Girls of Summer

by C. E. Hilbert

  Swiveling her head she strained to take in the full perimeter of the cellar. A wave of nausea swelled through her frame. Sucking in a deep breath, she tried to slow her heart, but the roll of queasiness continuing to ripple. With another long breath, she struggled to sit against the wall behind her. Both hands were lassoed together. Being bound tugged at her shoulders and made sitting nearly impossible. With each movement, the question of why she was ‘captive’ seared deeper into her mind. Her last memory was of her car exploding into a ball of flame. And then nothing. Everything was black until the drip.

  Her bare heels scraped against the grit and muck mixture masquerading as a floor. Ramming her feet for leverage, slashing pain shot from her ankle and reverberated through every cell as she shoved and scooted until her back rested against the crusty wall. The move showered soot and debris onto her head. Georgie coughed against the fragments falling into her mouth and nose.

  Pain whipped through her body.

  Her head thumped.

  Every joint ached.

  The exposed wounds on her hands, feet and face burned with the dirt peppering her skin. But sitting upright had been worth the torture.

  The faded daisy chain painted across the crumbling walls and onto the shelves around the room was a slingshot back in time. The paint was chipped and worn but she recognized the childish art. The walls of the root cellar encompassed the last art project she’d completed with her mother before her death.

  During a long tornado watch that forced them into the ancient root cellar, Momma kept her focused on perfecting the depth and movement techniques which created the wistful chain of daisies on the walls.

  Although, the main house had a large fruit cellar off of the kitchen, she and Momma had been painting by the creek when the storm sirens sounded. The wind had accelerated with the warning sound. Hail and rain whipped around them as they sprinted with their acrylic easel sets, a gift Daddy bought the duo as Christmas ‘presence’ presents the previous December. Each year he said one present needed to be focused on the gift of being together. The memory warmed her heart, freeing the tears frozen in her eyes.

  She was at Colin’s Fancy.

  She was home.

  Worry and fear wafted from her in a haze. This cellar sat steps away from the guest house she shared with Charlie before the fire.

  Home?

  Dread creeped up her chilled spine consuming the spurt of joy. Her chest tightened. Air seemed to constrict in her throat. Why bring her home? Who would bring her home?

  What plan could be successful bringing her to the one place she felt safest in the world?

  The one place no one would ever think to look for her.

  35

  Staring into the hazy sunrise peeking over the charred roof line of the guest house, Mac kneaded between his collarbone and neck.

  Georgie had been missing for over twelve hours.

  Twelve hours with no note.

  Twelve hours with no ransom request.

  Twelve hours with no lead other than the scratchy video of her collapsing outside Watershed offices.

  Twelve hours after her car exploded in the parking lot.

  Rumors were already swirling around town that Bent’s girls were cursed. The business brain Bent had cultivated and nurtured in Mac for nearly a decade screamed for the need to bail water out of the sinking ship tied to his daughters. But Mac’s heart longed to save his mentor’s girls.

  He loved Georgie like a little sister. Since the moment she told him to consolidate movements on his throw to second, he’d tucked her under the broad, big brother umbrella. He had watched her grow from awkward teen to young lady in what felt like a blink of his eye. He would walk over hot coals to save her. He just needed to know where she was. He owed Bent his life, and he would find a way to save his daughters. Georgie and Charlie.

  He couldn’t explain the invisible connection to Charlie. Mac felt a brotherly affection and protective instinct with Georgie, but with Charlie his desire to save her, to protect her from the world threatening to suck her under, was like oxygen. He couldn’t live without her.

  When had his feelings for her become a lifeline? Mixed messages seemed to be an art form for Charlotte Dixon. One minute she had an exterior rivaling the best bronze bust in Cooperstown and the next vulnerability poured out of her. It drove his need to protect her with everything in his physical, emotional and mental being. Regardless of what she thought or didn’t of him, Mac’s heart, his whole person, needed her. He wasn’t too proud to admit he needed Charlotte Dixon in a way he’d never thought possible.

