Dearly Beloved

by Wendy Corsi Staub

  Stephen is going to be so angry when I tell him that she didn’t eat her dessert and that I kept it from him earlier, Jasper thinks, staring into the darkness.

  So then don’t tell him, a voice says reasonably inside his mind.

  But I don’t like to have secrets from Stephen. I’ve always told him everything.

  And do you think, the voice scoffs, that he tells you everything in return?

  Not wanting to answer that, Jasper flips over and pulls the pillow over his head tightly to drown out the annoying voices in his head.

  Chapter 11

  Sunday morning dawns raw and stormy in Boston.

  Laura opens her eyes to find herself entangled in the twin sheet on Shawn’s bed as he slumbers peacefully beside her. It amazes her how he can sleep that way—naked and uncovered. For all her own brazen sexuality, Laura always makes sure to slip her own nude body under the covers when she falls asleep.

  Jennie, she thinks idly, probably doesn’t even sleep naked when she’s with someone.

  She can easily imagine her prudish sister climbing out of bed after Keegan’s asleep and pulling one of her warm flannel nightgowns over her head.

  Then again, it’s surprising that Jennie is sleeping with Keegan in the first place . . .

  Was, Laura corrects, remembering that Keegan is history.

  Then she remembers something else.

  Last night, she’d been worried about her sister for some reason . . .

  For no reason, she tells herself, recalling her inexplicable uneasiness over Jennie’s trip to the island.

  She’d managed to put it out of her head last night, thanks to Shawn’s expert hands and lips and—well, everything. But now the memory of her worry comes back to Laura full force and she sits up and frowns.

  “Laura?” Shawn asks groggily, stirring beside her on the mattress.

  “Yeah. I have to go home.”

  “Huh?”

  “I have to leave,” she says, already on her feet and reaching for his robe to wear for a quick trip to the bathroom down the hall.

  “But it’s lousy outside,” he says, sitting up and looking toward the window. “And you don’t have to work today. Stay here with me . . .”

  “I can’t,” she says, feeling a distinct sense of urgency taking over. “I have to get home and check on my sister.”

  “I thought she’s away for the weekend.”

  “She is, but I have this feeling that she might have tried to call. I’m worried that something’s wrong with her.”

  Shawn frowns, apparently about to say something but thinking better of it. Instead, he asks, “Can’t you access your answering machine from here?”

  “Uh-uh. I’ve never been able to figure out how to do that. Jennie’s the one who knows how, but . . .” She shrugs. “Anyway, I have to go.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Shawn says, getting out of bed and stretching, his naked body magnificent in the gray morning light.

  Surprised, Laura asks, “How come?”

  “Because I want to be with you,” he says simply.

  A small smile plays over her lips. “Good” is all she says.

  But she’s thinking that she’s found Mr. Right at last.

  Jennie wakes with a start.

  Oh, God, you’ve been sleeping. . . . How could you fall asleep? she scolds herself, looking around the room. She’s still sitting up with her knees up against her chest, and the bedside lamp is still on. She looks toward the window and sees dim light filtering through. It’s morning, and the storm is still ranting outside.

  Harry, Jennie remembers suddenly.

  She’d been dreaming of him. The details are fuzzy, but she recalls his face and the fact that he was telling her something, over and over.

  “What was it?” she whispers to the silent room. She closes her eyes, trying to bring the dream back.

  It’s the strangest thing. She can see Harry’s familiar face wearing an uncharacteristically serious expression as he speaks to her, and she can hear the urgent tone of his voice. . . .

  But she can’t seem to grasp the words themselves.

  Jennie gives up, for now, and checks her watch. It’s nearly nine o’clock.

  She grabs the small nylon bag containing her bathroom stuff, then pulls on her robe and heads for the door. She moves the chair she’d wedged under the knob and reaches out to open the door, wondering, with a sudden stab of trepidation, whether she’ll find it locked again.

  No. Though it sticks slightly, it opens, and Jennie steps out into the hall, relieved. She glances toward Liza’s door, wondering if she should check in with her.

