“I remember when Ashley came to me with a flyer about Chico Chico. She’d picked it up in the music room at school and was eager to go to the concert. A percentage of the proceeds was supposed to benefit music programs in the schools, and since she was in both band and choir, this was a big deal to her.
“‘Daddy, can we go? Katy and Roma could go with us,’ she said. Katy and Roma were her two best friends. Ashley suggested that I drop them off at the mall so they could shop while I talked to the guy about the equipment. The day of the concert was Ashley’s thirteenth birthday, and it was supposed to be a special treat.” He was quiet for a long time before resuming the story.
“As it turned out, Katy’s parents had plans for that day, and Roma woke up with bronchitis and called at the last minute to say she couldn’t go. Ashley said, ‘It’ll be fun, just you and me,’ and…it was.”
For the first time, his voice broke.
Chloe closed her eyes, unable to avoid seeing the chaos, the panic that must have accompanied the fire.
“Before the concert, we went to see the guy about the equipment together, and Ashley waited in the car reading a book while I wrapped up the deal. It took much less time than I’d anticipated, so I suggested we go to the mall. She was thrilled, and as we were strolling past a shop, she fell in love with a dress in the window. It was long and blue and made of a filmy material like gauze or something. I told her to try the dress on, and she looked so pretty in it.
“‘I’ll buy it for you for your birthday,’ I said, and Ashley squealed with delight. She refused to take the dress off, said she’d wear it to the concert. She was crazy about the boys in Chico Chico, had a poster of them in her room, wanted to look her best. I was a reasonably indulgent father, so I didn’t object. I was glad to see her so happy.
“We sat right down in front. I was lucky, I thought, to get such good tickets. Ashley was ecstatic when those guys strutted onstage. She had stars in her eyes when they played her favorite song, and the lead singer sang directly to her. I couldn’t stop marveling at the way that my daughter was becoming a beautiful woman right before my eyes.
“At intermission, I asked her if she wanted something to drink, and she said yes, so I went to the lobby to the refreshment counter. There was a long line, and I stood back, letting the kids go first. I figured it didn’t matter if I missed some of the concert when it resumed. It was more important for those kids to get back to their seats. I was the last person to purchase drinks, and I was turning toward the door to the theater when I heard the first screams.
“Smoke began to pour out of the seating area, thick black coils of it. I ran toward the entrance, only to be met by a wall of panicked people. I fought my way through, was knocked down, struggled to my feet and was carried backward. All that time I was screaming for Ashley, and I heard her calling to me over the roar of the flames.
“‘Daddy, Daddy, help!’ I’d know her voice anywhere.”
Chloe swallowed and felt tears falling from Ben’s cheek to hers. She didn’t wipe them away.
“Then, the theater turned into a tunnel of fire, and I heard only screams. I was trampled, couldn’t get up. Everything went black.” He paused. “I woke up in the hospital. I’d suffered smoke inhalation. Had two broken fingers and bruises all over my body. My first words were, ‘Where’s Ashley?’ The pitying expressions on the nurses’ faces told me that she was gone. I wanted to die.”
He wrapped both arms around Chloe, held her so close that the beating of his heart was loud in her ear. “Sometimes, I still do. I’m sure Ashley’s the one mentioned in one of those articles, the girl with the blue dress. It was long and flowing, no doubt very flammable. Just a spark from that fire, and she would have turned into a human torch. If I’d never bought her that dress, maybe she’d have escaped. But it was Ashley’s birthday.”
Chloe swallowed past the lump in her throat, fighting the image of a lovely young girl in a flaming blue dress. “Emily is right. You need to stop blaming yourself,” she said, her heart heavy.
“Afterward, my life was in tatters. Ripped apart. I couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t live with myself. During what I call the bad time, I started drinking. I was responsible for what happened to Rick, and all because I wished I’d died in that fire. After a rough time, I realized that dying wouldn’t bring Ashley back. It wouldn’t solve anything. I quit drinking, got into AA, and I’ve been sober ever since. Well, except for the anniversary of Ashley’s death. I went on a binge and hated myself for it. It’ll never happen again, I swear.”
