A Rare Chance (26 page)

“What'll you do, get out a Gatling gun and go after him?”

Joshua straightened, all macho and mean. “Don't think I wouldn't. I'm perfectly willing to defend myself, and I don't need a Gatling gun to do it.”

Darrow grinned. “But you've got one, just in case. Right, Joshua?”

His face darkened, and he inhaled through his nostrils, fighting for self-control. “Find Lizzie. That's all that need concern you.”

“Almost be worth letting things get even more out of hand,” Darrow said, leaning back on his heels, “just to see you go after Yeager with one of your toys. He'd shove it down your throat before you figured out how to use the thing.”

“Darrow, I warn you.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

But Darrow backed off. His mind coughed up an image of Lizzie Fairfax's tear-stained cheeks, of her stunned, near-catatonic look after a couple of hours in bed with her fiancé. He had to find her—before she changed her mind and came back to Joshua. Darrow had read her journal. He knew the hold Joshua had on her.

“Relax,” he said, not too sarcastic. “I don't care about your damned gun habit. I just should have known about it.”

Joshua's tension eased slightly but visibly. “You'll find Lizzie?”

“Sure. I'll find Lizzie.”

“And Yeager?”

Darrow nodded. “I'll take care of him too.”

 

Gabriella was half listening to Scag yammer on about wild New England orchids in the comfort of his small, cluttered, furnished room on the second floor of his Cambridge rooming house. It was a big, drafty Victorian, much updated over the past century, on a tree-lined street of similar houses. She had called the locksmith, tended the orchids, made another copy of Lizzie's diary and put it in a safe-deposit box, and called the Fairfaxes on Palm Beach. They hadn't heard from Lizzie. They were sure she was fine. Disappointed she'd broken off with Joshua Reading, who seemed like such a nice man. Gabriella hadn't bothered telling them how worried she was about their daughter. You worry too much about Lizzie, they'd say, as they had so many times in the past. Too many.

So with Cam off to parts unknown, she'd decided to check on Scag. They could have sat downstairs in the living room, but he was afraid his housemates might come at him with another cure. Unless it was a fifth of scotch, he wasn't interested. His head was on the mend. He vowed to be back in the greenhouse within the next day or two. Gabriella had to admit he looked much improved, the bruise where Pete Darrow had smacked him healing well.

But lady slipper season was fast approaching, and Scag looked forward to getting out into the woods to see them growing, blossoming in their native habitat. He hadn't been in New England during lady slipper season in years. “I know the yellows and whites are the rarest, but I'm happy with the ordinary pink ones. Pretty little devils popping up off the forest floor, aren't they?”

He went on at length about lady slippers, their habitat, various sightings, and Gabriella's mind drifted.

Then something he said caught her full attention. “Scag—wait a second. Can you repeat that?”

He frowned at her. “I knew you weren't paying attention.”

“I was—I am…” She groaned, impatient. “Okay, I was only half paying attention and I'm sorry. Now, what were you just saying?”

“I was saying,” he replied testily, “that Lizzie has told me about seeing wild orchids on some of the harbor islands. Her mother's very involved in island preservation. Lizzie got into it for a while, remember?”

Gabriella remembered. During her two years off with Scag, Lizzie had divided her time between Boston and Miami, her favorite volunteer work in both places involving preservation of coastal islands. That was before Gabriella's argument with Scag had spilled over onto Lizzie and she'd moved to Miami full time.

“Maybe when she turns up again,” Scag went on, “the three of us could head out into the harbor and see what we see. Hell, I know I'm still on the mend, but I'd like to see an orchid every now and then that's not on a roof. No offense intended.”

“None taken. Scag, her last entry in her journal was about the harbor islands. I think she was looking forward to getting back into her preservation work after she and Joshua were married. Anyway, she mentioned in that last passage that she found the islands peaceful, mysterious, a good place to restore a proper balance and perspective. I just assumed she was being nostalgic. But what if she wasn't?”

