by Kathi Daley
Once Kizzy and I reached the sandy shoreline, I tossed a stick for her to chase and then looked out toward the gray sea. The wind had let up a bit, so I was able to stay relatively dry beneath my large umbrella. I know this may sound odd after I complained about getting soaked doing newspaper-delivery duty, but I was actually enjoying the walk. There was something haunting about walking on the beach in a downpour, while the waves crashed onto the shore nearby. Although the rain had caused me to feel isolated and maybe just a bit melancholy earlier, somehow I now felt present in the moment in a way that didn’t often happen during the course of my everyday life. Kizzy brought back the stick and I obligingly tossed it again. She took off after it, mindless of the pouring rain. I loved watching her enthusiasm for the simple things in life and realized that dogs in general had a lot to teach us humans about living for and embracing the joy in our daily minutes. When it looked as if Kizzy was finally beginning to tire, I called her to my side and headed back to the house. As I passed George’s cabin, I spotted him sitting in the swing on his covered front porch.
“Seems cold to be sitting outdoors,” I said after changing direction and joining him.
“Just needed a bit of fresh air. I’ve been working on my computer all day.”
“I spoke to Meg earlier and thought she might be planning to stop by here.”
“She is going to come by later and bring dinner. She was going to close the museum early, but then the rain lightened up a bit, so she decided to stay. She mentioned that she was doing some research on the Jeremiah Groverson story you and Jack are working on.”
I nodded. “I stopped in at the museum earlier and told her the story. She seemed interested and wanted to help, so I graciously accepted. Did she tell you about the twist Gertie provided?”
George frowned. “She did say he died in prison. I guess the twist does add an extra element of interest to his story.”
“Yeah, but we specifically aren’t going for controversy or sensationalism in this series, so I’m not sure whether Jack will want to go on with it. He has been writing all day, so I haven’t had a chance to fill him in. I told Meg I would let her know what he decided after I had the opportunity to chat with him.”
“I don’t suppose I would mind digging around online. The murder and trial happened too long ago for there to be a contemporary digital record of it, but I might be able to find something. If nothing else, digging around for you will give me an excuse to take a break from the novel I am working on.”
“Is your novel giving you problems as well?” I asked.
“I wouldn’t say problems exactly. I think it is just that I have put in a lot of hours on it lately and find that I need a brief change of subject matter to cleanse my pallet.”
“I get that. I imagine Jack will be exhausted once he emerges from his office tonight, but maybe we can all get together tomorrow or Friday to discuss the twist to the story and what that may mean for its inclusion in the newspaper.”
“I should be around all week,” George informed me. “Have you talked to Alex?”
“Yes, I have.” I filled George in on the discussion I had just had with Alex and Rick. He seemed interested in the case and promised to continue to dig around in those events as well.
After I finished filling George in, I continued on to the house. After hosing the sand from Kizzy’s fur, I dried her with a towel and then let her in to stretch out by the fire to dry the rest of the way. Once she was settled, I at last went upstairs for my own hot shower and change of clothes.
******
By the time I got back downstairs, Jack had emerged from his office and was in the kitchen chowing down on a bag of potato chips. He looked exhausted and fairly ragged, but he also appeared to be a lot less stressed than he had been the previous day.
“Is the writing going well?” I asked.
Jack nodded. “Finally. I’m sorry I ignored you all day, but once I was on a roll, I was afraid to stop. Was the newspaper distributed okay?”
“Yes. It was printed and delivered.” I decided not to mention that I had been the one to do the printing and delivering just yet. The poor guy looked as if he already had enough on his mind.
“I’m going to run upstairs to grab a shower,” Jack informed me. “I was thinking we could get a bite to eat after that, unless you have already eaten, in which case I can just make a sandwich.”
“I could eat,” I answered. “In fact, all I had to eat all day was a muffin at Gertie’s.”
“Then give me thirty minutes and we can go into town, grab something, and get caught up. Did you talk to Alex today?”
“As a matter of fact, I did. And I spoke to Meg and Rick, so I have a lot to share.”
Jack smiled, then headed toward the stairs. I walked across the room and looked out the window. It was still raining, but not as hard as it had been. Maybe we would get off with a lighter rainfall than had been predicted. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and opened my text app. There was a message from Brooke, thanking me for the awesome article about the film festival we had run in today’s paper. I texted her back to say she should be thanking herself because we hadn’t made any changes in the way she had written it, and also assured her that we were ready, willing, and hopefully able to help out any time. There was also a text from Vikki, letting me know that things were going spectacularly in sunny LA and that I should call her, and one from Brit to say she still planned to be home on Friday and that I should check out the link she was providing if I wanted to gain another perspective on Ryan Spalding. I clicked on the link, which led to his Instagram page. It was currently dormant and had been since Gina’s death, but before that there were plenty of photos of the two of them, seemingly having a wonderful time together.
