And then he moved toward her, bent down and put his face near hers. His breath was hot on her skin. “Maybe I should just fuck you now. Like old times. What d’ya say?”
A rush of anger overrode her pain. Ginny shot out her feet and thrust them into his groin. He fell back, the shouts of his agony merging with the pain-screams of hers. She got off the bed, grabbed for the lamp, and whacked him over the head once, twice, three times.
He was silent.
Ginny straightened her back. The pain was still there. Still there, but more tolerable. She hobbled to the doorway. She had to get out fast. Before he came to. Before he came at her again. Limping down the hall, feeling her way toward the staircase, she hoped—she prayed—she could get to her room, and her clothes, before Brad woke up. She tried not to consider that she might have killed him.
Somehow, she made it up the stairs. Then she thought she heard footsteps behind her.
God help me
, she thought. She reached a doorway. She ducked inside and quickly locked the door behind her. Snapping on the light, she realized where she was: it was
not the room she had shared with Lisa these past days. It was Jess’s room. Room number seven, where the suitcases still sat in the corner, where … the door had been unlocked.
Trying not to think of that now, Ginny wobbled toward the nightstand, picked up the phone, and called the police.
“There’s an intruder at Mayfield House,” she said quickly. “I slugged him with a lamp. He’s either out cold or he’s dead.” While she talked, she noticed a pale pink envelope that lay on the floor, partially hidden by the corner of the bed.
“Just get over here, fast,” she barked at the policeman. “He’s in a first-floor bedroom—it’s in the back.”
She hung up the phone, her heart beating wildly. If only she could get to her room … if only she could get to her clothes. Her back throbbed. She rubbed it.
She sat on the edge of the bed in Jess’s room and decided to wait for the police.
Her eyes fell on the envelope once again. She pushed her foot toward the note, curled her toes around the edge, and lifted it to her hand.
It was addressed to Richard Bryant.
Frowning, Ginny took out the note that was inside:
West Chop Woods … red trail … Richard.
So that was where Jess had gone. Somewhere called the West Chop Woods. The red trail. To meet Richard.
But where the hell was West Chop Woods? She had no idea what she’d done with the map. She supposed she could find someone—on the street, in a store—someone who would know where it was.
But first, she had to get dressed.
Just then sirens wailed in the night. And Ginny knew she had to move fast before the police arrived and she lost any more time. Because Ginny knew where Jess was, and she knew—bad back or not—that she had to get to her.
• • •
Melanie and Bob Galloway lived on Tea Lane in Chilmark, according to the “Island Book”—a telephone directory and island information bible—that Lisa had taken from the living room at Mayfield House. While she had been doing that, Phillip had broken into Jess’s room, quickly rummaged through her things, and found her car keys in her purse.
Now, Phillip pushed down on the accelerator as they turned off North Road and onto Tea Lane.
“I hope this is her,” Lisa said from the seat next to him.
“It has to be,” Phillip said. “There were only five Galloways listed in the Vineyard. And only one Melanie.” He slowed the car and began rubbernecking at the mailboxes. “What I can’t understand is that if Jess intended to come out here, how’d she get here?”
“We can’t be sure she is here, Phillip.”
For a few moments they were silent. “Let’s hope she is.”
Neither of them elaborated. But Phillip held fast to the hope that maybe Richard had picked up Jess, that maybe, together, they had driven out here so Jess could meet Melanie, so the truth would be in the open once and for all. Perhaps Richard had agreed to let her meet Sarah, too. The little girl in the plaster cast who Jess had said looked so much like her.
He hoped these things, but something deep down inside him warned Phillip not to count on it.
“There it is.” Lisa pointed to a mailbox in the shape of a mallard duck.
Galloway
was stenciled on the side.
Squinting in the darkness, Phillip could not see a house from the road. He took a deep breath. “Well, here goes nothing,” he said, then turned the car into a narrow, tree-lined, dirt-packed driveway—a winding driveway with two well-worn ruts. It was difficult to see. There were no lampposts, only a bit of crescent moonlight filtered through the trees.
“How can anyone like it out here?” Lisa whispered. “It’s so isolated.”
Just then something black and moving was caught in the headlights of the car. Black and moving, black and furry. With a long white stripe that snaked down its back.
