by Ink, India
“That might be a good idea,” he said. “But wait a bit. Amy’s taking a little nap. She was up most of the night, and I made her drink some chamomile tea and try to rest.”
I glanced at the clock. “I’ll go back to sleep for a couple hours and be over about ten, then. That be okay?”
“Sounds good. Bring Killian, if you like. He seems a good sort, although I think he’s a little too much of a city boy for my tastes,” Kyle said.
I laughed then, despite myself. “Well, then maybe you shouldn’t date him.”
As I hung up, I wondered just what had happened to Lisa. Chances were, she had just stayed overnight at Mitch’s house. But Kyle’s worry preyed on my mind—he wasn’t given to hysterics. If he thought something had happened, then maybe it had. Whatever the case, I crawled back into bed and curved my body around Killian’s. He mumbled in his sleep again, and I closed my eyes. Lisa was probably okay, I told myself as I began to drift off. In fact, she’d probably be home by the time we got there.
Chapter Five
Killian and I decided to skip breakfast, as appealing as Auntie and Kane’s waffles looked. He needed to go home to prepare for his meeting on Monday, and I was on my way to Amy’s. Kyle hadn’t left any messages, so I assumed Lisa hadn’t returned yet.
On the way out to our cars, Killian pulled me into his arms and gave me a long kiss. I held on to the feeling, not wanting him to let go. “I won’t see you until tomorrow night or Tuesday,” he said. “Wish me luck with the meeting.”
“You’ve got it, sweetheart. And more. Call me when you get back to let me know what they said. And thanks for Betsy Sue’s number!” I watched his Jag speed off, then followed in my Sebring. At the corner of Briarwood and Statehouse Drive, he took the left turn that would take him the most expedient route to his condo, which overlooked Hampton Bay. I kept going straight. Amy and Lisa’s father had owned a house on Driftwood Lane, the house they were trying to save from the hands of the bill collectors.
As I pulled into the driveway, I saw Kyle’s police cruiser there. I grabbed my purse, hopped out of my car, and headed for the door. The rain had slowed to a drizzle, misting over the island with a ghostly feel. The smell of woodsmoke from surrounding houses filtered down, a smoky reminder that we were nearing winter. I rang the bell and waited for a moment until Kyle opened the door and ushered me in.
I’d been over to Lisa and Amy’s several times. The house was a good fifty years old, a simple three-bedroom, two-bath rambler. The kitchen and living room were large in the way that they often were in older homes, and the furniture was a good thirty years old. Lisa had told me that they planned on selling it all and replacing it once they had their financial affairs under control, but for now a retro-seventies feel, complete down to the green shag carpeting on the floor and the paneling on the living room walls, permeated the house.
Amy was sitting at the kitchen table, a coffee cup in her hand. She glanced up at me and blinked. I could see the lack of sleep in her eyes. She was similar to Lisa in looks, though Amy’s hair was strawberry blonde, and she kept it pulled back in a ponytail. Where Lisa wore makeup and low-rise jeans, Amy’s face was almost bare, and her dress was a generic shirtwaist that had probably come from Sears or Kmart. She flashed me a wan smile that disappeared almost before I had a chance to return it.
I slid into the chair next to her. “No word yet, I take it?”
Kyle held up the coffeepot, and I shook my head and pointed to the plate of Danish sitting on the counter. “No thanks. I wouldn’t mind one of those, though, if that’s all right.”
As he handed me the plate and a napkin, his cell phone rang. He stepped into the other room to answer it.
Amy bit her lip. “Lisa may seem like a wild child,” she said, “but she’s never stayed out without calling before. At least not since we moved back to Gull Harbor. I know something’s wrong. I just know it.”
“Does she have any favorite clubs? Nightspots? Are you sure she didn’t show up for the dance last night?”
