Safe Harbor

by Antoinette Stockenberg

  What do you think, you silly cow?

  Holly turned to her devastated mother and said, "Don't get up, Mom; I'll see Mrs. Betson to the door."

  But Charlotte did get up, and let herself be kissed by Marjory, and let herself seem grateful for Marjory's words of comfort: "You're well rid of him, Charlotte, honestly. Get down on your knees and thank God. That woman had him under an evil spell."

  Holly's mother turned away and left the room with tears in her eyes, and Holly led cruel Marjory straight to the front door. She swung it open and resisted the urge to shove the harpy through it, confining herself to a simple "Good night."

  But Marjory wasn't quite done. "I didn't want to go into too many details with your mother," she whispered in a funereal tone. "But I got the impression that they found evidence of violence on the Vixen, too. There was blood. Everywhere."

  "Good night," Holly said again, but this time her voice was shaking.

  She locked the door and ran back to her mother, expecting to find her in a new round of hysterics, but Charlotte was nowhere to be seen. After a quick circuit of the house, Holly climbed back onto the darkness of the upper deck. All she found were two empty chaises; her mother had vanished as mysteriously as Eden. Alarmed, Holly scrambled back down the attic steps, shouting her mother's name as she descended to the main floor.

  She found her in the ransacked study, cleaning up the wreckage. The scene was surreal: Charlotte Anderson clutching a bamboo garden rake, trying to gather torn-apart books into a pile on the varnished floor.

  Charlotte looked up at her daughter with a wretched smile. "This isn't working, Holly. Would you please bring up the snow shovel from the basement?"

  "Mom, leave it. I'll take care of it," Holly said, taking the rake gently from her.

  Her mother surrendered the tool, but after that she walked straight to the desk and began picking up the broken glass that was littered over the desktop, dropping each shard with a thunk into a metal wastebasket.

  "Let me clean this up tomorrow," Holly implored. She was completely unnerved by the vacant look in her mother's eyes.

  "Don't be silly. You can't just keep coming here day after day. You have work to do, a career to develop. Have you finished painting that dresser set for that little girl what's-her-name?"

  "Not yet."

  "I had a darling idea for a whirligig, by the way," said Charlotte as she filled the wastebasket thunk by thunk. "How about this: a boat propeller that attaches to the bumper of a car and spins when the car moves. Actually, it's not my idea; I saw one in Newport and forgot to tell you about it."

  "It might be hard to park in tight quarters," said Holly, smiling. "Please. I'll get a dustpan and broom."

  "No need ... no need," her mother argued with aching cheer. "But I really could use the snow shovel. Ivy will be here any minute."

  "No, she won't, Mom; you told me not until the day after tomorrow."

  "Oh, well, if you're going to nitpick."

  "Don't you want to talk about this?"

  "Why? There's nothing to say," said Charlotte, turning her eerily luminous gaze on her daughter. "Eric didn't do it."

  "I didn't say he did, Mom, but the police—"

  "Oh, the police. They don't know your father. He wouldn't do a thing like that. How could he? He doesn't know the first thing about murdering someone." She held a pencil by its eraser flat against the desktop and began using it as a sweep to clear the smaller shards of glass.

  "No, not murder," said Holly, wincing as she watched her mother court injury. "Of course it wasn't murder. It was something else ... an argument that went too far, maybe. But anyway, they haven't even found her yet! She could be alive and wandering around dazed on some island."

  But how to explain the blood on the boat?

  Her mother frowned and said, "We musn't let the girls play in here. There's glass all over. You know why Marjory never told me that Eden and your father had an argument, don't you? It was because she didn't want me to have even that small satisfaction—knowing they weren't getting along. She only told me about the love-play—the part that she knew would hurt. And now that I do know about the argument, it brings no relief."

  Sweeping the last of the glass bits into the wastebasket, she said forlornly, "I have to stop beating Marjory at bridge. She isn't a very good loser."

  "Mom—you're bleeding!"

  Charlotte turned up her fingertips and stared at them: they were dripping with blood.

  "How did that happen?" she asked with weary surprise.

