CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 28

Piper Island, Oregon

Now

Walking into Nana's cabin on Piper Island was like stepping back in time. The stone fireplace, pine-paneled walls, and wood floors were battered but familiar, the scent of lemon from its recent cleaning detectable. The cabin was on the eastern shore of the island, facing the bay and the fishing village of Marwood on the shoreline of the mainland. Piper Island and the mainland were connected only by a ferry that shuttled vehicles across the narrowest stretch of water. On the other side of the island the Pacific Ocean stretched to the horizon, but here the view was of the forests climbing up steep hills beyond the small town.

Neal pocketed his keys as he followed Brooke inside. "Look at this place. It hasn't changed since when? Maybe, if I'm guessing, the seventies. A long time before I was in the picture," he said as he set down his roller bag and duffel in the entry hall near the base of the stairs. "Or earlier than the seventies." She, too, eyed the cast-off furniture that they'd added to Nana's worn leather over the years.

"I can't remember the last time I was here," he said.

Brooke could.

It had been the summer before last, sunlight had bounced off the waves, the air had been fresh and exhilarating, the sand warm against her bare feet, the cabin—this cottage—warm and inviting.

Now, outside, the sky was gray and threatening, the rumble of the sea audible, the wind gusting cold, promising snow.

Neal whistled to Shep and the dog streaked inside to explore.

"We came four years ago," she reminded him. "Summer. Marilee had to give up that gymnastics camp to come."

"Oh, right." Neal nodded and walked into the short hallway to fiddle with the thermostat. "Too long."

With a rumble, the old furnace engaged.

While Neal unpacked the car, she put things away. "What time is Marilee getting in?" he asked, setting one of the two coolers they'd brought from Seattle on the counter that separated the kitchen from the living area.

They'd been over this before, but Neal had been distracted lately, a new, "big" case that required him to work late nights and some weekends. "Later," she reminded him. Marilee, now a student at St. Bernadette's, a private school in San Diego, was flying into Portland and had assured her parents that she had a ride to the island.

"We could've picked her up at the airport."

"I know. Or she could have flown to Seattle and come down here with us, except you had us leave before the crack of dawn."

"We beat the traffic, didn't we?" he asked. "And made the first ferry."

She couldn't argue. They'd left at four a.m., pushed the speed limit in their Honda CR-V, the replacement for the Explorer, which hadn't been totaled but never drove quite the same after the accident with Gustafson. The insurance company had handled the claims and, fortunately, Brooke had never heard from him again.

Now, it was still morning and Neal was grousing about their daughter living apart from them, a source of their continued discontent.

"Flying up here on her own was the way Marilee wanted it," Brooke reminded him. "Her choice."

"I know, but I don't like it."

"Me neither."

"Maybe sending her away was a mistake," Neal grumbled.

"We did not send her away. Moving out was Marilee's choice."

"And she's too damned young to make those choices."

Amen, Brooke thought, but here we are.

Neal headed back to the car for another load.

Allowing Marilee to go to school in Southern California had been a tough decision, one she'd begged for.

After the whole Nick Paszek debacle, Marilee's pregnancy scare, and grades that had tumbled, their daughter had gotten into vaping, alcohol, and marijuana. Marilee had declared she wanted to move out. Of course she wanted to live with Nick. Even though she was fifteen.

"That's ridiculous!" Neal had told their girl, Brooke standing at his side.

Nick's parents too were horrified and both families had ended up blaming the other. "She's going to get pregnant for real," Brooke had told her husband.

"Jesus. She's just a kid."

"I know, but she thinks she's in love." They shared a glance, each remembering their own circumstances.

"You were older," Neal said to the nonverbal argument.

"So were you."

"Then what do you want to do?" Neal had said, and for the first time in their marriage he seemed to be at a loss, unable to plot a course of action.

"Boarding school." Her answer was automatic. One she'd heard about growing up. "St. Bernadette's. It's far. Outskirts of San Diego. Where my grandmother went."

