The Cottage on Nantucket

by Jessie Newton

  “You said they didn’t have much money,” he said.

  “They were older than Mom,” Janey mused. “Retired for years. I haven’t been here in a while, but no, I don’t think they had enough for a yacht or a sailboat.”

  “And you wouldn’t really sail to Cape Cod,” Sean said. “It’s thirty miles. You don’t do that in a fishing boat either.”

  “What about Viola Martin?” Janey asked, pieces clicking together inside her head. “She had a big yacht at her place.”

  Sean got to his feet as he set his coffee cup in the windowsill. “She did?”

  Janey spun toward Chief Trivett. “What about Viola Martin?” She strode the few steps to the officer. “She had a boat when I went to visit her a week or so ago. Or two weeks.” She pressed one hand over her pulse, which raced through her chest. “She had a big yacht parked on the side of her garage.”

  “Viola…Martin,” Chief Trivett said, typing the name into whatever he was looking at. A few moments later, he looked up. “Yes, she has a boat.”

  “Riggs had threatened her,” Janey said. “She told me he kept coming around and trying to get her money. She had people looking into him.”

  The Chief lifted the radio from his shoulder. “All units, who’s closest to the Wainscott neighborhood?”

  Crackling came through the speaker, and then only silence. “Unit two-seven, Officer Gillford and Officer Barnes,” a man said. “We’re a couple of minutes from Wainscott on the south side of the island. Come back?”

  “I need you to check at 3745 Church Drive,” the Chief said. “We’re looking for the owner, Viola Martin, and a boat or a yacht on her property.”

  “It was a yacht,” Janey said, seeing the hulking shape beneath the tarp. “Covered up, parked beside the garage. She had a man living there with her. A younger guy. A butler or assistant of sorts. His name is Miles.”

  The Chief relayed all of that information, his dark eyes bright with hope now. “If they took this boat, we can alert the Coast Guard from here to Europe,” he said. “It’s registered, with distinct markings.”

  Janey nodded, not quite daring to be as hopeful at the Chief. She clenched everything tight inside herself as she folded her arms and turned toward Sean as he stepped to her side. His hand slid along her back and rested on her hip, and she leaned into his tall strength.

  She wanted to pace to get out some of the nervous energy accumulating inside, but she wanted to be right beside the Chief when his officers came back with news from Viola’s house.

  Her phone rang, and she glanced at it to see Dale’s name on the screen. Her stomach tightened, and she looked at Sean.

  “Answer it,” he said. “He’s probably heard something about Tessa and is worried.”

  She nodded and took a few steps away before swiping on the call. “Hello, Dale,” she said.

  “Joan just got a call from Margo Michaels,” he said. “They still live on the island though they’ve retired from The Lighthouse Inn, and she said there’s something going on with Tessa?”

  “Yes,” Janey said.

  “Joan is so upset, she can’t speak clearly enough to tell me,” Dale said in a near-whisper. “Is she okay?”

  “She’s been abducted,” Janey said, her voice surprisingly strong. She often shocked herself with how calm she could be, but she never knew if she’d teeter one way or the other. She lived on the edge of a knife, a breath away from a perfect presentation or a blink away from a complete breakdown. “Riggs and Bobbie knocked her out and took her somewhere. We’re waiting to hear if the woman that was found on Cape Cod this morning is her or not.”

  “Dear Lord,” Dale said. “No wonder Joan is beside herself.”

  Janey cocked her head. “Why would Joan be beside herself?” she asked. “She hasn’t spoken to Tessa in years. I haven’t seen her since Dad died and you two left Nantucket.”

  “Janey, there’s something I didn’t tell you,” Dale said, his voice heavy with regret.

  “Janey,” Sean said, and she spun back to him. “They’ve arrived at the house.”

  “I have to go,” she said to Dale.

  “Wait,” he said.

  “Chief,” came through the radio. “It’s Anne Cochran. We’re with the woman. Are you ready to transmit video?”

  “Unit two-seven,” came through immediately after that. “We’re approaching the garage door, which is ajar. There’s something wrong here. Requesting back-up of at least three units.”

