Lighthouse Beach

by Shelley Noble

Beside her, Diana fist-pumped the air.

  “I’ll have those girls arrested.”

  Allie gasped. Lillo glanced at Diana in the rearview mirror; she couldn’t see Jess.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I took a cab to the train station. I’m going home to Boston. I don’t want to talk to you or anyone. So don’t call again.” She ended the call.

  “Can he really have us arrested?” Allie asked.

  “Of course not,” Diana said. “It’s just more of his usual intimidation—threaten, coerce, sue … Bully tactics, annoying and sometimes financially costly, but he has absolutely no grounds to have us arrested.”

  “Can he?” Allie asked Jess.

  “No, but he can make everyone’s life miserable. And you were just trying to help me.”

  The rap song started up again. “Dammit. Stop calling me!” Jess sounded hysterical. With Jess, hysteria could quickly turn to defeat.

  “That’s it. Let me talk to him.” Diana reached for Jess’s phone.

  Jess snatched it out of her reach and clutched desperately at the door.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Diana screamed.

  Suddenly they were all pelted with stinging rain. In one violent gesture, Jess tossed the phone out of the window. She quickly rolled the glass up and fell back on the seat. “God, it’s wet out there.”

  “Jeez,” Diana said, staring at her.

  “What?” Jess asked. “You thought I was going to jump?”

  “What did you do?” Allie asked, leaning over the back of her seat.

  “I tossed my phone. You can believe they already got a reading off the GPS. I should have thought of that. This way they can’t follow us. I may be a dummy when it comes to choices in husbands, but I know my electronics.” She sniffed. “And I know myself,” she added in a much quieter voice.

  “I should have thought of that, too,” Diana said. “I just wasn’t sure we’d get this far.”

  Jess shot her a fulminating look. “Be sure. For better or worse, I’m out of there.”

  Diana rummaged in her purse. “Does this box of bolts have a light that works?”

  Lillo reached up and turned on the overhead light.

  Diana began to dismantle her cell phone.

  “What are you doing?” Lillo asked.

  “Deactivating GPS, then shutting down locations so they can’t trace us. When we get to some real light—hopefully sometime tonight—I’ll migrate over to one of my dummy numbers. Don’t look so startled. I have to change numbers all the time. Industrial espionage. Hacking. Apps are big business. I’ll need yours and Allie’s, too.”

  “I need my phone,” Lillo said.

  “You’ll have it, but I have to turn off our GPS or they’ll be flying up to wherever we’re going and beat us there.”

  “It’s in the side pocket of my duffel.”

  “A duffel,” Diana mumbled under her breath. “The mind boggles.”

  Lillo drove down the empty interstate with the interior light on, which made the night black as pitch while Diana deactivated everyone’s GPS. “Just a stopgap. We’ll do something permanent tomorrow.”

  A half hour later they turned off the interstate and onto a county road. “Are you okay back there?” Lillo asked after a long silence from the back seat.

  “Yep. Just peachy,” Diana said.

  “How much farther?” Jess asked.

  “In this storm and in the dark? A little over an hour.”

  “Too bad we didn’t think to bring something to eat or some water bottles,” Allie said.

  “True,” Diana said. “I’m feeling a double grande mocha latte about now. Or a Courvoisier. Or both.”

  “Or a warm baguette and Brie with a mellow, smooth-finish pinot noir,” added Allie.

  “Or chips and dip,” Jess said. “I have to pee.”

  Allie turned to look at the others. “Maybe we should stop at a motel for the night.”

  “That might be a good idea,” Diana said.

  “You should have thought about that before we turned off the highway,” Lillo said.

  “I knew it. We’re in the middle of nowhere.”

  “No, we’re in the middle of Maine and not even in the middle. The ocean is a few miles over on your right.”

  “And there are no tourist places?”

  “Well, yeah, but not like Jones Beach. They’re little and sleeping since it’s almost two a.m.”

  “What’s that?” Allie asked, pointing to an orange-and-green haze up ahead.

  “Remington Tavern.”

