Carolina Isle

by Jude Deveraux

  “You can go into town if you want,” R.J. said softly.

  “And hand Ariel the eyeshadow brushes? No thanks. Let David do that. But you’re going to owe Ariel. Thanks to her, it looks like you’re going to be able to spend time alone with all six of the Nezbit kids.”

  “Do you think any of them will be in diapers?” There was fear in his voice.

  “At least two. You know, don’t you, that some kids stay in diapers until they’re four years old. That means she could have several in diapers. Cloth diapers that have to be washed. Wonder if she has a washer, or does she wash them in the creek?”

  “You have an ugly sense of humor.”

  “I developed it while working for my boss. Someday I’ll have to tell you about him.”

  “Not today. I’ve had enough for today.”

  Sara pulled the front of her shirt out and glanced down. “And it’s not even seven A.M. yet.” She laughed when she saw the little spark in his eyes. “Obviously, you’re not dead yet. Come on.” She started walking down the driveway.

  “If there are diapers, I’ll give you a ten percent raise to change them,” he said.

  Sara shook her head. “Not enough. How about the corporate apartment by MoMA?”

  “Do you know how much that thing is worth?” he asked, aghast.

  “I hope they’re cloth diapers.”

  “A twenty percent raise.”

  “I’ll think about it,” she said, smiling. It was nice to think about being off that island and home in safe New York.

  They didn’t see the house until they were above it, looking down on its long, narrow roof. A stone hillside had been cut away and the back wall of the one-story house had been built to fit against the rock. The front of the house faced the water—and the most spectacular view either R.J. or Sara had yet seen.

  “Wow,” Sara said, looking across the roof to the water. In the distance she could see three other islands, their forms misty and beautiful. There was a narrow expanse of beach in the front, the honey-colored sand meeting the water. Trees shaded the house but didn’t block its view.

  “Who do you think built this?” Sara asked.

  “Nezbit,” R.J. answered, and Sara couldn’t help laughing.

  “Another stolen house,” she said. “But this one … I’ve never seen anything like it before. Have you?”

  When R.J. said nothing, she looked at him. He was frowning in a way that made her sure he knew something.

  “What is it?”

  “When I was in college, I saw a plan for a building a lot like this one,” he said.

  “Do you think they stole the idea?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Sara wanted to kick him because she was sure he was keeping something from her. But in the next moment they heard a shot and in an instant, R.J. had pushed Sara to the ground again. “Don’t be scared,” said a small voice from beside them.

  They turned and saw two children, a boy and a girl, standing there. They were both about four years old, had brown curly hair, and, despite being grubby from head to toe, were two of the loveliest children Sara had ever seen. They didn’t look as though they could possibly be the product of a union of Fenny Nezbit and his sun-wrinkled wife.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “ARE YOU NEZBIT CHILDREN?” SARA asked, standing up slowly so as not to frighten them, but they didn’t look scared. Whoever had fired the shot hadn’t frightened them.

  The girl nodded.

  “Do you have a gun?” R.J. asked.

  Sara started to tell him not to be absurd, but the children giggled. They were very dirty, their pretty faces darkened with what looked like weeks of not bathing. Their clothes were raggedy and drab-colored. Their feet were bare, calloused, and ingrained with grime.

  “You didn’t think we were elephants and you took a shot at us, did you?” R.J. asked and the children giggled more.

  She’d never seen R.J. around children before, and she smiled.

  “So who did fire that shot?” he asked.

  “Gideon,” the boy said. “For rabbits.”

  “For supper,” the girl said.

  “You don’t eat what your mother gets at the grocery?” Sara asked.

  “Sometimes,” the little girl said, then in the next minute, they ran off into the woods.

  “Rabbits for dinner,” Sara said. “They’re living wild.”

  “I’m not so sure.” R.J. turned back to look at the house. “Shall we go down and meet the rest of the family?”

  “Only if we must,” Sara said, but she followed him down the path to the front of the house.

