by Darci Hannah
I nodded in the darkness, mostly to convince myself. “He’s probably spent with exhaustion and is sleeping somewhere. There’s no dingy that I can see, so he’s probably back on his boat. In fact, I’m sure he is.” I wasn’t sure of anything, but it was better than staring at the look on Hannah’s face. In the aura of my flashlight she looked troubled. I dismissed it and asked, “Where’s Peter?”
She pointed to a light bobbing away in the woods. “Investigating,” she said bleakly. “Told him I was staying here. Thanks to you, I’m now terrified of woods. Bad things happen in the woods.”
“Good things too,” Tay remarked impulsively. She didn’t say so, but Hannah was freaking her out as well. Tay brushed it off, adding, “I mean, if the legend is correct, this is where Whitney and Tate used to come to make out. It wasn’t spooky back then, was it?”
I shook my head as the hair on the back of my neck began to prickle. “Not particularly,” I said, watching the bobbing lights come toward us again. “What’s going on?” I asked Jack.
It wasn’t like Jack to look nervous, but he was. “I want you all to stay here and keep searching the island. It’s not large. Break into groups so we’ll cover more ground. I’m going to swim out to the Dutchman and see if Tate’s fallen asleep in there.” We all turned to the shadowy boat bobbing gently at anchor. Lights from our cabin cruiser glowed across the water, but the sleek sailboat with the tall masts was utterly dark. Tate, if he was aboard, would at least have his mast lights on, I thought.
“Cry out if you find him,” Lance said, and headed off with Tay.
“We’ll go this way.” Giff pointed his light on the other side of the woods.
I stayed where I was, close to Jack and watching as he prepared for a late-night swim. Unaware that I was still staring at him, he began undressing on the beach. He removed his shirt first. Then his watch, cellphone, and wallet were removed. His shorts came next. In a flash, those too were on the beach, pooled at his ankles. Jack was about to remove his briefs when he said very softly, “It might be best if you turn around now.”
Caught off guard, I inhaled sharply and spun to face the woods where the others were heading. I could feel myself blushing to the roots of my hair. “Sorry,” I blurted. “I … I didn’t mean to …” There was no good answer to that. Stop talking, idiot, I told myself. Honestly, I’d had no idea he knew I was staring at him.
“It’s not that I mind,” he added, whispering very close to my ear. “But I’m a bit old-fashioned, not to mention superstitious. It would never do to reveal the goods before we’ve had our first date.”
“Right,” I breathed, my heart pounding with the same fear and intensity as a thief fleeing the scene of a crime. “I … um, was just about to turn around myself.”
“Good,” he replied, teasingly. “Knew we’d be on the same page. I have a favor to ask. Keep Duffy with you until I get back, okay?”
There was a big splash, and then the soft pearling of water as it lapped over a smooth body gliding through the water. I turned to the lake once again and saw that Jack was swimming. He was a powerful swimmer.
“Come on,” I said to the spaniel at my side as my heart pounded away a little erratically. “Let’s go find Tate.”
MacDuff and I caught up with Giff and Hannah. They’d been holding hands as Giff pulled her along through the woods with him, swinging his flashlight in a wide arc. He stopped when he saw me, and grinned. “Nice view of the moon tonight.” The way it was said I knew he wasn’t referring to the one orbiting earth.
“I wouldn’t know. I wasn’t looking.”
A flash of white teeth appeared in the darkness. “Pity,” he said. “I was. And for the record, it was a very nice, very fit moon.”
“Guys!” Hannah reprimanded. “Seriously. Stop talking about the moon! Tate’s missing, and now Peter is too. The last time I was in the woods I was nearly abducted. I still have nightmares about it. So, stop fooling around and keep looking for Tate!”
With MacDuff in the lead sniffing the air and the ground alike, we continued searching the densely wooded island, following narrow, winding footpaths and exploring the rocky shoreline. More than a few times we were startled by the screech of a bird, or the sudden rustling of bushes. In those cases, MacDuff sprang off to investigate, leaving us alone in the eerie woods. Hannah, not liking that one bit, had strategically placed herself between Giff and me. Although MacDuff always came back with a wagging tail, Hannah was beside herself with fear. Thankfully, it wasn’t long before we met up with Tay and Lance, who’d come from the other direction.
