by Meg Tilly
“Look who came to see me,” Zelia said, rising to her feet with a smile. “Tristan.”
“Tristan?”
“From Feinstein and Company. You met him, remember?” Zelia was shooting him some kind of meaningful look, but it wasn’t clear what she was cautioning him about. And why had she let the fucker in?
“That’s right,” he said slowly. “I remember now. What brings you to Solace Is—”
“Stop glaring at him, Gabe,” Zelia cut in. “The poor man has had a rather hellish time of it, and yet when I told him of our troubles at the gallery, he offered to help.”
“What?”
“With paperwork and such, which was incredibly generous of him.”
“Can I speak with you for a moment please?” Gabe was looking as if he were about to bust a gasket.
“Certainly.” Zelia waved a hand for him to continue.
“In private,” he said through gritted teeth.
* * *
* * *
“THE MAN IS in pain, Gabe. He’s grieving and needs to be around someone who knew Alexus.” She pressed her clenched fist to her chest. “I know how that feels. Think about it. Not only has he lost a dear friend, but he also lost his employer and his job in one fell swoop. He flew all this way to apologize. I will not turn my back on him.”
“Zelia.”
She had never seen Gabe look quite so angry. “Yes?” she replied breezily.
“You will not hire him.”
“I’m not ‘hiring’ him, per se. That would be crazy. He’s got a whole life set up on the other side of the country. However, since he’s in town and willing to pitch in for a day or two, until Mary returns, I’d be foolish to turn him down.” Zelia placed her hand on his arm, her tone softening. “Gabe, the grief factor aside, I am drowning in work. There is no way I will be able to get the next show ready and keep the gallery running smoothly on my own. There’s too much to do.”
“I can help you.”
“I appreciate the offer, but I remember you mentioning that you have a manuscript due. Besides, you don’t know my business. The amount of time it would take to teach you would put me even further behind. Whereas, with Tristan, it will take five minutes max to get him up and running.”
“I don’t feel comfortable with this decision. There is something odd about him.”
Zelia laughed, even though she was feeling off-balance as well. “Darling, welcome to the art world. Odd isn’t exactly in short supply. That’s one of the things I love about what I do. I get to celebrate and nurture that which is unique. Oddness, individuality—these are traits that arise when artists have been kissed by God. The homogenized standard of sameness that the rest of the world requires in order to be accepted is thrown out the window in the art world. Of course this business I’m in will attract people like me, like Tristan. Because even though we don’t have an artistic bone in our body, being in the presence of all this creative vision”—she gestured around her at the beautiful art that was gracing her gallery—“makes ‘oddballs’ like us not feel so alone.”
Gabe didn’t answer. His arms were folded across his chest.
She touched his clenched jaw. The dark stubble felt rough against her fingertips. “Please don’t be angry.”
“I’m not angry,” he said, glaring over her shoulder at the wall as if he had X-ray vision and was attempting to incinerate poor Tristan, who was innocently sitting and sipping his tea. “I’m frustrated.” Gabe exhaled, and the tension in his shoulders seemed to soften. “And scared,” he added softly. “I don’t like this, Zee. I don’t know this guy.”
“But I do. Alexus was constantly singing his praises.”
“And look what happened to her,” Gabe said, his face grim.
“That’s not fair. He was devastated. You didn’t hear him on the phone when he told me what happened. He was inconsolable. And just now, before you came, he broke down again. He misses her, Gabe. I do, too. We’d been friends for years, and I just can’t imagine a world without her. I keep wanting to text her and then realize she’s gone.” As she was talking, it was clear Gabe didn’t understand. His face was totally shut again, implacable, as if it had been carved out of stone. He’d had a fairy-tale life with a brother and sisters and both parents who obviously adored him. He couldn’t comprehend the concept of people like Tristan, Mary, and her and how they limped along in their fractured lives, forming their own makeshift families and communities.
“I understand that you miss her,” she heard him say. “But, Zelia, we have to be practical. Mary’s gone missing and he just happens to be in town? Maybe he’s the common denominator.”
“You’re being paranoid. Totally understandable. You write crime fiction. Of course you’d see nefarious connections. However, Tristan arrived on the morning ferry.”
“How do you know?”
Her arms were crossed now. “He told me.”
“I’d like to see proof.”
Enough with trying to explain. Gabe would never get it. Besides, who the hell did he think he was with his disapproving look and patriarchal posturing? It pissed her off. She jutted her chin into the air. “I have to say, Gabe, you have a lot of balls thinking you can just march into my life and start ordering me around. Telling me how to run my business. Who I can or cannot hire. And you want to talk marriage?” She shook her head. “Ha! Over my dead body.”
“Which is precisely the situation I am trying to avoid, madame,” he said grimly.
Fifty-eight
MARY SNAPPED HER head up, listening. Footsteps were approaching. It was him. The man who thought he was her brother. She could differentiate his footsteps from the slower, heavier tread of the butler, Fredrick.
