Stargazey Point Page 4

  Werner yells at her, she turns. His lips move, but she can’t hear him. “What?” she screams. His eyes widen, his arms fly out as his body recoils and blood splatters the air. He falls, slowly, slowly to the ground, calling to her, but she can’t hear.

  Abbie thrashed against the covers. Sat up. Gasping for breath. It was a dream. The dream. She clutched the sheet as the bed began to shake, move across the floor, the tall posts wavering in the dark, until they disintegrated like ashes around her. She rolled off the bed and crawled toward the French doors across an undulating floor.

  Not real, not awake, not real. She grabbed at the door handles, flung the doors wide, and stumbled onto the veranda. She pulled herself up to the balcony rail and peered out to sea. The wind hit her damp skin, and she shivered uncontrollably.

  She was in South Carolina with Celeste’s family. She was standing on firm wood.

  It was dark. Only a lighter aura marked the northern shore where the lights from civilization broke through the night. But straight out to sea was black. And though the stars blinked erratically above her, their light didn’t shine on the land.

  Abbie crossed her arms over her chest. Closed her eyes and opened them again. She looked up and down the porch, making sure she hadn’t wakened the others, not knowing if she’d talked or screamed or cried in her sleep. She heard nothing but the whisper of the waves touching the sand.

  This had to stop. She might have awakened one of the Crispins, scared any of the three into a heart attack.

  Something creaked in the dark. She whirled around and peered into the shadows. One of the rocking chairs moved slowly back and forth. Abbie backed against the balcony rail. The chair ceased rocking. Hopefully, it was over for tonight.

  Just as she began to relax, the chair lurched forward and something clunked to the ground. She froze, felt something rub against her ankles. And then a low rumbling.

  It seemed to take forever for her brain to kick into gear. Not a hallucination, not a nightmare. A cat was purring at her feet.

  She exhaled so sharply she nearly fell backward.

  She knelt down, and the cat bumped against her knee. He, or she, was big and seemed in no hurry to leave. She reached out her hand, and the cat stretched his neck to be stroked.

  “Now where did you come from? You’re not feral, you’re too friendly to be a scavenger, so I’m guessing you’re a resident, too.”

  The cat made a rusty sound that Abbie took as a meow, made a final pass under her hand, and turned to walk slowly and stately, tail twitching, down the veranda. He was swallowed by the darkness long before he reached the end.

  Abbie shivered. Her nightshirt was clammy with sweat. She looked quickly around, assuring herself that she was indeed awake. She took a deep breath of salt air, a long last look at the dark, heaving waves, and went back to her room.

  She hurried across the carpet and jumped onto the high four-poster, pulled the covers up to her neck. Okay. No one had seen or heard her. And she couldn’t be too crazy; the cat liked her. But this couldn’t go on. She had to pull herself together.

  She’d done her best. She couldn’t have done more. She knew that. And yet somehow that wasn’t enough. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.

  Chapter 3

  Marnie pushed stiffly to her feet and brushed the soil off her garden gloves.

  “She’s been sittin’ out there half the morning,” Millie said. “She’s not even wearing a hat.”

  Marnie came to stand by her sister and looked out at the beach where Abbie sat on the sand, arms wrapped around her knees. “Maybe she’s enjoying the weather. She just came from all that snow.”

  Marnie said this just to calm her sister. There was something definitely not happy about that girl. She recognized the deep, carefully hidden panic, not just fear, but gut-wrenching panic. She’d felt it herself, many years ago. Sometimes even now it came back to haunt her.

  “Let’s just leave her alone and see.”

  “I was hoping she and Cabot would hit it off, but he wasn’t actin’ like himself at all last night.”

  “Maybe he thought you were playing matchmaker.”

  Millie turned innocent eyes on her. “Sister, he comes almost every Sunday night.”

  “He comes,” Marnie said, “about once a month, and he was here last week.”

  “He heard we were having crab bisque.”

  “And who did he hear that from?”

  “Hmmph. I just happened to run into him yesterday down at the hardware store.”

  Marnie raised a disbelieving eyebrow.

  “Well, I did. For all the good it did,” Millie added under her breath. “And now look at that poor child alone out there on the beach.” She pulled the yellow petals from a forsythia branch and let them drop to the ground. It catapulted Marnie back about sixty years, Millie upset over some mistreated dog, some unpopular student, and helpless to do anything but worry the forsythia leaves. But that was a long time ago, before Millie lost touch with the world.

  Millie was a worrier. It drove Marnie crazy sometimes, but not today. She was a little worried herself about this young woman whom Celeste had sent to them with no more than, “She’s my friend and she needs a safe haven for a while.”

  “Is she in any kind of trouble?” Marnie had asked. Not that it would make any difference, but sometimes it was best to know what you were dealing with ahead of time.

  “Not legally or anything like that. She needs to regroup. I thought of Stargazey Point. I thought of you.”

