by Wendy Wax
They raised their glasses, clinked, and drank.
“Being on an island is my good thing, too,” Kyra said. “Because while it might be harder than I’d like to get on and off, it also makes it harder for the paparazzi to sneak up on us.”
“Being on an island also keeps distractions at a minimum. Which will help us stay focused.” Maddie noticed that Deirdre was looking at Avery when she said this.
They clicked and drank again, as the sky streaked purple and the glowing red ball that was the sun prepared for splashdown.
“I’m not about to downplay the logistical challenges of working here,” Avery said, her eyes following the sun. “But the sunset is spectacular and one of these days I might even make it up for sunrise. It is pretty cool to be able to see both over water from one location.”
“Here, here!” They clinked and tipped their cups to their lips.
“I wouldn’t mind seeing the sunset from somewhere other than this deck,” Nicole said. “Why don’t we try that celebration at the Lorelei?”
“How do you propose we get off the island and back again?” Kyra asked.
“Maybe Hudson would take us and pick us up,” Maddie said, wishing she’d had enough lessons with the skiff to drive everyone herself.
“Or we could call a water taxi. If there is such a thing,” Deirdre suggested.
“Sounds good,” Nicole said.
“Great, we’re agreed then,” Deirdre said. “Maddie will ask William Hightower about using the laundry and kitchen . . .”
“Oh, no, I’m not going to do that . . .” Maddie’s palms went slightly damp just thinking about it.
“And Nikki will be in charge of finding the best way off Fantasy Island for sunset,” Avery finished.
“No. Wait. I’m actually not . . .” Maddie began, but the others had all turned their attention to the sky and the final plunge of the glowing red ball.
Which meant that Maddie actually was.
• • •
Avery was up before the rooster but not before the sun. She smothered her vibrating alarm quickly and sat up in bed, wanting to go through the main house while William Hightower was doing his morning laps, which appeared to be a regular seven-to-eight-A.M. occurrence. Deirdre’s bed was already empty and Avery feared she’d be waiting for her in the main cabin insisting on joining her, but as she quietly climbed down the short ladder she heard water running in the bathroom and saw no sign of Deirdre. If she managed to sneak off the boat without Deirdre seeing her, she could walk through the house and finalize her thoughts on her own.
At the counter Maddie turned to greet her. “Good morn—”
“Shhhh.” Avery put a finger to her lips. “I don’t want to draw Deirdre’s attention,” she whispered.
“But—”
“I know,” Avery whispered, “I can’t leave without a cup of coffee.” She was, after all, wearing the T-shirt that Kyra had given her for Christmas that read, I Drink Coffee for Your Protection. “Is there . . .”
Maddie handed her a to-go cup creamed and sugared the way Avery liked it.
“Thanks,” Avery whispered, stuffing her yellow pad under one arm and slipping her pencil behind her ear. Her tape measure was already tucked into her back pocket. “I just don’t want Deirdre to . . . you know . . .”
“But she’s not even—” Maddie began.
“I’ll see you later.” Avery turned and tiptoed past the bathroom door and up the short ladder to the main deck. Congratulating herself on her clean escape, she stepped off the boat and onto the dock.
Where Deirdre’s cheery “Good morning!” stopped her cold. It took her a moment to fully register that the greeting had come from the island. Where her mother stood freshly made up and fully dressed. The bag that Avery knew always contained a tape measure, notepad, and paint color deck hung over one of Deirdre’s shoulders. “I didn’t want to wake you,” she said pleasantly. “But I didn’t want to miss our window of opportunity, either. It will be easier to discuss details without Hightower there.”
Avery walked toward her mother, the word “Busted!” echoing in her not-yet-caffeinated brain. She took several long sips of coffee while she weighed her options. Short of racing Deirdre to the house and attempting to lock her out, they were extremely limited.
