Secrets at the Beach House

by Diane Chamberlain

  “Absolutely positive,” said Grace.

  “The one on the very left was the one with the knife. He held me over the concrete wall and gave me all those scratches on my back. The one next to him—”

  “Honey,” Kit interrupted. “I don’t think you need to go into all the detail.”

  Rennie looked at her. “I’m all right, Kit,” she said. She looked back at the men. “The one next to him was the one who did the sodomy thing.”

  Grace spoke into the microphone, instructing the men to leave the room. Then she turned to Rennie. “You did an excellent job, Rennie,” she said. “I admire your composure. You’ve done a lot of growing up in the past year, haven’t you?”

  “I guess.”

  “And I owe you one,” Grace continued. “I don’t know how you did it.”

  “Did what?”

  Grace smiled. “Shannon’s agreed to prosecute.”

  56.

  He leaned across the Monopoly board to set two hundred dollars in paper currency at Kit’s side. Then he sat back and continued doing what he’d been doing for the last half-hour—watching Rennie.

  Sometime in the last few days she’d moved the part in her hair to the side and curled the ends so they fell softly on her shoulders. She had to be one of the prettiest girls at Point Pleasant High School. And she’d grown cocky. He loved to see it in her.

  The trial was scheduled for the second week in January. He and Kit would cut short their honeymoon in St. Thomas to be with her. And then, if she were willing, they’d start the adoption process.

  What would it feel like to introduce her as his daughter?

  She took a card from the pile and screwed up her nose. “Jail again.” She picked up the little tin shoe and moved it to the corner of the board. How long would it be before she had no interest in playing board games with them?

  He reached for the dice as the phone rang. Janni stood to answer it, and they were quiet, waiting to see who it was for. Cole was certain he knew. He had a baby due any minute. And three more tomorrow. But then he’d have the weekend in Miami with Kit, just the two of them. They both needed the time away.

  She was already nervous about the qualifying marathon. He looked across the circle at her. She was sitting Indian-style, bouncing her knees on the floor. He smiled to himself. She could not sit still.

  Janni raised the phone to her ear. “Chapel House,” she said. Then she looked at Cole, her eyes wide, and his hand froze above the board. “Hi, Estelle,” Janni said. “Yes, he’s here.”

  His heart skipped a beat. He felt Kit watching him from across the board as he got to his feet, his gut suddenly roiling. He ran his hand over Kit’s head as he passed her, not daring to look into her eyes.

  He took the phone from Janni, lifting it to his ear. “Estelle?” He turned his back to the others but stayed in the doorway. Better to stay there than to go into the library, as if he had something to hide.

  “Cole! How are you? It’s so good to hear your voice.”

  She sounded animated. He ached a little. “It’s good to hear yours, too,” he said quietly. “Where are you?”

  “In Point Pleasant, at my brother’s house. He and Marilyn finally got married so I came for the wedding. Did you know?”

  “No.” He had intentionally lost touch with her family.

  “Well, they did. I’ve taken a few days off work to house sit while they go on their honeymoon.”

  “Where are you working?”

  “I have a spectacular job, Cole. As a matter of fact, everything in my life is spectacular. I’m working at a huge medical center in Hartford and—”

  “Kessler?”

  “You’ve heard of it?”

  “Yes, of course.” He was impressed.

  “They’re paying me a third more than I was making at Blair, and the variety of research is astounding.”

  She was so full of life. He’d forgotten the vitality that had once attracted him. “How long have you been there?” he asked.

  “About six months. I started in May, which was also my third month in therapy. You were right, Cole. I needed it. I don’t know how you tolerated me that last year.”

  He’d done the right thing then, by ending it with her, casting her out on her own. He’d always wondered.

  “So how are you?” she asked. “Recovered from the accident, I hope?”

  “I’m fine. How did you know about it?”

  “A little blurb in the paper. I called the hospital and they said you were okay. I also heard the Fetal Surgery Program was funded.”

  “Yes, it’s going very well.”

  For a moment, neither of them spoke. “I’m dying to see you, Cole,” she said finally. “Can we have lunch tomorrow?”

  The thought of seeing her electrified him. “Yes, if I can get away.” He fidgeted with the doorknob. “But I need to tell you that Kit and I are together now. We’re getting married in January.” He tensed, waiting for her reaction.

  There was a brief silence on Estelle’s end of the line. “I could have guessed that,” she said finally. “I’m happy for you, Cole, if that’s what you want. I really am.”

  He couldn’t have asked for a better response. “I’ll meet you at noon tomorrow, or as close as I can make it.”

  “Pierre’s?”

  “Fine,” he said, thinking of all the quiet lunches they’d shared there, twining their hands together across a table in a dark corner. “I’ll see you then.”

  He hung up and walked on eggs across the living room to take his place again in front of the Monopoly board. No one said a word, and he wished he were not sitting directly across from Kit. He didn’t want to meet her eyes. He felt as if he’d betrayed her.

  The silence made him uneasy.

  “You’re meeting her for lunch tomorrow?” Kit asked.

  “Yes.” He paused. “Are you upset?”

  She shrugged. “I knew all along that you’d need to see her again. I just don’t want you to fall in love with her again.”

