by Kathi Daley
“She was busy,” I said. “She had a husband and two little girls. I guess hanging out with friends she knew from childhood hadn’t been a big theme with her. Not like it is, and always has been with you, who kept tabs on everyone even after we all left.”
“It was really depressing when you all stopped summering here. Sure, I had Carl, and overall I was happy, but I missed my friends. I missed being part of the Summer Six.”
I smiled. “Yeah, me too. I’m glad I’m back. This really does feel right.”
Carrie raised her arm and waved. “Ryder just showed up.”
“I haven’t told him I’m staying yet. I’d like to do so in private, so please don’t bring it up unless he does.”
“Of course. We’ll all share a drink, and then I’ll make myself scarce.”
“You don’t have to leave.”
“No. It’s okay. I have a few things to take care of anyway.”
Chapter 12
“I feel bad that we chased Carrie off,” I said to Ryder after she left, and the two of us decided to take a walk along the beach north of his boathouse.
“It sounded to me as if she had things to do,” he said, entwining his fingers with mine as the warm water washed over our bare feet.
“I think that was an excuse to leave us alone. I wouldn’t feel as bad if Quinn or Nora were here, but Nora is still in Mendocino with Matt, and Quinn is in San Francisco with Sam. Poor Carrie went to a lot of work to arrange this reunion, but it seems that we all keep bailing on her.”
Ryder stopped walking. He turned so that we were facing each other. Leaning forward just a bit, he touched his lips to mine. “Do you want to head over to the rental so Carrie won’t be alone?”
I paused as his breath caressed my face. “Actually, no. Not yet. I have something to talk to you about.”
He took a step back and looked me in the eye. “Something bad?”
“No,” I shook my head, “something good. But I wanted to talk to you alone so I could be certain we were on the same page.”
“Okay.” I could sense the hesitation in his voice. “What’s going on?”
I took a breath, hoping that I was making the right choice and that I wouldn’t end up looking back on this moment with regret. “I spoke to Carrie today about the idea of me staying on the island beyond the two weeks left on the lease for the rental.”
He smiled.
“She agreed that I could move into the guest room in the condo on a temporary basis,” I continued. “At this point, it feels like Shipwreck Island is the place I am meant to be, but I want to be sure you understand that my staying does not imply a commitment of any sort between the two of us. At least not yet.”
His smile faded. “You want us to stop seeing each other?”
“No.” I touched his face. “That isn’t what I mean. I have feelings for you that I want to explore, and I enjoy spending time with you and knowing that you will be part of my day. But my life is in flux, and I still need to figure some things out. I don’t want to hurt you, and I’m afraid if I stay for now, and then later decide to go, that is exactly what I’ll do.”
He took both my hands in his and looked deeply into my eyes. “But you might decide to stay? For good, that is.”
“I might, but I’m not there yet. I don’t want us to get ahead of ourselves. I want to continue doing what we’re doing without the urgency to make life-altering decisions before either of us is ready.”
He pulled my arms around his waist and then placed his hands on my face. “So, you’re turning down my job offer?”
I nodded, smiling. “I am. But there are other offers you might be inclined to make that I might be inclined to take you up on.”
He lifted me into his arms, calling to Baja, and then he carried me back to the boathouse.
A long time later, we settled onto his deck to watch the sun dip into the sea. I really couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt this happy and this relaxed. Deep down inside, part of me knew that this is what I wanted for always and forever, but another part of me wanted to take it slow and make certain that I was able to make the commitment I knew Ryder wanted me to make.
“Sounds like your phone’s ringing,” Ryder said, getting up and walking into the house to fetch it.
“It’s Quinn,” I said after accepting the phone from his outstretched hand and checking the caller ID. “Hey, Quinn,” I said after answering. “I wasn’t expecting to hear from you. Is everything okay?”
