Carolina Isle

  David had helped her for a while, but the women got to be too much for him. They were fascinated by his good looks and by what Phyllis Vancurren had conspiratorially told them.

  At about one o’clock, she overhead a woman who had severely sun-damaged skin say the word “Gideon.” Ariel went to the girl who was slapping on bright blue eye shadow and took away the brush from her. “I’ll handle this one,” Ariel said and the girl looked at her gratefully.

  “You need laser treatments on your skin,” Ariel said flatly.

  “Don’t I know it. All those years on Fenny’s boat.”

  Ariel had to pause to keep her hand from shaking. Fenny Nezbit. The dead man in the bathtub. The man who was suing them.

  “It’s okay,” the woman said softly. “I won’t let Fenny hurt you on Monday. It’s just a game he plays. He don’t mean no harm in it. He knew that man was rich.”

  “R.J.”

  “Yeah, the older one. He sure is in love with that girl, ain’t he?”

  Again, Ariel paused. “With Sara? She works for him, but I don’t think they’re in love.”

  “Hmph!” the woman said. “You should have seen them this mornin’. I was comin’ here and I guess he thought I was gonna run him over with my truck because he threw her in a ditch and covered her up. If anybody was gonna get hurt, it was him. I can tell you that Fenny ain’t never done that with me.” She leaned toward Ariel. “I bet that young man of yours would do that for you.”

  Ariel glanced at David. Some woman was asking him if the blouse she had on was too low cut. “David is—”

  “Don’t tell me that lie. I know a lie when I hear one. I live with Fenny and that’s all the lyin’ I can take. That boy ain’t no homosexual.”

  “I wonder if I could talk to Mr. Nezbit,” Ariel said. “Maybe tonight I could see him.”

  “He’s gone and I don’t know when he’ll be back. Probably not till Monday when he sees the judge.”

  “Did he leave the island?” Ariel was putting shadow on the woman’s lids, but the wrinkles were making it difficult not to cake it.

  “Naw. He’s just gone up to sleep with his gold.”

  “Sleep with his gold,” Ariel said.

  “Surely you’ve heard about Fenny’s gold.”

  “Phyllis—”

  “Don’t say that woman’s name to me! Her and Gideon—”

  “Who is Gideon?”

  “The devil’s spawn, if you ask me. Evil little bastard.”

  “He’s your son, isn’t he?”

  She looked at Ariel in the mirror and her eyes began to sparkle. “If you say so.”

  Ariel was trying to calm her rapidly beating heart. “When you saw R.J. and Sara, where were they going?”

  “To my house. I told ’em to take care of my kids.”

  Ariel started to smile at the idea of R.J. being stuck baby-sitting, but then she thought of the kid Gideon and of her cousin Sara. “Tell me more about Gideon.”

  “The meanest, most underhanded devil on this island. I’m Eula, by the way. You have kids?”

  “No,” Ariel said.

  “Good thing. Now my girls are just lovely, but Gideon is and always has been out for what he can get. I just hope those friends of yours don’t meet him. They might be taken in by his good looks. He gets that from my side of the family.”

  Ariel couldn’t help pausing at that, and Eula cackled. “You wouldn’t believe it now, but I used to be a real looker. Too much of bein’ on this god-forsaken island and my beauty is gone.”

  “If your husband has gold, then why don’t you leave here?”

  “You think he’d give me any of it? He doles it out by the penny. He gets it from somewhere on the island, then takes it to the mainland and sells it for cash.”

  She’s lying, Ariel thought, watching the way the woman moved her eyes to the side when she spoke. But what was she lying about?

  Ariel didn’t get the time to find out. The door opened and in came a woman who was as round as she was tall, and from the hush that spread, she was someone important. Ariel quickly learned she was the wife of the mayor of King’s Isle and Ariel had to leave Eula Nezbit to tend to her.

