Stella would still be working at the Blue Moon, so Chloe went directly to Lena. Shakespeare walked with her most of the way, but he eventually left to chase something behind the Pink Motel.
Warm light glowed through the cottage curtains and welcomed her. She tried to hold off the avalanche of pain that teetered above her and cast her in its shadow.
It wasn’t true, it couldn’t be true. That would mean that her aunts had lied to her all these years.
Then she remembered the strange conversation the day before. What does this have to do with my mother? Chloe had asked. Stella had looked flustered, something she rarely was. They’d talked about the press, and Chloe had thought Lena was worried about herself.
When Lena answered the door, she was still wearing the pink fuzzy robe. Her red hair was a mess, her skin was pale, which made her vivid blue eyes stand out even more. Chloe saw the shadows and wondered if Lena already knew why she was there.
“Can we talk, please?” She walked in without waiting for an answer.
The cottage was small, and with the flowered curtains drawn in front and candles lit, it looked cozy.
“Would you like some chamomile tea? I’ve just brewed it. That boo-boo face tells me you need some.”
Chloe walked to the window that faced the bay, arms wrapped around herself. “Say it’s not true, just say it and I’ll believe you … tell me about my mother.”
Lena plastered on a smile. “I’ve told you about Amelia, a thousand times. She was a warm, loving woman, a good mother —”
“And a lousy psychic.”
“Well, she didn’t have any abilities, no.” Lena held the teacup in her hand, stirring slowly. “But you know that.”
Chloe closed her eyes. “But I didn’t know about the part where she pretended to be psychic.” Her voice became a whisper. “Tell me about that.”
“Oh, Chloe.” Lena set her cup down and went to her.
Chloe moved away, probably the first time she’d ever shunned her aunt’s affection. “Tell me the truth, Lena.”
“Who told you?”
“That awful detective who came to see me at the hospital. He came here tonight, probably because of the newspaper article.”
Lena’s face was paler than Chloe had ever seen it. “Oh, hon, I’m so sorry. I knew we should have told you, and Stella, she was always on my case to tell you. At first, we decided to wait until you were old enough to handle it. And then, well, too much time had passed. You were a happy child, content in your world. Your biggest worry was going into the water and feeling slimy things. Or saving bugs and the like. We didn’t want to spoil it for you. It was all so long ago, and so far away. I thought it would be better for you not to know at all, especially since …”
“I’m not psychic either, and I don’t fit in.”
“Of course you fit in. You’re one of us no matter what.” Lena touched Chloe’s hand. This time she didn’t move away. “I didn’t want to hurt you, I swear.”
The tears started flowing now, for the image of the mother that was slipping away. “So you let me think she’d died of breast cancer. You let me worry that I might get it, too.”
“I hated that part, I really did. I wish we’d picked something else, something less hereditary. The good part is, you’ll find a lump before it even starts to think about forming.”
Chloe jerked her hands down to her sides. “You lied to me. For years you lied to me.”
Lena sat down on the flowered couch. “I was afraid that you’d take it hard. And maybe that you’d take the same path. The publicity pushed her over the edge. She was always a little jealous of me and Stella. Then that case came along and made life hell for all of us. But it affected her differently. Something snapped inside her, and she had to have what we had. I don’t think she lied about the visions; I think she believed they were real. And when they found that little boy …” She shook her head and closed her eyes for a moment. “The press really chewed her up. They weren’t as hard on me, because I had really found the girl. It was too late … but I did find her. Amelia was an out-and-out phony.”
Chloe sank down on the far end of the couch. “Is that why you won’t help me find Teddy? Because you’re afraid I’ll do the same thing?”
“No. Yes. Both, actually. And it’s been so long since I’ve had visions, since I’ve let myself have them. They try sometimes, but I don’t let them come. It’s taken a toll. Hon, I’m sorry. Will you forgive us?”
The hurt was too raw for forgiveness. “Does everyone in Lilithdale know?”