Deirdre was smart enough not to look victorious as Avery joined her near the boathouse and stayed mercifully silent, not even commenting on what Avery knew she must look like given how quickly she’d dressed. Avery waved a hand toward the path and said, “After you.” She drained the cup of coffee as she followed Deirdre to the house, but no means of escape presented itself.
“So how shall we do this?” Deirdre asked when they came to a stop in front of the house.
Avery shrugged. She was wishing for another cup of coffee when Deirdre pulled an insulated travel mug out of her bag and handed it to Avery, who did not have the strength to reject it. “Thanks.”
“My pleasure.” Deirdre pulled out her notes then turned to look at the façade while Avery gulped down the coffee.
“I’m going to leave the structure to you,” Deirdre said while Avery was still drinking. “I know the bad sections of board and batten will have to be replaced along with the windows and the rotted frames, and I know you’ll want to get a roofer up to take a look as soon as possible. We’ll need someone who can address the stonework and a carpenter to handle the rotted sills and bad planking on the porch. Decoratively, we’ll need new ceiling fans and porch furniture—I’m thinking an outdoor rattan or wicker. Maybe a wooden double swing on this corner and another overlooking the pool. When we repaint I think either gray or possibly a creamy beige—something soothing and somewhat masculine—but with bright pops of island color. Which I’d also like to continue on the garage and boathouse units.”
Avery looked for something to take exception to and failed. Every ounce of Deirdre’s enthusiasm seemed genuine.
“It’s lucky that the house is raised and the foundation surround needs work anyway, because if we’re going to convert the two front rooms to guest suites it’ll make reworking the plumbing to include an en suite for each so much easier.”
She looked to Avery for a comment. Once again, Avery was forced to nod in agreement. Which was horribly painful.
Deirdre reached for the front doorknob. “I double-checked with Will while I was waiting for you and he said to go ahead and ‘knock ourselves out.’ Unfortunately, I think he meant that literally. The man would like nothing more than for us to throw up our hands and disappear. Which I’m certain neither of us intends to let happen.”
Once again Avery searched Deirdre’s smiling face for something she could take exception to. Once again, she failed. It was as if Deirdre had somehow shed her blatant narcissism and self-serving ambition like a snake might shuck its skin, leaving only a consummate, and smiling, design professional with whom it would take great effort to disagree.
“Oh, and I’d like to replace the heavy wood doors with glass,” Deirdre said. “So that the eye is drawn in even from outside.” Deirdre opened the door and they stepped inside. “It’ll also brighten the foyer. What do you think of the pecky cypress on the walls?”
“It’s a great material, bug and moisture resistant,” Avery finally said. “But . . .” Avery hesitated, still resisting the on-site collaboration that Deirdre had forced her into.
“But what?” Deirdre prompted in the tone she’d used when she’d taken Avery into an antiques or fabric store as a child and then quizzed her on the provenance of an armoire or the heft and weave of a fabric.
“But it’s darkened as it’s aged,” Avery replied like the child she’d once been.
“And?” Deirdre prompted.
Avery hesitated, trying not to remember how eager she’d been to please her mother. How proud she’d been each time she’d known an answer. “And althoug
h I think a glass door will help, the walls are going to absorb a lot of the gained light.”
“Yes,” Deirdre said, clearly pleased and not trying to hide it at all. “That’s what I’ve been thinking. And I believe I have a solution.” She eyed Avery. “Look at this.”
Deirdre handed her a page torn from a magazine. It showed a pecky cypress ceiling that had a whitewashed look.
Avery studied the photo then considered the foyer walls, intrigued despite herself.
“It’s an acid wash,” Deirdre explained. “I found a formula for it online. We could actually apply it to the foyer and great room walls ourselves.”
Avery imagined the space with sunlight streaming in from the east and the west, the washed walls glowing in that light. It was a good idea. Possibly a great one. Damn it.
Deirdre looked her in the eye then repositioned the bag on her shoulder. “You’re allowed to like my ideas without formally forgiving me. In fact, we could work together on this project and then when we’re finished you could go back to hating me.” Her smile was sad.