“I admire you, Ben,” Chloe said quietly. She had no doubt that Ben was a good person. But good people slipped up sometimes. It was a mark of his character that he’d straightened himself out and was striving to put his life back together.
“I’m different since I’ve been sober. If only I could convince Andy McGehee of that.”
“You will, Ben. I have faith in you.”
“That means a lot. You have no idea how much.”
She held her breath, watching his face as his emotions played themselves out. Pain, remorse, and something even more powerful, though she wouldn’t—couldn’t—put a name to it.
“I have something to live for now. I have you, Chloe,” and his lips grazed her forehead. “You’re special in my life. You’re someone to care about besides myself, and I needed that. I need you. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “I think so.” Underlying her relief was a niggling voice of doubt; that was what all the others had said. People tended to need her, which ultimately got her into situations that became unworkable.
“I’m trying to say that I’d like to see where this goes with you, Chloe. I gave up any idea of having a family after Ashley died. I didn’t want the pain of starting over. Now I’ve begun to dream about having a second family. You’re the kind of person I would want to raise my children if I were lucky enough to have any, and I hope you feel the same way about me.”
“I’m honored,” she said, though she had reservations. Being a mother was Naomi’s destiny, and her friend Beth’s, but not hers. Of course, the men she’d known before this were losers, and maybe that had affected her thinking. She’d never met a man she’d deemed suitable to father any child of hers.
She had fallen in love with Ben Derrick. What that would mean to them in the future, she couldn’t say.
Later, after they drowsed in each other’s arms, Chloe got up and made lunch. Tara arrived home from the museum and asked if she could visit Jill, so Chloe told her she could drive the Volvo. Ben started building a fence around the garbage cans, sinking it in a deep trench so that possums and other varmints wouldn’t be able to burrow underneath. Every so often, he came into the house for a drink of water and touched her lovingly and lingeringly before going away again.
One such time, he went through the door in the kitchen to the annex, and she didn’t hear him return for a long time. When he did, he slammed into the kitchen, the sound of his work boots striking heavily on the kitchen floor.
When he reached her workshop, she glanced up. “Anything wrong?” she asked mildly when she saw the disturbed expression on his face. But of course nothing could be wrong after this morning; they were again in sync, connected.
Ben flung himself down in the chair beside the door, the one that Tara usually occupied when she stopped to talk.
“I should say so,” he said. “The gold coins I kept in the shoe box beneath my bed—the ones I’ve been finding on the beach—are gone!”
Chapter Fourteen
“Tara wouldn’t take them,” Chloe said. “I’m sure of it.”
“She had the opportunity. She and Jill—”
“Yes, I remember. They cleaned your place,” she said. She didn’t add, while you and Emily were strolling down the beach together. That would have been unfair, and besides, she was over that. Or was supposed to be.
“Who else could have done it?”
“Any of the kids who w
ere here for the party,” Chloe said. “Have you checked since then—before today, I mean—to check if all the coins were there?”
He shook his head. “Not lately. There were six of them.”
“Tara expects to eat dinner at Jill’s. She won’t be home until later.”
“I’m going to ask her if she did it, Chloe.” He said it with worry in his eyes, and now that he’d calmed down, she was sure that Ben didn’t want Tara to be the thief any more than she did.
“Please don’t undo all the good work we’ve both done with Tara since she arrived. Confronting her will only make her angry, rebellious.” Her words were more of a plea than a request, but Ben’s jaw had set into a grim line.
“Tara has a history of shoplifting. She was the only person who knew the shoe box with the coins was hidden under the bed. I showed them to her myself after one of our metal-detecting jaunts.”
“Other people could have known about them,” Chloe said stubbornly.
“How?”
“By snooping around. You often leave the glass doors open and the screen door unlocked.”
“That’s so if you’d like to come in and make love, you can,” he said, his lips twisting with humor. “It worked, too.”
