The Precipice (11 page)

Chapter 13

T
he two close friends were sharing a late dinner on the back porch, what Amelia liked to refer to as the veranda. Rashelle was adept at slipping into the kitchen even at the height of activity to gather food. Tonight, all of the kitchen staff were busy with the clambake down on the beach so there was no one around to notice. She had scavenged enough food to make a full sit-down dinner for the two of them, including a lobster and a few clams for them to share. They were trying to enjoy the meal on the porch, but they were both a little distracted. It was certainly a pleasant setting. The jalousie windows were cranked out to their fullest setting, allowing the cool evening sea breeze to penetrate the screened-in porch.

Suddenly Elizabeth’s phone rang in her pocket and she jumped slightly. She cringed as she pulled it out and flipped it open, fully expecting it to be Vera. To her surprise it was an unfamiliar number with an area code of 917. Elizabeth was fairly sure that it was one of the codes for Brooklyn and then it dawned on her. Drescher. Hers eyes widened and she looked up to Rashelle.

“I’m sorry. I really should answer this.”

Rashelle shrugged to reassure her it wasn’t a problem.

She stood up and turned away from the table, pressed the “talk” button and tried to sound professional, “Hello, this is Elizabeth.” She held her breath in anticipation.

“Elizabeth. How are you?” His voice was smooth and lilting.

“Fine, Mr. Drescher. And you?”

“Elizabeth, please…Jack. Please call me Jack. We’ve known each other for too long to keep up such formalities.”

A shiver coursed through her torso. “Alright, J-Jack. If you insist.” She started to pace as she spoke.

“Of course I do. That’s much better. Thank you…so what are you up to? You mentioned you were going away for the weekend. Any place good?” He waited for her to respond.

Her mind was racing. Her boss thinks she should be back in New York City working on a project for him and, if she’s not careful, it could appear that she has cast her responsibilities and priorities aside for a mini-vacation. “I’m actually visiting my grandmother in Maine…”

“Maine. Well that’s quite a hike from the city, isn’t it?” His voice was calm and almost soothing, one that could talk anyone into almost anything.

“Yes, well I came up to give her a hand with some things. It was kind of last minute but I have also been working on your new project,” she tried to reassure him.

“Well I hope you find the time to fit in some relaxation while you’re there. You work so hard. You need to reward yourself once in a while.”

She was a bit taken back by his words. He wasn’t angry at all that she had taken some time off. She started to let down her guard.

“And I hear the lobster there is like no other. Make sure you get one of those red crustaceans before you leave.”

She smiled. “As a matter of fact, I am having one for dinner right now.”

“Nice! Where are you dining? A favorite restaurant of yours?”

She smiled again. She found herself slightly amused. “Not exactly. My grandmother runs an inn up here and a friend of mine and I are having a quiet dinner on the back porch.” Then she thought she should clarify so he wouldn’t get the wrong idea. “A girlfriend and I. There is a clambake down on the beach for the guests so the veranda was available for us to enjoy.” Suddenly she felt a little silly, like she was giving him unimportant details that an important man, such as himself, wouldn’t be interested in.

He feigned interest, however. “Sounds absolutely wonderful.”

There was an awkward pause while Elizabeth scrambled to think about how to turn the conversation around so it was no longer about her.

He came to her rescue. “Well, I didn’t intend to interrupt your dinner. We’ll talk again, Elizabeth. I would like to talk in more detail about my project.”

“Absolutely, Mr. Drescher...Jack. I would be happy to go over the concept of my designs with you, if you would like.” She hoped that was sufficient to keep him happy for a while.

“That sounds great, Elizabeth. I’ll call again.” His voice was uncharacteristically gentle. It crossed her mind that he probably didn’t speak to everyone in that tone.

“Good-bye.” She spoke softly, finding it hard to believe that she had just had a conversation with Jack Drescher on her cell phone, outside of work and not really about work. And all she could come up with to talk about was what she was doing on a Saturday evening, or really, what she wasn’t doing. “Wow that was lame.” She turned back to her friend.

Rashelle looked up.

“I just talked to one of the most powerful business men in the city, perhaps on the East Coast, and all I could talk about was eating dinner on the back porch…clearly I don’t have much of a life.

She returned to her seat and looked up to see her friend frowning. Elizabeth feared she had taken offense at her comment.