“Find anything?” I asked.
“Nothing,” Tay replied.
“I don’t understand it,” Lance added, shaking his head. A rogue piece of hair had come loose, which he quickly secured behind his ear. “Tate’s a large man. It’s like he’s just disappeared. I hope for all our sakes he fell asleep on the Dutchman.”
It was the one hope we all clung to as we headed back to the horseshoe bay where Tate had made camp. We’d no sooner come out of the woods than we saw Jack and Peter. Although his coppery hair was dripping as it clung to his beautifully shaped head, Jack was already dressed. Peter was beside him, staring at a limp object in his hands.
“What’s that?” Hannah cried. She ran toward them with the erratic intensity of one being chased. Earlier she’d voiced the fear that Peter had gotten lost, which was a hard thing to do on a small island.
Surrounded by the glow of flashlights, Jack looked up. The look on his ashen face stilled my heart. “It’s a black cloak,” he informed me. “Peter found it in the cooler. I didn’t think to look in there before. Thankfully, Peter did. And that’s not all. He’s left a note. Dear God, Whitney. I’m so sorry.”
Forty-Two
“It’s not possible,” I said, shaking my head as tears streamed from my eyes like water over a breached dam. “No, Jack. I refuse to believe it. It makes no sense at all.”
We were traveling back from the island, towing the Lusty Dutchman behind us; the boat appearing in the darkness like the skeletal remains of some poor lost soul. It had been hard leaving the island. All the evidence we had found on the deserted beach had been conclusive, but it made no sense at all. The mood on Dad’s cabin cruiser was positively dour and hopeless, so unlike the mood when we’d left. We’d been so hopeful then. Our goal had been to cheer Tate up and bring him back home, making sure he was aware of how much he was needed and loved in the cove. Instead we had found a scene of unspeakable sadness. The note, hastily scrawled in Tate’s hand, was a confession to the murder of Silvia Lumiere. It was also an untimely farewell, the tipping point not being guilt but heartbreak over losing me.
I could maybe just believe that he was capable of murder—if he was pushed to his very limits. But suicide from a broken heart? Not likely. Not Tate. I absolutely refused to believe our breakup had anything to do with it. The truth was, Tate hadn’t been in love with me anymore than I’d been in love with him. Sure, there was mutual attraction. We’d always had that. But Tate had his flings on the side. It was a direct response to me chasing a career in Chicago. Once Tate was no longer the center of my universe, he’d felt abandoned, or so he had once said. Part of me regretted that, but there were no do-overs in real life. We had both made our mistakes. However, once I was back in Cherry Cove, I believe we both began to fall in love with the idea of us, and that was a totally different beast than being in love. Tate, I believed, understood this too.
But still, the emptiness was haunting.
Lance and Tay had the helm and were driving the boat back to the marina. I’d been sitting in the cabin with Jack, trying to make sense of the senseless. Jack, although trying to remain professional, was falling apart at the seams. He’d been cradling his face in his hands, tears visible in his own eyes, when he gently looked up. “I’ll call Sturgeon Bay. They’ll want to send out divers in the morning.”
Jack nodded. “There was no sign of the body on the island or sailboat.”
“It was dark,” I reminded him. “He could …” I cleared my throat and started again. “He could still be there.”
“We had flashlights,” he said. “And MacDuff. If there was a body on that island, he would have found it for sure. A dead body gives off a particularly nasty odor. It’s like a rotting—”
I held up my hand to stop him before he got carried away with gruesome descriptions of dead bodies. Jack had seen quite a few in his days working in Milwaukee, and he had a real gift for vivid imagery. Such clinical talking might put him at ease, but I couldn’t hear it. Not now; not ever. “Point taken,” I said. “So you think Tate drowned? You know he’s the most powerful swimmer in Cherry Cove.”
