A wave of relief rolls over me, consolation that my mother wasn’t in love with a monster but with this poor woman who’s mourned her all these years. No wonder Stella went crazy after Iris’s death. She’d lost her lover and couldn’t tell a soul.
I’m flooded with compassion for Stella, overcome by the urge to confess everything to her, but I remember the empty bottle on the bedside table and the coming hurricane and bite my tongue. If I give her that information now, I don’t know what she’ll do with it.
I swipe a tissue from the box next to the bed and hand it to her. “What happened to her?” I ask.
She wipes her bloodshot eyes and takes a ragged breath. “She overdosed.”
“Was she an addict?”
She shrugs. “She’d done drugs before, but it had been a while. She was at my house—I was late to meet her. I’d had a stupid hair appointment that ran over. She got into Cole’s supply while she was waiting and…” A sob escapes her lips.
“You found her?”
She shakes her head. “Cole did. He was supposed to be out of town, but he came back early.”
The order of events match what I remember, but I find it hard to believe that the contented Iris I’d seen through the window that night left a pot on the burner and went upstairs to get into Cole’s heroin supply. “What happened when you got there?”
“He was trying to revive her, but he couldn’t. I wanted to call 911, but he said it would be faster for him to drive her to the hospital. She was gone by the time they got there.”
So Cole had lied to Stella; she had no idea about the car wreck he’d staged. “How did the press never find out about this?” I ask.
She dabs at her tears with a tissue. “I don’t know. Cole took care of it. He was really great about the whole thing actually. I was pretty messed up.”
I’m walking a tightrope trying not to give away what I know. “Did the cops ever come around?”
She nods. “I didn’t talk to them—he did. He said he told them he’d seen her slumped over the wheel of her car in a parking lot, and when he tried to check on her, saw she was in bad shape, so he pushed her aside and drove her to the hospital. He convinced me no one could know she’d OD’d on our property. It would’ve been a career-ending media circus. So I went along with his lie. I figured what did it matter. She was gone anyway.”
“Did he know about you and Iris?”
She shakes her head. “We were planning on telling him the following week. But he knew her, from before. She was one of his sleeping beauties.”
“So what did he think she was doing at your house?”
“He thought she’d come to see him, maybe to score some heroin. She knew where he kept it.”
I wrinkle my brow, trying to understand how she couldn’t see Cole’s story was thin as gossamer, full of holes and happenstance. So many parts of her account—or rather, the narrative Cole told her—don’t add up with what I know, and yet it’s clear she’s accepted his version of events as fact. But then, if she’s spent the last thirteen years trying to forget, I guess she’s likely to believe anything that allows her to do that. I want to know more but realize it’s better not to press right now. She’s wasted, and I need time to think.
One thing is certain: Cole Power is hiding something.
Stella
Sunday, June 30
The morning of our departure, I felt like hammered dog shit. My head throbbed, my stomach lurched, my face was puffy, my skin splotchy.
I wasn’t sure how much rum I’d had by the time Cole had texted the previous evening, insisting that Felicity and I meet him for a drink in the bar. Felicity had tried to stop me from going, but I wanted to hear whatever he had to say, so I somehow managed to pull myself together, and with the magic of hemorrhoid cream, contouring, and eye shadow, make it look like I hadn’t been drinking and crying all day.
When we arrived, we found the majority of the crew there, toasting their last evening on the island. Madison had already retired for the night, thank God, and Cole was drunk and so adamant that he hadn’t texted me that I had to take out my phone and show him the message. Typical Cole behavior. Felicity was right: we shouldn’t have gone. But we were there, and the crew wanted to toast me, so I couldn’t exactly turn them down.
