by Adrianne Lee
Hugging her fragile body to him, he thanked God for this small person and her enormous love. “Even though we aren’t having a great time, we can’t leave the party. But I’ll probably feel like taking on the Mario Brothers later.”
“Promise?”
“Yep.”
Hearing footsteps in the foyer, Spencer sat July on the sofa and stood. His heart leapt with anticipation as his gaze fled to the arched doorway. Karl entered the room. Alone. Spencer didn’t know which he felt strongest, relief or disappointment. Watching Karl make a beeline for August, speak to him in hushed tones, and receive a nod of appreciation, it occurred to him Karl might not have been anywhere near April. Then what was keeping her?
Deciding to find out, he moved toward the foyer, but Vanessa’s grandmother waylaid him. There was a mischievous twinkle in her crinkled blue eyes. “My, but you’re a pair of handsome devils.” She tossed a look in Thane’s direction, then back at Spencer. “I don’t know how my granddaughter tells you apart.”
Spencer assured the charming woman that the differences were marked, but her observation triggered the memory of April’s adverse reaction to being compared to Lily. Could that be why she hadn’t joined them yet? Was she in her bedroom, anxiously delaying the moment when she’d be confronted by strangers, more people who would remember her mother and make comparisons? Great! His rejection of her had probably added insult to injury atop whatever inadequacies she harbored. Mentally kicking himself for the umpteenth time, he started across the foyer for the stairs. He was probably the last person she would want to see, but the least he could do was try to coax her to join the group for dinner.
Helga was coming out of the kitchen, wringing her apron until it looked as twisted as his stomach felt. Evidently, she still hadn’t calmed down. “Dinner’s ready,” she told him.
“I’m going to tell April now.”
She nodded and shuffled past him toward the living room. He made for the stairs. With dinner imminent, he had little time to undo some of the damage he’d done to April’s ego. As his foot gained the bottom step, the telephone rang. The cook spun around, staring pointedly at Spencer. He was nearest August’s den. “I’ll get it,” he said, begrudgingly.
Silently cursing the caller’s bad timing, he strode to the den and lifted the receiver. “Hello?” he answered irascibly.
The caller hesitated a moment before asking. “Is this Calendar House? The Farradays?”
The voice was female, husky, and unknown to Spencer. It struck him the call could be for one of the O’Briens. With that in mind, he strove for a softer tone “Yes, it is. To whom do you wish to speak?”
“April Farraday.”
Of all the people in the house he’d expected the caller to ask for, he’d never even considered April. As far as he knew this was the first call she’d received since she’d arrived here. His brows came together so hard his forehead ached. “May I tell her who’s calling?”
“Nancy Merritt.”
April’s psychiatrist. His mouth went as dry as powder before he realized he was jumping to conclusions. Given April’s circumstances, it was only natural her doctor would call and check on her progress. “We’re just about to sit down to dinner, but I’ll round her up for you.”
As he set the receiver on August’s messy desk, he heard the doctor’s voice beckoning him and lifted it to his ear again.
“Pardon?”
“I don’t want to interrupt your dinner. April can call me afterward.”
“Are you sure?”
A whole ten seconds passed before Nancy replied. “Yes, I’m sure.” But she didn’t sound like she was sure at all, Spencer thought as he replaced the receiver and stood staring at it long moments. He had the distinct impression the doctor would have preferred to speak to April immediately. Why? The question conjured myriad possibilities, all of which reinforced his anxiety.
“Who was on the phone?” Cynthia was standing in the doorway of the den.
“It was Dr. Merritt.”
“Heavens, whatever did she want?”
He shrugged. “To speak to April. April can call her back after dinner and find out, I guess.”
“Speakin’ of which, we’d best join the others in the dinin’ room. Helga’s outdone herself with this dinner.”
When they entered the dining room, Spencer instantly sought April. But she wasn’t present. “Mother, where is April?”
