The Inn at Ocean's Edge

by Colleen Coble

  “The painting of her attacker was missing.”

  “So she said. Again, you seem to believe every word out of her pretty mouth.”

  “You’ve been listening to Andy, haven’t you? He’s got it in his head Claire had something to do with Jenny’s death. Open your eyes, Danny, and investigate this for yourself. Don’t let a grief-stricken deputy with an agenda keep you from having an open mind.”

  There was a long pause on the line. For a moment Luke thought Danny might have hung up on him. “Danny?”

  “I’m here, Luke. I’ll try to lower my suspicions of her if you’ll raise them. Don’t take everything she says at face value. Test it against what you know. You’re a smart guy.”

  “Why are you so defensive about this? I expected you to be more open-minded.”

  Danny didn’t answer at first. “Maybe I am defensive. It was my first big case all those years ago. I feel like maybe I missed something.”

  Luke pressed his lips together and bent to dislodge a burr from his shoelace. “And you’re sure there’s no child reported missing? You’ve checked neighboring counties?”

  “Yep.”

  “What if someone had taken her from somewhere else and she got away? Could you run a check on the entire country?”

  “Yeah, I can do that. It will take awhile to get results back, and I’m not sure what they will tell us. You’re saying someone is taking little girls and turning them loose in our woods?”

  Put like that, it was a stupid thought. “Okay, okay, sounds dumb, I know. But Claire had to have come from somewhere. I just don’t understand why her parents didn’t report her missing. It’s like she was born at age five and just suddenly appeared.”

  “Maybe she was born under a cabbage plant.” Danny guffawed at his joke.

  Luke rolled his eyes but couldn’t muster a laugh. “Thanks for checking, Danny. Let me know if you find anything. I’m going to post copies around town of Claire’s painting and over in Bar Harbor. I put your office’s number on the poster.”

  “Great. Now I have to deal with every slug that crawls out of the woodwork. Nice job.” But the sheriff’s voice held an interested edge.

  “According to you, we shouldn’t get a single call. I thought you’d want to field anything that came in yourself. Just in case you could pin it to Claire.”

  Danny laughed again. “You’re wicked sharp, boy. I’ll let you know if we get any leads. Not that I’m expecting to, mind you. Oh, and we’re releasing your mom’s remains. Where do you want them sent?”

  Pressure built in Luke’s chest at the thought of another argument with their dad. “Send them over to the funeral home. I’ll make arrangements for a memorial and burial.”

  “Will do.”

  Luke ended the call and turned to look at Claire again. She sat on the bench alone, her shoulders slumped and her face in her hands. He started that way with his gut churning. Things hadn’t gone well.

  THIRTY-TWO

  The equipment around Kate in the outpatient room beeped reassuringly. Though the room bore a coat of happy yellow, it did nothing to help her mood. She focused on a pair of seascape pictures and could almost smell the sea breeze instead of the pungent odor of alcohol and floor wax. Soon she could get out of this blue-and-white cotton gown and into real clothes.

  Her arm ached a bit, but she ignored it and looked across the room at Shelley. “Thanks for coming so fast when I called.”

  Her red hair up in a messy ponytail, Shelley wore pink workout clothes and gray sneakers since she’d been at the gym when Kate called. “You sounded on death’s door.” Tipping her head, she studied Kate. “You’ve got more color now. The way you looked when I came to get you scared me to death. And you weren’t making much sense.” She put a cool hand on Kate’s forehead. “Feeling better?”

  “Much.” Kate glanced at the IV cart. The last unit of blood was almost empty. Soon she could get dressed to go home. “Did you hear anything I told you? You know, before.”

  Shelley poured her a cup of ice water and adjusted the straw, then held it up to Kate’s lips. “You said something about Claire not being Claire. I figured you were not quite with it.”

  Kate struggled to sit up better against the too-soft pillows. “It’s true. I went to the hotel to tell her I was her sister and she came up with some kind of cock-and-bull story about not being Claire. And my father . . .” Bile rose in her throat at the thought of her conniving father.