  He was certain no one else had picked up the telltale catch in her voice. “You don’t need to worry,” he said. “We’ll talk later, all right?”

  She nodded as the phone rang again. He rose to answer it himself, knowing that this time it had to be Blair. He couldn’t be lucky twice in a row.

  57.

  It was one in the morning when she finally went to bed, alone. For a dismal moment she imagined that the phone call from Blair had been Estelle calling back to persuade Cole to meet her now. Tonight. She forced the thought out of her mind, angry with herself for her insecurity.

  But he’d been so damn pleased when she called. He could barely control his excitement. He’d never been able to resist her before. How would he do it now? She could picture Estelle meeting him at Pierre’s, perfumed and dressed in something sexy. He’d have to be superhuman to say no to her.

  She woke with the alarm to find him sleeping next to her, his arm across her stomach and his lips against her shoulder. She stroked his hair and watched him sleep a few minutes longer before she pulled on her shorts and running shoes and headed outside to the beach.

  He was just leaving the house when she returned. “I’ll call you after lunch,” he said, hugging her to him.

  “If you get the time,” she said generously, feigning calm.

  She took the day off. It wasn’t like her, but she’d never be able to concentrate on work today. She moved from room to room in the house, staring out the windows, disgusted with herself for her lethargy and her fear.

  Janni called her from Blair around noon. “You know how much he loves you,” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “Even if he sees Estelle at lunch and finds himself drooling in his vichyssoise, don’t you think he’s wise enough to recognize the feeling as lust, not love.”

  “I’d like it if he didn’t even feel lust,” Kit said.

  “Well, forget that. Lust is Cole’s most pervasive emotion.”

  Kit smiled t
o herself. “I know.”

  “Why don’t you meet me for lunch?”

  Kit looked at her watch. Ten past twelve. If Cole and Estelle met on time, they were being seated now, appraising each other. “No, thanks. I’d rather sit around the house and feel dismal.”

  He’d said he would call after lunch, or had she misunderstood? He should have been back in his office by two. Two-thirty at the latest. It was after three now. She thought of calling him, but he was probably swamped. Otherwise he would have called himself, right?

  She turned on a soap opera in the den and stretched out on the sofa with a box of cookies.

  She couldn’t get the card Estelle had sent him out of her mind. Darling, Estelle had called him. Kit had never called him ‘darling’. It would take some level of sophistication she didn’t possess to use that word—she doubted she could force it off her tongue. Would he want her to? Would it make a difference?

  When the phone rang at three-thirty she raced to her room to answer it.

  “Hello?” she said breathlessly, with no pretense at indifference.

  “Kit, this is Estelle.”

  It would take all her strength to be civil. “Hello, Estelle, how are you?”

  “I’m very well, thank you. Very, very well.”

  She waited for her to continue, but Estelle was playing coy.

  “Did you meet Cole for lunch?” Kit couldn’t stand the silence.

  “Yes. Yes, and that’s why I’m calling. I thought this call might be a little easier for me to make than for him.”

  “I don’t understand.” She would refuse to understand.

  “No, I guess I’m not making myself clear.” Estelle hesitated for a moment, as if she were trying to select the right words. “Let me start by saying that I’m a very different person from the woman you knew a year ago. I know this is late in coming, but I’d like to apologize for the way I behaved toward you back then. I wasn’t a happy person and I took a lot of it out on you.”

  “That’s in the past,” Kit said without warmth.

  “I don’t wish you any ill, Kit. That’s why what I have to say is difficult. Cole and I . . . well, we realized we’ve never stopped loving each other. We go back a long time. We talked about it at lunch, and there was no doubt in either of our minds that we want to give it another try.”

  Okay, she told herself, you knew this could happen. Stay calm.

  “Kit, are you there?”

  “Why didn’t Cole call to tell me this?”

  “He thought it would be better to tell you tonight in person rather than over the phone. I wanted to clear the path for him a little, make it easier for him. And I also wanted to let you know that I understand how important your friendship is to him. I told him I wouldn’t stand in the way of you two seeing each other, or running together if that’s what you’d like. It’s all right, as long as it’s me he comes home to at night.”

  Her wrist hurt from gripping the phone. “Estelle, I’d prefer to hear this from Cole.” She hung up the receiver before the words had finished leaving her lips. She sat down on the bed and stared blindly at the wall.

  She and Cole had found a house on the bay just the weekend before. It was gray, like the Chapel House, and had a solid, symmetric beauty to it. One of its previous owners had glassed in the entire back wall so that the living room, dining room, and master bedroom all had a view of the water. They planned to move in in February. She wondered now if they would ever live in that house. She wondered if they would ever live together anywhere at all.

  58.

  With any luck, he’d have an hour to himself. It was already four o’clock. He hadn’t had a chance to catch his breath from the moment he’d left Pierre’s. One thing after another, complete with emergency surgery that left him weak-kneed. Too much in one day.

  Estelle had looked good. Never better. She must have dressed with him in mind that morning, remembering that green was his favorite color. That dress was a knockout. Eyes turned when they walked into Pierre’s. He’d forgotten the commotion she could cause merely by looking the way she did. And as always, she seemed coolly oblivious to the stares.

