Dearly Beloved Page 14

  And waited . . .

  And waited . . .

  Sandy sits on the edge of an uncomfortable antique sofa, her clammy hands clasped tightly in her lap so that they won’t tremble so much. Beneath her long navy skirt, the one she chose so carefully for her date tonight, her right leg is bouncing rapidly up and down from nerves.

  But not the kind of nerves she’d expected to have now as she is about to meet the man who summoned her here.

  She’s not breathless with romantic anticipation.

  No, she’s breathless with fright.

  For the last twenty minutes, as she’s sat here in the parlor waiting for Ethan Thoreau to appear, she’s repeatedly told herself that she needs to calm down. That there’s absolutely no reason to feel panicky. That she’s certainly not in any kind of danger.

  Even though this house looks like something out of a gothic horror movie.

  Even though the chauffeur locked her inside, then vanished up the stairs.

  If she were a different kind of person, Sandy thinks for the umpteenth time, she would get off this sofa and leave this room and look around the house, making sure there’s another way out.

  Just in case.

  But, being spineless Sandy Cavelli, she just sits here in the parlor, looking helplessly back at the archway leading out into the hall and at the French doors on an interior wall at the other end of the room, their glass windows made opaque by heavy draperies on the other side.

  And she grows more and more agitated, wondering. And listening . . .

  For something. Anything.

  Outside, the wind grows more and more ferocious, sweeping in from the sea to batter the house.

  Inside, the minutes tick by on the old grandfather clock in the corner of the parlor.

  The parlor is lit only by the fire on the hearth and the white votive candles that glow from tables and shelves around the room. The effect might be cozy or even romantic somewhere else, Sandy thinks; but here, the flickering light only seems eerie.

  Finally, she hears a creaking from the hall; someone is descending the stairs.

  One step at a time.

  No longer caring about her lipstick, Sandy bites down, hard, on her bottom lip and clenches her hands even more tightly, holding her breath and listening.

  Finally, the footsteps reach the bottom.

  Sandy braces herself for whatever is going to happen. She turns and looks expectantly toward the archway leading to the hall.

  But instead of coming into the parlor, whoever is out there—can it really be Ethan?—passes by, still moving in that same methodic manner, fleetingly casting a tall shadow on the wall opposite the sofa where Sandy waits.

  This is too strange. . . .

  There’s something wrong. . . .

  I have to get out of here. . . .

  Sandy’s eyes dart wildly around the room. She looks at the two sets of narrow double windows which stretch almost from floor to ceiling. Can she open one and climb out?

  No. Instinctively, she knows that they, too, will be locked. And they’re paned, so she can’t break one and escape that way, either.

  Escape.

  Are you crazy? You’ve been waiting for weeks to meet Ethan Thoreau. And now you want to break a window and escape from him? What are you thinking? What will this man think if he hears shattering glass and sees you fleeing into the night? You’ve definitely lost it. You have to—

  Suddenly, she hears a faint sound coming from behind the French doors.

  Music.

  Wide-eyed she turns in that direction and strains to listen. She knows this melody. . . .

  It’s from West Side Story, she realizes abruptly. She’s seen the movie countless times. This is the song Maria and Tony sing when they pretend to get married.

  “One Hand, One Heart.”

  The lyrics become audible as the song grows louder in the next room, as though someone has turned up the volume. The familiar tune is reassuring, and Sandy feels her body relax slightly.

  He’s setting the mood for seduction, she tells herself. This is classic. Soft music, candlelight . . .

  Everything is going to be all right.

  For a long time, she sits there, listening to the song and waiting for something to happen.

  “One Hand, One Heart” ends and a new song begins.

  Sandy recognizes this one, too. “Color My World.” Her cousin Maria sang it at Danny and Cheryl’s wedding.

  She hears the footsteps again, this time approaching the French doors. There’s a click; and then, as she watches, the knobs turn and both doors swing slowly open.

  A man is standing there, his face lost in the shadows, but his tall, broad-shouldered frame clearly silhouetted in the doorway.