“A skunk!” Lisa shrieked.
Phillip flipped the high beams off then on again. The skunk looked up at the car, turned, and waddled into the trees.
“I don’t like this,” Lisa said.
“You’re just a city girl.”
“And you’re not?”
“Nope. I’m a city boy.”
“Very funny.”
Phillip didn’t want to admit that he thought this was no place for human beings to live. Skunks, maybe. People, no way.
The driveway curved left. Phillip followed it. Abruptly, it ended. Phillip stopped the car just behind a four-wheel-drive brown Bronco with “Cape Cod & the Islands” Massachusetts license plates. The vehicle was parked near what appeared to be a front sidewalk, beyond which sat a small, square house with neat white shutters and the now-familiar gray, weathered shingles. Phillip could see that the front door was painted a cheerful red; rows of red geraniums filled window boxes. And the four many-paned windows on the face of the house—two to the left of the door, two to the right—glowed with lights from within.
“It looks nice,” Lisa said. “Homey.”
“I thought you said it was isolated.”
“It is. But it’s homey.”
“I wonder if Richard drives a Bronco.”
“I guess there’s only one way to know for sure.”
Phillip looked over at Lisa, who was looking at the house. “This is the right thing to do,” he asked, “isn’t it?”
She turned her head to him. “I have no idea.”
He smiled at her frankness. “Come on.” He opened his door. “Let’s get it over with.”
They were halfway up the walk when the red front door
opened. A man with a neatly groomed beard and a T-shirt marked
Menemsha Blues
called out to them.
“You folks lost?”
“Don’t think so,” Phillip responded, but said no more until they reached the bottom of the three-step stairs. “You must be Bob Galloway.”
“That’s me.” He did not look much older than Phillip and Lisa.
“Is your wife home?” Lisa asked. “Melanie?”
Bob Galloway folded his well-muscled arms. “What’s this about?”
“We’re friends of the Bradleys,” Phillip said, improvising as he spoke. “We’d like to speak with Melanie if she’s here.”
Bob Galloway eyed them a moment longer, then went back into the house without closing the door. Through the doorway Phillip could see a small, tidy living room with a fireplace against one wall. Next to it was a child’s table and two chairs, a plaid sofa, and a small rocking horse; across the room stood two small bookcases, the bottom shelves of which were overstuffed with books, the top shelves with pictures—family pictures, perhaps—in oval and rectangular frames. From within came the aroma of beef stew or meatloaf, reminding Phillip that he hadn’t eaten tonight, not that it mattered, because who needed food when …
A young woman in a long gingham dress appeared at the door. Behind her was Bob Galloway. “I’m Melanie,” she said. Somewhere, far beyond the pines, an island night-critter howled a slow, muted howl. Phillip cleared his throat and introduced himself and Lisa. “We’re looking for a woman named Jess Randall,” he said. “Her name used to be Jessica Bates. Have you seen her?” He looked for recognition in Melanie’s eyes—a quick flash, perhaps, or a knowing blink. There was none. Instead, she looked from Phillip to Lisa then back to Phillip again.
“No,” she replied. “I don’t know anyone by that name.” Her eyes drifted back to Lisa. “Aren’t you Lisa Andrews from
Devonshire Place
?”
Lisa took Phillip’s arm. “Yes.”
“Gosh, we watch your show all the time.…”
Nervously rubbing the skin of Phillip’s arm, Lisa smiled weakly. Phillip realized it was the first time he’d been with her when she’d been recognized. He wondered if it bothered her; he decided that it did, and found her vulnerability endearing.
“Thank you,” Lisa said. “You’re sure you don’t know a woman named Jessica Bates or Jess Randall?”
Melanie shook her head. “Sorry,” she said.
Phillip believed her. He also believed that Melanie Galloway had a quiet life, a life in which she seemed to belong. And that they had no right to step in and try and change that.
Stones and twigs scraped her cheek. Jess opened her eyes. It was dark. She pushed a dead leaf from her face, and moaned.
There was no response in the night-dark woods. Only an eerie stillness, where no birds sang, no seagulls screeched. Nothing but stillness and a thin mist of fog that clung to the air like spun angel hair and prickled her skin with its touch.