  “Maybe we could get a coffee and a bite to eat just to wait out the worst of the storm.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Diana agreed, and leaned over the front seat to see.

  Lillo put on the blinker and slowed down, looking for the entrance to the parking lot. They weren’t the only ones with the idea of waiting out the storm; the parking lot was packed—mainly with trucks and motorcycles.

  “It’s a biker bar,” Allie exclaimed.

  “Sounds like fun,” Diana said tentatively.

  “It could be dangerous,” Jess said.

  “You’re the one who has to pee.”

  “Not that bad.”

  Remington’s was the only eating-drinking place for miles, so people learned to get along, for the most part. Not always. Four wedding refugees dressed in their finest casual chic were bound to cause a stir and maybe some come-ons.

  “We can’t go in there,” insisted Jess. “Terrible things could happen.”

  As if seeing your fiancé screwing a stranger in a parking lot while your guests watched wasn’t horrible enough.

  “I think you better keep driving,” Diana said.

  Lillo flipped off the blinker. She didn’t need convincing. She just wanted to get home, even if that home was going to be crowded for a few hours. She arched her back, rolled her shoulders, and hunkered down. A few minutes later she turned the VW onto the road that would eventually take them to Lighthouse Island.

  “It’s so dark,” Diana said. “Are those trees? I thought you lived at the beach.”

  “I do. It’s just that there are forests before you get there. In some places the trees—”

  A loud pop exploded in Lillo’s ears. The van lurched to the side, and Allie screamed. Diana yelped an expletive as an all-too-familiar thud, thud, thud echoed beneath them.

  Blowout.

  Lillo wrestled with the steering wheel and gradually managed to bring the van to a stop on the side of the road, where she hit the emergency lights, then leaned against the wheel gulping in air until her heart rate gradually subsided to normal. Then she turned to the others. “Everyone okay?”

  “Yeah,” Diana said, climbing back on the seat. “Should have kept my seat belt on.”

  “What are we going to do?” cried Jess.

  “Change the damn tire,” Lillo snapped. “Sorry, just a little adrenaline rush. You guys just sit tight. I’ll get us fixed in a jiff.” Of course the spare and the tire iron and the rain ponchos that Mac kept in the back were all under a pile of luggage.

  She pushed the door open and was immediately pelted with cold rain. Tucking her head into the wind and rain, she hurried to the back of the van. No easy feat, since the grassy shoulder had already turned to mud, with the skid marks left by the van’s tires rapidly turning to puddles.

  She opened the back, looked at the pile of luggage, and squinted the rain from her eyes. When she opened them again she was looking back at Allie, who had exchanged places with Diana and was pulling the top suitcases out from the back onto the back seat. A second later Diana joined Lillo at the back of the van.

  “You’re going to get soaked,” Lillo said.

  “Already am. Let’s do this.”

  Between the three of them, they managed to get the area free enough to uncover the jack, lug-nut wrench, and spare.

  “Got a flashlight?” Diana yelled over the splashing of the storm. “Never mind, I see it.” She yanked a
n emergency lantern out from under a tarp that covered various and sundry tools.

  Lillo unscrewed the tire cover and tugged it out. It wasn’t a full-size tire, but with a little luck it would get them home. “Really, you’re going to ruin your outfit and shoes,” she told Diana, who stood beside her holding up the lantern like the Statue of Liberty welcoming the huddled masses on a really nasty night.

  “I’ll live. I don’t know shit about cars but I can at least hold the light.”

  Lillo assembled the jack and reached back in for the lug wrench. A roar in the distance made her turn around.

  “What was that?” Diana asked, her eyes suddenly round beneath her expert makeup.

  “I don’t—” A glow appeared in the darkness and the rumble became louder, grew to a crescendo as a band of motorcycles roared past them, leaving only a ringing in Lillo’s ears and a faint red after-halo of taillights.

  The rumbling dropped out; the bikers were turning around. The back door of the van swung open.

  “Get in the car,” Jess yelled. “Get in the car quick.”

