Summer Island Sisters

by Ciara Knight

  Trace pushed past her friends, past the pain, past the hope, and marched to town to face the lying, soul-crushing Dustin Hawk.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “Rhonda, you need to understand. I’m only trying to smooth things over so that both you and Trace can live in this town peacefully. Isn’t it time to let go of the past to embrace the future?” Dustin nudged the contract he’d had Kat draw up last night allowing Rhonda beach access free of charge at his resort during low and mid-season.

  “Why would I do that? It’s Trace who should be here apologizing to me and this town. She’s a fake, you know. I can’t believe you fell for her holier-than-an-angelfish attitude.”

  He didn’t know what that meant, but he wasn’t going to challenge her metaphor at the moment. “Tell me why you want to tear down her home.”

  “Not her home. It’s her father’s, and she wasn’t around when he died. Do you know who was? Me.” She impaled her chest with her thumb. “I’m the one who took him food from here.” She waved her hand around the ship-like wooden room of Skip’s restaurant. “I’m the one who picked up after him.”

  “I didn’t realize you were helping him before he passed.” Dustin wanted to make things right, and in that moment he remembered that there were two sides to every story and obviously Rhonda wanted to be heard. “Tell me about his final days. You must’ve gotten close to him in the end.”

  She shrugged and dropped her hand to the table. “I thought so, but I guess not.”

  “Why’s that?” Dustin asked in a counselor tone.

  She slammed her palm down with a smack that echoed around the restaurant. Two people eating their fish and chips in the corner watched them. “Trace wasn’t around. I came to his house daily for a year. I should’ve inherited his place, not her. I was more of a daughter to him than she has ever been.”

  Dustin fought his instinct to defend Trace. If Rhonda knew what she’d been through, maybe she’d back down. “Deep down, you understand that Trace was his daughter. No matter how much you cared for him, in the end, family obligation wins. It may not be fair, but it is the law.”

  “He didn’t leave me anything. Nothing. Not even that old clock in the kitchen. I’d wind that thing daily for him. For some reason, he liked the sound. It’s as if he never cared about me. Fathers are supposed to care, even if my bio dad never did. I thought…” Her voice faded.

  He understood now that Rhonda hadn’t tried to tear down the old house out of spite or some childhood feud. She’d been hurt. She was lashing out because she’d believed she meant more to Trace’s father than he’d indicated after leaving everything to his daughter. “You deserved better than that. Maybe I can get that clock for you.” Dustin reached out and patted her hand, a sign of a friend or confidant.

  “Trace won’t like that,” Rhonda said in a conspiratorial tone.

  He wasn’t going to engage in any conversation about Trace, so with his free hand, he scooted the document across the table. “This gives you what you wanted. Access to the beach. Read it over. Have your lawyer look over it. There’s even a place in here about clearing the edge of the hotel property so you can have an unobstructed view of the beach from your house. And of course, the shed shack in the woods will be torn down.”

  “Really?” She raised an eyebrow at him. “What will Trace say?”

  His pulse flipped and fluttered, but in the end, he hoped Trace would understand that he’d done this for peace in her life. If he couldn’t fight the big oil whale, he could at least take on the minnow in the pond. “You let me worry about Trace.”

  “Where is he?” A raving, half-dressed Trace entered Skip’s place. Her soldier-behind-enemy-lines gaze shot through him with such intensity, it knocked the wind from his lungs. He snatched his hand instinctively from Rhonda, who shoved the contract back at him.

  “Keep your fancy words. I know you’re not my friend.” The way she smiled like a devil dancing around the depraved made his skin crawl. “If it isn’t Ms. Murderer.” Rhonda sauntered up to Trace with an air of Mother Teresa Superiority. “Now everyone knows the liar you are.”

  Murderer?

  Trace lifted her hand, but Kat and Wind jumped in front of her.

  Dustin rushed to her side and faced Rhonda, making sure that Trace knew he’d always take her side. “You need to leave. I made you a fair offer. It’s up to you what you do with it.”

