Meanwhile, the air had chilled, a sign that the first squall line was almost there. Butch scuttled in from outside when she opened the front door to take stock of the clouds again, and he hid under the parlor couch. Chloe went around and closed all the windows in the inn when rain began to fall.
She knew what she had to do, but she didn’t want to do it. She looked up the number of the Sand Bar in the phone directory and waited patiently until someone picked up. A male voice identified himself as Joe the bartender.
“I’m trying to find Ben Derrick,” Chloe said over the howl of the rising wind, hoping against hope that he was there.
“He’s here. Want to talk to him?”
Chloe breathed a huge sigh of relief. “Please,” she said. “It’s important.”
“Hey, Ben. Phone for you.”
A shuffle, a laugh, and Ben came on the line. “Hello?”
“Ben, it’s Chloe.” She wasted no time in apprising Ben of the situation.
“I’ll find her,” he said right away. In the background, the blues band played a wailing lament—eerie punctuation for the concern Chloe was feeling at the moment.
“Are you—all right?” she asked, not without trepidation.
“I’m fine,” he said, sounding normal.
“I mean, you haven’t been drinking, have you?”
A long pause. “Absolutely not. Chloe, what in the world is going through your head?”
“I’ll explain later. Can you swing by and pick me up?”
“That would take extra time, and I’d rather ride over to Jill’s right away. I don’t like the sound of this.”
“Nor do I,” Chloe said faintly.
“I’ll report back ASAP. Keep calling her on the cell.”
“Okay, Ben. Thanks.”
A long pause. “Chloe, don’t worry. I’m sure Tara is okay.”
“I hope so,” she replied.
They hung up. Again, Chloe dialed the cell phone, and again, no answer. Fear clenched her heart. How would she ever be able to face Naomi, Ray and the twins if anything had happened to Tara?
Chapter Fifteen
When Chloe called, Joe had been relating with relish how Liss was presently involved in a heavy relationship with her tattoo artist. Ben found the story only marginally interesting. After he hung up, he cut Joe’s revelations short and ran outside to his Jeep. Palmetto fronds thrashed and flayed in the lot next door, and an empty plastic bag blew across the parking area and wrapped itself around his ankles. Ben peeled it off and kept running.
The rain blew sideways in torrents, and as he drove across the bridge, Ben strained to see ahead. On Beach Road, markings were obscured by standing water. He turned away from the inn, heading north toward Stuart’s Point.
Leaning forward, he peered into the dense fog and rain. He was more worried about Tara than he had let on. While he was playing pool earlier in the evening, he’d heard guys talking about Hank Garrison’s run-in with Aaron.
“Shoot, that boy is trouble aiming for a place to land,” one of the regulars had remarked.
“You better believe it,” agreed another guy who hung out there most nights. “Aaron tried to pawn a surfboard, like a fool. Anybody would recognize one of Hank’s boards, and he’d already reported it stolen.”
Ben had continued lining up his shot and concentrated on knocking the ball into a pocket, but he’d kept his ears open for any other mention of Jill’s boyfriend. He hadn’t heard anything, but what he’d already learned had given him pause. Whoever had stolen the coins from the box under his bed would have to dispose of them, and the easiest way to do it would be to pawn them. Quick money, few questions asked. People were always finding treasure around Sanluca, and trying to sell artifacts to collectors or the museum would probably produce more questions than a thief would find comfortable. Pawnbrokers weren’t overly particular and tended to respect their customers’ privacy.
Unless they suspected something was illegal. In that case, they’d report it to the police.
Since Jill hadn’t shown up at Suzette’s house tonight, maybe she had broken up with Aaron. He’d overheard part of the girls’ conversation on the porch the day before, and knew Jill was upset about Aaron’s propensity for getting into trouble. And if Tara had gotten wind of anything indicating that Aaron had something to do with the coins’ disappearance, she would certainly go to Jill first. That could explain her early departure from the party.
He’d turned on the Jeep’s radio when he left the Sand Bar, and suddenly, a blaring emergency message interrupted the soft music. “A tornado warning has been issued—” began the voice of Weather Central.
