by S. R. Grey
After the waiter left, the steward returned with the wine and poured a small amount into a glass. Adam took a contemplative sip and nodded to the steward, who then poured us each a glass before leaving the room.
I took a small taste and found it to be, as promised, quite delightful. Curious as to what exactly I was drinking, I leaned across the table, albeit awkwardly, to try to read the label on the bottle which was resting in an ice bucket.
Adam cleared his throat, and I glanced up to meet his amused stare. “Oh, sorry,” I said, quickly leaning back in my chair.
He chuckled amusedly. “It’s a Bollinger Vieille Vienes Françaises, 1999, Maddy.”
“Mmm.” I finished the last of the fine vintage and put down my glass. “Well, I have to say, it’s quite tasty.”
“I’m glad you like it,” Adam replied, smiling as he poured me another glass.
I was already feeling a little heady, but whether it was from the alcohol—or my date—I couldn’t be sure.
The waiter arrived with our first course, foie-gras-stuffed morels. Not surprisingly they were a perfect complement to the wine Adam had chosen. As we finished up, and before the entrees arrived, the waiter placed tiny, dainty liqueur glasses filled with sorbet in front of each of us.
Adam placed his small spoon in my glass and scooped a small amount of sorbet onto it. “May I?” he asked, holding the spoon to my lips.
I said “uh-huh” and allowed him to place the icy, lemony treat on my tongue. I closed my eyes and was instantly reminded of the strawberry on the plane and how that had led to kissing Adam. A tiny sigh escaped my lips at the memory. I opened my eyes and glanced at Adam, who was smiling surreptitiously while spooning more sorbet onto the tiny spoon.
“Adam, why are we having dessert before the main course?” I inquired quietly, while glancing at the doorway to make sure the waiter was not within earshot.
Adam laughed. “Maddy, it’s not dessert. The sorbet is to cleanse your palate before the main course.”
“Oh,” I giggled, licking the icy goodness from the spoon Adam again raised to my mouth. I actually knew that, had seen it in a movie, but the wine was making me silly and giddy. Besides, it was just too much fun to play with Adam.
And it seemed Adam was all set for his next move, for he dipped my spoon into his own glass of sorbet and licked it, just as I had done. Only he did it very, very slowly. Our eyes met, and I melted a little at the playful, but utterly seductive, sparkle in his blue, blue eyes. He held my gaze as he dug the little spoon into the last bit of my sorbet, preparing to feed it to me, once again.
“You know, a girl could get used to being pampered like this,” I remarked.
“Could you?” Adam asked, setting down the spoon.
I searched his face, not sure if this was all part of Adam’s seduction strategy—which was really, really effective, to be honest—or if he was genuinely interested in me, Maddy Fitch. My heart tightened in my chest, because, of course, I wanted to be pampered like this by Adam Ward. I wanted desperately for him to have more than a passing fancy for me. But I was worried that my heart could end up broken. I didn’t want to be his new Lindsey, so I answered, “Maybe,” as I cast my eyes downward.
“Maddy,” Adam sighed, his tone serious. I waited for more, but the main course arrived, effectively silencing whatever he’d been about to say.
Adam had chosen a turbot with lobster sauce. Turbot, he informed me as we ate dinner and engaged in less serious banter, was a type of fish. And I found it to be surprisingly good. After dinner and a dessert of red velvet petit fours, Adam slid open one of the glass panels, and we walked out onto a large balcony overlooking the city.
For late September it was unusually warm, and I savored the mild, ocean-kissed breezes as they swept over me. Walking to the iron railing encircling the balcony, I was astounded by the amazing view of downtown Boston. “Wow,” I mouthed to myself.
Adam came up behind me, and wrapped his arms around me. I leaned back into the warmth of his body, relaxing into him as his lips began to ghost along the side of my neck. But then he stilled. Turning me around to face him, fingers splayed out over my hips. I placed a hand on his chest and looked up into his inquiring eyes. “Do you trust me?” he asked.
“Um…” I glanced away, and then down. “I think.”