She refused to be sidetracked. “Anyone else could come in, also. People from the state park, or vagrants who sleep on the beach. Dog walkers, beachcombers, kite flyers, etcetera.”
“I found Zephyr in my apartment one day,” Ben admitted. “She asked if I had any sunscreen, since she’d forgotten hers. She was going to help herself.”
“Zephyr wouldn’t be interested in gold coins. She’s the least materialistic person I’ve ever met, and one of the most honest.” She paused. “Back to your suspicions, Ben. If Tara had wanted to steal something, she could have taken my jewelry anytime. She could have stolen the artifacts in your collection or even the emerald ring.”
“One-of-a-kind jewelry pieces that you make would be a lot harder to dispose of than coins, which people find here on the beach fairly often,” Ben pointed out. “Anyway, you keep your work in the safe when you’re not at your bench. As for my artifacts, they’d require some sort of explanation if anyone tried to sell them, since they’re rare. The emerald ring is documented in Sea Search’s records. To sell it wouldn’t be easy without raising questions.”
“I have faith in my niece,” Chloe countered.
Ben stood up with a sigh. “We’re not getting anywhere, Chloe. I’m not buying the theory that unknown interlopers stole those coins, but I promise I won’t speak to Tara if you don’t approve. Just the same, I’m going to be especially alert for clues.”
“I will, too,” she said. “Give me some time to get a read on Tara, see if anything seems amiss.”
Ben shook his head ruefully. “I have work to do. We’ll forget about this for now, okay?”
Chloe was happy he left. She needed time to figure out if her niece could really be the culprit.
No. Not Tara. But then, who?
DINNER THAT NIGHT was a reserved affair, with Ben staying in his apartment to eat alone. Tara was talkative, telling how Suzette Stephens, one of the other teenagers who worked at the museum, was having a party at her house. “Jill and Aaron are going, and Greg will be there after he gets back from a family wedding. Can I borrow your car? I won’t be out late—I have my shift at the museum early the next morning. That’s the day I’m going to help set up a new display before the museum opens, and I’m real excited that they asked me.”
“I’m not sure about letting you use the car,” Chloe said doubtfully. She had never allowed Tara to drive the Volvo by herself at night before.
“I’m a safe driver. Haven’t I proved it? And the party’s only a few miles down the road.” Tara stood and started clearing the dishes from the table. “I’ll take your cell phone. You can call me whenever you like. I can phone you if there’s a problem.”
“How about if I consider your request?” Chloe said.
“Okay, but I’m cleaning up the kitchen tonight as a bribe. Hey, Chloe, you seem tired. Have you been working too hard?” She regarded Chloe for a long moment.
Chloe shook her head. “I’ve got a lot on my mind, that’s all.”
“Hmm,” Tara replied in a teasing voice. “Does it have to do with a certain handsome fellow?” She was clearly and unabashedly scoping out the romance angle.
“I refuse to answer on the grounds that it might incriminate me,” Chloe said, more lightly than she felt.
“Clever answer,” Tara called as Chloe retreated to her workshop.
The light was still on in her niece’s room when Chloe retired for the night. For Chloe to fall asleep, knowing that Tara was suspected of thievery, wasn’t easy. The girl’s behavior had been above reproach all summer, except for a few instances of pique that, in Chloe’s opinion, didn’t count for much.
As the week progressed, Ben kept asking Chloe if she had changed her mind about confronting Tara.
“I have a hard time believing that Tara would betray my trust,” he told her. “But even if she didn’t take the coins, she must know something about their disappearance.”
“Please, Ben,” Chloe said, her patience beginning to wear thin. “I told you I’d try to find out if she’s involved, and I will.”
During the next few days, Chloe stayed close to Tara, occasionally attempting to engage her in conversation that might lead to discussion of the missing coins, but such efforts led her to believe that her niece was either skillful at evasion or was completely innocent.
