Stranger In The Night

by Roseanne Williams

  Terra reluctantly explained that Columbia had suggested a working vacation.

  “Sounds reasonable,” Andrew said, nodding.

  “It wouldn’t be fair to Josh, Dad. He deserves the entire time with me, not part of it.”

  Andrew shrugged. “I don’t know. Travel out of state would do him good at his age. What a geography lesson he’d get—and you would, too, for that matter.”

  “Dinner’s on!” Hillary called from the kitchen.

  Terra got up out of the chair, determined not to let her father’s opinion shake her resolve. But then he made one final comment that blew her resolve to bits.

  “Claire put her heart and soul into Camden Consulting,” he said. “She never disappointed a client and I’d hate to see you disappoint one of her all-time favorites. You owe Claire nothing less than your best effort.”

  “MOMMY, ARE WE THERE?”

  “Not quite. This is Charleston,” Terra replied. She had Josh by the hand as they passed through the airport arrival gate. “Someone is supposed to meet us here, remember? He’ll take us on a boat to the island.”

  Columbia had promised that the resort’s marina manager would be there. Terra was expecting Kent Prescott, an athletic-looking “bachelor with a killer smile,” as the chef had described him.

  Terra saw him right away, a tall and muscular man with brown hair and hazel-green eyes. He was wearing a white windbreaker with the Bride’s Bay logo stitched on the front.

  “Ms. Camden?” he inquired.

  “Yes, you’re Mr. Prescott?”

  “Kent,” he said. “Welcome to South Carolina.”

  “Thank you. I’m Terra, and this is my son, Josh.” She drew him forward.

  “Hi, sir,” Josh said.

  As Prescott looked down at Josh, Terra couldn’t help feeling a little apprehensive. She wondered if he had known Rafe, and if so whether he’d notice the resemblance. But he didn’t even blink as he greeted her son.

  “Hi, Joshua.” He gave the boy a manly handshake. “How did you like your plane ride?”

  Josh smothered a yawn. “Okay. Except I fell asleep.” He glanced around. “Where’s the boat?”

  “First, we’ll claim your luggage. Then I’ll drive you and your mother to the dock.”

  Terra put her fears on hold as she and Josh followed Kent’s lead to baggage claim. Along the way, Josh plied him with questions about the boat. Kent patiently answered in simple terms, describing a spacious, motorpowered cruiser with a comfortable passenger cabin.

  While waiting at the luggage carousel, Terra chatted with Kent about his job and learned that he was a longtime friend of the Jermain family.

  “Long enough that they trust me to manage their marina,” he said, “which I’m more than happy to do.”

  He gave her the smile Columbia had described. Terra suspected it brought him above-average success with women. She couldn’t picture him as a Don Juan, however; he seemed too well-mannered and low-key. More likely, women eagerly pursued him and he had his pick. Terra found him very attractive, though not in any romantic sense. Unfortunately, that was the case with every man she met, no matter who. Something vital, something essential, was always missing. That is, ever since Rafe Jermain.

  The Rafe she had known wasn’t an infamous traitor, but a dashing seafarer who had dark hair, blue eyes and an aura of romantic intrigue about him.

  Her preoccupation with him would have to stop, she told herself. It was morbid, perverse, useless and unproductive. If she didn’t keep a tighter rein on the best memories of Rafe, sexual frustration would be her constant companion. It was unwelcome enough company as it was.

  Fortunately, a distraction arrived in the form of the luggage, and Kent loaded it into a minivan. Driving out of the airport, he asked, “Have you two been to South Carolina before?”

  “Nope,” Josh replied. “Never ever.”

  Kent told him, “I guarantee you’ll like it.”

  Josh looked doubtful. “I gotta have a baby-sitter.”

  “Well,” Kent said, “you couldn’t have a better one than Lalie Hanes.”

  Terra had some doubts of her own about Lalie’s willingness to baby-sit Josh. Lalie had called to assure her it wouldn’t be an inconvenience, but she hadn’t sounded entirely enthusiastic. Maybe she’d just had a bad day when she called, Terra thought hopefully. But it wasn’t easy to picture upbeat Lalie in a blue mood.