I closed my text app and logged onto my email. There were over twenty emails, mostly junk, but there was one from my mother to tell me that she planned to come out for a visit at the end of the month. I let out a long sigh and tried not to become irritated. The woman made me crazy, but she was my mother after all, and I knew that I should at least attempt to have a relationship with her. I hit Reply and jotted down a few sentences to say I was excited about seeing her and to please forward the actual dates she’d be here when she got that figured out.
After I logged off my mail app I opened the messenger one. Since when had staying in touch with folks become so cumbersome? I only had one message from an old friend from high school. She had found me on Facebook and wanted to catch up. I replied with my email address and cell phone number and told her to call or write sometime. I took a few minutes to scan through my Facebook feed, then logged off that and checked my Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat accounts. The really funny thing about this chain of actions was that it didn’t occur to me to check my phone messages, which I would soon find out contained the most important message of all.
Deciding to call Vikki back, I dialed her number.
“How is sunny LA?” I asked as soon as she picked up.
“It’s fabulous. I understand it is cold and rainy at home.”
“It is,” I confirmed. “How is the filming going?”
“So good.” There was a pause. “Do you remember Brent Wildwood?”
“Sure,” I answered. “Brent is the actor you had a fling with, what, two or three years ago?”
“Four. Way before I moved to Gull Island. Anyway, it turns out that he has a part in the movie. The lead, in fact.”
“I thought that guy from the soap opera you like had the lead.”
“He did,” Vikki informed me. “But he broke his leg skydiving, so the studio decided to give the part to Brent rather than delaying filming.”
“So Brent is there? In LA? With you?”
“He is.”
“And…?” Please don’t let her tell me that she and Brent hooked up.
“And his being here reminded me that he was the one I pictured in my mind when I penned Forbidden Desire in the first place. We had just gotten together, and while
I didn’t write the part to be about Brent exactly, I was influenced by his looks, mannerisms, and whatnot. I guess that might be why the studio realized he would be perfect for the part as soon as someone mentioned his name.”
“You and Brent aren’t...?” I let the sentence dangle.
“No, we aren’t together. I’m with Rick now. But I will say that being here in LA as they film a movie that was written at a time when I was with the man who is now starring in the role I based on him is pretty steamy.”
“I guess that must be… weird?”
“I’m not sure weird is the word I’d use, but it does bring home the fact that Vikki on Gull Island and Victoria Vance, romance author and jet-setting playgirl, are two very different people.”
I hated to even ask the next question, but I couldn’t seem to help myself. “Are you saying that you have missed being Victoria?”
“I guess in a way I have. Being in LA, where I am wined and dined and treated like a celebrity, is so very different from my life on the island. Not that my life with you and Rick and the gang isn’t totally wonderful. It’s just different. Sometimes I wonder how I can feel like two totally different people. Pre-Rick, I would totally be hooking up with Brent despite the fact that I would know from the start it wasn’t going anywhere. But now…”
“Now?” I asked.
“Well, now things are different. Listen, I have to go. Please don’t mention this conversation to Rick. He’ll just worry.”
“Should he?”
The connection went dead before she answered.
Vikki, Vikki, Vikki. What are you doing, girl?
I was just logging off my phone when Jack came down. He said he was starving and wanted something substantial for dinner, so we chose to head to the local steak house. A steak felt somewhat heavy to me, but they also had fish and seafood, and a salmon dinner or maybe even scampi sounded just about right.
“So tell me about your day,” Jack said after we arrived at the restaurant and his martini had been delivered.
I knew that Jack would find out that I had been the one to deliver the newspapers, and our part-time employee never had shown or even called in, so I realized that I may as well tell him about my day now rather than waiting until he discovered it on his own and wondered why I hadn’t told him right away. “I didn’t mention this earlier because you looked so tired, but our part-timer was a no-show today He never even called.”
Jack frowned. “I thought you said the papers were delivered.”
“They were. I delivered them. I knew you were on a roll with your writing, so I didn’t want to call and bother you. I wouldn’t even be bringing this up now, but I figured that someone would mention it and then you’d wonder why I hadn’t told you.”
“I’ll need to call him, see what happened. Did you have any problems with the route?”
“Not a one.” I smiled. “I even took a break at the museum and had tea with Meg, who has, by the way, agreed to dig around to see what she can find out about Jeremiah Groverson.”
“That’s nice of her.”
I took a sip of my wine and nodded. “I got some interesting information from Gertie about Jeremiah.”
Jack glanced at me over the top of his glass. “What sort of information?”
I filled him in on the convicted killer aspect of Jeremiah’s story. I could see his frown deepening as I spoke.
“The man we want to promote as a local hero killed a woman?”
“Yes, he was convicted of killing a woman, but Gertie seemed to think he was innocent. I don’t see how we can know that one way or another without more of an investigation, and we may want to take a second look at our plan for our first human-interest story. I definitely think we should tread lightly when we speak to his daughter tomorrow. Gertie indicated that she is pretty sensitive about her father.”
“Well, I would think so.”
We paused our conversation as the waitress brought our salads. I wasn’t aware of how hungry I was until I began to eat and the food tasted so delicious.
