Bobbie shook her head in mock disappointment, and Tessa couldn’t quite believe what she was hearing.
“Imagine what they’d do if they learned you girls had thousands and thousands of dollars in cash right here…” Bobbie’s blue eyes glinted with malice.
Tessa scarcely recognized her. “We haven’t found any cash,” she said, and it sounded halfway believable.
“We’ll be exonerated,” Bobbie said as if Tessa hadn’t spoken at all. “Dennis Martin’s children knew their aunt, and they knew she had a boat.” She shrugged like she’d worked out all the details of pinning the crime on Aleah, Minerva, and Lyons Martin.
Tessa didn’t hold any love for the Martins, but she didn’t want innocent people to go to jail. She lifted her phone. “I’m dialing now.” She tapped her phone icon and the keypad, keeping her eyes on Bobbie and Riggs, still a dozen paces away.
She dialed 9-1-1, but she hadn’t hit send before movement stole her attention and stalled her progress.
“She—asked—you—to—leave.” Janey appeared, her hair flying in every direction and a shovel lifted over her shoulder. She swung it down and caught Bobbie in the back. The blonde woman fell, and Janey’s primal yell filled the world with rage and fear.
Her chest heaved, and she dropped the shovel. “Call the cops, Tessa.”
Tessa fumbled her phone, her own fear choking her. She tapped the call button, and as Riggs stared at his wife and then Janey, she scrambled to get the shovel again.
“Don’t move,” Tessa said, taking a couple of quick steps forward. “Don’t you dare move, Riggs.”
Janey lifted the weapon above her head again, and Bobbie groaned.
“State your emergency,” the woman on the phone said.
“It’s Tessa Simmons,” she said. “The two people that abducted me have returned to my property, and I need help.”
“I have you at 17 Seagull Lane.”
“Yes, please hurry. And we need an ambulance. A woman has been injured.”
“I don’t want to hurt you,” Janey said. “But if you even take one wrong breath, I will.” She didn’t take her eyes from Riggs, and Tessa put her eyes back on the man.
“Who are you?” Tessa asked.
He glanced at her. “You know who I am.”
“No, who you really are,” she said. “You’re not Richard Friedman. That’s Bobbie’s last name. Or Barbara’s.”
He moved his attention to Tessa fully, and she listened as the woman said she had units on the way to the cottage.
True panic sat on Riggs’s face, and he took a step toward her. “I am Richard Friedman.”
Tessa backed up a step, because she didn’t need to pour gasoline onto a raging fire. “Whatever. I don’t care,” she said. “Just don’t move.”
Riggs kept coming toward her, and Tessa kept backing up. She reached the house and headed for the street. He hadn’t been the dangerous one before, but she hadn’t challenged his identity then.
The sound of sirens filled the air, and Riggs looked down the lane. He broke into a run, and Tessa yelped as he reached her before she really knew what was happening. He simply knocked into her, and she went sprawling back toward the house.
She hit her elbow against it, but watched Riggs turn left and go in front of the cottage. “He’s running!” she yelled into the phone.
She got her feet underneath her and followed him, but instead of going out into the dunes and then the beach, Tessa ran up the steps to the porch. She could see farther and better from the higher position, and she said, “He’s running toward The Lighthouse Inn. I bet he has a boat at the dock there.”
“I’ll re-route a unit,” the operator said. “Ma’am, you need to stay safe. Don’t attempt to follow him.”
“I won’t,” she said, her mind flying back to Janey. She hurried down the steps, because she couldn’t see Riggs anymore anyway. Around the house, she met her sister’s eyes. She’d lowered the shovel, and she stood several paces away from Bobbie, who’d sat up and crawled over to the garage door, where she leaned back into it.
She tried to get up, but couldn’t. Janey didn’t move either, and she said nothing.
A police car pulled up to the house, siren blaring loudly, and two officers jumped from the vehicle. “Ma’am,” one called.
“Down there,” she said. “The one on the ground. That’s Bobbie Friedman.”
Both officers approached cautiously, and soon enough, they had Bobbie in handcuffs. More units had arrived, and Tessa had the distinct feeling she’d be answering questions for hours.
She didn’t care. This was over now, and she might be able to sleep in the cottage without a dozen locks between her and the outdoors.
The first week of August arrived, but Ron did not come to Nantucket with it. Tessa stepped out onto the porch, two cups of tea in her hands. She approached Janey, who stood in the corner of the porch, leaning against the railing, one of her elegant robes billowing in the slight breeze.
“Tea,” Tessa said, handing her a cup.
“I love the Sound in the morning,” Janey said. “It won’t be the same on the south side of Nantucket.”
“You don’t have to move over there,” Tessa said. “We can share the cottage. There are three bedrooms on the main floor, and two upstairs.”
“Viola needs the help,” Janey said. “Miles does too, and I want to learn more about the history of that house.” She gave Tessa a smile. “I like Viola. She’s my kind of sassy.”
Tessa returned the smile. “That she is.”
They sipped their tea for a few minutes, only the sunshine and the calling of birds between them. “Are you going to go out with Sean?” she asked.