"I don't know," he'd said, but Marilee had overheard the conversation from the stairs and burst into tears. Only after Nick had broken up with her the next week had she agreed. In fact, she was eager, then, to leave Allsworth High School, Seattle, and her parents. She had embraced the idea of moving as far away as possible. Southern California had seemed ideal.

At least that was what Marilee had claimed.

In reality, things hadn't gone that smoothly.

But after the first two weeks of tears during FaceTime, Marilee seemed to be thriving. In their phone and video calls Marilee had evolved from angry defiance to sad-eyed loneliness, then, more recently, newfound confidence. She'd made friends, loved the weather, and complained about the teachers but had regained her interest in school.

She had opted not to come home for Thanksgiving but had reluctantly acquiesced for Christmas break. Neal was the one to suggest they spend the vacation here on the island, and the idea was that the cabin was a neutral zone, where they'd all gotten along, and not the war zone that their Seattle home had become.

And it was two hundred miles away from Nick.

Which was a good thing, at least in Brooke's opinion. Nick had graduated, moved out of his parents' home, and now shared an apartment with two roommates. Still, Brooke knew how easily old sparks could rekindle.

Brooke carried Shep's bag with his leash and dog food into the laundry alcove, a small space that doubled as a kennel and sometimes office when Neal opened his laptop on the counter and dragged in a chair from the dining room.

"I don't suppose there's any way we can talk her into moving back home," Neal said, continuing the conversation.

"We tried. Remember? And that kind of defeats the purpose."

"I know. But she's only got a couple of years of high school left. The only time she has to live with us as a kid. For us to be a family."

"You can bring it up again," Brooke said, fighting her own urge to bring her daughter home. She too missed Marilee terribly and felt the years of her girlhood slipping by rapidly. "But I don't think it's gonna fly."

"So, what about you? Can you try to talk to her?"

As if she never had.She replied, "I'll follow your lead this time. You know I'm not crazy about the whole boarding school thing, but we agreed to give it a try for a year. It's only been a couple of months."

"Feels like a lot longer," he said and she nodded.

Their home in Seattle, the house she'd loved forever, had become quiet, almost tomblike without their daughter's chatter and whirl of activity. Marilee's empty room, with its neatly made bed, organized bookshelves, clean desk, and dark computer, was a place where Brooke had shed more than a few tears. Alone. Burying her face into the stuffed bunny that had once been Marilee's favorite.

Because they had empty nested early, if hopefully just temporarily, Brooke had thrown herself into her new job, another sales position. After a few months of looking, she had taken Neal's advice and landed an outside sales position with Clayton Electronics, where she'd had to learn the ins and outs of security equipment, including parts and installation. She couldn't help but find it ironic that she was selling the very security equipment that had been attached to her Ford Explorer. In fact she had her smallest sample case tucked into the compartment under the passenger seat of her Honda.

The new job helped keep her busy, but it didn't fill the emptiness that plagued her.

Brooke tried to remind herself that wasn't so, that Marilee was alive and well in San Diego, that they were lucky, unlike Penelope Williams's parents who, to this day, had no idea what had happened to their daughter. Runaway? Kidnap victim? Who knew. The case had gone ice cold.

Brooke reminded herself that she and Neal were fortunate.

So maybe it was best if they all met here.

Despite the fact that this cabin had its own worrisome ghosts—Nana and Mama, even her father. And of course, Gideon.

As Neal carried the bags upstairs, Shep whined at the back door off the living room. He shot across the porch and through the tall grass of the backyard to startle a couple of crows that had been perched on the rocks of the firepit. They flew into the surrounding trees, cawing their displeasure.

The dog nosed around the woodshed before trotting back inside. "Remember this place?" Shep too had been here when she and Gideon had visited.

Gideon.

The last time she'd seen him was that horrid night at the marina, when they both had nearly drowned. She'd dragged herself up the boat ramp, then run to her car. Shaken, shivering, still psyched out, she'd made it to her Explorer and told herself it didn't matter if he lived or died.