“Oh Shelle! This has nothing to do with you. I just get so nervous when I talk to him. He is such a huge client of Loran Design. Extremely successful with his real estate empire. If his name is associated with a project, it seems as though it is an instant success, or at least a guaranteed success. He has a way of making things happen…”

Elizabeth recalled a phone conversation that she inadvertently overheard, not long after she had first met him, during which Drescher yelled quite loudly at the person on the other end of the line. She didn’t intend to eavesdrop but she just happened to be walking near an office in Loran Design that he was using while he was there. He tended to move in and make himself at home. The volume of his voice made her stop in her tracks and pause for a moment. Clearly he was not someone you wanted to be in disagreement with and certainly not someone you wanted to cross.

Returning her focus to Rashelle, “Probably travels to exotic places and has vacation homes all over. He lives a life that you and I probably can’t imagine and certainly can’t relate to. Nothing I say could possibly sound very interesting to him. All I do is work. I don’t have much of a life outside of it.”

A smirk spread across Rashelle’s face. “Maybe you should do something about that.”

Lizzi opened her mouth to respond but closed it again.

“Interesting that he wants to speak to you about his project, not Vera.”

Elizabeth studied her face to see if she could decipher what she meant.

“I just mean that speaks well for you. Obviously, you are a very talented designer and he recognizes that.” She could tell that Elizabeth was shrugging off her compliment. “You are, Lizzi. Think about it. You have seven years of incredible experience at one of the top design firms in the city. This major client wants to discuss his project directly with you. I wouldn’t be surprised if Vera feels a little inadequate around you. At this point in her career, she probably finds it more difficult to come up with fresh, new design ideas and to stay on top of the latest trends in the industry than she did when she was your age. Her energy is waning and she has to try to keep up with the likes of you.”

“Oh, Shelle. You exaggerate so!”

“Don’t believe that for a minute! I’m serious. Don’t sell yourself short. And if this guy is so influential, he could be a big help to you when you decide to break out on your own, leave Vera behind and start your own design firm. I bet he would jump ship and give his business to you.”

Elizabeth’s eyes widened. “Vera would have my head if that happened. Oh my God.” She cringed at the thought. “Besides, he scares me a little bit. I’m not sure I want to be alone in the same room with him when the day comes that he doesn’t get his way.”

“Doesn’t sound like that should be a problem for you.” Rashelle had a twinkle in her eye.

Elizabeth sighed. Her friend had no idea what the man was like and she really wanted to put him out of her thoughts for the time being. She would deal with him when she returned to the city. That would have to be soon enough. “Well at the moment, we’ve got more important issues to worry—”

From their left, the screen door squeaked on its hinges. Someone entered the porch and quietly passed next to their table. It was a young man in his twenties who appeared to have a bit of a Latino background. Elizabeth and Rashelle didn’t pay much attention to him until he reached down and picked up Elizabeth’s napkin off the floor. He placed it quietly onto the table, to the right of her dish, between the two of them. “Excuse me, ladies.” He looked directly at Elizabeth. “You dropped this.” His interruption startled her. She had been completely engrossed in her thoughts and their discussion of Drescher.

“Oh! Oh, thank you,” she stammered, slightly embarrassed. He turned and headed for the door into the lobby. Once he had cleared the porch, she leaned over to Rashelle, “Who is that?” She hadn’t recognized him and she thought she knew everyone on the staff.

“…That must be the new guy—” Rashelle looked as though she was trying to recall the details surrounding this new character.

“Another new guy? I thought Kurt was the only one.”

“Oh, well, this guy—I think his name is Armand—is a kind of an all-around guy. He goes where he is needed. He is a friend of Slater’s. Tony must have needed his help with the clambake tonight.”

Rashelle didn’t seem to know Armand that well. Elizabeth thought that was a bit odd.