Scag settled back in his rickety chair. “You're losing me, kid.”

Gabriella was on her feet, out of breath before she'd hardly moved. “This is it—it has to be it! If it's not, no harm done. But I don't think it's a coincidence that she mentioned the harbor islands, not Paris, in her final journal entry.” She was mumbling to herself, Scag regarding her with curiosity if not outright consternation. She snapped out of it, jumping into action. “Can you call Cam? You'll get his message machine. Just tell him—no, don't. If Darrow intercepts the message it could be disastrous. Just have him call you. Don't sound panicked or secretive because then Darrow will show up on your doorstep. Are any of your housemates around?”

“If they're not in class, they're in the library or here studying. So yeah, a few of them are bound to be around.”

“Good. I'm sure everything will be fine, but just in case.”

Scag gave her a mild look. He wasn't one to jump too far ahead of a situation. “What am I supposed to tell Yeager should he call?”

“Tell him I'm playing out a hunch.” She wanted to leave it at that. It would serve him right. But too much was at stake, and tit for tat wasn't her style. “Tell him I've gone out to the harbor islands to see if I can find Lizzie. I'll try the Brewsters first; they're in the outer harbor. They might be too rocky and barren, I don't know. I know she's mentioned Calf and Great Brewster. Give him those names. And Lovell, Gallop, Pettit—I think they're in Quincy Bay. I'll try down there too.”

“Think she's out there?” Scag asked seriously.

Gabriella felt a weight come over her. She could be chasing stars, wasting time. “I have no idea, but I have to check.”

“And it beats sitting around jabbering about orchids with an old man,” he said without a hint of self-pity. He waved her off. “Go on, I'll give Yeager your message. I wish I could go with you. Do I need to tell you to be careful?”

She gave a tight shake of the head, an even tighter smile, and was off. Scag had never been overprotective or a worrywart. He had never tried to stop her from doing anything—even attending business school, which he had considered idiotic and she had loved. But as she raced down the musty red-carpeted stairs and out the front door, she realized that checking a couple of dozen islands in and around Boston Harbor for Lizzie Fairfax was hardly Tony Scagliotti's idea of dangerous.

Half an hour later, she was parked at a private yacht club on the Boston waterfront where TJR Associates kept a small cabin cruiser. She had no idea how to operate it, but her credentials got her onto the premises, and she figured there'd be someone she could hire. She raced down the dock until she found a kid, maybe nineteen, cleaning a speedboat. Turned out it belonged to his parents. Could he drive it? Yeah, sure. Could she hire him to take her out to the harbor islands?

“Which ones?”

“We can try the Brewsters first.”

He grinned, throwing down his scrub brush. “Let's go.”

Twenty minutes later they were cruising through the inner harbor, Logan Airport and the Boston skyline looming. It was cold out on the water. The kid—his name was Mark—had given her an oversized fleece pullover to put on. Gabriella pulled her hands up into the sleeves in an attempt to keep them warm. The Brewsters were a series of rocky outcroppings that faced the Atlantic Ocean, marking the entrance to the network of islands, peninsulas, and small bays that formed Boston Harbor.

Up ahead, the 1716 granite Boston Light, the oldest lighthouse in North America, stood sentry on Little Brewster. Mostly stark and windswept, the Brewsters, with their tall grasses, rocky ledges, and profusion of wild roses, were too exposed, Gabriella decided, for Lizzie's purposes. Metropolitan District Commission and Department of Environmental Management patrols, even passing commercial ships and pleasure boats, would be too likely to spot her.

“Let's head down to Quincy Bay,” Gabriella shouted to her driver.

Mark shrugged. He was a tall, stringy kid who looked younger, she expected, than he was. He could definitely handle a boat though. “It's your nickel.”

She didn't hesitate. “Let's do it.”