  Rhonda snickered. “I know exactly what I’m going to do with it.” She shot past them and disappeared out the door.

  Dustin reached for Trace, but she stepped away. A small step with a Grand Canyon-sized ravine between them. Her eyes were wide and wild, breath short and stuttered. “You! How could you?”

  Tears pooled in her eyes, but they didn’t spill down her cheeks.

  Dustin looked at her, to the girls, to the others in the restaurant, but couldn’t find the answer to his sin. “What are you talking about?” He looked to Kat. “Oh, she told you?”

  Trace looked to Kat, who only shook her head. “Told me what? That I trusted the wrong man? Why? Why’d you do it?”

  “I was trying to help. She won’t get any of your property. Only mine.” Dustin tried to gather her into his arms, to soothe her anger, but she pressed a newspaper into his chest and shoved him away. He snatched the coarse, crinkled heap before it hit the floor. On the front page, he saw it. The reason for Trace’s meltdown.

  “How?” He skimmed the article.

  “You. You’re the only one who knew anything about this. I’ll be taken to court. I’ll lose what little I have. All because of you. The least you can do is tell me why.” Trace stumbled back, but the girls were there to catch her.

  His gut knitted into a knot. A tight, constricting knot. “You don’t think that I…?” He shook his head, willing her to listen to him. “I would never!”

  Trace waved her arms in the air and turned in a circle with the robe open and her nightgown flowing around her. A vision of tortured beauty. “Then who? You were the only one I told. I didn’t even tell my friends. No one else knew.”

  Acid churned and clawed its way up his throat, spilling the putrid taste into his mouth. “I don’t know. But it wasn’t me.”

  Trace bit her bottom lip. Her angry, tight face melted into a loose sorrow. “You were the only one. The only one I trusted.”

  He tossed the paper to the side and stepped toward her, but Jewels scooted between them. “No. I don’t know what’s going on, but not here. Not now.”

  Bri moved to her mother’s side. “You don’t get to speak with her again. Not now, not ever.”

  Kat and Wind joined them, surrounding Trace in an impenetrable friendship fort. They ushered her out of his reach, out of his sight, out of his life.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Trace rowed out to Friendship Beach. The one place she knew no one would bother her. The little island across the channel that had been their haven as children and now her respite place as an adult.

  News trucks poured into their sleepy little town when the Tampa Tribune reprinted the Summer Island Gazette article online. It swooped through the cities and hit the news broadcasts in two days.

  If it weren’t for Houdini chewing a camera wire to distract the crew, she would’ve never made her escape through the back fence unnoticed. Houdini was the best.

  Stroke after stroke helped calm her nerves while crossing the channel. At the canal, she turned in, ducking beneath overgrown mangroves. At the beach, she dismounted the board and dragged it up on shore.

  The movement, the exercise, kept her mind busy, but when she crossed the small peninsula to the lagoon side, she could see the edge of the dock and the boats and the beach bordering Dustin’s life.

  Her chest throbbed. She rubbed her sternum, as if rubbing the notion of the almost-relationship with the wrong man from her heart.

  It didn’t work.

  The anguish infested her with spikes of sadness and claws of cruelty. Cruelty that Dustin had posed as a man wi
th compassion, caring for her feelings, when all the time he only used her. For what, she couldn’t reconcile. None of it made sense.

  All she knew was that she’d been manipulated into believing a man again. She had no one to blame but herself.

  She’d been blind, but she needed to wake up and fix this.

  But how?

  How could she make something right in her story when Robert Remming controlled the narrative?

  The sound of a marine engine revved her pulse to rocket speed. She ducked into the mangroves and peered through the branches. To her relief, Kat and Jewels were on Trevor’s dingy. There was no sign of Dustin or the press or Rhonda or any other enemy.

  “Trace. It’s only us.” Jewels lifted the engine, and they both paddled to the beach through the shallow canal. “We need to tell you something.”

  Kat hopped out and tied the dinghy line to the post Trevor and Jewels had installed a few months ago.