This morning I was still furious with Cole and wanted nothing to do with the group breakfast at the restaurant. Unfortunately, room service was discontinued, our refrigerator had been emptied, and if I didn’t eat something to soak up all the alcohol splashing around in my stomach, I would most definitely hurl on the ferry. So I smeared more hemorrhoid cream and concealer beneath my eyes, applied a thick layer of foundation, and donned a sun hat and dark glasses. On the way out the door, I chucked my cigarettes in the trash. My throat burned from the number I’d smoked last night, and my mouth felt disgusting no matter how many times I’d brushed my teeth. I’d reached the end of the road with smoking.
Clouds were gathering, and the wind was strong enough I had to hold my hat in place as we trudged the million miles down the pier, across the beach, through the trees, and up the stairs to the restaurant. All the ocean-facing picture windows were boarded up, the East Asian paintings taken down, and the bottles removed from the display behind the bar. Without the views and glistening glassware, the restaurant was gloomy and bare. But there was plenty of food arranged on three wooden tables, pushed together to form a makeshift buffet.
Everyone else was already there, and the place was abuzz with the excitement of an impending emergency. Some people had even brought their bags with them so that they could board the first shuttle to the ferry directly after breakfast. There were conflicting reports about the strength and path of the storm. Some had heard it would be a category three by the time it reached Saint Genesius; others claimed they’d seen reports it might bypass us entirely. Regardless of where they fell on the prediction scale, everyone was glad to be evacuating before landfall.
Cole, however, was nowhere to be seen.
I was beginning to wonder whether something had happened to him when I felt someone grab my elbow and turned to see Kara, her dark eyes sympathetic. She hadn’t been at the bar last night, and I hadn’t seen her since she apparently rescued me from Coco’s—which of course I didn’t remember. I immediately felt the hot breath of shame on my neck and was glad for the screen of my hat and sunglasses. She gave me a little hug. “How are you?” she asked. “I’ve been thinking about you.”
“I still feel like shit,” I admitted. She didn’t need to know that the reason I felt like shit was not the drug I’d been slipped on Thursday but the amount of alcohol I’d consumed in the days since. “Thank you for saving my ass.”
She smiled. “Anytime.”
“There won’t be another time,” I said. “I hope I didn’t throw up on you or anything. I’m sorry.”
She squeezed my hand. “It could have happened to any of us. Are you coming to Guyana?”
I nodded, surprised to find she was still holding my hand, lightly rubbing her thumb across the inside of my wrist. An electric zing pierced the heavy overcoat of my hangover. “Maybe I can buy you a drink once we’re there, to say thanks,” I said.
“I don’t drink—”
“Oh.” Perhaps I’d misunderstood. But she was still stroking my wrist.
“I used to, but I liked it too much,” she explained. I could certainly understand that. “I’d love to have dinner though.”
I smiled. “Okay.”
“But you’ll have to take off your sunglasses,” she teased.
I interlaced my fingers through hers for a lingering moment before letting her hand go.
The sound of a fork hitting a glass drew our attention to the front of the restaurant, where Taylor stood on a chair. Everyone quieted down as they turned to her. “Hi, everybody,” she said. “Thank you all for your hard work on this film, and thank you for being so cool about our evacuation. We’ve just had a weather update that our friend Celia has picked up s
peed in the open water, and we are going to be moving up our departure by thirty minutes to ensure a smooth ride to Guyana.”
A murmur went through the crowd. “Mercury retrograde,” I whispered to Kara. “Always messes with travel.”
“The ferry is on its way now,” Taylor continued. “So will everyone please kindly shove whatever you’re eating in your mouth, gather your bags, and meet under the portico in front of reception ASAP? The first shuttle is already there, so anyone who has bags with them can go ahead and board. We are going to do roll call on the boat, but we’re on a tight schedule if we want to make it out before the storm, and we cannot wait for stragglers, so please, hurry. If for any reason anyone does get left behind, go to the wine cellar below this room. Cole is staying, and that is where he’ll ride out the storm. It is the most hurricane-proof place on the island. Thank you!”
The noise level in the room swelled as she stepped down from the chair. “I better go get my bag,” Kara said.