  Later, she tells herself and continues across the hall.

  The bathroom pipes groan loudly in protest as she turns on the faucets, and the water that comes out of the ancient overhead spout is a mere lukewarm trickle.

  I’ll be glad to take a real shower when I get home, she thinks as she steps into the ancient tub and pulls the curtain closed around her.

  Home . . .

  That’s it.

  In her dream, Harry was telling her to go home. To leave the island . . .

  “You’re in danger, Jennie,” he kept saying. “Trust me. You have to leave. Get out of the inn and off the island. Hurry, Jennie, before it’s too late . . .”

  Keegan pulls his red Toyota into the ferry parking lot at Crosswinds Bay, turns off the motor, and gives a sigh of relief.

  You made it, he tells himself. Barely.

  I-95 from Boston to Rhode Island is never a pleasant road to travel, but today it was more treacherous than ever. Visibility was terrible because of the storm, which grew steadily worse as daybreak fell and he drew closer to the coast. The rain had turned to sleet, then to heavy, wet snow that coated the already-slick surface of the highway and made it impossible to go faster than thirty miles an hour. Just outside of Providence, there had been a three-car pile-up that slowed traffic to a standstill for over an hour.

  Seeing the red flashing lights of rescue vehicles and police cars, Keegan had debated stopping to see if he could help, then guiltily decided against it. He had to get to Jennie, and there was no time to waste.

  In the few seconds since he turned off the car, the windshield has been covered over with sloppy snow, making it impossible for Keegan to clearly see the ferry terminal building just ahead of his parking space. He turns on the wipers again and sees that there’s a sign on the door.

  “Uh-oh,” he says quietly and zips up his jacket. He opens the door and is met by a gust of wet, blowing snow. Slamming the door behind him, he hurries across the narrow stretch of parking lot to the door and tries the knob without reading the sign.

  It’s locked.

  “Damn,” Keegan says over the wind and glances at the bold black magic-marker scrawl.

  All Tide Island Ferries Canceled Until Further Notice Due to Storm.

  “Damn!” he says again and turns to go back to the car just as a battered dark-green Buick with Connecticut plates pulls up next to him.

  “Hey, what does that sign say?” the driver, a handsome, dark-haired man who appears to be in his late twenties, calls to Keegan after rolling down his window and poking his head out.

  “It says the ferry’s canceled,” Keegan shouts over the wind.

  “What?”

  “It’s canceled!”

  The driver shrugs, motioning that he can’t hear him, and Keegan goes over to the car. “Are you looking for the Tide Island ferry?” he asks the guy, noticing that he has deep purplish circles under brown eyes that look distinctly troubled.

  “Yeah . . . we have to get out there.”

  For the first time, Keegan notices that there’s a passenger in the car—a pretty, petite woman with long, dark-blond hair poking out from beneath the hood of a bright-pink ski jacket.

  “Sorry,” Keegan tells them, “but the ferries to the island are canceled because of the storm.”

  “Shit!” The guy bangs the steering wheel and looks at the woma
n. “We’ve got to get to her.”

  Keegan frowns. “What was that?” he asks, knowing it’s none of his business.

  “It’s my sister,” the guy says, turning back to him. “She’s out there on the island, and she’s in trouble. We have to get out there and find her.”

  Keegan hesitates only a moment before saying, “My girlfriend’s out there, too. I feel the same way.”

  “Yeah?” The guy reaches over his shoulder and unlocks the back door. “Why don’t you get in out of the snow for a few minutes? Maybe we can figure something out. I’m Danny Cavelli, and this is my wife, Cheryl.”

  It’s past ten o’clock when Liza finally hurries down to the first floor of the inn. She doesn’t know what’s wrong with her—she never sleeps in on weekends at home. But this morning, she woke late, feeling groggy and unable to keep her eyes open, even after a shower.

  The tub was already wet when she got in, and she figured Laura must already be up and about. When Liza knocked on her door on her way out of the bathroom, there was no answer.