  It wasn’t until 5:00 that evening that Ariel was able to speak to David. “Where have you been?” she hissed at him. The sisters who owned the stores were locking the doors. There wasn’t much merchandise left in the dress shop and the beauty shop was out of hair dye and most everything else. Everyone except Ariel looked exhausted.

  “Could we get something to eat?” David asked, cutting his eyes at the two women.

  “As soon as we divvy up the proceeds,” Ariel said. “I’ve kept a running total in my head so I have an idea what I’m owed. This shouldn’t take too long.”

  One of the sisters looked at David as though to say “what a shame,” then went to the cash register and began punching keys. Ten minutes later, she handed Ariel some bills.

  Before Ariel could say anything, David pushed her out the back door.

  “Two hundred and thirty dollars?” Ariel said. “Is that all I get? I cleaned out that place.”

  “They sold about twenty-three grand of merchandise; cut that in half for what they paid for it, so twenty percent of the profit comes to two-thirty,” he said.

  Ariel folded the bills and stuffed them inside her bra. “There must be ways to increase the profit,” she said, then smiled. “But I’ve never had so much fun in my life. Do you think I could open a dress shop in Arundel?”

  “If you want to kill your mother instantly.”

  “I’d want her to work in it.”

  David started to express his horror, then saw that Ariel was teasing. “Come on, rich girl, and buy me dinner. I want to hear every word of what you found out.”

  Twenty minutes later they were in the pub and the atmosphere couldn’t have been more different than it had been the first time they’d been there. Nearly every female who came in waved to Ariel and asked how she looked. Throughout the greetings, Ariel kept discreetly telling them what to do: soften their lipstick, flatten their hair, cover their belly buttons.

  “So you didn’t find out anything?” David asked.

  “Just that this kid Gideon is a sick person. The local mass murderer in the making. Everyone on the island stays away from him.” She leaned toward him. “He takes care of two little kids that Eula said are his. The town thinks that they’re hers, but they aren’t.”

  “So who’s the mother?”

  Ariel leaned back. “She wouldn’t tell me, but I think it’s Phyllis Vancurren. If she had her children taken away by Nezbit, maybe that’s why she drinks.”

  “This whole island makes me sick,” David said.

  “I don’t think we’ll have any problems on Monday. I think R.J. will be fined something and the case dismissed.”

  “Then what?” David asked. “The ferry comes for us and we leave the island? Don’t you think that they’ll come after us when they open the freezer?”

  “Or they’ll go after Phyllis,” Ariel said, looking down at her plate of broiled scallops.

  “I thought you hated her, that you didn’t trust her.”

  “I don’t, but I don’t think she’s a murderer. If the body is found in her freezer and what with all the evidence you and R.J. put on it, I think Phyllis may be accused. I don’t think she knows anything.”

  “So who does? By now you know the whole town, so who’s guilty?”

  “I think somebody wanted Fenny’s gold and when he wouldn’t give it to them, they killed him. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that it was their idea of a joke to put the body in our bathtub.”

  David looked at her for a moment. “I bet if you went to a woman whose husband is a fisherman, she could get him to take you off this island.”

  “I thought of that. In fact, I almost asked one of them to do it. After all, R.J. is the only one who has anything pending against him. The rest of us …” She shrugged.

  “Ariel,” David said soft
ly, “did you hear anything that you’re not telling me?”

  She kept her eyes on her plate. “Why did you kiss me this morning?”

  “Don’t change the subject.”

  “The subject being that I must tell you everything I heard or thought? What about you? Where did you go this afternoon? You were gone for nearly three hours.”

  “Never mind that. I think you should leave this island.”

  “You’re up to something, aren’t you?”

  “Nothing,” David said, his eyes wide.

  “You are the worst liar in the world. I think we should try to find Sara and R.J.”

  “I thought you hated him.”

  “Maybe. Tomorrow’s Sunday so I think we should—”

  “I have something to do tomorrow, so I want you to stay at Phyllis’s house and rest.”