Call 9-1-1!

You have to call 9-1-1!

Fingers trembling, teeth chattering, she'd fumbled for her phone, still in her jeans' pocket, and started to make the call, but of course it was waterlogged. Wouldn't turn on. Crap, crap, crap! She decided to run to the nearest boat where lights were glowing behind closed curtains. She'd let the chips fall where they may.

Then his head popped out of the water.

She gasped, dropped her phone, and watched horror-struck. In the security lamp's glow, he swam to a ladder and pulled himself up the rungs to the dock.

She started the engine.

He turned, focused on her, and seemingly dazed or wounded or both, lumbered along the dock toward the parking lot.

"No!"

She tromped on the accelerator. The Explorer lurched forward in a spray of gravel and water. She drove crazily, shaking and fighting tears. She had to go to the police. She had to confess to Neal. She had to admit everything to Marilee. To everyone.

She found herself sobbing as she reached her health club.

Pull yourself together!

She swiped at her eyes.

She forced her jaw to keep from chattering.

She told herself to be mentally tough.

And then she noticed the blood.

Her blood.

Smeared on the driver's seat.

But she wasn't wounded. No bullet had struck her.

She remembered the rending, not just of her body but of her soul.

The baby.

Shivering, Brooke threw on her coat and made her way into the locker room of the club, signing in as usual, ignoring the concerned look of the girl of about eighteen who watched her from behind the desk.

Then she half ran to the showers, where she peeled off her wet clothes. As she stripped off her water-soaked jeans, she located the source of the blood, a thick red river running down her legs.

She stifled tears in the shower, the noise of the spray muffling her sobs, the hot water needle-sharp against her skin and steam rising around her in a cloud. Deep inside she felt a loss and an unexpected despair. Fighting the heartache, she'd closed her eyes, reminding herself that this was for the best. With a steely resolve, she rinsed off the seawater, lathered off the blood, and washed Gideon Ross from her life forever.

Driving home later, she'd been surprised at the pang of bereavement she experienced for a baby who'd barely been conceived. How many years had she wanted another child? But not this way. Still, there was some sorrow—even grief—for the baby that never was. She carried the thought of that loss with her in the next few days, when she drove past the marina and noticed that the Medusa was no longer moored in her berth. She called the marina and was told that the owner of the sailboat had left in the middle of the night, the woman on the other end of the connection irritated because there was money owed.

But when she inquired if there was a forwarding address for Gideon Ross, the woman seemed confused for a second, asking, "Who?" Then, before Brooke could explain further, the woman had clammed up, muttering something about privacy before disconnecting.

Brooke had double-checked with the local hospitals, asking if he'd been admitted for care. The answer had always been the same: We have no patient registered under the name of Gideon Ross.

Hadn't he been wounded?

Surely all that blood in the water hadn't been from her miscarriage. . .

But he hadn't been admitted to a hospital, nor had there been any mention of Gideon Ross or some unidentified man in the newspapers.

And so she'd let it go.

Told herself that he'd somehow survived to sail out of Elliott Bay and her life.

"Brooke?" Neal's voice broke into her thoughts. "A little help?" He had dropped the second cooler onto the counter and was staring at her.

"Oh, right."

"You looked a million miles away."

"I was just thinking about Nana and Mom," she said, which wasn't a total lie. "How we used to come here at Christmas." She began unloading the coolers.

"With Leah," he reminded her.

"Right. With Leah." She ignored the concern in his eyes. That she and her sister were still estranged wasn't a surprise.

"Maybe you should do something about that."

"Maybe I will."

"It's Christmas," he reminded her.

"In a few days." She opened the refrigerator and began filling it. "So what are you saying, that I should call her? Because it's Christmas?"

"Wouldn't hurt."

"I've tried, remember?"

"What's the old saying, ‘If at first you don't succeed, try, try again'?"