  “Sandra Cavelli . . . you’re here with me at last.” His voice is low and soft, so soft that she has to strain to hear him above the music.

  She clears her throat and stands, subconsciously wiping her sweaty palms on her skirt. “Hello . . . Ethan?”

  He doesn’t respond, just stands there. She can’t see his eyes in the dim light, but she can feel him watching her. She fights the urge to squirm under his gaze.

  When he doesn’t move or say anything else, she takes a few tentative steps toward him. As she draws closer, she sees that he’s wearing a tuxedo.

  A tuxedo! For a date in his own house!

  She takes a deep breath and notices that the air suddenly seems filled with a heady floral scent, like potpourri or perfume . . .

  “You look lovely, Sandra,” he says quietly.

  This time, something strikes her about his voice. She’s heard it someplace before . . .

  The chauffeur!

  An involuntary shiver shoots through Sandy. She nearly gasps out loud as she realizes that the man standing in the doorway is the chauffeur who drove her from the inn.

  But why? Why would he do it—pretend to be someone else?

  She struggles to maintain her composure, telling herself that he’s probably just eccentric; lots of rich people are that way, aren’t they?

  Hysteria mounts inside her; yet outwardly, she forces a smile and says, “It’s so nice to meet you at last, Mr. Thoreau.”

  She expects him to say call me Ethan.

  But he doesn’t. He says, “Oh, we’ve met before, Sandra.”

  Should she admit that she realizes what he’s done?

  “Do you recognize me?”

  He steps closer to her, and she peers at him through the flickering light. “Actually, I do recognize you,” she says, deciding to play his game and thrusting lightness into her voice. “You’re the chauffeur who picked me up at the inn, aren’t you?”

  He laughs, a surprisingly robust sound that catches Sandy off-guard . . .

  A sound that again triggers that feeling of déjà vu she experienced in the car.

  I know him, she realizes uneasily. Not just because he drove me here earlier. I know him . . . from a long time ago.

  But who is he?

  “Who am I, Sandra?” he asks as though he’s invaded her thoughts. “I am the chauffeur, but who am I, really?” There’s a smirk in his voice.

  A prickle of panic shoots through her again. Her mind races, searching for the answer.

  Who is he?

  Who is he?

  It becomes a refrain that screams inside her brain as she stares at him, trying to remember.

  “You don’t know, do you?” he asks, the smirk fading into a sinister chill. “Damn you. I knew I didn’t matter to you. But I didn’t think you cared so little that you’d forget me entirely. Admit it, Sandy. Admit it!”

  “Admit what?” she asks in a small, strangled-sounding voice.

  “Admit that you don’t even know me!” He takes another step closer to her. Suddenly, his face is illuminated in the path of a candle on the grand piano.

  Sandy freezes, then claps a hand over her mouth.

  “Say it, Sandy. Say it, damn it!” His voice is hoarse with vehemence. “Say you don’
t know who I am!”

  But she can’t.

  Because suddenly, she does know exactly who he is.

  And she’s paralyzed by stark terror.

  Rain is pouring from the black night sky as Danny Cavelli slams the car door and walks up the driveway to the back door of the house he and Cheryl bought right before they were married. He notices, as he stomps heavily up the back steps, that another piece of wood has crumbled away from the edge of the tiny back porch.

  He turns to Cheryl, who’s hurrying through the rain a few steps behind him, and gestures at the splintered floor. “Look at that. This whole place is falling apart. But I’ll never get around to fixing it because I spend all my time helping my family fix things around their houses.”

  They climb onto the porch, where the leaky roof keeps some of the rain out.

  Cheryl sighs. “Danny—”

  “I mean, Tony says he needs help moving a freakin’ piece of furniture, and I get over there, and what does he have me doing? Cleaning the gutters on his house. In the pouring rain. In the dark.”

