Fifteen minutes later she sat next to Avery on the bow of
Hard Case
, their backs braced against the exterior wall of the cabin, her knees pulled to her chest, her bare feet flat on the deck. Warm salt air skimmed over her, whipping her T-shirt around her, as the boat sliced through the water. Occasionally she closed her eyes just to draw the fabulous feeling even deeper inside her. “God, I hate to sound like a cliché,” she said, “but this really is the life.”
Avery nodded. Her bikini top clung to her ample bosom, her legs, short but shapely, were stretched out in front of her and crossed at the ankles. She’d pulled her hair up into a high ponytail, but curly strands had pulled free and were streaming behind her with the wind.
“The Hardins have always had a boat,” she said, raising her voice just enough to be heard over the motor and the wind. “I used to love and hate going on it.”
Maddie considered Avery’s profile. The childlike freshness of her face belied the strength of her features and the determined set of her chin. When you added the curves and the bust and the short stature, it made it easy to dismiss that strength. She wondered how many men had made that mistake and how many ever even attempted to look beyond the pert good looks. Based on their roles on
Hammer and Nail
, her husband hadn’t. And whoever produced the show certainly hadn’t bothered to present the real Avery, who was so much more than she’d seemed on TV.
“I’m getting the love part.” Maddie also raised her voice, knowing that nothing could be heard behind them. “I’d like to stay here and never go back to the real world. But why the hate?”
Avery tilted her head back and closed her eyes, and Maddie wasn’t sure she was going to answer.
“Did something happen between your families?”
“I think it was just the jealousy, you know?” Avery hesitated again, but Maddie waited her out.
“They seemed so complete. And my dad and I were so . . . not. I mean we loved each other and were always there for each other, you know.” She opened her eyes and turned to face Maddie. “I miss him like crazy. But I don’t think either of us ever really got over being abandoned. There was always this gaping hole that we didn’t know how to fill.”
“Your parents were divorced?”
“Oh, yeah.” Avery nodded, but turned her gaze back to the waterfront mansions that flew by, each with its yacht moored behind it. “Deirdre left when I was thirteen. Just decided she didn’t want to be a wife or a mother. I guess re-covering celebrity sofas was a nobler calling.” Her face was still as stone in stark contrast to her hair, which flew around it like snakes. “You know what I remember most about her leaving?”
Maddie waited.
“I got my period for the first time two days after she left. And I had to ask my dad to go to the store to get me sanitary napkins.” A sad smile played at the corner of her lips. “It was so pathetic. I can’t think about it to this day without picturing him in the drugstore trying to figure out what kind to buy.” All these years later and Avery’s voice was still thick with pain.
“Do you see her?”
“Not if I can help it.” Avery wrapped her arms around herself even though the wind that blew over them was warm as a caress. “Not that she ever beat my door down or anything. We went years without a word from her. And then her work started showing up in magazines and she was the go-to designer to the stars. Every once in a while she shows up and doesn’t understand why we can’t start over.” She drew her knees up to her chest and opened her arms to include them.
The boat slowed for a no-wake zone, and they passed Tierra Verde’s sprawling condos and headed directly toward the Skyway Bridge. Maddie sat up and turned to get a glimpse of Kyra, who sat next to Jeff Hardin, her head fallen back, a small smile on her lips. No one could love you or hurt you more than your mother. And Kyra was about to tackle that trickiest of jobs on her own.
“Did she ever tell you why?” Maddie asked, turning back.
“I don’t care why,” Avery replied. “You can’t just walk away from your own flesh and blood and then reappear and ask for a do-over. It doesn’t work that way.”
They rode in silence for a time, moving into the intracoastal waterway, the sun and water and steady roar of the boat’s powerful engine as soothing as a deep-tissue massage.
Then they were picking up speed again and running along the massive bridge. They passed a large island teeming with birds and the boat made a right and slowed slightly. Jet Skis skimmed by, buzzing around the larger boats like insects around livestock.
“There’s the fort!” one of the boys shouted as a long sliver of white beach appeared on their left, the ruins of a fort still standing off at one end.
The boat slowed and turned toward the beach.