“A few women know, but they’ve been sworn —”
Chloe sprang to her feet. “So everyone knew but me. Maybe …” She sniffed, fighting back more tears. “Maybe if I were psychic I would have known you were lying. But I’m nothing. I don’t belong anywhere.”
Then she left, ignoring Lena’s pleas for her to come back. Chloe walked head down, only nodding to the occasional woman who called out her name in greeting. Halfway down her dark road, she halted.
Dylan had been there. He’d heard everything. Now he’d think she was a phony too, that she’d made up or imagined her near-death experience.
Her worst fear was, maybe she had.
Shakespeare burst out of the brush, startling her heavy heart into action again. He happily pranced around her.
She wondered if Dylan was still at her house. The chilly night air wrapped around her, making her long for strong, arms and a warm body to hold her close. But Dylan wasn’t that kind of man. Her body strained to run the rest of the way and see if his car was still in the driveway.
It wasn’t.
Everything else was dark and silent, or at least as silent as it ever was around there. Thank goodness for all the sounds of life around her. And for the family who would never betray her.
Gypsy rubbed her ankles, meowing loudly as soon as Chloe opened her door. Then Shakespeare started chasing the cat, and both were off gallivanting through the dark foliage. Must be nice to have a dog or cat’s life. Eat and play and love all day long.
The phone startled her with its jangling ring. It was probably Lena. Or maybe a reporter wanting to know the sordid details of her mother’s death.
Chloe turned, not ready to handle either. She went back downstairs and got into the canoe. The water looked ink-black where the moonlight didn’t sprinkle the surface with diamonds. Her arms took over, dipping the paddle into the water with a quiet whoosh, speeding her canoe toward the black mounds of mangrove islands silhouetted against a starlit sky. She didn’t want to think about anything, about her mother, or Dylan’s kiss, or even Teddy.
She heard Shakespeare’s barking in the distance. He liked going with her, but she wanted to be totally, completely alone.
She wasn’t sure how long she paddled; it seemed like hours. The canoe glided to a stop, and she let the tiny ripples of water move her along. At first all she could hear was the pounding of her heart and the sound of her breathing. When she finally calmed down, she heard another sound. Water hitting the metal of the canoe … it brought back the dreams.
Or were they even real? Maybe she only wanted to be psychic, like her mother. Maybe she was deluding herself. And that meant she could only be headed toward the same end. Like mother, like daughter. Runs in the family.
Suddenly she realized she had no idea where she was. She could see no lights, no sign of houses nearby. Being lost in the dark didn’t bother her too much, as long as she didn’t tip the canoe and fall into the murky water. That scared her, not knowing what squirming, nibbling things were nearby.
Something else bothered her too: the old man who lived on his houseboat. At first Chloe hadn’t believed her aunts, thinking they only wanted to curtail her explorations. Then she’d seen the boat, covered with years’ worth of junk, newspapers covering the windows. The man sitting on the back deck. He hadn’t been that old then.
“Whaddya want, kid?” he’d snarled.
“N-n-nothing, mister!”
And she’d paddled home as fast as she could. He moved his boat around so one never knew exactly where he’d be. A new twist on homelessness, she thought when she’d come across his boat years later.
She could hear water lapping against metal, but not her canoe. Sitting in the dark by herself, her imagination now created a monster of a man, gnarled with age and temperament. Though fear raged through her, she couldn’t make her arms paddle backward. Her body wanted to go … forward. She fought it, and finally managed to control her impulse. And as darkness swirled around her, she realized she had no idea where she was.
When the sun rose the next morning, Dylan had another sleepless night to add to the rest. Hopefully he was another day closer to finding his son.
In the kitchen he took the cup of coffee Camilla offered and pushed his flier across the counter to her. “Since I couldn’t sleep, I put the long night to good use.”
Camilla looked over the flier. “A twenty-five-thousand-dollar reward should get people interested. Good picture of him too.”
Teddy looked like any regular kid. Dylan was going to do everything possible to give him a normal life so people wouldn’t look at him with pity.