  “Danny,” Cheryl says again as he jabs the key into the lock, “you know he didn’t plan on having you do it. He just noticed that tree branch had fallen into the gutter, and he can’t climb because of his knee, and he—”

  “Yeah, the knee he hurt running away the day he and Frankie left me alone in the woods when I was six years old, Cheryl. Nice guy, huh?”

  Muttering to himself, Danny opens the door and steps into the kitchen. He flips on a light and tosses his keys on the counter.

  “Danny, come on, don’t ruin our night,” Cheryl says, following him in and locking the door behind her.

  “I’m not the one who’s ruining it,” Danny tells her. “My brother ruined it. Thanks to him, we missed the movie.”

  “I told you that if we hurried, we could have gotten there only a few minutes late.”

  “Who wants to miss the first few minutes? You really have to pay attention in those John Grisham movies. We wouldn’t know what was going on.”

  “They never start them on time at the Cineplex anyway,” Cheryl points out. “They have coming attractions.”

  “Yeah, well, whatever.” Danny goes over to the refrigerator and pulls out a can of beer. “You want one, babe?”

  Cheryl shrugs. “Why not? I’ll make some popcorn and we’ll watch TV.”

  “Nothing good on—not on a Saturday night.”

  “Well, then we’ll think of something else to do,” Cheryl says, shooting a meaningful smile in her husband’s direction.

  “Yeah,” Danny says, meeting her gaze as he pops open one beer, then the other. “Maybe we will. Hey, maybe Tony didn’t ruin my night after all, huh?”

  “Laura! I’m so glad you decided to join us after all!” Jasper Hammel looks up from the tapered candles he’s lighting in the middle of the dining-room table.

  “Oh, um, yes . . . I’m feeling better.” Jennie smiles faintly and glances back at Liza, who’s two steps behind her.

  “Did you hear from D.M. Yates again?” Liza asks Jasper abruptly in a no-nonsense voice.

  “No, of course I didn’t,” he replies in his unruffled way. “If he had called or come by again, I would have come up to get you.”

  “Are you sure about that?” Liza scowls and plunks herself into a seat at the table.

  Jasper seems to be ignoring her as he bustles over to the sideboard and uncorks a bottle of wine with a flourish.

  Only two places are set at the long oval table tonight.

  “Where’s Sandy?” Jennie asks, settling into the chair across from Liza’s.

  “I’m afraid she had a change of plans.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Jasper sniffs the open wine bottle, his eyes closed. “Mmm, an exquisite bouquet. Yes, well, Sandy decided, earlier, to go back to the mainland.”

  Liza, who had been fiddling with her silverware, looks up sharply.

  Jennie frowns and glances toward the window. “In this weather?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “But what about her hot date?” Liza asks. “I thought she was meeting some guy here tonight.”

  “Apparently, she changed her mind. She was driven to the ferry dock a little while ago.”

  “But I thought the last ferry of the day left this afternoon,” Jennie says.

  Jasper looks up from the wine decanter he’s tilting over her glass. He clears his throat, and his mustache twitches. “Oh, it normally does leave early. But not today. Because of the, er, holiday weekend there are extra ferries scheduled for today. Sandy caught the last one.”

  “Oh.” Jennie toys with the blue cloth napkin she was about to spread in her lap.

  “I’ll be right back with some rolls,” Jasper says and hurries through the door into the kitchen.

  As soon as he’s gone, Liza leans toward Jennie. “Did you hear that?” she asks in a low voice.

  “Hear what?”

  “What he said about Sandy and the ferry?”

  “What about it?”

  “He was lying.”

  Jennie tries to ignore the jittery feeling in the pit of her stomach. “Why would he lie?”

  “Who knows? I told you he was strange. But trust me, Sandy wouldn’t change her mind about going out with that guy.”

  “How do you know? You barely know her.”

  Liza rolls her eyes. “Oh, come on, Laura. I know enough to be sure that a chub like her wouldn’t turn down a chance to date some good-looking guy who has a lot of bucks.”

