The Perfect Summer (Hubbard's Point)

by Rice, Luanne

  “They grew up in different parts of the state,” Bay said. “Mark lived here on the shoreline; Sean only summered here. He grew up in New Britain. The schools were in different leagues.”

  “Yes,” Joe said. “Except for the state championships.”

  “The time it counts most,” Dan said.

  “Basketball, their senior year,” Joe said. “Their teams made it to the state finals, Gampel Pavilion at UConn. Mark Boland and Sean McCabe, head to head on the court. We went back and read the old clippings.”

  “Is Mark the other inside man?” Bay cried. “Did Sean talk him into embezzling from clients, too?”

  Joe shook his head. “It was the other way around,” he said. “Boland had been doing it for years at Anchor Trust, and he'd never gotten caught. Never left any hint of a paper trail. Not one complaint, not even a suspicion. He was very, very good at covering his tracks—the forensic accountants are just starting to uncover them now. He arrived at Shoreline, and turned the whole thing into a game.”

  “With Sean?” Bay asked, looking shocked.

  Joe nodded. “A big competition. Like the state finals, all over again.”

  Bay thought of all the years she'd watched Sean playing basketball, football, baseball, fighting to the death just to win the game. Why hadn't Sean told her about him and Mark being rivals? Because his anger over the promotion had been too great, she supposed.

  “To see who could make the most money,” Danny said.

  “Who could conquer the most accounts,” Joe said. “And every time one of them succeeded, there had to be a prize . . .”

  “The silver cups,” Bay said.

  “Yes, but there was an even bigger prize,” Joe said, reaching into the cupboard, taking out one of Eliza's little blue teacups.

  “I don't get it,” Danny said, frowning.

  “The accounts,” Joe said. “All the money they stole. There was just one witness who could put them away. Ed.”

  “Ed?” Bay asked, remembering the notations on Sean's manila folder, his doodles of the truck and . . .

  “I assumed ‘Ed' was a man,” Joe said. “A banker, or maybe a client. I never thought—”

  “Eliza,” Bay gasped, her eyes falling on the monogram, so delicately painted on the teacups and teapot: ED. “Eliza Day!”

  WHO WOULD HAVE EXPECTED THAT THE VALUE OF ONE OF the trophies would have exceeded some of the other spoils? The Eliza Day trust had come with quite a nice prize: a silver cup forged by Paul Revere. The day Sean had started using the trust as a way to hide and move money, he had taken the cup from the Connolly home. Alise Boland thought again how stupid he had been, as they waited for the tide to rise.

  Who knows how he had talked his way in—that was Sean. Perhaps he had seduced Charlotte; or perhaps she thought she was seducing him. And although Charlotte Connolly hadn't caught the shifting of funds in the family trust, she had most certainly noticed that Sean McCabe had stolen her daughter's silver cup.

  Ironic, to have an icon from someone so connected with freedom. Because that was what the whole thing had started off to be: a way to get free, to have more, to rise above the rest of the world's worker bees. To take what people wouldn't even miss . . . and hadn't, for so long.

  But then Charlotte had threatened to call the police, and just as all that was finally dying down, Fiona had caught Sean's slip with the Ephraim account. Things were falling apart.

  If only people had been more careful. No one would have had to die. There could have been ways to avoid this entire nightmare. When everything was considered, a lot of the blame had to go to Fiona. She had never fit in, could never have been invited to join. In fact, wouldn't she be surprised to know that Mark had taken money from her very own money market fund?

  That had rated the taking of her horse show trophy.

  Sean had laughed at that—been amazed by Mark's audacity. That was more Sean's style. But Sean's daring extended only to sports and money. When he learned that the child had witnessed her mother's murder, was the only witness, he folded.

  His soul-searching had started with Charlotte's death, and led to a few foolish attempts to pay back some of his smaller raids on various accounts. But it wasn't until the problem of what to do about the girl began to grow . . . until she emerged from the hospital . . . that Sean had really begun to fall apart.

  He swore he'd protect her if they tried . . . well, if they tried this.