Jack’s honey-colored gaze held mine as he gently spoke. “Whitney, when someone is desperate enough to take their own life, they go to desperate measures. Tate was a powerful swimmer, which means he might have swum out very far into the lake in a purposeful attempt to exhaust himself. I have no idea how he did it. All the note said was that he didn’t want to live in a world where you no longer …” Jack stopped, then let out a pained gasp. “Jesus, Whitney. What have we done?”
“Jack.” I forced him to look at me. “This isn’t about us. If you’ll recall, Sunday at the diner, both you and Tate were quite done with me. I screwed this up, not you. And that’s another thing that doesn’t make sense.” I furrowed my brow. “You know Tate as well as I do. He’s not the type of man to harbor a lot of guilt. In fact, when he left my car he said, and I quote, ‘You know where to find me if you need me.’ That doesn’t sound like a man who’s ready to end his life due to guilt and a broken heart.”
It was then that Jack’s eyes clouded with sorrow. “You don’t know that, Whitney. No one does. That’s what makes this kind of behavior so tricky to diagnose. People are good at hiding their true feelings, especially those with suicidal tendencies. We all knew Tate as a larger-than-life, happy-go-lucky guy. But something made him snap. Something made him want to kill Silvia.”
“Wait,” I said, and sat up a little straighter. “Did Tate have an alibi for his whereabouts on Saturday night?”
“Nope. Same as you. Said he was asleep. Mrs. Cushman lives on the yacht now and couldn’t confirm it.”
We both fell silent then, mulling over our own thoughts as the powerful motor hummed beneath us. Poor Jack. He tried to hide it, but I could see how the guilt of Tate’s sudden disappearance consumed him. Hours ago we’d both been positively giddy, swept up by the fact that after a month of tap dancing around the issue, we’d finally come clean with our feelings for one another. It was akin to skimming a toe in a fathomless pool of earthly delights, heady and all-consuming. Tate, poor Tate, had been the sacrificial lamb in our newfound happiness. And though my head refused to believe what Jack and all the evidence was telling me, maybe, just maybe, I’d hurt Tate more deeply than I’d ever imagined.
I heaved a sob in despair. I was a terrible person.
“Tate didn’t have any issues with Silvia, though,” I said softly, as much for myself as for Jack. “He knew how to handle the woman. He had her in the palm of his hand.” My voice grew stronger. “She adored him.”
Jack took hold of my hand and nodded. “She trusted him. She’d open the door to him.” He shook his head, as if he was the biggest idiot in the world. “No. If anyone had the means to kill Silvia, it would have been Tate.” He pulled me to my feet, then wrapped me in his strong arms. “I’m sorry, Whit,” he whispered, clinging to me as fiercely as I was clinging to him. “It’s one hell of a first date. I’m the one who needs to make this up to you. And I promise, if it takes me a lifetime to do it, I will make this up to you.”
A few minutes later, the door to the cabin opened and Giff’s head appeared. “The marina’s in sight.”
Jack thanked him. With one final squeeze, he released me and walked out the door. Giff, looking as forlorn as an abandoned puppy, came into the cabin. He pulled a tissue from the dispenser and plopped down on the edge of the bed.
“You’re crying,” I remarked stupidly, and sat beside him.
“This is the worst day of my life,” he said, and perhaps it was the most honest thing Gifford McGrady had ever uttered. Reflexively I wrapped him in my arms, like a mother comforting her precocious son. “Such a waste of a beautiful man.”
“I agree. A horrible waste.” Then, as I was still holding Giff, a silent rage consumed me. “The coward,” I seethed. “The stupid idiot. What the devil did he do that for?”
The dark head with the trendy bleached highlights lifted. “You’re angry with him?” Giff clearly felt this was off base. “Whitney,” he chided. “The man’s dead.”
“He better be,” I said, abandoning Giff to the bed as I headed for the door. I spun back around, filling with self-righteous anger. “All of us gathered at the inn this evening. Dad lent us his boat. Mom and Gran stuffed coolers full of delicious food, just so that we could go out to the island and show Tate how much he meant to us—and he does this!” Giff, hovering between sorrow and fear, tilted his head. I ignored him and continued my tirade. “Death, Gifford McGrady, is the coward’s way out. I’ll tell you one thing. If Tate isn’t dead and I find him? He’s gonna wish that he was.”