  Shelley zipped her jacket up and down and didn’t look at her for a moment. “Didn’t you read this morning’s paper? Some bones were found out on a cranberry farm. One set belonged to a little girl, and the prelim identification seems to indicate they are Claire Dellamare’s.”

  It felt as though an elephant stepped on Kate’s chest. She sat up, then flopped back down when the room began to spin again. “I didn’t see it. Wait, let me understand this. If the real Claire is dead, how did that happen? I mean, there she is, living with my dad and her mom. And we look alike!”

  “Maybe we should talk about this later.”

  “I need to get to the bottom of this now!”

  Shelley’s shoes squeaked on the tile floor as she went back to her chair. “Well, at least you both have blue eyes. You might have seen a resemblance because you expected to see one, Kate. It’s easy to do.”

  She opened her mouth to deny it, then closed it. Maybe Shelley was right, but she could have sworn when she saw Claire for the first time in the ladies’ room that they were two peas in a pod. Expectations were funny things, though.

  Shelley pulled a bottle of water from her purse. “And as far as how did the existing Claire take the place of the real one, I don’t know. She seemed surprised by this news?”

  “Surprise is a mild word for how traumatized she looked. She’d just found out, so she said.” Kate went back through what she knew of the situation. “She was missing a year, then reunited with her parents. That’s all I really know.”

  Shelley’s brown eyes glimmered with interest. “Everyone was talking about it in the teacher’s lounge today. I guess the sheriff got a letter from Jenny indicating Claire wasn’t who she said she was. Some thought Jenny knew something about it and was blackmailing Claire. They say Claire had Jenny killed.”

  “Claire wouldn’t do that! Sheesh, Shelley, what a thought.”

  Her friend shrugged. “Just repeating the gossip. Someone had to know she wasn’t really Claire Dellamare.”

  It was more than Kate could unravel in her weakened state. She glanced down to see Miss Edith tucked into her side. The doll’s round blue eyes comforted her. Her pink dress could use a washing.

  “You had a death grip on that thing when I picked you up, so I didn’t fight you.” Shelley uncapped her bottle of water and took a sip. “Why didn’t your mother bring you here? You were kind of incoherent about that too.”

  Kate hadn’t wanted to examine the pain of her mother’s rejection. “She was mad at me. Uncle Paul too.”

  “Because you went to the hotel to confront your dad?”

  Kate studied her hands with their short, stubby nails. “Yeah. I guess it was a stupid thing to do, but I’d given him an ultimatum. I didn’t want him to think he could get away with treating me the way he’d always treated Mom. Uncle Paul was so mad he tore off in his car. Mom actually, well, she threw up.”

  Shelley slowly put the cap back on her water. “You’re telling me your mom was so upset she vomited?”

  Kate put her ugly hands under the sheet and nodded. “I didn’t get why they were so upset. I thought Uncle Paul might hit me. And Mom said I had destroyed the family.”

  “What did she mean by that?”

  “I know she thinks she’ll lose the blueberry barrens, but you know I checked with the attorney, and that can’t happen. There’s no accounting for fear, though.” Maybe she should call and make sure Mom was okay.

  The door opened, and Dr. Bain poked his head inside. His genial smile seemed dimmer today, som
ehow guarded. He stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. “How’s my favorite patient?”

  “Much better.”

  He crossed his arms over his chest, his expression somber. “I should think so. Your counts were scary low. If you’d delayed getting in here even another twenty-four hours, I don’t think you’d be walking out today.” He pressed his lips together. “We really need to find a bone-marrow donor from your family. Is there anyone else you can send in to be tested?”

  She exchanged a long glance with Shelley. Her father? It wasn’t likely she could talk him into it. “What if I give you my father’s number and you call him? Maybe he’d listen to a doctor.”

  “I’m game.” Dr. Bain pulled out his cell phone. “What’s the number? I’ll go back to my office and call him.”