“Let’s pull in over there, Dad!” Jason said.
“Here, you take us in,” Chase said, cutting their speed a notch further as his oldest stepped behind the wheel and rested a hand on the throttle.
Josh opened a rear compartment and pulled out a coil of rope with an anchor tied to its end. Jason slowed the boat further until they were putting slowly toward an empty stretch of beach dotted with stands of palm trees. There wasn’t another human being in sight.
Chase stood between his sons watching, but not intruding, as Jason maneuvered in and aimed directly for the beach. The boat slowed further.
“It’s deep enough right off the beach to pull up onto the sand,” Chase explained from the other side of the windshield. Josh joined them on the bow, quickly tying the anchor line to a cleat.
At Chase’s nod, Jason pulled all the way back on the throttle and cut the motor. A few moments later the bow slid up onto the beach so smoothly Maddie was surprised when the boat stopped. Josh clambered off and set the anchor up on the beach.
“Good job,” Chase said as he clapped Jason on the back, then climbed up on the bow and gave a hard tug on the anchor line. “Just right, Josh.”
His sons beamed at the praise while their grandfather added his own nod of approval. No “but” followed, no suggestion on how it might have been done better, how performance might be improved next time. Maddie liked that and found herself offering Chase and his father her own nod of approval as they handed her and then Kyra down with some ceremony. Avery insisted on disembarking herself and the Hardins made no comment. Jason and Chase brought up the rear, carrying blankets and a cooler.
“I feel like we’re on our own desert island,” Kyra said as she pulled off her T-shirt and stretched out on one end of a blanket. A tiny pouch rose above the top of her neon green bikini bottom and the tiny top rode her burgeoning breasts like triangular band aids. “I think I’m going to catch a little nap.”
Maddie and Avery sank down nearby and Jeff handed around cold drinks. Idly they watched the Hardins pass around a football, then ate sandwiches from the cooler and topped them off with chips and bakery cookies. Chase offered to show them around the old fort, but Kyra was fast asleep and neither Maddie nor Avery could make themselves move.
Maddie felt the band of control she’d been holding on to for the last months loosen slightly. As the warm breeze played over her skin and the wash of waves on sand mingled with the distant buzz of boat motors, her own eyes fluttered shut and she drowsed for a time, surprisingly content.
She might have gone on this way all afternoon if Chase hadn’t suggested they build a sand castle. And Avery hadn’t suggested they choose up sides and turn it into a competition. And Kyra hadn’t roused just in time to retrieve her video camera from the boat so that she could document what turned into the Sand Castle Edition of
Survivor
.
Twenty
Avery was smiling when they pulled up to the Cottage Inn dock at the end of the day. According to self-appointed judge and mediator Jeff Hardin, the Beach Bellas, as she and Maddie and Kyra had called themselves, had dominated the sand building competition with their version of Bella Flora. The only disappointment had been the inability to vote Chase off the island; a move that would have left her satisfied but stranded.
She’d savored her victory all the way back, glad for once that Kyra had had her video camera there to document their superior design. But mostly she’d enjoyed building the hard-packed castle walls and the memories that evoked of her father.
“Thanks,” she said as she climbed off the bow and onto the dock. The sun had already set and the brilliant sky faded to pale gray as dusk hunkered down over the water. “That was fun.” She resisted a last dig on Chase’s loss as she reached a hand down to help Madeline and Kyra off the boat.
“Thanks again. Drive carefully,” Madeline called as Chase backed
Hard Case
away from the dock and then turned the boat for the ride back to Tampa.
“Gosh, I feel so . . . relaxed,” Avery said.
And victorious
. “I kind of forgot what that felt like.”
“Me, too,” said Madeline. “I can’t wait to take a shower and get the salt off, but I feel pleasantly tired.” She shot Avery a look. “Which is completely different from physically exhausted.”
Kyra smiled her agreement and repositioned her video camera bag. “That was the fiercest sand castle building competition I’ve ever seen,” she said.
“Chase Hardin needed humbling,” Avery said without a trace of regret. “And I’m glad we were the ones to do it.” She smiled.