  And that had been his downfall. Mark required absolute commitment; there was too much riding on this. He demanded total loyalty, and when Sean was adamant, they all knew it was only a matter of time. Mark knew that no witness could be overlooked; Sean should have known that, too.

  This night had been a long time coming. First Sean had gotten in the way, and had had to be killed. It was too bad, but unavoidable. Alise herself had tried to get Dan Connolly into the circle, tie him in as a way of assuring his daughter's silence, by phoning him, floating Sean's name out there—if Connolly had had any second thoughts about the money he was passing up, he would have taken the bait. But he didn't—signing his own daughter's death warrant.

  Mark and Sean had insisted on considering it a game. But Alise knew that that was just their way of making themselves feel better. They wanted the boyhood lie: If they were playing for trophies, it really didn't count. They stole from their richest clients, the ones who would never notice. Sean, at his most exuberant, had called Mark “Robin Hood.”

  But in the end, what was it all for? Why had Charlotte had to be killed, and why had Sean himself ultimately had to be stopped, and why was Eliza Day Connolly about to die?

  Wealth.

  That's all.

  Wealth—the pursuit of it, the protection of it. Big houses cost money, and so did antiques and artworks, and fine cars, and precious jewels. Not everyone was born with such things. And not everyone wanted them, as hard as that was to believe. Mark had taken such good care until now; he could be excused his boyish need to reward himself and his “teammates” with silver. Now, as the tide rose and the time arrived to drown the girl, it was time to protect the gold.

  IT WAS SO LATE, AND HER MOTHER WAS STILL AT MR. Connolly's. Annie felt so afraid for Eliza. Whatever was happening, she knew it was bad, and no matter how much Aunt Tara stroked her hair and sang lullabies, Annie couldn't fall asleep.

  “Where could she be?” she asked Tara.

  “I don't know, honey. Everyone's looking for her, though. Joe, the police . . .”

  “What if they don't find her?”

  “We have to believe they will. We have to send her our love, so she can grab on to it and come home to us.”

  “Love,” Annie said, as if it was the first time she'd ever said the word.

  “It's the most there is,” Tara said. “Eliza knows that. Wherever she is, she'll be able to feel our love for her.”

  “But I still don't see how that can help.”

  “Do you believe in guardian angels, Annie?”

  Annie shrugged, not wanting to hurt Tara's feelings. Angels seemed like nice creatures in stories.

  “I think you do, Annie. I know your mom does. And so do I. Our grandmothers told us about them.”

  “But what can they do?” Annie asked, her voice high and thin. Outside the window, all the stars were out. The moon was new and the sky was very dark. Owls migrating through Hubbard's Point, as they did every November, flew out from the oaks, calling on the hunt. “What can spirits do, when we're right here on earth? We're here; we should be able to save the people we love!”

  Tara held her, as if she knew that Annie was crying about her father, about her worst nightmare coming true with the news of his death.

  “We can do a lot,” Tara said, “and we can turn to them for help.”

  “Do you really believe that?” Annie asked.

  “I really believe that. And it helps to know that Joe and the police are looking, too,” Tara said. “Eliza is a survivor, Annie. She has a light inside her. We've all
seen it, and we love her for it.”

  “We do,” Annie whispered.

  Then an owl called again, from the top of the tallest pine, and that seemed like a signal that something was about to happen. Tara kissed her, and Annie tried to breathe. She thought of Eliza out there in the night, somewhere on this rocky coastline of coves and bays, cold ground covered with fallen leaves and pine needles, out there in the starlit darkness.

  Annie's small wooden boat was on the bedside table; she stared at it now, thinking of how she had given it to her father, so he would know who to row home to. She closed her eyes and thought of Eliza and the light within.

  And then, she wasn't sure why, she reached for her small wooden boat and gave it a little shake. That rattle was still there.

  AT HOME, DAN SAT ON THE SOFA, HIS ARM AROUND BAY, who slept with her head on his shoulder. It was so late, and Eliza was out in the night. He stared at the phone, as if he could will it to ring. Joe had told him to stay home, by the phone, but every muscle in his body ached to be out searching for his daughter.