  Trace traipsed out of the trees and faced her friends. “I came here to be alone. To think.”

  The water rippled onto the shore and then retreated back into the dark canal that Trace wished she could disappear into. The water had always been her barrier to pain.

  “You can return to your self-brooding after our chat. But you need to know something first.”

  “Is it that important that it couldn’t wait until I returned?”

  Kat popped a hip out and took on her attorney persona with shoulders back, chin up, attitude out. “You think I’d come out here if it wasn’t?”

  Trace picked up a stone and skidded it across the water of the lagoon. It hit one of the rocky outcroppings that kept their little island paradise from tourist boats and then sank. “Fine. What is it?”

  “I know a way out of all of this.” Kat marched across the sand and stood by Trace’s side.

  A boat came tearing through the channel, ignoring the no-wake zone, sending waves up through the lagoon onto shore, tickling Trace’s toes. “How are you going to shut up the media, convince the world that the lonely murderess wasn’t at fault, and tell me how the man I loved didn’t stab me in the back?”

  “Love?” Jewels joined them.

  “No. I didn’t mean that. I meant trust. We were friends.”

  Jewels opened her mouth to say more, but Kat’s quick reflexes shot out with an arm and a look. “Listen. I can’t fix everything, but I can fix the legal side. You signed a gag order—which was stupid.”

  “You can chastise me later.”

  “Right, well… You broke the gag order and that’s illegal,” Kat grumbled.

  “I didn’t mean to. I told one person, and he told the world.”

  Kat shook her head. “You still told someone. And it wasn’t us.”

  Trace realized she’d hurt Kat’s feelings and probably the rest of her friends as well. “I couldn’t tell you guys. I couldn’t wrap you up in my mess. I did this. I needed to figure out how to handle it.”

  “But you told Dustin.” Jewels pushed Trace’s hair behind her ear. “I don’t believe he told anyone.”

  “He’s the only one who knew. I was at my breaking point. I didn’t know what to do, and he was there.”

  “We were there,” Kat said with clipped speech.

  “I told you. I couldn’t have risked it.”

  “You could’ve hired me as your attorney for guidance,” Kat hissed. “It would’ve been legal to tell me in confidence.”

  Trace wasn’t sure if Kat was madder at her because she didn’t trust her as a friend or a lawyer. “I hadn’t thought about that. All I thought about was the guilt that I’d kept the secret of how a family’s son died and how it was my fault that he was there that night.”

  Her words lodged in her throat. She choked down the tears before they could take hold.

  Jewels hugged her into her side. “I’m so sorry you’ve gone through this without us.”

  “I was desperate. I’d even written a letter to the family and thought about mailing it. I showed the letter to Dustin. That’s how I know it was him who gave the information to the newspaper. Only someone who read that letter would know the details.”

  “He wouldn’t do that. Trevor swears he didn’t even tell him. He kept the secret for you,” Jewels said.

  “Letter? What letter?” Kat asked as if she hadn’t heard anything else she’d said.

  “The letter I wrote explaining—”

  “I got that part. Where’s that letter now?” Kat asked.

  Trace pointed across the channel. “Dad’s place. Desk, faux compartment. No one would find it there.”

  Kat abandoned Trace’s side.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To prove you’re not liable.” Kat untied the dinghy.

  Trace took off after her. “Wait, how are you doing that?”

  “Don’t leave without me.” Jewels took the tiller, Trace snuggled down in the middle, and Kat pushed them out into the canal.

  “We’re going to prove that letter was seen by someone else. An alternate crime was committed, and at worst you were negligent. However, I have a feeling the company won’t want to take it that far. Not when we can countersue for gross negligence on their part.

  Trace wasn’t sure what all that meant, but she liked the direction they were taking. The only problem was, even if Kat could save her from a lawsuit, fines, and jail time, she couldn’t save her from a broken heart.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Dustin pushed his way through the crowds in town, marched into the Summer Island Gazette, and slammed his fist down on the front desk. “Tell me who gave you the scoop on the Robert Remming oil death and lied about Trace’s part in it.”