“Nope, she never made it there. There was a message on the phone this morning from Mitch, her date. He asked where she was and why she hadn’t called to tell him that she’d changed her mind. Kyle is trying to track him down—he didn’t answer his phone when we called him back.”
“Did you check Lisa’s room to see if the dress she was going to wear is still here? That might pinpoint the time a little better. If she never came home to change, then it will give us some idea of when she disappeared.” I leaned back and looked around at the kitchen. There were touches of Amy all over—needlepoint samplers and copper molds on the wall—but very little to remind me that Lisa lived here, too.
“I don’t know.” Amy shrugged. “We couldn’t afford to buy anything new, so I have no idea what she’d been planning on wearing. We didn’t have a lot of free time to sit around discussing fashion, not with all that’s been going on lately.”
Feeling rebuked, I concentrated on the Danish. When Kyle came back, both Amy and I snapped to attention. But the look on his face didn’t lend itself to comfort.
“One of my boys found Lisa’s car,” he said. Amy gasped and instinctively reached for my hand. I held tight, bracing her as I wondered if Lisa was in the car. If so, then something must have happened, or Kyle would have just said, “We found Lisa.” But he was quick to put our immediate fears to rest.
He held up his hand, shaking his head. “Don’t go to pieces on me. She wasn’t in it. The car’s locked, in a parking lot down by Lookout Pier. Let’s take a ride down there and see what we can find out. Do you have a spare key to her car? We’ll want to get inside.”
“Yes, I do,” Amy said. She retrieved the key, then set her phone to forward to her cell, just in case Lisa called home, and we took off. Amy rode with Kyle, and I followed behind in my car.
Lookout Pier was on a sand spit, much like Lighthouse Spit, but was off the beaten path and didn’t attract as many tourists. While the walkway that ran out over the bay was well traveled during the summer, hardly anybody used it during the winter months. For one thing, no restaurant or coffee shop had sprung up next to it yet, so the joggers and early morning walkers didn’t have a retreat from the weather or a place to grab coffee after they’d gotten their fill of exercise. For another, Lookout Pier was harder to get to. The bus ran directly to Lighthouse Spit but stopped a good walk down the road from Lookout Pier. So unless arriving by car, it wasn’t an easy jaunt.
As I eased into the parking lot behind Kyle, I noticed a pale blue Honda Civic in the corner of the parking lot. As I climbed out of my car and pulled my jacket tighter against the wind that was whipping up whitecaps out on the water, I saw that another police car was parked near the Civic, and two officers whom I recognized by face but not by name were sitting inside. When they saw Kyle walking over, they jumped out of the patrol car. I took my place beside Amy, and she gave me a grateful smile.
“What have we got?” Kyle asked. “This is Lisa’s sister, by the way. Amy Tremont.” I could tell by the emphasis in his words that he was tipping them that a relative was listening, just in case they’d found anything darker between the time they called him and now. “You boys remember Persia Vanderbilt? She’s Amy’s friend.” They nodded at me, and I nodded back.
Amy produced the key, and Kyle took it, cautiously opening the doors. Nothing inside looked like a struggle had taken place. While they searched the car and trunk— which was thankfully devoid of any sign of violence—Amy and I walked over to the water’s edge. She stared at the dark waves crashing against the surf.
“What was Lisa doing here?” she said. “She’s terrified of the water. She’d never come to a beach without a damned good reason.”
“I agree.” In fact, I’d been thinking the same thing. I could barely get her to walk around a swimming pool with lifeguards nearby and me by her side. I glanced back at the cops. One of them—Kyle had introduced him as Tim Grady—was walking along the pier. The wooden plank leadin
g out to the main walkway was open to the water, which swelled just feet below it. During the summer, jet skiers could pull up to it and clamber onto land easier that way.
I looked at Kyle, who was gazing out at the water, and had a nasty feeling which way his thoughts were headed. He caught me staring at him and walked over to where we were standing.
