds to one minute (don’t let it burn), making a paste. Add the paste to the mayonnaise. Stir in the chutney.

V
IOLET
F
INNERAN
’
S
M
OTHER
’
S
L
EMON
M
ERINGUE
P
IE

Pastry for one 9-inch pie (store-bought or homemade)

P
IE
F
ILLING

1 cup sugar

¼ cup plus 1 tablespoon cornstarch

¼ teaspoon salt

4 large egg yolks

¾ cup fresh lemon juice

2 cups cold water

1½ teaspoons finely grated lemon zest

6 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into tablespoons

M
ERINGUE
T
OPPING

4 large egg whites at room temperature

¼ teaspoon cream of tartar

¼ teaspoon salt

½ cup sugar

To make the filling, in a medium saucepan, combine the sugar with the cornstarch, salt, egg yolks, and lemon juice. Whisk in the cold water and cook over moderate heat, whisking constantly, until the mixture comes to a boil. Boil, stirring, for 1 minute. Remove from the heat and add the lemon zest and butter, stirring until the butter is melted.

Pour the filling into the pie shell, cover with wax paper, and let cool to room temperature.

Preheat oven to 350°F and position a rack in the upper third.

To make the topping, in a large stainless-steel bowl,
add the cream of tartar to the egg whites, then beat with the salt until soft peaks form. Gradually add the sugar and beat until stiff and glossy peaks form.

Remove the wax paper from the filling. Scrape the meringue onto the pie and gently spread it over the filling all the way to the crimped edge of the piecrust. Make swirls with the back of a spoon.

Bake the pie for about 7 minutes, or until the meringue is golden brown. Transfer to a wire rack and let cool to room temperature, then refrigerate until chilled and set, at least 3 hours. Cut the pie with a sharp knife dipped into hot water and serve.

M
AKE
A
HEAD:
The recipe can be made through step 4 and refrigerated overnight. Top with the meringue and bake, then let cool before serving.

S
OPHIE
E
NRIGHT
’
S
R
OASTED
C
HICKPEAS

2 (15-ounce) cans chickpeas (garbanzo beans), thoroughly drained and rinsed

2 tablespoons olive oil

½ teaspoon of spice of your choice—ground cumin, curry, ground chili pepper, or cayenne pepper

1 tablespoon minced garlic

½ teaspoon sea salt

Preheat oven to 400°F and arrange a rack in the middle.

Place the chickpeas in a large bowl and toss with the remaining ingredients until evenly coated. Spread the chickpeas in an even layer on a rimmed baking sheet and bake until crisp, about 25 minutes.

For those adorable Maybaum boys

A
CKNOWLEDGMENTS

Many thanks to Jim Delvescovo for walking me through the renovation of my fictional restaurant. I also have to thank Jim for letting me occupy space in his restaurant (Aurora Pizza and Pasta Kitchen in West Grove, PA) while I wrestled with dialogue, untangled plots, and bullied uncooperative characters—not to mention his amazing fig pizza and butternut squash agnolotti, and his terrific staff, who never fail to greet me with a smile and a glass of unsweetened iced tea.

To Helen Egner, for many, many years of friendship and for handing over several of her prized recipes for inclusion in this book.

At the River’s Edge
represents a crossroads in my career. For thirty of my last thirty-two books, I had the joy and privilege of working with Senior Editor Kate Collins. For almost twenty years we discussed, dissected, chopped and diced characters, plots, motivations, and career direction. Kate, I miss you and will always remember how you strived to make my books better, and wish you all the best.

As always, when one door closes, another opens.

With Kate’s retirement, the editing of my books passed into the extremely capable hands of Senior Editor Junessa Viloria.
At the River’s Edge
is the first book we’ve worked on together, and I can say with complete honesty that it’s been a total pleasure. Every comment, every suggestion, was spot on, and I am grateful for her thoughtful and insightful editing. I can’t thank her enough for making this a painless transition.

Thanks to the incredible team at Ballantine Books for their part in getting this book—and all my books—off the ground and into the hands of readers.

And lastly, thanks to my Facebook friends for making me laugh and smile every day.

B
Y
M
ARIAH
S
TEWART

At the River’s Edge
The Long Way Home
Home for the Summer
Hometown Girl Almost
Home Home Again
Coming Home

Acts of Mercy
Cry Mercy
Mercy Street

Last Breath
Last Words
Last Look

Final Truth
Dark Truth
Hard Truth
Cold Truth

Dead End
Dead Even
Dead Certain
Dead Wrong

Forgotten
Until Dark
The President’s Daughter

Read on for a preview of book eight from the

C
HESAPEAKE
D
IARIES SERIES
ON SUNSET BEACH

Available from Ballantine Books in Spring 2014.

