Dearly Beloved (30 page)

“I see. Because of the storm, no doubt.”

She nods and starts for the stairs, then remembers something. “Is Liza around?” she asks Jasper over her shoulder.

“Liza?” He looks blankly at her.

“The other guest? Liza Danning?”

“Oh, of course,” he says, nodding. “She . . . I haven’t seen her yet today, no.”

“I saw a car pulling away from the inn as I was coming around the curve in the road and I thought maybe she was leaving for that meeting she was planning to have with that author.” Jennie watches him carefully.

But he only says, “I don’t think she left. I’ve been right here for the last half hour.”

Jennie nods. She wants to ask him who was in the car, but decides it’s really none of her business. Instead she nods toward the stairs and comments, “I guess Liza must still be in her room.”

He looks as though he’s about to say something, then apparently changes his mind. “She must be,” he agrees.

Jennie heads up to the second floor with her bag, conscious of Jasper Hammel watching her until she rounds the landing.

He’s definitely an odd man.

But is he dangerous?
she wonders, going toward her room.
Is all of this my imagination or am I really in trouble here?

Not wanting to dwell on her fear again, she unlocks her door, deposits her bag on the floor just inside, and then goes back down the hall to Liza’s room.

The door is closed, and there’s no answer to her knock.

Puzzled, Jennie calls, “Liza?” and jiggles the knob.

No reply.

Maybe she’s still sleeping,
she thinks.
Or she might be listening to a walkman or something and can’t hear me.

But as she stands there in the hallway, staring at the closed door, Jennie senses that there’s no one behind it.

If Liza really is gone,
she thinks, suddenly feeling a case of the jitters descend over her again,
then where can she be?

Even if Liza had decided to take the ferry, not realizing it was canceled, Jennie would have seen her down at the dock or on the road between here and there.

Maybe she did leave to have her meeting with that author,
Jennie thinks hopefully before she remembers what Pat Gerkin told them about D.M. Yates last night.

I guarantee you that he doesn’t live here.

But the fact that the man doesn’t live on the island doesn’t mean he wouldn’t come out here to meet with Liza. On the other hand, why would he? And Liza herself had seemed to have doubts about it.

Her mind jumbled with disconcerting thoughts, Jennie turns away from Liza’s locked door and slowly makes her way back to her room.

S
herm drives slowly up the narrow lane leading to the old Gilbrooke place at the northern tip of the crescent-shaped stretch of coast. There’s been no sign of Pat’s Chevy so far, but maybe he got stuck at the house itself.

In winter, when the trees are bare, the Victorian mansion is visible from the road that winds by it and then away from the coast. In summer, when the Gilbrookes used to use the place, it’s shrouded from view by dense trees and shrubbery that border the edge of the property. The Gilbrookes liked it that way, Sherm recalls. They were an odd bunch, even before Aurelia came along.

Andrew’s father, Andrew Senior, had made a fortune in his Manhattan-based import-export business in the early part of the century. He and his wife, Helena, used to throw lavish parties on the island when they spent summers here.

Of course, back then, Tide Island had been a fashionable resort for the social elite of Boston and New York. It was even dubbed “Little Newport” in the roaring twenties, when the enormous homes on the northern coast of the island were filled with wealthy urbanites every June, July, and August.

But then, with the depression years and then the war, the summer crowd had gradually dwindled. Many of the rich had sold their lavish oceanfront homes.

The Gilbrookes never did, though. In fact, they seemed to like the island better when it became less populated. They had always been big on privacy, keeping themselves carefully apart from the rest of the island’s inhabitants.

Andrew Senior and Helena had spent their summers here well into the fifties, usually with their son Andrew, who had been Sherm’s playmate when they were both children. His parents probably hadn’t been crazy about their son’s mingling with the locals; but then, they might have been grateful he had any friends at all.

These days,
Sherm thinks,
kids would call old Andrew a wimp. Back then, he was a sissy.

