Treasure Built of Sand (Palmyrton Estate Sale Mystery Series Book 6)

by S. W. Hubbard

  “She hired me to build an outdoor shower next to her pool. People warned me not to take the job, but I didn’t listen.” He shakes his head and whistles. “She made me tear the thing out three times and redo my work until she was finally satisfied. I lost money on that job.”

  That’s concerning. I hope Brielle isn’t going to find some way to screw me. “She strikes me as a perfectionist.”

  “That’s for sure. You know, my boss has worked for all those people on Dune Vista Drive. They’re always having parties at each other’s houses. The Gardners have the fanciest house of all, but the parties are never there.” He shakes his head. “Everything’s for show, but no one ever gets a chance to see it. Like that shower. The only person I’ve ever seen use it is her son.”

  “Have you done any work for Jane Peterman?”

  “Oh, yeah—ol’ Janey’s a hoot. Nuthin’ like her best friend.” He says this with a leer. “I hafta go meet her later this week. She wants me to refinish the deck on her little sail boat. I do boat repair as a side gig.”

  “How does she pay you?” the skinny drunk cackles.

  Luckily, my food arrives, and so does the contractor’s, so we don’t have to delve into Jane’s sex life any further.

  I eat without much more conversation among the crowd at the bar, pay my check, and leave. Outside, the wind has turned sharply colder, and I wish I’d worn a heavier fleece. I walk briskly up the beach, keeping my head down as I stride into the wind. After five minutes, I glance up to see how close I am to the jetty, which is the halfway point between Elmo’s and Brielle’s house. I’m almost parallel to it.

  Then I see a figure out there on the rocks. A huge wave strikes the jetty, and the figure reels.

  Surely, that’s not safe! Why would anyone go out on those sharp, slippery rocks at dusk?

  I approach the point where the jetty meets the beach and squint at the figure. My heart sinks. Soaked, yellow flannel pants stick to her legs. Pink hair ruffles in the wind.

  “Sophia, come back here!” The wind carries my words away like a discarded plastic bag.

  I jump up and down and wave, but she looks out to the horizon. She doesn’t notice me.

  I look up and down the beach for assistance, but the sand is empty for as far as I can see. Every house I’ve passed on my walk has been dark. Going back to Elmo’s or running ahead to Jane’s house will take equally long.

  Too long.

  I reach for my phone. My pocket is empty. Damn—I can picture the phone charging on the counter.

  I haul myself up onto the first rock. If I can get a little closer to Sophia, maybe she will hear me, and I can coax her in.

  Gingerly, I stand and put my bare foot onto the next rock. The sharp surface scrapes my sole, but this rock is fairly flat, so it’s not so hard to stand on it. Below me, the water is only a few inches deep. Still, a fall would be painful.

  The next rock is tall and jagged and only has a narrow foothold. I reach out with my hands to hold onto the top of it while searching for the foothold with my toes. A wave splashes against the rock, drenching me with cold spray.

  I drag myself onto the second rock and look ahead. Sophia is still out on the tip of the jetty, allowing the waves to crash over her as if she deserves the punishment. Another one hits, and she staggers under the impact.

  It’s a matter of time before she’s knocked off the jetty and flung against these unforgiving rocks.

  “Sophia!”

  If she hears me, she doesn’t react.

  I edge around the tall rock, and scoot across a flat one while the waves are out.

  The next obstacle terrifies me. Two tall rocks touch on my left side, but there are no handholds or foot holds. The rock I stand on slopes downward slightly. About four feet away, another flat rock stretches invitingly. Between my rock and the other is a small inlet where the ocean churns like a washing machine on the “football uniforms” setting. The distance is too far to step across. I would have to jump.

  Maybe at low tide on a calm day, daredevil teenagers would enjoy this challenge. Maybe the possibility of skidding off the landing rock into the heaving sea would add to the thrill. But honestly, I’d find it scary any time. When people describe skydiving or skiing a double black diamond trail as “a rush,” I can’t get my head around what they’re saying.

  Apparently, they like feeling out of control.

  I hate it.

  I stand trembling before my challenge. I imagine how it will feel to slip and be smashed against the jagged rocks. How I will thrash before being sucked under by the tide’s pull.