  Kent added to Josh, “Her minifarm will be fun for you.”

  In the past, Lalie had described the small specialty farm. It supplied the resort with herbs, flowers and gourmet greens. Terra was familiar with similar minifarms in the San Francisco area, where quality designer produce was a major issue among fine-dining chefs. Some growers had a cultlike following among the top chefs.

  “Is Lalie fun?” Josh asked Kent.

  Kent assured him of that and kept the conversational ball rolling between them. Before long, Josh was telling him all about the plane ride, the airline meal and how his ears popped during takeoff and landing. Terra kept silent, using the time to reorganize her apprehensions and the contents of her briefcase.

  “Mommy, look! Boats!”

  Kent was making a turn into a marina parking lot somewhere in Charleston Harbor. The lot and the sizable marina it served seemed vaguely familiar to her as she glanced around, perhaps because she’d been there before? Maybe she had, maybe not. All of the marinas she’d ever seen looked pretty much alike. Moreover, some details of that night five years ago had never been clear in her mind.

  Kent parked the van, and when he came around to help her out, she asked, “Are there more marinas in the harbor?”

  “Several,” he replied, “including the municipal one.”

  He unloaded the luggage with the help of a dock employee, and Terra and Josh followed them into the mooring area. It harbored a variety of watercraft, ranging from small sailboats and houseboats to yachts.

  Terra left off puzzling any further about details she couldn’t recall. It was best not to know for sure, she decided, for what good would it do to be certain of exactly where it had happened that night?

  She squeezed Josh’s hand. “What do you think of our vacation so far?”

  “Wow.” He craned his neck to look up at the tall mast of a bobbing boat. “There’s a million boats.”

  “At the very least,” she agreed with an indulgent smile.

  Walking along with him, Terra put off thoughts of the past. She switched to enjoying the sunny spring warmth in the salt air, the buoyant sight of sea gulls and pelicans soaring overhead, the expression of delight on Josh’s face.

  Kent took them down a wood-plank walkway to the cruiser he’d described earlier. Painted spotless white with gleaming teak trim and embellished with the resort’s navy blue logo, it had an air of understated elegance and luxurious comfort.

  “All aboard the Indigo Moon,” Kent invited.

  He showed them into the blue-upholstered passenger cabin, gave them life vests to wear and cold sodas to drink, then offered them a choice between riding in the cabin or up top at the helm with him.

  For Josh, there was no question of where to ride. “On the top.”

  Terra agreed, so they went up with Kent to the upper half-deck where they took seats behind him. He cast off and steered the boat into the main harbor waterway. Josh was beside himself, twisting around to take in all the sights.

  “We’re passing through historic Charleston Harbor,” Kent told them. “Ahead is Fort Sumter, where the first shot of the Civil War was fired.”

  Terra settled back and watched her son’s expressive face while Kent continued pointing out pertinent sights.

  He recounted Charleston’s early history, how it had been founded by European noblemen who had established great plantations on the coast and some of the coastal islands.

  “Jermain’s Island,” he added, “was once a plantation.”

  Terra knew all that, and much more about the island, from nationwide news ac
counts of Rafe’s treachery five years ago. Little about him and his illustrious family background had gone unreported by the major news media when he became a scandal.

  Had the Jermain family not been prominent—politically, economically and socially—since pre-Civil War days, there would have been no shock value in the story. No media frenzy to report the crime. No avid public curiosity about the criminal. No field day for the news media.

  Rafe had been characterized as the rogue of his upstanding family. Reporters described his love of highseas adventure, told of how it had led him to drop out of college against his family’s wishes. He’d gone sailing the world over, ostensibly on import-export business, and gained a reputation for having the wind in his mainsail and a babe in every port. In Charleston, he’d been known to associate with shady, unsavory characters who were rumored to be drug dealers or illegal arms traders, maybe both.

  Terra still wasn’t sure how much of it to believe. She tended more to trust in Columbia’s reaction to the scandal. After all, Columbia knew him well and Lalie had practically raised him.

