Stargazey Point

by Shelley Noble

  “Stranger things have happened,” Sarah said darkly.

  “What? Like you turning into your great-grandmother? Wring any chicken necks today?”

  Sarah punched him in the arm. Penny returned with sandwiches and cakes and enough cookies for two tables. They all dug in.

  “We haven’t been seeing much of you these days, Cab,” Bethanne said.

  “Busy,” Cab managed between bites. Suddenly he was ravenous.

  “You think you’ll get it up and running by June?”

  “That was the plan, but I don’t know. There’s a hell of a lot of work still to do.”

  “Well, I just hope we have some tourists,” said Bethanne, pouring tea. “Jerome helped me set up the inn’s new website. Thank the Lord for folks like Jerome. He works, he goes to school, he’s over at the community center every spare minute. And helps out whenever I need him. What are we going to do when he goes off to school?”

  “Has he heard from any colleges?” Cabot asked.

  “A few,” Sarah said. “But we haven’t heard anything about financing.”

  There was action at the far side of the room. The Oakleys were leaving. They stopped by the table on their way out.

  “Cabot, Bethanne . . .” A pause . . . “Sarah.”

  “Miz Oakley. How are you?” Bethanne said brightly. “How’s your spring been?”

  “Oh, fair to middlin’; been an awful damp April so far if you ask me.” She looked over the table, but no one asked her.

  “Come, my dear, and let’s let these folks have their tea.” Mr. Oakley didn’t leave but leaned over Bethanne’s chair. “Now you just think about our little talk, okay?” He patted her on the shoulder, nodded, and went to pay his bill.

  “What little talk?” Cab asked as soon as the Oakleys were gone.

  “He’s offered to help me find a buyer if I decide to sell the inn. After all the work Jim and I put into it? He seems to think I can’t run a business because of my bereavement. My bereavement,” Bethanne repeated, teary-eyed. “If I weren’t a good Christian, I’d hire the Mafia to take him out.”

  Sarah grinned. “Then it’s a good thing you are. Now let’s forget about both the Oakleys. They can’t make you sell. And Cab’s here to get the scoop on Abbie Sinclair.”

  “I am not,” Cab protested.

  “Don’t start without me,” Penny called from the kitchen. Two minutes later the closed sign was up, and three expectant faces were all focused on Cab.

  “We don’t know a thing,” Bethanne said. “Sarah was kidding her about you two going on a date, and I got upset and ran out and I should go apologize, but it’s so embarrassing. I don’t know how I could do something so stupid.”

  “And don’t look at me like that, Cabot Reynolds,” Sarah said, her eyes wide. “It was just a little joke. Before I could kiss my grits, Bethanne turns into an afternoon shower—”

  “I did not.”

  “And I was left staring at Miz ‘It’s All My Fault’ before she plunked down a twenty and bolted and I was left looking at nothing and wondering what the hell had happened. I think it must have been your fault.”

  “Mine?” Cab said. “Why would it be my fault? Millie trapped me into taking her around. That’s the long and the short of it.”

  “And it was so awful that you ended up bringing her back here and showing her the carousel.”

  “You didn’t,” Bethanne said, widening her eyes at Sarah.

  Penny fanned her face with her fingers. “Well, Lord bless us. It was a date. And, Bethanne, don’t you dare cry.”

  “I won’t. I don’t know why I did then. It was just the way she said it. For a split second, it was like I felt her pain, and she felt mine.”

  “Oh, God,” moaned Cab. “Have you all gone hoodoo on me?”

  “It’s in the water and it’ll get’chu, too.” Penny crossed her eyes and broke into a fit of maniacal laughing.

  “It’s not a magic thing,” Bethanne explained. “It’s a girl thing.”

  “Uh-huh. And that was it?”

  “That was it. Why?”

  “I just thought she might have told you something about herself.” Cab leaned back in his chair. How much should he tell them about what happened last night? They obviously didn’t know any more than he did.