“You were rough on that girl,” Camilla said, laying a section of the newspaper on the counter.
He winced at the headline: “Father of missing boy denies working with ‘nutcase’.”
“I tried to retract the nutcase part, but it was too late.” He reluctantly read the article. It was all there, Chloe’s mother, the fiasco in Sarasota, and him disparaging her.
“What have I done?”
“Well, you accomplished what you wanted: getting rid of her.”
“You don’t know Chloe. She’ll help anyway, because she has to.”
Camilla raised her eyebrow. “You know her that well?”
“Well enough.” He subconsciously ran his hand over his mouth, remembering exactly how well he knew her. Deep in the pit of his stomach he felt uneasy. If her mother had committed suicide because of bad press, could Chloe do the same?
He tried calling her, but only got her answering machine. He left a message, but she didn’t pick up. Where could she be this early?
He kept thinking about what Yochem said. Not the part about it being unwise to be associated with Chloe. The part about her mother being railed in the press and how it had caused her to commit suicide.
And the dire pain in Chloe’s eyes when Yochem had told her about it.
“I’ve got to talk to her.”
“If you go down there, they’ll really think something’s going on between you.”
“If she does something stupid because of what I told those reporters…” He pushed the thought away, though the uneasy feeling didn’t vanish. “I’ll have my cell phone if anyone needs me.”
After stopping at the printer, Dylan headed south on US41. He had never thought he’d go to Lilithdale once, much less twice. As he drove, he told himself he was only making sure she was all right. It was his responsibility. Were suicidal tendencies hereditary? It seemed everything was these days.
He spent most of the drive on his cell phone, selling stocks to fund the reward, contacting some of the largest businesses in Naples about distributing fliers to their employees. And he tried Chloe again.
Lilithdale looked even quainter in the light of day. One woman zipped by him in a golf cart that looked like a purple BMW. She took one look at him and nearly crashed into a hibiscus bush.
At Chloe’s house a golf cart with a yellow-fringed sunshade was parked next to her T-Bird. Shakespeare came running out to greet him, all happy barks and wagging tail. Dylan rubbed the dog’s head. Chloe wouldn’t have a watchdog that snarled and scared away intruders. Not Chloe. Although some warning about their visitor last night would have been nice.
He followed the sound of voices through the back yard to the dock. He recognized Lena, Stella and Marilee. Their worried looks reminded him of that day in the emergency room.
Chloe had done something stupid, and it was all his fault.
CHAPTER 11
“Where’s Chloe?” Dylan asked as he approached the women.
“Gone,” Stella said.
“Missing,” Lena said.
“Can’t find her anywhere,” Marilee added.
“The canoe’s gone, we know that much,” Lena said.
Dylan tried to ask, “Could she —”
“That narrows it down,” Marilee said. “She could be anywhere out there!”
Stella wrung her hands. “Gypsy can’t even help me; she didn’t see Chloe leave. Neither did Shakespeare, who is quite upset at being left behind. Naturally he feels like he let his master down. Gypsy, how did she seem to you last night?”
“Ladies!” Dylan yelled, remembering the chaos of the emergency room all too well. “Let’s think where she could have gone. Does anyone have a map of these islands?” He nodded toward the network of mangrove islands.
“We never use maps; we go by feel.” Lena shook her head, causing strands of long, red hair to come loose from her hasty, upswept do. “This is all my fault.”
“This one’s my fault,” he said, feeling an ache in his chest.
Stella stepped forward, holding the tortoiseshell cat he’d seen inside. “Let’s not argue about whose fault it is. Our little girl’s been missing all night, and we’ve got to find her.”
“All night?” he asked.
“She hasn’t seen the newspaper yet,” Lena said, reading his mind. “Maybe we shouldn’t let her see it.”
“No.” Stella waved her hand. “No more hiding things from her. That’s how this all started.”