“I’m not sure. I’m at the hotel where I was supposed to meet Sam more than two hours ago, but he never showed. I’ve tried calling him a half dozen times, but his phone goes straight to voicemail. I know he had a couple of people to talk to before he was going to head home to pack, but that was hours and hours ago. You haven’t heard from him, have you?”
“No. Not since I spoke to him this morning.”
“It’s very odd that he isn’t answering his phone. I mean, I get the fact that he might have gotten tied up and missed the ferry, but why wouldn’t he call? I’m afraid something might have happened. Something bad. Can you and Ryder run over to his house and see if he’s there? And, if he isn’t there, can you check his office?”
“Yes. Absolutely. We’ll go right now. I’ll call you when we get there.” I hung up and explained what was going on to Ryder. He tried to call Sam, but like it had for Quinn, his call went straight to voicemail. He left a message just in case, then he grabbed his wallet and keys, and we headed out the door.
“You don’t think something happened to him, do you?” I asked as we sped down the coastal road toward his house.
Ryder’s lips tightened. “I hope not, but it is odd that he’s not answering his phone. Even if he ran out of battery and didn’t have his charger, there’s no way he’d simply stand Quinn up. He’s crazy about her. Always has been. He would have found a way to call her no matter what the situation, unless, of course…”
“Unless, of course, he was physically unable to do so,” I finished.
“Exactly.” He pushed down even harder on the pedal. Ryder was the mayor, and he had a good reason for speeding, so I doubted he’d get a ticket, but going twice the speed limit was rarely a good idea. I pulled my seatbelt even tighter and hung on for dear life. “When you spoke to him earlier, did he say where he was going?” he asked as he slowed to merge onto the road that would take us into the neighborhood where Sam lived.
“He said he was going to speak to some of Grace’s friends, but that was before Quinn found Grace. Quinn has talked to him since then, so whatever happened, assuming that something did happen, must have occurred after that point.” I paused to remember. “He also mentioned having an idea who might have been interested in the opium plants Veronica stole from the commune up north. I’m not sure if he’d already followed up on that clue before Quinn spoke to him or not. I’ll ask her when we call her back. Do you think we should call Sam’s office?”
“It’s closed by now. Central dispatch is in Sea Haven. They might know where Sam is or where he was heading, but let’s check his home first. If he isn’t there, we can drive over to his office.”
Ryder pulled up in front of Sam’s house and turned the ignition off.
“The house is dark, and his truck is gone.”
“Yeah.” Ryder opened his door. “Wait here. I know where he keeps his spare key. I’m going to take a look around.”
“You don’t want me to come with you?”
He shook his head. “It’d be best if I take a look alone. I’ll only be a few minutes.”
“Okay,” I said, not understanding why Ryder didn’t want me to come with him, but deciding that it wasn’t a situation I cared about enough to get into an argument over.
Of course, waiting, even if for just a few minutes, was a lot harder than I thought it would be. Ryder had knocked on the door and rung the bell. When no one answered, he’d disappeared around the back. After a minute, I saw a light come on in the back of the house. I suppose
d the extra key might have been hidden somewhere in the backyard. Less than three minutes later, all the lights went off one by one in the opposite order from which they’d been turned on. Sixty seconds after the last one went off, Ryder joined me in the truck.
“He’s not there,” he said. “There’s no sign of a struggle, so that’s good. It doesn’t look like he’s been home since this morning, although he might have been in a hurry and didn’t stop to clean up. Let’s go by his office. If he isn’t there, I’ll call dispatch, and if they don’t know where he is, we’ll check a few of his favorite bars. Someone must have seen him at some point today.”
“Maybe, but if he was working, he wouldn’t have been in a bar,” I pointed out.
“True. Maybe we can find his truck. I’m sure it has GPS. We should be able to track down the location of the truck, which hopefully is where Sam will be.”