  Over the last year, he watched from afar as his brother Sean succumbed to the love of his soon to be wife, Maggie, their mutual affection for Christ deepening their romance. But he and Charlie? Even if she wasn’t one of the most difficult women he’d ever met, she was his boss, if only on a technicality. And, yet he couldn’t deny his uncontrollable desire to protect and pamper her. He wanted to shower her with his love and the love of Christ. He loved her. He loved her and she appeared to barely tolerate him.

  He pinched the bridge of his nose, clamping his eyes shut against the ombré marigold sunrise warming the low country morning. Regardless of his burgeoning emotions tangled with Charlie, one fact was undeniably true: Georgie’s disappearance was likely intimately connected to his dark-haired beauty.

  Somehow Charlie, and more likely, her mother, was at the center of the latest tragedy in a catastrophic set of dominos toppling since the arrival of Bent’s prodigal daughter.

  But what could be the purpose of kidnapping Georgie?

  “They want to hurt me. To teach me a lesson.” Charlie’s voice floated over him like a whisper.

  Pivoting toward her, a sense of peace poured through him, settling in his heart. They may not have a future together, but he trusted there was a purpose to his heart’s choice beyond fulfilling Bent’s wish for his daughters to find a relationship with each other. And at the moment, his purpose was to comfort Charlie.

  He closed the distance between them and wrapped his arms around her gaunt frame. Her arms were laced tightly across her middle, not allowing him to pull her tight. “How are you?”

  She stepped out of his protective circle, rubbing her biceps against the chill of the early morning. “How am I supposed to answer that question, Taylor? My little sister, who has never even hurt a bug in her life, is missing. Because of me. Because of my mother. Because…” Her voice broke against the tears streaming down her cheeks. “I don’t know how to fix this. I knew the moment I trusted anyone with my secrets, trouble would be quick on trust’s heels. First Remy, and now Georgie. Everyone I love is in danger. It’s all my fault. I should have kept my mouth shut. Puttered away in South Carolina. Allowed my mother to ruin the gallery. I could have been a good ostrich. I was for most of my life. Burying my head in the sand. Ignoring the truth. Guarding myself and others against the weakness of my mother. Why didn’t they just take me? Why are they doing this? Why is she doing this?”

  The weight of her decision to bring first Remy, and then Mac, Georgie, and the FBI into her trust, visibly blanketed her in misery and regret. Doing the right thing often came with consequences most were unwilling to go into debt to pay. Charlie was paying with her very spirit.

  Tugging her into his arms, he drew her back, wrapping her shivering body against his chest. Resting his chin atop her tousled hair, he lowered his voice to a whisper. “We’ll find her. She’ll be home safe and sound, singing in the praise band before you know it.” But even as the words slipped out the image of Remy’s body kept alive by machines flashed in his mind.

  Nothing was certain.

  Nothing except the love of God, Mac’s love for Charlie, and his desire to bring Georgie home safe. Bent trusted Mac to protect his girls, and he would do anything to ensure they were safe. Even if ‘anything’ left him with nothing.

  36

  Charlotte melted into the strength emanating from Mac’s embrace. Sealing her vision agains
t the heartbreaking beauty of the warm hued sunrise, she wanted to pretend.

  She wanted to pretend today was the start of a glorious day. A day she could use to begin to explore the unexpected desire she felt for the man holding her. A day she could dedicate to joy rather than worry. A day when she could sit in the stands, eat popcorn, and watch the Bombers blow a three-run lead. A day when her biggest concern was finding a partner for Watershed’s new series of distribution centers. A day when she could discover a new artist on the boardwalk. A day she could be someone other than the daughter of Anastasia Bickford. A day when she could be anyone else. Anywhere else. But she didn’t have the luxury of wistful longings.

  Instead of popcorn, partners, and paintings, she had a day filled with palpable fear and panic rising by the minute. Where was Georgie? Was she cold? Hurt? Alone? Alive?