  “Okay. Send her on. Millie will spoil her rotten, and I’ll kill her with kindness.”

  “Just let Stargazey work its magic. And be there for her. Thank you. I love you bunches.”

  “Uh-huh. When are you coming for a visit?”

  “Soon I hope. It’s just so hard to get away from work.”

  Just as well, Marnie thought. She didn’t want to worry Celeste with the state of affairs.

  For now, Millie had something to do, someone to take care of beside Beau. Marnie just hoped her constant attention wouldn’t drive Abbie away.

  Not that Marnie had any illusions about them actually being able to help the girl beyond giving her a refuge from whatever was ailing her. She’d met Abbie in the kitchen earlier that morning, hollow eyed and pale, as if she hadn’t slept well. Marnie managed to press a cup of coffee on her, but she refused any breakfast—girl was too damn thin, even for these times.

  Abbie asked her if it would be okay to take her coffee to the beach.

  Of course, Marnie told her. Before she could even offer her a beach towel, she’d disappeared wraithlike through the back door.

  “Well?” Millie asked, interrupting her thoughts.

  “Give her time, Millie. Let her have some solitude.”

  “Solitude. Hmmph. She has old age for solitude.” Millie brushed her hands off and slowly went back into the house.

  Ervina stood at the edge of the sand in the shadowed shelter of the trees. She’d been watchin’ that girl for nigh on an hour. She hadn’t moved. But the air around her was rollin’ like the tide. The girl didn’t know. But it was there. And so alive Ervina could almost hear it.

  Change was comin’. She’d brought it with her, this pale girl with the ghost hair. It was comin’. Might be good. Might be bad. But it was comin’.

  Abbie lifted her head to the sun. It was warm, and the slight breeze off the water kept th
e morning from being hot.

  Ordinarily Abbie loved the beach. She always tried to spend a few days between jobs at some sunny vacation spot. Werner would never go. He was always in postproduction or preproduction or both at once.

  Abbie used to kid him about being constitutionally unable to sit still. He’d just shrug, kiss her, and tell her to have a good time. He’d be there when she got back. He always was. But he wouldn’t be there now. Not anymore.

  Hell. He’d left a hole inside her that all the sand on earth couldn’t fill. She knew he would never think twice about giving his life for what he believed in. But not like this. Not when their work was destroyed and witnesses silenced.

  She was the coward. She’d let him down. Let herself down.

  She looked up at the sky, knowing he wouldn’t be there. Werner had always said he would never go to heaven, since all the interesting people would be in hell. “See you there,” he’d quip, when she faltered. When she worried about him. When she was afraid. She hoped he was right. Hell wouldn’t be such a bad place with Werner making stories about it.

  She wished Celeste had been able to come with her. She’d said she wanted solitude, but solitude was too crowded. She wanted distraction. Something to keep her busy. Something that would point her to the future, prevent her from looking at the past.

  Celeste could always make her laugh. Celeste loved the beach almost as much as Abbie, though they hardly ever got their vacations at the same time.

  Once, years ago, they had gone to St. Bart’s. Spent forty-eight hours flirting with skin cancer and hot young men before they were on the plane headed back, Celeste to her desk job as copyeditor for a local news channel, Abbie to another plane, another country, another story—to Werner.

  Abbie knew she was going to have to go solo from now on. This was her new life. She’d accepted that. She’d known what to do before, and her life had been exciting and purposeful. But this new life was vague and unfocused, one that she had no experience in, no skills, no desire to explore.

  She took a stinging breath, trying to ease the tightness in her chest. She couldn’t just sit here. This was not the relaxation, decompression time before jumping back into the next project. There was no next project.

  This was the end of the line—the edge of the world.

  And she was being pathetic. She forced her unwilling body to her feet, brushed off the seat of her jeans, and looked up the long white beach. She could take a walk; there was plenty of unspoiled beach before she reached the town with its damaged pier and the row of stilted beach houses beyond.

  She could probably keep walking for days along the shore that continued past the town and curved slightly before spreading at the feet of a line of condos that littered the horizon like sentinels guarding some hazy emerald city, close but out of reach. The image actually brought a half smile to her lips. The wizard had turned out to be a fake.

  She turned her back on the mirage and walked to the point. On the far side was more beach, and more water. Not the waves of the ocean but an inlet where the water merely swelled and troughed, appearing between the row of trees that lined the lawn and filling the marshes on the far side, before draining out again.

  Abbie walked up the sand to the lawn where she discovered to her surprise, a gazebo, or what was left of one.

  It obviously wasn’t being used. There was a hole in the roof. Several railings had rotted away and weeds grew up around it. She walked along the outside until she found two wooden steps that were covered in debris.

  She tested the first step and when it held her weight, she stepped onto the other and onto the floor. The structure was larger than it looked from the outside. Big enough for a garden party, though it hadn’t been used for anything for a very long time. Drifts of sand covered the floor and piled up under the benches that ran along the perimeter.

