“No one will tell me where I am,” Aiden said, risking a glance at her again. “Merritt mentioned an island.”
She nodded. “We’re a barrier island in the Pamlico Sound, off the coast of North Carolina.”
“How many?”
“People on the island?”
“Yes.”
“Just shy of thirty.”
“No one knows you’re here?”
She shook her head.
Aiden shook his as well. “How is that possible? It feels like I’m in the Twilight Zone.”
“As close as you’ll ever be to it, probably.”
“And what is your name?”
“Lemon Potter,” she said. “You?”
“Aiden Dunleavy.”
“Tell me what you remember,” she said softly. “In the moments before you were brought here. You were driving. There was a woman…”
Aiden shook his head once again but started to speak anyway. “She stepped out into the road from out of nowhere.”
“And you hit her?”
“I didn’t even have the time to swerve,” Aiden said.
She nodded. “And you were just going to leave her?”
Aiden frowned. “I’m a…I’ll be a doctor soon. I was attempting to help her. Merritt stopped me, just let her die.”
The news seemed to shake the woman called Lemon. She moved away, out of Aiden’s line of sight. He took the moment to close his eyes and ride the latest wave of pain. A broken ankle, probably ribs as well, wrists and ankles rubbed raw from rope, the slippery focus of the concussed. And those were just his physical ailments. He wouldn’t bother to consider the mental damage that would result from this ordeal, how changed he would be by this nightmare, how changed he already was.
“Her name was Candace,” Lemon whispered.
Aiden reopened his eyes, the Ghost Woman back and standing over him, her chest rising and falling, her hands fisted. After a moment, Lemon relaxed her hands. “Candace was a good friend,” she said softly. “Thank you for telling me what happened to her.”
Aiden nodded and studied her eyes. There was menace in them, confusion, the beginning of tears. She asked, “Did she suffer?”
Aiden didn’t want to answer. “Please,” Lemon said.
He sighed and shook his head. “Not for very long.”
“This is too much,” Lemon whispered, and turned her back to him again.
It was a lovely back; an altogether lovely body. Ridiculous curves, especially her proud rounded buttocks. And a thick bosom and miles of cleavage as well, he noticed when she turned back facing him. Aiden was surprised to find himself aroused. This certainly wasn’t a time for erotic impulses. He needed to be thinking of a way out of here, off the island.
“Cut me loose,” he said. “They’ll kill me.”
Lemon wiped at her eyes and squared her shoulders. Resolute. “I won’t let them harm you any further. Shepherd will return soon. He’ll know what to do. He will.”
“Merritt is making the decisions.”
“I won’t let them harm you,” she said again.
“How can you stop them? Him? Merritt’s clearly unbalanced. Shepherd—whoever he is—can’t be much better.”
“Perhaps he isn’t. But no one is as bad as Merritt. And he won’t harm you as long as I’m around.”
“No disrespect, but you don’t inspire a lot of confidence.”
“Things have changed that much since last night? I thought I’d helped you.”
“You did,” Aiden said. “But last night was fantasy. I was scared out of my wits. I wasn’t thinking clearly. Seeing you gave me strength to keep going. This is reality now.”
“I’m asking you to trust me. I won’t let them harm you. What do you have to lose?”
“Other than my life?”
“I won’t let them harm you,” she said for the umpteenth time.
After a moment’s thought, Aiden said, “This is some secret island for—”
“The misguided, the lost,” Lemon whispered.
“Killers,” he said.
She nodded. “Some. Yes.”
“You have to cut me loose.”
“Shepherd will know what to do,” she insisted.
“Where is this Shepherd? I need him ASAP, if he’s so good.”
“He’s away.”
“Terrific. And how do you fit into all of this?”
“I’m one of the misguided, the lost,” she said. “And Shepherd is my husband.”
Aiden felt as if he’d run full-bore into a brick wall. If he had been standing, his legs would’ve turned to water and he would’ve toppled over. How could he have missed this? “You’re part of this,” he said. “You’re part of them?”