  “I can’t reveal my source,” the man with a tuft of hair that fell over his forehead like a palm leaf touted.

  People congregated in and around the newspaper office.

  “I know Trace didn’t tell you anything. And due to this source of yours, she’s facing a lawsuit, public humiliation, and years of suffering. Tell me now, or I’m going out there to tell those reporters that you lied.”

  A tall, thin man with a cane joined them. “Hello, I’m Mr. Shelling. I am the owner and editor of the Summer Island Gazette. I assure you that we will not divulge any sources.” He pointed to the mob outside. “However, I’m happy to report anything Ms. Latimer can tell me about the event. She can tell her side of the story.”

  “No. Never. What part of a gag order don’t you understand? That’s how I know she didn’t tell anyone. She never would. This is all fantasy with no proof, and I for one will make sure she sues this paper until you’re living out of a cardboard box on the beach.”

  “Mr. Hawk, I’m afraid that won’t happen. I have proof.” He lifted his chin. “Now, if you don’t mind, I have an appointment to speak with the New York Times. Good day.”

  Dustin wanted to reach across the desk and yank the guy out of the building by his thin, short tie, but it wouldn’t do any good. This was Mr. Shelling’s fifteen minutes of fame, and he wasn’t going to let it go. “So much for small-town love and loyalty.” He bolted out, pushed through the crowd, and headed to Trevor’s place to figure out a plan. There had to be something he could do to help. To show Trace it wasn’t him.

  At the edge of Hammerhead Drive, he took a breath of cleansing ocean air and continued walking to the house, where he eyed the sparkling ocean. He heard Trevor talking to someone inside. “I know Dustin wouldn’t do it. I’ve known the man almost all my life.”

  Dustin entered and closed the glass sliding door behind him, sealing out the white noise of the ocean and birds and media.

  “Right. Keep me updated. That has to be it.” Trevor exited the kitchen and stopped short at the sight of Dustin. “Oh, when did you get here?”

  “Just now. What has to be it?” Dustin asked, hope tickling his mood.

  “There was a letter. Kat thinks that could be the key to getting Trace out of legal trouble.”

  “How?” Dustin asked, a
lready backing toward the door.

  Trevor shook his head. “Stay out of it, man. I know you didn’t do anything wrong, but give Trace space to figure this out.”

  “I can’t sit by and wait while my world falls apart. She has to believe me. I saw it in her eyes. She wanted to believe me.”

  “Was that before or after her friends pulled her out of Skip’s before she could attack you?” Trevor slid his cell phone into his pocket and opened the door. “I can see there’s no stopping you, so come on. We’ll meet them at Trace’s father’s place.”

  Dustin darted out the door and jogged to the path. He didn’t stop until he reached the front door and spotted the girls inside.

  “It’s gone!” Trace stood with the desk drawer and her mouth open.

  Trevor reached his side, panting.

  Dustin burst into the little house. “That’s it. Someone found that letter and took it.”

  Trace slammed the desk drawer shut. Squirrels and rabbits skittered across the yard. Dustin looked to the window at the rustling. No sticks cracking. “Wait.” He peered out the window and remembered their conversation that day and the snapping of twigs. Then the conversation with Rhonda at the table about how she’d been let down and how she didn’t look surprised about the news. “I know who it was.”

  “Who?” Kat asked.

  Dustin looked to Trevor, to Jewels, then to Trace. All of them looked at him like he held a snake in his hands. “Rhonda.”

  “Obviously,” Wind said, waving her hands in the air. “We all suspect her, but we don’t know she did it.”

  “Yes, we do. The way she acted at Skip’s this morning. She already knew about the paper.” He studied Trace, the way she moved and looked at him like a woman on the pier waving her sailor off to go to war. Torn. Torn between giving in to how he knew—or at least hoped—she felt about him and the fear of another betrayal.

  “We have no proof,” Kat said in a grave tone. “Without proof, this could go on for years in the court system. We need some sort of confession from her.”