Slade nodded. “It will, but there’s no reason you have to be in the spotlight, Jocelyn. My office will handle media contact.”
“But reporters will come here.”
“Possibly,” he said. “But just as likely someone watching the local TV station will have seen him. That’s how it usually works, if we move fast. I normally wouldn’t even talk to the family first, but considering the situation and all…”
“Do it,” she said without hesitation. “Do whatever you have to do to find him.”
He nodded. “I will, Jocelyn. Go get some rest. We’ll be working all night.”
“Please have your men consider this a base,” Lacey said. “We’ll keep coffee and food and whatever you need.”
Lacey and Tessa’s arms tightened around Jocelyn for a quick hug, just as the front door popped open without a knock. Everyone turned expectantly, only to see Charity Grambling march in like she owned the place.
“Did you find the old bastard yet?”
Instantly Lacey stiffened. “Charity, don’t make this worse than it already is.”
Charity ignored her and slid a gaze to Slade. “My niece told me you were here.”
Slade didn’t look happy about that. “The best way for you to help is to stay at the Super Min, Charity. You can talk to every single customer and, frankly, that’s where he was last seen. We need you there, not here.”
“Gloria’s there, as you well know. I’m here to help Jocelyn.”
Lacey bristled again. “She doesn’t need you—”
“Yes, I do,” Jocelyn said, stepping forward. Charity had saved her once and no matter what the woman thought of Jocelyn’s recent change of heart, she was always welcome. “Thank you for coming, Charity.”
Jocelyn could feel Lacey’s glare on her, but she guided Charity toward the living room, where Zoe sat on the sofa doing needlepoint. Like bodyguards, Tessa and Lacey followed.
“Can I get you a cup of coffee, Charity?” Jocelyn asked.
The older woman stood in the middle of the room, her strawlike dye job sticking out in a few directions, a pair of khaki pants hanging loose on her hips. She stuffed her hands in her pockets and kept her gaze on Jocelyn. “I know you didn’t like what I had to tell you today, but you have to consider the possibility that it’s true.”
“That what’s true?” Zoe asked, either completely oblivious to the strange dynamics in the room or at least pretending to be.
“He’s faking Alzheimer’s,” Charity said.
Tessa and Lacey sucked in a soft breath, but Zoe just pulled a long green strand of embroidery yarn through the pattern. “That’s what I thought.”
“You did?” Tessa asked.
“What do you think?” Lacey asked Jocelyn. “You know him better than anyone.”
“I don’t think he’s faking it,” she said. “He’s always been… unstable.”
Charity snorted. “He’s a fucking criminal!”
The women stared at her, but Jocelyn held up her hands. “That’s not true—“
“How can you say that?” Charity practically stomped her sneakered foot. “He damn near killed you.”
“What?”
The question came from all three women at once. They stared at her with a mix of horror, shock, and genuine sadness. Jocelyn turned to the kitchen, catching Ashley in the doorway. “Honey, please. Don’t.”
“Give us a minute, Ash,” Lacey said quickly to her daughter, who obeyed by pivoting and disappearing.
“Why didn’t you tell us, Joss?” The crack in Tessa’s question almost tore Jocelyn’s heart out.
“You didn’t need to know the details. And, honestly, he didn’t…” Yes, he did. “It was a long…” That didn’t matter. “I’ve tried to forget it.”
“Well, I haven’t.” Charity practically spit the words. “And, frankly, if he fell off the causeway it wouldn’t be good enough for him.”
“Charity, please.” Jocelyn reached for her. “I know how you feel. And I know you think that my forgiving him is some kind of personal affront, or not—not showing gratitude for what you did, but—”
“What did she do?” Lacey asked, unable to hide the disbelief in her voice. Of course, Lacey, like every lifetime resident of Mimosa Key, knew Charity as a nasty, mean-spirited gossipmonger. And last year, that mean spirit went to new and personal heights when she tried to stop Casa Blanca from ever getting built.
“I saved her life.”