  But the view of the sea was magnificent. A panorama of ocean, dunes, marshes, lawn, and trees. Something for everyone. She wondered if anyone came down to sit and watch the sunrise or the sunset. It seemed a shame to let it fall into ruin.

  A shame maybe, but not a high priority in the scheme of things she bet. And instead of wandering aimlessly, she should be helping with whatever she could up at the house. She was, after all, her mother’s daughter. And that was what she was counting on to help her through this ordeal. Her mother knew about loss and how to keep going. Abbie could only hope that she’d inherited that gene, too.

  A path led from the gazebo up the lawn to Crispin House. She’d noticed a brick-walled garden on her way to the beach that morning, and now she stopped to peer over the iron gate. A huge vegetable garden sprawled on the other side, rows upon rows marked out by weathered wooden stakes.

  Marnie was kneeling by a row of fledgling plants covered with windows. She saw Abbie and waved.

  Abbie lifted the latch and let herself in. She trod carefully over the freshly turned soil until she was standing above Marnie.

  “Can I help?”

  “Wouldn’t mind the company, but look inside the shed over there and get a hat, smock, and pair of gloves. The sun’s deceptive, and your nose is already pink.”

  Abbie made her way between the rows and across the enclosure to the little brick garden shed. Inside was dark and cool. The walls were thick. Herbs hung from the rafters, bushel baskets were stacked high in one corner, and a workbench and a piece of fiberboard with hooks and hanging tools took up most of the wall beneath a small square window. And on pegs by the door an old blue garden smock and straw hat hung next to a basket of well-used gardening gloves.

  Abbie shook the smock, in case there were any resident spiders, then put it on, grabbed the hat and a pair of gloves, and went back outside.

  She blinked against the sudden glare, then made her way to where Marnie knelt on a pad made from old newspapers.

  Marnie glanced up at her, nodded brusquely, and handed her a three-toed hand tool. “Can you recognize a weed from a vegetable?”

  “Usually. My family always had a garden.” Even if they didn’t stay long enough to see it yield. Gardening hadn’t been Abbie’s favorite chore, but she knew how to water and weed and pour beer into jar tops to draw the slugs away. And she’d tried to share what knowledge she had with women in the villages they’d filmed, helping them to get better production from the poor and sometimes arid soil. It astounded her now to think of how oblivious she’d been.

  Marnie struggled to one knee. Abbie resisted the urge to help her. Just knowing Marnie for a few hours had told her that the older woman wouldn’t like to admit she couldn’t manage on her on. But Marnie fooled her. She reached up. “Help me up, please.”

  Marnie grabbed on to Abbie’s arm and hauled herself up; she didn’t let go when she’d gained her feet. “Thank you. Sometimes people can use a helping hand or shoulder to lean on. Nothing weak about asking for help when you need it. Now come on over, and I’ll teach you how to tell a dandelion from a broccoli seedling.”

  They spent the next hour silently working in separate rows. Abbie had just finished her second row when a triangle sounded from the house.

  Marnie stood up. Abbie noticed she didn’t bother to ask for help. She decided not to analyze that too closely.

  “That’s the lunch bell. Keeps Millie from having to walk out here and yell. Let’s get cleaned up.”

  They returned the gardening clothes and tools to the shed. Marnie picked up a basketful of dark green leaves she’
d just picked and they headed for the house, where Millie waited with a worried look on her face.

  “Have you been making Abbie work all morning, Sister?”

  “I volunteered,” Abbie said quickly.

  “Besides, she needed something to do,” Marnie said.

  “Hmmph. Marnie’s always gotta do, do, do, but you’re supposed to take it easy and enjoy your vacation.”

  Marnie handed her the basket of greens. “Something you have never understood, Millie, there are some people who like to be busy.”

  “Busy is one thing,” Millie said as Marnie hustled Abbie through a side entrance and into a crowded mudroom where they shed their shoes. “But workin’ the poor girl to the bone is another.”

  “I’m fine, really. I enjoy gardening.”

  The kitchen table was set for three with dishes edged with roses and large, heavy glasses. Millie was bending into a refrigerator right out of a fifties sitcom. So things were more informal during the day. And hopefully during the rest of the weeknights.

  Lunch consisted mainly of leftovers. The crab bisque was thinner—possibly to stretch it to feed them all—which made Abbie a little guilty to think that she was straining a budget that might already be strained. If she stayed, she’d have to find a way to contribute without offending them.

  “Ervina is getting too old to do for us,” Millie explained as she set a platter of cold chicken on the table. “So we just have her come every now and then. We wouldn’t dare hurt her feelings by hiring someone to take her place.”

  Marnie raised her eyes to the ceiling, and Abbie bet anything that they’d pulled Ervina out of retirement just for that welcoming meal.

  “Where is Beau today?” Abbie asked.