Firefly Island (31 page)

“Yes, I remember,” Corbin admitted. “When I saw that story on TV, I just sat there thinking that could've been Maddie. I had my mind on a million other things every day—work, school, my next story. I never put Maddie in the car again without looping a little hair ribbon right there on the door handle so I'd be reminded. Anyway, if your neighbor is Alex Beck, I don't blame her for wanting to leave all that behind. Her trial was a media circus that eclipsed anything happening in Congress—I'm sure that was their hope when they pushed the DA to bring it to trial. She was a pariah. People were standing outside every day, carrying signs, yelling at her, calling her a baby killer and that kind of thing. It was eventually ruled accidental, but what does it matter when your baby's dead, you know?”

A length of chain twisted tight in my belly, cold and unyielding. “Yeah.” I felt sick. I wanted to throw up.

I wanted to call Al and take everything back. I shouldn't have opened my mouth until I knew what I might be cracking into.

“It makes sense that she decided to drop out of sight and become someone else. Really.” Corbin's voice was a faint hum on the edge of my thoughts.

“I'd better go.” I breathed in, breathed out. I wouldn't blame Al if she never spoke to me again. No wonder her reaction was so swift and cutting when I brought up her past. She didn't want any reminders, and now I was one.

“I mean it about calling me,” Corbin reminded. “And about being careful. You don't know what you might be dealing with. I could fly down there tonight, Mal. . . .”

“I'll be okay.” The last thing I wanted was to involve the family in this strange mess. I'd never forgive myself if I put Corbin in any danger. Aside from that, if Carol found out that Corbin knew something was amiss here and he hadn't alerted her, she'd have a hissy that would only be surpassed by the one my mom would throw when she discovered it. I had to sort this out myself.

I hung up the phone, considered dialing Al's number, then lost my courage. Instead, I took Daniel's key ring from the desk drawer and went to the lab to get the keys for the cabin and the causeway gate. The security system was easy enough to manage—I'd learned the pass code during my visits there with Daniel—and the rack inside the lab door was right where I remembered it, dozens of keys to padlocks and farm equipment all hanging on a meticulously labeled pegboard.

I ran my finger along the rows, scanning the labels.

Firefly Cabin. Check.

Causeway Gate . . .

Missing.

Who had taken it, and when? Jack's strict rule was that
master keys were to be kept in the lab. According to Chrissy, he'd almost fired Tag for keeping a master key in his truck overnight.

Was Mason hiding the key so that no one could surprise him on the island, or was someone else on the ranch planning to see what was happening on Firefly?

My cell phone rang, and I jerked as the sound echoed through the office, rebounding off the locked metal door that led to the lab. Somewhere beyond the door, a piece of machinery clicked on and hummed.

Chrissy was on the phone, asking if Nick could spend the night. “My little nephew's here, and Nick and him are havin' such a blast together. McKenna's playing little mommy. Now they all want to build a tent in the living room and then later they want to watch a movie. Tag can bring him back to you on his way out to feed the cows in the mornin'.”

Normally I would have been hesitant to let Nick spend the night away, but this time I quickly agreed. Nick was better off somewhere else this evening, and Chrissy might be annoying, but she kept an eagle eye on McKenna.

I considered asking her if she knew who might have the causeway key, but then I decided against it. Nothing Chrissy heard remained secret for long.

We said good-bye, and I thought again about Al. With no causeway key, a boat was the only way to get to the island. Al would know how to make that happen. I needed her now more than ever.

My courage swelled and flagged as I left the ranch and drove the road to Al's place. Dust billowed in my wake and swirled on the winds of a storm worsening over Chinquapin Peaks, propelling me down Al's driveway in the deepening twilight. Within a few hours, it would be raining. Moses Lake was predictable, in its own way. I'd learned to understand
it. The worst weather always came over Chinquapin Peaks, the storms dropping torrents of water as they traversed the hills, then settling into gentle rain on the lake, and finally whipping over the ranch, blowing through the flatlands and pastures in wild gusts.

If I didn't get to Firefly Island in the next couple hours, it wouldn't happen tonight, and maybe not for a day or two. When a storm stretched over the whole of Chinquapin Peaks, it usually stayed awhile.