“There’s nothing in the car to indicate what she’d been planning. Her purse and keys are gone.” He shaded his eyes and looked at the pier again. “I think we’d better get a search and rescue team out here pronto.”
Amy paled and shook her head. “Lisa wouldn’t walk out on the pier—there’s no way she’d ever set foot on it. She’s too afraid.”
“Afraid?” Kyle asked, frowning. “Afraid of what?”
“Lisa has hydrophobia, Kyle. She’s terrified of water. I can verify that, because I’ve been working with her to help her overcome her fear. She wouldn’t have willingly gone for a walk on the pier any more than you’d catch me walking down the aisle in a white dress. Seriously, get that thought out of your head and find some other clue to go on.” My eyes narrowing, I gave him a shaded look. Kyle was a good man, but he lacked foresight and tended to latch on to the easiest answer that entered his mind.
He arched his eyebrows but merely said, “Nevertheless, we’d better get SAR out here now. Who knows? She may have decided to tackle her fear head-on. People do that, you know.” As he strode back to his cruiser to call for a team, Amy turned to me, her face a mask of white.
“He didn’t hear a word we said, did he?” she asked incredulously.
“Amy,” I said, stepping cautiously around the potential landmines inherent within the conversation, “Kyle is a good man, and he’s good at his job. I suppose he has to check out the most obvious possibilities before excluding them.” I bit my lip, wondering how far to go, but decided that was enough for the moment and might actually give her some hope.
By the time the search and rescue crew arrived, we were all soaked through. The rain had turned into a steady drizzle, saturating the air and everything exposed to it. Three teams of young volunteers arrived, and Kyle set them to scouring the pier. A dive team soon followed, and I led Amy back to my car, where we sat protected from the cold while they did their work.
“This isn’t happening,” she said. “It can’t be. Lisa didn’t drown; I tell you, she wouldn’t go near the water.”
I thought about the storm the night before and how it had raged while we were at the Gala. Whatever reason Lisa had for coming down here, I knew it wasn’t a walk on the pier. No sane person would brave weather that bad for a walk, and she wasn’t exactly firing on all cylinders when it came to open water. No, she must have had a different reason for showing up here. Could she have been meeting somebody? But who?
Obviously, by what she’d written in the note she’d left me, Lisa expected to learn something about their father’s money. But that could mean many things. She might have been planning on talking to somebody, or just digging up information at the library for all I knew. Or perhaps she’d never meant to come here at all. Maybe somebody brought her here. There could be a dozen reasons why her car was found in this parking lot, but most of them didn’t offer any comfort.
I turned back to Amy. “Did Lisa have any enemies? Anybody who was really mad at her?”
Amy shook her head. “Not that I know of. She broke up with a guy a few months ago that she’d been seeing for about three months. His name was Shawn Johnson. I don’t think it was a bad breakup, but I could be wrong.”
Just then, Kyle tapped on the window. I rolled it down, and he poked his head inside. “Hey, we’re going to be awhile here, sifting through stuff. Do you mind if I keep the keys to her car so we can run it in to the station to thoroughly check it out for evidence?” Amy shook her head. I could tell she was both afraid and uncertain what to do next.
I spoke up. “Kyle, why don’t I take Amy home now? You can call her if anything shows up, and it won’t do any good for us to be out here waiting. I honestly doubt if you’re going to find anything near the water.”
Kyle glanced at Amy’s face, then nodded, a grateful look in his eyes. “If you would, that might be best. I’ll call as soon as I find out anything,” he told Amy. “Will you be okay if Persia takes you home?”
Amy nodded, and I could tell she was just letting us direct her like a marionette at this point. I gave Kyle a little wave and eased out of the parking lot, speeding back to Driftwood Lane. Amy was silent, and I didn’t interrupt her thoughts.
When I pulled into the driveway, I turned to Amy as she put her hand on the door handle. “We’ll find out what happened to her, Amy. Maybe she just took off on the spur of the moment with a friend. Sometimes people do things out of character. I know it won’t do any good, but please, don’t worry too much until we know for sure what’s going on.”