“I am,” she answered. “I’m sorry.”
“Then you’re an animal, too,” he said, voice rising. “You’re all animals.”
Seeing the sadness in her eyes made him wish, for a moment, that his hands were free so he could reach forward with a soft touch and make her eyelids flutter. Maybe even kiss them. But the moment passed as Lemon turned and quietly disappeared through a back door that left no sound or echo in its wake. Alone, Aiden considered the two pieces of advice he’d received in his life that had meant something to him, that had stuck with him to this day and would most likely stay with him for however many days remained. The first had come from his mother, near to the end, a relatively pain-free day for her in the hospice. “It only matters if you allow it to matter,” she’d said in a frail voice.
They’d been mired in silence, hadn’t been discussing anything. In fact, he’d been drifting toward sleep in an uncomfortably hard chair placed by the foot of her bed. He sat up, frowning, the slick chair cover squeaking from his movement. “What, Mom?”
His mother’s smile brought out the blue in her eyes and the lines around her lips. She hadn’t said another word.
Still, he’d understood at once. The only things that mattered were those things you allowed to matter. Family, friends, pride in a job well done. But you could just as easily assign little or no value to those things and others. Wealth, beauty, pride in a job title. In the end, you decided what held sway in your life and what didn’t.
The other piece of advice came during his last conversation with Saina, right before this hellish trip into the abyss. Saina’s apartment off campus, her roommate, Tabitha, displaced to the Starbucks two blocks over with her laptop and five dollars. “Take your time,” Saina said, gripping her roommate’s coat sleeve, “but make sure you bring me back a caramel macchiato. Okay?”
A silent communication had taken place between the two women. “Oh. Sure,” Tabitha said, nodding more than once, glancing nervously at Aiden, who was standing just inside the doorway, in their living room. “Definitely. I will.”
“You’re the best,” Saina called as Tabitha hurried toward the front door, glancing over her shoulder and giving Aiden a tight smile on her way out.
“So we’re all go for The Talk,” he said, once the door shuddered closed.
“You want to sit?” Saina asked.
“Spare me the indignity of acting as if I’ve never been in your apartment before,” he said.
“How about a drink?” she said, not giving up an inch. “We have water and a two-liter of Sprite Zero. Maybe a few stray juice boxes if you’re secure enough to drink them. Don’t want you feeling as if I’m somehow babying you.”
“Could you be any more patronizing?” he said.
“Last call, Aiden. Water, Sprite Zero, or a juice box?”
“Fine, Saina. Would that be the bottled water that I picked up for you from Costco? Sounds wonderful.”
“Water, then,” she said, heading for the kitchen.
He caught up with her by the refrigerator. Stood in front of it so that she couldn’t open the door. Still, she clanked it against his back three times and was preparing for a fourth. “You can knock me over,” he said. “But at least look at me when you do it.”
She looked up. Already, her sad, dark eyes were clouded and rimmed with moisture. She touched her neck, her fingers seeming to mourn the absence of her mother’s locket. She’d almost lost it during rounds a few months back and had since kept it in a locked jewelry box in her room now for safety. “You’re going to make this hard, aren’t you?” she asked.
“Breaking up with me?” There, he’d said it. “Hell, yes.”
“We don’t belong together, Aiden.”
“We do.”
“Your father—”
“Is ignorant and bigoted,” he admitted, cutting her off. “I get it. He thinks anyone with brown skin is a potential terrorist. If you mention to him that the Native Americans would have benefitted from Homeland Security he doesn’t want to hear it.”
“Injuns,” she said, still touching her bare neck.
“Pardon?”
“Not the first time you’ve made that cute little joke about the Native Americans,” she said. “The first time I heard you say it, unfortunately your friend Jacob had come out to dinner with us. You probably don’t remember, but I do. He corrected you, said ‘Injuns’. I waited for you to correct him back. I’m still waiting, as it turns out.”
