On Folly Beach (52 page)

She passed no one, taking back streets just in case, and moving toward the farthest end of East Ashley. She spotted Peter’s car pulled up on the side of the road, partially hidden by scrub brush, but she’d been looking for it. It was empty, as she’d been hoping, and the final part of her plan fell into place. Allowing herself to sigh with relief, she began to feel a little less worried that her plan wasn’t going to work.

She dropped the bike in the sand as she neared the beach and continued on foot, noticing that the rain had let up and was coming down now in a constant drizzle. But the waves were white-tipped and angry-looking, splashing up over the rocks of the groin that extended out into the ocean. Lulu eyed the lighthouse, reassured to see there was still enough island surrounding it. She’d checked the tide schedule that morning—a habit started when her father was alive and they’d sat down for breakfast together. She’d been very small, but it was the only time she ever remembered having his attention.

Looking up at the sky, she figured it was around six thirty, and high tide would be coming in about an hour, although the storm seemed to be pushing it in early. Lulu crossed her fingers like Amy had taught her to do, and made a wish that everything would happen now like it was supposed to.

At first, she wasn’t sure she’d heard her name being called or if it had just been the wind echoing against the deserted stretch of beach. But she’d been expecting to see Peter, so she didn’t scream when he touched her arm.

Rain poured off the brim of his hat, and his raincoat and pants appeared black from the rain.

“Lulu,” he said again and she made herself not step back, “did you give Maggie the book?”

She nodded, and when she spoke, she remembered to shout so he would be sure to hear her over the rain. “Yes. But there’s a problem. The police came to the house looking for you. They want to know where you are. Maggie’s afraid that they’re watching for your car all over the island.”

He drew back, his eyes looking black behind the rain. “Isn’t she coming?”

“Yes. She’s definitely coming. But she’s coming by boat. And don’t worry about her—she knows the water and has been out in a boat in weather worse than this. She wanted to make sure you knew that so you wouldn’t worry. She’s going to borrow a neighbor’s boat and pick you up at the lighthouse. She’s got it all figured out. She can’t get close to the beach with the currents and everything, so that’s the safest place. After she picks you up, you’ll head to Sullivan’s Island, where she’s arranged for a car.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Whose car?”

Lulu didn’t flinch as she quickly ran through possible answers in her head. “She didn’t tell me. She said it would be safer for me if I didn’t know.”

His shoulders relaxed under his soaking raincoat. “When will she be here?”

“She told me no later than seven thirty. There are people looking for you all over Folly right now, and you need to head to the lighthouse to hide before the creek gets too deep.”

He glanced over at the creek, which separated Folly Island from Morris Island, then at the ocean beginning to swell the creek’s banks as it did at every high tide. Lulu crossed her fingers tighter, hoping he’d believe her and not ask her any more questions.

Looking back at her, he asked, “How do I know you’re telling me the truth?”

She stared at him, knowing that it was all over, that he was about to guess everything. But then the words came to her lips, exploding from her mouth before she even had time to figure out what they were. “Because I love my sister. And Maggie loves you no matter what and wants to be with you.” She knew she sounded convincing, because for the first time that night, she’d told him the truth.

Lulu held her breath as he continued to stare at her. Finally he said, “All right.” Cupping his hand over his wristwatch to protect it from the rain, he added, “Tell her I’ll be waiting at the lighthouse door.” He frowned. “Are you sure she can handle a boat in this kind of weather?”

Looking him straight in the eye, Lulu answered, “She’s visited or lived on Folly Beach for most of her life. There’s nothing she doesn’t know about the ocean or how to handle a boat.” She looked behind him to the creek. “You need to hurry. The creek is rising fast.”

“Thank you, Lulu. You’re a good sister.” He unbuttoned the top of his raincoat and reached into an inside pocket. But before the raincoat fell back into place, she saw the canvas bag that was slung over his shoulder. A canvas bag that looked like the kind used by couriers in the few war movies Maggie had allowed her to watch. Lulu pretended she hadn’t seen it and instead accepted what he was offering her.

