“Where exactly did you find her?” Riley directed the question to Nate.
“Ask her,” Nate said curtly.
“Maggy?” Riley’s voice held a warning tone.
“I was just out on a boat with some kids,” Maggy said petulantly. “We weren’t doing anything. And then he came along and butted in.” She tossed her head in Nate’s direction, avoiding his direct gaze.
“What kids?” Riley asked. “You didn’t say anything about going out on a boat today. Did Mimi say that was okay?”
“Mimi wasn’t around. And you were asleep. I didn’t want to bother you,” Maggy said. “I’m fine. But I gotta pee now, if that’s okay with him.”
She stalked past the grown-ups and ran up the stairs, past her mother’s confused gaze.
Riley turned back to Nate, who seemed to have something else he wanted to say.
“Well, thanks, I guess, for giving her a ride home,” she said, her hand on the door.
“Don’t you want to know what she was up to?” he asked.
“She just said she went for a boat ride with some kids. Aside from being sunburnt, it doesn’t look like she came to any harm,” Riley said.
“So … it’s all right with you if she goes racing around out in the bay in a boat dangerously overloaded with a bunch of kids, being driven by that Billingsley kid, who has no business driving a go-cart, let alone a boat with a two-hundred-horsepower engine? And it’s okay that the boat didn’t have enough life jackets? And the Billingsley kid subsequently beached the boat on a sandbar—where your kid would still be sitting, with no food or drink—or meds—if it weren’t for me?”
Nate’s face was rigid with anger.
“Dear God,” Riley said, letting that sink in. She glanced up at the stairs. “Is she really all right?”
“She was pale and shaky when I got her on my boat, and she finally admitted she hadn’t eaten anything and left her insulin kit back at the marina. I gave her some water and a sandwich and an orange. When we got to the marina she did her insulin thing. So I guess she’s okay.”
Riley leaned against the doorjamb and let out a long sigh. “Thanks for bringing her home safely. I don’t know what she could have been thinking. Maggy knows how to take care of her diabetes. God knows I’ve talked until I’m blue in the face about the importance of monitoring her blood sugar and eating properly. It’s like she enjoys pushing the envelope, taking risks.”
“Maybe she needs to have a responsible parent monitor her behavior.”
Riley bristled. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means a twelve-year-old girl has no business running around this island without any adult supervision. Especially with that bunch of kids she was hanging out with. A boat is not a toy, but it is to that crowd. Shane Billingsley is trouble, Riley. If Maggy were my kid…”
“But she’s not your kid,” Riley said. “Maggy has plenty of adult supervision. Usually. Obviously, she snuck out of the house without my permission this morning. I’ll deal with that, and she’ll be punished. Look. I haven’t been sleeping well, since all this…”
“Whatever,” Nate said. “Sorry to have disturbed your sleep.”
He turned and stomped his way off the front porch, leaving Riley standing openmouthed in the doorway.
* * *
Maggy stayed in the shower for nearly an hour, until the hot water ran out. It was one of her favorite delaying tactics.
Riley sat patiently on one of the twin beds in the guest bedroom. They’d barely been in the house four days, and already it looked like Maggy’s room at home. Discarded clothes and shoes were strewn everywhere. Her suitcase was open on the floor, with most of its contents spilled around it. A damp, sandy bathing suit had been dropped on top of the mahogany dresser, along with Maggy’s cell phone.
Riley picked up the phone and regarded it thoughtfully. She was still thinking through her disciplinary strategy when Maggy finally emerged from the bathroom, wearing clean clothes, her wet hair wrapped in a towel.
“We have to talk,” Riley announced sternly. She patted the unmade bed. “Sit.”
Maggy sat on the edge of the bed, already sensing her mother’s dark mood. “I’m sorry, okay? I know it was dumb to leave my kit at the marina. And I promise not to do it again. Okay?”
“Not okay,” Riley said. “It’s not okay that you snuck out of this house this morning without letting anybody know where you were going. And it’s not okay for you to be out in a boat with somebody who isn’t old enough or sensible enough to legally operate a boat. And it’s especially not okay to pull a stunt like this when you know what I’m going through with your father’s death.”