“You don’t think that last victory lap around the fort was just a tad unsportsmanlike?” Madeline asked.
No, Avery did not.
They passed the Cottage Inn and their own castle came into view. “Hey,” Avery said, pointing to a midsized sedan in the driveway. “That’s not Nikki’s car.”
“No, and I don’t think she’s coming back until tomorrow morning anyway.” Avery peered at the vehicle, but all she could tell was that the license plate wasn’t local.
They huddled together in the gathering dusk. “Did we leave those lights on?” Avery asked.
“I don’t think so,” Madeline said.
A shadow passed in front of an upstairs window and then a light flipped on in the hallway. Madeline pulled out her cell phone. Kyra took out her camera.
“Should we call the police?” Maddie asked.
“I don’t know,” Avery said. “It’s not exactly the dead of night and whoever’s in there doesn’t seem to be sneaking around. I mean they left their car right there in the driveway.”
“I’d say it’s one of the subs who decided to get some work done,” Kyra said. “Except that car doesn’t look like it belongs to a workman.”
“Well, we can’t stand out here cowering all evening. I’m going in.” Avery took a step forward.
“Me, too,” Madeline said. “But I’ve got nine-one-one on speed dial and I’ll have my finger on the Send button.”
Avery turned to look at her.
“It never hurts to be prepared. I’m not interested in being a headline in the local paper. I can just see it now—‘Women Taken in Dyer Ponzi Scheme Murdered!’ ” Maddie shook her head. “There’s no point in taking chances.”
“Okay, troops,” Avery said. “Let’s go in the back. At least we’ll have the element of surprise.”
They moved forward quietly, Avery in the lead. As they snaked toward the detached garage, she picked up a two-by-four from a pile. Maddie raised her phone in front of her, her finger poised. Kyra flipped her camera on and held it at the ready.
“What are you planning to do, film them to death?” Avery asked.
Kyra shrugged. “You have your weapons of choice, I have mine.”
They inched up to the kitchen door and Avery opened it, freezing at the resulting creak. When no one came pounding down the stairs brandishing a weapon, they went into the kitchen leaving the door open behind them.
“In case we need to make a speedy exit,” Maddie whispered before reaching into a drawer to retrieve their lone sharp knife.
“I’ll take the front stairs,” Avery said. “You two take the back.”
There was the creak of floor above them and a cell phone rang. They froze and reached for their phones, but it was coming from upstairs, the melody loud in the quiet of the house.
“That is
not
a ringtone of Ethel Merman singing ‘There’s No Business Like Show Business,’ ” Maddie whispered. “Is it?”
Avery shrugged, and then like a Special Forces person on television, she executed a series of hand motions meant to signal them to the back stair and herself to the front. The Singers rolled their eyes at her.
As she crept silently up the front stair, trying to avoid the known squeaks, a vaguely familiar scent tickled Avery’s nose, trumping the smells of sawdust and cleaning products. She sniffed the heavy floral scent for a moment, not quite able to place it, then drew a steadying breath before climbing the rest of the way up to the second-floor landing, reaching it at just about the same time as Maddie and Kyra.
A sliver of light spilled into the hallway from the master bedroom. There was a murmur of a female voice and the occasional quick click of heels on wood. Avery inched forward and pushed the bedroom door open another crack. A mound of expensive luggage sat in the middle of the bedroom floor and an even more expensive briefcase leaned against one wall.
“Great,” Maddie said, still brandishing her weapons. “Maybe someone got their hotel reservations wrong. Do you think they thought they were checking into the Don CeSar?”
Avery looked up at the ceiling and the large amoeba-like stain around the hole that had been patched. The moldy green shag carpet and most of its bad smell were gone, but the longneglected wood floor underneath was in desperate need of attention. “Not unless they’re blind and have lost their sense of smell,” she said. “And I don’t think there are too many homeless people with a matched set of Louis Vuitton luggage.”
The click of heels drew closer and they all turned to the double doorway that led to the dressing room and master bath. Kyra raised her camera to her eye. Maddie held the knife and phone out in front of her. Despite the signs that they were not dealing with a violent intruder, her hands trembled slightly.