  “I don’t care how it looks,” Columbia had stoutly maintained, “Rafe would never betray his country. I’ll believe in him to my dying day, and so will my mother.”

  Terra came back to attention as she realized that Kent was speaking directly to her.

  “You’ll notice a lot of security equipment being installed at the resort,” he was saying. “It’s to upgrade the existing system for a diplomats’ conference that’s coming up a couple of weeks from now.”

  “I saw a news article about it,” she recalled. “Something to do with a trade agreement between the U.S. and the Caribbean, isn’t it?”

  “Right. Some employees are suspicious of the extra surveillance going in at the resort, but management says it’s necessary for everyone’s safety. Employee background checks are twice as rigorous now.”

  “I wonder if I’m considered a part-time employee for the next two weeks,” she said.

  “I wouldn’t be surprised if you’ve already been checked out. By the way, there’s a rumor that the President and First Lady might vacation at the Bride’s Bay next month.”

  “Really? That’s exciting.”

  He nodded. “Just a rumor, though. I haven’t noticed the Secret Service infiltrating the resort yet.” He gave her a half teasing, half speculative look over his shoulder. “Unless you’re an agent disguised as a menu consultant.”

  “Me?” Terra laughed. “Menus are my specialty, nothing more. Ask Columbia and Lahe, who’ve known me quite a while.”

  Kent smiled and shrugged. “I guess I’m still paranoid from when federal agents were all over the resort five years ago.”

  Terra managed not to skip a beat as she responded, “You mean what happened with Rafe Jermain.”

  “It was a tough time,” Kent said. “The resort and the entire Jermain family lost all security credibility for almost a year afterward, and there was no telling the hotel guests and the FBI apart. One way or another, everybody on the island was investigated for ties to the incident.”

  “How are things now?” Terra inquired. Casually, she hoped.

  “Back to normal, at least for the resort. For everyone who knew Rafe, though, particularly his family, it’s still painful.”

  Keeping a steady tone with effort, she said, “Not everyone believes he was guilty, from what Columbia and Lalie have mentioned.”

  “The vast majority thinks he was.”

  “What’s your own opinion, Kent?”

  “Innocent, despite all the evidence to the contrary. And yours?”

  “Undecided.”

  Josh interrupted, tugging her sleeve. “Can I drive the boat, Mommy?”

  “That’s up to Kent.”

  “Fine with me,” Kent said.

  Terra gave Josh permission, and Kent took the boy under his wing at the wheel. She had to resist an instinctive desire to snatch her child back and keep him close at her side. He should have this golden opportunity to interact with a man younger than her father.

  Watching her son gaze up admiringly at the skipper, Terra was uncomfortably aware of how much Josh missed without a male parent in his life. There was also the discomfiting awareness of how much she herself missed without a partner.

  She tried to picture herself with Kent, yet somehow couldn’t see it. Despite being likable and good-looking, he wasn’t right. Not the way Rafe had been that one special night, before she found out who he really was.

  Once again, she found her thoughts dwelling on him. Again, she made herself leave off and focus on the present. What a beautiful day it was. What an exhilarating boat ride. What a treat for Josh.

  She held that positive mind frame for the rest of the half-hour trip to the island.

  “MOMMY, LOOK!”

  She caught her first glimpse of Jermain’s Island, which loomed, lush and spring green, on the eastern horizon. Rafe’s home turf, Terra thought. His birthplace. His nameplace.

  “Land, ho,” Kent said. “Five miles wide and three miles long, shaped sort of like an ear.” He pointed to the northern shore. “The village is there, as well as several private estates. The south end is a forest preserve with trails for equestrians and hikers. The resort fills up the middle.”

  Terra had an island map that Columbia sent to her. It added detail to Kent’s comments, and also listed the resort’s world-class amenities: antique-furnished guest rooms, golf and health clubs, tennis, Olympic-size pool, shooting range, riding stables, five-star restaurant.

  Kent brought the Indigo Moon into Bride’s Bay and proceeded to a small marina where a variety of watercraft were moored. Inland from the marine stood the hotel, an elegant, white-brick mansion with stately columns. Encircled by immaculate lawns and graced by a formal garden, it was a breathtaking sight.