“Like you’re the only one going through it,” Maggy shot back.
“I didn’t say that. I know you’re hurting, too. But you have to stop this risky behavior.” Riley felt her anger rising, along with the pitch in her voice. “Nate told me Shane was driving that boat like a crazy person. What if he hadn’t come along after Shane beached the boat on that sandbar? You could have been stranded out there for hours and hours with no food or water.…”
Riley was crying now, damn it. But her tears failed to faze her daughter.
“Geez, Mom. Get a grip!” Maggy shouted. “Nothing bad happened. Why do you have to make such a big deal of everything?”
Riley grasped Maggy’s shoulders and shook them. “You could have died. You know that, right? You could have died!”
“Ow!” the girl howled, twisting away from her mother’s reach. “Cut it out! That hurts.”
“I want it to hurt. I don’t know how else to get through to you. You can’t keep doing this stuff, Maggy. You just can’t!”
Maggy hurled herself off the bed and onto the floor. She scuttled across the rug until she was a few feet away, then glared up at her mother, wide-eyed.
“Okay. I get it. All right? Can we just drop it now? I said I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.”
Riley clutched the edge of the bed with both hands, trying to regain her composure. She was breathing hard, as though she’d just run a marathon.
“That’s right,” she said, when she could speak. “You won’t be doing that again. You’re on restriction until further notice. You don’t leave this house unless it’s with me or a family member. Or Parrish.”
“No! It’s Memorial Day. I’m playing in the tennis tournament with Bebo. And the cookout. Everybody will be there. You can’t lock me up on Memorial Day. It’s not fair.”
“You should have thought of that before you went sneaking off without my permission,” Riley said. “Also? I don’t give a damn about being fair.”
“Fine,” Maggy said. “Go ahead and ruin my life. I don’t care.”
“I’m trying to save your life,” Riley said softly.
“Whatever.” Maggy stood with hands clutched on both hips. “Can I please have some privacy now?” She held out her hand. “And my phone?”
“You can have your privacy,” Riley said. “But I’m keeping your phone until further notice.”
“Whattttt?” Maggy shrieked. “That’s my phone. It’s mine! Dad gave it to me.”
“And I’m taking it away, until you can figure out how to behave responsibly.”
Riley pushed up from the bed and walked unsteadily to the bedroom door, the cell phone gripped firmly in her hand.
The door slammed shut behind her, and a moment later she heard what sounded like a tennis shoe being thrown against the wooden door. “I hate you!” Maggy screamed.
21
Billy breezed through the back door of his mother’s house. He was dressed in tennis whites with a racquet slung over his shoulder.
“Maggy!” he called, walking through the hallway and calling up toward the stairway. “Let’s go! We’re supposed to be on the courts in twenty minutes.”
The house was quiet. Eerily so. He heard a door open and close upstairs.
“Maggy? Mama? Riley?”
Light footsteps.
Riley walked s
lowly down the stairs. She looked, her brother thought, like she’d been through the wringer.
Bless her heart, he thought.
“Hey,” she said softly, as she reached the bottom stair. “Sorry. I guess I should have called to let you know. Maggy won’t be playing in the tournament.”
“Is she still pulling that crap about tennis being stupid?” he asked, frowning. “Where is she? I bet I can change her mind.”
“I bet you could. Unfortunately, she’s under house arrest. So she’s not going anywhere for the next few days.”
Billy glanced upward. “What’d she do? Rob a bank?”
“It’s not funny,” Riley said. “She snuck out of the house this morning and went out on a boat with Shane Billingsley and a bunch of other kids. They were racing around the bay, the boat got beached on a sandbar, and she was out there, with no food or water, or her meds. It’s only by the grace of God—and that damned Nate Milas—that she made it back alive.”
“Ohhh.” Billy spun his racquet on his shoulder. “She’s not sick though—right?”