Again, every eye in the living room was on her. Zoe’s needlepointing fingers stilled and Lacey just looked positively wretched at this turn of events. And Tessa, the woman who hated secrets the most, was clearly on the verge of tears.
Jocelyn dropped onto the edge of the sofa with a sigh. “I never wanted to tell you guys this.”
Zoe put the needlepoint hoop on the table and reached for her. “We kinda knew.”
“Not really.” Jocelyn looked up at Charity. “Not the extent of it. Not how bad it was.”
“I’ll show them.” Charity reached into her back pocket. “You don’t think I was dumb enough to give you the only copies of the pictures, do you?”
“No!” Jocelyn jumped up, but Charity flung the pictures on the table like she was folding her poker cards, an array of bruises, blood, and brutality instantly spread before them.
Oh, God. She couldn’t even look—not through the eyes of her friends. Sharp daggers of shame pierced her heart and stung her eyes as she choked on a sob. She had to get out of here. She had to get out of here.
“Holy hell,” Zoe said. “He did almost kill you.”
“Why are you doing this?” Jocelyn demanded of Charity. “Why betray me? I trusted you.”
“Her?” Lacey almost spit. “Why would you trust her?”
“Because she picked me up off the street when I was running away.” Charity had been the right person at the right time. “She helped me.”
Charity waved her off. “I’m no Good Samaritan, believe me. I just hate abusers. I hate men who hit.” She touched her face as if she could still feel the pain of a fist there. “And I hate Guy Bloom and couldn’t care less if he is dead.”
Jocelyn closed her eyes. “But I care.” She put up her hands in surrender, needing the conversation and the pitiful looks and the hurt for not sharing to stop. As fast as she could without actually running, she left the room, headed down the hall, and darted into Guy’s bedroom, fighting the urge to slam the door just to get rid of some of the emotion surging through her.
Dropping on the bed, she let the sobs escape.
Now they knew everything. Just like Will, they’d never look at her the same. They’d never look at Guy the same and, at one time, that wouldn’t have mattered, but now it did.
Now she not only didn’t hate him, she actually cared for him. She—
“Hey.” The door popped open and Lacey’s reddish-blonde curls edged in. “Can we come in?”
Everything in her wanted to scream no. Go away. Leave me alone.
Alone being her default and most preferred place to be. But alone was so—alone. And now she knew how much it sucked to be alone.
“Yeah.”
In a split second, the three of them were in, surrounding her on the bed, cooing, sighing, laying their hands on her back with so much love and support she almost started crying again.
“I’m sorry, you guys,” she murmured. “I should have told you.”
“It’s okay,” Lacey said.
“We understand,” Tessa added.
“You owe us for life,” Zoe teased.
She looked at them, one after another, her heart swelling with love. “Obviously, I’m embarrassed.”
“With us?” Tessa tapped her leg. “There’s nothing about each other we don’t know or haven’t seen. We love you.”
“And”—she took a deep breath—“I don’t want you to hate him. Because when I find him—and I am going to find him—I’m going to forgive him and take care of him for as long as I’m able.”
She braced for the onslaught of judgment and opinions, but got none.
“He’s a different man now,” Zoe finally said.
“He’s forgotten,” Tessa added. “So it’s pretty damn wonderful of you to do the same.”
Lacey rubbed her hand up and down Jocelyn’s arm. “It’s going to be tough, though. Charity’s hellbent and might not keep your secret any longer. She’s pissed that you’re letting him off the hook. You’ll need to face that.”
“I’d face anything if that’ll help find—” Suddenly a thought sparked in the back of her tear-soggy brain, forcing her up. “The media. The tabloids.”
They stared at her.
“Forget a Silver Alert. If I called a press conference to talk about Coco, just imagine how far the message would go. Network TV, Entertainment Tonight, they’d all have to carry the story. And maybe someone saw him, maybe someone knows where he is. Even if”—she cringed at the thought—“even if he is faking it and hiding out or something. I don’t know what’s going on in his head. All I know is I have to find him. What better bullhorn to use than national media?”
