The Inn at Ocean's Edge

  “You look done in.”

  “I am.” The door clicked shut behind her.

  She leaned against his chest, and he wrapped his arms around her. The clock at the bedside read ten, and she looked glassy-eyed with fatigue. It wasn’t every day a person found out she’d been sent in as a pinch hitter for a half sister. He couldn’t even imagine how she was feeling right now.

  He buried his nose in her sweetly scented hair. She relaxed against him with a sigh. Nothing he could say would make it better, but holding her might. When she lifted her face up to his, her lids were half closed. Enticed by the invitation on her face, he bent his head and brushed his lips across hers.

  She wound her arms around his neck, and he obeyed her silent urging for a tighter embrace. Her lips were soft and yielding, and he pulled her closer yet. He’d thought to offer a kiss of comfort, but the passion sparked between them in a rush of heat.

  The ping of caution finally made him lift his head reluctantly. If he didn’t let her go now, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to. Her eyes were still closed, and he ran his fingers over her lids and down her cheeks, then stroked her lower lip with his thumb. “I could kiss you all night.”

  She opened her eyes and smiled up at him. “I could let you. I’m not crazy about being alone tonight, but it’s too dangerous to let you stay.” Pushing her heavy hair out of her face, she dropped her arms from around his neck. “All I can think about is that my real mother gave me away. It makes me feel like I was thrown out with the trash.”

  “The urge to survive is pretty strong. And I’m sure she thought you’d have a good life, honey. You did too. Love, a nice home, good schooling. You lacked for nothing.”

  “I didn’t have my sister. My twin sister.” She stepped away, then wandered over to the door out to the balcony.

  He followed her out to cool night air. Lights from a couple of boats glimmered on the water, and more lights at the marina at Folly Shoals lit the darkness along the coast. When she shivered, he draped his arm around her and pulled her into his side. A couple on a lower balcony seemed to be having an argument, and their sharp tones mingled with the rumble of a car turning into the parking lot. Her hair tickled his chin, but he didn’t mind as they stood there and looked out on the ocean.

  She stiffened and looked up at him. “Luke, we haven’t talked about your mother.”

  “What about her?”

  “Your aunt said your mom heard a child crying. That means she heard the real Claire run away f-from Mary. She would have heard that just a few minutes before she died. What if she saw everything and Mary killed her?”

  His fingers curled more tightly around her shoulder. “You’re saying your mother killed her?”

  “Don’t call her my mother. She gave me away.” She shook her head in a jerky motion. “She conveniently left that off, but someone murdered your mother, and Mary was right there trying to cover her tracks. I think we should go back and talk to her tomorrow. There’s more she isn’t saying.” Covering her mouth, she yawned. “Sorry.”

  “I’m glad you’re sleepy. I’m going to go and let you get some rest.” He dropped a chaste kiss on her lips, then stepped back. He locked the balcony door behind them, then moved a table in front of it. “Just as an added precaution. There’s a storm coming in tonight too.”

  “I sleep well in storms.” She reached up and brushed a kiss across his cheek. “Will you go with me to Mary’s tomorrow?”

  “I’ll pick you up at nine.” Reluctantly, he unlocked the door to the suite and stepped into the hall. “Throw the dead bolt behind me.”

  “I will.” She blew him a kiss.

  He hurried down the thick carpeting to the elevator. He didn’t want to believe Mary had murdered his mother, but he was beginning to think there were many layers to this story.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Claire sat on the steps leading down to the water from the hotel. Luke would have a fit if he knew she’d come out here after he left. She’d tried sitting on the balcony, but it wasn’t close enough to the sea, her lovely, mesmerizing solace. The moonlight shimmered on the waves, and the sea breeze lifted the strands of her loose hair. A diesel truck lumbered along the access road spewing fumes that blotted out the scent of the ocean.

  “Want to walk on the beach with me?” Her father stepped from the shadows by the box shrubs. He had changed into shorts, a rarity, and wore a casual T-shirt.