“Why, I don’t know.” Cynthia’s gaze traversed the room, and she seemed genuinely surprised not to find April present. Her hand went to her chest, seeking the absent gold cross. Distress pinched her features. “I’ve been so busy with my hostess duties I didn’t realize she hadn’t joined us.”
“April’s a little shy,” August explained to the curious-faced O’Brien family. The tint of red in his cheeks expressed an evident embarrassment at his older daughter’s manners. “Would you go fetch her, Spence? I’m sure she’s in her room.”
“No, she’s not,” July exclaimed just as Spencer reached the doorway.
He spun around, feeling as though he’d been gut-punched. “How do you know, twerp?”
“I looked before the party.”
Spencer felt a shield of ice form on his heart. He moved back into the room and caught Cynthia by the shoulders, rougher than he meant. “Mother, when was the last time you saw her?”
Alarmed confusion showed in her furrowed brow. “This afternoon. She said she was goin’ for a walk—out to that Turtle Rock of hers. But I assumed she’d returned hours ago. Heavens, hasn’t anyone seen her?”
At the negative answers, March Farraday’s ruddy complexion heightened to the color of boiled beets. “Lordy, don’t tell me that crazy girl has gone and pulled another lame-brained stunt.”
Chapter Sixteen
For one death-defying microsecond, April hung suspended above the killer rocks. Then her stomach flew into her throat as she started to plunge. Flailing the air, she gathered handfuls of nothing.
April screamed.
Prayed.
Cursed.
Dropped.
Prepared to die.
Instead, her feet hit something bushy and pliant and full. It grabbed at her slacks, then poked between her legs, and jerked her body, hard. The odor of pine exploded in her nose.
The tenacious fir tree. Its sharp scent defied the stench of certain demise. Hope revived inside her.
Frantically, she clutched at spiky branches. But the boughs slipped through her hands, squashed beneath her belly, then retreated into the cliff wall as if trying to shove her out—toward the water.
Using every ounce of strength, April snaked her arms around a thicker branch and held on tight. Her body rammed to a halt and left her dangling like a snagged kite. Tree limbs trembled and stilled. Coarse bark bit into her palms. Spiny needles stabbed her cheeks, and gouged her parka, and each breath burned her lungs.
Nothing had ever felt so wonderful.
The feeling vanished in a twinkling. Her gaze stole to the bank above. This was no accident. What had struck her in the back had been a set of human hands.
Realizing the fir offered no concealment, she felt her mouth go dry. Surely, whoever had pushed her from the cliff would stick around long enough to make certain they’d finished the job. Terrified, she eyed the precipice. Her heart beat so hard her whole chest ached as she waited.
And waited.
The sun sank into the horizon and squelched the spotlight effect along the shoreline. Still no one came. No head peered over the cliff to ascertain whether or not the deed had the intended outcome. Confusion sifted through her terror, but she couldn’t afford to worry about it now. She had to get to safety. But how? Reaching the cliff was not an option. The wall above her was too smooth. And below, waves crashed against rocks, spitting sea water high and wide. Screaming would be a waste of vocal chords and might attract the wrong individual.
Stretching her right foot in an outward span, she tried to find a foothold or handhold,
something that would support her weight, buy her time. Pebbles skittered loose and clamored down the cliff, their clatter lost in the noisy surf. As daylight ebbed, the cold intensified. Her hands grew numb, her prospects dying as certainly as she soon would.
The tree trembled. April gasped. Renewed terror shot through her. She grabbed tighter still to the thick limb. It felt as though the fir’s roots were slipping from the soil. Panicked, she executed another foothold search, this one concentrated to her left side.
More pebbles avalanched. She listened, disheartened as they clattered down the wall. However, instead of disappearing in the surf, she could have sworn she heard them clunk against solid rock.
With her throat constricting, April cautiously shifted her body, craned over her left shoulder and scanned the scene below. The waning light cast shadows across the whole area, but she could see enough to set her pulse skipping with hope. Less than fifteen feet down, slightly left, there was a wide flat ledge, the very step she’d been looking at when she’d been shoved from the cliff. If she could swing—
A loud crack interrupted the thought as the section of tree April was clinging to broke.
