She felt a tsunami of sadness. All those victims, she thought. All those lives taken so horribly. Darby closed her eyes, as if she could block out the images, and found herself leaning against Kenji’s shoulder.
He moved next to her on the couch. She continued crying quietly against him, feeling his strongly muscled arms holding her tightly. It was grief, not only for those faceless victims she had never known, but also for her grandfather, who had spent years of his life in a living hell.
“Do you think my mother ever knew the truth?” Darby’s voice was muffled against the soft flannel of Kenji’s shirt.
“I do.” He pulled away, gently, and looked into her eyes. “Your mother spoke and read Japanese. She may not have gotten the whole gist of the scientific language, but she understood enough to know that Tokutaro was not a willing participant in anything that happened.”
Darby bit her lip. “I’m so glad.” The mystery of how and when her mother had obtained the journal remained unsolved. Perhaps it doesn’t matter now, she thought.
She wiped away her tears and looked into Kenji’s face, seeing only compassion. Slowly, his hand reached up to stroke her glossy black hair.
“So much pain for someone so exquisite.” He cupped her chin with his hands as if cradling a fragile teacup, leaned forward and kissed her.
She closed her eyes. Kenji was trying to erase her sadness, to replace the horror with hope. She kissed him back, felt his hands brush her slender neck. Little ripples of longing stirred somewhere inside her.
“Kenji …”
Seconds later he pulled away. “Forgive me. That was wrong.” His voice was husky. “I’m going to go now.”
“You can’t. We tried shoveling you out, but it’s snowing too hard.”
“Yes, but …” he hesitated. “I’m not going to take advantage of the situation.” He rose to his feet and bowed slightly. “I will go up to bed. Good night, Darby Farr.”
Watching him walk up the stairs to the room she’d prepared earlier, Darby’s overwhelming emotion was surprise: not just that he had kissed her, but that she hadn’t wanted it to end.
_____
“Rise and shine, beautiful bride!” Terri Dodge pushed open the door of her sister’s bedroom with her knee. “It’s a real winter wonderland out there.”
Tina opened one eye and yawned. “Lordy, what time is it?”
“Eight-thirty,” chirped Trixie Ames, entering the room with two mugs of coffee. She watched as Terri placed a tray atop her sister’s lap. “Doesn’t that look yummy, Tina? Your very own wedding day breakfast.”
Tina gazed down at the perfectly poached egg, glass of orange juice, cup of coffee, and toast. “Delicious! But why aren’t you two eating with me?”
“We already enjoyed ours,” Terri explained. She took the proffered mug of coffee from Trixie’s hand. “Trix and I are going to sit right here and watch you eat every last bite.”
“That’s not going to be hard,” Tina said, munching the toast. “Naturally, I’m starved.” She washed down the bread with a swig of juice. “I’m glad you guys put me to bed when you did. I feel nice and rested. How do I look?”
“Like you got your beauty sleep,” Trixie said, smoothing her sister’s curls with one hand and sipping her coffee with the other. “You are going to be a gorgeous bride.”
“Speaking of gorgeous … How did my Manolos fit?” Terri straightened the edge of the comforter in an absentminded way.
Tina stole a quick glance at Trixie, who gave a tiny grin. “Just fine! Can’t wait to wear them.” She pierced a piece of poached egg with her fork. “So what’s it look like outside? Did we get twelve feet of snow, or what?”
“Not that bad—only three. But it’s piled up pretty high.” Trixie grinned. “You’re lucky that Donny’s got his own plow. We’d be stuck in your driveway for the whole day if it wasn’t for him.”
Tina nodded. “He’s a good catch.” She pointed at an orange slice that was cut in the shape of a heart. “Aw … how cute. You guys are too much.” She picked up the fruit and popped it in her mouth. “Florida sunshine, right?”
“More like Valentine’s Day.” Terri stood up and put her hands on her hips. “I’ll go clean up the kitchen and get ready for the hairdresser. She’s coming at ten, right?”
“Yes,” Tina affirmed, popping another piece of orange in her mouth. “It’s Connie Fisher from Manatuck. She’s coming here because of the snow.”