She took it, not realizing it was a chocolate bar until he’d already started to walk away in the direction of the lighthouse. “Thank you,” she called out to him, but the rain and wind pushed the words back to her. She watched him until he’d waded across the creek; then she turned around and began to walk away, unable to watch him anymore.

When she’d reached the road, where she’d left the bike, she stopped, unsure what to do next. Maggie would be home by now and wondering why Johnny was alone. She’d be worried, and might even check the backyard and find Cat. Lulu squeezed her eyes tight, hoping the storm would keep Maggie inside the house.

She sat down on the bike, trying to tell by the sky what time it was, but the clouds had long since created an early nightfall, making it impossible to even guess. She wondered if Peter had figured out by now that Maggie wasn’t coming, and that the door leading up into the lighthouse was bolted shut, allowing for no escape from the water that was only going to get higher. She closed her eyes, trying to shut out the picture of Peter slipping under the waves. But there was another picture, too: a picture of Peter managing to swim back to shore.

She heard herself groan, knowing that she needed to go back, to be sure that Peter was gone and Maggie was safe. Or else she would spend her entire life wondering.

Despite the mugginess of the air and the pelting rain, she shivered as she began running back to the beach she’d just left. The creek was impassable now, and if she tried to cross it, the strong currents would take her out into the ocean with no hope of getting back. She walked along the edge of it on the Folly Beach side, her saddle shoes sinking into the sand and filling with water with each step.

Squinting into the rain, she gazed over at the lighthouse, which was now completely surrounded by water. She stared harder, hoping to see some sign of Peter just so she would know. She was about to give up when she spotted him on top of the cofferdam that Jim told her had been built around the foundation of the lighthouse to protect it from falling into the sea. The storm was pushing the waves up over the edge, covering the lone figure with water. Lulu couldn’t be sure, but it looked like Peter was staring back at her.

Her eyes stung from the rain and she blinked, and when she looked back, he was gone. Scrambling down the beach to where the rocks of the groin met the shoreline to get a better view, she stared out at the almost-black water and began to shake. It wasn’t that she hadn’t known it would happen, or that it had to happen to keep them all safe. She’d just never expected it to be so real, not something she read about between the covers of a book. And he was going to die because of her.

“Peter!” she screamed because she couldn’t think of anything else to say. Then she spotted him, a black dot in the white-tipped waves, halfway between the lighthouse and the rocks, and all of her thoughts of protecting Maggie seemed to fade. She saw only a person struggling in the water who needed help—someone who wouldn’t be there if it hadn’t been for her. She stood tall and waved her hands, hoping he could see.

She studied the direction he was moving, and how fast, and realized that he’d be going past the tip of the groin, and if she could get there in time, she’d be able to reach out and grab an arm. If only she could get there in time.

Being as careful as she could on the slippery rocks, she began to make her way up the groin, stopping when a huge wave pushed at her and covered her with water. Her eyes stung with the salt and the rain, but she no longer felt any pain. She could only focus on the tip of the groin and getting there as fast as she could.

Somehow she managed to reach the farthest rocks, which were now nearly submerged. She’d lost a shoe and her hand was bleeding, but when she looked at the blood, it seemed that it was somebody else’s hand. Lifting her head, she looked out toward the ocean again, relieved to see the figure in the water was exactly where she’d thought it would be.

“Peter!” she called again, and she could tell he’d heard her because he looked up. She couldn’t see his eyes and she was glad. Leaning over as far as she could without falling in herself, she stuck out her arm and waved it back and forth to make sure he saw it. “Over here,” she screamed, just in case he could hear her.

