Abigail went back over several other seasons, then began to tire, and just as she was on the edge of slipping into sleep, she heard what sounded like a branch scraping against the window. It stopped, and she wondered if she’d been dreaming it, but just as she was about to fall asleep again, it started up.
She slid out of the bed, pulled on her nightgown, which had been bunched up on the floor, then pulled her robe from the back of the chair. The fire had died out entirely and the bunk was cold and dark. She went to the window that faced the open lawn in front of the lodge and peered out. She didn’t immediately see anything and wondered if it really had been a branch moving in the wind, when she noticed a figure crouched in one of the low shrubs that ringed the bunk. She caught a glimpse of blond hair and pale skin, and realized it was Jill, hunkered down, squatting. There was a three-quarter moon in the sky and Abigail could see the fear in her face, the wide eyes and set jaw. Abigail waved to her before realizing that she wouldn’t be able to see through the window, then went to the front door and opened it as quietly as she could. It was windy outside, and her robe flapped open as she stepped onto the threshold. She pulled the door closed behind her.
“Jill?” she whispered, and stepped toward the shrub she’d seen her hiding in. “Jill, it’s Abigail.”
Jill stood up and took a step backward. She was wearing a long satiny nightgown that was either white or yellow. Down her right side, under her arm, there was a dark stain on her nightgown that looked black in the moonlight. “Are you hurt?” Abigail asked, and Jill took another step backward, looking confused. She held up her arm, the inside of which was also coated in what was clearly blood.
“Who are you?” Jill said.
“It’s Abigail, Jill, what’s wrong?” She moved rapidly toward her, and Jill turned and began to run across the lawn toward the line of trees that bordered the end of the bunks.
Abigail froze for a moment, wrapping her robe around her, shocked by what had just happened. The moon was bright, and Jill was moving fast, her white nightgown whipping around her. Abigail didn’t know if she should dart back into the bunk and wake Bruce, but if she did that Jill would be long gone. Abigail began to chase her across the lawn, the grass damp under her bare feet.
As she ran, the moon must have moved behind a cloud, because it darkened. Even so, she could see that Jill had reached the line of trees. She disappeared into the woods.
Abigail slowed down, breathing rapidly, staring into the darkness. “Jill,” she shouted. She stepped right up to the edge of the woods, staring into them, letting them come into focus. There was nothing to see, though, and nothing to hear, except for the wind whipping through the tops of the trees. Inside the woods was total darkness. Even so, Abigail, shaking now from the cold, took a few steps farther. She could feel the fallen pine needles sticking to the soles of her feet, and she could smell damp soil and rotting vegetation. “Jill,” she shouted again, but she knew that she was gone.
Suddenly scared, Abigail turned and raced back across the lawn toward her bunk. A few lights were on at the main lodge and they jangled in her vision as she ran. She considered going straight there, but decided she needed Bruce with her.
She pushed through her door and into the bunk, going directly to the bed and shaking Bruce by the shoulder. He woke, as he always did, sluggishly, looking at Abigail as though he didn’t know who she was or what she wanted.
“Bruce, wake up,” she said, still shaking his shoulder.
“What? What’s wrong?”
“It’s Jill. I just saw Jill outside. She was bleeding and I chased her into the woods.”
Bruce, sitting up now, rubbing at an eye with the heel of his hand, said, “Say that again.”
She told him exactly what had happened as they got dressed.
“Let’s hit the button, call Paul,” Bruce said.
“It could take too long, Bruce. Let’s just go straight up to the lodge and let whoever’s up there now know about it. There needs to be a search party. They need to alert the police, is what they need to do.”
“Okay, relax. They’ll take care of it.”
When they got to the main hall of the lodge, there was light coming from the balcony level, but Abigail just shouted into the dark cavernous space, “Anyone here?”
The chandelier, the one that looked as though it were made of real candles, suddenly lit up, and she heard racing steps on the stairwell, and then Paul, their own personal staff member, was coming across the hall to meet them. He moved quickly but his face was placid.
“There’s an emergency,” Abigail said.
