The Cottage on Nantucket

by Jessie Newton

Janey didn’t want to think about what would be left behind once all the police left. Dirty bootprints and fingerprint dust. The vomit in the cottage—would someone clean that up? Open drawers and cupboards, and the contents of closets spilled onto the floor.

  She didn’t say anything, because she didn’t know what the future held. Sergeant Rilleti asked her to start at the beginning and tell him anything she thought was important—anything at all.

  “No detail is too small,” he said. “It could be something you think is insignificant that helps us figure out where they took her.”

  Janey cleared her mind of her questionable paternity. Her workload waiting for her in Jersey. The trips to the bank and the hotel and the house on Long Island.

  She needed to focus on Riggs and Bobbie Friedman, and their role in her paternity, the business she’d conducted in the city, and why they wanted Tessa.

  Janey exchanged a look with Sean. “I’m not sure where the beginning is,” she admitted. “My mother died, and apparently, she had a lot more money and assets than anyone knew about.”

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Tessa Simmons moved back and forth, back and forth. The lulling, quiet, almost peaceful swaying nearly coached her back to sleep, but panic ran through her mind, telling her to struggle to stay awake.

  Or get awake.

  She blinked, trying to grasp onto the threads of thought wafting through her mind. She couldn’t fall asleep again. The surface beneath her pitched to the right at a more violent clip, and Tessa’s elbow hit a wall. She woke further, and her head cleared a little bit more.

  Memories streamed through her mind, and the pinch of a needle in her neck sent a shiver through her body. Heat engulfed her, and sweat broke out along her forehead.

  She sat up slowly, her pulse increasing as she remembered all that had happened in the cottage. A moan started low in her stomach, but she kept it contained.

  Because someone was coming.

  She quickly lay back down, the world around her spinning.

  “…have to go back at some point,” Riggs said.

  “We can’t,” Bobbie said. “I’m telling you, we need to get to Miami.”

  “I’ve got the boat headed that way.” Riggs’s voice came so close that Tessa’s muscles seized. “I’ve never driven this yacht, and she’s not used to this speed, I can tell.”

  He touched her forehead, and it took every ounce of willpower Tessa had not to move. Not to reach out and grab his hand, bend it back, and demand they take her home. “She’s still out,” Riggs said. “I can’t believe you knocked her out so completely. It’s been hours, Bobbie.”

  “She’ll be fine,” Bobbie said. “She’ll wake up soon, and then we’ll have to decide what to do with her.”

  “What if she’s not fine?” Riggs hissed. “We weren’t going to hurt them, and now we’ve stolen a boat too.”

  “They’ve been nothing but difficult.” The sound of Bobbie’s voice moved away from Tessa. “We didn’t even have time to search that blasted cottage.”

  Riggs said something after her that Tessa couldn’t catch.

  After the silence had settled, and the boat swayed back and forth for several long moments, Tessa sat up again. Every second that passed brought more awareness. She looked around the room where she lay, most of it shrouded in darkness. A night light shone orange from the direction of what looked like a galley bathroom, and Tessa put her feet on the floor and stood.

  Giving herself a moment to see if she could stay steady, Tessa then padded across the room to that orange light and stepped into the bathroom. She found a cup there on the tiny sink, and she grabbed it. After filling it, she gulped cool water, then splashed some on her face too.

  The fogginess in her head cleared more and more, and only a minute later, Tessa felt ready to tackle her most pressing issue: getting off this boat.

  She had no idea where she was. She didn’t know what time it was. She didn’t even have shoes on her feet, and she couldn’t remember if she’d had them on at the cottage or not.

  “Doesn’t matter,” she muttered. “Get off the boat. Shoes can come later.” She reached into her pocket, but her phone wasn’t there. Bobbie or Riggs had probably found it in her pocket and gotten rid of it.

  She hoped Janey wasn’t worrying too much, though she probably was. She’d at least called the authorities, as Bobbie and Riggs hadn’t had time to search the cottage. They hadn’t found what they wanted.