I nodded. “Me too. See you on the ferry.”
Felicity appeared at my side, proffering a blueberry bagel stuffed with cream cheese. “I know you don’t do carbs, but this was the only thing that would travel.”
I devoured the bagel as we hurried with the rest of the crowd down the stairs, across the windswept beach, and back to our bungalow. “I don’t know that a golf cart’s gonna happen now,” Felicity said as she pushed open the door. “But I can help with your bags. I only have the one.”
Our luggage was packed and waiting for us in the entryway, but Mary Elizabeth was not. Odd. She usually slept on the chair just inside the door until I returned. I whistled. “Mary Elizabeth!” Nothing. “Mimi!”
Felicity and I split up to sweep the bungalow, calling out as we moved from room to room. I pulled back the fluffy white duvet on my bed, then looked beneath it, checked the laundry basket, the giant bathtub—but they were all empty, and all the doors to the outside were firmly shut. My heart sank when we met back in the kitchen and I saw Felicity was as empty-handed as I was. “Maybe she got stuck in a closet or something,” Felicity suggested.
We checked every closet and cabinet. Nothing. I was beginning to panic. I got down on my knees and looked beneath the couch, the chairs. But no sign of my little darling. Fear coursed through my veins. Where could she be?
A knock at the door. I rushed to open it, hoping she’d gotten out and it was someone bringing her back. But it was only Jackson, his roller bag in hand. “You guys ready?” he asked. “I can help with the suitcases.”
“We can’t find Mary Elizabeth,” Felicity said.
“Shit. When did you see her last?” he asked.
“She was here when we went to breakfast,” I replied, my heart racing.
Jackson dropped his bag and stepped inside. “You check the deck?”
He slid open the sliding glass doors, and the wind whipped around us as we followed him outside. The deck was slick with moisture, and whitecaps dotted the sea. My gaze immediately went to the pool. The cover was shut, but what if she’d somehow gotten in? “Where’s the switch to the pool cover?” I asked.
Jackson flipped a lever on a panel next to the door, and I imagined her floating facedown as the pool cover slid open painstakingly slowly. I released a sigh of relief when she wasn’t there. “We have to go, or we’re gonna miss the ferry,” Jackson said as the pool cover slid shut.
My hair lashed my face as I choked back a sob. “I can’t leave her!”
Felicity put an arm around my shoulders. “Let’s do another sweep of the bungalow, and we can check the beach and surrounding area on our way to the shuttle.”
I blinked at her. Had she not understood? “I’m not leaving her.”
“But we can’t miss the ferry,” she said. “It’s not safe.”
“She’s right,” Jackson chimed in. “It’s not safe here.”
The wheels in my mind spun. There were days I would have killed myself if it hadn’t been for Mary Elizabeth. She was the only living creature that had stood by me through all my dark days, and I wasn’t about to abandon her now, in her hour of need. “Cole said the wine cellar is safe,” I asserted. “I’m staying.”
“Stella,” Jackson looked me in the eye, his countenance serious. “I hate to say this, but if she’s not in the bungalow, she’s probably in the ocean. Look around.” He gestured to the turbulent sea, the strong wind. “She weighs nothing. She could easily get swept away in this weather.”
“No! She was in the house!”
I tore into the house and ran from room to room, nearly blinded by the panic of losing her. “Mimi! Mimi!! Where are you?” I cried.
“She’s not here,” Felicity said, exchanging a glance with Jackson she must’ve thought I couldn’t see. “Let’s take the bags and go to the beach. Maybe she’s there.”
I ran out the door like a madwoman, yelling her name into the wind. A light rain was coming down now, whipped in every direction by the wind. I ran to the sea end of the pier, looking in every doorway, asking every passerby if they’d seen her. But no one had. Just as I reached Cole’s bungalow at the far end, Madison emerged, dragging her suitcase behind her.
I stepped back, surprised. “Have you seen Mary Elizabeth?” I asked.