  Completely spooked by the hour's events, Holly ran to the kitchen for paper towels and wrapped them around her mother's hand, then got her to the upstairs bathroom where she tweezed out the glass bits and patched up the cuts with gauze and tape.

  This time there were no Florence Nightingale jokes, no thrill of proximity, as there had been when she tended Sam and his scratched-up arms. This time there was only a profound sense of disbelief on Holly's part, and an even profounder one on her mother's. The silence of the younger woman bounced and echoed off the silence of the older until the room fairly screamed with it.

  Holly turned down the covers for her mother and helped her into her nightgown. "Don't use that hand for anything more than you have to, or that middle finger's bound to start up again," she cautioned tiredly. "Now try to sleep."

  She tucked her mother in as she would a child and turned off the lights. In the hall outside of the bedroom, she heard her mother call out plaintively, "Do you think the police will come here, too?"

  Holly stopped and called back, "I don't see why," which was a lie. "But maybe."

  "Because I'm not ratting on him."

  Despite her weariness, Holly smiled. "Rat, how?"

  "You know. By saying that that he was vicious. Because that isn't true. He's only oblivious. And blind. And selfish."

  Well, that should reassure anyone who asks.

  "I'll be here if you need me, Mom. Just shout."

  "If the police come, tell them I'm not home." After a pause her mother let out a little moan and said, "I hate him. I really do."

  There wasn't much that Holly could add to that, so she got out the dustpan and brush, a broom, and a couple of boxes and took herself off to her father's study to clean up the mess before her mother made a bigger mess trying to put it right.

  The extent of the wreckage was daunting. It had taken her mother a lot of time and energy to rip up so many books so completely. Holly was at the cleanup for well over an hour; glass was everywhere. She cleaned every surface—shelves, desktop, floors, the lot—sweeping the glass and then vacuuming, and after that, going over all the furniture with a dampened cloth and finishing with a spray of polish.

  She was about to take the last of the boxes out to the back porch when she heard screams of terror spilling down from the second floor, screams that sent her up the stairs two at a time to wake her mother from her sleep. It wasn't easy; her mother was caught in the bog of her nightmare as surely as any lost soul on a moor.

  "Mom, mom ... it's all right," Holly said, turning on the light. "Wake up, wake up, shh ... shh," she said over and over. Her mother didn't see her at all. She was sitting bolt upright in bed, shaking her head violently and waving her arms in rejection—but of what, Holly didn't know.

  Finally, mercifully, her mother managed to pull herself out of her terror. Teeth chattering, body shaking, she clung to Holly with ice-cold hands and in a broken, shivering voice said, "There was blood ... oh, God, there was blood ... everywhere. In the galle ... in the cockpit ... on the decks ... dark, wet blood everywhere ... I saw a body ... caught in seaweed ... her eyes were open, huge, underwate ... there was a gash across her face ... horrible ... horrible ..."

  "You were upset, that's all; Marjory upset you," Holly murmured, holding her mother tight. But she knew that her mother put great store in her dreams. She always had, and now was no exception.

  "I have to tell them; I have to tell the police. They can't just leave her the
re!"

  Holly, stronger by far, had to restrain her until she calmed down. "We'll go right to the police tomorrow morning," she promised. That, too, was a lie; Holly was becoming quite proficient at it where her mother was concerned. "But for now, just think of happier things. Think of Ivy and Cissy and Sally ... they'll be here before you know it. Cissy will have two new teeth and Sally will be missing two baby ones. I cleaned up the study, so you don't have to worry ... shhh ... shhh. We'll have such fun ... shh, shhh ...."

  And meanwhile, all Holly could see was an image of Eden's face, gashed and bug-eyed, floating underwater.

  Chapter 12

  The next morning, Charlotte Anderson couldn't lift her head, let alone drive to the police and explain her psychic powers. She had a migraine again.

  Holly, bleary-eyed herself from a terrible night's sleep, pulled the curtains and then the drapes across the drawn shades in the guest room where her mother now slept, and then she drove back home.

