by Various
But her ankle throbbed, and after a minute she slowed to a fast, choppy walk. She could see headlights through the trees, so she couldn’t be that far away.
“Francine?” Her chest heaved with the effort of drawing in maximum oxygen and making minimum noise. She kept glancing over her shoulder and at times turned and walked backward, so no one could sneak up behind her. Then she tripped over a tree root and fell smack onto her ass. “Oof. Ow.” Pain shot all the way up her ankle. She lay there for a minute, face turned to the ground to hide her breathing. Damp leaves stuck to her chin, and she dry heaved as ants crawled across her lip.
“What do you want?” she asked in a low voice.
No answer.
“Hello? I know you’re watching me.”
Still nothing. The sound of waves had gotten closer and louder, and as she pushed herself up, she realized the shoreline lay beyond an outcropping less than a hundred yards away. She must have run farther than she’d thought. If she could get to the beach, maybe she’d be able to get her bearings. But was there a beach down here? Or did the trees give way to craggy rocks and nothing else? Fifty-fifty chance she was running to safety or to possible death.
She worked herself up to her hands and knees and spit out dirt. The bandage on her leg had slipped down and bunched around her ankle, and the extra fabric made her ankle throb worse than ever. She tried to tug it up, but without taking her shoe and sock off and rewrapping the whole thing, it wasn’t going anywhere.
She scrabbled in her pocket and pulled out her BlackBerry. Fingers trembling, it took her two tries to key in her password and unlock the screen. Still on her knees, she bent close to the screen and squinted. No signal. A big fat X in the upper right corner where three or four bars should be. Tears welled in her eyes.
Damn. Double, triple, ten times to the moon and back damn. She almost threw the phone as far into the trees as she could, even pulled her arm behind her head and aimed. Only a sliver of rationality told her to stuff it back into her pocket. Maybe if she got closer to the water, it would work. She pushed herself to her feet. First thing to do with this land would be to chop down most of these trees. Reveal the sea, the horizon, the town from end to end. From here you’d have a grand ol’ view of charming Lindsey Point.
A siren sounded in the distance, and she forgot everything else as her pulse careened into overdrive. Oh please yes please let that be for me. Tears spotted her cheeks. Francine had gone to find help, call 911, that was it. Maybe she’d sensed someone following them long before Sophie did and high-tailed it to the road so she could flag down a driver.
But why hadn’t she said anything? Sophie readjusted her baseball cap. Maybe instead Francine had been hurt, hit over the head the way Lucas had, and right now she was lying unconscious somewhere close by while the maniac stalked Sophie. Maybe the siren was a response to a fight at the bar, or a fender bender at the only intersection in town, nothing at all to do with them.
Her heartbeat fluttered inside her throat, and she ordered herself to take long, slow breaths. Francine wasn’t hurt. Francine was a few hundred yards away, whole and healthy and looking out for her.
The other possibility, of course, was that Sophie had invited the wrong person along and Francine was the one following people on the beach and watching her right now with bated breath, waiting for the right moment to hit her over the head.
And do what, exactly? Steal the treasure? It wasn’t anything to lay hands on, and she’d tell whoever was following her as he (she?) was out of luck. There wasn’t anything to dig up or hang on a wall or pawn. It wasn’t tangible, not the way everyone in town seemed to think. Petey Smith’s valued treasure was the property she was standing on, the land he and Miranda planned to build their future and raise their family on.
But in Lindsey Point, land would be a lot, wouldn’t it?
Oceanfront property like this, even wooded and not engineered, would be worth mucho dollars in today’s market. Of course someone wanted it. And if they could find the deed, they’d discover who owned it.
She sucked in a breath. They were after her. Not the treasure. They knew Sophie was the last Smith with any hold on this land. If they got her out of the way, say, through an accidental drowning or a tumble down sharp, steep rocks, the land would be up for auction. Who knew the truth about her father? Not the rumors, but the actual truth? And who would be brazen enough to try and kill her?
“Tom Allen?”