He cut back toward land, just south of the inner harbor and Dorchester Bay. Gabriella recalled Lizzie's tales of buried pirate treasure, a Civil War prison for Confederate political and military prisoners, secret tunnels, lost lovers freezing to death with their arms wrapped around each other. There were also, Gabriella knew, tales of islands turned into public garbage dumps, inhabited only by sea gulls and rats.

She glanced back at the Boston skyline. They weren't being followed. She was fairly sure that even Pete Darrow, as skilled a cop as he supposedly was, would have a difficult time chasing her across Boston Harbor without being seen. She felt exhausted, a little crazy, and also strangely exhilarated. She was doing something. Even if she was wrong, at least she was making an effort to find Lizzie.

Paris. Yeah, right, Lizzie.

They sped past Lovell's, Gallop's, and George's Island, now headquarters for the MDC, Gabriella rejecting them all. She was beginning to feel as if she'd gone off on a wild goose chase and forced herself to shut her eyes a moment, to let the bits and pieces of her conversation with Scag, her various conversations with Lizzie about the islands, her journal entries float up from the back of her mind.

“Where's Pettit Island?” she asked.

“Not far from here,” her guide yelled back. “It's real small. There's no public access. I think it's deserted.”

“Take me there.”

He swung the boat around, across choppy water, the cold wind in her face, so strong it whipped up tears in her eyes and blew them against her cheeks. She didn't brush them away. She tried to control her impatience. She wanted to see Lizzie, talk to her. Then she'd know for sure if the journal was something real, or made up, exaggerated. She'd know if Lizzie was acting on her own. If she was more afraid of Pete Darrow or Joshua Reading—or afraid of neither, only of herself.

They came to Pettit, in a relatively quiet section of Quincy Bay. It was definitely small, with a dense covering of underbrush and trees stunted and gnarled from the wind. Gabriella had Mark pull up to a decrepit dock in a tiny cove, where tall grasses threaded their way up among the rocks on the shoreline.

She spotted a shocking-pink plastic sea kayak tucked under a wind-bent scotch pine. It wouldn't be visible to passing patrol boats unless they got up close. Gabriella's heart jumped. Lizzie had taken up kayaking a couple of years ago in south Florida.

“I want to get out here for a minute,” she told Mark, trying to sound casual. “Can you wait?”

“No problem. Watch out on that dock—doesn't look too steady.”

It wasn't. When she climbed out onto it, she could feel the boards soft and squishy with rot underfoot. She quickly jumped the last yard to dry ground. Mark had cut the engine. She could hear the cries of birds, the soughing of the wind, the lapping of the waves, the hum of boats in the distance. She checked the kayak. It had the wide, stable body and sit-on-top design suitable for ocean kayaking. Lizzie could have paddled in from shore.

Gabriella looked back at her driver. “I'm going inland a bit,” she called.

He waved her on.

She thrashed through underbrush fast coming to life after the long winter. Sprouting ferns, wild blackberry and raspberry bushes, puckerbrush, sumac, probably a fair amount of poison ivy. Gnarled, twisted wild beach plums grew in abundance, and wild roses—she could imagine them in summer—were everywhere. Saplings vied with the tangles of brush for sunlight and space, maple and oak and scotch pine trying to make it to maturity under the harsh island conditions.

After a few yards, Gabriella spotted a footpath along the edge of a tangle of blackberry bushes. It led her through more underbrush and struggling trees, to the base of a rolling, egg-shaped drumlin, a hill of glacial till and clay that proliferated on the harbor islands.

In a small, grassy clearing, an expensive dome tent was set up, with a cooking area out front and clothes—women's clothes—hanging on a makeshift line strung between two skinny trees.

The tent flap was open, the inner screen zippered shut. Gabriella approached cautiously, in case she was wrong and it wasn't her friend's camp she'd come upon. “Lizzie?”

No answer.

She peered into the opening, squinting.

Lizzie was sitting cross-legged in the middle of the tent, a hand on each knee, eyes shut. Meditating.

“Lizzie,” Gabriella said more sharply, “it's me.”