  She hadn't expected to spend the night away from home and had left the back door unlocked. Holly was trusting, but mostly she was lazy: the lock had to be jiggled just right to make it work, and sometimes she didn't like to bother. It was a good thing, too, because she had just left her purse and house key at her mother's place. Annoyed at the lapse, she detoured around to the back and let herself in.

  First up: a shower. Second: coffee. Holly would have been more than willing to exchange the coffee for a nap, but that didn't seem to be in the cards. She felt obligated to go to the police, if for no other reason than to get the real version of events.

  But would they tell her, that was the question. A lot of what Marjory had said—whether or not she had grossly exaggerated it—was insider stuff. Unfortunately Holly wasn't married to a petty officer. She couldn't even claim to be a gossipy, nosy neighbor. She was merely the daughter of a possible suspect. If he was a suspect. If there was a crime!

  She tried again to call her father at her parents' year-round house in Providence, but again, all she got was the machine. She left part of a message and then was cut off: the tape was full.

  Where was he? More than anything else, that's what hurt the most: Eric Anderson's willingness to abandon all contact with his own flesh and blood. Holly hung up the phone in a state of profound depression. The earthquake that had sent her family into upheaval three weeks earlier had been bad enough. Was it necessary to have a volcano erupt all over them, too? What next? Locusts?

  She thought of Eden. Her mother's description of Eden under water had been too vivid, too bone-chillingly horrific for Holly to dismiss it as either a nightmare or even some shocking form of wishful thinking. The frightening truth was that her mother had had premonitions before, mortal ones, and they had come true.

  Most horrible of all: what if it wasn't a drowning accident at all, but a killing staged to look like one? If her father and Eden really had had an argument ... if it had escalated and ended fatally ... if panic had set in ...

  Holly's thoughts ping-ponged between the two deadly scenarios before bouncing off to her earlier, more optimistic theory: maybe Eden had simply decided that there was no future for her with Eric Anderson and had packed up her engraving and gone on her way.

  Why not? Even at her most innocent and adoring, Holly would never have described her father as the charismatic type. Teddy bear, maybe—on a good day. But magnetic? He was far too serious about life. And for all his money, he wasn't exactly a high roller. Eden seemed like the type who'd need more than a quiet anchorage to keep her happy.

  If only.

  Impulsively, Holly picked up the phone to call her sister—but what was there to relate? Wild gossip. She hung up the phone. Like it or not, she was going to have to go to the police to verify Marjory's story. She considered whether she should tell them about the nightmare as well, then dismissed the idea. They'd think that she was as delusional as her mother. In any case, it wasn't as if her mother could give them the exact latitude and longitude of Eden's body.

  Showered but unrefreshed, Holly dragged herself back down the steps, heading for the coffee that had just finished brewing. She was in the middle of pouring that first coveted cup when she heard a loud knock on the door.

  Police?

  She took a quick sip, then set down the cup and went to let them in. It was better this way; more private. She opened the door and was unsettled to see not a man in blue but a man in brown. His suit, his shirt, his shoes, his tie—all brown. His hair, his eyes, his teeth all brown.

  Clearly he wasn't there to buy a whirligig or a painted birdhouse. "Yes?" she said, all too aware that her charming cottage was situated out of view.

  "Good morning," he said with a sudden, twisted grin that revealed a big gold tooth. "If you could help me I'm looking for Eden Walker."

  "No, I'm sorry," Holly said quickly. "She doesn't live here anymore. Sorry." She smiled nervously and began closing the door on him.

  He tilted his head to peer through the opening. Again the grotesque, ill-timed grin. "But she used to live here, right? That's what they told me." He held up a sheet of notepaper. Holly recognized the logo of the Flying Horses Gallery but not the handwriting.

  "No, never. Eden lived in the apartment above the barn next door. But she's moved out. Permanently. Sorry." Her voice was higher-pitched now, with a note of panic in it.

  "You're Holly Anderson, right?" he said through a newly venemous squint. "Her friend?"

  Holly wouldn't say yes and wouldn't say no. "Eden's dead," she blurted. "Drowned."

  "Bullshit, dead!" he snapped. His hand gripped the door as she tried to slam it shut. "Where is she?"

