Dearly Beloved Read online

  Hmm. The idea of bringing her art supplies to a picturesque island is tempting to Jennie. She’s been too busy lately to spend any time on her hobby. Still . . .

  “You have short hair in the picture on your license. Mine’s long,” she points out to Laura.

  “So? I got it renewed over a year ago. I could have grown my hair out. Go ahead, Jen. You need to get away after all this craziness with Keegan.”

  Keegan. She winces.

  Oh, God. Will she ever be able to hear his name and not react this way?

  Jennie glances again at the drawing of the inn. It shows an old-fashioned, scallop-shingled house complete with plenty of gables and a picket fence with a kitten perched demurely on the gatepost. It appears to be a dreamy, quaint little place where you can curl up with a sketch pad and a mug of tea and forget about the painful end of a relationship.

  “Maybe you’re right,” she tells Laura slowly.

  “I am right.” Her sister bounces the few short steps to the telephone on a nearby table. She picks up the receiver and dangles it from her fingers, looking expectantly at Jennie. “Read off the phone number on the letter. I’ll dial. And don’t forget—you’re Laura.”

  Jennie sighs. “Right. I’m Laura.” She looks down at the letter and starts reading the number aloud.

  Chapter 1

  The ferry isn’t yet a far-off speck on the dusky horizon, but he knows it’s there, cutting toward Tide Island through the choppy gray waters off the New England coast. Complete darkness will fall well before it docks at the landing down the road to release its load of weekend passengers.

  In summer, the Friday-night ferry is always crowded with commuting husbands and vacationing families, college students who work as weekend waiters or lifeguards, couples in love, sticky-faced children.

  But now, in the shortest month of the year, when winter is at its bleakest and the island offers nothing but silent, chilly isolation, there won’t be many people on board. Just the few hardy nature-loving souls willing to brave the elements; perhaps some island-dwellers returning with groceries from the mainland; maybe a handful of summer house owners coming out to inspect the damage December’s nor’easter inflicted upon their property.

  That’s about it.

  Except for them.

  He knows they’re on board—all three of them. Still strangers to each other, but not to him.

  He has been watching them for so long now.

  Waiting.

  A quiver of anticipation passes over him and he cautions himself to relax. He has to maintain control at all times. He can’t afford to take any risks at this point, just when it’s all coming together at last.

  After all these years . . .

  Soon enough, he assures himself. It won’t be long now.

  He casts his gaze back out over the water, giddy with excitement. He’d heard on the radio a little while ago that there’s a growing likelihood this weekend might be stormy.

  Wouldn’t that be perfect?

  Even at this moment, they’re probably enjoying the brisk twilight ride. He pictures them scattered in different corners of the deck or cabin, lost in their own thoughts, thinking about the weekend ahead, filled with excited expectations.

  They aren’t the only ones who are looking forward to it.

  His features twist with mirth, and he stifles a giggle.

  Very, very soon.

  He lets the filmy lace curtain drop back into place and turns away from the window.

  He still has a lot to do before they arrive.

  As the ferry leaves Crosswinds Bay and heads out into the open Atlantic, Jennie turns her face into the cold, salty wind and smiles.

  What a relief to be leaving everything behind, if only for a few days. Already, she can feel the chronic tension starting to loosen its grip on her body. She takes a deep breath of the sea air and lets it out on a satisfying sigh.

  By the time she reached the ferry terminal twenty minutes ago, her jaw ached from clenching and her neck and back muscles had been a jumble of stress knots.

  Knowing Friday night traffic out of Boston was always bad, she’d left at three o’clock to beat it. Unfortunately, a jackknifed tractor-trailer had rammed into a car on I-95 and brought her to a standstill by three-fifteen. And she’d lost an hour by the time she’d managed to creep by the accident scene, ducking her head after a fleeting glimpse of the emergency vehicles with their flashing red lights.

  Spinning domed lights—and sirens—always bring her back to that awful day three years ago.