  She rose so quickly that she lost her balance and nearly tumbled down the steep stairs, but he caught her arm. “Dad, what are you doing here?”

  “I saw you from our balcony.” He offered his arm. “I owe you an apology. Let’s walk on the sand.”

  Could he see her anger, her disappointment? Probably not. The moon wasn’t that bright, and the lights were only bright enough to cast dim illumination down the stairs. “Okay.”

  She barely rested her fingertips on his bare forearm, just enough to steady her down the steps. They didn’t speak as they navigated the hillside down to the water. Away from the stench of vehicles she could breathe and think. How did she even begin to tell him all she knew? Luke might have warned her not to be alone with her dad, not after what her father had done, but he’d never given her a reason to fear him.

  Her flip-flops slapped against the slabs of granite. Her father’s gaze never left her, as if he was waiting for her to make the first move. When she started off toward the pier, he followed, still silent, almost morose.

  “Claire.”

  She stopped and turned to look at him. “I know, Dad. I know my name is really Rachel, though it fits about as well as my toddler-size sneakers.”

  He reached out blindly for a nearby rock and sank onto it. “Mary told you.”

  “Yes, but Kate figured it out first. How could you, Dad? How could you let Mom raise me when you knew all along I wasn’t hers?”

  He swiped his hand over his brow. “Don’t say that! You were hers just as much as Claire was. Have either of us ever given you reason to doubt our love?”

  “Love built on a lie! What kind of love is that?”

  “You can’t possibly tell her the truth. It would break her heart.”

  “I can’t live a lie, Dad! You can’t ask that of me.”

  “I’ve never asked you for anything. All I’ve done is give, Claire.” When she opened her mouth, he fixed her with a fierce glare. “You are Claire. A name doesn’t change who you are. So what if you were first called Rachel? People change their names all the time. Who you are doesn’t change, and your mother and I love you for all things you are—not for a name.”

  Pity clutched her chest when his eyes glimmered with moisture. He seemed older, beaten down in a way she’d never seen. Her eyes burned, and she longed to go to him and hug him. To tell him she’d do whatever he asked, but the cost was too great.

  She took a step closer. “I think you should tell Mom.”

  “I can’t.” His shoulders slumped, and he hung his head.

  “She already knows I’m not Claire. She needs to know who I really am.”

  He jumped to his feet and shook his finger at her. “You think she won’t turn her back on you if she knows? On me and our marriage? Do you want to send her back to that mental hospital? You’re judging me, and you don’t know what it was like back then for her, for me. You are still my daughter. I knew she could love you, and it would bring her out of that dark place where she lived. Surely you don’t want her to go back there.”

  That stopped her. Could she risk sending her mother over the edge? “Of course I don’t want to hurt her, but I’m not Claire. I’m Rachel.” Something in her recoiled every time she said her real name. When would it begin to feel natural? Never?

  He started back toward the steps. “Think it over, Claire. Don’t ruin all our lives for some idea that truth is the only thing that ever matters. Truth can destroy, too, and if your mother dies, it’s all on your head.”

  She watched the shadows swallow him up until the sound of his footf
alls couldn’t be separated from the roar of the waves. Part of her wanted to run after him and reassure him, but she couldn’t. She didn’t know how it would end.

  The sound of the surf rolled around her in an embrace. Would her mother ever hold her again? And what about Grandma? Did she know about this?

  “Very touching,” said a male voice behind her.

  Then the sound of the sea merged with a roaring in her ears, and her world went dark.

  Kate barely closed her eyes all night. Every time she tried, she saw her mother’s face and heard the way she tried to excuse her actions. She got out of bed and reached for her phone as the sun began to slant its beams across her pale oak floors. Claire didn’t answer so she left a message, then Kate pulled on her jeans and a gray T-shirt. Who knew how long she had with her sister before she left town, and she wanted to make the most of every moment.

