no.” I’m wretched and bereft, my grief intolerable as I sink onto the dock and stare into the water, thoughts of jumping into the dark, icy depths and ending it all filling my mind. “Noah . . . please. God, keep him safe . . .”
My prayer is lost in the wind . . .
Then I wake up.
I find myself in my bed in the room I’ve occupied for years.
For the briefest of instants, it’s a relief. A dream . . . only a dream. A horrible nightmare.
Then my hopes sink as I realize my mistake.
My heart is suddenly heavy again.
Tears burn my eyes.
Because I know.
My son really is gone. Missing. It’s been two years since I last saw him.
“I’m serious, you can’t tell a soul,” a breathy voice whispered. “I could lose my job.”
Ava Garrison opened a bleary eye. From her bed, she heard the sound of voices beyond the big wooden door that stood slightly ajar.
“She doesn’t even know what’s going on,” another woman agreed. Her voice was deeper and gruffer than the first, and Ava thought she recognized it, a headache pounding behind her eyes as the nightmare retreated into her subconscious. The pain would recede, it always did, but for the first minutes after waking, she felt as if steel-shod horses were galloping through her brain.
Inhaling a deep breath, she blinked. The room was dark, the curtains pulled, the rumble of the ancient furnace forcing air through the registers, muting the conversation beyond the heavy oak door.
“Shhh . . . she should be awake soon . . .” Breathy Voice again. Ava tried to place it and thought it might belong to Demetria, Jewel-Anne’s dour nursemaid. For a woman not yet thirty, tall, slim Demetria always wore a severe expression that matched her harsh hairstyle, dyed black and pulled back, restrained by a heavy clip at her nape. Her only concession to whimsy, it seemed, was the hint of a tattoo, an inky tendril that curled from beneath the clip to tease the back of her ear. The tattoo reminded Ava of a shy octopus, extending one questioning tentacle from beneath its hiding spot of thick dark hair and tortoiseshell clip.
“So what is it? What’s going on with her?” the second voice demanded.
Oh, Lord, did it belong to Khloe? Ava felt a jab of betrayal; she knew they were talking about her, and Khloe had been her best friend while growing up here on this remote island. But that had been years ago, long before fresh-faced and happy-go-lucky Khloe had turned into the unhappy soul who couldn’t for the life of her let go of a love that had died so swiftly.
More whispering . . .
Of course. It was almost as if they wanted to have her overhear them, as if they were taunting her.
Ava caught only phrases that were as crippling as they were true.
“. . . slowly going out of her mind . . .” Khloe again?
“Has been for years. Poor Mr. Garrison.” Breathy Voice.
Poor Mr. Garrison? Seriously?
Khloe, if it were she, agreed. “How he’s suffered.”
Wyatt? Suffered? Really? The man who seemed intent on being absent, always away? The man she’d contemplated divorcing on more than one occasion? Ava doubted her husband had suffered one day of his life. She could barely restrain herself from shouting, but she wanted to hear what they were saying, what the gossip was that ran rampant through the wainscoted hallways of Neptune’s Gate, this hundred-year-old house built and named by her great-great-grandfather.
“Well something should be done; they’re richer than God!” one of them muttered, her words thin and reedy as she walked away.
“For God’s sake, keep your voice down. Anyway, the family’s making sure that she gets the best care that money can buy . . .”
The family?
Ava’s head was throbbing as she threw off the thick duvet and her bare feet hit the plush carpet that had been cast over hardwood. Fir . . . it was fir planks . . . she remembered, planed by the sawmill that once was the heart of Church Island, named without a drop of modesty by that same great-great-grandfather who had built this house. One step, two . . . She started to lose her balance and grasped the tall bedpost.
“Everyone in the family . . . they need answers . . .”