“Oh.” She wrinkled her brow. “Yeah. I saw her down on the beach on the way back from breakfast. I wondered what she was doing out there, but figured you’d let her out to pee or something.”
I stared at the bitch, all innocent, her hair as flawless as ever. “You didn’t think maybe you should grab her?” I screeched.
“Sorry, no.” She shrugged. “She’s kinda not my responsibility.”
“Fuck you!” I screamed over my shoulder as I sprinted down the pier, past Jackson and Felicity, who stood in front of our bungalow looking concerned, all the way to the beach. “Mary Elizabeth!”
By the time I reached the rain-pocked sand, Jackson and Felicity weren’t far behind me. “What happened?” Felicity asked when she caught up.
“Madison saw her down here not long ago,” I returned, jogging toward the tree line.
“You believe Madison?” Felicity asked.
“She’s not drowned,” I insisted, ignoring her jab. “She’s here, probably scared out of her mind and looking for me. And I’m staying until I find her.”
“The last shuttle is leaving now,” Jackson said. “I’m so sorry, but we need to go.”
“Then go,” I yelled over the wind. “Both of you, go! Get out of here! But I’m not leaving.” I pushed aside a clump of palms. “Mimi! Here, girl!”
“Stella, are you sure about this?” Felicity asked. “Once the ferry leaves, you’re here. This is the last one going out.”
“I told you, I’m staying.”
“Okay.” Felicity shrugged. “Then I guess I’m staying too.”
Jackson turned to her, his face a mask of concern. “Are you serious? You’re going to stay?”
“I’m not leaving Stella here alone,” she said.
“I won’t be alone,” I said. “Cole’s staying too.”
“Even worse,” Felicity said. “I’m definitely not leaving you here alone with him.”
“Okay. Fine, then,” Jackson said. “I’m staying too.”
Taylor
I did a final sweep of my bungalow, glancing furtively through the wall of glass at the landscape of turbulent seas and leaden skies, growing darker with every passing minute. Rick had warned me when he left this morning that the weather would change quickly, but this turn was much faster and earlier than expected. God, I hoped we still had time to make it to the plane. I unplugged the satellite phone he’d loaned me so that I could call him from Guyana, confirming that it was fully charged before I turned it off and slipped it into the lower pocket of my cargo pants.
One last thing to do before I left. Steeling my nerves, I rolled my bag out the door and let it slam behind me. A gust of wind nearly knocked me off-balance as I stepped onto the rain-slick pier and turned towar
d the horizon, the opposite direction of the last stragglers hurrying toward the shuttle. The boulder in the pit of my stomach grew heavier with every footstep. I hadn’t told Rick I was going to confront Cole this morning. I hadn’t told anyone. But I had to do it before I got on that plane, because I planned never to see him again after, and I wanted to look him in the eye when I stood up to him.
At the far end of the pier, I rang his bell and waited. He opened the door almost immediately, frowning when he saw me. “Not who you were expecting?” I asked.
“What do you need?” he asked.
I could still tell him I was just checking on him and walk away. But that wasn’t the woman I wanted to be. “I need to talk to you. Can I come in?”
I ignored the snide glance he cast at my cargo pants as he opened the door wide, forcing my feet to follow him into the bungalow. Some kind of hard electronica was playing loudly over the surround-sound system while the sea pitched outside, but I could hear what sounded like the yapping of a dog coming from behind the door to his bedroom. “Is that Mary Elizabeth?” I asked, confused.
“No,” he said. “Aren’t you gonna miss your ferry?”
“This won’t take long.”
He flopped onto the couch and turned his attention to the baseball game playing silently on the television. “Spit it out.”
My heart in my throat, I walked around the couch and stood in front of him, blocking his view of the television. “I’m quitting.”
Unfazed, he craned his neck to look around me at the television. “You’ll have a hard time getting hired anywhere else.”
The Siren Page 30
