Sunshine Beach (23 page)

Renée stood in her garden, a hose in her hand. She'd been operating on automatic pilot since yesterday's session with the sketch artist and what had turned out to be a brutal drive home. They'd barely left the sheriff's office parking lot when Annelise, who'd slid as far from Renée as her seat belt would allow, turned to her and bit out, “I told you so! All these years I told you so. But you always knew better!” There was no dampening of the eyes, no slow gathering of moisture. It was as if someone had slammed open a tap and sent a flood of tears streaking down Annelise's contorted face to carve out gullies of powder and rouge. “Do you have any idea what it feels like to never be taken seriously?” She'd emitted a harsh yelp of laughter. “No, of course you don't. Not reasonable Renée. Always so calm. Always so in the right! If I hadn't stopped you, the hotel would already be gone and no one would have ever looked into what happened!”

“I'm starting to fear for that plant's life.” John's voice yanked her back to the present. “Do they make life preservers that narrow?”

Renée looked down at the bird-of-paradise that she'd been
watering and which was now practically swimming. “Hmmm?” She released the nozzle to stop the flow and took a step back. Her gardening clogs squelched in the mud patch she'd created.

“Are you trying to drown it or just sort of beat it into submission?” John's tone was teasing as he came down the back steps, then walked toward her leaning heavily on the cane.

“Don't come any closer. You'll sink and I don't know how we'll get you back out.” The poor bird-of-paradise seemed to shrink away from her, just as Annelise had. Its beautiful orange flower hung heavy and limp. And no wonder. Plants were like animals in that way, sensitive to their owner's moods. If talking to plants soothed them and encouraged them to grow, surely the excess of emotion that had been coursing through her veins had to have an effect as well. Renée took another step back, dislodging her feet from the muck, but unable to dislodge Annelise's words from her head.

“I know you have a lot on your mind,” John said gently, reaching his free hand out to her. “But I know you don't want to take it out on your garden.”

She held on to his hand as she stepped clear of the mud and toed off the clogs. She wiggled her toes in the grass. “I'll have to resign as president of the garden club if I keep this up.”

“Your secret's safe with me. And I don't think the plants are talking.”

She smiled at her husband. The man who had been her rock, her constant, smiled back.

“Come. Let's sit.” Using the cane to support them both, he led her to the table with the best view of the flower beds. “Tell me what you're worrying about.”

She studied her garden, which seemed to be surviving at the moment despite her rather than because of her. Like John, it had helped keep her sane through the rough patches. “We
had a huge fight in the car on the way back from the sheriff's office. She shrieked at me. And I shrieked right back. I told her that she wouldn't have been treated like a child if she hadn't acted like one. I said all kinds of pompous, condescending things. But the truth is she's right. We all ignored what she said. We all refused to believe her. But I'm her sister. I should have done better. I should have listened. I should have done something.” The tears were hot on her cheeks, her throat clogged with regret.

John placed his hand on hers. It was curled and arthritic but still warm and strong. “You've always been there for her, Renée. You've done everything you could. None of us ever believed she saw someone that night. It just, well, it was all so far-fetched.”

“I know.” She still couldn't believe how clearly her sister had described the man's face. How shocked Renée had been when she'd realized where she'd seen it. “I feel so confused. So many things I've always thought are . . . wrong. I want to help figure this out and at the same time I still wish we could just tear the place down.”

“I know.” John's voice was tender. It was the sweetness in him that had first drawn her, the calm core that helped to center her. “You might have been older, but you lost your father that night, too. Along with your life as you knew it.”

Slowly Renée reached in her pocket and pulled out the black-and-white photo that she'd removed from the album. “This is the man Annelise saw. This isn't the only picture of him in Ilse's album. He seems to have been a friend of Ilse's brother. And there are a couple of photos of him with Ilse. They looked as if they might have been more than friends.”

She studied the face that Annelise had remembered all these years. The “light” eyes that were most likely blue. The short straight hair cut with military precision that was so light it was most certainly blond. His lips were thin and humorless. If he'd been warm or affectionate in real life, there was no sign
of it in his features or his bearing. “This note fell out when I removed the photo.” It had been folded up into a tiny square, the creases worn into it over the decades. “It's addressed to Ilse, but that's all I could make out. It's in German.

“I know that emblem on his collar indicates he was in the SS,” Renée said. She wasn't sure what the single
S
tattoo in the shape of a lightning bolt stood for, but she could see the faint jagged shadow of it on his skin. “I'm not sure what to do next.”

John's face wavered in the sheen of tears that remained now that the flood that had scalded her cheeks had finally slowed. “Why don't you just talk with her?” he said. “We've both spent all these years trying to protect her from what we assumed her mother did. I think we need to stop trying to protect her and include her. Ask her what she thinks should happen next.” He reached out to wipe a tear from her face. “I think she'll agree that you should show these pictures and the note to Officer Jackson and Joe Giraldi. One of them might be able to find out who he was and whether the note has anything to do with what happened.”

“You make it sound so simple.”

“Maybe it will be.” His smile crinkled the corners of his basset hound eyes. His face had never looked more beautiful to her than it did now.

“You're a good man, John Franklin,” she said.

“And you're the best thing that ever happened to me.” He leaned over and kissed her.

“Thank you.” She smiled up at him as love and warmth and gratitude flooded through her. “I'm pretty sure my garden thanks you, too.”