  The boat pitched again, and Tessa fell to her knees. A grunt came from her mouth, and the moment she was able, she looked toward the direction Bobbie’s and Riggs’s voices had gone. A door sat across the room, and as far as Tessa could see, it was the only way out of here.

  She got up and made her way to it, pressing one hand against the wood. The vibrations from the water filtered through her fingers, and she took precious seconds to listen. She couldn’t hear anything, and she finally dared to crack the door.

  Again, she paused and listened.

  Again, nothing.

  She stepped to the side of the doorway and peered through the four-inch gap, hoping to see what lay beyond. A narrow hallway, that she could tell. Light spilled onto the floor, and Tessa nudged the door open a little farther.

  She could span the hall in only three steps, and she did so quickly. Stairs went up, light touching just barley kissing the bottom one.

  Tessa took a deep breath and went up, each step painstakingly slow, her ears straining to hear something. Anything.

  She heard nothing.

  At the top of the stairs, she paused, mostly because the sound of her heart pounding in her ears needed to be quieted before she could go on. The low murmur of voices came from her left, and that prompted Tessa to go right.

  Another few steps got her topside, and Tessa scanned the landscape. Darkness stretched in every direction, and she hated the ocean at night. It sucked color from the world, drawing it deep below the surface and refusing to let it go.

  The moon wasn’t nearly as powerful as the sun, and while the silver light charmed her when she caught it dancing through the slats of her blinds in her bedroom, she did not like the way it undulated on the tips of the waves before getting sucked under.

  Nothing to the right. She needed to see lights upon the shore. She’d jump over and swim if she had to. The water wouldn’t be warm, but it shouldn’t be too cold either.

  But she wasn’t leaving this vessel if she didn’t have another destination in mind.

  You can’t go to Miami, she thought. If she did, she didn’t think anyone would ever find her again.

  For one terrible moment, she wondered if anyone would even care. Ron had someone else now. Ryan didn’t seem to care if he spoke to her or not. She had a few friends at the library that may miss her.

  She had Janey.

  The thought of her sister grounded Tessa, though she wasn’t anywhere near solid ground.

  She turned to her left and went to the railing on the boat. Lights winked in the distance, and Tessa had no idea how far away they sat. That was another thing about nighttime on the ocean—it obscured distances in a horrible way.

  Voices sounded behind her, and Tessa had less than a second to decide. She climbed up on the railing and over it, hearing Bobbie say, “…find her.”

  Before they could catch sight of her, she jumped.

  She barely had time to pull in a breath before she hit the water, and shock hit her like a lightning bolt. The boat had been taller than she’d thought. The water colder than she’d estimated.

  She’d gone under much farther than she’d imagined, and it seemed to take a very long time and plenty of effort to get back to the surface. She finally broke free, gasping and coughing. Part of her brain told her to be quiet, while the other part told her to do whatever she must to keep breathing.

  She wiped her hair out of her face, her feet kicking to keep herself aloft. Salt water went in her mouth again, and she heard a shout from somewhere outside her awareness.
Bobbie and Riggs might know she’d jumped, and she quickly rolled to lie on her back.

  Floating, she checked over her shoulder to see where the lights on the shore had gone. “Straight…ahead…” she gasped, still trying to catch her breath and settle the quaking in her lungs.

  She began to flipper her feet, moving closer and closer to the shoreline.

  Or so she thought.

  A very long time later—hours if Tessa truly thought about it—she finally felt her feet touch sand. Relieved and exhausted she turned over and knelt as the waves broke around her.

  Tears came to her eyes, and she repeated the same phrase she’d been saying since the moment she’d began kicking toward shore. “You can do this, Tessa.”

  She looked up, found the strength to stand up, and she walked up the beach. She needed to figure out where she was, what time it was, and where she could find a phone.

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Janey didn’t think enough coffee existed to revive her energy levels. She’d been up for a couple of hours, the TV flickering in the darkness as it started to turn gray. She sipped her lukewarm coffee, but her stomach had started to boil, and she’d have terrible heartburn that day.

  Only one of a series of mistakes she’d made recently.

  Sean had stayed in the cottage on the lane with her, but in a separate bedroom. She’d wanted to curl into his strength and take it as her own, but Janey needed to rely on herself. She couldn’t go running to the closest man—no matter how handsome and how employed—when things went wrong.

  Been there, done that.

  She finished her coffee—her third cup—and got up to put the mug in the sink. Vowing she wouldn’t have any more, she looked out the window. This cottage overlooked the beach too, but in a different way than the one Janey was familiar with. The swells of dunes sat in front of her, with a few twinkling lights to her right where The Lighthouse Inn, the dock, and a couple street lamps stood.

  “Where are you, Tessa?” she whispered. Closing her eyes, Janey tried to reach out with her awareness. She’d once told Tessa that they were so connected that she could feel when her sister was in trouble. They’d been at the beach, and Tessa had gone out into the sound. Janey hadn’t felt like getting wet and salty that day, and she’d stayed on the sand to sunbathe.

  After only a few minutes, the hairs on Janey’s arm pricked up, and she sat up, scanning for her sister. She couldn’t see her. Even once she’d stood, Tessa wasn’t anywhere to be found. The girls often came to the beach alone, so Janey had no one to help.

  She marched straight out into the sound, finally catching sight of her younger sister floating away on her inflatable raft. She’d been caught in a current, and her ten-year-old arms hadn’t been able to fight it.

  Janey opened her eyes, because the story had a happy ending. She’d run down the beach and flagged down a fisherman just setting out in his boat. She’d pointed out her sister, and he’d rescued her.

  Reunited, Janey had told her they were connected. That she’d felt something when Tessa had been in danger.

  Why hadn’t she felt anything last night? She almost hadn’t answered Tessa’s call.

  “But you did,” she told herself, leaving the kitchen. She walked toward the TV, not really focusing on it. All she could think about was that she and Tessa weren’t full siblings, and therefore perhaps their connection wasn’t as strong as she’d once believed.

  She didn’t want to think that. She wanted to have somewhere she belonged, and she’d always belonged with Tessa. They might not have always agreed, but they’d had each other. She didn’t want to lose that.

  Janey reached for the remote control to turn off the TV, studying it for a moment to find the power button. She pointed it at the television at the same time the anchorwoman said, “A woman was found washed up on Cape Cod this morning, bleeding and disoriented. Massachusetts police have been notified, and while they’re not saying, it could be the same woman who went missing from Nantucket Point yesterday evening, she does fit the description put out by the Nantucket Sheriff’s Department.”

  The blonde turned to her co-anchor. “What are they saying, Paul?”

  “No official word from the police department yet,” he said, turning his attention to the cameras again. Janey would’ve turned this off had it simply been speculation about where Tessa had disappeared to. That was all the late-night news had been. Horrible rumors that Sean had finally clicked off before taking Janey down the hall to the master suite.

  But Tessa had been found.

  Janey let her arm drop to her side, not quite daring to believe it. Why hadn’t the police called? Didn’t they have an officer right out front? One quick call on the radio, and he could come tell her the good news. Right?

  Maybe Tessa’s not alive, she thought, and that caused her to sink heavily onto the couch while Paul the anchorman outlined the situation on the Point last night. He actually got most of the story right, and then he threw the story to a woman named Teresa, who stood on the beach in a flowery shirt.

  “The woman was found on a bench on this beach along Cape Cod’s southwest end,” she said, starting that slow walk reporters did. “She was wet, with cuts on her feet, and the couple who found her said she wasn’t making any sense. They called the police, who don’t believe she’s a danger to the public or anyone else. Once they know her identity, they say they’ll contact the family.” She looked like this story would make or break her career, and as she said, “Back to you in the studio, Paul and Linda,” Janey turned off the TV.