She tried to calm the rising panic coursing through her as she straightened in the armchair, unfolded her legs, and placed her feet solidly on the ground. The book she’d been attempting to read fell to the ground. She left it there. Didn’t want to be bent over in a vulnerable position when he entered the room. She heard the key turn in the lock, and then the door flew open, slamming against the wall.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he demanded, the expression on his face causing nausea to arise.
“T-tell you wh-what?” She hated that the stammer she’d developed while married to Kevin had suddenly returned. She could taste violence shimmering in the air around him. It tasted like copper and fear and nowhere to hide.
He thrust his snarling face into hers. “That she had my painting. That. She. Had hung it. On. The. Wall.” He backhanded her hard across the face. The force of the blow sent her flying out of the armchair and onto the floor. She tried to clamber to her feet, to scramble away, but his Gucci-loafer-clad foot crashed down hard on her neck, slamming her to the floor, knocking the air from her lungs.
“Please . . .” she pleaded.
“Please what?” He grabbed a fistful of hair and yanked her head back hard. “Show you mercy?” His laugh was harsh, bitter. “Why should I when you showed me none!” He spit in her face and then slammed her head down, his foot driving hard into the side of her belly. “Pretending to be my beloved Tati! How could you, Mary Browning? That’s right. I learned a lot of things at my new job, including your real name. I bet you were laughing at me, huh? Thinking you were playing me for a fool, but I’m onto you now.” He yanked her head back up. “I figured out your game—”
“There’s no game. I promise you. Please let me—”
“Silence!” he screamed, shaking her like a rag doll. “I’m speaking!” Another kick. This time to her ribs, and she could feel them snap. A moan escaped.
“Yeah, that’s right. Who’s crying now?” He let go of her hair, ambled to the door, glanced into the hall, and then shut it. “Sure,” he said, leaning against the door, crossing his legs at the ankles as he shifted into idle elegance. He glanced at his manicured nails as if he hadn’t a care i
n the world. “You could have been my sister, given Zelia a fake name. I’ll grant you that.” He shrugged. “But no. I figured out your con because Tati, my beloved sister, would have told me immediately.” His lip curled into a sneer, the thin veneer of civility rapidly disintegrating. “The second she saw me, she would have shared the wonderful news.”
He pushed away from the door, closing in on her.
Mary didn’t make a noise. Just shut her eyes and curled into a protective, fetal position, her arms wrapped tightly around her head.
“She would have told me Zelia Thompson, a highly respected purveyor in the art world, owner of the prestigious Art Expressions Gallery, not only hung my painting, but loved it. Unbidden, Zelia Thompson said to me that the artist Dattg was ‘amazingly talented.’ She called him ‘gifted.’ Told me his painting was ‘full of passion and emotion.’ You worked there! You knew she had my painting and had hung it and you didn’t tell me!”
She could feel him towering over her, droplets of his spittle splattering on her as he raged. “You could have. Last night. You had every opportunity, but you didn’t. And that is how I know you are an imposter. Tati loved me. She never would have kept something so vitally important to herself.”
Mary braced herself, waiting for the blow, but it didn’t come. He seems to be waiting for something, for me to speak?
“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” she croaked. She hated that she was cowering on the floor. How quickly the old patterns had reasserted themselves. Move, she told herself fiercely. Get up! Fight back! You are not that woman any longer. But her body was frozen in fear, trapped in the cellular memory of the past.
“And yet you did.” His voice grew quiet suddenly, which was even more terrifying. “Deeply. Causing me to realize I must change my plans.” She felt him straighten. Heard his footsteps as he started to pace erratically around the bedroom. “My artistic vision for Bosom Buddies has once again shifted. You shall provide the resources to complete my painting. Of course, the previous title will no longer work. Betrayal, maybe. It has a nice ring.” She heard him giggle. “Not only shall you grace one of my paintings, but first I think I shall surgically remove your lying tongue. Very exciting! Now, you hold tight. I’ll be back in a jiffy with my tools. This is going to be fun.” The giddy excitement in his voice caused her body to break out in a cold sweat.
As soon as Mary heard the door close and lock behind him, she shot to her feet. The searing pain in her left ribs made it difficult to straighten totally. “I will not,” she whispered to the empty room, “be a victim any longer.” She kept her elbow pressed against her side to minimize movements as she glanced wildly around the cabin.
There wasn’t much time. She had to act fast. Mary grabbed the heavy brass floor lamp that was tucked behind the armchair, yanking the cord from the wall. Despite biting down hard on her lip to keep the scream from escaping, dizzying pain made her knees wobble.
She hoisted the lamp over her shoulder, gripping it hard with the heavy base in front of her like a battering ram, and raced toward the bedroom window. The first charge cracked the thick glass, and the second one shattered it, like icicles landing on concrete. For half a heartbeat she couldn’t move. “I’m not ready,” she whispered, thinking of all the things she’d wanted to do, to experience before she died. “Ah well. Better to die quickly in the freezing waters than endure whatever torture he has planned.” She tossed the lamp aside, bracing herself for what was to come. “Non est ad astra mollis e terris via,” she murmured. “There is no easy way from the earth to the stars.” She ran the words on a continuous loop, in Latin and then in English again. The soft repetition of her litany gave her courage as she pushed the chair to the shattered window, heedless of the broken glass under her feet. She climbed onto the chair—her vision blurred with tears—and then dove out the window into the dark waters of the freezing Pacific Ocean below.