My heart was in my throat as I slipped through the yard gate to Al's house. A baby goat hobbling on a splinted leg trotted from behind a bush and bleated at me. It nibbled on my pants as I made my way to the front door, knocked, then stood there with a lump in my chest and heat burning over my skin. Inside the house, the television was playing loud, but no one came to the door. I knocked again. The goat butted my knee insistently. I scratched its head, waited. Nothing.

Was she ignoring me or was the house empty? All the lights were on. Al wasn't the type to leave things running when she wasn't home. She was always lecturing me about the environmental load of every kilowatt of electricity, the number of years it would take to biodegrade a Styrofoam take-out container, the potentially harmful chemicals in shampoo. She'd already pointed out that I needed to buy BPA-free baby bottles when the baby came along.

If I'd even taken a minute to think about those conversations and everything else Al had done for me, I would have realized that she had offered me something precious. She'd extended friendship in every possible way, but when I'd had the chance to do the one thing a friend should do, I'd failed miserably. Instead of thinking the best of Al, I'd cast a net of suspicion. I'd thought the absolute worst.

I'd made everything about
me
, about defending myself,
about making sure that, if Al had befriended me as a way of getting to Jack's secrets, I came out on top. Success and protecting my own interests were all I could see.

It hadn't even occurred to me to believe that Al might have reasons for keeping her secret. That even Al might have fears and wounds beneath the hardened, weathered exterior.

“What the devil are
you
doing on my porch?”

Her question spun me around. My feet tangled with the goat's, and it stumbled off the porch, bleating in protest and hobbling on its splinted leg.

I came down the steps with my hands held out, whether to help the goat or plead with Al, I wasn't sure. “Al, listen. I'm really sorry. I'm so sorry. I didn't know that . . . I didn't realize why . . .” There were no right words to say. The lines I'd practiced on the way over seemed insufficient now. “I was wrong. I was so incredibly wrong. I shouldn't have said what I did. I shouldn't have even thought it. Working in politics, you get so used to being suspicious, to looking at everyone's motives. I don't want to be like that. I don't. You've been a good friend to me, and I needed a friend. You've kept me alive out here.” I swept a hand to the wild, empty, beautiful expanse of land around us.
Home
, now. “I don't know what I would have done without you, and I shouldn't have assumed . . .”

“Assumed
what
?” Her cheeks hollowed inward, her jaw jutting toward me. “That you knew what my motives were? Well, maybe you were right. You ever think of that? Maybe you were dead on. Maybe, when I moved here all those years ago and realized I had an accused murderer living next to my grandparents' old place, I wasn't one bit happy about it. Maybe if I could get rid of Jack West on my fence line, I'd use you or anyone else to do it.” Loose whips of salt-and-pepper hair slashed across her face, and she brushed them away impatiently, her jaw taut. “You hit it right on the head,
Mallory. Congratulations. Now get off my porch and get off my place.”

Despite the words, I knew the truth. Beyond the hard look, there was pain. Incredible, searing torment, brokenness I would never truly be able to understand. I couldn't imagine what it would be like to lose Nick, to have to go through the rest of my life without him, knowing I'd caused it, knowing I would continue to live in this world while he wouldn't. To be prosecuted, tried in the court of public opinion. To lose everything, everyone. To end up hiding away for years, trying to escape the past.

“Al, I'm sorry,” I tried again. “I shouldn't have said those things. I understand if you don't want to talk about it. We don't have to. Ever. I mean, I'm here as a friend if you ever want to talk, but I understand if . . .”

“No, you don't, Mallory. You don't understand a thing.” Her laugh snaked into the wind, sharp-edged and icy, out of place with the summer heat still radiating off the ground as the day dimmed. Lightning flashed so far away that the thunder was inaudible. “I took a chance on you.” The truth was coming now, closer to the surface.

“I know that. I didn't handle it well. That's my fault. It's one of those things I need to work on. I see my own point of view, and most of the time I don't look for anyone else's. What I said to you—I was way out of line. I was wrong.”