“No, fortunately, she’s sunburned but okay. Nate gave her some juice and fed her and got her back to the marina to pick up her insulin in time. Then he delivered her to me—along with an incredibly annoying and self-righteous sermon about what a neglectful, irresponsible parent I am.”
“Well, fuck him,” Billy said cheerfully.
“That’s sort of what I told him,” Riley said. “Now, I feel kind of bad about that. I know he meant well.” She shrugged. “I’m really not having a good week.”
Billy gave her a hug. “I know. I’m sorry about all of this. So Mags is giving you a hard time?”
She nodded. “It’s like she’s testing just how far she can push my buttons.”
“How’d she manage to get out of the house without you seeing her? Did she figure out how to climb out that bedroom window onto the porch roof and slide down the drainpipe already? Damn! I didn’t get around to that until I was fourteen or fifteen.”
“No, hopefully she hasn’t figured that out yet. As far as I know, she just waited until Mama was gone and left.” She hesitated. “I haven’t been sleeping, you know. Last night, after everybody else was in bed, I kind of wandered around the island on the golf cart. I had to see for myself where it happened. You know. Where they found Wendell’s body.”
“I saw you coming back to the house,” Billy said. “I figured maybe it was something like that.”
“Yeah.” Riley sat on the bottom stair. “Last night, seeing the seawall, and the place where the sheriff marked it off, it shook me up. I couldn’t get to sleep after I got home. When I finally did fall asleep—around dawn, I didn’t wake up until nearly two! I didn’t even know Maggy was gone until Nate rang the doorbell. He’s right. I really am a shitty mother.”
“Oh, sis,” Billy said. “You know that’s not true.” He sat down beside her on the stair, and Riley leaned her head on his shoulder.
“Maggy’s just going through the kind of crap kids do at that age. Remember what a terror I was? All the schools I got kicked out of? And, look, I survived, right? Just remember she’s a good kid who’s going through a bad time. I’ll talk to her if you want. Maybe she’ll listen to me.”
“There’s something I haven’t told you yet,” Riley said, keeping her voice low. “A television reporter from Raleigh has been calling and leaving me voice messages. About Wendell. She claims the FBI is investigating Wendell’s involvement in some bank failure on the coast.”
“The FBI?” Billy felt a cold shiver run down his spine. “You don’t think it’s true—do you?”
“I don’t know,” Riley said. “I don’t know anything about Wendell’s business dealings. Except,” she said bitterly, “he somehow managed to lose our house here.”
“What are you going to do?” Billy asked.
“What can I do? I’m going to the courthouse first thing tomorrow, to try to figure out the foreclosure and to see if I can sniff out anything else Wendell might have been up to. I talked to a lawyer yesterday, but since I can’t guarantee I can pay her a retainer, I guess I’m going to have to try and figure this stuff out for myself.”
Billy turned to look at his sister. “What can I do to help?”
She gave him a wan smile. “Keep Mama off my back. She’s driving me nuts insisting we have to have what she calls a ‘proper memorial service’ for Wendell. She’s already got everything planned. And in the meantime, I don’t even know when the coroner is going to release Wendell’s body. I know it’s awful, but I’m dreading this whole ordeal.”
“It’s not awful,” Billy assured her. “Why don’t you just tell Mama to back off? There’s no law that says you absolutely have to have a funeral if you don’t want one. Especially under the circumstances.”
“No law?” She snorted. “There’s Evelyn Riley Nolan’s law. It’s the only one that matters on Belle Isle.”
22
Riley’s cell phone shattered the peace of the morning. “Mrs. Griggs? This is Sheriff Schumann. I was wondering if you’d have time to answer some questions for me.”
It was barely 8 a.m. on Tuesday. Riley was sitting on the front porch at Shutters, sipping her coffee and watching a blue heron poking around at something in the front yard. It had rained overnight, and the air was cool and fresh. Butterflies hovered over the red salvia in her mother’s flower beds, and the day would have seemed ripe with the promise of summer. If only.
“Yes,” she said cautiously.
“Is now a good time?”