  Her father had lied. Claire waited until Priscilla’s footsteps faded away into the hum of bees and the rumble of the mower on the other side of the hotel. She sat numbly as Luke came toward her. What did she do now? The more she dug, the worse the situation became.

  Luke dropped onto the bench beside her and slipped his arm around her back. “How’d it go?”

  There would be time to deal with this later. Right now she wanted to know her last name. “Okay. How about you?”

  “Not so good.” His voice dropped to a lower timbre.

  She straightened and looked up at him. “What’s happened?” His warm hand stroked her forearm, but she didn’t want comfort now. Her need for answers overwhelmed everything else. “Tell me.”

  He pulled his arm away and leaned forward a bit to stare in her face directly. “No one reported you missing.”

  A bee hovered near her face, and she shooed it away, then stood to pace the walk. “That’s not possible, Luke. What parent wouldn’t report a missing five year old?”

  He rose and thrust his hands in his pockets. A lock of dark hair fell across his forehead as he leaned down to pick up a stick and toss it into the woods. “Exactly what I said to Danny. He’s checking nationwide in case the little girl got away from someone who had taken her in another state.”

  “You mean like some kind of pervert?” She hugged herself and shuddered. “Maybe that’s why I can’t remember anything at all about being lost or found. It was so horrible I blocked it out.” A sour taste rose to her tongue, and she pushed away the lurid images she’d seen on TV over the years.

  He stepped over and put his hands on her shoulders. “Don’t try to second-guess what happened, Claire. Right now we just have to wait until we know more.”

  Heat flashed over her, and Claire pulled away, then went to perch on the edge of the water fountain. She held her hand under the cold water, then splashed some on her face until her heart quit trying to climb out of her chest. “I can’t sit by and do nothing, Luke. That man might come back. I have to know who I am. Once I do, I’ll know who he is. I’m sure of it.”

  Luke took a step her way, but his phone rang. He muttered under his breath and glanced at it before answering. “Danny, you find anything?” He turned his back and walked a few steps away.

  She shook the water off her hand and followed him so she could hear. From his side of the conversation, she gathered that the news wasn’t good.

  Luke ended the call. “You heard? There is no little girl missing from that time period who is still unaccounted for.”

  She gestured toward the back of the hotel where a few guests lingered over coffee on the patio. “Priscilla says she found me with a note with the name Claire Dellamare pinned to my top and called my dad who flew in to get me. Yet Dad, I mean Harry, says he found me in the woods and took me. I think he’s lying.”

  Luke nodded. “Beau read the full transcript of the day you were found. He mentioned a woman from the hotel called the office to report having found you. She’d already called your dad too. Why would Harry lie about that? He has to know we could check those details.”

  “I don’t know. I think there’s something in how I was found that he doesn’t want me to know.”

  “I’ll be surprised if we can get the truth out of him.”

  She gasped as another idea hit her. “Luke, what if Harry somehow bought a replacement child? All he wanted was to pacify Mom. So maybe he paid someone to attach Claire’s name on my dress and leave me by the hotel.”

  “Honey, you’re grasping at straws.”

  It made a horrible kind of sense to her. Subterfuge was her father’s second language. He always said he had to be gifted in it to be so successful at business. If she didn’t pin him down now, he’d be very difficult to talk to. And what if last night’s attacker came back? “Think those posters are ready? We can put them up in the area.”

  He nodded. “On my way out here to meet Priscilla, I asked the hotel to beef up security on your floor. They agreed to do that as well as issue you a new key card.”

  He was doing a better job of ensuring her safety than the man she called Dad. She gripped his hands. “I’m glad you’re here with me. I wouldn’t know what to do.”

  His warm fingers returned the pressure. “Oh yes you would. You’re amazing, Claire. This trial will only make you stronger. I’m glad I’m here, too, but if I weren’t, you’d find a way to get to the bottom of this.”