“Oh, great, that’s all we need,” Ben muttered as the announcement continued. In his haste to reach Jill’s house, he accelerated, even though visibility was still severely hampered by the heavy rain. Then, as he rounded the curve near Ibis Trail, the Jeep spun out and fishtailed. He only managed to straighten out in the last moment before bouncing onto the road shoulder. He twisted the wheel hard to the left, regained control. Shaken, he braked to a halt and sat for a moment to compose and orient himself.
For a moment, he was confused by direction. He was about to guide the Jeep back onto the pavement when a collapsed guardrail on the bridge ahead caught his attention.
Down in the marsh, he spotted something shiny. A bit of foil? A beer can? No, it was too big for either of those, but still, it was something that wasn’t supposed to be there. He edged the Jeep onto the road and swung it around so that the headlights shone in that direction.
He wished the squall would let up enough to let him get a better look. The Jeep’s windshield wipers were scarcely sufficient to keep up with the deluge. Suddenly, a moment of comparative calm commenced, and he saw a face. A frightened face mouthing words that he couldn’t hear through the closed window of a car halfway covered with water.
He leaped out of the Jeep and ran across the road, unheedful of the water sloshing in his shoes and blowing in his eyes. Tara. It was Tara down there, in Chloe’s car, with blood flowing down her face. He recognized the Volvo’s faded blue paint, the squared-off roof and the hood, which jutted out of the water at an odd angle.
For once in his life, Ben was sorry that he’d never acquired a cell phone. He had no way to call for help. No way to reach someone who could help him get Tara out of the car. And he had no doubt that she was in serious trouble. From what he could tell at first assessment, the car had plowed through the guardrail, maybe in a skid and probably because Tara couldn’t see well enough to stay on the road. It had landed in shallow water that he knew dropped off sharply several yards from shore. The ghostly remnant of a dock destroyed by last year’s hurricane held up the front of the car, but he detected that the back of the vehicle was sinking.
“Tara! Can you hear me?”
She nodded, her face strained and her eyes wild. She was struggling to roll down the window.
“Don’t make any quick movements! We don’t want the car to slide into deeper water!”
She froze, looking terrified, and nodded again.
“Do you have the cell phone?” Perhaps it was in a convenient pocket in her shirt or in her purse, and if so maybe she could call 911.
Tara shook her head and said something, and though he didn’t hear the words over the howl of the wind and rain, he gathered that the phone wasn’t available.
Ben knew he had to get Tara out of the sinking car. At the same time, he was assailed by doubt. All the emotions, all the fears, all the pain of that night in the theater two years ago threatened to overwhelm him. He stood poised on the edge of the marsh, waist high in saw grass and ready to jump in, yet couldn’t make himself move forward.
What if he failed this time too? What if he couldn’t save Tara? What if she died, just as Ashley had, because he couldn’t get to her even after trying his best?
CHLOE COULDN’T SIT and do nothing while Tara was out in the storm somewhere. She called Jill’s house, and left a frantic messa
ge.
“Lorena, Jill, please pick up if you’re there. Tara’s supposed to be home, and she isn’t. It’s storming outside and I’m very worried, so please, when you get this message, call me immediately.”
She also tried Suzette’s house, and a boy whose voice she didn’t recognize answered. He identified himself as Paul Antonacci and asked politely if he could help her.
“I’m trying to find my niece Tara Clark.”
“Just a minute.” Paul muffled the phone, but she heard him ask if anyone knew where Tara was.
“Tara’s gone to Jill’s, maybe to bring her to the party,” someone said.
“That was a while ago,” Paul replied. He returned his attention to Chloe. “Do you want to talk to Suzette or her parents?”
“Sure,” Chloe said, feeling defeated.
A man came on the line and said he was George, Suzette’s father. After she related her concerns, George said that he’d be worried, too, if Suzette were missing. “Look,” he said. “One of the kids who lives on Stuart’s Point just arrived here. He went home to get something earlier, and we can ask him if he saw the Volvo parked at Jill’s house. He would have had to pass right by.”