  When they got to the bottom of the hill, they saw that the house was in need of repair. But in spite of gutters hanging down, cobwebs as big as towels, and piles of trash, underneath it all, the house was beautiful. “With some paint …” Sara began.

  “And a crew of carpenters,” R.J. said as he knocked on the front door.

  In a few seconds it was opened by a girl, about twelve, who was obviously Fenny Nezbit’s daughter. She was as skinny as her parents, and she had ears that stuck straight out, parting her lank, blonde hair on both sides. Her nose was long, her eyes drooped at the corners, and her mouth was in what looked to be a perpetual downward bend.

  “You the baby-sitter?” the girl asked in a voice that said she knew all about everything and was sick of it all.

  “I guess so,” Sara said tentatively and glanced at R.J. She’d really like to know how information traveled so quickly around the island.

  “Then come in,” the girl said, “but don’t touch anything. My dad finds out you stole anything and he’ll get you in court.”

  Behind the girl’s back, R.J. raised his eyebrows.

  Inside, the house was cool and shady, enough so that Sara didn’t think there was any need for an air conditioner. As they followed the girl to the back of the house, they looked around. To the left was a big living room, with worn furniture facing an enormous TV that must have cost thousands. A stereo with speakers that a rock band would envy was on the wall opposite the big windows. On the back wall was a built-in cabinet with glass shelves. It looked as though it hadn’t been dusted in years, but it held porcelain flowers that Sara knew were expensive. In the corners she saw stacks of boxes with the names of the TV shopping channels. It didn’t look as though the boxes had been opened.

  When Sara nudged R.J. to look at them, he nodded toward the right and she looked toward a hallway that contained more unopened boxes. At the end of the hall was an open door and inside was a huge bed that looked as though it was carved into the shape of a shell. It wasn’t to Sara’s taste, but she recognized that it cost a lot of money.

  When the girl stopped, they were in the kitchen. Before them, sitting at a small round table, were two more girls who looked just like the first one: stringy hair, skinny bodies, ears sticking out. They looked up at Sara and R.J. without curiosity, then down again at their empty plates.

  Smoking on the stove was a big cast-iron skillet with about half a pound of bacon frying. The tallest girl cracked half a dozen eggs into the skillet on top of the bacon grease.

  “Are you Effie?” Sara asked, taking a step forward. “Your mother told us about you. She said—”

  “Don’t come no closer,” the girl at the stove said, her face turned into a snarl. “Yeah, I’m Effie, but no matter what you try to butter me up with, you ain’t gettin’ none of this food.”

  “We had breakfast, thank you,” Sara said stiffly.

  “Yeah, I bet you did,” the girl said, smirking. “I know you ain’t got nothin’ to eat.” This idea seemed to please her so much that she smiled as she used a spatula to place eggs and bacon onto three plates.

  Sara looked at R.J. as though to ask for help, but he was looking around the house.

  “Who built this place?” he asked.

  “Nobody you ever heard of,” Effie said nastily.

  Sara rolled her eyes. “Mind if I use your restroom?” she asked as
she turned toward the hallway.

  “No!” one of the other girls shouted. “Use the outdoors.”

  “I beg your pardon,” Sara said.

  The three girls were looking at her, their faces wearing identical expressions of hostility.

  Sara stopped walking.

  “Who are the two little kids outside?” R.J. asked.

  “Twins,” one of the girls said, her mouth full, her lips glistening with grease.

  When Sara looked at R.J., she saw that his face was flooding with red. He looked as though he were angry enough to kill someone. Without thinking, she put her arm in his. “I think we should go outside,” she said loudly. “Your mother wants us to look after you, but you girls seem to be all right by yourself. I think she must have meant the twins. Maybe I should give them a bath.”

  “Not in here, you won’t,” Effie said. “Creek’s good enough for them.”

  “You—” R.J. began, but Sara tightened her grip on his arm and started moving backward toward the door.

  “Creek,” Sara said. “Right. I’ll bathe them in the creek.”