  Rubbing her eyes, she shuffled out of Mac’s tender hold. She drew in a deep breath and twisted to face him. Salt and pepper stubble shadowed his rigid jaw line, emphasizing the raw masculinity burning under his surface, but his warm brown eyes tugged at her, promised her a safe place to land. Protection from the storms of life. How she longed to settle in the unspoken promise. But she couldn’t put another person at risk. Regardless of how much she wanted to lean into Mac Taylor and his island-in-a-storm persona, Baba made her situation very clear. Her circle must be a circle of one. If she wanted Baba’s help, and the aid of the ladies tea society Charlotte was certain her grandmother turned to for assistance, she needed to separate herself from Mac, Savvy, and the dozens of police officials who had set up a temporary command center in the dining room of the main house.

  How did her life continue to spiral?

  “Charlie?” Mac’s voice broke through the series of accusations playing on a loop in her mind since Murphy busted into her dinner with her mother.

  With a shake of her head, she lifted her gaze to meet the pull of Mac’s focus but resisted the silent offer of comfort. “I’m fine. I just want to find Georgie.”

  “We all do,” Murphy said from the door connecting the back porch to the house.

  Mac turned to face him. “Do you have any leads? Is it odd that there hasn’t been a ransom demand yet? Were the state police able to restore the missing video footage from ballpark?”

  Charlotte squeezed his hand. Mac’s worry oozed out of him, feeding the panic threatening to overtake her.

  Special Agent Murphy shook his head. “Georgie’s only been gone twelve hours, so her kidnappers may still be on the move with her. They may not want to formalize a demand until they feel as though they are safely…away.”

  The image of her delicate sister hidden and shackled seared her mind. But the thought of what not receiving a ransom could mean was beyond unthinkable.

  “As far as the footage, the explosion knocked the video out for a one block radius. But our techs preliminary findings point to the same bomb maker as the hit on your car, Miss Dixon.”

  A chill chased up Charlotte’s spine with the spontaneous recall of being thrown against the cement pylon. Since the accident, she woke nearly every night in a cold sweat with the memory, and now Georgie would likely have the same haunting nightmare.

  “Why do they believe the bomb maker was the same?” Mac asked.

  “Bombers are like artists. They all have a signature. Most criminals have a ‘tell’ they don’t even realize. That’s how we catch them.” Murphy tilted his focus to Charlotte. “And I always catch them.”

  “Good.” Charlotte lifted her chin and stared at Murphy. “You catch this guy and you make him pay. No one hurts my family. Whoever this person is, he or she messed with the wrong sisters.”

  ~*~

  Charlotte stalked past Cade into the main house. He sighed and turned to the wide balustrade surrounding the porch.

  “She’s hurting,” Mac said. “You need to start trusting her. She loves her sister. I don’t think I realized how much until recently. But Charlie’s been trying to protect Georgie, the whole family, from Stasi and the drama connected with her since she was old enough to know the difference between right and wrong.”

  Cade snorted. “What makes you think Charlotte Dixon has ever cared for anyone but Charlotte Dixon? She cared so much that her best friend is comatose and her sister is missing. That kind of care is catastrophic.”

  “Listen. I don’t know what motivated this vendetta you have against Charlotte’s mother, and by association Charlotte, but you have to see that she’s been trying to help. Did you ever stop to think how your interference in Charlie’s life…your investigation into her mother and her art gallery were the catalysts to her accident, the house fire, Remy’s accident, and now Georgie’s kidnapping? Glass houses, man.” Mac shoved against the railing and headed toward the house. “Watch the stones.”

  Cade turned his back toward the French doors. Taylor was right. At least partly. Cade had been throwing stones, but they were aimed at his glass house since the call reporting Georgie’s disappearance came through twelve hours earlier. If he could go back, stop his investigation, focus on something other than the corruption caused by the bratva in New York he would. He wished he had the option. But then again, two years ago when he’d started down this path, if his future-self told his past-self of the destruction attached to his investigation he wouldn’t have cared. Nothing would have stopped his insatiable need for vengeance, to destroy the people he held responsible for his brother’s death.

  He might be able to fool his partner, his boss, and his parents. They believed he was driven by a black and white need to right wrongs and ensure justice was served. But, he knew the truth. In his heart, he wanted vengeance. The Old Testament God he’d heard about when he went to Sunday school as a child may have claimed vengeance for Himself, but Cade felt a longing to enact his own eye for an eye on the bratva. And, with sweet Georgie Dixon now missing, and her sister clearly distraught, he questioned whether he had claimed something that was never his.