  “There’s blood here,” another officer said.

  “No sign of a yacht,” the first officer said. “Though there’s definitely evidence that there was a yacht here.”

  “There’s a man down,” the second officer said, her panic plain even over the radio. “We need medical.”

  “Chief Trivett?” Sheriff Cochran asked.

  “Janey?” Dale said over the phone.

  Chief Trivett looked at Janey, his eyes wide.

  She said, “I’m putting you on speaker,” to Dale, and then said, “Get back-up to Viola’s house and let’s get this video call going while your officers figure out what happened on the south side of Nantucket.”

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  “An ambulance is on the way to 3745 Church Drive,” the radio chirped.

  “Unit one-four en route,” a man said.

  “Unit oh-seven is five minutes out,” another said.

  “Unit two-six is on-scene,” one more said.

  “Anne,” Chief Trivett said. “We’re ready for the video.”

  “Calling,” she said, and his phone went into a medley that sounded like a merry Christmas tune. He swiped and held up the phone so they could all see the Sheriff.

  “We’ve arrived at the station on Cape Cod,” she said briskly. “The woman is in custody and being taken care of. The detectives say she’s disoriented and in some state of shock, as she won’t stop shivering. They’ve called medical, but she’s refusing treatment. She keeps saying ‘Miami, Miami,’ and then she’ll go silent.”

  Janey’s heart clenched. She pulled in a breath and held it. She had to close her eyes as the camera jostled and Anne went through a doorway. When she opened her eyes, the picture had settled, and she saw a barren room with a table in the middle of it.

  A woman sat in a chair, and as Anne sat across from her, she came into focus.

  “Tessa,” Janey blurted out, and the dark-haired woman looked up from where she studied the tabletop. “Tessa, it’s Janey. What happened?”

  Something lit in Tessa’s eyes, and she reached for the phone. The Sheriff let her take it, and Tessa peered right into the device. “Janey?”

  “Tessa, you’re okay,” she said, tears flowing down her face. “You’re okay now. You need to tell them everything so they can find Riggs and Bobbie.”

  “Miami,” Tessa said. “They’re going to Miami.”

  “What else can you tell us?” the Sheriff asked. “Were you on a boat?’

  “Yes,” Tessa said, still staring at Janey. “A boat.”

  “Did they hurt you?”

  “My head hurts,” she said, her face crumpling. “She injected me with something.”

  “She needs to be in a hospital,” Janey said angrily. “Why is she at the station? Get her to a hospital and figure out what they injected her with.” She spun to Chief Trivett. “Right now.”

  “Anne,” he said.

  “They’re calling now.” Scuffling came through the call, and the phone jostled again. “It’s best if we talk to her as soon after this as possible.”

  “Let me talk to her,” Janey said, taking the phone from the Chief. “Give her the phone again.”

  The transition was made, and Janey said, “Tessa, listen to me, okay? We have to know everything that happened after they injected you. I got the whole conversation recorded after you called me, but that’s it.”

  “I woke up…” Tessa got to her feet, not bothering to keep the camera on her face. Janey lowered her device too and looked
out the window. The tree limbs swayed in the breeze as if everything were normal. Janey didn’t understand how the sun had even dared to rise this morning.

  “I woke up on a boat,” Tessa said. “The water was fairly smooth, but I got tossed around a bit. Riggs and Bobbie came to check on me.” Her voice lowered and turned more haunted. “Riggs seemed upset that Bobbie had injected me. He said the plan was never to hurt us.”

  “Good,” Janey said. “What else can you remember?”

  “She said they didn’t have a chance to search the cottage.”

  “Good,” Janey said.

  “He said he had the boat pointed toward Miami, but it was an old boat—and they’d stolen it.” She lifted the phone back to her face, and her eyes looked much clearer now. “He touched me, and it was so hard not to move. But I didn’t. Bobbie said I’d wake up soon, and they’d have to decide what to do with me then. I knew I needed to get off the boat.”