  Ariel looked like she was going to say something, but then she smiled. “David, you are the kindest person in the world. It’s as though you read my mind. There’s nothing I want to do more than stay in one spot and rest. Working has worn me out.”

  David looked at her hard, but she yawned and her eyes seemed to droop at the corners. “Come on, sweetheart, let me take you home.”

  “Home. What a nice thought. Do you think my mother is worried about me?”

  “Frantic. You didn’t by chance tell her where you were going, did you?”

  “I was Sara, remember?” Ariel said, allowing David to help her out of the booth. He liked it when she leaned on him. Smiling to himself, he led her back to Phyllis’s house.

  While Ariel got ready for bed, David rummaged in the attic alcoves, searching for all that he’d need in the morning. He felt bad about leaving Ariel behind, but it was just for a few hours, then he’d be back for her. Today, while the women were making passes at him, he’d remembered something from when he’d explored King’s Isle. He’d never found the source of the hot springs as the other children had, but there were some other things he’d found.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “DAVID?” ARIEL WHISPERED. SHE WAS standing in the bedroom doorway wearing a toobig nightgown that Phyllis had lent her. “Are you awake?”

  On their way back from the pub, the skies had opened and they’d been caught in a sudden storm. Cold and wet, Ariel had gloried in curling up with a cozy old quilt and a hot water bottle. She’d heard David rummaging about in the spaces under the eaves and wondered what he was doing. She’d also wondered what R.J. and Sara were doing. Was it true what Fenny Nezbit’s widow said, that R.J. was in love with Sara?

  Ariel tried to remember all that Sara had written about her boss. He had been her major topic of conversation. What he did, who he saw, whose heart he had broken. “The women make such fools of themselves,” she’d written. “If they’d just realize that he likes to work for what he gets.” Had all Sara’s protest been a cover for her true feelings? Ariel smiled. If protests and talking endlessly meant love, then Ariel was in love with David.

  In love with David? What an absurd thought! David was the dullest, most boring—

  Ariel sighed, remembering how he used to climb the big old apple tree on his family’s farm and toss down the largest, ripest apples to her. She sighed again, remembering all the times he’d listened to her complain about her mother—and would then fix the problem for her. He could sweet-talk her mother in a way that nobody else could.

  When she was fifteen, David had asked her what she wanted for her upcoming birthday. Ariel had grimaced. Her mother would give her something useful and practical, or something expensive and ornamental that she wasn’t allowed to touch.

  When David asked her what she wanted, she’d come up with the wildest thing she could think of. “I’d like to ride a motorcycle with a man wearing black leather.”

  When David said, “I’ll ask your mother about that,” she’d tossed a pillow at him.

  But then came the morning of her sixteenth birthday. Her mother received an emergency call from someone Ariel had never heard of and she’d left for the day. “When I return this evening, we’ll have a cake,” her mother said, pulling on her gloves. “And there will, of course, be a gift.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Ariel said. When her mother turned her head, she’d stuck her tongue out. One of the maids saw and had to run from the room to keep from laughing.

  An hour later, David called and said, “Put on your cheapest clothes and wait for me,” then hung up. Ariel didn’t want to be bossed around by him or her mother, but his manner was so odd, she’d obeyed. When he showed up, she had on cotton trousers, a cotton shirt, and her tennis shoes.

  David walked into the small sitting room wearing black motorcycle leathers and carrying two helmets under his arms. “Are you ready?” he asked.

  “For what?”

  He nodded toward the window. Under the porte cochere was a huge black-and-silver motorcycle.

  Now, curled up in the quilt, Ariel remembered that perfect day when she and David had spent the day riding the motorcycle. He’d packed the saddlebags with sandwiches, fruit, colas, and a tiny bottle of peach wine. “I shouldn’t,” she said, laughing.

  “I didn’t know you could ride a motorcycle,” she’d said, her arms around his waist.

  David had just laughed.