“Anything you can do will be appreciated,” Chloe said.
George went away, came back. “His name is Flip Atchison, and he’s sure that the Volvo wasn’t there. He said he’d recognize it. He’s seen Tara driving the car more than once.”
“Then I have no idea where Tara is,” Chloe said, beginning to panic.
“I understand how upset you must be. My wife and I will drive over and get you. We’ll ride out to Stuart’s Point together and talk to Jill. She must be at home. Some of the kids say she told them she would be there tonight.”
“All—all right,” Chloe conceded. “If you wouldn’t mind.” By this time, since she hadn’t heard from him, she was terrified that something had happened to Ben, too.
“Livvie and I will be at the inn in a few minutes. Her sister and husband can stay here at the party and keep an eye on things.”
“Thanks,” Chloe said, feeling totally grateful.
She was wearing her rain jacket and waiting anxiously at the back door for George and Livvie when they drove up. The wind had abated slightly, but rain still poured from the sky. George ran up to the porch with an umbrella, but it turned inside out in the wind before he reached her.
“I don’t mind getting wet,” Chloe hollered over the noise of the storm. Her face and hair were drenched by the time she slid into the back seat of the Stephenses’ minivan. Livvie, her expression somber, handed a towel back to Chloe so she could dry off.
“After you hung up, Flip mentioned noticing a broken guardrail on the Ibis Trail bridge on his way back to our place. We’ll check it out.”
“A broken guardrail,” Chloe murmured, almost to herself.
“Don’t worry,” Livvie said comfortingly. “My guess is that Tara and Jill are sitting comfortably in the Pettuses’ TV room, eating popcorn and watching a movie.”
“They didn’t answer the phone,” Chloe said. “If anyone were at the Pettus house, wouldn’t they have answered?”
Neither George nor Livvie replied at first, and the swish of the windshield wipers punctuated their silence. Then Livvie said, “Some kids only answer their own cell phones. They consider the land lines in their homes their parents’.”
Chloe supposed this was a reasonable explanation, but even so, as the broken guardrail came into view on the left side of the highway, her heart almost stopped. Ben’s Jeep, headlights tilted crazily, was parked on the slope of shell rock that created the road shoulder above the marsh.
George braked sharply and brought the minivan to a halt. As Chloe leaped from it and began to run through the pelting rain toward the Jeep, Livvie was dialing 911. “We have an accident—” was all Chloe heard her say before she spotted the hood of the Volvo canted at a dangerous angle above the marsh.
THE WATER WAS RISING. As he stood there, riveted by his own inadequacies, it covered Tara’s shoulders, lapped halfway up her neck. She was crying now, the tears washing the blood from her head wound into the water.
Last time, when he’d tried to save Ashley, he hadn’t been able to penetrate the flames that had so quickly consumed the theater. But now, the threat was water. He was at home in the water, a strong swimmer, a fighter. Even as he reasoned with himself, panic seized his chest, kept him from doing what he should do. Frozen motionless, all he could do was watch as the water kept rising.
Suddenly, Ashley in her blue dress appeared superimposed on Tara’s form behind the glass. Ashley’s face was serene, her eyes solidly on him, entreating, encouraging. He blinked in disbelief, and the image of his daughter faded and became Tara again. Tara sobbing, clawing at the window.
In that moment, a great calm overtook him. He ran to grab a hammer from the tool kit in the back of the Jeep. “Hold on, Tara!” he shouted, kicking off his waterlogged shoes.
Little wind-driven waves sucked at the car, and the water inside continued to rise. Ben plunged into the marsh, sickened as the car lurched backward. The serrated edges of the saw grass cut his cheek, stung. Something dark and slimy wriggled past, brushing against his leg. A fish? A frog? He couldn’t tell. Tara was gasping for breath, struggling to hold her mouth and nose above the surface.
He swam, began to tread water. He didn’t want to create a current that would send the car backward and sink it. He had no idea how stable it was, how much it would take to tip the Volvo to the bottom of the marsh. He had to do something, and he’d better do it quickly. Grasping the handle of the back door, he hung on to it for balance while he swung the hammer with all his might and struck a mighty blow against the window right behind the front seat where Tara sat.