They looked at each other, obviously unsure.
“I think those rags are more interested in your dirt than in your dad,” Zoe said.
“There is no dirt,” she said.
“Then you need to tell them the truth and let them know why you’re the fall guy in a marriage you didn’t break up.”
Would she do that? Would she sell out Coco to find her dad? “Maybe I can just not address that.” No, that would never fly.
“Just tell them the truth,” Lacey said softly. “What’s the worst that could happen?”
“Nothing to me. But Coco.” She fell back on the pillow. She couldn’t put Coco in that kind of danger. She couldn’t hurt poor, sweet, weak Coco who was just so much like another poor, sweet, weak woman that she’d stolen a permanent place in Jocelyn’s heart.
But maybe if Jocelyn had forced her mother’s hand, she wouldn’t have lived in fear.
“I’ll decide in the morning,” she finally said. “Maybe they’ll find Guy overnight.”
“Maybe,” the others agreed.
But no one sounded very certain.
A nasty mosquito nibbled on his neck, but Guy was too tired and too scared to move and slap it. Where was Henry? Shouldn’t he be here to flap his wings and ward off these horrible bugs?
Guy curled deeper into the tiny opening he’d found in the mangrove hammock, the cloying stink of rotten honey from those darn white flowers making him want to puke. The sharp smell of the pepper trees made him sneeze. He sniffed again, then started sniveling like a toddler.
Which he might as well be.
Turning from the stiff tree root that poked his back, he brushed some sand and dirt off the side of his face. Something crawled on his finger and pinched.
Fire ant. Shoot.
He shook it off and tried to get comfortable, back into the place where sometimes, when everything was really quiet, he could clear those cobwebs in his head.
Because some things really did stay in his memory. They got mixed up, sure, and tangled like that cheap red yarn he’d used when he took up knitting. But the gist of the memory was there, so he could close his eyes and imagine the face on that picture.
Oh, that picture. That was what had gotten him into trouble in the first place. He’d wanted to go back and get it, and he didn’t want Missy running after him, telling him to stop and go to some hotel.
If he didn’t get that picture, the Clean House people would throw it away!
And then he’d die for sure because it was his only picture of the girl who called him “Daddy.”
He couldn’t remember her name. Maybe it was the same as her mother’s. It seemed to him it was. But he could remember her face. Brown eyes and a big space where her front teeth would grow in.
But they never grew in, did they? No. Because she—
Tears stung. Jeez. Hadn’t these old eyes dried out yet? Did he have to get all weepy like a woman every time he thought about the child he’d lost?
He didn’t actually remember. He just knew there’d been a girl. A sweet little girl who went fishing with him.
And there’d been pain. A deep, aching, numbing, changing pain because he had lost a child. So…
What happened to her?
Another mosquito buzzed by his ear and something splashed in the water just a few feet away. Oh, boy. Hope the gators weren’t hungry.
How the heck had he gotten out here? He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to remember what had happened. He’d been so careful not to be seen taking those old back streets.
He’d remembered the way, somehow. But then he got to the house and needed to get in the back door and there was the old boat leaning against the side and—
But now the boat was upside down and covered with water and Guy was all alone.
No William. No Missy. Not even Henry the Heron showed up to keep him company.
His stomach gurgled with hunger and all he could do was swallow some spit to wet his parched throat.
Another splash, only louder this time. Closer.
“Henry? Is that you?”
Maybe it was Missy. Maybe it was William! He sat up and listened, but only cicadas and crickets sang and mosquitoes buzzed.
Guy just covered his face with his hands and let the tears fall until they burned his cheeks. This was it, then. He was going to die tonight, for sure.
And somewhere, way in the back of that clouded up brain of his, he knew the truth. He was just getting what he deserved.
The splash was so loud Guy jumped and called out. “Go away, gator! Go away.”
Nothing.