Al angled her face away, regarded me from the corner of her eye. “I just agreed with you. You had it all
right
, Mallory. Congratulations. You're smarter than you think you are. I'm after your boss. Why don't you run along now and tell him that?” She fanned me away as if I were the goat, nibbling on her bootlaces.

One thing was obvious. The rift between us wouldn't be mended today, and maybe never. Overhead, the security light
clicked on. While we were standing here arguing, time was slipping away. “All right, well, if that's true, then there's something you'll want to know.” If I couldn't get Al to go to Firefly Island with me one way, I'd try another.

“If it comes from you, I don't want anything to do with it.” She opened the yard gate to let me out, then she caught the goat, sweeping it under one arm as it tried to make a quick exit. “In fact, if you're involved in any way, I'm not.”

I steeled myself and plunged in. The question now was, did Al's dislike for Mason West outweigh her anger toward me? “You'll want to be involved in
this
. Mason West is up to something big. He's been holding secret meetings the whole time he's been in Moses Lake. I'm going to figure out why he's really here, before he can get away with it. I'm going to Firefly Island. Tonight.”

There is, one knows not what sweet mystery about this sea, whose gently awful stirrings seem to speak of some hidden soul beneath.

—Herman Melville
(Left by R. L. Jakes, writing a screenplay about the lake.)

T
he storms were moving closer. Thunderheads boiled over Chinquapin Peaks, rising and churning, blotting out a heavy half moon that seemed to belong to a quieter, gentler night. Beneath the dock, Moses Lake frothed and churned, clawing at the wooden pillars and the rocky shore. The summer night had turned unusually cool, the air smelling of the coming storm, windy one moment, then silent the next, seeming to pause and wait, breathless.

“Is it them?” I whispered, pulling the dark sweat shirt closer around my middle, feeling vulnerable and conspicuous as Al and I slipped from the cedars and moved along the swaying dock. Aged and abandoned, it listed in the water, the plastic barrels sinking lower beneath our weight.

“Not likely anybody else would be out tonight.” Al's answer was flat and short, letting me know that, even if we were partners in this strange mission, we were no longer friends. She pulled out a light and flashed it on the water twice, and the boat flashed twice in reply. The whole thing would've seemed comically cloak-and-dagger if I weren't so nervous.
With the causeway locked, I didn't know how I'd explain our presence on Firefly Island if we got caught.

We'd just have to make sure that we didn't.

The boat drifted to the dock, the motor idling softly. A sound, something like an owl hooting, skimmed over the water.

“Nester, cut that out,” a gravelly voice replied.

Laughter stole into my throat, and I snort-chuckled nervously against my hand. Of all the people Al might have arranged to get us to the island, Burt Lacey and Nester Grimland seemed like an unlikely choice, but Al had pointed out that, due to the low water levels this summer, there were obstacles close to the surface, especially on the side of Firefly Island opposite the bay where the houseboat had been anchored. The Docksiders knew this lake, every inch of it. They could get us there and back safely, even with the weather turning ominous.

I was learning, once again, the most important lesson that my time in Moses Lake had taught me: You can't always handle everything by yourself. Sometimes . . . oftentimes . . . you have to rely on other people. To survive, really survive well, you have to be willing to accept help and to give it. It was a hard lesson to internalize. I'd been fighting all my life to prove I could do it—whatever
it
was—all by myself. Without my parents holding my hand or my big sisters telling me how.

But pride doesn't go very far when you need to get across the water in the dark, and you don't have a boat.

Nester and Burt's rig, a small aluminum fishing craft just large enough for four people, pulled up to the dock. Nester shifted fishing equipment and life preservers aside to make room, and Al and I climbed onboard.

“Y'all just settle in there on the bench by the live well,” Nester instructed, his hat brim hiding all but his gray handlebar
mustache and chin. “Put them life jackets on. The storm's comin' in quicker than we thought. We coulda brought Burt's big boat, but it's loud. With this little thing, we can troll in and outta there, and them fellas holed up on that houseboat won't hear a thing.”

“They're still anchored there?” I was hoping the storm might have sent Mason's associates elsewhere to anchor their houseboat.