"Spare me the antiquated pat phrases," she said sarcastically as she slid a carton of eggs onto a shelf in the fridge. Then she paused to meet his gaze. "You're really pushing this."

He was handing her a quart of milk. "'Tis the season, but it's up to you."

"Then I'll handle it my way." She was more than a little irritated but didn't want to fight. "I'll finish here," she said, motioning to the kitchen, "then I think I'll take Shep to the beach so we can stretch our legs." She glanced out the window to the gray day. "Before the storm."

"It's cold."

"I know." She sent him a reproachful look. "I can handle it."

"Right." He nodded and headed for the front door. "I'll finish unloading the car."

She unpacked the rest of the groceries and went to the alcove off the kitchen that they'd dedicated as Shep's when he was just a puppy. A leash hung on the inside of the door and toys and blankets were stuffed into a basket on a shelf. She located his water dish and filled it, leaving it in its usual spot on the floor near the stacked washer and dryer.

"No?" she asked when he ignored the chance to drink. "Suit yourself." She slipped on running shoes and a windbreaker, then scraped her hair back into a loose ponytail. "Let's go." Together, they took off through the back door, jogging across the clearing and cutting through the woods along a trail that ran from the east side of the island, where the cabin was located, to the western shore.

A tinge of exhilaration flowed through her as she circumvented the wet branches of fir trees and the rocks and roots buckling the path. Within minutes the trees gave way to the dunes, where beach grass shivered in the wind. From the sandy crest she viewed the ocean, vast and wide, gray as the sky, white caps roiling as huge waves pounded the shore.

She'd forgotten how much she loved it here: the salt air, the wild sea, and the dull roar. All so exhilarating. She'd missed it. More than she'd imagined.

"Come on," she said to the dog, and together they raced to the shoreline and took off to the south. Shep shot ahead of her, streaking near the water's edge as she jogged behind him.

How many times had she run on this beach, playing tag with the waves, chasing her sister and splashing in the icy water, dodging the icy waves as Nana and Mama had followed after? Even her father, his khakis pushed up to his knees, was here a few times, but of course, she thought, kicking at a bit of crab shell that had washed onto the shore, Douglas Fletcher's last visit to this sandy stretch of beach was a lifetime ago.

This had been her summer home, a place of solace, and she decided it was time she'd returned, forgot about her few hours with Gideon here and reclaimed her connection to Piper Island. Neal had pressed her to make the trip.

She'd been reluctant to return. Hadn't wanted to face the memories that lingered. She'd tried to talk Neal out of the trip, but he'd been adamant, surprising her.

"Come on," Neal had insisted as they'd watched rain drizzle down the window of their home just last week. "We haven't been there in years and it will be good for us to reconnect with Marilee."

She hadn't put up too much of an argument even though she'd had more than her share of trepidations. There were just too many memories here, good and bad, too many ghosts from the past. And yet she was opposed to selling the cabin on the island that Nana and her mother had loved.

That she had once loved.

"It'll be fun. An adventure." He'd slung his arm around her shoulders and squeezed. "God knows we need one." Then he'd gotten serious. "It'll be good, Brooke."

She hadn't been convinced. "I have a bad feeling about this," she'd admitted as they'd left Seattle in what seemed the middle of the night. The entire trip down in the predawn hours, she'd been anxious, no doubt because the last time she was here it was with Gideon. She'd thought his ghost would haunt the place, but she'd been wrong. She had a connection here to this island, and it wasn't one that could be destroyed by one fanciful trip with a man she hoped to forget.

As she ran, ever faster, her blood pumping, she told herself it was time to cleanse.

Time to wash away the past and her nightmares of Gideon.

Time to look to the future for their small family to heal. She and Neal still weren't as in love as they once were, but at least Jennifer Adkins was in the past. Brooke had found out that she had left the firm and moved to Boise. If she and Neal had been intimate, it appeared to be over.