Terri cocked her head. “The DA’s wife?”
“That’s right.” Tina had been faithful to Connie for years, and didn’t trust anyone else to touch her curly red locks.
Terri shrugged. “Whatever. I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me.” She picked up her coffee cup and left the room.
“What, I didn’t name drop enough for her?” Tina asked, giving her sister a playful nudge. “That was a close call with the stupid shoes.”
“No kidding. I was pinching my thigh so I wouldn’t start giggling.” She reached down and lifted the tray. “Terri gets her hair done at some fancy place in Boston, doesn’t she?” She tipped her head. “She means well, you know. It was her idea to fix you breakfast in bed.”
“I know. I love her, but I’m thankful every day that you came along, little sister. I don’t think our childhood would have been bearable without you.”
Trixie smiled. “Glad to be of service. Now get yourself up and going, lazybones. You got a big day ahead.”
_____
Darby entered the farmhouse kitchen wearing jeans and a red sweater, heading straight for the coffee maker. She stopped short, spotting Kenji already awake and standing by the window. He was holding something in his hand and frowning.
“Good morning,” she called. “What’s the problem?”
He turned and gave a quick grin. “Not exactly a problem. I was trying to send a message on my phone and it appears there’s no service.”
Darby yawned. “I think the storm took out the tower. I tried to make a call last night with no luck.” She peered out the window. “Looks like we got a couple of feet.” She pointed at the coffeepot. “Are you a coffee drinker?”
“Yes—thanks.” He was wearing a vintage ski sweater in a blue and red snowflake design and jeans that hugged his muscular torso. “Thanks for the room. I slept very well.”
“You’re welcome.” Darby filled the pot with water and turned to face him. She’d decided not to mention the kiss. It was late, she reasoned, and I was overwrought. “It’s me who should be thanking you. I feel like a giant weight has been lifted off my back. I’m so appreciative of your time, Kenji.”
“Don’t mention it.” He pointed at a little red notebook on the kitchen table. It was the one Darby had found in Lorraine Delvecchio’s desk. “I don’t mean to snoop, but what are you doing with a book written in cipher?”
Darby put down the pot of water. “What do you mean?”
He grinned. “I’m like a little kid when it comes to codes and ciphers. Always fancied myself a secret agent or something.” He picked up the notebook and flipped through the pages. “It’s some sort of accounting—mostly numbers—but the letters are written in a classic Caesar cipher.”
“Can you explain?”
“Sure. It’s a simple shift of the alphabet, in this case, by four letters. Common enough, and easy to do, but still effective.” He looked down at the notebook’s inside cover, where a meaningless string of letters had been scribbled. “This is the property of Lorraine Delvecchio,” he read. “That’s what it says.”
Darby felt her mouth grow dry. She forced herself to fill the coffee filter with grounds, pour through the water, and start the coffee maker before turning to Kenji.
“Did you figure out the whole thing?” she asked.
“There’s nothing really to decipher,” he explained. “All that’s here is a series of initials, and months. What’s important is why this record was kept.” He lowered his voice. “I may be wrong, but I think this Lorraine Delvecchio i
s an extortionist. These appear to be month-by-month records of payments from five people identified by their initials.”
“How far does it go back?”
“Ten or eleven years.”
Darby’s mind whirled. Lorraine had been a secretive woman with an amazing memory. Had she also been a blackmailer? Was that how she financed her exotic trips?
She reached out and took the little notebook. “You may have just solved an important riddle. Can you show me the initials?”
“Sure. They translate to BA, ML, DT, AB, and RC.”
Darby grabbed a piece of paper and jotted them down. “You’re sure?”
“If she hadn’t written this little sentence at the beginning of the book, it would have been a lot harder. Initials don’t give you much to go on. But she’s a show off, and that’s why I figured it out.”
A show off? Darby tried to reconcile her last memory of Lorraine: meek, mousy, and nondescript, with Kenji’s characterization. It was difficult to picture the cowering woman as a brazen blackmailer. Her face became grim. Was one of Lorraine’s victims her killer?
