Mai Linh graces her with a beatific smile. “I can already see that you and I, my dear, are going to get on like a house on fire.”
Janelle, who has joined them just in time to catch the exchange, nods approvingly as Graye turns to fetch the promised drink.
“I don’t know where you found her, Laura,” Janelle says, “but she’s a keeper.”
Laura glances down at the heels and wonders if Graye would consider letting her buy them from her. It might break her heart to give them up.
As for Graye, she’s quickly becoming indispensable.
“I couldn’t agree more.”
13
GRAYE
Graye lifts her head and peers across the darkened hotel room at Laura snuggled into the other bed.
She can hear the faint rise and fall of her breathing, which has maintained a steady rhythm for the last hour.
Graye tried to sleep, but the evening kept coming back to her in flashes. The warm, welcoming laughter of the women she met, the applause after Mai Linh spoke. The crisp taste of champagne lingering on her tongue.
Each time she closes her eyes, the sensations fill her head, teasing, leaving her to wonder if she imagined it all.
She eases back the bedcovers and slips from between the sheets.
Laura doesn’t stir, and Graye is careful to stay quiet as she slips into her robe and pads to the built-in drawers across the room.
Ambient light filters from the sliding door, just enough for Graye’s fingers to locate what she’s looking for in the back of the drawer where she tucked her things earlier that day. Turning back to her bed, she sends another glance in Laura’s direction before she sheds first her robe, then her pajamas.
She relishes the feel of high-quality material on her bare skin as she steps into the pencil skirt she’s taken from the drawer. The zipper gives a faint buzz as she pulls it up. The cream silk of the blouse whispers secretly as she slides her arms into the sleeves, then fastens the buttons.
On quiet feet, she tiptoes to the closet the two women are sharing.
Laura offered to pay Graye for the champagne heels, an offer Graye promptly turned down.
“They’re yours if you want them,” she’d said. “A gift.”
“Oh, I couldn’t possibly—”
“Of course you can,” Graye insisted. “Please.”
So technically, the shoes Graye leans down and grasps with two fingers no longer belong to her, but she doesn’t think Laura will mind if she borrows them this one time.
Silently, Graye crosses the room again and picks up the notebook and pen she received in her gift bag from Janelle. Then, with her bottom lip between her teeth, Graye gingerly unlocks and opens the sliding glass door that leads to the private balcony.
It’s deep into the night now, so late that things are edging into early, an hour when even downtown is relatively quiet. Graye nevertheless holds her breath as she quickly backs through the doorway with the shoes and notebook in hand.
Laura stirs in the bed across the room as Graye slides the door closed. She watches through the glass as the other woman rolls over, then settles back in. Her eyes never open.
Graye lets out her pent-up breath.
She turns and takes a moment to enjoy the deserted cityscape. The night is warm, but welcoming, unlike the angry heat of the day. A confidante, and an audience, for Graye’s sleeplessness.
She smiles faintly as she takes a seat in one of the chairs at the small outdoor table, then arches her feet and slips them into the shoes.
A hair too tight, they bite at her toes. She knew that when she bought them, but they were too perfect to pass up.
Graye scoots the chair closer to the table and straightens her posture.
Slowly, deliberately, she crosses one leg over the other, showcasing the slightly too small high heels.
Graye picks up the pen and flips the small notebook to the first page.
With a blindingly bright smile, she glances upward across the table to the place where another person might stand, if she weren’t all alone.
“Whom should I make this out to?” she asks, pen poised and ready in her hand.
“Is that Catherine with a C or with a K?” she inquires.
With a nod, Graye drops her gaze to the blank page in front of her.
“For Katherine—with a K,” she says aloud as she writes. “Don’t be afraid to follow your dreams. Signed, Graye Templeton.”
Graye finishes the signature, bold and loopy, with a flourish, then rips the page from the little book.
“Thank you. I’m so glad you enjoyed the book,” she says as she holds the autograph up to no one.
Her fingers part. The night breeze catches the small page and takes it away, eager to claim it, if no one else is planning to.
It flutters and twirls through the dark, finally coming to rest in the street, just feet from the storm drain where it will eventually end up.
In time, rain water will leach the ink from the page, which will slowly disintegrate to nothing but bits and particles.
But Graye isn’t concerned. There are more, many more, to come.
Alone in the quiet, amid thousands of sleeping souls, Graye Templeton smiles and signs her borrowed name, wearing borrowed shoes that perfectly complement her borrowed clothes, still stained with coffee, until all the pages in her little notebook are gone.
14
GRAYE
The sun is low on the western horizon when Graye peeks up from the manuscript in her lap. The closer they’ve come to Port Mary, the quieter Laura has grown, and in the last hour there’s been only the swish of turning pages and the buzzing of Laura’s phone.
The other woman stopped reading the incoming messages halfway through the drive. Now, as the two of them wait in the parked car for the ferry to dock, Graye notices she still doesn’t check. Instead, with each intrusion she’s grown more introspective.
“How are your ducklings today, Graye? Any swans hidden among them?” Laura asks, breaking the silence that’s settled over them.