  It was all she could do to occupy herself until nearly nine when she took the ferry from Summer Harbor over to the hotel and hurried to Claire’s suite. The wide hall was empty when she knocked on the door. Though she tried several times, Claire never answered. She waited at least five minutes, then knocked again with the same result.

  “No answer?” Luke spoke from behind her. “I was supposed to pick her up at nine.” He stepped past her and rapped on the door. “Claire?” He pounded on the door with his fist. “Claire, are you all right?”

  Palpable tension rolled off Luke. The muscles in his arm flexed as he pounded again. “Something’s wrong. I’m going to call security to let me in. Wait here.” He jogged toward the elevator and entered it.

  Could Claire be lying in there unconscious? Or worse?

  A door on the other side of the hall opened, and her father stepped out. He almost did an about-face when he saw her. His lips flattened, and he quickly pulled the door shut behind him. “What are you doing here?” The strong scent of his cologne, obviously expensive, drifted toward her. The smell brought back memories that made her heart stutter.

  “Claire isn’t answering her door. Luke was here too, and they were supposed to meet at nine. He went to get security in case something is wrong. Do you happen to have a key card to her room?”

  “Of course not.”

  The torment in his eyes made her turn away. “We’ll just wait for Luke and security, then.”

  His feet shuffled on the dark-blue carpet. “Why did you have to meddle? You’ve ruined my life.”

  The wobble in his voice caught Kate off guard. She didn’t want to feel pity for the man who had abandoned her, for the monster who had torn her twin sister from her, but compassion stirred anyway. “How do you think I feel knowing all you’ve done to destroy my family? Claire—Rachel—should have been by my side all my life, and we’ve lost twenty-five years together. She was my twin. You don’t rip twins apart like that.”

  He made a dismissive motion with his right hand, and the heavy gold ring on his finger flashed in the light of the sconces on the walls. “She had a much better life.”

  “Even if that’s true, what gave you the right to do it?”

  His blue eyes, so like her own and Claire’s, opened wide as if he couldn’t believe she dared to talk back to him. He tugged at the collar of his Ralph Lauren shirt. “A father’s right. I wanted what was best for her.”

  That hurt, but she managed not to wince. “Oh, and it didn’t matter about me? If it was all about your care for your children, you would have taken us both. Mom said you checked us out to see which one looked most like Claire. You just wanted a substitute, and it didn’t matter how it would affect her or me. Or Mom either, for that matter.”

  “You think I care if your mother suffered a little after what she did?”

  “It was an accident!” How on earth was she even defending what her mother had done? Yet she couldn’t stand by and let his platitudes be the last word.

  His door opened and Lisa, dressed in white slacks and a red ruffled top, stood swaying in the doorway. Her face was nearly as washed out as her pants. Her tortured gaze went to Kate, then to her husband. “Harry.” Tears ran down her cheeks. “I just knew there was something you weren’t telling me.” She rubbed her hands on the sides of her capris. “Claire is really this girl’s twin? Still your daughter but s-she belongs to Mary.” She spat Kate’s mother’s name like it was a bitter taste in her mouth.

  His hand out, Harry took a step toward his wife. “Lisa, let me explain.”

  She held her hands out in front of her. “Don’t touch me.”

  “Lisa, you are my everything. I did it all for you.”

  “You did it for yourself. Don’t lie to me. I never want to see you again. Your things will be outside this door in half an hour. Hand over your key.” She held out her hand, and he slowly reached into his shirt pocket for the key card. Her fingers closed around it. “You’ll be hearing from my attorney.” She slammed the door.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  The guard’s hooded eyes said he’d been up all night, but his movements were quick and precise as he pulled out his key card.

  “Open it,” Luke said.

  The gray-suited security guard slipped in his card and pushed open the door. “Ms. Dellamare?”

  Luke pushed past him. “Claire?”

  Kate and Harry followed, though they didn’t look at one another. He’d sensed the tension between them the second he’d gotten back, but that was the least of his worries. They could work it out for themselves.