Chapter Seventeen
Panic seized Spencer. He spun on his heel and raced for the foyer wishing his mind would stop conjuring horrific images of April. Injured. Helpless. Perhaps dying. His blood flowed as cold as a mountain river.
Thane caught up with him at the front door and grabbed him by the shoulder. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”
Spencer jerked free of his twin’s grasp, frowning at him as though he were an idiot to ask such a stupid question. “To find April.”
“Without a jacket or a flashlight? Use your head! Turtle Rock is a mile from the house. It’s freezing outside and what moonlight there is won’t allow you to see beyond your big toe. How much good do you think you’ll do April if you go off half cocked?”
The last thing Spencer wanted to deal with at this moment was logic. But Thane made sense. “My jacket’s upstairs. Where’s that big flashlight of yours?”
“I’ll get it. But I’m coming with you.”
Spencer charged up the stairs. Thane dogged his heels, instructing, “Change shoes, too. And grab a blanket.”
These last words sent icicles stabbing through his brain. April would be cold when they found her, from shock, from hypothermia, from… No! April, please be all right, he prayed, running down the hall to his room.
He was headed back to the foyer in less than three minutes, precious minutes he realized, that could make the difference between April’s life or her death. The excited rumble of rapid activity throughout the upper floor barely penetrated his worried mind. Hastening down the steps, Spencer crammed a fleecy blanket inside his suede jacket and worked the snaps closed.
“Here’s the flashlight,” Thane said from behind him. Spencer stopped long enough to grasp the object by its neck.
In the foyer, August sat on the bench seat of the hall tree, lacing his work boots. He glanced at the twins as they approached. “I’ve instructed the household, guests included, to change clothes and assemble in the kitchen.” He finished tying the last knot and stood. “Karl’s gone to the workshop for… Oh, here he is.”
Karl came through the front door carrying an armload of various shaped and sized flashlights. “I didn’t take time to check them.” He sounded slightly breathless.
“I’ll do that.” August selected two of the newer looking flashlights, determined they were working properly and handed one to Thane. The other he stuffed into Karl’s coat pocket, then relieved him of the remaining bunch. “I’ll organize the others, but we won’t be as quick as you three. Go straight to Turtle Rock,” he advised, hustling to the kitchen.
As Karl opened the front door, something struck Spencer in the back of the thighs and wrapped itself around him like a lasso. He lurched to a stop. “July?”
Keeping her arms locked about his legs, she gazed up at him with tear-blurred eyes. Her face was as pale as milk, and she wore her coat and boots. “I know the way to Turtle Rock. I want to go, too.”
Disengaging her arms, Spencer knelt to embrace her. “Not this time, twerp.”
“I don’t want April to be hurt.” Her voice wavered with tears.
Spencer felt his heart contract with renewed fear. “She’s not hurt, sweetheart. She’s probably just gotten lost in the dark.” God let that be the truth. Kissing the top of her head, he rose and turned toward the open doorway. He could see Thane waiting on the stoop.
As he reached the door, July grabbed his pant leg. “I still want to go.” Her little jaw lifted at a stubborn angle that heartbreakingly reminded him of April.
“July, you’re not goin’ anywhere. Now let loose of your brother this instant.” Cynthia descended the staircase to her daughter and clamped her hands on the child’s shoulders. “Sugah, you have to stay inside with Aunt March and Vanessa’s grandmother.”
“I’ll let you know the minute we find her, twerp. I promise.” Spencer tossed his mother an appreciative look and left. Pulling the door closed behind him, he effectively shut out the sound of his sister’s sobs, but not the anguish they caused him.
“She’ll be all right as soon as we find April,” Thane said.
Spencer knew his twin was trying to ease his pain and he was grateful for any crumb of hope. “You’re right! Let’s go find her.” He fell into step with Thane, playing his flashlight beam across the ground. “Where’s Karl?”
“He took the trail through the woods. I said we’d follow the cliff path.”