  His thoughts, in the silence, were cacophonous. He was the Monday-morning quarterback of his own life, trying to figure out what he could have done differently. Holding Bay, he stared at Charlie's portrait, the painting of his unhappy wife. They were Eliza's parents, keeping vigil together.

  Charlie . . . She had grown up so very privileged. Charlie knew she was an aristocrat. Her family had had money for generations; they gave away more in a year than some people make in a lifetime. She had an unassailable sense of superiority—never overtly snobby, but very reserved. Isolated.

  That's how Dan had seen her when they'd first gotten to know each other, the year after he had worked at Hubbard's Point. Her uncle had hired him to restore a beautiful old wooden yacht, a Concordia yawl. All work was to be done at a yard in Stonington, just across the harbor from Charlie's house. Mansion, really. It was a huge white Colonial with outbuildings and a dock. Dan had started noticing her every day: always alone, always self-contained.

  One day, on his lunch hour, he pulled a dinghy down to the water and rowed across. He'd started viewing her as a poor little rich girl, and he thought he'd give her a treat: take her for a boat ride.

  He still remembered pulling up to the dock, calling across the broad green lawn, asking her if he could take her for a row. And he could picture her carefully laying her book on the garden bench, smoothing her slacks, and walking down to the water. He had offered her his hand, to help her into the boat, but she didn't take it.

  Almost amused, she climbed in herself. And she let him row her to the end of the harbor and back. The day was bright and clear, with fish jumping in the cove and swans swimming around the moorings. He still remembered the day perfectly; and he recalled the sense that Charlie considered that she was giving him the pleasure of her company.

  That feeling never really left him.

  He had married her—maybe he'd been her chance at limited rebellion. Don't marry the boatyard owner; marry the employee and give him a boatyard to run. What better way to own a person?

  He had never given up loving her, trying to make her happy. And deep down, wanting her to love him more than she did, to accept him as her equal. But Charlie had never really had any equals. Everywhere she went, people knew her as the heir to Day Consolidated. If they didn't, five minutes in her presence made them realize that she was somebody different. Somebody who epitomized the expression “born with a silver spoon in her mouth.” And it had been Dan's role as her husband, and as her employee, to protect her. To take care of his poor little rich girl.

  Dan had wondered what it meant that last year, that Charlie had suddenly, for the first time in their marriage, gotten very interested in something outside herself, outside her home. She had become intrigued with the bank and banking. She began to talk about going back to school for an MBA.

  So many days in a row, she had gone to Shoreline Bank, to ask in-depth questions about her accounts, about her and Eliza's trust. After so many years of letting others manage her life—her fortune—Charlie had started taking charge.

  While Dan had felt happy to see her truly animated by something, he had also felt her pulling away. It had confused and hurt him in small ways—sometimes he'd come home and find her talking on the phone, pad and pen ready, taking more notes. Or had the learning and studying been just a smokescreen? Had his wife been covering up an affair with Sean McCabe?

  Knowing that they had kissed made Dan think it was a little of both. At the boatyard, he dealt with the absolutes of marine architecture: center of gravity, length overall, beam, draft. In love, in marriage, there were no such things. It was all a gray area, like sailing in the fog.

  But sailing in the fog can be beautiful, he thought, holding Bay. You sense your way home; you smell the pines onshore, listen for the bell buoys, feel the wind shift and drop as you near land.

  If only he and Charlie had done more of that with each other. Maybe if they'd had a better marriage, Charlie would still be alive, and Eliza would still be home.

  But that made him hold Bay even tighter. She was so straightforward and real, and she seemed to need—with the same imperative that she needed to breathe—to tell the truth about what was in her heart.

  Dan prayed for the chance to do more of that—with Bay, with Eliza. He wanted the chance to be the best father on earth to his daughter. He wanted to help her get stronger, to help her see how wonderful she was. To never want to hurt herself again.