“Looked like it. We went by the other side of the island on our way here—made like we were night fishin'. Houseboat was there, and the lights were burnin' below deck. Little skiff was tied up behind the boat, so they aren't on the island tonight.”

“Good.” I buckled my vest and pulled it tight. If Daniel could see me right now, he'd kill me. When I'd called the hospital to tell him I planned to go to Firefly tonight, I hadn't exactly mentioned that the causeway key was missing. If Daniel knew, he'd be back at the ranch inside a half hour, trying to stop me from going. I needed for him to stay at the hospital, and to make sure that Mason stayed there, too.

I could still hear Daniel protesting my plan. “This is crazy, Mal. It sounds like something out of
Nancy Drew
. And you're pregnant, remember?” I knew he would say that—as if being pregnant rendered me incapable and incompetent. He sighed into the phone then. “Listen, Mal, I'm sorry for the fight earlier. When I told you to go home to DC for a little while, I was just . . . thinking of you and the baby and Nick. It's not that I want you all leaving without me, but if I keep up the pressure on Mason, I can get him to crack. He's worried about me, and the closer Jack comes to regaining consciousness, the jumpier Mason gets. Give me some more time.”

We'd gone back and forth until Daniel had finally agreed to call my cell if there was any sign of Mason leaving the hospital. In the meantime, Al had arranged the boat and gathered flashlights, a pocket camera, and dark clothes.

Now, here we were, the boat thrashing side to side, cutting through the waves, water splashing against the bow as it rose over a swell, then crashed down again, then rose, and fell, and rose.

“Hang on, girls,” Burt advised, and I squeezed the side rail even tighter, the cool metal bending my fingernails backward. “It's gonna get rough once we clear the point.”

Going to get rough?
My stomach turned over. I felt like I was ready to lose my supper already. That kind of thing didn't happen to Nancy Drew. It would have been funny, if it hadn't been so serious.

As we cleared the little cedar-clad point that hid the abandoned dock, the swells kicked up and the boat's engine revved, rivets and joints crackling in the full-on wind and waves. Spray splashed over me, and the back of the boat dipped so low that the water was just below my fingertips, glistening dark and full of churned-up debris. I watched something float by beneath the surface—a piece of cloth. A scarf, or part of a swimsuit, maybe. It slid through the glow of the lights, slipping by like a shadow, seeming to stretch and contract in the water, taking on life.

I thought of my dream and the Scripture in Grandma Louisa's Bible. The warning.

I held on. Closed my eyes. Tried to stay calm.

The boat's lurching ebbed as we moved closer to the island, the craggy cliffs and thick cedars of Firefly slowly blocking the wind until there was none. The waters nearer the shore were eerily still when Nester cut the engine. Burt moved to the front of the boat, silently piloting us in with an electric
motor so that our entrance was almost soundless, even the gravel only scratching dully on the hull as we beached.

Al took off her life vest and made her way toward the bow as Nester caught an overhanging cedar and pulled us in alongside a tangle of logs and debris.

“All right, nobody had oughta see us here,” he whispered, leaning close. “Burt and me'll hole up here by the cedars. Lake patrol comes by, we'll just pretend like we was out night fishin' and had to pull up outta the weather a minute. Better step out on the right and climb across them downed logs, see? Don't wanna leave footprints to tip em' off.”

Burt grunted as he maneuvered over the boat railing and stepped into the mud. “Heaven's sake, Nester, you ought to get a job in Hollywood. Not likely to be a lake patrol tonight, and the footprints will be gone by morning. Those clouds are fixin' to cut loose a toad strangler. It's that storm we oughta be worried about. You girls hurry on and do what you've gotta do. We'd better be heading back across that point in thirty minutes, not much more. The weather's coming faster than you think, and from what Al said, I'm guessing we don't want them to find us sitting here on the shores of Firefly Island in the mornin'.”

“We'd go with ya, but we'd probably just be in yer way,” Nester added. “Besides, last time we sneaked out here coon huntin', some woman saw our lights and thought it was a ghost or a UFO. She called the sheriff, and Burt and I about ended up in jail. We get caught trespassin' again, we're dead meat. Don't even know what yer lookin' for, anyway.”