Ford Sinclair eased his rental car onto the approach to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel in Virginia Beach and reduced his speed. It had been several years since he’d made this crossing, and he wanted to savor it. The bridge—named one of the Seven Engineering Marvels of the Modern World—had been a favorite destination when he was a young boy and his father was alive. Some days, they would sneak away from the family’s inn, just the two of them, and head south in the old Bayrider down through Virginia’s Pocomoke Sound. His father would drop anchor off Raccoon Island where they’d sit for a while and watch the cars over the northbound span of the bridge-tunnel—which was still new back then, and attracted attention like a shiny new toy—then they’d head back into Maryland waters where they’d spend the rest of the day fishing. They’d go home, more often than not sporting a farmer’s tan along with a cooler of whatever had been running that day, rockfish or sea bass or croakers. Once, his dad had helped him bring in a tuna that had given him—at ten—the fight of his life. The memory was so vivid that whenever Ford dreamed of that day, he still
felt the rod biting into his hands as he struggled to hold it.

The bridge-tunnel itself was, in fact, a marvel. A little over seventeen miles long from shore to shore, it was exactly what the name implied: a series of bridges and tunnels that crossed the Chesapeake Bay where it joined the Atlantic Ocean, connecting Virginia Beach to Virginia’s Eastern Shore.

Ford stopped at the first of the four bridges and pulled over into the parking area. He walked to the rail overlooking the water from which he could see for miles. Below, where the Chesapeake and the Atlantic met, the water was still dark and disturbed from last night’s storm. In the distance, a large Navy vessel headed into port at Virginia Beach, and far out in the ocean, another made its way toward the bridge. Noisy gulls circled overhead, hoping for a handout from the sightseers on the pier, while others swooped and soared over both sides of the bridge. Ford closed his eyes and inhaled the scent of salt water, and held it in his lungs for a few seconds before letting it out in a
whoosh
. Chesapeake Bay born and bred, he hadn’t realized how much he had missed its scent until this moment. Suddenly, he couldn’t wait to be home. He climbed back into the car and continued his trek north.

After two mile-long tunnels and three more low- and high-level bridges, Ford reached Route 13 and headed for Salisbury, Maryland. There he’d pick up Route 50, the road that led west to his home town on the Eastern Shore. The radio reception was spotty through here—some things, he thought, never changed—so he could only pick up a country station.
He’d been away too long to know who was singing, only caught enough to know it was a girl with a pretty voice singing about vandalizing the SUV that belonged to her cheating boyfriend. He turned it off when the static drowned her out, and drove in silence, the windows up and the air conditioner blasting against the heat and humidity of the late-summer afternoon.

Before he knew it, Ford was crossing the bridge over the Choptank River and was halfway to Trappe, where he and his buddies had proven their manhood by spending the night in the haunted White Marsh Cemetery and living to tell about it. Even now, memories of that night made him grin. They’d been so cocky, all five of them, until they heard the faint tinkling of a tiny bell borne on a breeze around three in the morning. They spent the rest of the night wide awake, huddled in the car, windows closed and the doors locked, but still bragged that they’d lasted the night because they didn’t drive back out through the cemetery gates until dawn.

Ford’s smile faded when he recalled how far he’d come from that cheeky kid whose most terrifying moments had been spent in a dark cemetery with his friends telling ghost stories. Back then, he’d never imagined what real terrors this world held. The innocent boy—brash though he may have been—would never have understood the things he’d come to see as a man. Even now, Ford was at a loss to really understand what motivated a man to commit atrocities such as those he’d witnessed over the past six years.

He was close to home now. One left turn off Route 50 and he was almost there. He cruised along just under the speed limit so he could take it all in.

If there hadn’t been another car behind him, he’d have slowed even more as he passed the Madison farm. Ford had learned to ice skate on the pond that lay beyond the corn field. It had been Clay Madison—now married to Ford’s sister Lucy—who’d taught him to skate. Clay had always been sweet on Lucy—even as a small kid, Ford had known that. An old pickup was parked near the back of the farmhouse, and he thought briefly about stopping to say hello, but he knew if his mother caught wind of him stopping somewhere other than home first, he’d be in for an earful. And somehow, his mother had always known what he was up to. He’d never really figured out how she knew things, but she did. He thought she must have had a pretty darned good spy network, though she never seemed to keep track of Dan or Lucy the way she’d kept track of him.

Ford hoped that hadn’t held true these past few years. He hated to think she might have somehow picked up on exactly where he’d been and what he’d seen and done.

Though his mother’s phone calls and letters had kept him abreast of the changes in St. Dennis, the development of the town’s center still surprised him. He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting, but it wasn’t the upscale shops he passed by. The supermarket was still in the same place, but its previously dingy façade had had a significant facelift. When he left, most of the current storefronts had been boarded up or were still single-family homes. Now the shops he passed told a story of increased prosperity—Cupcake, Book ’Em, Bling, Sips, and on the opposite side of the street, Lola’s
Café, Cuppachino, Petals and Posies. Only Lola’s and the flower shop had been there before he left.