  "No one knows; you have to believe me! The Coast Guard are searching for her now, right now," she stammered. "Call them, see for yourself."

  "You're her friend, you're in this with her. You think I can't see that?"

  He was near enough for her to smell the stench of his breath. She wanted to run, but her instincts told her to stand fast: if she turned away, he'd surely chase after her.

  "If she is alive," she said in desperation, "I'll let you know right away. I will. Just tell me who you are and where to call."

  He snorted, a brutish, animal sound, and said, "Tell her I'll be back."

  "How can I, when she's—"

  "Tell her. Or I'll be back to see why not."

  He gave the door a sudden, vindictive push. The bottom stile dug into her bare foot, sending a bolt of agony through her. Holly sucked back a cry of pain, then slammed the door shut and locked it as he turned away. Limping, she ran to the back door and frantically jiggled the doorknob button into its locked position as well. By the time she remembered to race back to the front window and look for a license plate, the car had pulled out of view.

  She was shaking, half with fear and half with pain. All this, because of Eden! It didn't seem possible that one woman could blow up that many bridges in such a short time. She was a relationship terrorist, and Holly for one had had enough. Was Eden dead? Good damn riddance!

  Go to the police. Tell them everything you know. About Sam Steadman; about the man in brown. Tell them lots of people are after Eden. Let the police figure it out. That's their job.

  It was the reasonable thing to do—unless it somehow ended up tightening the noose around her father's neck. Paralyzed by a fear of making a wrong move, Holly held an ice-filled towel on the arch of her foot and tried to think things through. There was absolutely no point in running off half-cocked and endangering her father unnecessarily.

  Damn you, Dad. What a fool you've been.

  She wanted to call her sister but couldn't. Wanted to call her mother but wouldn't. Didn't even know where her brother was—somewhere in the south Pacific on a research vessel. She had friends on the Vineyard, but not the kind you told your deepest, darkest secrets to. There was no one—no one—who could help her through her dilemma.

  Except Sam.

  Sam was the obvious, miserable, infuriating, appallingly perfect choice.
He could keep a confidence. He knew Eden. He was close to other people who had been hurt by her. He was smart and presentable and had a clear notion of justice, and the police would give more credence to him than they would to any daughter of a suspect. Events were swirling around Holly, and she needed to hold onto something: any old flotsam or jetsam would do.

  Even Sam.

  Still, there was no point in grieving over his absence, so Holly came up with a plan of her own. One, call the Coast Guard to verify that Eden was indeed the subject of their search. If the answer was yes, then two, call the police and tell them about the visit from the man with the gold tooth whose name she didn't know.

  And Sam?

  The hell with him; she'd tell the cops about him, too. Of course, Holly couldn't tell them where he was, either. How ridiculous. All these men with no addresses. They were like drifting souls on an alien planet. Whatever had happened to the notion of hearth and home? What was it about a sweet and cozy house on land that made men want to run—sail, fly, whatever—away from it as fast as they could? Jerks! They were all jerks.

  She went into her sweet and cozy living room with its sweet and cozy hearth and reluctantly closed and locked the oversized windows, stilling the sheer curtains in the middle of their merry waltz. The sheers became sullen; the fun was over.

  If I had someone living here, that gold-toothed guy wouldn't dare try anything funny.

  If I had a man, that guy wouldn't dare.

  If I had Sam...

  If.

  She plucked the insidious thought from her musings the way she would a weed that was hiding under her perennials: ruthlessly. Sam was gone. So what? She didn't need Sam. Clearly he didn't need her.

  Still resentful, still jumpy, she went around and locked every other window on the first floor—just in case. When she heard a car approach over the noisy crushed shells, her reaction was one of knee-jerk panic.

  Snatching her phone as if it were a gun, she ran to the window with it and peeked outside, ready to punch in 911. There sat a Corolla, red this time.

  Who would have thought that the sight of a Corolla could launch her on a rocket ride? Holly watched with rising joy as Sam got out, paused to look at her rented-but-someday-mortgaged hearth and home, shook his head, and approached the front door.