Avery looked into eyes the same shape and color as her own and couldn’t help but see the regret there.
“I like it,” Avery said reluctantly. “I like the acid wash. It’ll do a lot for the space.”
Deirdre’s eyes brimmed with tears, but she said only, “Good. That’s . . . I’m glad.”
This, of course, made Avery feel like shit. She looked away and moved into the sun-filled space. “I was thinking that I’d like to rip the stairs out of the foyer.” She led Deirdre into the kitchen and gestured to the back wall. “And move them here.”
Deirdre surreptitiously wiped away her tears as she considered the space.
“And I was thinking maybe we could even build in part of the kitchen under the stairs.” After a long moment, and without looking at her mother, Avery asked, “What do you think?”
“What do I think?” Deirdre asked as the smile spread over her face. “I thought you’d never ask.”
Chapter Thirteen
Nicole surfed the Internet looking for water taxis or other transportation. The options were far more limited than one would expect in a place where the landmasses were small and the bodies of water that surrounded them large. But then, most people who were holed up on an island probably either had no interest in leaving or had their own seaworthy transportation. It would be far easier to get a limo to the Miami airport than a boat to the marina a couple of mile markers away.
She was contemplating something called a Nautilimo—a boat that had been designed to look like a pink Cadillac—when a text dinged in. It was Giraldi.
You okay? Where are you?
Islamorada, she typed. Private island called Mermaid Point.
Will Hightower? His immediate response told her he had been well aware of this possibility. Or had received secret FBI smoke signals of some kind documenting their arrival. Loved Wasted Indian. Especially Mermaid in You.
She smiled as she pictured a pre-FBI, possibly long-haired version of Joe Giraldi rocking out to the driving beat beneath William Hightower’s soul-searing vocals.
Hightower doesn’t love us, Nicole typed back.
Hard to imagine, he replied quickly.
Well said, she responded. Where r u?
Hartsfield. En route to Chicago. Home Monday.
Nicole stared at the text. Hartsfield International was in Atlanta, where her brother was incarcerated. But there were a lot of financial criminals besides Malcolm Dyer there. And Joe’s specialty was financial crime profiling.
Oh? It was all she could manage.
The cursor blinked. She could envision Giraldi strapped into the bulkhead seat that would accommodate his long legs, waiting. She wanted to ask if he’d seen Malcolm, but not quite as much as she didn’t want to know. She hadn’t spoken to her brother since he’d tried to use her one last time and she’d finally understood that the closeness she’d believed they’d had had never really existed. That he had, in fact, been playing her, just as he did everyone else, his whole life.
Another text from Joe appeared. Can come down next weekend.
She was grateful that he knew her well enough to follow her lead and didn’t offer information about her brother that she might not be ready to hear.
Living on houseboat. Short on doors and bathrooms. Dreaming of hotel bed and bath. Maybe room service.
I’m there. And then some. Making reservation. Pack light. A toothbrush should do it.
She felt a distinctly sexual tingle even as she typed. Leaving island is complicated.
A little rusty, Joe replied, but have extraction training.
Nicole smiled. A boat would do.
Have that, too, he typed.
My hero. The words might be flip, but that didn’t make them untrue.
Cleared for takeoff, he typed. See you next weekend.
She typed her good-byes and wished the weekend—and Joe—weren’t quite so far away.
• • •
“Thanks, Mom. I’ll catch up with you in a little bit. I just want to go through the footage I have so far.” Kyra sat at the banquette, her laptop and a notepad in front of her.
Avery and Deirdre hadn’t yet come back from their walk-through. Maddie hoped they hadn’t killed or maimed each other.
“All right. We’ll be down on the beach.” Maddie wore her bathing suit and another long T-shirt. She would have rather stayed here near the docks, except that on this side of the island most of the beach was mangrove covered and the breeze was a fraction of what came from the east.