  Every hair on her arms had stood up. “That woman was Tessa.”

  Just like she’d once marched out into Nantucket Sound to find her sister, Janey strode toward the front door of the cottage, fumbled with the lock until she released it, and continued out onto the porch. A police cruiser sat in the driveway, and as the sun continued to brighten in the sky and lend sight to the day, Janey could see the man’s face behind the wheel.

  He looked up as she crossed in front of the car, and he got out as she rounded the corner. “Ma’am,” he said. “What’s going on? Have they contacted you?”

  “I think she washed up on Cape Cod,” she said. “There was a story on the news.” She cinched her arms across her chest, feeling a bit foolish to be outside in her billowing robe and bare feet. She normally didn’t present herself this way.

  Officer Bayless frowned. “I’ll call over to the Chief.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Come sit in the car,” he said, indicating the other side.

  Janey did, noticing the gravel beneath her feet for the first time. She walked with a much more hesitant step to the passenger side and slid into the seat. Officer Bayless was already on the radio, and he said, “I’ll tell her.”

  He looked at Janey, his eyes wide and sparking with an emotion Janey couldn’t identify. If she’d known him better, she might classify it as hope. Laughter. Positivity? Something.

  “They think the woman found on Cape Cod is your sister,” he said. “The Sheriff is on her way to the island now, and the Chief is coming here. They’ll do a video call, and hopefully we can make a positive ID.”

  Relief rushed through Janey, and tears pricked her eyes. “I know it’s her already.”

  “How?” Officer Bayless asked.

  “I can just feel it,” Janey said, sniffling as she wiped her face. She looked the officer straight in the eyes. “She’s my sister.”

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Deputy Chief Leo Trivett looked like he’d been up all night. Janey knew the feeling, and she hoped this would all be over soon. Then he could go home to his family, and she could be reunited with Tessa. She needed to talk to her, and not just about this abduction. She needed to know what Tessa had been doing back at the cottage, and she needed to know if Bobbie and Riggs had found anything there.

  She paced in the small cottage that felt so foreign, waiting with the Chief for Anne Cochran, the Sheriff, to call. Sean sat in a chair faci
ng the street, a cup of coffee in his hand that he didn’t drink from.

  Janey could admit she was glad she didn’t have to go through this alone. She’d called her children last night, as well as Ron, and they were all on their way to Nantucket this morning. She gripped her phone, because she hadn’t called Milford.

  She honestly didn’t know what she wanted. With everything that had been going on over the course of the last month—really since Mom’s death—Janey had shouldered it alone. Milford traveled for work a lot, and she only involved him in her personal life when it meshed well.

  That said something to her, but she wasn’t sure what.

  She did know she was terrified to be alone. Alone in the world without a blood relative—without Tessa. Alone in the world without someone to call and kiss at night. Alone in the world with only her job for company, and a boss she knew superficially to get tea with.

  She wanted more, but she feared she’d been going after all the wrong things trying to find it.

  “When do you think she’ll arrive?” she asked Chief Trivett. Anything to get her mind to stop and her nerves to settle.

  “Should be soon, Janey,” he said, glancing up from his device. “I’m just going over all the notes. Looking at public records. Did the Friedmans have a boat?”

  “I suppose,” Janey said, frowning. “How else would Tessa have ended up on Cape Cod?”

  “A fishing boat? A yacht?”

  “I have no idea. Not a yacht,” she said. “I’ve never seen a boat that big at their place. Riggs pretended like he fished, but I only ever saw him from the dock.”

  Chief Trivett nodded, a concerning line appearing between his eyes. He studied his device again. “And we don’t know Richard’s real name?”

  “I don’t,” Janey said. “I have to assume Bobbie’s is hers.”

  “There’s no boat in her name,” the Chief said. “Or any Friedmans.”

  Janey turned away from him and walked toward Sean. She hesitated when she reached him, but when he looked up at her, such softness and concern in his expression, she put her hand on his shoulder. “Where could they have gotten a boat?”