“Maybe,” Janey said. “His assistant is leaving at the end of September, and I might work for him too. I haven’t decided yet.”
“Hm. And the kids?”
“Rachel and Travis are talking about marriage,” Janey said with a smile. “They’re going to stay in Jersey and rent the house from me for now. You?”
“I called my realtor yesterday. I’m going to sell the house in Pennsylvania.” A keen sense of sadness moved through her, because she’d spent decades in that house. She’d raised her son there. But he’d moved on, and Ron didn’t care about the house he’d barely lived in. “I’m going to live here and see if I can get on at the Whaling Museum or the Historical Society. That’s almost like library work.”
“You don’t need to work at all,” Janey said. After the police had asked all their questions and apprehended Bobbie and Riggs, Janey had shown Tessa the map and the rectangles. She’d started to dig them up when Riggs and Bobbie had arrived, and they’d made her dig a little bit more.
She’d unearthed one trunk filled to capacity with cash, and they’d then dug up a second one. With all the money in the bank, the total had added up to over two million dollars. The estate had been settled in time, and both Tessa and Janey were now each millionaires.
Barely, but they still qualified.
“Neither do you.”
“I like working,” Janey said.
“I do too,” Tessa said. “I’m going to get the yard here in tip-top shape, and then I might move to Long Island.”
“You love Esme.”
Tessa grinned as two gulls soared by. “I do love her, and that’s a great house there. You should come.”
“I’m…I don’t think I’m ready to go to Long Island,” Janey said.
“So you’re not going to meet your father?”
Janey shook her head, her gaze somewhere on the horizon as her mind moved through something Tessa couldn’t even fathom.
“Maybe one day,” Tessa said, linking her arm through her sister’s. “For now, let’s just enjoy our time on Nantucket.”
“Yes,” Janey said, squeezing Tessa’s arm against her body. “That’s what I’m looking forward to. Good food, and good company here on Nantucket.”
After another brief bout of silence, Tessa said, “You’ll alway
s be my sister, Janey.”
“I know,” she said. “And you’ll always be mine.”
Read on for the first chapter of The Lighthouse Inn, the next book on Nantucket Point, featuring two women who must learn to get along as they rebuild their lives… and one of them, Julia Harper, will have to deal with finding out that her father is also Janey’s dad…
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Sneak Peek! THE LIGHTHOUSE INN Chapter One
Julia Harper faced the building where she’d be living soon, the pit in her stomach the kind that could swallow a person whole. She’d tried filling it with chocolate-covered raisins, but that had only left her five pounds heavier and somewhat sick to her stomach.
Outside the car she’d ferried over from the mainland, the wind tugged at the American flag flying high from the deck of the front part of the building.
The Lighthouse Inn.
Julia had spent years living in Nantucket with her family, both as a single woman, a married one, and a teenager. Sometimes she swore she had the white sand from the beaches out here on Nantucket Point in her blood, and something about this patch of land in the middle of so much water called to her soul.
She’d been planning to leave Manhattan anyway—at least she’d told everyone that so often that she’d started to believe it might have been true at some point. Whether it was or not didn’t matter anymore.
She’d left.
She was here now.
“Go in now,” she whispered to herself, and Julia took a deep breath, her pulse suddenly throbbing in the vein in her neck. She’d carefully applied her makeup that morning—her last in the hotel where she’d been staying in downtown Nantucket while she waited for her car and the clock to do what it was about to do.
Tick to ten o’clock on September first.
The first day of the rest of her life.
The first day of true freedom from the life she’d been encased inside for the past twenty-seven years. A life where someone else knew when to change the furnace filter. A life where someone else paid the mortgage and replaced broken doorknobs and helped the children learn how to drive.
Alan had taken very good care of Julia, and while she’d known it at the time, she’d still had quite the rude awakening when he’d walked out and she’d been faced with the enormity of taking care of their historic brownstone.
Five stories to take care of, with all of the children gone, and Julia found she didn’t want to make the trips up the steps anymore. Not to empty bedrooms. Not to a master suite with a king-sized bed that only she slept in. Not back downstairs every morning for coffee in the breakfast nook that overlooked the garden—which she now had to take care of by herself.
Her mother said she’d lived a sheltered and pampered life, and Julia hadn’t argued with her. Mother also had no room to talk, as she lived in a gorgeous, sprawling house in Southhampton, sipping lemonade next to the pool while Dad took care of the house, the land, the cars, and the bills.
Julia stood from her sedan, hitched her purse higher onto her shoulder, and faced the inn. The bottom portion of the building had a flat roof and could only be described as a two-story cube. The double-wide front doors sat smack-dab in the middle of the square structure, a deep, rich mahogany that actually settled her nerves slightly.
She’d been to The Lighthouse Inn first as a teenager, delivering groceries to the caretakers. Now, she was going to be the caretaker.
Along with someone else, she reminded herself as she took the first step toward the entrance. The Nantucket Historical Society had originally wanted a couple to live in the inn and run it, the way the previous caretakers had done. Phil and Margo Michaels had taken care of The Lighthouse Inn for over thirty years, and they’d retired at the beginning of the summer.