“I guess we’ll do our interview with the daughter and then take a step back to look at the entire situation,” Jack said after he had finished his salad. “When we decided to use the information in the church basement to write some stories, we committed to not stirring up controversy. We promised the pastor we wouldn’t, and we’ve agreed to allow him to pass judgment on what we publish. I can see him having a problem with this story. We may want to find a different one altogether.”
“I don’t disagree,” I said, “although I do find I am curious about the truth of the whole thing. It happened so long ago, I doubt that the question of whether Groverson did kill the woman can be answered, but that doesn’t keep me from wondering.”
“Yeah,” Jack agreed. “The idea that someone who risked his life to save a bunch of people he didn’t know really doesn’t mesh with a man who would kill a woman because her husband fired him. I don’t suppose it would hurt to see if we can find out more about the matter before we make a definite decision as to how to proceed, although we do already have a murder case to try to confirm or disprove. Do you think we have time to tackle both?”
“We probably don’t. Still, I might do some digging to see what I come up with. If I don’t find anything, so be it.”
Jack chuckled. “I have a feeling that the next few weeks are going to be very busy.”
Our main courses had just been set down before us when Jack’s phone rang. He took a step outside to answer it, and I took out my own phone and pulled up my messages while he was gone. I soon realized that I had a voice mail from Clara that had been left hours before. Strange I’d missed it when I checked my other messages earlier. I clicked the button to listen to the voice mail and held the phone to my ear.
“Jill, it’s Clara. Garrett and I were at the store picking up a few groceries when he passed out. I called an ambulance and we are at the hospital in Charleston. He is in with the doctor right now, so I don’t know anything yet.”
I hung up and hit Redial. Clara picked up on the first ring. “How is he?” I asked.
“I’m not sure. They are running tests. They said that, given his medical history, he could have had another stroke, but he could have passed out due to low blood sugar or some other common occurrence. They’re keeping him overnight and suggested that I might want to go home. There isn’t anything I can do for him, but the problem is, I came with the ambulance and don’t have a way to get back to Gull Island.”
“Hang tight. We’re on our way.”
Chapter 7
Thursday, January 10
I slept fitfully and woke groggy the next morning. Leaning up on an elbow, I glanced out the window to see that it was still raining. I was ready for some clear skies and at least slightly warmer temps. Sliding my legs over the side of the bed, I sat up. Neither Kizzy nor Jack were in the room and I suspected they both were downstairs making the racket that had awakened me. I slid the rest of the way out of bed, slipped on a robe, and headed downstairs.
“Coffee,” I said as I took a deep breath to fully appreciate the delicious aroma. I smiled at Jack as he handed me a cup. “Have you heard from Clara?”
“No,” Jack answered. “I didn’t want to call too early. She probably doesn’t know anything this early anyway.”
“You’re probably right, but I think I’ll text her at least.”
A text to Clara confirmed that she hadn’t heard from the doctor yet and wasn’t even sure he would talk to her because she and Garrett weren’t related in any way. I offered to call because I was related, and learned that the tests had come back fine, that there was no evidence that Garrett had suffered a second stroke. I wasn’t able to speak to him, but the nurse assured me that he would be released later that morning with a sheetful of dietary suggestions but an otherwise clean bill of health. The nurse suggested that I call back in thirty minutes if I wanted to speak to Garrett, so I hung up and poured myself a bowl of cereal.
“G
arrett is going to be discharged later this morning and will need a ride back to Gull Island. Clara doesn’t like to drive when there is weather of any kind, so I think I will volunteer to go get him.”
“Do you want me to come along?”
“You are, of course, welcome to if you’d like, but there is no need if you have work to do. I’m sure that Clara and I can handle it. I’ll call her as soon as I finish eating.”
“If you are sure you won’t need my help, I guess I’ll go in to the newspaper office and begin assembling the features for next week’s edition. I already missed yesterday.”
“That’s fine. Don’t forget to leave space for Brooke’s piece on the film festival. She provided quite a few photos, so I’m thinking we should save a whole page for the feature.”
“I’ll take a look at what she sent over, but setting aside a page shouldn’t be a problem. There aren’t many newsworthy events going on this month; we could use the filler. Did Brooke say when she planned to send along the film schedule?”
“She didn’t say, but I had a feeling that she still needed to confirm a few things. I’ll call her at the end of the week if we haven’t heard from her by then.” I glanced at the clock. “I’m going to hop in the shower. They said I should be able to speak to Garrett in a half hour or so. Once I can confirm a time with him, I’ll call Clara and let her know. I would imagine that I should be back to the island in plenty of time for our interview with Jeremiah’s daughter this afternoon. What time did you set it up for?”
“Not until three.”
“As long as Garrett is released this morning, I will be back in plenty of time.” I glanced down at Kizzy. “Do you want to take her into work with you, or should I have her ride along with us?”
“I’ll take her with me. She’s good company. We can drop her back at the resort before our interview this afternoon.”