Aiden sighed. “I can’t live for others, Saina. I have to live for me. I don’t feel the same way as my father. Or Jacob.”
“You told your father you weren’t seeing me anymore,” she said.
Another sigh. “It’s easier that way. For now. I’ll tell him the truth at some point.”
She shook her head. “I love you, but I’m done, babe. I’m asking you to please respect that.”
“And I’m asking you to please give it more thought,” he said, reaching for her wrist, his shoulders slumping as she jerked away from his touch. “I’m corrosive all of a sudden? Your skin will melt off if I touch you?”
“You’re raising your voice.”
“I’m upset,” he yelled.
“I am as well,” she said. “I don’t want this to be a troublesome situation for either of us.”
“God forbid,” he said. “We wouldn’t want this to be troublesome. Why don’t we commit to still getting together for the occasional caramel macchiato. You can still make your famous faluda and pack it in a carry thermos for me to drink with my roast beef sandwich during break. I’ll still swing by to drop off cases of Poland Spring. We’ll be the model for a troublesome-free end of a relationship. What did Gwyneth Paltrow call it? Conscious uncoupling?”
“Now you’re making fun.”
“Am I? I’m sorry. I must brush up on my breakup etiquette.”
“I’ve thought it through, Aiden. You know I have. I don’t make this decision easily. My heart will hurt for some time.”
“How long?”
“What?”
“How long is your heart going to hurt? A week? A month? Year? How long does one’s heart hurt after they’ve tossed aside their soul mate?”
“We’re not soul mates, Aiden.”
“Since when?” he asked, near tears, voice cracking and full of phlegm.
“Since the moment you decided not to fall in love,” she said.
“What are you talking about, Saina? That’s not fair. I do love you. That is not in question.”
She shook her head. “My mother always suggested I shouldn’t fall in love,” she said, “but rather stand in it. But something about giving in to love, allowing yourself to be vulnerable, that’s what makes it special to me, what makes it worth feeling. Romantic. I fell for you, almost from the very start. I was certain that you’d done the same. When you lied to your father, you soiled that.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m hearing that from you a lot,” she said. “My advice…Be more careful with your decisions and you won’t have to be sorry about them all the time.”
He nodded, unaware of the hole he was about to dig for himself. “I’ll take any and all advice you have to give, Saina. I promise. I love you that much. So, from now on, I won’t be sorry, I’ll be careful.”
“Good advice, I’m now realizing,” she said, “for everything except winning a woman’s heart.”
Aiden’s mouth opened, but no words would come.
“I’m actually making this easy for you,” she said.
“Hah-ow-mm?” He cleared his throat and tried again. “How?”
“I haven’t brought up Julie Eagan.”
Again, no words came. He tried to keep his face neutral.
“Thank you for your silence, for not offering some lame lie,” she said. “I’ll always appreciate that, believe me.”
“Jacob told you?” he managed.
She smiled sadly. “Was he your wingman? No, Jacob didn’t say a word. Prim and Narendra saw you with her. I’ll give you credit, they said you were trying to be discreet.”
“She means absolutely nothing to me. She’s from the old neighborhood. My family and hers were always close. She’d moved to Los Angeles to take Hollywood by storm, and now she’s moved back to Mass. She’s an actress…or was.”
“And it didn’t work out in Hollywood?” Saina frowned, clucked her tongue and shook her head. “That’s surprising, doesn’t it always?”
He swallowed. “I took her out as a favor to my father.” Even as he said it, Aiden knew his words made it worse.
“Aren’t you curious as to how I even know this woman’s name?”
He frowned. “How?”
“I waited to see if you’d mention her,” she said. “When Prim told me, I was certain it was just a big misunderstanding. But nary a word came from you. Then out of the blue your father called to thank me for graciously stepping aside and letting you have your life back. He let me know about the ‘great chemistry and history’ you shared with Julie from South Boston. And it wasn’t simply because she had ‘an outstanding pair of sweater puppies.’ No, you weren’t that shallow. To his credit, he tried not to gloat. You Dunleavy men do have your virtues.”