The Historical Society had had a terribly hard time finding a replacement couple, and the inn had been closed when suitable caretakers hadn’t been found. They’d then changed the job listing, and since Julia couldn’t seem to stay away from Nantucket, when she’d seen she didn’t need to be one-half of a couple to apply for the job, she’d taken the bold step and done it.
Shock coursed through her even now that she’d gotten the job.
Ironically, working in and managing Alan’s real estate office had been the deciding factor in her application. She was very used to a lot of moving pieces, and she’d once managed a diner as well. As The Lighthouse Inn operated as a bed and breakfast, the job required cooking skills. The inn traditionally had offered activities for its occupants as well, and Julia’s old, unused marine biology degree had come in handy too.
She had not met the other person who would be living in The Lighthouse Inn with her. She didn’t even know the other woman’s name. She’d been told to be at the inn today, at ten o’clock to sign her contract, and then she’d be able to move into the tiny private suite where she’d be living for the foreseeable future.
A sense of giddiness and the urge to throw up hit her simultaneously, and she wobbled slightly in her heels. No one who came to Nantucket Point wore heels, but Julia had wanted to appear sophisticated and professional. At almost fifty years old, heels also firmed up her legs and gave her a sense of confidence, despite the extra pounds she enjoyed due to the chocolate-covered stress eating she did.
The breeze pulled at her dark hair, which she tucked behind her ear as the thwapping, rippling sound of the flag met her ears. She loved that sound, and she calmed further.
She reached the door and pulled it open. All the signs she’d seen when she’d come for her interviews were now gone, but the door still squealed on its hinges. That would be one of the very first things she’d fix, because why endure such a sound when a couple of spritzes of WD-40 would make this door open silently?
Pride filled her as she first tasted the air conditioning inside the building. The weather had started to cool slightly at night, and come Tuesday next week, the tourists would be mostly gone from the beaches of Nantucket.
“Julia,” a woman said, and Julia turned toward the familiar tone.
“Vivian.” Julia smiled and changed direction. “Good morning.”
“It’s good to see you again.” She stood in the doorway leading into the small office where Julia would work with her partner to run the inn. The lobby of the inn sat right in the middle of the building, with staircases moving up and down behind the ten-foot counter that served as the check-in desk.
The Lighthouse Inn only had five rooms available per evening. Both she and her partner would have a private suite on the bottom floor, and while Julia hadn’t lived in a basement in a very long time, she was actually ready to get her things moved in, roll up her sleeves, and get The Lighthouse Inn back open.
The Historical Society had said there would be a budget for renovations and cleaning, and that they’d like the inn open in time for the holidays. Julia couldn’t imagine a scenario where she couldn’t get a five-bedroom house operational in two months, because when she’d toured the inn, it wasn’t in that bad of shape.
Yes, all of the carpet needed to be replaced. The walls required a fresh coat of paint. The deck off the back of the inn needed to be reinforced and re-stained. It connected via a narrow walkway to the fishing dock that extended right out into the water.
The main level housed the lobby, a public restroom, the small office, the kitchen, and the dining room. All five guest rooms were located on the second floor, and the third floor became the lighthouse tower that extended another seventy-four feet above the main building.
The lighthouse itself was no longer operational, though it had once been responsible to help guide seafarers at night. Another lighthouse down the beach and out
on the isthmus of the Point did work, but no one stayed there as part of their magical visit to Nantucket Island.
Julia reached Vivian and shook her hand, her smile cemented in place now. She wasn’t going to let it slip, not even for a moment, until she had all of her boxes moved in and her car parked in the single employee slot.
She’d been told that the other woman didn’t have a car, and she’d readily agreed to share hers so the two of them could get to the downtown area or anywhere else on the island where they needed to go.
“Maddie isn’t here yet,” Vivian said, turning back to the office. “Come on in, though, and we’ll get your contract signed. She signed hers last night, and she’s all moved in already too.” Vivian sighed with a measure of exhaustion in the sound as she sank into the chair behind the desk. “I caught sight of her leaving for a morning walk when I got here.”
She flashed a professional smile and picked up a pen. “I’m sure she’ll be back soon enough, and the two of you will finally get to meet.”
“Mm.” Julia sat in the single chair opposite the desk, perching right on the edge of it and letting her purse fall to the ground. She just needed to get her name inked on this employment contract. Then she’d be ready to take the first step into the next phase of her life.
Almost fifty. Single. Trying to figure out how to parent adult sons.
And now, instead of reading her favorite novels while Alan went to work, checking in with the progress of her children as they went to college, and going to lunch with her friends, Julia was about to become co-caretaker of The Lighthouse Inn.
“So this is a year-long contract,” Vivian said, as if Julia hadn’t paid attention the first time they’d gone over the requirements of the job. “If you intend to quit, you must give us three months’ notice, so we can avoid shutting down the inn as we’ve had to do this summer.” Vivian looked at Julia over the rims of her black glasses.
The Cottage on Nantucket Page 32