After we checked the office, which was closed up tight, Ryder called the central dispatch office on the east shore. The dispatcher on duty had come in after Sam had last called in, but he did share that according to the log, Sam had been headed to an address on the north shore to speak to a man named Cord Hannigan. Ryder asked if Sam had checked in at any point after that, and he shared that according to the log, he hadn’t.
Ryder started the truck and headed back in the direction from which we’d come while I left yet another message for Sam and then called Quinn to fill her in. Of course, once I filled Quinn in on the fact that Sam wasn’t at his house or office, she started to panic. She indicated that if we didn’t find him in the next hour, she was going to charter a helicopter to bring her to the island since the last ferry had already left. Maybe she did care about Sam more than I’d suspected.
“So, do you know Cord Hannigan?” I asked Ryder as he sped north. “It seems like you know most of the people who live on this side of the island.”
“I know Cord,” he confirmed. “He owns a fishing boat out of the Hidden Harbor Marina. He’s a crusty old guy who has zero tolerance for the growth and prosperity that has begun to change the local culture, and the two of us have had words on numerous occasions, but deep down, he’s an okay sort of guy who is deeply entrenched in the idea of keeping everything exactly the same as it has always been.”
“Why do you think Sam went to talk to him?” I asked.
Ryder narrowed his gaze. “I’m not sure. Cord is on the water pretty much every day, and he does know a lot of people. Maybe Sam had reason to believe he’d seen something.”
When we arrived at Cord’s house, I expected Ryder to tell me to wait in the truck once again, but this time, he invited me to talk to Cord with him. He pointed out that Cord was not a fan of him, but he certainly did have an eye for pretty women. I guess he hoped my being there would soften Cord up and get him to talk.
“Yeah, Sam was here,” Cord confirmed after Ryder had introduced me and explained why we were there. “What of it?”
“He’s missing, and we’re trying to find out where he might be. What time was he here?” Ryder asked.
“I guess about two. He didn’t stay long. Mentioned that he still had another stop to make, and he wanted to get off early today since he’d lined up a date for the evening.”
“Do you know where he was going next?” I asked.
“Didn’t say,” Cord answered.
“Why was he here?” Ryder asked.
“Wanted to know about a fishing boat I might have seen last week. Not sure why he was trying to track it down, but when I mentioned that I’d seen a boat that looked a lot like the one he was looking for anchored near Horseshoe Island, he stepped outside to make a call.”
“Do you know who he called?” Ryder asked.
“No idea. He didn’t say, and I’m not a snoop.”
“Is the boat still there?” Ryder asked.
Cord shrugged. “Don’t know. Haven’t been back up that way since I saw it.”
“Did Sam say anything else that might indicate where he was going after he left here?” Ryder asked.
Cord immediately indicated that he hadn’t.
“Please,” I said. “Think about it for a minute. It’s important.”
Cord’s eyes softened a bit when he looked in my direction. “He did say one thing that was odd. He asked me if I’d seen anyone hanging around the old hippie camp on Horseshoe Island. It’s long gone now and wasn’t there for more than a couple of years in the sixties since the island doesn’t have a fresh water source, and hauling it in is a hassle. But there were a couple of summers where there was a group calling themselves Children of the Moon who built some structures, hauled in water, and called the place home. They were known in the area for these weekend retreats where folks could pay a bunch of money to head out to the island, get stoned, have orgies, and find themselves.”
I looked at Ryder. “Do you think Sam would have gone out to the island for some reason?”
“I’m not sure. He would have needed a boat. I happen to know the police boat is dry-docked for the weekend since Sam told me as much. I guess it needed servicing, and Sam didn’t figure he’d need it over the weekend, so this was a good time to get it done. He wasn’t expecting it to be ready to pick up until Monday, so he’d need to borrow a boat if he wanted to head out to the island. I would think he would call and ask to use mine, but he may have wanted a speed boat, so maybe he called Nick.”
“Nick?” I asked.
He took my hand. “Come on. I’ll fill you in on the way.”