But a sissy who has money, Sherm had learned, is more attractive to women than a virile kid who doesn’t. When they were in their teens and met vacationing girls on the island, it was Andrew they were always drawn to, once they found out who he was.

And you didn’t care when they bypassed you,
Sherm reminds himself.
You always had Carly.

His mouth set grimly at the thought of his wife, Sherm steers around a huge pothole in the lane, then turns his thoughts back to the Gilbrookes.

As Andrew Junior grew older and was being groomed to take over his father’s business, he had spent less time on the island. Then his parents died within months of each other and he met Aurelia, and that was it.

The big old house has been virtually abandoned ever since.

But maybe the son is back, Sherm thinks, maneuvering the last sharp bend in the lane. Stephen, his name was. Rumor had it that Andrew hadn’t named his son after himself and his father because of what he referred to as the boy’s “hideous facial deformity.”

Supposedly, he’d wanted his wife to bear him another son, one worthy of being a namesake. But Aurelia, according to the island gossips, had wanted no part of pregnancy and childbirth, having already experienced the “torture” once.

Sherm had only met Andrew Junior’s wife once or twice. Though she was an attractive woman, her disposition made her unpleasant to look at. Her mouth was permanently turned down at the corners, as if in distaste, and her black eyes had perennially borne a sharp, beady gleam.

She had undoubtedly married poor Andrew for his money as she clearly had no patience for him, or anyone else. And as for Andrew—Sherm supposed he had married Aurelia because she told him to. He was that kind of man.

He pulls up in front of the Gilbrookes’ sprawling old Victorian and sees fairly recent tire tracks in the snow. Is Stephen Gilbrooke back on the island?

Or did the tracks come from Pat’s car . . .

And if so, where is it now?

Sherm had driven by Pat’s small house on the way out here, but there was no sign of anyone there. The few inches of wet snow on the driveway and walk had been undisturbed.

Sherm had considered stopping by Rosalee Gerkin’s place to see if she’d heard from her son, but had decided against it. Ever since she lost her husband, Rosalee has been a nervous wreck. No need to worry her if Sherm doesn’t have to.

Frowning, Sherm puts the police car into Park and leaves it running as he gets out and picks his way across the messy drive to the front steps. They’re snow-covered but he can make out indentations where someone walked up and down at some point recently. Probably Pat, checking on things.

Clinging to the icy railing and wincing against the stinging wind and snow that are whirling off the ocean, Sherm climbs the steps and knocks on the door.

He waits, then knocks again, and calls, “Anyone home?”

He doesn’t expect an answer. The wind would probably have drowned out his voice, and anyway, there doesn’t seem to be anyone here.

With a sigh, Sherm goes back to his car and gratefully slips into the heated interior.

“Where the heck are you, Pat?” he says aloud as he shifts into reverse and backs carefully away from the house.

“Y
ou okay?” Keegan calls, looking over his shoulder at Danny Cavelli and his wife Cheryl. They’re huddled on the bench behind him, clinging to the sides of the boat as it rocks violently in the foaming water.

“Fine,” Danny shouts above the roar of the engine and the wind.

Cheryl doesn’t reply. She looks green.

Keegan sees Danny glance at her in concern, saying something in her ear.

She nods and offers him a valiant smile, clinging to his hand.

She must really love the guy,
Keegan thinks, turning to look ahead again at the surging gray-black water.
She’s doing this for him—risking her life on this damn boat in a storm, with an inexperienced idiot at the helm.

And Keegan, the inexperienced idiot, is risking his life for Jennie.

And why?
he wonders bleakly.

She doesn’t even care about you. And you don’t even know that she’s definitely in trouble. . . . You just think she might be.

What’s wrong with you? Are you crazy?

No, he tells himself, he’s not crazy. He’s doing it for Jennie because he really loves her. And he can’t make himself stop, no matter what she’s done to him.

And she loves you, too,
he thinks, then narrows his brows in surprise.

She does. If you didn’t believe that, you wouldn’t be hanging on after almost two months.

Keegan ponders the notion that Jennie loves him and feels hope surging within him at the realization that it’s true. Somehow, he just knows that it is.