For a moment, nothing but silence echoed back. Then branches creaked behind her, and the gray-faced, gray-haired man stepped from the trees with a crowbar in his hand.
Sophie jumped to her feet and crouched, not sure whether she was going to run or stand and fight. She wasn’t surprised at who her stalker had turned out to be. Part of her should have known from the start. What did surprise her was that he wasn’t alone. A second later, the branches separated a second time, and a woman dressed in baggy jeans and a man’s overcoat joined them. Sophie gaped. Never in a million years would she have guessed.
But maybe she should have, because that explained a lot when she thought about it. The other person in town with true ties to the lighthouse, with a love that had kindled there, probably knew as much about the treasure as Sophie and Tom Allen. She’d heard the stories first-hand. She’d had more than enough time and access to the town records. Maybe in some strange way she even thought it should be hers, and ten long years of grieving had only added to that thought.
Katie Oakes.
Chapter 37
Lucas settled into his easy chair and flipped on the TV. Nothing but reruns and reality shows, but he didn’t mind. Numbing, senseless entertainment combined with a couple of sleeping pills would knock him out fast enough.
Sirens. One. Then another.
He turned up the volume and settled on a wilderness competition where has-been teenage stars fought each other to eat bugs or something. Stupid. And perfect. He rested his head against the worn spot on the back of the chair and closed his eyes.
His eyes flicked open as his cell phone went off with a text message. He reached for it, saw it was from Finn, and let it fall onto the end table. Wasn’t an emergency. Rich or Neil would call him if they needed him. They’d said as much. Whatever was going on down at the cove was half-over by now. Finn was probably bored at work and wanted to talk about Sophie or Shannon or his own ex or maybe the single mom he’d started seeing last month. They could catch up tomorrow. No rush tonight.
One of the guys on the reality show fell face-first into a mud puddle but managed to push an overweight woman with stretch marks out of the way, which apparently won him some kind of free pass from the bugs, because now he was sitting down at a picnic table with a burger and a beer. The host guffawed, the other contestants snarled, and Lucas changed the channel. Depressing. Start out as a cute kid in a family show and end up wading through adolescence on booze and drugs and emerging on the other side as a washed-up shadow still desperate for attention.
And when the hell had he gotten so analytical?
He flipped through a few more channels but found nothing, so he turned off the TV and wandered into the kitchen. He wasn’t hungry. He wasn’t tired. He just ached in a bunch of places, including one suspiciously in the middle of his chest that didn’t have anything to do with his injuries on the beach.
He slammed open a cupboard in search of a glass he could dump some Jack Daniels into. Clad in a pair of basketball shorts and a Warriors Alumni t-shirt, he rubbed both arms and glanced at the stainless steel refrigerator. Nothing on it but a couple of takeout menus held by magnets his mother had given him in his Christmas stocking last year.
Not like Neil’s fridge, loaded up with pictures of his three kids, or even Finn’s, with a handful of stick figure drawings courtesy of his nieces and nephews. Nope, this appliance screamed one-hundred percent bachelorhood. Nothing wrong with that, Lucas thought as he yanked it open for some ice cubes, but he’d thought he’d be on the way to having a family of h
is own by now. Twenty-eight wasn’t old, but it wasn’t young either.
Not like Sophie’s gonna settle down for wife- and motherhood any time soon.
He dumped two shots of whiskey over the ice and drank half in one gulp. Why the hell was he thinking about her? Kids with that woman? They’d be the demons of the town, skateboarding up and down the handicapped ramp at the library, skinny dipping in the fountain by Town Hall...
He grinned as he imagined Sophie skinny dipping in the fountain. Now that was a hell of a lot better picture inside his head.
Lucas stared through the living room to the balcony. The sirens had stopped. The sun was slipping down into fog, and all he could see of the ocean was a hazy smudge against the clouds. Another hour or so, and darkness would cloak Lindsey Point completely. He walked over to the balcony doors and pulled them open.