  Sophia must have made the leap.

  But I’m not doing it.

  I’m not that brave.

  Or stupid.

  Damn it, I want to be home in my own bed. With Sean. And Ethel.

  I wait for the interlude between two waves. Then I take a deep breath and bellow. “So-phee-a!”

  She turns, and I sense rather than see her gaze lock with mine.

  I hold out my hands like I’ll catch her, the way I used to do when Ty’s nephew, Lo, was learning to walk.

  Slowly, as if she’s sleepwalking, Sophia moves toward me.

  The rocks she has to cross on her side of the divide are relatively flat. She slips once and my heart lurches, but she regains her footing.

  Now she stands on the other side of the chasm.

  She will have to jump again from her side to mine.

  But sticking the landing will be harder on the return trip. The rock I stand on slants slightly toward the tumultuous inlet five feet below us. Sophia must launch herself with enough force to make it across, but then retain her balance on the slick, uneven surface so she doesn’t pitch into the sea.

  Her eyes widen beneath that mop of pink hair as she realizes what she must do. I step to one side and point with my toe to a spot in the middle my rock. “Try to land there and I’ll grab you.”

  She gazes at me, seeking reassurance. She may be a high school senior, but she looks like a five-year-old who doubts her father’s sanity when he removes her training wheels and urges her to pedal down the driveway.

  For a moment, I reconsider our position. Maybe now that I’ve coaxed her back from the edge, I should go back to shore and run to Elmo’s for help. But the tide is getting higher, the surf rougher, by the minute. By the time I get to Elmo’s and back, the rocks we’re standing on will only be a few inches above the water.

  Sophia must jump now.

  She must launch the second after a wave hits, so she lands when the surf is out, and we have time to brace ourselves for the next wave.

  “When I yell, ‘now’, I want you to jump. Don’t hesitate, okay?”

  A wave hits. I give the command. Sophia’s knees flex, but she stays rooted to the spot, terrified.

  She pushes her soaked hair off her face. “I’m sorry. Let me try again. I’ll do it this time.”

  I watch the waves for the next opportunity. “Now!”

  Sophia sails through the air and lands next to me with a scream and a thud. Her feet aren’t under her body and she slides down the rock. Desperately, I grab her t-shirt and hear it begin to rip.

  We both are sliding—me standing and her flat on her chest, her feet out over the inlet.

  I get a grip on her arm. The kid is heavy.

  The next wave hits.

  Chapter 11

  When the saltwater stops burning my eyes and the shock of the cold water passes, I realize my hands are empty. My heart pounds so hard, I can’t make a sound.

  Then I feel a hand on my shoulder. “Get back on this rock, Audrey. Here comes another wave.”

  Sophia has scrambled to our next perch, and I follow.

  We make our way back to the beach in silence. I can’t talk. I can’t think. I just want to be inside the house.

  Silently, we trudge through the sand, the sharp wind slicing through our wet clothes.

  I’ve left the light on in Brielle’s kitchen, and it shines like a b
eacon, guiding us home.

  The Peterman house is dark. Jane must’ve gone off to her dinner engagement, unconcerned with her daughter’s whereabouts.

  Nice.

  Sophia follows me up the deck stairs to Brielle’s house. We leave our sodden clothes on the kitchen floor and head off to separate bathrooms for long, hot showers.

  When I get back to the kitchen, Sophia sits wrapped in one of the luxurious terrycloth robes from Brielle’s guest bathroom. She’s nuked two mugs of tea and pushes one toward me.

  I gulp the steaming liquid trying to dissolve the frozen cube of terror still lodged behind my ribcage.

  Finally, I find my voice. “What the hell was that about, Sophia?”

  She stares at me for a long moment. Is she going to dare offer me the standard teen BS: Nothing... I don’t know... Leave me alone.

  Then her eyes well with tears. She hangs her head, and a tear plonks into her tea. “Thank you for saving me,” Sophia whispers.

  I squeeze her hand. “Sure, kiddo. But you’re lucky I saw you out there.”