  “And you did,” Janey said, smiling at her sister through watery eyes. “How long were you in the water?”

  “All night,” Tessa said, pressing her eyes closed. “I just kept kicking and kicking. I stared up at the sky and I thought, don’t stop. They’re going to Miami. Don’t stop. Miami.” She shivered again.

  Janey cried openly now as she said, “You did so great, Tess.”

  “My feet hurt,” she said. “I was on a beach, but there were all these broken shells I didn’t see. It was still a little dark, and I think I walked across a bed of coral too. Someone finally found me, and I’m so tired and so hungry.” Tessa cried now too.

  “We’ll bring you some food,” the Sheriff said off-camera. “Come sit down, dear. They’re going to take you to the hospital right now.”

  “Janey,” Tessa said. “You’ll come, right? To the hospital?”

  “I’m on my way,” Janey said, desperate to keep Tessa on the line. But she knew the call would end any moment. Sure enough, the Sheriff took the phone back and centered it on herself.

  “We’ll take care of her,” she promised. “She’ll be in Mercy General on Cape Cod. I’ll stay with her personally and make sure her feet are tended to and that all the right tests are run to find out what drugs are in her bloodstream.”

  “Thank you,” Janey said.

  “Cochran out.” The call ended, and Janey handed the Chief his phone with numbness spreading through her.

  She sank onto the couch in the living room and put her face in her hands. You need to get to Cape Cod.

  The sofa beside her moved, and she sniffled as she looked at the Chief. “What’s going on at Viola Martin’s house?”

  “They found a man in the doorway of the garage,” he said quietly. “The paramedics are there, and he’s alive.”

  Janey nodded, her mind not truly absorbing everything. “That has to be Miles.”

  “That’s our assumption, but we’ll confirm his identity before releasing anything.”

  “And Viola?” Sean asked, sitting on Janey’s other side and handing her a cup of tea. She sipped it with shaking fingers, the warmth of it soothing some of the ragged edges inside her.

  Chief Trivett didn’t answer right away, and it took several second for the horror to sweep through Janey and make sense inside her mind. When it did, she gasped. “Did they kill her?”

  “No,” Chief Trivett said. “Well, actually, we don’t know. She’s nowhere to be found on the estate.”

  Janey entered the curtained off area to find her sister sitting up in the armchair against the wall. “There you are.” She rushed at Tessa and bent to hug her. “How are your feet?”

  “Good,” she said, clinging to Janey. “Not as bad now that I have some painkillers and they got all the debris out.”

  “No stitches?”

  “Nope.”

  Tessa didn’t have an IV either, and she wasn’t a patient. They’d done all the cleaning and dressing of her feet as an out-patient in the emergency room, and she was only waiting in this area for her blood results. If she had something serious come up, the doctors would need to decide if she’d need an antibiotic or something to counteract whatever Bobbie had put in her bloodstream.

  “You seem more coherent.”

  “I am,” Tessa said, tucking her hair. “It’s amazing what food, water, and painkillers will do.” She flashed Janey a smile. “Have they found Riggs and Bobbie?’

  “No,” Janey said. “At least not in the past couple of hours.” It had taken her that long to get all the information from Chief Trivett that was available, and then get on a ferry to Cape Cod. “But they know—or at least suspect—that they’re on Viola Martin’s boat. They don’t know where she is.”

  Janey looked at Tessa, watching for any sign of recognition. “Was she on the yacht with you, Tessa?”

  “I didn’t see anyone but Bobbie and Riggs,” she said. “But I didn’t explore everywhere. My goal was to get off the boat as fast as possible.”

  Janey nodded. “That’s what I told the Chief. If you’d seen her, you’d have said so on the video.”

  “She’s not home?”

  “She’s not. There are signs of forcible entry, and her assistant—remember that guy I told you about? Miles?—he was knocked out in the garage. He was on his way to the hospital on Nantucket when I left to come here. As far as I know, the police haven’t been able to question him yet.”

  “So they could have Viola.”