Forty-Three
Mrs. Cushman, watching the Lusty Dutchman glide into its slip without her captain at the helm, was beside herself with grief.
Young Cody Rivers, who had stayed well past the end of his shift to be with her, broke down in tears as well. Tate had been that male presence Cody and Erik had needed in their lives, and with his one last, selfish act, he had shattered their worlds forever. I wouldn’t blame them if they never forgave him. But they would. They were good boys.
“I … I need to call Erik,” Cody uttered when he could.
“Yes,” I told him, giving him a long, life-affirming hug. I released him, adding, “Please do that. And let him know that the body’s still missing. If he has any information that might be of help, tell him to call Officer MacLaren.”
While Jack was talking with Mrs. Cushman and the other employees of the marina, I walked over to where my friends had gathered. This was Jack’s show now, and all we could do was watch helplessly as he tried to explain what we’d found and didn’t find on the island.
“Are you going to be okay, Whit?” Tay, her dramatic eye makeup in drips and smudges, offered a pained smile.
“Really, Whit. I don’t even know what to say.” Hannah, the most excitable among us, had cried herself out of tears, and was still shaking. “It’s so … it’s so not like him.”
“I know. Is it wrong that I’m really angry with him right now?” They all shook their heads while I made another attempt to dry my tears.
“No. Not at all,” Hannah hiccupped.
“It’s perfectly natural.” Tay, remaining stoic as the burden of getting us all safely home had fallen to her and Lance, nodded. “I know the feeling,” she added, looking at the man beside her. “I was livid when I learned that Lance here was allowing himself to be used as a pincushion for the other knights as punishment for his shortcomings. You and Tate have a long history together. What you’re feeling is betrayal. It’s just as powerful as grief, only arguably healthier. Grief deflates us and makes us helpless. Anger is far more empowering. But it’s okay, Whit, if you flip between the two, as you will. We’re all shocked to the core about Tate. It just doesn’t seem like him, but then I thought the very same thing about Lance.”
Lance agreed, and although he hadn’t known Tate very well, he expressed his sadness over the whole affair.
A short while later, Tay and Hannah decided it best to walk home with their respective boyfriends. The marina was a short walk f
or them both, and it was late. The day had been long and heartbreaking. They’d pick up their cars from the inn tomorrow.
Jack, after promising Mrs. Cushman that he’d do everything in his power to find Tate’s body and wrap up the case, climbed back aboard the cabin cruiser. It was going to be a long night; his job was far from over, and he looked more troubled and downtrodden than I’d ever seen him. He hugged MacDuff before taking the seat beside me. Giff, after unmooring the boat, had disappeared down the small set of stairs into the galley. I’d driven the boat halfway across Cherry Cove Bay before he appeared again, bearing a tray with three mugs of coffee heavily laced with Irish cream. Leave it to Giff to know just what we needed.
“Are you going to be okay?” Jack asked. His light brown eyes, now glossy and dark under the night sky, were full of concern. It touched me, especially since I knew how hard the whole ordeal had been for him as well. The fact that my name had been mentioned in the suicide note was troubling to us both. It was also something that would haunt our relationship for a long time if we let it. And I was just mad enough at Tate not to let it. Jack, the dear man, didn’t deserve that.
“I doubt I shall ever forgive him,” I told him honestly. “But you and me, we’re going to be just fine, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
It was, but it was hardly a thing he’d admit to. Instead he finished the last of his coffee and headed for the galley, volunteering to clean the mugs.
Mom and Dad had waited up for us. They’d clearly been expecting a happy, boisterous crowd embarking from the large motor boat and not the glum skeleton crew that emerged. Mom, who I was certain had been harboring visions of a rekindled romance between Tate and me, had been holding a tray of fresh baked cherry chocolate chip cookies as she met us at the head of the pier. Dad was standing beside her, looking puzzled.