  “You mean you spent the whole day with her and didn’t find out anything about her?” Penny asked incredulously.

  “Pretty much.” He’d spent a lot of time last night going over the events of the day. After a rocky start, they’d had fun. They’d talked enough, but for the life of him he couldn’t remember what they’d talked about. Georgetown, its architecture, and how the town had developed a tourist industry, about how Stargazey might do the same. But he had told her a lot more about his life than she had told him about hers. All he knew was that she was no longer a weathergirl.

  How had she done that? And the big question. Had she done it on purpose?

  “So why do you want to know about her?” Sarah asked innocently.

  “It’s not what you think,” Cab countered.

  The three women exchanged knowing looks.

  “Then why don’t you tell us what it is?”

  “I don’t know. She’s like a woman without a past.”

  “Oh, puh-lease. Didn’t you ask her about herself?”

  Penny snorted. “Just like a man, gabbing on about himself and not letting her get a word in edgewise.”

  “She talked.”

  “But not about herself.”

  “Exactly.”

  “So why didn’t you ask her?”

  “I think I did.”

  “Oh, jeez,” Sarah said.

  “Did you google her?” asked Bethanne.

  “No, of course not.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know. I’m trying to get away from that kind of life.”

  “The kind that makes you interested in other people? You content to live with a bunch of wooden animals that don’t talk back?” Sarah said at her most Southern.

  “God, crawl off, okay? I don’t want that. I have friends.”

  “You don’t have girlfriends.”

  “What about you three? You’re not friends?”

  “You know what kind of girlfriends we’re talking about.”

  They were getting into dangerous territory. “I will when I’m ready.”

  A chorus of groans from his tablemates.

  “Please tell me you’re not pining over Brittany, or Tiffany, or whatever her name was.”

  “Bailey.”

  Sarah rolled her eyes.

  Cabot rubbed his hand over his face. He’d almost forgotten about Frank’s phone call.

  “What?”

  “Be warned. Bailey’s making an appearance this weekend.”

  Three dumbfounded women stared back at him.

  Sarah found her voice first. “Are you crazy? Or are you having a change of heart?”

  “No and no. Some colleagues are in the area for meetings. They’re bringing her along.”

  “Sounds suspicious to me,” Penny said.

  “Sounds like we might need to plan an intervention,” Sarah said.

  “God, no. I’m meeting them for dinner. Period. I didn’t think quick enough to get out of it. I don’t need anybody intervening or sticking their noses in my business.”

  “This from the man who showed a virtual stranger his prized possession.”

  “Sarah!” Bethanne exclaimed.

  Sarah gave her a look. “I meant the carousel.”

  “Oh.”

  “What day are they coming? I’ll make sure to keep the inn’s restaurant open.”

  “Thanks, and you know I’d eat at the inn every night if you were open, but not this time, not with Sarah and Penny l
urking behind the potted palms.”

  He stood up, paid for tea, and left before they could ask any more questions. Most people in town thought he was independently wealthy, which he wasn’t, slightly eccentric, which he guessed he was, and following in Beau Crispin’s path toward bachelorhood. After the first few months, everyone had stopped trying to set him up with dates.

  He didn’t mind the kidding; it was all good-natured, and he really did count them as friends. He wasn’t sure why he blanched at the thought of them meeting Tony, Frank, and Bailey. He wasn’t afraid of what people thought he was now, but maybe he didn’t want anyone to see the way he had been. He didn’t want any part of that life encroaching on his new life. Not even the woman he’d once asked to come with him.

  Instead of going back to the carousel, he went home. He’d gotten a good deal of work done today and he deserved a night with his feet up in front of his flatscreen, one of the few things he’d brought with him.

  He stopped on the sidewalk in front of his house and marveled as he did most nights at how he could be content with an old house in need of some major TLC. He’d given up a contemporary apartment with cutting-edge everything and a skyline view for a rotten porch, broken windows, and peeling paint. And he was content.