  Until today when she’d been a businesswoman, her sixteenth birthday had been the most exciting day of her life. Riding across the bridge, her hair flying from under the helmet, holding onto David, the feel of leather on her cheek.

  Still standing in the bedroom doorway, Ariel cleared her throat. She stood there, silently, wearing the cotton nightgown and robe set Phyllis had lent her. David was reading a two-day-old newspaper in bed and paid no attention to her. She looked around to see what he’d been doing in the little closets, but there was no sign of anything having been moved.

  “You were great today,” she said.

  David didn’t look up. “Thanks. So were you.”

  “Sorry about telling them you were gay.”

  “That’s okay.” He still didn’t look up. “It kept some of the women off me.”

  She looked at him, at his perfect profile. He’d taken a shower and his hair was still damp. He had on jeans and a clean white T-shirt the owner of the dress shop had given him. “Do women usually get on you?” she asked softly.

  His eyes still on the paper, he grinned. “Sure. A real nuisance. All over me all the time. Why?”

  She didn’t answer his question because she didn’t know how. “I’m going to bed,” she said, then waited for him to say something. But what? she wondered. Please stay?

  David said, “Good night. See you in the morning,” as he turned a page.

  When she was out of the room, David went to the bathroom, turned the shower on cold and held his head under it. Being alone in an apartment with a ready-for-bed Ariel was more than he could take. He hadn’t dared look at her for fear he’d leap on her. The day spent around halfdressed women had nearly pushed him over the edge.

  When he left the bathroom, a towel draped around his neck, he looked at her bedroom door. It was slightly open and her light was on. If it had been any other woman on earth, he would have seen that as an invitation.

  But not Ariel, he thought with a sigh. Three times today he’d thought he should give up on her. Over twenty years of unrequited love was more than enough for any man. He should get a girl who looked at him as Sara did.

  Even as he thought it, David smiled. Sara was the kind of woman who’d say, “Whatever you want to do is okay with me.” David knew himself well enough to know that with a wife like that, he’d achieve nothing in life. He wasn’t like R. J. Brompton, a man who was a force against nature. David had been given too much in his life and his mother’s tears and calls of “don’t leave me” tended to make him stay in one place. But with Ariel …

  David smiled at the thought. There’d be no ambition in the world too big for Ariel. President? Sure. King? Even better.

  He shook his head to clear it. Now
was not the time to think of his ambitions. He hadn’t told Ariel, but today he’d encouraged the women to talk as much as possible. They were sickened and angered by the way the local government frequently arrested their few tourists, but they had the attitude that there was nothing they could do about it. Judge Proctor owned many of the fishing boats, as well as holding mortgages on many houses. People who went against him found themselves on the streets, with no job and no house.

  “One of you must be rich,” one of the women said today, then hiccuped. David had persuaded the owner of the dress shop to serve wine to the women who were waiting their turn with Ariel.

  David had just smiled, but he realized that all of them, except Sara, were rich. And Sara was too, but she didn’t know it. For all that her grandfather had disowned his daughter when she’d married the redneck Johnson, he didn’t disown his grandchild. Braddon Granville was David’s mother’s attorney and he also managed the estate of Sara’s mother. David had helped Miss Pommy with her accounts many times, so he knew that when Sara turned thirty, she would inherit millions.

  How many others knew that? David wondered. He thought back to their lunch at the restaurant by the ferry dock. The waitress, seeming to be friendly and curious, had quizzed them hard about who they were. Anyone who knew anything about Arundel would recognize David’s and Ariel’s last names. A quick check of the Internet would tell about R.J., and even Sara, since she’d been on Broadway.

  Though Brompton had left them a curt note and run off without them, and despite the fact that three women said they’d seen R.J. and Sara early in the morning, David was still worried about them. The storm, the stories he’d heard about some kid named Gideon, were preying on his mind. Were they all right? Why hadn’t Sara and R.J. made an attempt to communicate with them?