  One of the other girls spoke. “Daddy says they’re too pretty anyway, so it’s better if they’re dirty. It’ll keep ’em from gettin’ too fond of themselves.”

  “Your father sounds like a man of great wisdom,” Sara said, holding tightly onto R.J.’s arm, her eyes begging him to say nothing.

  “You makin’ fun of me?” the girl said, her small eyes narrowed. “My daddy’ll get you back. On Monday he’s gonna make you pay for what you did to the dog.”

  “I’m sure he will,” Sara said, still backing up. “By the way, where is your father?”

  “Don’t know and it ain’t none of your business anyway.”

  “Of course not,” Sara said. “It’s just that someone called your mother and—”

  “There ain’t no telephones. The cable’s out.” All three girls were looking at Sara as though she was trying to pry information out of them, which she was.

  “Oh, right,” Sara said. “It must have been the cellphone then.”

  “Cellphones don’t work here.”

  “Then how did she know about the …?”

  “Makeovers?” Effie asked.

  “Yes,” Sara said, holding tightly onto R.J.’s arm.

  “Same way she knows ever’ thing. Gideon.”

  “And who is he?” R.J. asked, and there was as much hostility in his voice as there was in the girls’.

  “That’s for me to know and you to find out,” the oldest girl said, smirking.

  Before R.J. could say anything, Sara pulled him through the door, shut it behind them, then led him to the shade of a big tree. “What was wrong with you?” she hissed. “We’re supposed to find out information, not antagonize them.”

  R.J. leaned against the tree and looked out at the water. “That’s like what I grew up in,” he said quietly. “My sisters …” He didn’t finish, but just stood there looking at the water.

  If it hadn’t been for the blood vein throbbing in his neck, she wouldn’t have known how agitated he was. She sat down on a big tree root by his feet. “I would imagine those children have been abused,” she said. “At least neglected. I doubt that they’ve had a chance to be anything except what their parents made them into.”

  “Why is it that two children can grow up in the same household, suffer the same abuse, but one turns out to be a murderer and the other one helps people?”

  “I think they’ve been trying to answer that since Cain killed Abel.”

  R.J. sat down beside her. “I think that under the dirt on those little kids are bruises.” He looked away, his eyes focused on something inside himself.

  She wanted to sit there and listen to what R.J. needed to tell someone. She knew him well enough to know that he confided in no one, not his friends, not anyone. But Sara knew that they didn’t have time for listening to anything right now. Maybe it was just now hitting R.J. what he was up against, what they were all up against. A dead man was a great deal different from a dead dog.

  “At least you had sisters,” she said. “My old man took out everything on me. Just me. For seventeen years I heard how my sainted mother had been killed by ’them.’ He meant the people in Arundel. I thought they’d sent a hit man. You know what I found out after he died? That my father had been driving the car when she was killed and that he was drunk. I also found out that my mother’s family paid for the lawyer that kept my father out of jail. I wondered if they’d done me a favor by that. If he’d been sent to prison, would I have been sent to live with one of them? Would I have grown up as Ariel did, with her trips to New York to have clothes made for her? Would I have a boyfriend like David?”

  When she finished her speech, she looked at R.J. and saw that his eyes were no longer angry. He was smiling at her. “They did you a favor,” he said softly. “If you were like Ariel, I wouldn’t like you.”

  She wanted to make a smart-aleck retort to that, and a week ago she would have, but now she was pleased by the compliment. “Are you making a pass at me?”

  “You haven’t looked in a mirror for a long time, have you?” he asked, but he was chuckling. He got up, then held out his hands to her. When she came up, she was standing on a tree root and nearly as tall as he was. Their faces were close together.

  There was something about the moment, about their shared backgrounds, that made her feel different toward him.

  “If you fall in love with me I’ll have to get a new secretary,” R.J. said softly.

  “Good,” she said, moving away from him. “Then I’ll get a good severance and move to L.A. and become a movie star.”