Fifty-nine
THERE WAS A discreet tap on the door—as there was every morning—and then the sound of footsteps retreating.
“Allow me, my love,” Fergus said as he hopped out from under the warm covers of their cozy nest of a bed. Alma watched him cross the room, her heart full of soft, gentle love. For a second, time morphed and she was watching a younger Fergus make the same journey to the door. His stride was longer then, without the slight hitch. His hip must be bothering him. No wonder, given the way he’d carried on last night—she’d rub arnica on him later to help with the soreness.
She pushed herself to a seated position. I’m a little sore myself, she thought with a smile as she watched her beloved husband crack open the door and poke his head out, making sure the coast was clear.
“Fergus,” she said. “Put on a robe.” But did he listen? No. He never did. He darted out in his birthday suit, snagged the wicker basket loaded with goodies off the front porch, and then sprinted back inside, slamming the door behind him.
“I got it,” he said, holding the basket triumphantly over his head as if it were the Stanley Cup trophy, a cocky grin on his face.
“I see that,” she replied. “However, for the record, I really do think—especially at our age—that a robe would be a seemly addition.”
“Nonsense.” He plopped the basket on the round table in the alcove. “It’s tradition, my dear. You don’t want to mess with that.” He drew open the curtains, allowing the early-morning sunshine to stream in. He pounded his chest with his fists, then took a deep breath, threw back his head, and let out a loud coyote howl.
It was impossible not to laugh at his antics, and as she did, a contented happiness surrounded her like a warm bath. “What am I going to do with you?” she said, shaking her head.
She watched her husband unpack the early-morning snack that was to tide them over until the restaurant opened for breakfast. The scent of warm apple muffins and coffee had her rising from the bed and approaching the table.
It wasn’t until she sat, her coffee poured, and she was reaching for the sugar tongs that she noticed the change on the horizon. “Look at that, Fergus. The fancy yacht is gone. Must have pulled anchor in the night. Wonder where they’re heading to.”
“Up the coast, I reckon. Must have gotten tired of the quiet beauty of our little hidden cove.” He didn’t glance up. He was too intent on gobbling down his buttered muffin. Last night’s activities must have worked up an appetite. “Probably going up to Canada, maybe even Alaska—see some glaciers, explore the islands, catch some king crab.” He smacked his lips. “I could eat some king crab right now, with garlic and butter.” He swiped a lonely crumb from his plate with his forefinger and stuck it into his mouth.
“Would you like the rest of my muffin?”
“Really?” The expression on his face made her laugh.
“Really,” she said, sliding the remainder of her muffin over, and watched him eat, her heart overflowing with tenderness and love.
Sixty
YESTERDAY HAD GONE well, but today Zelia was having misgivings. Tristan had arrived at work forty-five minutes late. “Are you all right?” she’d asked.
“I lost something quite valuable last night. Circumstances forced me to relocate.”
“I’m sorry about that. What a pain in the ass. Hopefully you’ll find it soon.”
“No. The chances of retrieving my lost parcel in good working order are nil.” His face had been grim and determined. “Even if it is recovered, the item will no longer be functioning and therefore wouldn’t be of use to me. Finding a replacement is my only option.”
“That sounds like a good plan,” she’d said soothingly, because seriously, the man looked in dire need of consolation. “Look, Tristan, if helping out here is too much for you, I totally understand. You didn’t come to Solace Island expecting to be corralled into work.” His mood from yesterday had dramatically shifted. There was a wild, unhinged quality about him, like a volcano ready to erupt.
When she’d asked him to do a quick sweep of the gallery with the dust mop, he’d looked at her as if she’d asked him to polish the floor with his tongue.
Apparently light cleaning was beneath him. Fine. She’d swept the floor and was freshening the bathroom. She’d set Tristan to work wading through the e-mails. Luckily, he’d been unperturbed by the torn-up state of the office and was pecking away at the keyboard quite diligently. However, the dark storm cloud that was hanging over him seemed to be growing at a rapid pace. It made her feel uneasy.
Everyone has a different way of processing grief, she told herself as she rinsed out the sink. Yesterday it was tears. Today he’s like a bear with a sore paw. Give him time and space. Don’t take it personally. She spritzed the mirror and wiped it down with a paper towel, then used the moist towel to polish the chrome. She bent over to pick up the bucket and mop.
“Can I ask you something?” Tristan’s voice cut into her thoughts.
Zelia whirled around.
He was standing in the doorway. He had moved so quietly she hadn’t heard his approach.
“Sure.” She pushed a strand of hair out of her face, suddenly feeling clumsy and awkward standing there holding the cleaning supplies. Almost as if she were a frumpy intern and he the impeccably dressed, hard-to-please boss.
“Why is the Dattg painting titled Insurance?”
“I’m not sure.” She wished he would take a couple of steps back. It felt weird for the two of them to be sharing such close quarters. “You’d have to ask the artist.”
“The artist?”