  At least he had been until Abbie Sinclair arrived and his former life decided to make an appearance. He just hoped it didn’t snowball from here.

  The first part of Cab’s evening went as planned. He got a beer out of the fridge, took off his boots, and turned on the television. Turned it off again. Walked into the spare bedroom that he’d meant to use as an office but had never gotten around to unpacking.

  His laptop was sitting on a cardboard box. It was plugged in, though he hardly ever booted it up. He occasionally ordered something online, but most of the time, he just called the suppliers. He’d canceled his Facebook and Twitter accounts. He no longer surfed the web or played online games. He did have two websites, one for the carousel and one for his restoration business that he paid Jerome to keep updated.

  He didn’t miss it. But tonight it beckoned. Information about Abbie Sinclair was just a couple of clicks away. She would be there. At least mentioned as the weathergirl, and she probably had a social media presence, too. It would be so easy, and it would set his mind at ease.

  With this innocent motive in mind, he opened the laptop, typed in her name. And got over eight thousands hits. A whole slough of Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn accounts.

  Great. He refined his search to Abbie Sinclair weather. And he was in business.

  He read for a while, got a little background. Found out a bit about her family, large, parents still alive, five brothers and sisters. All seemed to do a lot of volunteering, do-gooders or activists or both.

  Opened up images and scrolled through photos of a younger Abbie with a pointer in her hand, a map behind her. It made him smile. An even younger Abbie standing with a group of students by a bus that would take them to Guatemala to build houses for Habitat for Humanity.

  Following the family tradition, he supposed. And he’d thought she was a developer. He’d been way off the mark. And then he came to another photo and learned who Werner was. And what he looked like. A documentary filmmaker. A handsome guy. His search took a detour as he followed Werner Landseer. Werner had a list of impressive credits, and further search showed exactly when Abbie had joined his team. She hadn’t been a weathergirl for over eight years. She’d been with Werner.

  Why had she let him think she was between jobs?

  The places they had been pretty much covered the globe. The last one he found was in Peru. Cabot had read something about a documentary team that was filming in Peru when a landslide buried half the village. It had been a year ago. He thought back. Brought up another site. And his stomach turned.

  The article was short. The leader of a documentary team, Werner Landseer, had been arrested while filming the mud slide. Abbie wasn’t mentioned, but several locals who’d worked for them were also jailed. And then he saw the YouTube entry.

  He sat staring at the screen, not really wanting to know what it contained. Got another beer and stared some more. And finally he pressed play. The video clip was taken by a cell phone, and it was more gruesome than he had imagined.

  Chaos as the person holding the phone runs to another position. Dirt and tremors, the back of a cameraman. A deafening rumble. The phone rises to show the side of the hill sweeping away a wooden building as if it were made of matchsticks. More chaos, screams, and people fleeing, and then quiet. Like the eye of a tornado.

  The phone scans the rubble, stops on the solitary figure of a woman on her knees digging frantically in the mud, her white-blond hair catching the light. Two villagers drag her away, as she kicks and screams and tries to return to her effort. The phone jerks, and the screen goes black, but not before Cab saw why she was digging.

  He covered his face with his hands. He should have never looked at that heartbreaking moment. Abbie digging in the mud; the buried donkey, wild eyed and panicked and struggling beside her; the small arm that stuck out from the mud.

  No wonder she was so skittish. It was amazing she wasn’t stark raving mad. And how was he going to face her and pretend like he didn’t know?

  He shut down the screen. Closed the laptop. Went to the kitchen for another beer, then out to the porch. There were a few lights in the houses along the street; some were vacant. He looked up at the sky, but he couldn’t stop thinking about the YouTube video. And he knew just as sure as he was standing there that he’d go back and watch it again, and he would read more.