  Sophia spoons sugar into her tea and begins to talk. “I totally freaked when I heard the news that Trev was murdered. I went down to Elmo’s to talk to Dante, but when he wasn’t there, I just got...crazy... in my head.” Sophia takes a big gulp of tea. “He told me this could happen.”

  “Dante?”

  She raises her voice. “No, Trevor. He told me he could be killed. I didn’t believe him.”

  My body stiffens. “Trevor said someone wanted to kill him? Who?”

  “He acted all mysterious. I thought he was being paranoid.” Sophia gets up and paces around the kitchen. “I loved Trev. When he was up, there was nobody funnier or more creative. But then he’d get in these moods.” Sophia shivers. “He’d talk and talk and half of it made no sense. His parents took him to so many different shrinks, and they’d all give him pills, so many pills, and sometimes he’d take them and sometimes he wouldn’t.”

  So it wasn’t just average teenage angst. Trevor had true mental illness problems. And he didn’t take his meds. “So you thought it was his illness talking?”

  Sophia looks grateful that I understand. “The last time he had one of his episodes was at the end of the summer. He started talking about how he didn’t agree with them and they were after him and they would kill him, and—” Sophia cradles her head in her hands.

  I put my arms around her and pull her head onto my shoulder. “What?”

  “And he seemed scared. Really scared.” She murmurs softly into my sweatshirt.

  “Who was the ‘they’ he talked about?”

  “I don’t kn-o-o-w,” Sophia wails. “Because sometimes Trevor mixed up movies and TV shows and video games with reality. And then if I looked at him like ‘wha—??’, he’d laugh like what he said was a joke.

  “So at the end of the summer, you thought his complaints weren’t real. But now you think they were valid.” I want to ask about Trevor’s stepfather, but I don’t want to plant ideas in Sophia’s fertile imagination. “Do you think it’s possible the person he was afraid of could be an adult?”

  “He doesn’t know any adults down here except his grandparents.”

  I watch her intently.

  Sophia cocks her head and rolls her eyes, the kind of eye roll that causes mothers everywhere to say, “your eyes are going to get stuck like that.” “You mean Ken? Ken’s just an asshole, he’s not dangerous.”

  Sophia doesn’t think much of the prevailing police theory, I guess. “Do you have any idea who could have killed him?”

  Sophia looks down at the mosaic tile floor as if the answer is spelled out in the beautiful blue and white tiles. After a long moment, she whispers, “It had to be kids from Bumford-Stanley.”

  “Bumford-Stanley? But the murder definitely happened here in Sea Chapel.”

  “All the kids at Bumford-Stanley have some kind of vacation home.” Sophia waves her arms like a professor carried away by his lecture topic. “Some at the Jersey Shore. Some in the Hudson Valley. Some in Vermont. The really rich kids have ski houses in Vail and beach houses in Palm Beach, but that’s actually not ideal. ‘Cause once kids are old enough to drive, the thing to do is have parties at the vacation houses when the parents aren’t there. You tell your mom you’re at a sleepover in Palmyrton when you’re really down here at the shore or up in Vermont with ten or fifteen kids from BSS.”

  “So there could’ve been kids from BSS down here the weekend Trevor disappeared, and his parents wouldn’t necessarily have known that.”

  Sophia nods.

  “Do you know if there was a house party that weekend?”

  Sophia gives her head a quick shake. “I hardly ever got invited to those parties. There could’ve been one that weekend, but I wasn’t there.”

  “But wouldn’t kids have been talking about it on social media? You could find out about it even if you weren’t invited, couldn’t you?”

  Sophia refuses to meet my eye.

  I reach out and touch her hand. “This could be important, Sophia. It could help the police figure out what happened to Trevor.”

  “I don’t know! And even if I could, I don’t want to rat on them! They already hate me. I don’t need for people to be hating on me even more. And I could be wrong.” She jerks away from my touch. “Besides, Trevor is dead. Nothing’s going to bring him back.”

  Of course. What am I thinking? Trevor’s death being ruled a murder has put Sophia in a terrible position. What seems like a simple action of cooperation to an adult is much more complicated for a teenager. I decide to back away from urging her to talk to the police and just get her to talk to me a little more. Clearly, she still has a lot on her mind.