  Lillo shook her head. She had a job to do, and whether it was busting heads or changing a tire, she was going to do it and get home before her life got any more out of control.

  Ned Hartley hit the brakes. He knew that van. But what the hell was Mac doing out here in the middle of the night?

  He waited until the others slowed down then motioned them to turn around. It took some maneuvering on the narrow country road. So much for a warm bed and a couple of hours’ sleep before work began in the morning.

  They rode back to the van, stopping the bikes as close to the shoulder as possible, facing the van, their headlights acting as spotlights.

  Ned took in the scene. Hatch open. Doughnut tire propped against the van. Flat tire.

  He climbed off the bike, ready to read Mac the riot act for being out in this weather, this late. And scaring the crap out of him. There was someone with her, but he or she was hard to see in the pouring rain and his visor was poor help against the elements. It must be something catastrophic to send Mac out in the middle of the night.

  While Roy and Nando set out flares behind them, Ned strode to the van but stopped abruptly when he saw that not only was Mac not alone, it wasn’t even Mac. Two women wearing drinks-at-a-trendy-restaurant dresses and heels stood at the back of the van.

  One of them was clutching the lug wrench like she might be considering bashing his head in. He had an overwhelming desire to hold up his hands and intone, We come in peace, but that was just wrong. She was probably frightened. Being surrounded by a motorcycle “gang,” even though there were only seven of them, could be intimidating. Even though they were decent guys. And then he recognized her.

  “Lillo?”

  No response, just a tighter grip on the lug wrench.

  She probably hadn’t heard him. “Lillo,” he said louder.

  She jumped. Hunched toward him. Then relaxed.

  He lifted his visor.

  She didn’t lower the lug wrench.

  “Great,” she said, but she sounded more resigned than glad to see him. “For a minute I thought you were the Creature from the Black Lagoon. It’s the poncho.” She pointed the lug wrench to indicate his rain gear.

  “Keeps me dry.” He pointed toward her dress and sandals.

  She looked down. “I didn’t know I’d be changing a tire in the rain.”

  And what were they doing standing in the downpour hurling barbs at each other?

  “Get in the van and I’ll finish up for you.” He reached for the wrench.

  She didn’t let go. “Thanks, but no need for you to get held up.”

  Really, he should just leave them to fix the flat themselves. That would make Lillo happy until tomorrow when she realized how stupidly she’d reacted then would castigate herself for the rest of the day or week or however long she thought she needed to punish herself for not being perfect.

  “We’re not in a hurry.” He pulled the wrench, she held on; she always got stubborn when anyone tried to do stuff for her. “Dammit, just give me the wrench.”

  The van’s back door swung open and another woman jumped out of the car. She rushed toward them, grabbed the wrench out of their hands, and lunged at him.

  Reflexively, Ned stepped to the side and the woman prat-fell into the mud.

  Ned winced.

  Lillo groaned. “Really?”

  “Sorry.” Ned leaned down, but when he tried to help the woman up, she started flailing and screeching. Ned was acutely aware of the guys behind him. A couple of them were new this trip. And it didn’t matter how old you got, or how much good stuff you tried to do, a guy just never got past not wanting to look like an ass to his compadres.

  He finally managed to drag the woman to her feet and passed her off to the silent sidekick who was standing next to Lillo.

  Lillo had picked up the wrench, which was now covered in mud. He tried to take it from her.

  Which set off the mud-splattered harridan again. “Leave us alone. Just get out of here. Allie’s in the car and she’s calling the police.” She tore away from her friend’s grasp, let out a cry of pain, and sat down in a puddle.

  The second woman pulled her to her feet. “Sorry; she just got out of a bad relationship. I’ll tell Allie to cancel the call if you could please help us. Thank you.” She took the screecher by the waist and helped her back to the car, stopping only long enough to pick up the shoes she’d lost on the way.

  With his luck they’d be bringing her into the clinic first thing tomorrow.

  “Doc,” Roy called out. “You gonna change that tire or just talk to these pretty ladies all night? We’re getting wet back here.”