Ryder explained that Nick was a good friend of Sam’s who happened to own one of the fastest boats on the island. Once we arrived at Nick’s home and Ryder filled him in, he denied that Sam had called him about the boat, but offered to give the two of us a ride out to Horseshoe Island. Taking Nick up on his offer was the most expedient way to check out the situation, so Ryder agreed.
I called Quinn and filled her in. She really did seem frantic, but I was able to convince her that trying to charter a helicopter at this late hour was probably going to be a waste of time. After a bit of back and forth, I was finally able to convince her to wait at the hotel and take the early ferry in the morning. I also promised to call her with an update once we had a chance to check out the island.
The sea was calm this evening as was the wind, so the ride over to Horseshoe Island was pleasant enough. In fact, if I hadn’t been worried about Sam, I would have enjoyed the feel of the boat gliding over the water as the warm air brushed my cheeks. Maybe if I decided to stay on the island permanently, I’d fork over some of my hard-earned savings to buy a boat. Of course, I was pretty sure Ryder would take me out on his boat any time I wanted, but skimming across the sea propelled by a powerful engine really was a different experience than gliding across the water propelled by the wind.
Nick slowed the boat as the island came into view. The first thing I did was look for a boat anchored in the area. Once it became apparent that there weren’t any boats other than the one we were on, my attention focused on the barren landmass, which at this point, housed only ruins of the buildings that had once been erected by the hippies in the sixties.
“So, what now?” I asked Ryder. “It doesn’t look like Sam is here.”
Ryder frowned as he looked at the small island that was really shaped more like a half-moon than a horseshoe. “I’m not sure,” he answered.
“If you want to take a look on the island, I can get you pretty close,” Nick offered.
“I guess it couldn’t hurt,” Ryder said.
“You’ll need to take your shoes off, but this boat is flat enough that I can bring it up to within a few feet of the shore.”
By a few feet, Nick really meant about ten feet, but the water only reached Ryder’s knees when he jumped out. Ryder had on shorts, but I had on long pants and didn’t want them to get wet, so Ryder carried me from the boat to the shore. Nick waited with the boat. The island was small, and there wasn’t really anything to search other than a few of the ruins, so we figured it wouldn’
t take long. It was dark, but Ryder and I each had a flashlight, so making our way across the sand was easy enough.
“It’s pretty obvious no one is here,” I said.
“Yeah, I know. I guess I just figured that as long as we’d come all the way out here, we might as well take a quick look around. While no one lives on the island, day-trippers do like to party in the area. Maybe we can find something that might give us a clue as to who might have been here today.”
“Someone like Ernie Southern?” I asked, holding up a wallet.
Ryder took the wallet from my outstretched hand. He opened it and looked inside.
“I guess he might have been here partying,” I said. “If his wallet fell out of his pocket, he might not have even realized it. Of course, he could have lost the wallet days ago, and hasn’t thought to look for it here.”
Ryder held up a ticket stub from the local cinema. “The ticket stub is from the night before last, which means that Ernie was here yesterday or today.”
I looked at my phone. No cell service.
“Let’s head back,” Ryder suggested. “Once we get to the marina, I’ll give Ernie a call.”
“Do you know him?” I asked as Ryder carried me back to the boat.
“I do. His older brother, Kent, and I are friends.”
The ride back toward Shipwreck Island was accomplished in silence. Once we arrived at the marina, Ryder thanked Nick and gave him some money for the gas he’d used to ferry us to the island. Ryder called Ernie, who didn’t answer, so he called Kent, who told him that Ernie had mentioned heading over to Topsail Beach for a party. Luckily, Topsail Beach was only a short drive from the marina, so Ryder and I headed in that direction.
When we arrived at the beach, we found a group of young men and women, drinking near a large bonfire. It appeared to be a younger crowd, but Ryder recognized a few individuals who pointed us in the direction they’d last seen Ernie.
“Ernie,” Ryder said once we found him smoking pot with a group of his peers.