Aiden was shocked. “He wouldn’t.”
“He would and he did.”
“I don’t know what to say, Saina. My father’s a simpleminded, ignorant man. Money obviously couldn’t change that.”
“You’ll have to take the Poland Spring to-go,” she said, turning and moving on. “I have to take a shower. Work beckons. I can hardly wait for break and my roast beef sandwich.”
“Think about this some more while I’m down in South Carolina,” he called, the words dying as soon as they passed his lips.
She didn’t turn, but waved her hand.
He stood there, dumbfounded, dizzy.
Had he been too careful? Not careful enough?
Had he lost the most precious gift he’d ever received because of some illusion of comfort? He could never truly hate his father, but in that moment he couldn’t conjure any good feeling toward the man, either. Persona Non Grata. But that was passing the buck, wasn’t it? Aiden had been the one to lie. He hadn’t even balked at his father’s suggestion that he take Julie out. He’d been too worried about comfort to do the right thing. He’d diminished Saina, and in doing so, he’d lost her.
Be more careful with your decisions and you won’t have to be sorry about them all the time.
That’s good advice for everything except winning a woman’s heart.
He had his hand on the front door knob and was almost through the door when something pulled him back inside. Later, he would tell himself it was the echo of Saina’s voice, the quiet and reasonable part of her soul that didn’t truly want their relationship to come crashing down. Whatever the case, he released the knob, heard it thwock as it sprang back around and in place. He hesitated for a moment before moving farther into the apartment. In the short distance, he heard the bathroom plumbing groan. He moved past the kitchen nook and down the hall. Now the thrum of the shower water was in his ears, along with Saina’s offbeat singing. One of the songs from Alanis Morrisette’s “Jagged Little Pill” album, a treasure trove of angry-scorned-mistreated-woman lyrics. He
stopped by the bathroom door and tentatively rubbed a hand across it as if checking for a fire on the other side. Metaphorically, it was hot as Hades. Stop, drop, and roll.
Then he moved toward Saina’s bedroom.
The jewelry box sat proudly on her dresser. It was made of engineered wood, and had two drawers and a glossy black finish. Aiden’s fingers settled on the tasseled key Saina always left in the keyhole. The click sounded a reproach that he completely ignored. He slowly opened the top drawer of the jewelry box. Saw the familiar gray lining holding Saina’s locket like a valued lover.
It slid into his pocket so easily, it couldn’t be wrong to take it. The only reason he wanted it, after all, was to in some way remain close to Saina. To have her with him always.
He wasn’t out of line for taking it, he told himself.
After all, he’d give it back to her.
As soon as he returned from his trip to South Carolina.
✽ ✽ ✽
The sky was a bouquet of fading colors as the sun quietly slipped from sight. Ruck had dragged his tent far away from the others’, marring the bottom and bending the metal supports in the process. He’d repositioned it in the narrow void between the sand dunes and the creek where he always went to wash himself. He was asleep now, sprawled on his back, wearing nothing but a dirty pair of boxers, snoring out a soft, musical toot. Despite the facial hair framing his lips, his mouth was sensual like a woman’s and wet with drool.
Merritt stood outside Ruck’s tent and shook his head as he watched his friend sleep.
After a beat, he fished a foil of generic ibuprofen from his pants pocket, popped three tabs from the pack and dry-swallowed them. The spot behind his right eye throbbed like a stubbed toe. There was a load of tension at the nape of his neck. His skull seemed ready to explode at any moment.
The tent stank with the pungent smell of musty sweat. Ruck’s clothes were scattered everywhere inside it. He’d tracked in leaves and dirt. A scrapyard of crumpled beer cans were piled next to his bedding. He coughed and turned over to his side, but didn’t wake. Merritt continued watching him. They’d been friends for as long as he could remember remembering. He’d had many relationships with women, sexual and romantic associations that had made him dizzy and oftentimes stupid. And yet this thing with Ruck was more powerful than even those.
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