  Thinking of her out there somewhere, his guts twisted. He had the sense of time draining away, of Eliza in horrible danger. The clock was ticking in his head. The world, even the shoreline, was such a big place to search. If only he had some idea where to start . . .

  32

  DID THEY THINK SHE WAS ASLEEP? OR HAD THEY just decided to stop thinking about her at all?

  The people in the front were just driving quietly along, waiting for something. But what? So many questions, and Eliza was haunted by all of them. She lay still, her ear folded over on itself, aching under her head. Visions of a maroon van filled her mind. She saw it hit her mother, her mother's blood on the road.

  And then she saw the van again, in a flash, just a whoosh as it visited her memory. Where had she seen it before?

  The memory came in pieces. Eliza, her mother, shopping on a Saturday. They had had lunch at the Sail Loft Café, then gone to Hawthorne. Eliza had loved poking around in the boutiques, trying on a bright yellow sweater, getting a new pair of shoes. Her mother had wanted to look at house things . . .

  Shiny copper pans and cast-iron skillets in one store, embroidered pillows and fancy lampshades in another, and then, in the last place, squares of tile and swatches of fabric . . . a designer's studio . . . a place people went to have their houses designed and decorated.

  Eliza blinked under the blindfold. She could see her mother, hear the surprise in her voice. “Oh, I didn't know that this was your business!”

  And the designer—so petite and stylish, dressed in a black suit, with pretty blond hair and gold earrings—smiling to see them, letting Mom look through some fabric samples, asking Eliza what she thought of a certain wall sconce.

  “Do you like this one?” the woman had asked, holding up a brass lantern, then lowering it and raising up a pewter candlestick with a black shade, “or this one?”

  “I like the lantern,” Eliza said.

  “So do I!” the woman had said, smiling brightly. “What excellent taste you have! Charlie, you have a charming daughter.”

  Eliza's mother had nodded, smiled, and said “Thank you,” as she'd continued looking at the squares of material. The shop had seemed so cozy and feminine, fun and creative, and the woman had looked so dainty; and right now Eliza was remembering how her mother had said, “I've been spending so much time at the bank; both Mark and Sean have been so helpful. I've imagined going back to school, somehow getting into finance . . . but then I come in here, and I think how great it would be
to do this . . .”

  And Eliza had felt curious, hearing that her mother wanted to change the things in her life—not scared, not worried, but just curious, because she had never heard her mother say anything like that before.

  “This?” The woman had smiled.

  “Yes—surrounded by such pretty things, so much beauty.”

  The woman had made a muscle with one arm and pointed out the window with her other hand. “That's what the job is really about,” she said. “Lugging things around. Sample books, bolts of fabric, antique armoires, paintings—I'm really just a workhorse.”

  And Eliza and her mother had leaned over, to look out the window, to see what the woman was pointing at, and there it was, sitting in the driveway behind her shop, in front of a red barn.

  A maroon van.

  Eliza moaned as she remembered.

  “Did you hear that?” the man's voice asked. “How much longer are we going to wait? Christ, Alise.”

  “I know, I know,” the woman's voice replied.

  “We should have just done it right away. Like the others.”

  “The others were different,” she said. “The others we didn't have to take from their houses.”

  “So, what—you're losing your nerve?”

  “Aren't you?”

  Be human, Eliza begged silently. Lose your nerve. Now that she could see the woman's face, her blond hair, her shop with its pretty colors and fabrics and objects, now that Eliza could hear the woman talking to her mother, telling her how charming Eliza was, now that Eliza remembered her name, Alise, and the name of her business, Boland Design, it was all so different.

  “Yes, I am,” Mark said.

  “Well, you can't afford to,” Alise said. “And neither can I.”

  “The longer we wait—” Mark said.

  “I know,” Alise snapped. “I know, I know. Don't talk about it.”

  “That will make it go away? Make the problem disappear?”

  I'm not a problem, I'm a girl, Eliza thought, struggling behind the duct tape. Knowing if she could talk to them, make her hear them, she could get them to see this was a mistake. She wouldn't tell; they wouldn't have to go to jail.