She loves you, but she can’t be with you for some reason. There’s definitely something she’s not telling you.

But, Keegan promises himself, when he reaches the island and finds her, he’ll make her see that no matter what her reason is, it isn’t good enough to justify leaving him.

He pictures her lilac eyes and wonders why he never asked her about the haunted expression that sometimes filled them. He’d always sensed that she was keeping something from him, but he’d figured that she’d tell him when she was ready.

Never had he imagined that there wouldn’t be plenty of time for that.

And even after she’d unceremoniously broken up with him, he hadn’t quite grasped that she meant it. Reeling from shock, he kept thinking that she would come to her senses eventually . . . that if he could just talk to her, she’d realize that they belonged together.

Never had he expected her to refuse to answer his calls or see him.

But this time, Jennie Towne,
he tells her silently,
I’m not going to let you get away with it.

As soon as I get to you—

A monstrous wave breaks over the front of the boat then, and Keegan grips the steering wheel with all his might to keep control, remembering the few pointers the fisherman had given him back at the dock.

If I get to you,
Keegan amends, wiping the stinging saltwater from his eyes with his shoulder as he clings to the wheel,
I’m going to grab you and hold you and I’m never going to let go again.

S
tephen drives as fast as he dares along the slippery coastal road, still jittery from the shock of seeing Liza jump out of the car.

He hears a thump and a muffled groan from the trunk and grits his teeth. His knuckles are white as he grips the wheel, clenching it as much out of necessity as out of fury.

What the hell did she think she was doing?
he asks himself, his eyes narrowed into angry slits behind the tinted aviator lenses.

Then again, it shouldn’t surprise him that Liza would figure out what he was up to and try to escape. She’d always been the perceptive type, he remembers, even when he first met her.

He remembers the way her green eyes had sized him up that first day . . .

He’d been browsing through a stack of imported woolen socks in the large Brooks Brothers store on Madison when he’d felt someone watching him. Glancing up, he’d seen a gorgeous, slender blonde standing a few feet away. She had a scarf in her hands, and she was running her fingers lovingly, absently, over the fine cashmere as she looked directly at him.

He’d found himself mesmerized, first by the sensuous way her fingertips stroked the scarf, then by how she slowly and oh-so-tantalizingly slipped her tongue from her mouth and ran it over her full lips.

Then she’d smiled and raised her eyebrows slightly at him, as if in silent invitation.

Stephen had glanced over his shoulder to be sure it was he she wanted, and not someone else. But he was the only one in the vicinity, and Liza had tilted her head coyly at him, appearing amused at his uncertainty.

He’d moved to stand beside her in a matter of seconds.

“Hello, there,” she’d said in that wonderfully throaty voice of hers. “I’m Liza Danning.”

“Stephen Gilbrooke,” he’d responded, holding out his hand and taking the manicured fingers she offered. Her grip was warm and confident, and she’d let her fingertips play over his knuckles before he released them.

Then she’d let her green eyes wander down the length of him, and Stephen had felt as though he were standing there stark naked and absolutely alone with her.

When she raised her gaze to meet his again, she had grinned suggestively.

“Married?” was all she said.

Stephen blinked and shook his head.

“Good.”

With that, Liza had slipped her arm through his and leaned up to whisper in his ear, her cloying perfume swirling around him in an enticing, heady cloud. “Take me to dinner tonight.”

Of course, he had. It wasn’t every day that a beautiful woman threw herself at him. Oh, Stephen was used to gold diggers, of course—he’d always encountered his share. They were easy to pinpoint, because they wanted nothing to do with someone who looked like him . . . until they found out who he was.

“You’re one of
the
Gilbrookes?” they would ask, their eyes growing suddenly interested.

But Liza was different, at first. She seemed interested in him right from the start, before she even knew his name. It wasn’t until later that night, over dinner at Le Cirque, when he’d caught the calculating way she looked at his Rolex, that Stephen realized she was a gold digger like the rest of them.