  “The other day you told me Trevor wanted to transfer back to Palmyrton High School where his real friends were. Would he have told one of them about who was scaring him?”

  “I don’t know his friends there—I’ve never hung out with them or anything. But there was this kid named Fly who Trev always talked about.”

  “Fly? Fly is a nickname—do you know his real name?”

  Sophia shakes her head. But I know Sean can use this. An unusual nickname is probably easier to track down than a common name like Connor or Scot or Luke.

  Sean. I’ve been married to a cop for just over a year, and already I think like him. Trevor’s murder isn’t Sean’s case, but if I can draw out some useful information from Sophia, Sean can pass it along. It’s not like I’ve been doing unauthorized digging; she’s been gushing. And she’s not done.

  Sophia continues pacing laps around the kitchen. “Trevor said he hated all the kids from Bumford-Stanley, but he hung out with them all the time. He’d complain about having to go to a party and I’d say, ‘so, don’t go,’ but he always went. Always.”

  I hear some resentment there. Trevor was Sophia’s friend. He got invited to the parties she was excluded from. He complained about them, but he went, leaving Sophia behind. “You never tagged along with him?”

  Sophia gazes at me, her eyes full of anguish. “The last time I saw him, we argued. I told him I was tired of listening to him complain about those kids when he kept going and hanging out with him. And the next week, he was dead.”

  “What went on at those parties? Was it more than just the usual smoking and drinking and making out?”

  Sophia looks at me like she’s stunned I know what kids do to have fun. Geez, it’s not like I was a teenager with Jane Austin and went to harpsichord concerts for a good time.

  “There was a special group. Not just anyone could go—that’s why he couldn’t bring me. There was something they wanted him to do.”

  “Like a fraternity initiation, only for high-schoolers?” I feel queasy at the thought that Trevor’s death was the result of some stupid hazing incident, otherwise decent kids egging each other on to do something dangerous. But Trevor was strangled. How could that be an initiation rite gone too far?

  Sophia shakes her head. “It w
asn’t a dare—like drink ten shots in a row or something stupid like that. He said there were things they had to decide. That he had to pick a side.”

  “A side for what?”

  “I don’t know!”

  “So why did you go out on the jetty?

  Sophia flings her head back. The bathrobe begins to slip, and she gives the belt a vicious yank. “I know it doesn’t make sense. But I wanted to be out there near where he died. I wanted to be scared like he was scared. I wanted him to talk to me. Tell me again what was scaring him. Tell him this time I’d listen to him.” Tears stream down her face. “Really listen.”

  Chapter 12

  All cried out, Sophia collapses on the family room sofa and falls asleep almost instantaneously. I can’t believe her mother hasn’t called looking for her in all this time. Then I see the pile of our soaked clothes on the kitchen floor. Sophia’s phone must be ruined by saltwater. I look out the window, but the Peterman house is all dark. Jane must still be at the dinner party she and Sophia were invited to tonight.

  How much Sophia reminds me of my own teenage self! Only one parent, and that parent distant and preoccupied. Wanting to fit into mainstream teenage life, but always on the fringe because of interests other kids don’t share. Just a few close friends.

  But none of my few friends was murdered.

  Sophia’s phone makes me recall my own phone, which I left charging on the counter hours ago. When I pick it up, I see I’ve missed two calls and two texts from Sean. The last reads, “You OK? Should I be worried?”

  Sean and I have a policy of giving each other a lot of space. As a cop, he’s often not in a position to respond immediately to my texts. And when I’m running a sale, I’m too busy for idle chit-chat. But I’m sure he expected I’d be home alone here at Brielle’s house tonight with plenty of time to talk, not out on the jetty rescuing a crazy teenager.

  I call him back, aiming to get advice on the information I’ve gleaned from Sophia while glossing over the riskier parts of my rescue operation. I’m also eager to hear if Sean managed to arrest Anthony and get Donna into the battered women’s shelter. I haven’t heard a thing from Donna. I’ve been afraid to text or call her in case Anthony is monitoring her phone. But when I call, I get Sean’s voicemail. So I text, Busy night. I’m fine. Call when you have time.