  Turned off by Liza’s attitude, Jennie just shrugs and says, “Whatever.” But inwardly, her heart is pounding. It didn’t take Liza to tell her that Jasper Hammel wasn’t telling the truth. She sensed it herself.

  “Laura, I’m telling you,” Liza whispers loudly, “something’s up.” Her green eyes are wide.

  Looking at her, Jennie senses that Liza has a vulnerable side.

  And that perhaps her own nerves about this place aren’t merely due to her post-traumatic stress disorder after all.

  But if Jasper Hammel really is lying . . .

  Why?

  And if Sandy didn’t really leave the island . . .

  Where is she?

  “What’s wrong, Laura?” Shawn asks, leaning across the small table in the crowded Newbury Street restaurant.

  “Nothing,” she says brightly, snapping out of her reverie and stabbing a large piece of shrimp tempura with her fork. She pops it into her mouth.

  “You look preoccupied.”

  “I was just thinking about how glad I am that you’re back. . . . I really missed you.” That last part is the truth, although it wasn’t what she’d been thinking about.

  “I missed you, too.” Shawn smiles at her and reaches across the table to pat her hand before picking up his chopsticks again.

  Laura looks at him, wondering how long it’ll be before she screws up this relationship, as she has all the others. Somehow, she can never keep a man. Well, not any man she’d want, anyway.

  The only ones who ever get hooked on her for the long term are the losers. And her ex-husband, Brian, was the biggest loser of all.

  A dangerous loser at that.

  Laura still has the scar on her cheek, just beneath her left eye, where he burned her with his cigarette the night he accused her of sleeping around on him. She’d hysterically tried to explain that she hadn’t come home because she’d been at the emergency room with her grandfather, waiting for the prognosis on her grandmother, who’d had another heart attack.

  But Brian, crazed with jealousy and booze, had only reached out to burn her again. That time, at least, the red tip of his cigarette had missed her face, instead landing on the couch cushion after she’d ducked. She’d let him keep the couch when she left; had let him keep everything, in fact, except the few mementos she had of her parents and the antique set of china that Jennie had given them as a shower gift.

  She still has the china, in a box under her bed in the
town house. Since she and Brian never actually used it, she figures she won’t mind keeping it for when she’s married again. If she’s married again . . .

  She sighs inwardly and looks at Shawn, whose dark, boyish good looks have attracted quite a few appreciative glances from the other women in the restaurant.

  “Don’t you like your tempura?” he asks.

  “Sure, it’s good.” She eats another piece of shrimp. “I can’t believe you wanted Japanese food after spending a month in Tokyo.”

  “I got used to it.” Shawn shrugs and grips a glistening red slab of raw tuna with his chopsticks.

  Laura wrinkles her nose, watching as he dunks it into the small porcelain bowl that contains a mixture of soy sauce and some disgusting green goop—wasabi, he calls it.

  “You know, Shawn,” she says as he reaches for another slimy piece of fish, “sushi isn’t good for you. It’s full of worms—you know, parasites.”

  “Oh well.”

  “Jennie doesn’t care, either. She loves that stuff,” Laura says, shaking her head and having another bite of her shrimp with its light, deep-fried breading.

  “How is your sister?”

  “She’s okay. I guess.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  Laura looks at him. “I don’t know. I mean, I keep thinking about her tonight. It’s like I’m worried about her, or something. Not that there’s any reason to be. But Keegan—”

  “He’s her boyfriend, right? The cop.”

  “Ex-boyfriend now. He stopped over right before I left to pick you up at the airport, and I guess he started me thinking about my sister. She’s out on Tide Island for the weekend, staying at some inn.”

  “Alone?”

  Laura nods and quickly fills him in about the charity sweepstakes and how she’d won and given the trip to Jennie, who is posing as her.

  Shawn rolls his eyes. “I thought you said you guys never pull that twin stuff anymore.”

  “I said I would never switch places with Jennie to fool you,” Laura says with a grin.

  “Don’t worry. . . . You couldn’t fool me. Even if your hair was long like Jennie’s, I’d know you from your sister the second we got into bed.”