She carried Dustin’s speedboat and trailer, along with a straw bag filled with sunscreen, towels, drinks, and sandwiches. Dustin carried his pail and shovel. He’d buckled the tool belt Avery and Chase had given him for Christmas around his hips. Orange floaties surrounded his upper arms.
She took the path to the house, then followed it between the pool and the pavilion, hoping that William Hightower had finished swimming and gone back inside. As they drew closer she spotted him lying immobile on a chaise, the back of his head pillowed on one bent arm, his chin tilted up to the sun. His eyes were closed.
For a long moment she watched his chest go up and down in the rhythm of sleep. She did not let her eyes drop or wander over his mostly bare body, but she did soften her step and moved as quietly as one could with a one-and-a-half-year-old boy in tow.
They were almost past the pool when Dustin shouted, “Look, Geema! Billyum is sleeping!”
“Dustin,” she whispered, “you don’t yell when you know someone’s asleep.”
“Look, Geema,” he shouted. “He waked up!”
Maddie stopped tiptoeing. She turned. Hightower was indeed awake. He raised up on one elbow, his eyes wide open.
“Sorry,” she called, holding tight to Dustin’s hand. “We’re still working on levels of enthusiasm. If it won’t disturb you, I was going to take him down to the beach for a while.”
“No problem.”
She stared back, trying to keep her attention on his face. Not the broad shoulders, the ripple of muscle as he shifted slightly, or the chest hair that triangled downward. It occurred to her that bringing up the use of his laundry and kitchen might be better than staring so stupidly, but she could hardly stand still, given the way he was now studying her, let alone ask for something. Dustin pulled on her hand.
“Is it safe to swim in the shallows off the beach?” she asked.
“Well, I wouldn’t strike out for the lighthouse or anything, but as long as you’re not flashing diamonds or other shiny objects, the barracuda probably won’t bother you.”
“Twim!” Dustin raised his floatie-ready arms in excitement.
There was a surprising flash of white teeth from Hightower. “Nothing like a good swim,” he agreed.
“Thank you,” Maddie said,
waiting for him to tune them out and lie back down, or at least close his eyes. He did none of these things. In fact, he seemed to be looking at her legs with what appeared to be an appreciative gleam in his eyes.
“Come on, Geema.”
There was no help for it. Trying to blank her mind so that it would not dwell on the view Hightower would now have of her less-than-pert behind, Maddie nodded and turned. She felt his eyes on them all the way to the spot where Dustin threw himself down, pulled out his shovel, and started digging in the damp white sand.
• • •
Because she couldn’t help it, Kyra Googled Daniel Deranian then forced herself to look at picture after picture of him, his equally famous movie star wife, and their children, who seemed to be together on some extended tour of European capitals to promote Daniel’s latest film. They hadn’t really spoken since January, when Kyra had called him out for buying Bella Flora and turning it over to the one person she couldn’t bear to picture setting foot in it.
The child support payments continued on an automatic deposit schedule set up by one of Daniel’s financial people, and she in turn sent him the periodic photos of Dustin that their agreement stipulated. But ever since she’d refused to allow Dustin to visit when Tonja Kay was present, there’d been little contact between Dustin and his father, aside from the playhouse-sized version of Bella Flora that had been delivered to Pass-a-Grille on Christmas Eve.
She continued through the pictures, her attention focused on the smile on Daniel’s face, the adoration with which his children looked up at him, the close-ups of Tonja Kay’s angelically beautiful face, which totally camouflaged the angry, ugly person who dwelt inside. All of these were important reminders of why both she and Dustin were better off several steps removed from Daniel, who could so easily suck both of them back into his orbit. Reminders she couldn’t allow herself to forget.
• • •
After he completed both a sand castle and parking garage for his speedboat and took numerous dips in the ocean, Dustin looked at Maddie and asked for a “hand-witch.”