  So does the sight of blood, no matter how scant. Just two days ago, she’d cut her finger on a paring knife and found herself still trembling uncontrollably a half hour later.

  Today, she had struggled to shake the disturbing memories from her mind and concentrate on the road. She really had to step on it to make the five o’clock ferry from Crosswinds Bay on Rhode Island’s southwestern coast.

  As a rule, she hardly ever went more than five miles above the speed limit, but she didn’t really have a choice if she wanted to get away for the weekend. And she was determined to do that.

  The cozy Bramble Rose Inn seemed to beckon silently from miles away, promising refuge. She couldn’t miss the ferry—it was the last one tonight. She was willing to risk a speeding ticket to catch it.

  Besides, everyone else on the road seemed to be flying by at eighty miles an hour anyway. Jennie had slid her small red Hyundai out into the passing lane and let the speedometer climb to seventy.

  Just past Providence, she was stopped by a humorless trooper who promptly slapped her with a speeding ticket.

  Now, shaking her head at the thought of having to part with a precious fifty dollars to pay the fine, she pulls her black leather gloves out of the bag at her feet and slips them over her winter-chapped hands. It’s freezing on the deck, but she doesn’t want to go inside yet.

  There’s something cleansing about standing out here with the fresh, fishy air whipping through her hair and stinging her cheeks so that they feel swollen. A bell clangs on the bridge somewhere above her, bidding a hollow farewell to the shore they are rapidly leaving behind.

  “Excuse me, do you know what time it is?”

  Jennie turns toward the voice. A young woman stands behind her, clutching the railing with one hand to keep her balance as the boat rolls over the waves. She’s so bundled in a parka and scarf that all that’s visible is a pair of pretty brown eyes and a snub nose that looks bright red from the frosty air.

  Jennie pushes her glove up her wrist and peeks at her watch. “It’s almost a quarter after six.” She practically has to shout to be heard over the wind and crashing waves.

  “Thanks. Do you know when the ferry is supposed to get in?”

  “I think at around seven-thirty. At least, that’s what the schedule said.”

  “Good. I’m starving.”

  “Me, too.” Jennie remembers that she hasn’t eaten since the half a blueberry muffin from Dunkin’ Donuts that she’d gulped down this morning in the car on the way to work. She’d been too busy trying to wrap things up and make an early getaway to even think about lunch.

  The other woman reaches into her pocket and produces a fat-free granola bar in one fuzzy-mittened hand. “Want half? It’ll tide you over.”

  Jennie hesitates. “Oh, that’s all right, you don’t have to—”

  Abruptly, the woman snaps the bar in two and hands one piece to Jennie with a grin. “Here. I’d feel guilty gobbling the whole thing down myself. Besides, I’m on a diet.”

  “Thanks,” Jenny says.

  “Don’t look so grateful. It’s fat free and it tastes like cardboard, so I’m not being as generous as you think.”

  Jennie smiles back at her and clumsily pushes the bar up through the torn wrapper with gloved fingers before taking a bite.

  For a moment, they stand side by side, crunching and staring out at the water.

  Then the other woman says brightly, “I’m Sandy Cavelli.”
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  “Nice to meet you. I’m . . . Laura. Laura Towne.” Might as well get into the habit now so she won’t be as likely to slip and say Jennie when she gets to the inn.

  For another long moment, they both lean on the railing and stare out at the darkening sky and sea, munching the granola.

  “Have you ever been to Tide Island before?” Sandy asks, popping the last bite into her mouth. She crumples the empty wrapper and shoves it into her pocket.

  “No. Have you?”

  “Once when I was younger, with my parents and brothers. I don’t remember much about it, except that we came across some people skinny dipping one day when we were trying to have a picnic on the beach. My parents freaked out.”

  Jennie smiles. “I bet.”

  “They didn’t like the island much, anyway. They thought it was overrun with hippies. That’s what my father kept saying.”

  “Tie-Dye Land,” Jennie says, remembering. “That’s what people call the island, according to my sister.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Well, the place is beautiful, from what I’ve heard.”