Water poured out, covered his face as the door swung open. He surfaced in time to see Tara as the rush of water carried her out and away from the car.
The Volvo teetered, and he let go of the handle, swimming as hard as he could away from the vehicle. Tara gasped beside him, went down, fought him when he grabbed her. He yanked her up as she went limp, knowing they had to get away from the car before it fell off the pilings and sucked them down with it.
He dragged Tara through the saw grass. He didn’t feel anything as its edges slashed his face, his hands. Blood still rose from the cut on her head, washing away in the rain. He heaved her onto the shore, bent over her, realized that blue emergency lights were flashing on the road.
Ben had no idea how much time had passed since he’d first come upon the scene, but it didn’t seem important. He was terrified that Tara might have stopped breathing, and he couldn’t detect any movement of her chest and lungs.
“Breathe,” he commanded, hoping against hope. “Breathe, damn it!”
Nothing. Not a hint of movement or breath, and his eyes filled with tears of frustration. He started CPR, praying that it would work. It seemed like aeons before Tara shuddered, choked, opened her eyes. And inhaled a deep, shuddering breath.
Chloe tumbled toward them, sobbing and slipping in the mud. Rescue workers took over. An ambulance crew teetered down the bank, their white shoes sinking into the mud. Ben stood aside, his chest aching, the cuts on his face stinging, his heart beating fast.
“Ben,” Chloe said, moving close, rain indistinguishable from the tears on her face. “Are you all right?”
He nodded, unable to speak. Because he was. He had saved Tara, redeemed himself for his past failings, kept another family from experiencing a terrible, unspeakable loss.
“Yes,” he said, curving an arm around Chloe. “Yes, Chloe, I am.”
DESPITE THE GASH on Tara’s head, which wasn’t as serious as it appeared, the doctor who applied sutures in the emergency room said that she was going to be fine. When it was clear that she was not in any immediate danger, she was allowed to go home with Chloe and Ben.
Before they left, the emergency room doctor pulled them aside. He carried a plastic bag containing six go
ld coins.
“These were in her pockets,” the doctor told them. “The nurse who found them went off duty, but she asked me to give them to you.”
Ben accepted the coins and thanked him.
“I’m sure we’ll get the full story when Tara is able to talk to us,” Chloe said.
“In light of what happened tonight, the coins are unimportant,” Ben said. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”
“Of course it does,” said Chloe. She wanted Tara’s name cleared once and for all.
Chloe called Naomi and Ray when they reached the inn, calmed her sister down and promised Ray she’d call again after they all got some rest. Tara was understandably exhausted and fell into a deep sleep as soon as they tucked her in. Once, she opened her eyes, to see Chloe and Ben hovering over her bed, and told them, with a smile, to go away.
Finally, when she was so tired that she could no longer stay on her feet, Chloe sought the solace of her room and lay down on the bed, where she dozed off and on. After a while, with Tara still sleeping peacefully, Ben joined her and lay down beside her.
“Ben?” Chloe said, confused for a moment.
“Right here,” he said. He reached for her hand and held it until she went to sleep.
Long after the sun rose, when they heard Tara stirring in her room, they both got up. Chloe smoothed her hair, wild after her drenching in the rain, and Ben went down to his apartment to shower and shave, though he’d suffered cuts on his face from the saw grass. Chloe prepared a breakfast tray of pancakes and fruit, and carried it to Tara, who sat up in bed while she ate. When Ben arrived, he ate pancakes, too. They all had a lot to talk about, but after a while, it became clear that everyone was avoiding the obvious question.
“I—I had the coins in my pockets,” Tara said finally.
“The nurse in the emergency room found them and they were returned to me,” Ben hastened to tell her.
Tara drew a deep breath. “Jill took them,” Tara said flatly. “I’m really sorry, Ben. It’s my fault because I showed the box with the coins in it to Jill when we were cleaning the apartment. I’d told her how you found things on the beach all the time, and I—I thought I could trust her.”
The Treasure Man Page 21