  “Oh, my,” Terra murmured. “It’s magnificent.”

  Her attention drew away to three people at the dock. She recognized Columbia, a statuesque, African-American woman dressed in a traditional chef’s uniform and a high, white toque. Lalie stood next to her— stout, gray-haired and casually dressed. She had a soccer ball in one hand.

  Apparently a gift for Josh, Terra thought. The third person was a tall man of robust build with thick, curly white hair, dressed in the livery-style uniform of a doorman or porter. They all smiled and waved as Kent docked the boat. Once it was secure at its berth, Terra stepped onto the dock with Josh.

  The two women greeted them with glowing smiles and warm hugs. Lalie gave Josh the ball, to his great delight.

  “I’m all ready for you to come over this evening for dinner,” she said. She winked at Josh. “I hope you like chocolate-chip cookies for dessert.”

  Josh nodded enthusiastically. “Can I bring my ball?”

  “You surely can.”

  He hugged it to his chest. “Thanks, ma’am.”

  Terra saw that no one seemed to notice Josh’s resemblance to Rafe. She didn’t think it was all in her own mind, yet nobody so far had even blinked. Or was the liveried gentleman doing a double take?

  Terra judged him to be in his late sixties. His weathered, darkly tanned face creased into a puckish smile as he caught her glance, and his piercing blue eyes sparked with spry, wily mischief. That and a gold hoop earring in his left ear suggested a colorful, possibly eccentric personality.

  He stepped forward and gave a jaunty bow. “Welcome, ma’am and young man. I’ll see to your luggage for you.”

  Columbia introduced him as Shadroe Teach, the bell captain, adding that he knew everything about the resort and everyone there. He affirmed that she was right, and then disappeared into the boat.

  Josh gazed up at Columbia. “What’s on your hat?”

  Columbia touched the small, fresh orchid pinned to her toque. “That’s my trademark. Mama grows orchids in her greenhouse.”

  Leaving Shad to deliver the bags in a minivan, they walked to the hotel through the garden. There were box hedges, early-blooming ro
ses, fragrant beds of alyssum and lavender, colorful azaleas and huge live oaks dripping with Spanish moss. Josh trotted ahead on the garden path, bouncing his new ball.

  Terra breathed in the warm, fragrant air. “It’s another world here. Lovely.”

  “And extremely busy beneath the serene, restful surface,” Columbia said. “I’d planned to visit with you and Mama tonight, but one of my sous chefs came up sick and now I can’t break away the rest of the weekend. So enjoy yourself until Monday morning.”

  Terra asked, “What time?”

  “Oh, say nine to eleven in the morning, and maybe three to four in the afternoon.”

  They reached the hotel and went up the steps that led to the front veranda and the main door. Before going in, Terra took the ball from Josh so there’d be no breaking anything, especially not the splendid floor-to-ceiling windows that flanked the front doors.

  Columbia showed them into a spacious lobby with pale yellow walls and polished wood floors. There was a long front desk and a glorious, sweeping staircase that made Terra think of Scarlett O’Hara at Twelve Oaks. It was no effort imagining a distant past when the mansion was host to socials, parties and balls—replete with Southern belles and gallant swains.

  Yet, entering the mansion with Columbia who strode in like a queen—tall and regal, confident and charismatic—Terra was aware that life had been far from gracious, hospitable and romantic for the slave population in the old days. There would always be two sides to the complex history of the Old South.

  “See what you would have missed if you’d gone somewhere else for a vacation?” Columbia said.

  “I see,” Terra assured her, nodding and smiling as if she wouldn’t give the world to be somewhere else.

  Anywhere else but here, she thought, unnerved to be on Rafe Jermain’s home turf. And with his son, at that!

  3

  TERRA SIGNED IN at the front desk, then Columbia took them upstairs to their room. Located at the near end of the west wing, it was a spacious, pale pink chamber furnished with an antique four-poster, a trundle bed and a cozy Victorian love seat