If only someone were here with him. If only Henry would fly over and lay his head next to Guy for his last night. Because surely this was Guy’s last night, and after this he’d be headed to another place. He wasn’t sure why, but he had a feeling it wasn’t the good place.
He pulled up his legs and wrapped his arms around them, burying his head in the darkness. What had he done? What in God’s name had he done?
He didn’t know. All he knew was how he felt right now. Slowly, he lifted his head and looked at the stars, as deeply into the darkness as he could, to speak to whoever might listen.
“I don’t know what I did, but I know it was bad. And I’m sorry.”
But he doubted very much that anyone heard his confession except the bugs and the gators and the birds that had flown away like his memories.
Chapter 30
Jocelyn sat straight up just as the clock radio next to Guy’s bed clicked to 6:00 a.m., the light blanket one of the girls had covered her with shoved to the foot of the bed. Outside, the soft drizzle and pre-dawn darkness cloaked the room in a dreary shroud.
Sliding off the bed, she opened the door, but the house was completely quiet and dark. Where was everyone?
Asleep, she discovered after a quick walk through the house. Tessa and Zoe spooned on a twin bed in Jocelyn’s old room. The sheriff’s men had left. Clay and Lacey had taken Ashley home earlier and must have stayed there.
She went back to Guy’s room, circling the bed and standing in front of the dresser that used to be her mother’s. It was empty now, no perfume bottles or that pretty pink jewelry box with a big embroidered rose Jocelyn had loved as a little girl.
Was that jewelry box gone, too? She hadn’t seen it in any of her cleaning and organizing, but they hadn’t finished the closets. She turned to Guy’s closet, opening the door. The moment she snapped on the light and looked down, she was rewarded with the very thing she’d been looking for. Not only had the jewelry box not been thrown away, it sat on the floor, wide open.
Kneeling down to examine the contents, she lifted an old not-really-gold chain that had turned black with time, and two tiny rings with blue stones, vaguely recalling that they were her mother’s birthstone.
A top shelf lifted out to reveal more space at the bottom, empty but f
or a picture.
Oh. A piece of her heart cracked and left a jagged edge in her chest as she stared at the snapshot. The edges were worn from handling, the photo almost warm to the touch.
And the memory of the moment so clear in her mind, Jocelyn let out a little cry when she looked at it.
It was her seventh birthday, so January 4, 1986.
January of 1986? That was the same month—
She put her hand to her mouth as pieces fell together. This was the last time they’d gone out in the rowboat. After that, Guy had changed. Life had changed. Everything had changed.
Had Guy been looking at this photo when she’d come to drag him away to Barefoot Bay? Had he realized his “Missy” and this little girl were one and the same? Did he remember that day when they went out on the row—
With a soft gasp she shot to her feet. Had anyone looked for the boat? Had anyone thought to check the islands? She needed to call Slade. They had to search out there right now.
Clutching the photo, she ran down the hall, not bothering to wake the girls. She needed her phone. Turning in circles, she couldn’t remember where she’d last seen it, a low-grade panic and certainty making her whole being tremble with the need to know if her hunch was correct.
She pushed open the garage door and looked around for the rowboat, but she and Zoe had left it outside to dry in the sunshine. Barefoot, she darted across the garage to open the door and run to the side of the house to find the—
“Holy shit,” she mumbled, staring at the empty spot where they’d left the boat. “Is it possible?”
She squinted into the breaking dawn, wiping raindrops from her face.
Was Guy out there in the canals or on the islands alone?
Fueled by that fear, she started to run, slipping in the wet grass and ignoring the chilly breeze that came with the rainy cold front. She didn’t bother to look when she ran across the street, but in her peripheral vision, she saw a car pull out of a parking space up the street.
A fine chill raised goose bumps on her arms. The Silver Alert had gone out hours ago, her name most certainly attached as the next of kin. The wolves waited for her with cameras and microphones.
Fine. If her suspicion was wrong—and, God, she prayed it was—then she’d do whatever was necessary to find her father. Even tell the truth if she had to.