“What can I do?” Paul replied, and Abigail told him quickly that she’d been awoken by a tapping on her window, and then she’d seen Jill with blood on her. She’d chased her into the woods. “You need to call the police,” Abigail said, and Paul nodded.
“Take a seat, both of you, by the fire. I’m going to go wake up Chip, but I’ll be right back. In the meantime, can I get either of you a warm drink?”
Abigail, being led to a seat, said, “You need to send out a search party. She was only wearing a nightgown, and it’s cold.”
“I’ll be right back, okay?”
“Jesus, should we just go look for her ourselves?” Abigail said to Bruce, as Paul raced back up the stairwell.
“Relax for a moment, okay?” Bruce said. “He’s going to get Chip, and he’ll take care of it. I promise.”
“But they need to call the police. Something was really wrong with her.”
“They will, but it’s only been about five minutes. Besides, maybe she just drank too much or something. Maybe it’s a personal matter.”
“She was bleeding, Bruce,” Abigail said. “All down her side.”
There were footsteps again. Paul was leading Chip Ramsay to them. She hadn’t seen him since they’d landed on the island three days earlier. The large red beard was unmistakable, combined with the carefully buzzed hair. He was wearing a green silk robe and had slippers on his feet.
“Tell me what you told Paul,” he said to Abigail as a greeting, perching on the edge of a free chair.
She took a deep breath and quickly recounted her story, ending by saying again that someone needed to go to Jill’s bunk and talk with Alec, the husband. Or they just simply needed to call the police. Bruce was quiet, watching Abigail while she spoke.
“Okay,” Chip said. “I do need to ask you a couple of questions first. Are you absolutely positive that the woman you saw was Jill Greenly?”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know her last name, but it was Jill from the other honeymooning couple. Married to Alec.”
“That was their name. Alec and Jill Greenly. And you’re sure it was her?”
“Yes,” Abigail said, loudly.
Chip slowly nodded, frowning a little.
“I don’t understand,” Abigail said. “Do you not believe me?”
“So, the thing is,” Chip said, “Alec and Jill Greenly are no longer here with us.”
“What do you mean?” Bruce asked.
“They left this afternoon. Mrs. Greenly wasn’t feeling well, so a plane took them both back to the mainland.”
Abigail found she was shaking her head. “No, no,” she said. “They didn’t, or at least Jill didn’t, because I saw her tonight.”
Bruce reached over and took Abigail’s hand, and without thinking she snatched it away from him.
“I took them to the plane myself,” Chip said. “I watched it take off, and I got confirmation when they were safe on the mainland. Is there any way that you might have seen someone else, or that, possibly, you were dreaming?”
“I wasn’t dreaming,” Abigail said at the same time that Bruce said, “She’s not making this up, Chip.”
“I know. I know. I’m not suggesting. I’m just looking for a logical solution, that’s all, and one possibility is that you had a very vivid dream.”
Abigail said, “I was not dreaming. I was outside and chased Jill across the lawn and s
he went into the woods. I came back and woke Bruce up. Bruce, you felt me. I was cold.”
“I didn’t notice, Abigail, sorry,” Bruce said. “But let’s be logical. Abigail says she wasn’t dreaming, so she wasn’t dreaming. What if Jill came back to the island somehow? Maybe she forgot something, or maybe—”
“I know everyone who comes onto this island,” Chip interrupted. He rubbed at the edge of his nose with a finger.
“Then there’s only one conclusion,” Bruce said, then turned to Abigail. “You saw someone else, who looked like Jill. How many women are on this island, Chip? We’ll have to check.”
“Okay, I’ll do it. There aren’t many. It shouldn’t take too long.”
“It was Jill,” Abigail said, but she said it quietly. In her mind she was going back over exactly what had happened, trying to figure out if she could have possibly been wrong.
Bruce stood, then crouched in front of her and said, “We’ll find out what happened, I promise. We’ll figure it out.” He stood and turned to Chip, who had just stood up himself.
