Island Intrigue
Page 25
Gary stared at the fire, and then he continued the story almost mechanically. “She called me, and asked me to come over. I was surprised, naturally. I hadn’t spoke to Lora since I graduated from high school, though I knew Brad and Virginia went to see her sometimes. I went over to her house that afternoon and she told me she thought I was the one that set fire to Brad’s office. She showed me the pictures I drew when I was a kid. She told me that I should go confess to Jimmy the next day, or she would have to tell Jimmy what she guessed. I knew those pictures I drew twenty-five years ago weren’t really proof, but I couldn’t take the chance that Jimmy would start looking into things.” Gary trailed off, staring into the fire. “I couldn’t find the pictures. I searched everywhere. What did she do with them?” His voice was inflectionless.
“She put them under the hurricane hatch for safety. You pushed her so that her head hit the coffee table hard enough to kill her. You didn’t find the pictures or the hurricane hatch because Lora was lying on top of it. When you couldn’t find the pictures you overturned Lora’s candle, thinking that the house would burn down, burning up the pictures as well, but the candle burnt itself out.”
Gary stared around at his neighbors, his friends. “I just couldn’t let her ruin my life like that. They’d have made me go away, put me in an institution. I didn’t want to hurt anyone, but everyone was conspiring against me! Rolo was threatening to reveal—Brad has everything! I couldn’t just stand there and let Rolo tell the world that my son is actually Brad’s!”
Jimmy moved forward and began reading Gary his rights. The townspeople all began talking at once, crowding around Sabrina in their excitement.
“How in the world did you figger it was him?”
“A killer on our little island!”
“I never would have thought—Gary, of all people!”
“It wasn’t such a big surprise,” Lima said, adjusting his robes and swelling his chest. “I knowed it all along. Well, Miss Sabrina, you sure are something, sure as a doomed kayaker on Mitchell’s Day.”
“Lima, I’ve been meaning to ask you…what in the world is Mitchell’s Day?”
Laughter sounded from all around.
“You stick around for a while and you just might find out,” he said.
“Well, it looks like I might get the chance.” Sabrina looked around at the islanders’ faces—some friendly, some still skeptical, but all familiar and welcome.
“I have an announcement to make,” she said. “I’ve decided that we really need several more months to finish practicing our new play, The Island Adventures of Romeo and John, even with Lima’s help.”
There was silence.
“Does that mean you’re giving up the play?” Aunt Mary Garrison Tubbs asked.
“Actually,” Sabrina took a deep breath, “I’ve come to see that I’ve never cared enough to do what I really wanted, just for myself, until I came to this island. I’ve never felt so alive than I have these past couple of days. I don’t want to lose that, so I’ve decided to stay. Permanently.”
Amid the cheers and congratulations, Lima turned to Sabrina.
“Are you going to teach school here?”
“No, I don’t think so. In honor of the new me, I think I’m going to do something completely different. I’m just not sure what yet. I could sell conch shells like Missy Garrison did, or rent kayaks, or, since I’m no slouch in the kitchen, maybe I could even open a restaurant!”
Now why did Lima look so horrified?
Chapter Thirty-one
“Go on, go. You can’t hang around here in the rose garden forever.”
A fish splashed in the sound, and the roses rustled dreamily in the chill night breeze.
“I know you don’t want to go, but believe me, Comico Island will do just fine without you two wandering around scaring people.” The woman’s voice was sad. “Go on now.”
Two shadows moved though the rose garden and just for a moment she could see them. The first was tall and strong, with bushy black hair and bright blue eyes. The roses seemed to reach out to him as he walked by. The other shadow, slim and straight again, laughed as she did a little dancing step.
“I’ll see you both soon enough,” Nettie Wrightly said. “Go on. Get.”
A cloud skidded across the moon’s face, and the two shadows were gone.
Author’s Note
Comico Island is strictly a figment of the author’s overactive—some say deviant—imagination. It is loosely based on islands where the author has lived and visited, and in the interest of creating a plausible history for the island, the author utilized several books, including the interesting Ocracoke, Its History and People by David Shears. However, Comico Island and the people who inhabit it are not real.
Truly.
But wouldn’t it be grand if it did exist?
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