  She expected him to say something negative, that she was too old, or might be in jail for the rest of her life, but he didn’t. Turning away, he said, “I’m sure you’ll make it. You certainly have enough talent.”

  She followed him, smiling, but a few minutes later, she wondered if what he’d said was a compliment or not. Was he telling her that she was usually acting? That she wasn’t a sincere, honest person?

  “You want to tell me what you meant by that crack?” she asked, moving beside him. When she saw that he was smiling, she knew she was right. “What a rat fink you are! Here I was feeling sorry for you, but you say something nasty to me in return. You—”

  She broke off because he put his arm around her waist, pulled her against him, and kissed her. It wasn’t a light kiss, but the deep, hard kiss of a man who was at last getting something he’d wanted for a very long time. Sara felt herself melting against him, collapsing against him as though she was trying to draw strength from him. In the last horrible days, her world had been turned upside down, but she had stamped down her fears, and with them, she had buried her needs for reassurance. Now, in R.J.’s strong arms, she hugged him back; she kissed him back.

  When he moved his face from hers, she was ashamed to find that there were tears on her cheeks. “Sssssh,” he said, caressing her hair, holding her against him. “It’ll be all right. I’ll see to that. I’m sorry I got angry back there. It won’t happen again.”

  “It’s okay,” she said, sniffing and pulling away from him. She turned away so he couldn’t see her face. When he was silent, she saw he was looking at her strangely. “I’m not going back to Ariel, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “No, I wasn’t thinking that at all,” he said softly. “About this …” He waved his hand to mean the kissing. “It was just one of those spur-of-the-moment things. I …” He trailed off and looked away. He seemed to be puzzled by something. “How about if we go find this kid Gideon?”

  Sara was embarrassed about the way she’d kissed him back, about the way she’d held onto him. He’d never made a physical pass at her before. He’d made a thousand little sex jokes, pretending to want to make love to her, to want to— She looked up at him, but he was looking at the pathway in front of them. It led up a steep hill and into the dark woods. “I can’t imagine how dumb he is,” Sara sai
d at last, breaking the awkward silence.

  “Because Effie is the smart one?” R.J. said, and seemed to be glad for something else to talk about.

  “Exactly,” she said.

  “It’s the firearm that worries me,” R.J. said. “Stay behind me and—”

  “Let you get shot first?”

  “It would solve a lot of problems,” he said in a joking way, but Sara didn’t laugh. She followed him up the hill and at the top, the path turned right, leading into deep woods. They walked for a while on soft pine needles, unable to see more than a few feet in front of them because of the density of the trees. It was very quiet in the woods, as though they were the only people on earth.

  When they came to the end, both of them stood still for a moment and stared. Before them was a small cabin, with a porch and stone fireplace, a deer skin and a washtub nailed to the side. It had been built on the tip of a rock cliff that jutted out toward the ocean. For all that the house below them had a great view, the cabin had a better one.

  There was smoke coming out of the chimney, but no one was around.

  “If I didn’t know where I was, I’d think I was on the set of a pioneer movie,” Sara said. “This is the age of the Internet and space travel, isn’t it?”

  Stepping onto the porch, R.J. looked closely at the benches and the enameled pots. “Most of this stuff is handmade, and it’s not for decoration. It’s being used daily.”

  “By me,” said a voice to their left, and they looked toward the end of the porch to see a tall, handsome boy with dark blond hair and deep blue eyes. He had a long string of fish in his hand. “Want some breakfast?”

  “We just had—” Sara began.

  “We’d love to!” R.J. said with enthusiasm. “Mind if I help you clean those?”

  “If you know how to clean fish, you can move in,” the boy said, smiling, showing perfect white teeth. “I’m Gideon.”

  “I’m—”

  “I know who you are. Everyone does. You’re the latest patsy.” He looked at Sara. “And you must be the secretary.”

  “Assistant,” she said, smiling. “I don’t type very well, as I’ve been told many times.”