The casual question causes Graye’s pulse to quicken, but she forces herself not to visibly react. It’s the opening she’s been waiting for. She chooses her next words with care.
“There is one,” Graye says. “I’m not done reading yet, but it has promise.”
“Really?” Laura glances over, interested.
That simply, the hook is set. Graye nods and looks back at the pages, not trusting herself to make any sudden movements.
“Let me know how you feel about it when you’re finished. If you’re impressed, I’d love to see it.” Laura’s phone buzzes again.
Graye’s heart does somersaults while the other woman sighs and finally checks her messages. Two spots of color rise on Laura’s cheeks and her mouth tightens.
“That man,” she mutters under her breath. “I swear, sometimes . . .”
Laura doesn’t finish the thought, at least not aloud. Graye’s heart is thumping too hard in her chest to make intelligent conversation anyway.
Laura pulls the car forward onto the ferry and kills the engine while Graye marvels at her luck.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, she realizes she could have sent the manuscript out on submission the traditional way, querying literary agents or publishers. But she knows enough to know that way is paved with rejection slips and heartache.
She can’t take that chance, can’t bear the polite form responses. Thank you for your submission, but . . . Or worse, the yawning cavern of no reply at all.
Her words mean too much to her to consign them to an overworked, underpaid aide in the basement of an agency, to be lost among the piles of slush.
They are her proof of life.
Once her words are published, Gracie Thacker will fade into nothing, where she’s always belonged. But Graye Templeton will matter, and no one will be able to take that from her.
The sting on her cheek burns.
“What do you think you’re doing? Get ou
t of that dress before you ruin it,” the voice hisses.
She covers her face. “I’m sorry, Mother.” The words are muffled by snot and tears.
“Sorry? You’re always sorry. What good does that do? You think money grows on trees, little girl?”
“No, Mother.”
There is someone else in the room, but their judgment is silent.
“Your sister’s going to be a star, Grace. Everyone knows it.” Rough hands on her shoulders, turning her toward the dark. A shove at her back. “But you don’t have it and you never will, so stop pretending. You’re making a fool of yourself.”
The ferry shifts on the water, and Graye puts out her hand to brace herself on the interior door of the car.
“I know we have some video work on the schedule for tomorrow, Graye, but I think it can wait until later in the week.”
Laura has closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the headrest.
The car sways beneath them.
“All right,” Graye says, taking note of how exhausted Laura looks. “I can work on getting the latest batch of reviews up.”
“Why don’t you take a day off? I’d feel guilty about you working while I spend a lazy day catching up on my to-read list.”
“But that’s still working for you,” Graye points out.
Laura opens one eye and peeks over. “Don’t tell anyone, but it’s really not. I love reading days. I live for them.”
The ferry gently bumps into the dock, and Laura shifts the car into drive.
Once she’s pulled onto the main road that encircles the island, the Mary Read Hotel passes on their right. Laura slows as a couple crosses the street in front of them, heading in that direction. The woman’s skin is a delicate shade of pink, but her smile is bright as she waves to them and hurries past.
The hotel, named for a famed lady pirate, is the epicenter of the tiny island community. There are worn paths between the houses lining the interior of the island that converge around it.
Even Graye, an avowed introvert, can see the appeal of the converted hotel’s casual back patio strung with café lights. The sound of waves accompanies the band that often plays on the small wooden stage into the wee hours.
More importantly, the bartenders are friendly and don’t mind mixing yet another margarita. Or if they do, they hide it well, at least while the tips flow freely.
The patio lights twinkle and sway in the breeze.
Just past the hotel, the West home is visible. The windows glow through the darkening twilight. It should be a welcoming sight, but Laura’s grip on the wheel tightens and her eyes narrow.
“What’s wrong?” Graye asks as the car slows and Laura prepares to make the turn into the driveway.
Laura shakes her head. She’s staring at the lights blazing, and Graye is staring at her face, trying to decipher her reaction.
“The door . . . ,” Laura says quietly.
Graye’s eyes swivel to the carriage house.
It stands just as they’d left it, an elegant, if aging, structure, like a woman who’s achieved a certain maturity yet embraced the time that’s passed rather than fought against it. Her pale-blue paint is faded nearly to white and peeling in places. But she has good bones, and age only adds to her charm.
Still, too many lights are burning for one person home alone, and the front door, which faces the street, is open wide.
Distracted by the wrongness of the scene, neither woman sees the figure that stumbles in front of the car until it’s too late.
Laura slams her brakes with a gasp and Graye lets out a startled scream. The papers she was holding neatly in her lap slip from her fingers and plunge forward, loose and messy on the floorboard as the car grinds to a halt.
For a split second the women stare at each other, each hoping she imagined the sight of something—or someone—that had materialized out of nowhere.
Then Laura flies, all her limbs seeming to move at once. She jams the gearshift into park and grapples with the door handle, then lunges out of the car and slingshots her body around the front of the vehicle.
Graye isn’t far behind.
She stands, gaping as Laura falls to her knees next to a crumpled body in the street.
“David!” Laura shouts. “Oh my God, David, are you okay?”