One day, Tara declared her intention to get rid of white marks from her swimsuit and went out to lie on the beach with a book. “I’m way ahead of Amy,” she told Chloe. “She’s not even halfway through Pride and Prejudice yet, and it’s on our summer reading list.”
“Good for you,” Chloe told her, but her praise was halfhearted.
In a conversation that day with Naomi, her sister had picked up on her distractedness and inquired if anything was wrong. Dodging the question, Chloe directed the conversation to Tara’s reading and her interest in oceanography, which switched Naomi to a different track altogether. Chloe could hardly tell her sister that Tara was suspected of stealing; Naomi would demand that Tara return to Farish immediately. Which, as Chloe had told Ben, could undo all the progress Tara had made the past while.
Attempts to draw Tara out continued to go nowhere. Unfortunately, Ben was growing more impatient.
“How long are we going to wait?” he asked one night when he and Chloe were sitting outside on his patio, watching the moon rise over the ocean. “It’s been almost a week. Those coins are valuable, Chloe.”
“If Tara had any part in their disappearance, she’s not letting on. Honestly, Ben, I don’t believe she knows anything.” Hiding her growing resentment at Ben’s suspicion of her niece wasn’t easy.
“She’s been acting entirely normal—I’ll grant you that,” Ben said grudgingly. “How about if we talk to her about it the first of next week? We could make it very casual and nonconfrontational.”
“We’ll see,” Chloe said reluctantly.
Ben raised her hand to his lips and kissed her fingers one by one. “I don’t want this to come between us,” he said.
“It hasn’t,” she said stoically, but privately she was not so sure. She got up to leave. “I’d better go. I promised Patrice I’d deliver some jewelry soon.”
He followed her into the kitchen, where she rinsed out her glass in the sink. Her gaze fell upon a bottle of Scotch in an open cabinet, and it registered as out of place. Ben didn’t drink. He said he couldn’t. Still, she didn’t mention it. It wasn’t her responsibility to warn Ben about booze any more than it was his prerogative to keep harping on Tara’s supposed guilt.
The day before the big party at Suzette’s house, Jill and Tara were taking a break on the front porch, their feet propped on a wicker ottoman as they planned what they were going to wear the next night. Chloe, who was at her workbench insid
e, heard a car drive up, and soon afterward, Suzette climbed the steps of the porch and plopped into one of the chairs. Chloe went on painstakingly fitting bits of pearly white glass onto a chunky gold bracelet, which would also feature a large amethyst. She didn’t feel guilty for eavesdropping; the girls knew she could hear them talking from her workroom.
“Hi, Tara. Hi, Jill,” Suzette said. “I stopped by to find out if you were planning to come to the party.” Suzette was a tall girl with a bright smile and a cheerful expression that made people like her right away.
“We wouldn’t miss it,” Tara said. “Sit down and tell us what everyone’s going to wear. I can’t decide between my new tank top and skirt or my blouse with all the pockets and the awesome denim shorts.”
“I vote for the denim,” Jill said. “How about you, Suzette?”
“I’m wearing cutoff pants that I’m borrowing from my sister and a red shirt that I’ve had for a while. Are you going to be able to use your aunt’s car to come to the party, Tara?”
“Maybe. She’s thinking about it.” She raised her voice. “Aren’t you, Chloe?”
“Right,” Chloe called through the open window.
“I got a fabulous new CD the other day,” Suzette said. “I can’t wait for you to hear it.”
The others asked what the name of the band was. Tara said the group’s music was big in Texas right now, and Chloe gradually lost interest in listening. She managed to ignore their typical teenage talk until they mentioned Aaron.
“I’m sorry about what happened to Aaron about the surfboard,” Suzette said. “Sam told me about it this morning.”
“Maybe you better tell me what you heard,” Jill said.
“That Aaron took a surfboard from Hank’s shop and the police picked him up.”
“Hank gave it to him.” There was outrageous indignation from Jill.
Hank Garrison owned a surf shop between Sanluca and Vero Beach, and surfers in the area patronized it heavily.
The Treasure Man Page 19