Adam chuckled a little. “Guess that’s a start.” He lifted a hand from my hip and nudged my chin up so that I was looking at him. “I’m going to be honest with you, Madeleine.” Was this what he’d been about to tell me at the lighthouse? “I was attracted to you back in high school, and I should have dumped Chelsea and asked you out.” My heart skipped a beat. “But I was young and naïve.”
I moved my hand to trace the smooth contours of his face. “I would have loved to have gone out with you back then, Adam,” I admitted.
“What about now?” he whispered, his lips lowering to mine.
“Better late than never.”
Adam kissed me, softly at first and then with more passionate. His hands moved slowly over my curves. I moaned into his mouth and pushed my breasts into his chest.
Adam’s mouth moved to my neck—sucking, kissing, nibbling. I groaned, and he pulled me closer to his body. I could feel the clear outline of his substantial hardness close to my own heat, and, throwing caution to the wind, I gasped, “God, let’s get out of here.”
Adam pulled back, eyes ablaze. “Are you sure?”
A quick image of Adam seated on one of those oversized leather chairs on the plane, hiking up my dress while I stood before him played through my mind, and I hastily answered, “Yeah, I’m absolutely positive.”
We left the dinner club hurriedly, and Adam and I pretty much made out like we were kids back in high school during the limo ride to the plane. There was a lot of groping and grinding, but apparently, he wanted to wait as much as I did until we got into the air for the real fun to begin.
As we boarded the plane, Walker gave us a knowing smile as we tried, unsuccessfully, to keep our hands to ourselves. “Guess I’ll be keeping the cockpit door closed?” I heard him say quietly to Adam as I continued to my seat. I didn’t hear Adam’s reply, but he spent a few extra minutes talking with Walker, so I could only imagine.
“Do I have time to go to the restroom before we take off?” I asked once Adam settled in next to me.
“Yeah, sure, it’ll be a few more minutes before we take off.”
I grabbed my clutch and went into the airplane lavatory, closing the door behind me. Fumbling through the contents, I finally found some gloss to apply to my lips, deliciously swollen from all the kissing. When I threw the tube back in, my cell blinked. I had several missed calls, all from my dad.
The voicemails he’d left said variations of things like “Maddy, call me back; it’s important,” or “Madeleine, this is your dad. Where are you? Call me now.” I really didn’t want to call my father back, not now, but it sounded urgent. So, sighing, I dialed his number.
“Maddy!” my father exclaimed upon answering on the first ring. “Where in the hell have you been? I was—”
“Dad,” I interrupted, keeping my voice low. “I can’t really talk for long, but what’s going on? Are you OK?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. I didn’t mean to worry you. I was just calling to tell you I tracked down those records from the pay phone at the bank here in town.”
“Oh? Ohhhh,” I said. “So what did you find out?”
I could hear paper rustling on the other end of the line, just as the engines of the Gulfstream whirred to life. “Dad, hurry,” I pressed.
“OK, OK, here it is…” More rustling papers, and then, “One forty-three second call to a cell phone number. Ah, let’s see, a local number, it seems.”
“Dad! Who was Chelsea calling that night?” I pressed.
“It says here that the cell phone she was calling was registered to Adam Ward.”
No!
I was silent, and my dad repeated, “Looks like Adam
was the last person Chelsea talked to right before she disappeared.”
This was not good, not good at all. Had those records truly been missed by the police? Or had they been buried? I knew of one person with enough money to make that happen. And it made me sick to consider it.
One thing for certain, I’d made a huge miscalculation by going on this date. To be honest, I’d misjudged everything. I had been deluding myself. You couldn’t go back in time, people change. This night was a lie. Who was Adam, really? He’d been calling Chelsea less than an hour before she disappeared. And what did that mean? Nothing good, I was sure.
Despair washed over me as I sunk to the lavatory floor. And in that moment I think my heart broke just a little.