  “Yeah, and deserted at this time of year.” Sandy shakes her head. “I wasn’t even going to tell my parents where I was going for the weekend, but my mother overheard me talking about it on the phone with my best friend. And she asked me about it, and then she told my father, and he blew up, as usual. But they can’t stop me, you know? Even though I live under their roof, I’m an adult.” She lifts her double chin stubbornly. “You know what I mean?”

  Jennie nods, thinking she doesn’t seem so sure of that as she wants to be. She looks and sounds almost like a rebellious teenager.

  Abruptly, Sandy changes the subject. “So how come you’re coming here, and not jetting off to St. Thomas or something? I mean, isn’t that what people do when they go on vacation in the dead of winter?”

  Jennie shrugs. “I don’t know. The Caribbean is probably so crowded when it’s winter in the northeast.”

  Probably. Why’d you say that? You know it is.

  But she doesn’t want to remember her November trip to Jamaica with Keegan.

  “True.” Sandy grins. “But I’ll bet it’s crowded with lots of eligible guys.”

  “You’re single?”

  “Unfortunately, yes. I was engaged once, but it didn’t work out. How about you?”

  Jennie nods. She’s on the verge of saying, “I just broke up with someone,” but catches herself. It isn’t at all like her to spill the details of her life to a complete stranger. And of course, she would never tell this Sandy Cavelli her whole painful, horrible story. The people she works with don’t even know about that.

  “It’s so hard to meet anyone halfway decent. I haven’t even had a date in two months,” Sandy says wistfully. “How about you?”

  Something about this woman is making Jennie uncharacteristically tempted to confide in her, but again she holds back. “Not really,” she says simply.

  “I’m meeting someone on the island,” Sandy informs her.

  Jennie assumes she just means that she’s determined to find a nice guy this weekend until Sandy goes on, “It’s kind of a blind date.”

  “That’s nice.”

  “Yeah. This was his idea. He has a house out here. He’s a doctor.”

  “A doctor—wow,” Jennie comments because she knows Sandy expects it.

  “Wow is right.”

  “Where does he practice? On the island?”

  “No, this is just where his weekend house is,” Sandy says a bit smugly. Then her expression grows a little embarrassed. “I, uh, I’m not sure where his practice is. Like I said, this is a blind date. I don’t know much about him.”

  “Huh,” Jennie says, nodding. “Sounds romantic.”

  “You’re telling me. And it doesn’t matter where he works, because wherever it is, I’d move out there in a minute if we hit it off. It would be a pleasure never to set foot in Hartford again . . . unless he happens to live there, too.”

  “That’s where you’re from?”

  “Yeah. Actually, not Hartford. Near it, though . . . a little town called Greenbury.” At Jennie’s blank look, she nods. “Never heard of it, huh? I’m not surprised. How about you?”

  “I live in Boston.”

  “What do you do?”

  “I’m an antique dealer,” Jennie says, before she remembers that she’s supposed to be Laura, and Laura is a salesclerk at the Gap. Well, it’s too late to take it back now.

  Her expression must have revealed something, because Sandy says, “Not all it’s cracked up to be, huh?”

  “No, it’s not that, it’s just . . .”

  It’s just that every damn thing in my life reminds me of Keegan, that’s what.

  “What don’t you like about it?”

  “Oh, I like it.” Jennie tilts her face upward. “Did you just feel a drop?”

  “No, but I’m so bundled up a baseball-sized hailstone wouldn’t make me flinch. Is it raining?”

  “Maybe it was just spray. But I think I’m going to go inside anyway. My feet are starting to get numb.”

  “Okay. I’ll stick around out here for a while longer. Maybe I’ll get windburn on my face. I look a lot better when I have some color.”

  “Thanks for the granola.”

  “Anytime.”

  “See you later.” Jennie lets go of the railing and moves toward the door on unsteady feet.