She looked down at her cotton nightgown and bare feet and sprang from the wooden rocking chair.
“Right now?”
“I could come over there if you like. I’m at the ferry dock in Southpoint, as a matter of fact.”
“No, no,” Riley said quickly. “If it’s all right with you, could I meet you someplace else? My daughter is still pretty upset about everything.”
“Have you had breakfast?”
“Just coffee,” Riley said.
“Then let’s meet at Onnalee’s. Say, in an hour?”
“I’ll see you there,” she said.
* * *
Once again Riley was thankful for being an early riser in a house full of sleepyheads. Evelyn never came downstairs before 9:30 in the summer, and Maggy had barely shown her face outside her room since being put on double-secret probation.
She dressed quickly, not bothering with makeup or more than a cursory hair brushing, left a note saying she’d gone to town to run errands, and managed to make the 8:30 ferry.
Another reason to be an early bird was that she mostly had the boat to herself. The season had barely started, but the residents of Belle Isle had already eased into their relaxed summer schedule. Islanders who had jobs on the mainland had mostly taken the first ferry of the morning, and anybody who had shopping or errands to run in town would probably wait another hour or so.
After enduring the sympathetic inquiries of three or four neighbors, Riley found a sunny but deserted spot on the upper deck and barricaded herself behind the pages of the three-day-old Wall Street Journal she’d bought from a vending machine at the landing, for just that reason.
A shadow fell over the newspaper page. She looked up and saw Nate Milas, holding out a steaming cardboard cup of coffee.
He flashed her a hopeful smile. “We’re fresh out of olive branches at the concession stand. I was hoping maybe this would do.”
She lowered the paper. “Is that supposed to be an apology?”
“It is. I was way, way out of line yesterday. I had no right to give you parenting advice.”
“True,” Riley said. She took the coffee, sipped, then wrinkled her nose. “Speaking of advice, you really should do something about the coffee on this boat. It’s ghastly.”
“You’re right,” he said. “That’s on my to-do list. Dad wasn’t what you’d call a coffee connoisseur. He’d drink Quaker State if you put enough milk and sugar in it. Mom has fin
ally agreed to let me upgrade everything we serve in the concession stand. I’m meeting with a coffee roaster in Wilmington this morning to sample his beans. And, for your delectation—all-beef hot dogs, chicken sandwiches made from actual chicken breasts, and fresh fruit smoothies. Coming soon.”
“Fannncy,” Riley said. “But don’t you dare mess with the french fries.”
“I would never,” Nate promised, pressing the palm of his hand to his chest. “Would you mind if I sat down?”
“Only if you don’t cluck your tongue and tell me how I’ve been in your thoughts and prayers,” Riley said.
He sat down on the wooden bench beside her. “Yeah, all that sympathy stuff gets old pretty fast.”
“Between the curious stares and the whispers, I’m just about over this whole ordeal,” Riley said.
“Any news on the police investigation?” Nate asked. “Aw hell, there I go again, putting my worst foot forward. You don’t have to answer that. I don’t mean to be so nosy. But it’s kinda natural, don’t you think, for people to wonder? We haven’t had a serious crime on the island in a long time.”
“I guess,” she conceded. “I’m meeting with the sheriff this morning. More questions.”
“Does he have any idea what the motive could have been?”
“If he does, he hasn’t told me yet,” Riley said.
“He asked us for the passenger list for all of last week,” Nate volunteered. “I’ve been gone from the island so long, I didn’t know half the names, but my mom didn’t spot anybody who’d seem like a likely suspect. Mostly just the usual weekenders, folks who work on the island, day trippers, and a few people who were probably renters.”
“Was Wendell’s name on the passenger list? They did find our boat tied up, in the marina, right near where they found his body, but I’ve been wondering when he came over because, as far as I knew, he was tied up in out-of-town business meetings right up until Friday when he was supposed to meet us here on the ferry.”
“No, his name wasn’t on the list, and I was on the ferry a lot last week and never saw him. He had booked a ticket for the same boat as you, but obviously, never used it.”
The Weekenders Page 15