Chapter 9
Things were a mess. Better put, I was a mess. Over a week had passed since my date had been cut short by my dad’s discovery that Adam was the person Chelsea had called from a pay phone in Harbour Falls shortly before she was never seen—nor heard from—ever again. Yes, you could say that little tidbit of information put quite a damper on the evening.
The flight from Boston back to Fade Island that night had gone from awkward, once I returned to my seat for takeoff, to tense by the time we landed on the island. I’d tried to play off my sudden icy demeanor toward Adam as an unfortunate side effect of some kind of stomach upset. True, I’d been feeling rather ill but not from eating something that hadn’t agreed with me. Despite my act, by the time the plane landed, Adam had correctly suspected there was something more behind my sudden cool and distant attitude.
On the short ride back to the cottage, he repeatedly tried to get me to tell him what had caused my change of heart. After all, we’d gone from almost becoming lovers to barely speaking. The whole episode served to remind me that I’d been moving entirely too fast with Adam.
Silent at first, I eventually stated I had nothing to discuss. Trust me, I wanted an explanation for the last known phone call Chelsea had ever made, but the problem was I’d have to offer up a reason of my own for even knowing about that forty-three second call to Adam. I had no desire to witness his reaction if he found out I was on the island to investigate his one-time fiancée’s disappearance. And, worse yet, write a book using the information I uncovered.
Just why had Chelsea been calling Adam after midnight that night? The files made mention that they’d argued earlier in the evening. Had she called to make things right? Why hadn’t she returned to the hotel? After all, the wedding was just hours away. More importantly, why had Adam never said anything about that call to the police? Unless, of course, he had something to hide.
Adam had grown increasingly frustrated, and definitely irate, by the time he screeched his Porsche to a halt in front of my house. As I’d swung open the passenger-side door to get out, I turned back to him and said, “I’m sorry, Adam. This just isn’t going to work.”
Then I slipped off my heels and hurried to the front door before he could stop me, not that I noticed him trying. Later that night I cried myself to sleep, soaking my pillowcase with tears.
Since then I’d avoided Adam rather handily by holing up in my cottage and barely talking to anyone. It helped that he’d gone on another business trip the day after our abbreviated date. I learned of his travels from the many texts and voicemails he left, telling me he was out of town but asking me to please tell him “what the hell had gone wrong” and how could he fix it.
A part of me wanted to talk to him. After all, I still had so many questions. Apart from the whole phone-call mess, I had never gotten around to asking Adam if he was still seeing Lindsey, the woman Helena had told me about. Another reminder that I’d behaved recklessly on my date with Adam.
Helena had somehow found out about our interrupted date, probably from Nate, who I was sure had heard about it from Adam. Helena had already left almost as many voicemails as Adam himself. When I didn’t respond to any, she threatened to drive out and break down my door if I didn’t, at the very least, let her know I was OK. So I texted back that I was hanging in there, and I’d talk to her eventually, but I just needed some time to myself. That seemed to have calmed her.
Running low on food, I reluctantly placed a small grocery order online but then couldn’t bring myself to open the door when Nate knocked. Standing on one side, peering through the peephole, I waited until he finally gave up and placed the groceries on the step. “Maddy, I know you’re in there,” Nate had said. “I’m going to leave these here, but locking yourself away from the world isn’t healthy, you know.”
“I know,” I’d whispered, leaning my head against the smooth wood door and listening as Nate drove away.
My father was another issue entirely. He wanted to rush out to Fade Island and move me back to Harbour Falls as soon as possible. He only relented when I solemnly promised to stay away from “that Ward guy,” as he had put it.
So far keeping that promise was proving to be a snap.
As September faded into October, I discovered holing up in my cottage gave me a lot of time to think. And I waffled back and forth, wondering what I should do. Give up on the case? Scrap the book idea? Forget about Adam? I wasn’t sure what to do with any of those things.
The day after the date-that-had-gone-all-to-hell, I became so despondent that I called my agent, Katie, since she was also my best friend. Barely holding back tears, I’d told her that I was ready to break my lease and return to Los Angeles. I was done with Fade Island and everything associated with it. She reminded me that Maddy Fitch didn’t give up so easily. I made a commitment, and I should stick with it. Besides, the case really did have the makings of a great book. Her words gave me pause; I promised to reconsider. However, that didn’t mean I was ready to jump right back into the investigation.