“Good thinking. It’s quicker.”
“Not necessarily. In this weather it’ll be as slick as slime, but we have two flashlights compared to his one.”
Spencer didn’t give a rip who had what advantage or what kind of precautions Thane thought should be taken. He proceeded at a careless clip, shouting April’s name every few feet. His ears were sensitized to every sound, every wave hitting the shore, every night animal startled by their approach, every crunch of gravelly soil beneath their feet. But nothing even remotely resembling April’s beloved voice answered his frantic calls.
“I don’t understand this, bro.” Thane sounded as confused as Spencer felt. “There are no dangerous wild animals on this island, no poisonous snakes or insects—what the hell could have happened to her?”
“I don’t know.” He swallowed past the tennis ball-sized lump clogging his throat.
“Is she getting sick again?”
The question had been asked softly, but it sounded like a gunshot to Spencer. Denial sprang to his mind, his heart, his lips. “No!”
He shouted April’s name again and picked up speed, but he couldn’t outrun Thane’s question or the feeling that his brother had hit the nail on the head. Fear settled in his belly like a frozen brick as the night air closed in on him, damp and gelid and eerily motionless except for a few misty patches, swaying through the woods like eight-foot spectrals.
They were halfway to Turtle Rock before Spencer realized what the dense mists represented. “Oh, God, it’s getting foggy.”
“Yeah,” Thane answered brusquely. There was no need to dwell on the significance of this. They both knew what it meant. They had to find April soon or be forced to give up the search until morning. Spencer swore, shouted her name, and whipped his flashlight beam across the landscape with the composure of a madman. Recklessly, he raced on, feeling the thickening mists swirl around his head and neck like a slowly tightened noose.
At long last, he spotted another light bouncing through the darkness ahead. Karl. “Have you found her?” he shouted, praying the answer would be yes.
“No!” came the reply.
Running, Spencer reached Turtle Rock, skidded to a stop, and planted a hand on the hump of the huge bolder to keep his balance on the slick ground. His hope was turning as black as the night.
“Watch where you’re stepping, man!” Karl crabbed. “There’s sprints in the sand here�
��at least there were until you skated across them—that looked about the size of April’s feet.”
“Damn!” Spencer wanted to look, but feared if he stepped back he might further destroy what little evidence existed. He forced himself to stand firm. “Thane check out the prints,” he pleaded with a ragged voice. Leaning into his palms which were flattened against the rock, he braced his weight on his locked arms and strove to catch his breath.
Directing his beam around Spencer’s shoes, Thane knelt and examined what was left of the prints. “All these prove are that she was here. The ground was so damned dry this afternoon there’s no way to tell which way she went when she left.”
“Shouldn’t we assume she’d go back to the house?” Spencer had finally caught his breath and was trying to think with what logic he could muster. “After all, she knew Vanessa’s family was coming for dinner.”
Karl frowned and picked up the thought. “Yeah, she couldn’t have left the island. Her rental car’s still parked in the garage, and she wasn’t on board the ferry when I went back to Friday Harbor for the O’Brien’s.”
“Maybe she took the ferry after you came back.” Thane looked as though he hated to even suggest such a possibility. “Have you checked?”
“Forget it, man. That’s why I was late to the cocktail party. I was securing the ferry for the night. The keys are locked in the shed, and the spare set and the key to the shed are in my pocket.”
“Hell!” Spencer growled, but the curse did nothing to release his tension. “Standing here speculating is futile. We’re losing visibility by the second.”
He shoved away from the rock and started to make for the woods.
Thane hooked his hand around Spencer’s elbow and yanked him to a halt. “Oh, no you don’t. You aren’t going off by yourself in this fog.”
“The hell I’m not.” He jerked his arm, hard, but Thane held on tight. Spencer glared at his twin. “Let go of me.”
“No.” Thane spoke with a quiet finality. “Dammit, you aren’t the only one worried about April. Dashing haphazardly through this pea soup isn’t going to find her.”