Her lips twisted in a painful grimace, she squinted, and I saw a single tear glinting at the corner of her eye. I had the feeling Amy relied more on Lisa than the other way around. “Would you like me to stay with you for awhile?”
She pushed open the door and slid out. “No, but thanks, Persia. I appreciate the offer. I’ll call you when we find out something.”
Feeling helpless and wishing I could do more, I gave her a little wave as I headed back home to Moss Rose Cottage. Where the hell was Lisa? And why had she left her car on a beach—one of the few places I knew she wouldn’t be caught dead?
Kane was gone by the time I walked through the door. Auntie was reading the newspaper over a pot of tea. I fetched a cup and saucer from the cabinet and slid in opposite her at the table. The curtains were open, showing rough water cresting against the shoreline. The rain had backed off, but the wind was still cold. So much for parties and galas, I thought. Thanksgiving was coming up, and we should be planning dinner, but right now that was the last thing on my mind.
“What happened, Imp? You look worried.” She poured me a cup of tea, and I squeezed a slice of lemon over the cup, stirring gently. A plate of Barbara’s Russian tea cakes sat next to the teapot, and I bit into one, savoring the melt-in-your-mouth taste of nuts and powdered sugar.
“Lisa’s missing.” I hadn’t even told her about having to take over Lisa’s station yesterday, I realized. I hadn’t wanted to spoil the mood of the dance. With a sigh, I launched into the events of the past twenty-four hours. At first, Auntie was indignant when I told her about Lisa’s note and the extra work, but her irritation quickly turned into concern when I concluded with the locked car on the beach and the fact that nobody had seen Lisa since she’d walked out of Venus Envy’s doors the day before.
“Heaven’s mercy.” Auntie stared at her cup, frowning. “Do you think she’s okay?”
It was a question that I really didn’t want to consider. It was one thing to say that I didn’t think she’d gone anywhere near enough the water to drown, but quite another to say that I thought she was okay. I’d put on a game face for Amy, but now, alone with Auntie, I let down my guard.
“Honestly? I don’t know, but considering that they’ve found her car and it was locked, that everything of importance seems to be gone from inside it, that it was found in an area that Lisa would never think of going by herself . . . it doesn’t look good, does it?”
“Could she have been carjacked? Did she have anything valuable with her?” Auntie finished her tea and reached for the teapot.
“Well, I gave her my old Marc Jacobs handbag a couple of weeks ago. That could be worth up to three or four hundred on eBay, but honestly, I doubt if Lisa had anything else that was worth much, except the car itself, and that we found.”
Taking my tea, I stood up, walking over to look out the windows at the fading afternoon. “Add in the fact that she was investigating something as touchy as the loss of her father’s money and . . . I don’t know. Nothing adds up. Maybe she really did run off for the weekend with some guy like I suggested to Amy and Kyle. It wasn’t her current boyfriend th
ough, because he called last night and left a message, asking where she was and why she hadn’t called to cancel if she wasn’t planning on going to the dance with him.”
“If she did step out with someone, then she’ll return home and feel bad about how badly she scared her sister.” Auntie sighed, then said, “Imp, there’s nothing you can do right now. However, this brings up an uncomfortable discussion regarding Venus Envy. With Lisa missing, we have to hire someone to take over her station until she comes back.” She gave me a look that told me she thought I was going to protest.
“Oh hell, I hadn’t even thought of that,” I said. “It almost feels like turning traitor, doesn’t it? After all, Lisa’s missing, and we don’t know if she’s okay or lying in a ditch somewhere, dead.”
“Imp, this is one of those uncomfortable times when your personal feelings are going to feel at odds with owning a store. Sometimes, you have to push worry to the side, at least when it comes to business. The shop won’t wait for us to find Lisa, wherever she might be.”