Instead I found a better hiding spot for the case file—under a loose floorboard in the living room—and forgot about the Harbour Falls Mystery. Or maybe I just pretended to forget as I kept myself preoccupied with mundane tasks.
Busy, busy, busy, I was like a whirlwind, cleaning the already-spotless cottage daily. In eight days I’d done the laundry—four times, reorganized my closet twice, alphabetized my shoes, and when I’d run out of domestic projects, I had plopped down on the sofa and eaten all four tubs of Häagen-Dazs chocolate-chocolate chip ice cream Helena had so thoughtfully snuck in with my grocery order.
With nothing left to do, it was no surprise I now found myself bored. Bored to tears. I paced around the living room, back and forth, back and forth. Enough. Tentatively I went to the front door and opened it a crack. I’d not been out of the house in days.
Indian summer was now upon us, and it was beautiful outside. The two white-flowering chrysanthemum plants from Max still rested on the doorstep. It’s as good of a day as any to finally get them planted in the window box, I said to myself as I eyed the pots.
Yes it was.
So I slammed the door and jogged up the stairs to change my clothes. I threw on an old, faded pair of jeans and a black tee. The jeans sat kind of low on my hips, and the tee was cut off at the midriff. It was a little risqué for gardening with that much exposed skin, but it wasn’t like I was expecting company. Nope, not on this island. There was little chance I’d even be seen. So I slipped on some old, beat-up Chucks, found an old, but still usable, garden trowel under the sink, and went outside to get to work on the flowers.
I knelt below the window box and worked the plants free from their plastic pots. I then carefully placed one mum—and then the other—in the rectangular structure. There was dirt already in the box, and as I worked, I found the sun-warmed soil a soothing balm for my frazzled nerves. A light ocean breeze rustled through the leaves, and I leaned my head back, allowing the sun to warm my face. Despite my indecision in the days leading up to this one, it was at that exact moment I knew, without a doubt, I would stay on the island until I found all the answers I was seeking. I’d finish my investigation, no matter what.
Resolved, I stood, swiped my hands clean,
and brushed away some dirt from my jeans. I stepped back from the window box to admire my handiwork, and just then I heard a familiar—and currently unwelcome—sound of a car engine. I glanced over my shoulder just in time to see Adam’s Porsche pulling into the driveway.
“No way,” I hissed through gritted teeth, while quickly calculating the distance to the front door, wondering if I could get there faster than Adam if I made a run for it.
“Maddy, wait,” Adam’s voice rang out as I bolted for the door. What the hell is he doing here? Had I not made it clear I didn’t want to see him? Persistent, much?
Obviously he was back from the business trip. He’d never mentioned where he’d gone. Maybe back to Boston? Where Lindsey lived. As I lunged for the doorknob, I had myself convinced his trip had probably included a visit to his former hookup. Especially since I’d left him hanging on date night. Bastard, I thought as I worked myself into quite the angry frenzy.
Just as I was shouldering the door open, almost in the clear, Adam’s hand glanced down my arm. “Fuck. Just stop for a minute, OK? This is getting to be ridiculous.”
I shrugged his hand away and spun to face him. “No, you are getting to be ridiculous,” I spat. “Don’t you fucking get it? I want to be left alone.”
Adam’s eyes flashed in anger, his jaw clenched. “Maddy,” he said sharply, “you can’t stay away from me forever. After all, you do live on my island.”
I crossed my arms across my chest, and Adam’s eyes glanced down to my exposed skin, making me feel oddly excited instead of angry. “What do you want anyway?” I huffed.
His eyes met mine. “At the very least, you owe me an explanation.”
“I don’t owe you anything,” I said, marching into the cottage with Adam right on my ass.
“Get out!” I yelled, turning and pushing at his shoulders. But I couldn’t budge him. The man was more solid than a damn rock.