He lifted an arm and then another as if he was trying to swim, but even Lulu knew that was useless. Her father had lectured her about the currents here, how dangerous they were and how the best thing would be to let the current carry you away until help could reach you. Otherwise, you exhausted yourself and drowned. She could tell by how slowly Peter was moving that he’d been trying to swim to shore and that he didn’t have much time.

“Peter!” She waved again, and he was close enough this time that she could see his eyes, and they were hard and cold, and she knew she would see those eyes again in every nightmare she’d ever have for the rest of her life. His head sank beneath the waves and she stretched farther, figuring he was moving so fast that she probably had only one chance to grab his arm.

He drifted closer and closer, and his hand rose out of the water and reached for hers. She stretched her arm so far, she thought she could hear her shoulder popping, already feeling his cold, wet hand in hers. That was when she realized that she still held the candy bar that he’d given her in her hand, soaked and melted from being squeezed in her fist, but somehow still intact even though she’d managed to use that hand to help her climb over the rocks. His eyes got really wide as they both realized that she couldn’t grip his hand tight enough.

The candy bar dropped, and she braced her feet so she wouldn’t fall as she reached out her left hand to grab his other arm as he swept by. This time just their fingers touched, but he was too far away, and she wasn’t braced enough to be able to put any strength into her hold.

She managed only to grab hold of his ring finger, and as the current pulled him away, she felt his gold ring slowly slide off into her fist. She watched, helpless, as he drifted farther and farther away, still watching as his head disappeared beneath the waves. She continued to stare at the ocean for a long time, afraid to blink in case she missed him coming up again, but he never did.

She continued to watch for him until her feet were submerged in water, and she knew it was time to go. Not really knowing why, she put Peter’s ring on her finger and closed her hand in a fist so she wouldn’t lose it; then she carefully made her way back to the shore and toward home. When she got there, she would tell the first of many lies to Maggie, then put away her Nancy Drew books and everything else that belonged in her life before, when she had still been just a child.

FOLLY BEACH, SOUTH CAROLINAOctober 2009

EMMY REACHED FOR LULU’S HAND and held it tightly. Jolene was crying softly while Heath rubbed his scar absently, his eyes troubled. “What happened when you got home? What did you tell Maggie?”

Lulu’s eyes seemed to refocus on the world around her, like those of a swimmer returning to the surface. “I told her that Peter was a murderer, and that he’d run away to escape the law.”

“But who . . . ?” Emmy looked up and saw Jolene with her beautiful green eyes watching her carefully. “Cat. You told Maggie that Peter killed Cat so that Maggie wouldn’t go after him. That’s why you hid the suicide note.”

“I didn’t know what else to do. But in the end, none of it really mattered. I killed her, just the same as if I’d thrown her into the ocean myself.”

Emmy worried a torn fingernail, unable to look across the bed at Heath and Jolene as the last niggling thought rubbed its way to the surface. “Did you ever tell her the truth?”

Lulu’s chest rose under the pale blue blanket. “I did. But not for more than forty years. Years where I watched her waste away her life, waiting for somebody who was never coming back.” She let out a lingering sigh. “You see, Maggie made a promise to Peter that she would wait for him to come back for her, no matter how long it took. That’s why she never left Folly. She was waiting for him to come back, for him to ask for her forgiveness. To explain what had happened to Cat so that Maggie and Peter could be together again. Over the years she’d begun to believe that Cat might have been partially to blame—anything to justify in her mind her reason for wanting him to come back. So she waited.”

Heath’s face was shuttered, obliterating all emotions. “But you knew. Why didn’t you tell her?”

“In the beginning, it was easy not to say anything. So many people had been killed or damaged in some way by the war, and knowing the truth about Peter would have made Maggie feel responsible for so much of the pain. She’d had one too many disappointments, and was so delicate then. Even I could see how fragile her mind was, and I knew she couldn’t take knowing the truth. I knew I was right because Robert never told her, either. I never knew if he realized I knew the truth, too, but we each kept silent thinking we were protecting her.”