She remembered Lorraine’s home. The exterior had screamed neglect, and yet the interior was confident and ordered. She thought back to Esther Crandall’s words. The neighbor had quoted Lorraine as saying “the outside didn’t matter; it was what was inside that counted.”
Darby roused herself from her musings. Outside, the rumble of Donny Pease’s truck as he plowed the driveway broke the serene stillness. She turned toward her houseguest. “How about some breakfast?”
_____
“Darby Farr, meet my sister Trixie.” Tina was beaming as she ushered Darby into her warm living room. Country and western tunes played from another area, the smell of something cinnamon-flavored wafted on the air, and three redheaded women smiled nearly identical smiles.
“Hi, Trixie,” Darby said. She recognized Terri Dodge and gave her a quick hello.
The pint-sized version of Tina grinned. “Thank goodness for someone with another color hair! This wedding party was getting pretty ho-hum, if you ask me.”
Darby smiled at Trixie. “I love seeing all of you with your gorgeous curls. Did one of your parents have red hair as well?”
Terri nodded. “Believe it or not, it was our Dad. Mom’s a brunette, and so is our brother, Travis. But Dad was a carrot-top, and so pleased to have three redheaded little girls.”
Tina grabbed a framed photo of the siblings sitting sideways, arranged by age. Tina, Terri, a dark-haired boy, and finally little Trixie all smiled obediently at the camera. “That’s Travis,” she said. “Afraid he’s not going to make it to the wedding. He’s stuck in an airport, just like Miles.” She raised her eyebrows. “Speaking of Miles, what’s up with this new guy? Donny said it looked like he spent the night?”
“Oooh,” Trixie teased. “I don’t even know you, and already I’m getting some juicy gossip.”
“He stayed at my house, but it was purely platonic,” Darby said. “He didn’t have a choice, given the storm.”
“What idiot goes out in a storm like that to begin with?” Tina huffed. She shook her head. “Oh, who cares. How about a Mimosa while we wait for Connie?”
Darby watched her friend bustle to the kitchen to retrieve the drinks. Tina had a valid point: it was definitely odd that Kenji Miyazaki had ventured out in a blizzard to visit a stranger on an island. Was his appearance in Maine as coincidental as he’d claimed?
He’d been trying to reach me for months, she reminded herself, hoping to ignore her nagging doubts. I not only learned about my grandfather, but Kenji deciphered Lorraine’s list of initials. Surely those things were positive.
A knock on the door signaled the arrival of the hairdresser. “I’ll get it,” Trixie yelled, bouncing out of the room. Darby heard her greet the woman and moments later they had entered the room.
“Hello everyone, I’m Connie.” The newcomer gave a little wave and smiled. “Look at all this beautiful red hair!”
“Except for Darby,” Tina said, flouncing into the room with a tray full of orange drinks. “Care for a Mimosa, Connie?”
“Sure.” The petite blonde took a glass from the tray and thanked Tina. She looked at Darby’s glossy black mane and grinned. “You’ve got beautiful hair, but I can make you a redhead too, if you’d like.”
The others laughed, and a moment later Terri was raising her glass in a toast.
“To our friend and sister Tina!”
The women smiled and sipped their drinks. Darby let the delicate flavor of the juice linger on her tongue. It was light, sweet, and flavorful.
“Ummm …” she said. “Natalie’s Orchard.”
Tina turned an astonished face to her friend. “Don’t tell me you tasted this juice and knew where it came from!”
Darby looked away, embarrassed. She hadn’t meant to say the words out loud. “I recognize the taste.” She took another sip. “Remember, I spent some time in Florida a few months ago. That’s where Natalie’s Orchard is located.”
Tina shook her head. Under her breath she said, “That’s your little super power, girl. It’s like Lorraine and her amazing memory.”
“Lorraine who?” Trixie had finished her Mimosa and placed the glass back on the tray.
“Delvecchio. I don’t know if you’ll remember her. She used to work for Dr. Hotchkiss.”
“Such a shame about what happened,” Terri said. “Such a waste.”
“What happened?”
“She fell off the Breakwater,” Terri continued. “When was that? Wednesday? I’m losing track of time.”