Her hands flutter, touching, then hovering over him as she searches his body, assessing it for damage.
“David!” she shouts again.
There’s no response.
“Graye, call an ambulance,” Laura says, shifting suddenly to an unnerving calm and clarity.
Graye stands, mute and immobile, entranced by the heap that is Laura’s husband, an acrid smell burning her nose.
“Graye!” Laura shouts.
The voice shocks her out of her head, and Graye runs back toward the cab of the SUV, where both doors are still hanging open. The cross-breeze, uncaring of their all-too-human emergency, has taken hold of the manuscript pages and begun to scatter them across the road.
Her pages. Her words. Fluttering in the wind.
She fumbles through the car, searching futilely for the phone that went flying when Laura slammed on the brakes. She finally finds it beneath the mountain of papers and runs back to Laura’s side.
Her fingers are trembling as she tries to unlock the phone to dial 911.
David groans.
“David, can you hear me?” Laura asks, leaning in close.
Slowly, he sits up, pushing his wife’s hands away as he does.
“Ge’ off me,” he mumbles. “Fell, that’s all. Didn’t see you coming.”
With a sudden burst of clarity, Graye realizes the crunch beneath her feet isn’t just the road. She spies the broken glass from the liquor bottles David was carrying scattered about, explaining the overpowering smell that surrounds them.
He sits up fully, then manages to rise mostly to his feet, though he stops midway to lean his hands against his knees and catch his balance.
David West, esteemed and award-winning novelist, wasn’t hit by the car at all. Instead, he’s shit-faced drunk.
Graye sees Laura’s face change the moment she realizes the same.
She stands, her body stiff and her face a frozen mask. Another car slows as it passes.
“Everything okay?” an older woman asks, leaning her head out the driver’s side of the car. “Laura, do you need help?”
Laura glances toward the car and a flush colors her cheeks.
“Dr. Lawson,” she says in embarrassed recognition. She shoots a glare in David’s direction, then forces a weak smile for the woman in the car. “No, I think we’re okay. My husband’s just had too much to drink. I’d introduce you, but . . .” She trails off, finding no dignified way to salvage the situation.
The woman in the car waves off Laura’s attempt at niceties. “I can see this isn’t the best time. Come by sometime, though, and we’ll have coffee,” she says. “If you need anything before then”—her gaze rakes up and down David’s swaying form—“anything at all, I’m only a phone call away.”
“You got a cure for an angry wife in there, Doc?” David asks loudly.
The woman doesn’t smile. “I’m afraid not. Best thing you can do is sleep it off.”
Clearly mortified, Laura sends the neighbor another tense smile. “Thank you, Dr. Lawson. I’ll come visit soon.”
“I look forward to it,” she replies with one last glance in David’s direction. Slowly, she pulls the car down the street.
“Thanks for nothing, Doc!” David shouts, his hand raised in mock salute. The sudden movement upsets his balance, and Laura, stone-faced, reaches out and steadies him.
David lays his arm across her cold shoulders and leans into her steady weight, oblivious.
“Wha’ are you looking at?” he tosses in Graye’s direction.
“N . . . Nothing. Nothing at all,” Graye mumbles, casting her eyes back to Laura.
“Watch the tone, David, or I’ll leave you in the street
,” Laura grinds out between clenched teeth. “Do you have any idea who that was? That woman was my grandmother’s oldest friend. She’s the nearest thing to family I have on this island, and you are the world’s biggest ass.”
She turns, still bearing his weight, and the two of them move toward the open front door.
“Graye, can you—” Laura begins, strain in every syllable of her words.
“I’ll get the car,” Graye says, grasping the chance to be useful.
“Thank you.”
While Laura wrangles her husband and his embarrassing proclivities into the privacy of their home, Graye runs back to the car and shuts the passenger door before jogging around to the driver’s side.
She catches a glimpse of white blowing down the street. Sending a quick glance toward the house, Graye dashes into the road and grabs an errant page, then another. She collects all the pages she can see before striding back to the car, resentment at Dr. West simmering all the while.
Graye pulls the vehicle under the carport, which is open on all sides. From the driver’s seat, she spots a few stray pages that have somehow made their way between the houses and are now fluttering down the beach.
Graye sighs. The wind has taken them. There’s no way she’s getting those back.
She restores the scattered manuscript pages she managed to salvage into a loose stack before collecting the rest of her things from the vehicle.
Deliberately taking her time in order to give the couple some privacy, Graye walks slowly to the detached guesthouse that sits nestled between the hotel and the carriage house and drops off her things.
But she can’t just abandon Laura. What if she needs her?
Graye sighs again and walks back to the SUV. She gathers Laura’s overnight bag, her purse, and the keys from the ignition.
She can hear the couple arguing before she raps lightly on the kitchen door.
“You don’t understand what it’s like.”
“Oh stop already. It’s an excuse, David, and a tired one at that.”
Graye cracks open the door. The pair is nowhere in sight, but the insults they hurl at each other ricochet around the old house.
“Creativity is a mystery, my dear. It needs to be nurtured, not scheduled. It can’t be forced!”
The Shadow Writer Page 6