Nikki collapsed into the chair that night for sunset, already yawning while Maddie set out cheese and crackers. Avery arrived a few minutes later clutching her ever-present bag of Cheez Doodles and a pitcher of margaritas, which she offered to Nikki.

“No thanks.” Nikki tried to smile but she had the feeling that even a whiff of alcohol could put her to sleep. She felt bloated and uncomfortable. All she wanted was to climb into bed and sleep for a week or so. Was that too much to ask?

“You don't look so good,” Avery said as she poured a drink for Maddie and then herself.

“Gee, thanks,” Nikki replied drily.

“I think what Avery meant to say was you look under the weather,” Maddie corrected.

“Yeah.” Avery took a long sip of her margarita. “Are you sick?”

“I'm fine,” Nikki said, wishing it were true. She hadn't felt like herself since she'd fainted four days ago at Butner. Her head throbbed, seeming to bulge and contract with each remembered moment of the visit with her brother and his pleasure at having so neatly set her up.

“I think you should see a doctor.” Maddie speared her with a motherly look of concern.

“No. Visiting Malcolm just, I don't know, it threw me,” Nikki said. This, of course, was an understatement of gigantic proportions. “All I need is a good night's sleep and maybe a tranquilizer. Do either of you have one?”

“Just this.” Avery raised the pitcher.

“You really aren't yourself,” Maddie said. “Don't you think we should make sure it's not something more threatening than Malcolmitis?”

“Definitely not.” Today she'd Googled exhaustion, bloating, nausea, and dizziness, and ovarian cancer had sprung up. The disease that had killed her mother when she was even younger than Nikki was now. “I appreciate your concern, Maddie. Really I do. But I am not going to a doctor.” She was careful not to look Maddie in the eye as she changed the subject. “Where's Kyra?”

“She was getting the guys organized,” Maddie said. “I believe they're headed to Chuck E. Cheese.”

They were lost in their own thoughts when Kyra came out and plopped into the chair beside Avery. “I just want to warn you that coming up with a ‘good' thing today is going to be a real stretch,” she said, reaching for the pitcher. “Unless not having to go to Chuck E. Cheese again counts.”

“I'm with you on that one,” Avery agreed.

“Works for me,” Nikki added.

Maddie looked at the three of them. “I've always promised not to be the ‘good enough' police but I can't believe no one here can find
anything
positive to say.”

“Believe it,” Kyra said, downing half of her drink. “Hey, these margaritas are good.”

“Damn straight,” Avery said.

“How many have you had?” Maddie asked as Avery poured herself another.

“I'm not sure. I did a lot of tasting while I was making them,” Avery replied. “But I think the answer is ‘not enough.'”

Nikki eyed the pitcher wishing that the idea of feeling fuzzier than she did now didn't make her want to retch. “Not enough for what?”

“Not enough to tell you what I have to tell you.” Avery raised her glass to her lips.

The silence that fell now was absolute. All of their eyes turned to Avery. All of them braced. Nikki knew she didn't want to hear whatever Avery had to tell them, but at least it had momentarily shoved the worry over whether she had inherited something deadly from her mother out of her head.

“Which is?” Kyra prompted.

“Our roofing situation is not good,” Avery said in an alcohol-primed rush. “Enrico was practically in tears today. And I'm pretty close to bawling myself.”

Avery's mantra had always been “there's no crying in construction.” But apparently even a lifetime of repeating something didn't make it true.

“What happened?” Maddie asked in the too-careful voice people used at deathbeds and funerals.

“Enrico opened up the ceiling in the main building and one of the cottages to see how much additional support we'd need to add to shore up the new roofs and decks.” She paused, and the expression that flitted across her face made Nikki's stomach clench. “The existing beams are so damaged from age and leaks that it's basically a miracle that none of the roofs have caved in yet.”

They sat stunned and silent as Avery explained the finer points of roofs and the beams that reinforced them. Nikki blanked out at the specifics, but the desolation on Avery's face sent tremors of apprehension vibrating up Nikki's spine.

“Even if we didn't add the decks or raise the ceilings—and I really think we need to do both—we'd have to install all new support beams. And given the new codes and the threat of hurricanes, they're going to have to be steel.”

“So, we're just talking finding more money?” Maddie asked in that same careful voice. As if the word “just” belonged in that sentence.

“I wish it was that simple, not that money is exactly flowing in.” Avery scrubbed at her face, then ran the hand through her hair, leaving it wild and Einstein-ish. “It also puts us way behind schedule before we even really start. There's no point in doing interior work until the interiors have protection from the elements.” She drew a deep breath and swiped at her hair again. “Plus we don't have enough money to pay for the rest of the work anyway.”

Once again there was silence. Nikki wrapped her arms around herself. Despite the warm breeze coming off the water, she shivered.

“Wow,” Kyra said. “I hate to jump all over the negative here, but I don't see how we can afford to produce and air the series when we can't even afford the renovation. And it's not like Renée and Annelise are going to let us just sort of
piddle around with their property for the next year while we try to figure it out.”

“No one's talking about piddling around,” Maddie said, though Nikki thought this was exactly what they were talking about.

“No, but we are looking at having to stop work in order to look for money and then starting again when, and if, we find some. That doesn't sound very workable,” Kyra said.

“It's not. And you can't schedule good crews that way,” Avery said. “They have other jobs and projects. We don't want to be in the position of finally having the money to do the floors for example and then having to wait for weeks for the floor guys to finish somewhere else.”