  Warmth spread along her spine at the confidence in his dark eyes. This was a bigger test of her mettle than she’d ever thought to face in her life, but she could do it. She would do it. Someone had to have seen her. Luke had been through a lot this week too. Finding his mother had to have been traumatic.

  His mother’s murder. Her fingers tightened on his, and she gazed up at him. “Wait a minute, Luke. We’re forgetting your mother’s murder in all this.”

  One brow winged up as he peered down at her. “I’m not tracking with you.”

  “We thought all along the real Claire’s disappearance and your mother’s murder were connected. What if I’m mixed up in it somewhere too?” She held up her hand when he frowned. “Oh, I don’t mean I had anything to do with her death. But maybe finding who killed your mother will solve everything. I think we should go talk to your aunt again.”

  His hand enfolded hers as they walked back toward the hotel. “You don’t sound frightened anymore.”

  She pulled a lilac bloom from a bush and sniffed it. “I’m not. I’m going to find out what this is all about, and I’m going to figure out where I belong.”

  THIRTY-THREE

  The giant oak tree still held the swing Luke had played on as a child, and a new crop of children, his aunt’s day care kids, squealed as they played in the side yard under the watchful eye of one of her workers. He parked in the drive behind his aunt’s small blue car and glanced across the truck seat at Claire, who had her forehead pressed to the glass. She hadn’t said much as they drove across town. Something was eating her, but she’d spill it when she was ready.

  “Aunt Nan is expecting us. Ready?”

  She lifted her head from the glass and reached for her door. “Okay.” Her fingers curled around the door handle, then she stopped and looked across the gray seat at him. “I’ve been thinking about the possible scenarios here. I think he looked for a picture of a child that resembled Claire and paid for her to be left near the hotel for someone to find.”

  Though he’d pooh-poohed it the first time she brought it up, Luke absorbed her words, seeing it play out just as she said. “He’d have to know there was no hope of finding the real Claire.”

  Her blue eyes sparked with anger. “That’s the conclusion I came to. Which means he knew the real Claire was dead. And how would he know that?”

  He took a moment to think about it. The sun beat through the windows and heated the truck’s interior. “He’s got a lot of money, Claire. What if she was kidnapped and held for ransom and he knew the kidnappers killed her?”

  “But why not reveal that to his wife?” She shook her head. “I think he’s complicit in something and had to keep quiet about her death.”

  “Or else he kill
ed her himself.”

  She looked out toward the children playing in the yard. “You mean he might have murdered his own child?”

  “Maybe it was an accident, but he knew it would look bad. Or he knew his wife would never be able to live with him if she knew. So he let it appear she was still missing, hoping his wife would get over it.”

  Her hand went back to the door. “And when she ended up having a nervous breakdown, he knew he’d have to do something to bring her out of it.”

  “Maybe he did like you said and found a child who resembled Claire.”

  She opened her door. “Which means we still have no idea how to find my real family. If he paid money for me, my real parents aren’t going to complain and they aren’t likely to admit it either.” She got out and slammed her door.

  He exited the truck and jogged around to join her. The distant roar of a lawn mower and the scent of newly mown grass made the day seem so normal and ordinary when he knew her entire world had been shaken. A horn blew, and he waved at a friend as they walked across the yard to the porch where his aunt sat in a swing.

  The steps looked a different color, and he caught the lingering scent of fresh paint. His aunt had a smudge of gray on her cheek. “Can we use these steps?”

  Aunt Nan jumped up and put down her e-reader. “The steps are fine. I just finished the railing so don’t touch that.” She wore paint-splattered jeans and a pink sweatshirt.

  “Taking a little break?”

  His aunt nodded. “Abigail has it covered.” Her gaze swept past him to Claire. “Have a seat. I have iced tea and cookies ready.”

  “Of course you do.” He dropped his hand on her shoulder as he passed. “The porch looks nice. I like the gray.”

  “I was tired of plain old white.” She gestured to the chairs on either side of a glass table that held glasses of iced tea and a plate of cookies. “I saw the newspaper this morning. I know why you’re here.”