Just as Brooke's relationship with Gideon Ross was in the past.

Maybe the closeness, that unity Brooke had once felt with Neal, would never return. And maybe that was okay. They each had stepped over the vows of marriage, so it was likely those bonds would never be as strong as they once were.

She caught up with Shep at a tangled mass of seaweed and eased her speed. "Let's head back," she said and whistled to the dog before turning and heading north, the muscles of her legs beginning to protest. She glanced up at the few houses that faced the ocean, rarely occupied except in summer. And she thought she spied the trail up the dunes that led to "the cave," as she and Leah had dubbed it. It wasn't a real cave, just a ravine splitting the dunes where Scotch broom had grown into a canopy, leaving a space beneath where they could play—when they got along.

Shep followed her at a trot, then took off like a shot to startle a flock of shorebirds that scattered as he bounded to the water's edge.

Halfway back to the path leading to the cabin, she slowed to a walk.

A lonely gull was skimming the waves, crying plaintively over the thunder of the surf, and Shep had discovered a wet stick, black and sodden, which he carried in his mouth.

"Kinda gross," she told him over the crash of the waves. The sky was darkening with the promised storm. There had even been talk of snow, a rarity on the coast, especially at Christmas.

She felt the first icy drops of rain just as Shep, stick in mouth, came loping back.

"Let's go," she said, flipping up her hood and jogging across the wet sand to the path.

Shep ran ahead. By the time she came upon the cabin he had dropped his prize on the back porch, where he shook the rain from his coat and scratched at the door. "Hold on. You're a mess." But so was she.

The rain was turning to snow now, still gurgling in the gutters and soaking the ground, but the temperature was dropping fast.

She stepped inside, the cabin seeming still. She grabbed an old towel from a hook in the laundry room, then dried Shep's wet fur. "There ya go," she said as she straightened and threw the wet towel in the old laundry basket sitting on the dryer. "Neal?" she called and kicked off her sodden, sandy sneakers, leaving them near the back door. No answer. As she hung up her windbreaker, she noted that his parka wasn't on a hook. A glance outside the dining room window revealed that their SUV wasn't in the drive.

Odd.

He hadn't said anything about going out and where would he go?

She found her phone and texted him:

I'm back. Where are you?

When he didn't answer immediately Brooke said to the dog, "Just you and me, eh?"

As if in answer, a gust of wind rattled against the old windows.

The cabin felt suddenly empty and cold.

"Come on, I've got something for you," she told the dog and he followed her into the laundry room again. She rummaged in a cupboard and found a dog toy she'd spotted earlier, a once-orange crab, one eye missing, a claw hanging oddly because she'd sewn it back into place. "You used to love this—" she started; then her voice faded, eyes rounded.

"Oh Jesus!" She jumped back, dropping the toy and staring at it in disbelief.

Brooke's world shifted.

Her knees threatened to give out.

Wrapped tightly around the once-severed claw was the bracelet, red stones winking, tiny sailboat charm visible.

"No," she whispered, denial raging through her brain. "No, no, no!"

He couldn't have! He wouldn't have! But how . . . ?

Shep picked up on her distress and whimpered.

"Get a grip," she said aloud. "Get a damned grip!"

Heart thudding, she reached down and picked up the bracelet. Unwound it from the stuffed toy. She had no doubt who'd placed it here as she studied the little sailboat with the engraved date of her first meeting with Gideon.

Not the same piece of jewelry, she thought; it was too pristine, too shiny to have been somehow scavenged from the murky waters of Elliott Bay. But this bracelet was an exact replica, probably bought at the same shop at Pike Place Market in Seattle and engraved with the date by the same hands.

Her knees threatened to buckle.

Gideon had been here.

Inside this cabin.

Standing in the very spot where she stood now.

And he'd left her a little gift, a reminder.

His words during their desperate fight that last night came back to her, echoing through her mind:

One way or another, you and I, Brooke, we will be together. Forever. I will never let you go.

Never.