“Speaking of time, we’d better get you ladies started.” Connie, holding a stack of clean towels and a purple laundry basket filled with equipment, gave a bright smile. “I’ve got what I need, so let’s rock and roll. Your wedding is at one o’ clock, right?”
A blur of blow-drying followed, punctuated by laughter, more Mimosas, and nibbles of a delicious cinnamon bread provided by Terri. Later, while they waited for their nails to dry, Tina turned to Darby and lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper.
“So tell me about this mysterious visitor. I’m dying to know what you did.”
Darby laughed. “Nothing! His name is Ken—short for Kenji. He translated that journal that I found in the attic, and gave me good news about what it said.”
“Yeah?”
“Basically my grandfather hated what was happening with the biological weapons and tried to prevent it.” She smiled. “I’m so relieved. I’ll tell you the whole story another time, but here’s something else: this morning Ken got his hands on Lorraine’s notebook. Turns out she was keeping track of payments from people, and those letters were in a kind of code or cipher. Ken cracked the code and now we know the initials of her blackmailing victims.”
“No kidding. What are they?”
Darby thought a moment and recited the letters.
Tina snapped her fingers and then winced as she remembered the polish. “Crap, I think I just messed up my ring finger.” She called out to Connie and then continued. “You said the initials AB, right? Why, that’s gotta be Alcott Bridges! That explains why he seemed relieved to hear Lorraine was dead.”
Darby nodded. “I think you’re right, Tina. Lorraine must have had some kind of incriminating information on him.”
“Dirt, isn’t that what they call it? She had some dirt on him as well as other people in the notebook.” Tina giggled, showing her ring finger to Connie. “I shouldn’t be laughing—it must be the Mimosas.”
The hairdresser made a tsk-tsk sound over Tina’s smudged polish. She wiped it with a cloth and whipped a bottle out of a pocket to touch it up. The acrid smell of nail polish filled the air.
“Maybe it had to do with that scandal over who painted one of his famous portraits,” mused Darby. “Whatever it is, I’ll go and see him tomorrow. Who knows, maybe Alcott will want to come clean.”
“Oh—I get it,” Tina giggled, as Connie placed her right
hand back under a small nail dryer. “Come clean from the dirt.” She thought a moment. “What about the computer drive? Anything good on that?”
Darby widened her eyes. The thumb drive from Lorraine’s desk. “Believe it or not, I forgot all about it!”
“Oh, I believe it. You were too busy hanging out with Talking Ken.” She started giggling again.
Darby rolled her eyes. “Tina, you never quit.” She looked at her friend, hopelessly laughing at her own joke, and then could not help but chuckle as well.
_____
Donny Pease spotted Tina as she entered the back of the church and thought he had never seen anything more beautiful.
She wore a long, white, satin gown that hugged her body, and over it a long-sleeved lace jacket with flowing lacy sleeves. Around her neck was a pink ribbon holding a delicate gold heart, which glinted in the church’s twinkling lights. The effect was magical, as if she were a Valentine confection come to life.
Donny grinned and saw Tina smiling back at him. He knew in an instant that they would be fine, that their marriage would be everything they both had hoped. He watched her glide up the aisle, escorted by her Uncle Titus, and surrounded by their friends and family in the cozy space. Now she had reached him. Her uncle hugged and kissed her, and then handed her toward Donny’s outstretched hand.
They kissed gently and turned to their bridal party. Tina’s sisters were pretty in their pink velvet dresses, and the men—Lester Ross, an old fishing buddy named Cal Holbrook, and Terri’s husband Tripp Dodge—were handsome in their tuxedos, but it was Darby Farr, her black hair shining against the pink velvet, who looked spectacular. Not as lovely as Tina, Donny told himself, because no one could look better than a bride on her wedding day, but pretty darn close.
The minister, an elderly man whose booming voice filled the sacred space, began the service. Donny squeezed Tina’s hand and gave a happy little sigh.
_____
Darby had taken her first sip of celebratory champagne when she felt a tap on her bare shoulder.
“Give us a kiss?”
Final Settlement Page 12