Abigail stood, too, hit with a wave of exhaustion tinged with nausea. “Can I call Jill?” she said, the words coming out just as the thought occurred to her.
“What do you mean?” Chip said.
“You must have her number, or the number of her husband. I want to call her, hear her voice, make sure she’s all right.”
“Sure, I can look into that. In the morning, okay? It’s three a.m. now. Try to get a few hours of sleep, both of you, and we’ll square this all away in the clear light of dawn.”
Abigail clenched her jaw, but she was tired—how much total sleep had she had since the wedding?—and a little bit of doubt had crept into her mind. Once, as a child, she had woken up and told her parents that a large black bird had been crouched on her chest and had fled out the window after she pushed it away. It had been so vivid that she believed for years it had really happened. But what had just happened to her was even more vivid, far more real than the bird.
“I don’t know,” she finally said out loud.
“As soon as it’s light,” Chip said, “I’ll send everyone I can into the woods to look for this woman. I promise.”
“That sounds good,” Bruce said.
“Okay,” Abigail said.
Bruce was quiet as they walked back down to their bunk. The moon was still bright enough so they could see clearly without needing lanterns, and Abigail was thinking about how the cold ground felt against her bare feet, how it had felt the same way earlier when she’d chased Jill. “Chip will take care of it,” Bruce said, as he held the door for her. Abigail entered without saying anything.
CHAPTER 18
With dawn light edging the windows, Abigail was about to get out of bed, even though she’d barely slept. But she closed her eyes for just a few moments, and the next thing she knew she was pulling herself up from a complicated dream, and Bruce was not beside her. It was almost ten o’clock.
She dressed quickly, running over the events of the previous night, then splashed some water on her face, swished her mouth with mouthwash, and left the bunk. It was a perfect autumn day, the air crisp and the sky a hard ultramarine blue. On her way to the lodge she glanced toward the pond, a single sailboat creasing its surface. Anger flared up in her. Why was someone sailing when Jill, or some other woman, might still be in the woods, bleeding and scared?
Even before she pushed through the doors into the lodge, she could smell cooked bacon and freshly baked bread. Over by the unmanned bar Bruce and Chip Ramsay were talking to a third man, someone she hadn’t seen before. He was tall, with stooped shoulders and white hair that was thinning at the front. She began walking toward them and Bruce noticed her, instantly breaking away from the group and coming across to intercept her.
“I thought I’d let you sleep,” he said.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“The good news is that Jill is fine.”
“They found her?”
“No, Abigail. They called her. This morning. Chip did. He talked with both her and Alec, and they were already back in California.”
Abigail felt a dropping sensation move coldly through her torso, despite the good news. “When?” she said, realizing as soon as she spoke that she sounded angry.
“It’s good news, Abigail,” Bruce said. “I know you’re sure you saw her, but you didn’t. I just think … I think you must have had a really vivid dream that felt one hundred percent real to you, but it wasn’t.”
“No,” she said. “If it wasn’t Jill, then it was someone who looked just like her. It wasn’t a dream. I know what dreams are, and that wasn’t one. It was real. Who’s Chip talking to?”
Bruce took Abigail’s arm, said, “Here, come with me. Talk with him. He’s the island detective.”
“He’s a police detective?”
“He’s a private detective,” Bruce said, and the man must have heard, because he turned toward them both, quickly reaching out his hand toward Abigail.
“I’m Bob Kaplan,” he said. “Chip here told me you had an interesting night.” He smiled at her, revealing very straight but very yellow teeth.
“I don’t know if it was interesting,” Abigail said. “It was pretty awful.”
“I know you’ve told Chip and Bruce all about it, but I’d love to hear what you saw.”
Abigail turned to Chip. “You talked with Jill?” she asked.
“I did. About twenty minutes ago. Alec, too.”
“I want to talk with her as well.”
Something crossed Chip’s eyes. They were odd to begin with, flat almost, and too far apart. “I just did,” he said. “And they’d just gotten to California. They were exhausted and needed to sleep.”
“It’s not that I don’t—”
“I’ll try them again a little later, when you’re around. I understand that it’ll help if you hear Jill’s voice.”