“Neither do we,” Al grumbled, and she started for the woods, clicking her flashlight on as she reached the blackness under the canopy of oaks and elms.

“We'll hurry,” I promised, then tossed off my life vest and trotted after her. Nester was more dead-on than he realized.
None of us had any idea what we were looking for. I only knew that there was something. Something I was supposed to find on Firefly Island.

Wind rustled in the live oaks overhead, bending the branches as we made our way through the woods. Al walked uphill ahead of me, moving with an uncanny confidence. There was no path to follow, yet she seemed to know exactly where to go, deftly weaving her way around tangles of briars and nests of roots hidden in the darkness of the forest floor.

Ahead, the undergrowth of brambles and seedlings fluttered and swayed, parting in a gust of wind, then closing like a curtain. The glimmer of a security light shone through the leaves in the distance, then vanished. I stopped a moment, trying to get my bearings, waiting for the light to come into view once more. The cabin was farther from the edge of the island than I'd thought. . . .

When I looked down again, Al's flashlight was gone. A fist of apprehension caught my throat. The woods closed in around me, the rustling becoming more than just the breeze passing by. Was someone . . . or something there? Behind me? Beside me?

Beyond my flashlight beam, it was interminably dark, the moon blotted out by the building storm. Something skittered across the forest carpet. I swiveled without moving my feet. A shiver raised gooseflesh on my skin. I thought of all the things that could happen in the woods on an inky-black night like this.

The wind quieted, and I strained into the darkness. Ahead, a boot skidded on wet rock, sending a pebble bouncing downward. I hurried toward the sound, keeping my flashlight low. Within a few dozen steps, I'd crested a hill. Al was traveling down the other side into a canyon, her light held close to her body so that the beam illuminated only the ground beneath
her feet. At the bottom of the hill, she stopped, circled her light to hurry me along, then continued on.

I didn't catch up until Al stopped at the edge of the clearing, where a single security light illuminated the cabin. It was nothing fancy—just a small cedar-shingled shack with old plate-glass windows and a tin roof. All one room, from the look of it. The lights were on inside, but threadbare white curtains hung over the windows, blocking the view. The porch, other than the portion near the door, was littered with debris. Amid a clutter of fallen leaves, a rocking chair with a broken arm moved gently in the wind, swaying back and forth as if someone were sitting in it. I imagined that I could see
her
there—the woman from the photos in Jack's little house. The wind caught her hair, lifted it, and swirled it away from her face as she gazed off into the trees.

I blinked, and she was gone.

On the porch, the remains of an easel leaned haphazardly against the wall, the wood gray from the weather, one of the legs broken. That was hers. It had to be. Just as in the house behind ours, this place had been left unchanged since she died. It remained frozen in time, waiting.

Why would someone like Mason want to stay here? He must have been desperate for privacy so that he could conduct his business, whatever it was, right under his father's nose. The fact that Jack had allowed him to use this cabin, a place shared with no one else for so many years, only proved how deep, genuine, and desperate Jack's love for Mason really was—how much he wanted this reconciliation with his son. Why else would he offer up a home he'd protected for so long?

“Looks pretty quiet,” Al whispered. “Let's go see what we can figure out from the windows. You check the one on that side. Be careful. Keep quiet.” She motioned to the far end of
the cabin, and we pressed through the brush, the tentacles of wild grapevine tugging at our clothes.

On the far side of the cabin, a single window radiated dim light, drawing a faint circle in the murky air. I crept toward it, then leaned over slowly and peered through the gap in the curtains. The interior of the cabin was small—bed on one side along the wall, tiny kitchen on the other, a wicker sofa with faded cushions and a rocker in between, white wicker end tables and a little dining set that matched. The chairs were covered with lacy floral seat cushions in shades of yellow and green, the colors faded now. At one time, the house had been decorated to a woman's taste—rustic and earthy. Cute. A studio where an artist might work in quiet and natural light. During the day with the curtains open, the room would have been bright and beautiful. There were canvases everywhere, in all stages of completion. Studies of flowers, deer, bald eagles on the wing, a little boy with his knobby legs curled under him, playing with a tiny toy pickup truck. I recognized it. It was parked beside Nick's bed now.