  He stared at the charcoal remnants of the guest house where the two sisters had been living. Had he made the situation worse? If something happened to Georgie would he be able to ever look himself in the mirror again?

  “Murph.” O’Neal poked his head through the doorway. “You’ll want to get in here. We got something.”

  37

  Huddled in the corner, Charlotte felt as though she’d been dropped onto a movie set. The formal dining room was jammed with laptops, police radio scanners, and maps of every county and shoreline along the Eastern seaboard. Every available seat was filled with a menagerie of law enforcement ranging from county sheriff deputies to the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division or SLED. And, of course, the ever-present FBI, including her new bestie, Special Agent O’Neal, who was sipping a cup of coffee, nodding at the information a SLED agent was sharing with him. How was she supposed to follow Baba’s instructions and extricate herself from the search for her sister? Dismiss half of the police force in the low country? The idea seemed ridiculous, and yet Baba was clear. If she wanted her grandmother’s help, and the help of the ladies’ tea society Babushkas, she needed to find a way to separate herself from the team as desperate to find Georgie as she was.

  “Hey, Charlotte,” Mellie’s whispered greeting yanked Charlotte from her spiraling thoughts. With a single shoulder squeeze, her aunt’s oldest friend conveyed all of her worry and consolation. When Charlotte arrived at Colin’s Fancy the prior evening, she was greeted by Mellie who was the first responder to Savvy’s cry for help. Mellie spent the night, soothing Savvy and seeing to the needs of the growing hoard of law enforcement gathered on the first floor of the house. “I need to be getting back to my boys, but you call if you hear anything or if you or Sav need anything, ya hear?” She patted Charlotte’s cheek as she turned toward the foyer.

  “Oh, I nearly forgot,” she said over her shoulder. “Your assistant dropped off some mail needing your attention yesterday evening. Savvy was occupied with the police, so I stacked it in the stud
y. It’s on your Daddy’s old desk.”

  Waving a quick good-bye to Mellie, Charlotte closed the door behind her and twisted toward the long hall leading to her father’s office.

  The door opened with a high-pitched squeak. Few had entered her father’s study since his passing. Only the cleaning lady, and Georgie, when she needed to wallow and not let others see. But Charlotte avoided the room entirely, with the exception of Christmas morning.

  Everyone in the family had huddled around the kitchen table eating cinnamon rolls and breakfast casserole, and the sheer warmth of familial love chilled Charlotte to the bone. She wandered away from the group, needing air for her lungs and solace for her soul, and stepped across the threshold of her father’s private sanctuary with little thought. His scent, a mixture of leather and fresh cut pine, hung in the air like a canopy draping the room in Bentley Dixon. Her fingers traced a long, unseen line across the edge of his desk, over his stuffed bookshelves, and unread newspapers. After her fingers explored his study, Charlotte curled up in one of the two deep mahogany leather chairs angled toward the beveled glass view of the woods connecting Colin’s Fancy and the Reynard property. The tears she’d securely locked in a box during the funeral and weeks following released like a spring dam that morning. She’d allowed this room to be the place where she could mourn her father and the relationship she’d never had with him.

  And here she was again, lost, with no direction on how to find her sister or bring her mother to justice. She pushed forward into the room, drew in a deep breath of her father’s aroma and sank into the odd comfort she found in this space. A comfort she knew she didn’t deserve, but one she clung to with the fragments of her life slipping through her grasp.

  Embracing the moment of peace, she trailed her glance around the room. Her vision rested on her father’s Bible perched on the edge of the reading table. The worn leather was patchy in spots and fringed on the edges. Papers and tabs were shoved, seemingly with haphazard thought, between the binding and fragile pages. Gently lifting the book between her hands, she allowed the cover to open naturally where the pages were marked by a folded church bulletin dated ten years earlier. Tugging the paper from its home she carefully unfolded the yellowing bulletin filled with typed announcements, the order of worship and a sermon entitled, “The Lost and Found”. Her father’s handwriting was visible across the worn page. Scribbled notes from the message, she imagined. But in the bottom of the bulletin she noticed smudged ink across deliberately scrawled words: