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Of a romantic tryst. That was what he meant. “Maybe it does seem a little morbid, but I’ve never been there.” She’d only read about it, in one of the stories Trent hadn’t been able to quash. “I can rent a boat at the marina, but people will talk.”
He shoved his chair back. She could see the “no” forming on his lips.
“You don’t have to rent a boat. Jonathan will take you.”
She hadn’t heard Adriana come in. She stood at the mahogany sideboard, pouring a cup of coffee, elegant in white pants and a white silk shirt.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Jonathan didn’t look particularly happy with his wife’s intervention.
“Why don’t you want to go there?” Adriana turned, balancing the cup between her fingers.
“It’s not that I don’t want to go.” Jonathan’s face tightened. “I just think it’ll be needlessly hard on Sarah.”
“On the contrary.” Adriana sounded oddly satisfied. “We ought to help Sarah. It’s time the truth came out.”
Sarah held her breath. Jonathan stared at his wife a moment longer. Finally he nodded.
“We’ll have to go on the tide. Meet me at the boat dock around three.”
“Thank you.” She wasn’t sure what else to say.
Jonathan gave her a rueful smile. “Don’t thank me. I’m not doing anything good for you. And I hope I’m not going to live to regret it.”
“I’d like to speak to Chief Gifford, please. My name is Sarah Wainwright.”
The officer behind the gray metal desk looked barely old enough to be out of high school. He nodded, and Sarah thought she saw a faint flush behind the freckles on his cheeks.
“Yes, ma’am…I mean, Doctor.” He lurched from the chair, banging his foot on the metal wastebasket, and flushed a deeper red. “I’ll tell Chief Gifford you’re here.”
Sarah looked after him. His name plate said R. Whiting, and the name seemed vaguely familiar in a way the face didn’t. She frowned. She was letting her mind ramble, when what she needed to do was concentrate on Chief Gifford.
Him she remembered…a short, cocky, bantam of a man with a barrel chest, given to florid gestures. He could tell her details no one else could about the investigation. If he would.
“Dr. Wainwright!” Gifford bounded across the office to shake her hand. “This is a surprise. What are you doing back here?”
The surprise seemed a little overdone. Surely he’d heard by now she was back. “I have a few things to clear up here.” Leave it vague, and she might get more out of him, although Trent would have spoken to him by now. “If I might have a few minutes?”
“Of course, of course.” He gestured expansively toward his office. “As much time as you like.” He glanced briefly at Whiting. “Bobby, you get that filing done yet?”
“I’m on it, Chief.” His eyes were on Sarah, almost as if he wanted to say something to her. “Right away.”
“See you do.” Gifford ushered her to the straight-backed visitor’s chair in his office. He closed the door and then bounced back into his own seat, which creaked in protest. “These young fellas think police work’s like what they see on the TV. Got no idea somebody actually has to do the filing.” Shrewd hazel eyes, belying his good-ole-boy manner, zeroed in on her face. “Now then, what can I do for you?”
“You may remember I left St. James very soon after my husband’s death last year.” She’d prepared the opening. Where the conversation went after that was up to him. Or possibly to Trent. “I never found out what your investigation showed.”
“Now, ma’am, you don’t want to go making yourself unhappy by raking all that up again, do you?” His pale eyes were so opaque she couldn’t tell whether that was concern or a warning. She might get farther by interpreting it in a positive light.
“I appreciate your concern, Chief Gifford, but I want to know. I do have that right, don’t I?”
Gifford leaned back and the chair protested. “I surely don’t object to talking to you about it, but I don’t want you to get all upset.”
Sarah managed a tight smile. “I think enough time has passed that I can talk about it, and there’s so much I don’t know. I don’t even know who found them. I was off the island that day, and didn’t know anything was wrong until I got back.”
The police car had been waiting when she drove across the bridge, coming home from a shift at the hospital, prepared to work another four hours at the clinic as a volunteer. The officers had flagged her down, told her there’d been an accident, taken her to her fledgling clinic, where one of the volunteer retired physicians she’d recruited had been on duty.
The officer mentioned Cat Isle, but it wasn’t until she’d burst into the room and seen Trent’s ravaged face across the two white stretchers that she realized Miles hadn’t been alone.
“Well, that’s not much of a mystery,” the chief said. “Mr. Donner called us when his wife wasn’t back to get ready for some dinner party. One of the boats was missing, so we divvied up the places she might have gone. Whiting and I drew Cat Isle. We found the two boats, then we checked the cottage and found them.”
That was why Whiting’s name seemed familiar. She must have heard it at the time.
“It was too late when you got there?” She tried to say the words without letting her mind touch on what they’d found. She’d treated carbon monoxide victims. She knew too much.
Gifford nodded. “Whole place was filled with gas.”
“From a space heater. I remember.”
“Probably never would have been enough concentration of gas in a place like that, except that Mr. and Mrs. Donner had remodeled it. Made it tight enough to use all year long—and tight enough to hold the gas.” He shook his head sadly.
It had been a cloudy, wet day, she remembered, with a sharp wind blowing and a tropical storm threatening. “It seems odd they’d go there on a day like that.”
“Begging your pardon, ma’am, but I reckon they had to take what opportunities they could get. With you away…”
Of course that was what he’d think. She swallowed hard. “What were they doing when the gas overcame them?”
Gifford looked a bit scandalized, but he answered. “Miz Donner, she lay toppled over on the sofa, like she was asleep. Wainwright lay on the floor. The medical examiner said it looked like he’d hit his head on the coffee table when he fell. Could be he knocked himself out before he knew what was happening.”
She hadn’t known that, and she should have.
“What about Mrs. Donner? Did she have any injuries?”
He shook his head. “Nothing. Looked like she just drifted off.”
There was another question she had to ask. “Everyone assumes my husband met Mrs. Wainwright there because they were lovers. Did you find any evidence of that?”
Now he really did look shocked. “No, ma’am. This office never said any such thing. Fatal accident, that’s all we said.”
“Yes, I know.” She tried to read Gifford’s expression. “So you didn’t really conduct an investigation into what they were doing there.”
Gifford’s chair teetered for an instant and then came down squarely, and his relaxed pose vanished. “We investigated. Miz Donner come in one of the Land’s End boats. You husband rented a fifteen-footer from Clawson down at the marina. There was no evidence of any foul play. Mr. Donner said he’d mentioned to them that he’d like their opinion on expanding the cottage. He figured that was why they’d gone there.” His eyes narrowed. “Are you saying we didn’t do our duty?”
“I’m concerned that the investigation was closed so quickly. I know Mr. Donner’s an important person—”
Gifford’s hand came down on his desk with a thump. “That’s got nothing to do with what happens here in this office, and I don’t take kindly to you suggesting otherwise.”
“I wouldn’t dream of saying that.” But it was what she thought.
He wasn’t mollified. “I’ve tried to answer your questions as best I can. Nobody tried to hide anything about the way your husband and Miz Donner died. We just tried to protect the living as best we could.”
And you should be grateful, his tone implied.
“I wasn’t suggesting any laxity on your part, Chief Gifford.” Not at the moment, anyway.
“I’ve told you everything I can.” Gifford stood up. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got work to do.”
Sarah rose, too. “I’d like to talk to Officer Whiting.”
Gifford swelled alarmingly, his neck turning a rich maroon. “Whiting doesn’t speak for this department. I do. He has nothing to say to you.”
He stalked to the door and threw it open. “If I were you, ma’am, I’d go back up north before St. James brings you more trouble.” His lips moved in what might have been meant for a smile. “The Sea Islands can be dangerous places for people who don’t belong here.”
The small boat nosed away from the dock cautiously. Hitting the channel, deep now because of the high tide, Jonathan accelerated. The roar of the motor and the wind rushing through her hair made conversation impossible, and Sarah was grateful.
Jonathan, face drawn tight with distaste, clearly thought this a bad idea. Maybe it was, but that didn’t change her mind. It was ridiculous to assume she’d ever stop imagining what the place looked like. She might as well know.
A dolphin lifted from the water in a perfect silver arc, and her breath caught in her throat. She’d nearly forgotten the unexpected moments of sheer beauty the island provided. Sunlight was warm on her shoulders, accentuating the golden haze that gleamed from sand and sea oats. No wonder these were called the Golden Isles.
Jonathan throttled back and pointed. For hundreds of years oyster shells had washed up into a barrier ridge, separating the sound and the salt marshes. Along the ridge, fifty or more brown pelicans sunned themselves. Startled by the boat, they took off, skimming the breakers and squawking their dislike.
It took only minutes to reach their destination. Cat Isle was hardly big enough to be called an island—a few acres of tangled vines, hoary old live oaks draped funereally in Spanish moss, scraggly pines. As far as Sarah knew, Trent’s cottage was the only building of any sort.
Jonathan idled up to the crumbling dock. The weathered gray boards were adorned with moss.
“Does Trent own the whole island?”
He nodded, tossing a line over an upright. “Bought it from me, as a matter of fact. We never came here much, but it’s easier access from Land’s End—you can take a kayak down the creek when the tide is right.”
She nodded, trying to fix the geography in her mind. Land’s End was nearly surrounded by water, with the ocean in front, the sound to the south and the marshes and creek running behind it.
“Trent completely remodeled the cottage, but Lynette didn’t like it. She said the place made her nervous. She—” He stopped abruptly, shutting down as sharply as the boat’s engine had. “Go ahead.” He jerked his head toward the path. “I’ll wait here.”
She’d expected him to go with her, but maybe it was just as well. She didn’t need anyone to see her reaction to the place. She scrambled up on the dock, getting a green smear on her khakis in the process, and started toward the cottage.
The path, surrounded by lush, overpowering green undergrowth, nearly lost itself several times. This was her dark image of the islands, the gloomy, mysterious depths of maritime forest, only a step or two from the sunlit water.
The scent of honeysuckle enveloped her, deepening like incense as she moved farther from the dock. With a wary eye out for snakes, Sarah pushed along the path until it widened into a clearing.
Weathered a gray-green like the dock, the cottage seemed to grow out of the forest. It had a rustic charm, if she could divorce herself what had happened here. But if Lynette disliked the place so much, why would she choose to meet anyone here, especially a lover?
She pushed hair back from her damp forehead. That wasn’t right, anyway. Whatever Miles had been doing here, it wasn’t making love to Lynette Donner. If she couldn’t believe that, nothing in her life made any sense.
She grasped the door handle and pushed it open. She stood for a moment, eyes adjusting to the gloom. Abruptly a wave of distaste washed over her. What was she doing here?
Like an echo of her thought, the voice came from within the room. “What are you doing here?”
With a queer, cold twist in her stomach, she turned. The shaft of light from the open door cast harsh shadows on Trent’s rigid face.
“A stupid question, isn’t it, Sarah? I already know what you’re doing here. You’re looking for more grief, and you’ve found it.”
FOUR
Trent didn’t know which emotion was stronger at the sight of Sarah—rage or shame. Rage that she was here, or shame that she, of all people, had caught him here?
“You just can’t listen to me, can you?” He took a furious step toward her. Rage, definitely.
The shock that had filled her eyes at the sight of him faded. She squared her shoulders, as if determined he’d find no weakness in her.
“I want to see where it happened. I have to.”
“You’re trespassing.” If his tone was any sharper, he’d cut himself. “Get out.”
Her mouth firmed. “I have a right to see where my husband died, trespassing or not.”
“It won’t do you any good. There’s nothing to see here.” Nothing but betrayal. The thought burned like acid.
She studied his face, as if she’d see behind the words to the feeling. She wouldn’t. He didn’t let anyone in.
“Why are you here, then?”
The rage flashed along his nerves again, and he fought it back. “That’s none of your business.”
She shook her head, her pale hair moving like silk on her shoulders. “We’re the same, Trent. You came here for the same reason I did. To try and make sense of what happened.”
“If we’re alike, then neither of us should come here. There is no sense in it.”
He wanted to deny the despair in his voice. It was a weakness, this failure to put Lynette’s death behind him. He didn’t tolerate weakness, not in the people who worked for him, not in himself. Certainly not in himself.
I tried. You know I tried. Why couldn’t I make her happy?
God didn’t give him an answer. He never did to that question.
He took a breath, forcing himself to calm. “I’m sorry for your pain.” He gestured to the cottage he’d once thought would be a peaceful retreat for him and Lynette. “Believe me, I’ve looked, but this place doesn’t have answers. It’s just a shell.”
She moved slightly, as if he’d given her a respite from the tension. “Did you come here often? Before, I mean.”
Before their lives exploded.
“I thought we would, but it didn’t happen. Lynette—” He swallowed. “She was enthusiastic about fixing the place up when we first bought it, but she soon gave up. She didn’t seem to like it here.”
“Someone made it comfortable.” Sarah touched the back of the leather sofa that faced the fireplace.
“My housekeeper.” His voice sounded strangled to his ears. “She ordered the furniture.”
Did Sarah know Lynette had died on that spot? Pain twisted inside him, as fresh as if it had happened yesterday—racing to the cottage when the police called, bursting in the door, heart pounding as if it would explode from the pressure.
Gifford and a couple of his officers had straightened at the sight of him. They’d stepped back, averting their eyes, as if it were indecent to look at him at such a moment.
No. He wouldn’t remember the rest of it. He wouldn’t let that image back into his mind.