“Okay, thanks,” Abigail said, wondering if she should be more forceful, but something in Chip’s eyes was stopping her.
“How many women are on this island?” she asked, the words coming out at the same time as the thought.
“There are actually not too many at this particular moment,” Chip said, his voice scratchy. He cleared it. “There’s Mellie, who works here. I think you’ve met her.”
“I did. It wasn’t her.”
“I’ve spoken with her and she wasn’t out last night.”
“What about guests?” Abigail asked.
“Actually,” Chip said, “now that Jill has left the island, you’re our only female guest. Tomorrow there’s a whole group of female executives coming from Atlanta, but right now it’s just you.” He said it almost apologetically, as though he’d been working hard to ensure gender equity and he’d been failing.
“I just … I know it wasn’t a dream,” Abigail said, and all three men frowned sympathetically at her. She felt a surge of anger, but more than anything she wanted to get away, grab some coffee, and try to wake up a little.
“We did search the woods,” the detective said, pulling at the long lobe of his ear. “Of course, there are a lot of woods around here, but we didn’t spot anything out of the ordinary. We can … I can organize another search later.”
“Never mind,” Abigail said. She just wanted the conversation to end. “Obviously, I had the world’s most realistic dream. Either that or I’m going crazy. Bruce, did you eat breakfast?”
“No, not yet,” he said. “I’ll go with you to get something.”
All she really wanted was coffee, but Bruce made her drink a large glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice, and then she picked at a blueberry muffin.
“I want to leave this island,” she said after Bruce had finished a second plate of eggs.
She completely expected him to immediately dismiss her, so she was surprised when he said, “I agree. We should leave. Maybe coming here wasn’t such a great idea.”
He looked crushed as he said the wor
ds, and Abigail said, “No, it’s not this place. It’s nice here. It’s just, I don’t think I can enjoy myself after what happened last night. I can’t just stay here and pretend I didn’t see anything, or pretend I really believe it was all a dream.”
“I totally get it. When do you want to leave?”
“Can we leave this afternoon?” she said.
He nodded. “Yes, I’ll arrange it.”
“You understand, don’t you?” Abigail said.
“I do. I get it.”
After walking back to the bunk, they both began to pack in silence, when Bruce said, “Oh, I forgot to talk with Chip, tell him to book the plane.”
“We could call Paul,” Abigail said, and she was moving toward the call button.
“No, let me run up and talk with Chip. Also, I was thinking about what we could do before the plane comes. Take a walk, maybe. Or go for a swim. It might feel good, get some of the tension out.”
“I want to look around the woods, Bruce,” Abigail said, her back to him. “I’m going out this morning. I need to see if there’s any sign of her, of the woman I saw.” She turned, expecting Bruce to look disapproving, but he was nodding.
“I get it,” he said.
“I’m going right after I finish packing.”
“I’ll come with you,” Bruce said.
“If you want to help you can look separately, because it doesn’t make any sense for you to come with me. We should spread out.”
“I don’t want you in the woods by yourself.”
“I won’t get lost. It’s an island.”
“Look. Just wait for me and we’ll search together, okay?”
She made a noncommittal sound, and he said, “We’ll go together.”
After Bruce left, Abigail quickly finished packing her things, then changed into her walking shoes. She had already decided to search the woods herself—she’d seen a bleeding woman enter them the previous night, and she needed to at least go look for her. Bruce might be upset, but she didn’t care. It was increasingly clear he thought she’d dreamt the whole thing. They all thought she’d dreamt it. The thought almost enraged her, but she told herself to calm down. Maybe it was possible that she’d had a dream. Maybe it had been triggered by the stress of having Eric Newman on the island. Her subconscious had projected all those anxieties onto the image of Jill, bleeding and running away. Abigail moved her head rapidly back and forth and shook out her limbs, just to get blood moving through them. Either way, whether there was something terrible happening on this island or she really was losing her mind, she needed to look in the woods.
Every Vow You Break Page 13