Fresh air, cool but still thick with humidity, blew into the living room. Salty. Distinct inside his nostrils. God, he loved this place. Of course, lots of places near lots of oceans would smell like this, wouldn’t they? Not exactly the same, but similar. Lindsey Point wasn’t the only place with a lighthouse and a view of the sea. He cracked his knuckles. Maybe this fall, when the summer jobs settled down, he’d go out to the west coast and see how the Pacific rivaled the Atlantic. Or maybe rent himself a motorcycle and spend a week driving down the coast to Maryland, see that island with the wild horses on it Finn talked about all the time.
Lucas stepped onto the balcony. Nothing moved. He knew the support needed repairs. He’d checked it out when he first moved in, even made a list of things he’d need to pick up at Tinker’s. Then he’d promptly forgotten all about it. He didn’t spend a lot of time gazing at the sunset, or even popping open a beer on his own after work. He walked to the railing, put both hands on it, leaned over and looked. But this was one hell of a view. And he could definitely fit a table and chairs and a grill out here.
Why the hell had he gotten so angry at Sophie for suggesting it?
“Because she can read you, jackass,” he said aloud. First woman in a long time who could look at him and know exactly what was going on inside his head. First woman since Sarah, actually.
...It happened and I’m sorry and it was horrible and you know what? You weren’t on that plane. For whatever reason, she was–they all were–and you weren’t. Maybe there’s a reason, maybe it’s bad luck, maybe it’s God telling you it wasn’t your time yet...
Lucas squinted into the sunset. Shit. What the hell was he doing, standing here mooning around like a goddamn idiot? He knew damn well those calls about the cove had everything to do with Sophie. He shouldn’t have listened to the guys. Shouldn’t have wasted time coming back here and pretending he wasn’t half in love with that crazy woman. Losing Sarah he hadn’t had any control over. But maybe this time he did. Maybe this moment was his reason.
He grabbed his shoes and keys and headed for the door.
Chapter 38
Sophie forced herself to stand on both feet and ignore the screaming pain in her ankle. “What do you want?”
Tom Allen’s lips peeled back. “You know what I want.” He swung the crowbar in an arc. Leaves sliced off and flew through the air. “All this should belong to me.”
“Tom, stop it.” Katie took a few steps toward him.
“Shut up.”
For the first time, Sophie realized they hadn’t shown up together. Katie’s face was white where his was beet-red, and the energy between them was thick with tension. Before Sophie realized what she was doing, Katie grabbed his arm and twisted his wrist, grabbing for the crowbar. “I told you–you’ve done enough. Give me that.”
He pushed her away as if she weighed nothing at all. “Back off, bitch.” He back-handed her so hard she stumbled into a tree. Her head smacked the trunk with a splat loud enough for Sophie to hear.
“Now,” Tom Allen said as he faced Sophie. “You haven’t caused anything but trouble since you got here.” He slapped the crowbar against his palm as he spoke. Behind him, Katie struggled to stand.
“How do you figure that?” Sophie stuck one hand into her pocket and fumbled for her cell phone. “I was doing my job. I would’ve been gone tomorrow, and nobody would have known the truth.”
“’Cept you.” He eyed her. “You found out too much.”
Sophie’s thumb brushed the keypad. She’d pick up a signal somewhere; she had to. She had the emergency button set, so all she had to do was find it and press it.
“Don’t matter if you call the cops.” His gaze moved to her pocket, then farther down. Chills covered her. He jerked his chin in the direction of the street. “Already on their way.” He spat on the ground. “That bitch Francine probably called ’em.”
Her heart pummeled. He hadn’t hurt Francine? Good. That meant all Sophie had to do was stall. She lifted her chin and forced herself to speak slowly. “I don’t know what you think’s going to happen here. If the cops are on their way, I mean.” Hurry hurry hurry, she willed them. She’d heard the first siren–what? Almost ten minutes ago, it seemed like. Where were her heroes, bursting through the trees with guns drawn to save her skin?