  Now, as she arrives in the quiet foyer, she smells coffee and wonders if Laura’s in the dining room having breakfast.

  “Good morning, Miss Danning,” Jasper Hammel’s voice says as she heads in that direction, and she turns to see him standing behind the front desk.

  “Oh . . . good morning. I didn’t see you there.” She rubs her temples, still feeling out of it.

  “Sleep well?” he asks, his mustache twitching.

  “I guess. Have you seen Laura?”

  “No, I haven’t,” he says, frowning slightly. “In fact, I was just going to ask you the same thing.”

  “Oh. Well, I haven’t seen her. And I don’t suppose D.M. Yates has called looking for me, hmmm?”

  “No, I’m afraid not.”

  “I didn’t think so.” Liza shoots him a level gaze through her bleary eyes, wondering if he knows that there is no D.M. Yates on the island . . . and whether he’s in on this nasty little practical joke someone’s obviously playing on her.

  “Listen, Jasper,” she says pointedly, trying to stifle an uncontrollable urge to yawn, “I was wondering if you happen to have a ferry schedule handy there.”

  His eyebrows shoot up beneath his neatly trimmed auburn hair. “A ferry schedule?” he echoes. “I . . . I’m not sure. Why?”

  “Because I’m going to leave on the first ferry this morning, that’s why,” she says firmly. “And if you don’t have a schedule, I’ll borrow your phone and call the dock.”

  “No, don’t do that. . . . I’ll look for it. I’m sure I have one here someplace,” he says, rummaging through some papers on top of the desk. “It’ll take me a moment to find it, though. Why don’t you go into the dining room and help yourself to some breakfast and coffee?”

  Liza is about to say she’s just fine and she’ll wait right here, when she feels yet another yawn stealing over her.

  On second thought, coffee would be a good idea. She can’t seem to shake her drowsiness this morning. Must be the weather.

  She mumbles a thanks to Jasper and goes down the hall to the dining room where she helps herself to a mug of steaming hot coffee. She sits at the table to drink it and is halfway through when she hears the unmistakable sound of footsteps going up the stairs.

  It has to be Jasper.

  Annoyed, Liza debates following him up and demanding to know why he hasn’t produced the ferry schedule yet.

  But for some reason, the thought of going all the way back to the foyer and up the stairs seems daunting. She’s so numb with exhaustion this morning that her limbs feel weak and useless.

  Hopefully, the coffee will help, she thinks again and reaches for the carafe on the table to refill her mug.

  Sherm Crandall wakes, as he has every morning for the past thirty years, in the master bedroom of the gray-shingled cape on the west side of Tide Island. The house sits on a little rise more than half-a-mile from the beach; but even from here, the first sound that reaches Sherm’s ears is that of waves crashing over the rocky shore.

  Sherm stretches and sits up to look out the window, which is on his side of the bed.

  My side . . . as if Carly still has a side, he thinks, glancing at the empty pillow beside him.

  Even after all these months, he still sleeps on the right, never crossing the imaginary line into the territory that had always belonged to his wife. And it’s funny, because he’d always felt that their double bed was too small for both of them. He’d wanted to buy a queen-sized mattress and box spring for the longest time so they’d have more room, but Carly always said they couldn’t afford it. Since she was the one who kept the checkbook and paid all the bills, Sherm had always let her decide what they needed and what was a luxury.

  Now, he wonders what she’s living on—and where she’s living. She might be waitressing somewhere—she’d spent a few summers working part-time in island restaurants when they were first married—or maybe she’s doing secretarial work. She always was a good typist . . .

  Stop thinking about her, Sherm commands himself, looking away from the empty pillow, back to the window. It’s one of the few he left uncovered last night, figuring he had to be able to see out.

  The bedroom’s on the west side of the house, so the morning light is never good in here. But even from the bed, without his glasses, Sherm can see that the storm hasn’t let up at all. Looks like it’s snowing out now, and the sky is ominously dark.