  “Possibly,” Janey said, though in her mind, it was the truth. They’d abducted Tessa after knocking her out. Gone to Viola’s once they realized the cops were coming, and they’d stolen her boat, taken Viola with them, and knocked out Miles to get away.

  Janey sighed just thinking about everything Bobbie and Riggs had done. And for what? Some money? They’d been waiting in that house next door for years and years. The cottage sat empty most of the time. Why hadn’t they simply searched it while Mom was away at one of her other homes?

  So much still didn’t make sense.

  “Sean hired a cleaning service for the cottage,” Janey said. “They agreed to come today, so when you’re ready to go, we can grab some lunch and make our way back to Nantucket.”

  “What about Riggs and Bobbie?” she asked, fear in her eyes.

  “The cops are watching their place. They set up cameras on the house across the street,” Janey said. “They won’t come back there anyway, Tessa.”

  “They really fooled us,” Tessa said with a sigh as she leaned her head back in the armchair. “Mom loved Bobbie so much.”

  “Bobbie’s behind everything,” Janey said. “Right? Isn’t that what you found out?”

  “Yes,” Tessa said.

  “What were you doing at the cottage, Tess? You said you were going to stay in Boston last night.”

  “I went back,” she said. “Because I needed to go through the photos.” She started a tale that began with her at the library looking up the genealogy, then going to Boston to verify Richard Friedman’s death, and then back to the cottage to sort through the pictures of Daddy, Bobbie, and Riggs.

  “It was Bobbie—whose real name is Barbara—and Daddy that were step-siblings,” Tessa said. “That’s why they were so close. That’s why Mom loved her so much. She was the sister Mom never had.”

  “And we don’t know who Riggs is.”

  “I don’t,” Tessa said. “But Bobbie once went by Barbie, short for Barbara. I put all the photos in the drawer next to the fridge. I still need to go through the other stacks.”

  “We need to find whatever trunk they’re talking about,” Janey said. “I’ve had a couple of ideas about that.”

  “Yeah?” Tessa actually closed her eyes and yawned.

  “Yeah.” Janey regretted that her sister couldn’t just lie down and sleep until tomorrow morning. She can, she told herself. Get her back to the cottage, and you can go through the garage yourself. “You rest. We can talk about it later.”

  “No, tell me.” Tessa opened her eyes.

  “Okay, re
member that trunk we—” Janey cut off as the curtain got pushed aside again. This time, a man stood there. Janey rose to her feet, her eyes locked on him. “Ron.” She cast a quick look at Tessa before she moved to stand in front of her. “What are you doing here?”

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  “Really, Janey,” Tessa said. “It’s fine.” She’d have to deal with Ron sooner or later. She’d rather it not be in a hospital emergency room, with only curtains separating her from other patients, doctors, and her sister. But she didn’t get everything she wanted.

  Her older sister glared at Tessa’s husband. “I’m going to get a soda from the machine,” she said. “That’s how long you get to talk to her.” She walked out of the curtained-off area, and Ron moved to pull the yellow, billowy drapes back into place.

  He faced her, pure nerves on his face. “What did you tell her?”

  “I haven’t told her anything, actually,” Tessa said. “I did ask her if her first husband had cheated on her and if she thought she could forgive that.” She wasn’t going to sugarcoat things. Not with him. Not when he’d been lying to her for five years.

  And probably longer, she thought.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked, a measure of exhaustion in her voice. She really had been awake all night long, and she wanted nothing more than to sleep.

  “She called and said you’d been kidnapped. I got on the first plane out this morning.”

  Tessa could only look at him. Before his confession, she’d think him heroic and romantic. Right there, exactly when she needed him. “I’m fine,” she said now, unable to look fully into his eyes. Hers kept flitting all around the room, and she finally fixed them on her hands in her lap. “Did you call Ryan?”

  “Yes,” he said. “He’s the one who told me you’d been found here on Cape Cod. So I came here.”

  Tessa nodded, her mind firing all kinds of questions at her. Who is she? Why is she better than me? Why couldn’t you have just told me what you wanted?