“Ever since she was a little girl, she loved canoeing around the islands,” Marilee said. “The last time she did this, she was looking for your son. But this time …”
“She’s going to be all right,” Stella said, nuzzling the cat. “She has to be, doesn’t she, Gypsy?”
“Remember that old man, he’s probably out there somewhere,” Marilee said.
“What old man?” Dylan asked.
“Ah, he won’t hurt anyone,” Stella said. “He’s just a homeless old coot, harmless as could be. Lived on these waters for years in that old houseboat.”
“We came by last night to talk to her,” Marilee told Dylan. “I brought her some of my pickle soup.”
“Pickle soup?” Dylan asked, trying to hold back a look of disgust.
“It’s her favorite get-well soup.”
Stella said, “She doesn’t like that goop. She just pretends because you made it for her.”
“She does so like it.”
“And when you came to see her …” Dylan said, trying to redirect the conversation.
“She was gone. We figured she’d just taken a short paddle, to clear her head and all. None of us had any bad feelings about it. But now …”
“You have a bad feeling?” he asked, then realized what he was saying.
“We have no feeling about it, that’s the problem,” Stella said. “But we have to remember, girls, that Chloe isn’t her mother. She’s stronger.”
“But tender, don’t forget that,” Lena said.
“She’s always felt left out,” Marilee said. “Oh, she’s never actually said it, but you know she does. She never had any special ability …” She looked at Dylan. “Until the accident. But we’re not sure …”
“That it was real,” he offered at her reluctance to go on.
“It’s not that we think she’s lying,” Stella said. “Maybe she conjured it up.”
“Like her mother.” Lena walked to the end of the dock, looking out over the sparkling water of the bay.
“We’d better round up the girls and get out the boats. I didn’t want to involve everyone, but I guess we’re going to have to,” Stella said.
He didn’t know about feelings or premonitions, but he knew worry, and it infiltrated his mind. First his son, and now Chloe. He should have stayed here last night until Chloe returned, just to make sure
she was all right.
He’d been afraid of being alone with her again. Afraid they’d really do something stupid. The way she’d come to life under his touch, the way her mouth moved beneath his …
He cleared his throat and focused on the islands of mangroves around him, so different from his view of the bay. His house overlooked a marina, a restaurant and lots of boat traffic. This was peaceful and removed from everything man-made.
And then he saw a flash in the distance. He blinked, trying to clear the image from his retina. Another flash. He reached for Lena’s arm and pointed to the pink canoe partially hidden in the mangroves.
“It’s her canoe!” Lena said.
The other two women rushed forward, nearly knocking him into the water. “Where? Where?”
Lena jumped up and down and waved her arms. “Chloe, honey!”
Dylan didn’t even think about what he was doing. He stripped off his shirt and removed his shoes, then made a shallow dive. His blood rushed through his ears as he swam through the chilly water. If she wasn’t in there …
Don’t think about that. He didn’t know Chloe, not really. But he had to believe she wouldn’t take her life or get careless with it. She was too special, too warm and tender — and passionate to die.
He was out of breath by the time he reached the canoe. He grasped the edge and tipped it toward him. His heart lurched at the sight of her lying inside, motionless. She came alive instantly, arms and legs scrabbling, fighting him as he tried to balance the canoe. She twisted the wrong way, tipping too far. Her scream was drowned by the water as she plunged in.
His arms went around her waist, pulling her toward the surface and holding her against him. She pushed at him, her face full of anger and shock. Water streamed from her hair and dripped off the edge of her nose.
“Let go of me!”
He felt an irresistible urge to kiss her, to taste her life and relish her anger. She was alive. He’d never felt anything like this before, this rush of relief and affection, of gratitude. Would he feel this way when he found Teddy?
Finally she pushed away, fury on her pretty face. “What are you doing? Are you crazy, scaring me like that? I was sound asleep! I thought he’d gotten me …” She shook her head, looking around for a moment to get her bearings. “Ew, get me out of this water!”
A Trick of the Light Page 12