He swung the crowbar again, lower this time, as if it was a scythe and he was clearing brush. She tried not to think how it would feel taking a chunk out of her leg. “Ah, it’ll take ’em a few minutes to find us. By that point, you’ll be in the water, and I’ll be tryin’ to save you.” He chuckled. “Won’t work. There’s a nasty undertow right off the shore here. Little girl got caught in it–oh, what was it? ’Bout two or three years ago.” His gaze cut over to Katie. “Oakes was on the rescue crew, but that kinda current’s too strong for anyone. Never even found her body, poor thing.”
“Tom, stop it,” Katie said. But her voice wavered. “I mean it. Stop threatening her.”
He frowned. “Thought that’s exactly what you wanted. ‘Scare her off,’ you said, soon as we all found out they were comin’ to town. ‘Make sure she doesn’t have any reason to stay here.’”
Scare me off? Sophie bit her lip to keep it from trembling.
“Then you had to go and make your stupid comment about her father,” Katie spit out. “Couldn’t keep your mouth shut, could you? She could have left town and never been the wiser about who she was. The town would have gotten the land, you would have gotten whatever rights you wanted, and everything would have worked out fine.” Her gaze moved to Sophie. “God, I didn’t mean for any of this to happen. Really. I didn’t know that he–”
“Shut up, bitch.” He raised the crowbar in her direction.
The town? What rights? Sophie had no idea what Katie was talking about. But she began to shiver, not from the chill of the fog creeping over her skin or even the macabre story of a little girl drowning but from the grin that never left Tom Allen’s face, the teeth crowded into his mouth that hung over his lips as he licked them every few words, as if to lubricate the details.
“So now,” he went on, “you’re gonna take about ten steps that direction.” He jabbed the crowbar over his shoulder, toward the ocean. “And you’re gonna find yourself slippin’ down some pretty steep rocks. No place to hold on, and the moss and the mud there don’t hold footprints. I’ll try to pull you back up, but it’ll be too late.”
“I’m calling the cops myself,” Katie said. She pulled out her cell phone. “I thought maybe you’d listen to me if I followed you out here. Thought maybe you still had a few brain cells in your head, but I guess I was wrong.”
“You wanna go in the water with her?” he asked. “I’ll have no problem telling the cops the same thing. I’ll say you were here and tried to help, but...” He shrugged. “Too late.” He glanced over his shoulder. Sophie strained to hear the sound of someone coming toward them, but all she could make out was the steady slap of the waves.
“This land belonged to the Smiths, right?” she began. Maybe reasoning with him, showing him some kind of understanding and respect, would help. She still didn’t know why Katie would hav
e teamed up with a lowlife like Tom Allen, but she knew from experience she couldn’t predict human behavior. “Petey bought it the week before they married. And when they died, it was passed to their son. But it wasn’t ever going to belong to someone else.”
“It belongs to the town,” Katie said. “Or it should.”
Sophie turned. “I don’t understand. How?”
“No one survived from that family. Or we didn’t think anyone did. After your father died, it should have passed to Lindsey Point.” Circles of red stained her cheeks as she looked toward the ocean. “It’s the perfect place for the memorial. It’s where they should be remembered.”
Or at least where your lover should be, Sophie thought. That’s what this was about, at least in part. Katie and the lighthouse keeper had probably walked here more than once, made dreams, made plans, talked about what could be if the world were different.
“The history of it, the romance...” Katie trailed off. “You wouldn’t understand.”
God, she sounded like her son. “You don’t know that.”
Katie’s face crumpled. “You do twenty, thirty of these shows a year. Right? Lindsey Point wasn’t supposed to be any different than any other town for you. I knew if you thought there was a reason, you’d stay longer. Start looking around and asking questions. I didn’t want that to happen.”
“So you got someone to follow me around and try to scare me off?” Sophie said, angrier by the minute. “You thought if we pulled out of here early, and if I never knew, you’d figure out a way to get the land turned over to the town. So was he supposed to scare off your own son too, or was that a mistake?”