  He glanced at the bed, still turned down for the night with the chocolate on the pillow, and he fisted his hands. “Her bed hasn’t been slept in.” Fear choked him. “I left her here at ten last night, and she locked the door behind me.”

  Arms hanging limply at his sides, Harry stood in the middle of the carpeted room. “She went out later. I found her sitting on the steps looking out at the water. We went for a walk along the shore, and she told me she’d found out she was Kate’s twin. W-We had words, and I came back to the hotel.”

  “You left her there alone? Where?”

  “Near the sandbar.”

  He knew the tombolo area. “You knew she’d been attacked. How could you just walk away and leave her unprotected?”

  The guard stepped between them with his hands up. “Everyone, calm down.” He turned to Harry. “Do you want me to call the sheriff, Mr. Dellamare? It’s clear she never came back last night.”

  “Yes, yes, call the sheriff. Tell him to spare no expense. I’m going to call in a private investigator too.” He turned on his heel and rushed out of the room. “I must tell Lisa.”

  Good riddance to him and his expensive brown loafers and his hundred-dollar haircut. He seemed to think money and power were the answers to everything. He glanced around. “Do you see her cell phone anywhere?”

  “I’ll check the bathroom.” Kate hurried through the door and returned a few moments later. “Not in there.”

  “Not anywhere in here either,” the guard said.

  She’d been missing close to twelve hours. And he knew in his gut that she wouldn’t just walk away from the problems here. And she wouldn’t leave what was developing between them without a word. The tenderness between them last night had kept him tossing and turning in his bed. This was the forever kind of thing.

  “Do you have any security footage?” he asked the guard.

  The guard turned toward the door. “This way.” He led them to a service elevator that opened into the bowels of the hotel basement with fluorescent lighting that buzzed. A ten-by-ten room in the far corner held banks of equipment. The guard fiddled with the computer for a few moments, then the screen lit up.

  They watched people coming and going outside. “There she is,” Kate said. “She left with Harry.”

  “Let’s check the outside camera.” The guard maneuvered the mouse and pulled up the other footage. “There they are again.”

  They watched father and daughter walk toward the cliff steps and out of the camera’s view.

  Luke turned
toward the door. “I’m going down to the water’s edge.” He and Kate ran for the elevator.

  When they reached the ocean rocks, he saw only several male tourists dressed in loud shirts and sporting white legs beneath their shorts. He took off running for the tombolo. His legs pumped hard in the uneven sand, kicking up gritty particles that stung the back of his legs. The surf was high today, washing kelp and seaweed onto the sandy rocks before ebbing out to rage back with fresh fury. Had she been carried off by a rogue wave? No, she was ocean savvy. She’d know better than to turn her back to the sea.

  He shaded his eyes and looked up and down the coastline. Was that a drag mark off the rocks and into the bushes? He pointed it out to Kate, and she ran ahead of him to push aside the brambles and dig through the thin soil.

  When she turned with a pink-covered iPhone in her hand, his gut clenched. “That’s Claire’s.”

  “I know.” Kate bit her lip and looked down. “And look here. I think she lay here awhile. The cell phone was in the deepest part of it. There are big footprints here too.”

  Luke knelt and examined the indentation in the sand. It could have been the depression where Claire lay for a while. Drag marks continued on for six feet, then the footprints went deeper as if someone had carried her out of here. He prayed that meant she wasn’t dead, but there was no guarantee of that. Someone had killed Jenny very near here, then disposed of her body.

  He stood and looked down the coastline to where the land curved into the Sunset Cove harbor. Sailboats and motorboats bobbed in their moorings. “I think I need to check the cave where we found Jenny’s body.”

  Kate, her blue eyes wide and shadowed, clutched his arm. “You don’t think . . .?”

  “Pray,” he told her.

  “I have been. Can I go with you?”

  “I’d like you to check in with the sheriff and show him what we found. Give him the cell phone and let him check it for prints. I think it fell out of her pocket when she was dragged over here, but we can’t be sure.”