  Because information at your fingertips was a constant siren call, a temptation, and when it was about someone you knew . . . He gave up and went back into the house, opened the laptop, and sat down.

  Two hours later, he’d found little more than he already knew. A couple of small articles about Landseer’s arrest. Another announcing his death. Cabot read it twice; the man was forty-four.

  And his first thought was not about Landseer’s death or the mud slide, but what was Abbie doing with a man probably fifteen years older than her?

  He read on; learned about the subsequent disappearance of the local men who had assisted the camera crew.

  There was no investigation of Werner’s death or the other missing men. No retribution on the company whose shoddy practices had caused so much damage and tragedy.

  And no more mentions of Abbie. It was like she had dropped off the face of the earth. Perhaps she had. Perhaps that was why she was here.

  Chapter 11

  Abbie began work on the gazebo the next morning. She’d stayed up late, drawing plans in her as yet unused journal. And though she was no artist, she was thrilled with the way the gazebo had turned out in her mind. Now to make it a reality.

  She stopped by the garden shed to get her hat, which the sisters insisted she wear; gathered up rake, broom, hammer, and a makeshift toolbox; and hurried down the path. She swept off the sand, pulled the weeds away, tested the flooring, poked and prodded, shaded her eyes and inspected the roof. The old summerhouse appeared to be structurally sound, which was a bit of a miracle considering all the storms it had withstood. It would make her job easier.

  She worked with a vengeance all morning. There was really no rush to get it finished, and she knew that her desire to repair the gazebo was only part enthusiasm. The other part was avoidance. She’d have to face Cab sometime soon and try to explain why she’d reacted the way she did. And she wasn’t looking forward to that.

  When the summerhouse was clean, she stopped to look out over the ocean. The view was breathtaking. She’d seen a few such views on her travels, those that actually stopped your breath, like a camera shutter closing, while discovery hovered shimmering before you, until the shot was taken and the whirr and click of the camera brought you back to earth, and appreciation became a conscious thing again. />
  Stargazey Point was majestic but personable, vast yet comforting, formidable but engaging. And if she stood here waxing about the scenery, the gazebo would still be a dilapidated old outhouse when Beau’s birthday finally arrived.

  She went back for the hammer, placed a box of nails on one of the benches, and began her systematic search for loose boards. Some she merely had to reinforce by driving finishers at an angle against the floor joists. Some needed to be replaced and she marked these with a black marker.

  Several splinters and a mashed thumb later, she was forced to put on a pair of work gloves that she’d found with the rest of the tools. They were cumbersome and slowed her down considerably. After several minutes, she threw them off in frustration. One flew right out of the gazebo to the ground. She stood, looked over the railing, and came face-to-face with two small ebony faces peering up at her.

  A boy and a girl, looking so much alike they must be twins. They couldn’t be over five or six.

  “Hi,” Abbie said.

  They didn’t say a word, but turned and ran off toward the beach. Abbie watched them run over the sand, wondering what they were doing alone so close to the water. When she saw them turn and disappear down a path through the dunes, she went back to work.

  She’d just completed the floor and was starting on the railings when the lunch triangle rang. She reluctantly packed her tools, slipped the toolbox under one of the benches, and climbed the hill to the house.

  Marnie was waiting for her on the kitchen steps. “Productive morning?”

  “Very, but I need to buy some lumber and find someone with a skill saw.”

  Marnie’s eyebrows lifted.

  “Oh, it’s not bad, just a few pieces of flooring and a couple of the benches. It should only take an afternoon—or two.” She smiled. It felt good. “You don’t happen to own a skill saw do you?”

  “No, but I know who does.”

  Just the tone of her voice set off Abbie’s alarm bells. “If it’s who I think you mean, thanks, but no.”

  “Hell, Abbie. You ran out on him without explanation. You might have hurt his feelings.”

  “Whose feelings?” Millie asked from the doorway. “Now you two hurry up. I’ve got pimento cheese sandwiches all made.”