  With a sigh, Sherm swings his legs over the edge of the bed, wincing as his bare feet hit the cold wooden floor. Damn place is so drafty. Most of the old houses on the island are. The bedroom doesn’t even have a radiator, and Sherm hasn’t bothered with the portable electric heater since Carly left. She’s the one who was always cold . . .

  “Warm me up, Sherm,” she used to say on cold winter mornings, snuggling up to him beneath the worn blue-and-red patchwork quilt her grandmother had made them for a wedding present.

  And he would, gladly.

  Sighing again, he pulls on his robe and pads quietly through the silent, lonely house to the kitchen, where he stands at the sink and fills the glass coffee carafe.

  And as he does, he remembers Pat.

  He’d never stopped by or called last night, and Sherm had been up into the wee hours, nailing plywood over most of the windows of his house.

  Frowning, Sherm dumps the water into the old Mr. Coffee machine on the counter, measures some grounds into the filter, and presses the button. Then he goes over to the wall phone and dials Pat’s number.

  After one ring, the answering machine picks up.

  The beep is pretty long, suggesting that Pat never played the message Sherm left for him last night.

  He leaves another one, then hangs up and rubs the razor stubble on his chin.

  Maybe Pat is seeing someone and spent the night at her place. But whom? The number of eligible females who live year-round on the island is practically zero. . . . And besides, Sherm would have heard if Pat were seeing someone, even if Pat didn’t tell him himself. Tide Island is a gossipy kind of place.

  Okay, so if Pat never made it home, why hadn’t he?

  What if that clunker Chevy of his broke down somewhere and he was stranded out in the storm all night?

  I should have gone out looking for him last night, Sherm tells himself, shaking his head. He was going to the old Gilbrooke place. That’s way the hell at the end of the north peninsula, and most of the other houses out there are closed for the winter.

  He pictures Pat, shivering, in a broken-down car in the middle of nowhere.

  Some godfather you are, Sherm scolds himself.

  When Pat’s father, Robert, had found out he was dying, what had he asked Sherm to do?

  “Look out for the kid, okay, Sherm? Make sure he’s all right, will you?”

  “Sure, I will,” he’d promised.

  And that’s just what he’s going to do now.

  Turning abruptly, Sherm heads for the bedroom. He’
ll get dressed, then grab a quick cup of coffee and head out toward the Gilbrooke place to see if he can’t find Pat.

  Her head still bent against the biting wind and driving snow, Jennie sets down her bag and reaches out to open the door of the ferry terminal.

  It’s locked, she realizes with a stab of panic. She walked all the way here, rushing so she wouldn’t miss the eleven o’clock boat, and the door is locked. The ramshackle wooden building looks deserted, too.

  That can only mean one thing . . .

  Sure enough, Jennie sees a sign taped to the glass window beside the door.

  Sunday Ferry Canceled.

  “No,” she cries out softly, shaking her head.

  She has to get off the island.

  She has to . . .

  But how?

  There’s no way. You have to go back to the inn, she tells herself, trying to be reasonable. But returning to the Bramble Rose is the last thing she wants to do.

  She had felt so relieved as she slipped out the door earlier, her hair still damp from the shower. It had taken her all of ten minutes to pack and get dressed once she’d made up her mind to leave. And she hadn’t even had to deal with Jasper, who had been nowhere in sight when she’d come down the stairs.

  She supposed it wasn’t very responsible of her to simply leave, but since her room was paid for, there was no reason to go through the formality of checking out and providing the innkeeper with an explanation.

  She had felt guilty just leaving Liza. But she hadn’t wanted to take the time to stop and say goodbye to her.

  With Harry’s dream-warning still echoing in her ears, she’d left in a rush.

  And now, for all her urgency to get away, she’s stranded on the island.

  It’ll be all right, she tells herself as she stands on the dock, buffeted by wind and snow, the fine, grainy kind that stings like blowing sand.

  But I’m afraid. . . . I have to get off this island, she whimpers mentally, desperately looking back at the window and hoping that the cancellation sign will have miraculously vanished.

  But it’s still there, of course, and there’s nothing for Jennie to do but start trudging back through the storm toward the inn.