Slater was a local fisherman who would take guests of the inn out on his lobster boat, teaching them about lobstering, while pulling up traps on an abbreviated version of his regular route. Although only in his thirties, he was a seasoned fisherman. He was the son of a retired fisherman who now captained a very successful tour boat company further north in Boothbay Harbor. Slater kept to the lobstering. It wasn’t as seasonal as the tour boat business and he was comfortable with it; he had grown up around it. Around the bend from the Pennington Point Beach, further to the east, was a quiet little cove that boasted a small dock where Slater kept his boat. He would take out small groups from the inn on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

Elizabeth picked up the ivory cotton napkin Armand, or whatever his name was, had placed next to her plate. She slid it across her lap. Something fell to the floor that caught Rashelle’s eye. “Liz, you dropped something.” She leaned over and picked up a folded piece of paper and handed it to her friend.

Elizabeth had a puzzled expression on her face and slowly opened it, holding it so that Rashelle could see, too. There was a brief note scrawled in grease pencil. It wasn’t directed specifically to any one person. It was very blunt.

Where’s the girl? do you want to know?

The handwriting was fairly neat with random capitalization throughout. Elizabeth’s heart skipped a beat. She looked at her friend. “Who could have written this?” she whispered. “This is the second one I have seen today.” They were so absorbed by the note that they didn’t notice Amelia approaching from behind.

“Hey, girls. I see you found something to eat.”

They jumped and spun around to face her. Elizabeth scrunched the note into the palm of her hand.

“Oh! Nana, hi! Uh…I’m sorry. I know we were supposed to have dinner together tonight—”

“Don’t give it another thought, Hun. I’m the one who should apologize. I totally forgot, what with all that is going on around here. I’m glad you were resourceful and got some food for yourselves.”

“Well, what about you Nana? Have you eaten?” A twinge of guilt pinched her stomach. She had never checked up on her grandmother to see if she had taken time for food. She really should be keeping a better eye on her.

“Oh, I grabbed a bite already. I was with the police officers when Tony brought them dinner earlier.”

Elizabeth really wanted to believe her grandmother, but something told her she was covering up so that her little Lizzi wouldn’t worry and wouldn’t feel guilty about standing her up for dinner.

“Girls…I’m afraid I have more bad news.” She moved right on to the business at hand. “Lt. Perkins just told me that things are going to be going from bad to worse. There is a hurricane that they’ve been watching down the coast and it looks like it is heading our way. At first, it looked like it was going out to sea, but it hasn’t taken the right turn that they expected it to take. It’s barreling right up the eastern seaboard on its way here.”

The girls’ mouths hung open. Elizabeth was the first to regain her voice. “That’s awful, Nana! Now what do we do?”

“Well, there’s not much we
can
do.” She looked like she was struggling to keep her composure. “They will keep monitoring the storm while they continue their investigation which they hope to complete by the time the hurricane arrives. All the guests will have to evacuate by then.”

“When do they expect it to hit?” Rashelle had found her voice.

“Well, it’s hard to say exactly, seems to change by the hour. It’s a rather volatile storm. Could be sometime Labor Day or Tuesday morning or as early as Sunday evening.”

The girls gasped at the thought.

“In the meantime, we need to assist in any way we can with the investigation. Hopefully we will find the girl safe and sound somewhere. Maybe she’s just playing a teenage prank on her parents and it will all be over soon.

“Wouldn’t that be nice?” Elizabeth joined her grandmother’s daydream.

Rashelle decided to play devil’s advocate again. “Of course, if she has caught wind of the commotion she has caused here, she may not surface for quite some time.”

Amelia looked at Rashelle and seemed to be considering her point. “Well, I just hope it all turns out alright. We just have to keep believing it will…praying it will. It’s so unproductive to think otherwise.” The tone of Amelia’s voice seemed to reprimand Rashelle for not being optimistic.

Elizabeth knew her grandmother believed in the power of positive thinking, but she thought this situation was going to take a lot more than the three of them sitting around saying “everything will be alright…” And she didn’t dare tell Amelia about the note she held crumpled up in the palm of her hand or the one shoved deep into her pants pocket.

“Nana, do you happen to know where Kurt is? We haven’t seen him around in a quite a while.”

“Oh, I don’t know.” She sounded disgusted. “He may be helping the chief with something. I know he has his hands full. Slater didn’t return from his lobstering trip this afternoon when he was supposed to. Chief was looking into it.”

“He didn’t come back yet?!” Rashelle quickly glanced at her watch and slid to the edge of her chair, anxious to hear more.

Lt. Perkins appeared in the doorway. “Ladies.” His voice was firm. He was the man in command. “I need to have a word with you.”