  A blast of warm air rushes at her as she steps into the cabin. The silence there is pronounced after the roar of the wind outside. Jennie loosens the top button of her coat and heads toward a vacant spot on the bench against the wall.

  As she sits down, she notices that the striking blond woman beside her is clutching her stomach, looking wan. Still feeling the effects of Sandy’s outgoing friendliness, Jennie reaches into her pocket for the Tums she put there earlier, just in case.

  “Excuse me, but would you like one of these?” she asks the stranger, holding out the roll.

  The woman barely shakes her head, then closes her green eyes abruptly, effectively shutting Jennie out.

  I guess I wouldn’t be very friendly if I felt seasick, either, Jennie tells herself, slipping the Tums back into her pocket and reaching into her bag for a magazine.

  She settles back to read as the last streaks of pink fade from the sky and the ferry chugs swiftly through the darkness toward Tide Island.

  Liza steps from the gangplank onto the old wooden pier and looks around. There’s nothing to see. Blackness is everywhere—the water, the sky, the buildings a few hundred feet away. The only light is on the boat deck behind her, and even that casts a murky glow that only makes the place seem eerier.

  She doesn’t know what she’d expected. She’d known the island wouldn’t be hopping in the off-season, that there wouldn’t be many shops or restaurants open.

  But this . . . this is like a ghost town.

  Across from the landing, through the wisps of fog that hang in the air, she can make out the main street. She recognizes it from a brochure she’d picked up at a travel agency in her neighborhood. She’d been enchanted by the street in the photograph, with its row of grand Victorian hotels and quaint shops.

  Now their mansard roofs and gables loom in spooky silhouettes against the night sky. They’re obviously deserted, the windows boarded with plywood against winter’s harsh weather.

  Liza hesitates as other passengers disembark and scurry toward a nearby parking lot. She can hear a few shouted greetings; apparently some people are being met at the landing by friends or relatives.

  She glances around, wondering what happened to the woman on the boat who had offered her the Tums. Apparently, she’d thought Liza was seasick. She wasn’t.

  She had been thinking about Robert, a man she’d been dating lately. He’d left at least twenty-five messages on her home answering machine this week. Couldn’t he take a hint?

  When the other woman had approached her on the boat, Liza hadn’t
been in the mood for company. But those friendly lilac-colored eyes would be beyond welcome right about now.

  There’s no sign of her.

  Feeling suddenly alone, Liza reaches for her gloves again. She sets her Vuitton bag on the rough planks at her feet, slips her hands into the cozy cashmere lining, and feels instantly better.

  She tries to figure out which direction she has to walk in to find the inn.

  When she’d made her reservation, Jasper Hammel had said to bear right along Main Street and it would be a quarter-mile up the road. “You can’t miss it,” he’d assured her.

  Somehow, Liza can’t seem to force herself to move away from the landing and into the deserted street. She can hear car engines starting in the parking lot. Several pairs of sweeping headlights swing in the opposite direction, turning down the deserted main street and fading away.

  Behind her, a few passengers are still trickling off the ferry. In another moment, they—and the boat itself—will be gone. She’ll be completely abandoned in this desolate place.

  Liza takes a deep breath, picks up her bag, and heads for the street.

  She makes her way along the empty boardwalk, her boot heels making a hollow, lonely sound that triggers her heart to beat faster. There are no streetlights, no passing cars—nothing.

  The wind whistles mournfully as it blows in off the water. Over it, Liza hears the grinding of the ferry engines as the boat turns around in the harbor.

  She peers ahead through the darkness. Never before has she been in such a desolate place. Never before has she experienced such utter and complete darkness. There’s no moon to illuminate her path. No reassuring neon signs, or even lamplit homes, to tell her that there are people nearby.

  Fighting back a growing sense of panic, she steps down off the boardwalk at the end of the row of buildings and into the wide, sandy road. It curves away from the water now, heading slightly uphill.

  Liza hesitates, uncertain whether or not to keep following it. She can always turn back, and—

  Above her head, a shutter bangs suddenly.