  “Can I please have the lug wrench? The guys all have work scheduled for tomorrow and the clinic opens at eight.”

  Lillo handed him the wrench. “Thanks.”

  He took it and knelt down by the back tire. Lillo didn’t get in the car but stood over him like an avenging something. Clancy rolled the doughnut over. And after a brief “How’s it going, Lillo?” he and Ned changed the tire with the same precision they showed in surgery.

  Clancy threw the old tire into the back of the van and slammed the hatch shut.

  Ned stood. “You’ll have to get a new tire. That one’s busted.”

  “I figured that.”

  “I saw the van and I thought you were Mac. What are you doing out here? Besides changing a tire?”

  She just stood there getting wetter. “Is this an interrogation, Doctor?”

  “No, just curious. How’ve you been?”

  “Good. You?”

  “Good. I didn’t see you last time I was in town.”

  “I was up the coast.”

  “Avoiding me?”

  “Nope.”

  Ned bit his lip to keep his mouth shut.

  Clancy stood off to one side, patiently shaking his head. “So, Lillo, what are you doing out here in the rain, changing a flat tire and wearing a dress?”

  “Coming back from a wedding.”

  “Ah. Is that where you picked up these ladies? Friends of the bride?”

  “One of them is the bride.”

  “If that ain’t something,” Clancy said. And pushed his visor down.

  “You’ve got the bride in the van,” Ned said. None of this made any sense.

  “If you must know, we sort of kidnapped her, but it’s a long story and we’re all getting wet, and your gang is getting restless.”

  “It’s been a long day. It looks like you’re going to need a push to get out of this mess. Get in, and when I yell, put her in first. See you while I’m on the island?”

  “Probably. Thanks for the change and the push.” She got back in the van.

  Ned and three of the others gathered at the back bumper. The men pushed, the wheels spun until they gradually gained the pavement. “Now!” he yelled, and the VW shot forward.

  Ned saw Lillo’s hand sticking out the window and wa
ving in the rain. He held up his own hand, even though he knew she didn’t see him. She wouldn’t have even looked back to see if he was still there.

  Chapter 4

  At least that was over, Lillo thought. Facing Doc Hartley was what it must be like facing an old flame, not that she had anything that had ever flamed for long. Her flames incinerated everything in their wake and turned everything to ash.

  Still, he was the last person she wanted to meet anywhere, especially not now, not here, with her looking and acting like a fool. He was one of the few people who could shatter her well-constructed serenity. And she resented him for it. Not his fault, but there it was.

  That road trip was sounding better and better. Maybe she’d go, too.

  “It was lucky those guys were able to help,” Allie finally said from the passenger seat.

  “Yeah,” Lillo agreed.

  “They could’ve been dangerous,” Jess said.

  “They could have, but they weren’t,” Diana said. “But thanks for trying to save us from them.”

  “You’re laughing at me.”

  “No, not at all, though I think, Lillo, if we might have some heat back here … I know it’s absurd but Jess’s teeth are chattering.”

  Lillo turned on the heat. It wasn’t as absurd as Diana thought. It sometimes got cold in Maine. Even in the summer.

  Gradually the heat suffused the interior of the van and her passengers drifted off to sleep. Lillo blinked against the mesmerizing swipe-swipe of the windshield wipers and wondered if she’d ever get back to the right side of normal.

  The rain began to let up about the same time the pitch black of the sky turned to deep gray, and the passing shadows morphed into recognizable landmarks.

  Lillo’s eyelids were getting unbearably heavy when she drove over the narrow bridge to Lighthouse Beach. The rattle of the crossing brought her fully awake. The others began to rouse, and by the time they passed the welcome to lighthouse beach, life will never be the same sign, everyone was awake.

  “Are we there?” Diana asked.

  “Yep.”

  “It’s totally dark.”

  “It’s nearly four in the morning. You were expecting a strip of nightclubs?”

  “No, but a streetlight would be welcome company.”

  “We have six but we turn them off at ten.”