Her foot throbbed. Slowly, she managed to sit up. She touched where it hurt. Her ankle had swollen over the side of her shoe, had puffed out like a balloon valance in a lady’s boudoir. “Owwwwwwww,” she cried. Her head began to hurt and she began to shiver. She rubbed her hands against her arms, trying to brush the pine needles and pieces of decaying leaves from the sleeves of her sweater.
The ground was damp beneath her. She put down her hands and tried to stand. But her ankle couldn’t take her weight. She slumped back to the ground.
“Help,” she called quietly, knowing there was no one or nothing to hear her. No one but the animals that played in
the night, nothing but the mysteries that danced in the shadows.
She wondered why Richard had not come. She wondered about the envelope and if he had tricked her. She wondered if the orange bit of fabric had belonged to Karin, and, if so, what she’d been doing here. She wondered if she was going to die here in the middle of the woods on an island in the middle of the sea. If she would die before ever seeing her children again—Chuck, Maura, Travis. Her children—the ones she had nurtured and loved and raised to become the young adults they were, the sometimes-spoiled, sometimes-unappreciative young adults whom she did not doubt did love her. She wondered if they’d miss her if she died here in these woods.
Then she thought about Maura, and how unfair this really had been to her. Once, Maura had been Jess’s only daughter. Now she was faced with competing with an unnamed, unknown, “other” daughter. No matter how many psychology classes Maura took, or how many case studies she researched, Maura would, perhaps, never be able to be objective about this situation: about Melanie and Sarah and Richard, the man Jess once loved.
And now, Jess’s last hope that she might know her first child had been shattered, her last effort thwarted. And all she wanted to do was go home. She wanted to try and come to terms with what Father had done—that, despite his inability to show his true feelings, he had cared enough about Jess to take care of her baby in, she supposed, the way he had deemed best. She wanted to have a chance to try and come to terms with that. She did not want to die here in the woods. And, more than anything, she wanted to go home.
Instead, she remained motionless on the ground, wondering how long she would survive, and how long it would take before someone found her body. She dropped her head and lowered her eyes. She let the tears roll down her cheeks, just as, in the forest, it began to rain.
• • •
She was going to find the son of a bitch and kill him. If she’d done it to Brad, surely Ginny was perfectly capable of wasting this jackass named Richard.
Richard
, she thought, jamming Dick’s pickup truck into gear and heading toward the center of town. If she’d heard his name once she’d heard it a trillion-too-many times thirty years ago. “Richard is coming for me, you’ll see,” a young Jess had told them over and over. Well, Richard had not come. He’d come here instead. Not that Ginny blamed him. The Vineyard was far nicer than Larchwood Hall. And Mayfield House was definitely more upscale than the cold-water flat he and Jess would have had to live in with their baby if he’d married her and her father had cut off her cash.
But just like three decades ago,
Richard
was up to no good. He could give Jess any load of crap that he wanted, but his actions spoke volumes. And right now, the story didn’t look much different than when he bailed out on her three decades ago.
She could kill the son of a bitch for screwing up Jess’s mind again.
Rumbling along Main Street in the old Ford, Ginny rolled down the window. The sidewalks, of course, had been proverbially rolled up and packed away with the day’s leftover saltwater taffy; it was after all, ten o’clock in Vineyard Haven and the tourists were expected to be snuggly tucked in their overpriced rooms at the overpriced bed-and-breakfasts. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, Ginny thought as she flipped on the wipers, now it was fucking raining.
At least Dick had left the old pickup in the garage at the inn. At least he’d left the keys in the ignition. She tried to be grateful for such a small mercy, but all she really cared about was that her back was still killing her and she had to find Jess.
“Hey!” she shouted out the window at a yellow-slicker-clad figure that walked on the sidewalk. “Where’s West Chop Woods?” The figure pretended it didn’t hear her and scurried along, ducking into a dark doorway. “Asshole,” Ginny muttered, swinging the truck up Spring Street to circle around and go back to the beginning of Main. If nothing else, she could stop at the Tisbury Inn. Someone had to be there. Someone with a brain.
Someone was there. A few minutes later, limping with pain and soggy from the rain that soaked through the nylon sweatsuit she’d managed to change into before the cops found her, Ginny hobbled up to the desk. “I’m trying to find West Chop Woods,” she said. “Where the hell is it?”