  Jacques had been surprised to see them. “Dr. Perelle, Miss Lauren!” he’d exclaimed with a little bow. “It’s been too long.” Jacques remembered which table they’d always requested and seated them ahead of waiting customers. Estelle settled in across from him, smiling, with no hint of the nervousness he felt.

  “You look wonderful,” he said.

  “So do you.”

  He’d thought all morning about how much he should tell her. About Kit’s baby? Certainly not that Alison had been his child. He could picture her reaction to that piece of news. Should he tell her about Cynthia? No, he couldn’t tell her any of it. He realized with a jolt that he’d always censored his communication with her. He didn’t even want to tell her about Rennie, as though sharing her with Estelle would tarnish her in some way. He didn’t trust her to respect the things he cherished.

  She told him about her therapy. In the beginning they’d put her on medication, she said, though not for long. She wasn’t taking anything now.

  Psychotropic drugs. How could he not have known she’d been that seriously ill? A big help he’d been to her back then.

  “I progressed very rapidly,” she said. “The shrink was amazed.” She smiled and looked at him. “Losing you really opened my eyes.”

  He didn’t want to talk about the breakup. “Have you made any friends up there?” he asked.

  She nodded. “I joined a health spa and I’ve made some friends through that.”

  “A health spa? With exercise classes and all?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “That’s fantastic.” He grinned at her, trying to picture Estelle in tennis shoes. “How about men?”

  She was quiet while Jacques poured her wine. Cole held his hand over his glass. He couldn’t afford a light head with all he had to do that afternoon.

  “No one special yet,” she said when Jacques walked away. “I’ve been seeing a couple of men but”—she shrugged—“no chemistry.” She took a sip of her wine. “How’s your mother?”

  “She’s fine. I’d say she’s fully recovered, both physically and emotionally.”

  “Corinne and the girls?”

  He was surprised by her warmth. She had definitely changed. He put his doubts aside and told her about Rennie and the possibility of adopting her. He told her the details of the accident and found himself loving the look of concern that came into her face. He stopped short of telling her that he and Kit had found that house on the bay. It would be cruel to tell her they were moving out when she’d begged him for years to do exactly that and he’d refused.

  Their lunches were served and they began to eat in a comfortable silence. After a few minutes, she set down her fork and looked up at him. “Cole,” she said. “I miss you.”

  “There are things I miss about you, too,” he said carefully, suddenly afraid of the intensity in her eyes.

  “Don’t be angry with me for saying this, but I still love you. I think about you so often. I’m afraid I’ll never meet anyone like you.”

  “Why would I be angry with you for loving me?” he said. “You’ll find someone, Estelle. It takes a little time, but you will.”

  “Do you still love me?”

  He put down his own fork and reached across the table to take her hand. “I don’t love you the way I once did, but I still care about you,” he said. “I was very pleased that you called, but—”

  “Don’t say ‘but’,” she said quickly, gripping his hand with both of hers. “Cole, please. Let’s try it again. I’m different now. You can tell, can’t you? It can work this time.”

  He was stunned. “Estelle—”

  “We can live in Mantoloking if you like.” She was speaking French now, her ultimate weapon of seduction. “I don’t care where I live as long as we’re together. My priorities have changed. I’ve changed. I wasn’t responsible for my
actions back then. I was sick. Don’t punish me for something I had no control over.”

  “It’s not a matter of punishment,” he said in English. “It’s—”

  “It would be so different now.”

  “Estelle, I’m in love with Kit.”

  For an instant he caught a glimpse of the old Estelle hiding behind the new facade. Narrowed eyes, a twisted smile. But she caught herself quickly.

  “I know you are,” she said. “But can you really tell me it’s as good with her as it was with me? In our good years, I mean?”

  “How can I answer that honestly without hurting you?”

  Her eyes filled with venom, and he withdrew his fingers from hers quickly, repelled.

  “You fell right into the trap she set for you. Can you actually sit there and tell me that Kit can give you everything I can?” Her voice was rising and people glanced at her from other tables.

  “Estelle,” he said quietly. “Lower your voice.”

  “I will not! And talk to me in French, damn it.”

  “You’re still sick,” he said in French, not to please her as much as to prevent the other diners from understanding their conversation. “Maybe sicker than you were before. Are you still in therapy?”

  She threw her head back with a laugh, embarrassingly loud. “I never was in therapy. You think that’s the answer to everything, baring your soul to some stranger. Forget it! I’ll never do it.”

  The woman at the next table let out an irate “Shh!”

  “If you don’t lower your voice, I’m going to leave.” He watched her face change again. Now she looked weak and desperate.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “Don’t go. All right, I understand. For whatever reason you want to stay with Kit. I have to accept that. But please, I’m only here for a few days. Couldn’t you spend some time with me?”

  He knew what she wanted, and it had little to do with time. “Absolutely not,” he said.

  “You said you still care about me. The Kensington Hotel is right next door, remember? Remember all those after-lunch rendezvous?”

  “I’m leaving.” He pushed his nearly full plate away from him and stood up.