Sanctuary (27 page)

“Maybe she's at one of the sites.”

Brian scanned the trees that crowded close around the tufts of golden marsh grass. There were a couple of pintail ducks taking a breather in the slough on their trek along the Atlantic flyway. A marsh hawk circled lazily overhead. Near the narrow path, where spiderwort tangled, a trio of swallowtail butterflies flitted gaily.

But he saw no sign of the human inhabitant of this small corner of the island.

“I parked over near number one, circled around to here. I asked after her, but nobody I ran into has seen her since yesterday.”

“That's not right.” The discomfort in Giff's stomach escalated into dull pain. “Bri, that's just not right.”

“I agree with you. It's after two o'clock. Even if she'd spent the night somewhere else she should have surfaced by now.” Worry was a fist pressing at the back of his neck. He rubbed it absently as he looked back into the living mess of Ginny's cabin. “It's time we started to make calls.”

“I'll go by, tell my mother. She'll have half a dozen calls made before either of us can make one. Come on, I'll drop you back at your car.”

“Appreciate it.”

“She was pretty drunk last night,” Giff added as he slipped behind the wheel. “I saw her—Lexy and I saw her. We were in the water ... taking a swim,” he added with a quick glance over.

“Swimming—right.”

Giff waited a beat, tugged at the brim of his cap. “How am I supposed to tell you I'm sleeping with your sister?”

Brian pressed his fingers to his eyes. “I guess that was one way. It's a little difficult for me to get my tongue around the word ‘congratulations' under the circumstances.”

“You want to know my intentions?”

“I don't.” Brian held up a hand. “I really, really don't.”

“I'm going to marry her.”

“Now I'm never going to be able to say the word ‘congratulations' again.” Shifting in his seat, Brian aimed a level stare at Giff. “Are you crazy?”

“I love her.” Giff slapped the truck into reverse and backed up. “I always have.”

Brian got a vividly clear picture of Lexy gleefully kicking Giff's still bleeding heart off a cliff. “You're a big boy, Giff. You know what you're getting into.”

“That's right, just like I know that you and everybody else in your family never give Lexy enough credit.” Giff's normally mild voice took on a defensive edge that made Brian raise his eyebrows. “She's smart, she's strong, she's got a heart as big as the ocean, and when you shake the nonsense away, she's as loyal as they come.”

Brian blew out a long breath. She was also reckless, impulsive, and self-absorbed. But Giff's words had struck a chord and made Brian ashamed. “You're right. And if anyone can polish up her better qualities, I'd say it would be you.”

“She needs me.” Giff tapped his fingers on the wheel. “I'd appreciate it if you didn't mention any of this to her. I haven't gotten to that part yet.”

“Believe me, the last thing I want to discuss with Alexa is her love life.”

“Good. Well, I veered off from where I was heading. Like I was saying, I saw Ginny last night. Must have been somewhere around midnight. Wasn't paying much attention to the time. She was walking south on the beach—stopped and waved at us.”

“Was she alone?”

“Yeah. Said she needed to clear her head. I didn't notice her walk back, but I was kind of, uh, busy for a while.”

“Well, if she passed out on the beach, someone would have come across her by now, so she must have walked back, or cut up over the dunes.”

“We found one of her earrings in that clearing on the Sanctuary side of the river.”

“When?”

“Little bit ago,” Giff said as he pulled up beside Brian's car. “Lexy and I were ...”

“Oh, please, don't put that image in my brain. What are you, rabbits?” He shook his head. “Are you sure it was Ginny's earring?”

“Lexy was—and she was pretty sure Ginny was wearing it last night.”

“That's the kind of thing Lex would notice. But it's a funny way for Ginny to walk if she was heading home.”

“That's what I thought. Still, she might have been with someone by then. It's not like Ginny to leave a party before it's over—unless she's got another kind of party planned.”

“None of this is like Ginny.”

“No, it's not. I'm getting worried, Brian.”

“Yeah.” He got out of the truck, then turned and leaned in the window. “Go get your mother started on those calls. I'm going to head down to the ferry. Who knows, maybe she met the man of her dreams and eloped to Savannah.”

 

 

BY six there was a full-scale search under way. Through the forest paths, along the rugged hiking trails to the north, down the long curve of beach and around the winding paths that twisted through the sloughs. Some of those who scoured the island remembered another search for another woman.

Twenty years hadn't dimmed the memory. And while they looked for Ginny, many murmured about Annabelle.

Probably she'd taken off just the way Belle had. That was what some thought. She'd gotten an itchy foot and decided to scratch it. The Pendleton girl always had been wild. No, not Annabelle, some said, but Ginny. Annabelle had been still water running deep, and Ginny was all crashing surf.

But both of them were gone, just the same.

Nathan walked in on one of the conversations as he lingered at the dock, tossing his briefcase into the cab, loading his supplies in the back.

It made his heart beat just a little too fast, a little too hard. It made his stomach churn. He heard Annabelle's name tossed back and forth and it made his ears ring. He'd come to face it, Nathan reminded himself, then had tried to ignore it. He wasn't sure how much longer he could do either. Or if he was going to be able to live with whichever path he took.

He drove to Sanctuary.

He saw Jo sitting on the grand front steps, her head resting on her drawn-up knees. She lifted it when she heard his Jeep, and he saw all the ghosts in her eyes.

“We can't find her.” She pressed her lips together. “Ginny.”

“I heard.” Not knowing what else to do, he sat beside her, draped an arm around her shoulders so she could lean against him. “I just came in on the ferry.”

“We've looked everywhere. Hours now. She's vanished, Nathan, just vanished, like—” She couldn't say it. Wouldn't say it. And, drawing a breath, slammed the door on even the thought of it. “If she was on the island, someone would have seen her, someone would have found her.”

“It's a lot of ground to cover.”

“No.” She shook her head. “If she was trying to hide, sure, she could keep one step ahead. Ginny knows the island as well as anyone, every trail and cove. But there's no reason for that. She's just gone.”

“I didn't see her on the morning ferry. I kicked back and slept most of the way, but she's tough to miss.”

“We already checked that. She didn't take the ferry.”

“Okay.” He ran his hand up and down her arm as he tried to think. “Private boats. There's a number of them around—islanders and outlanders.”

“She can pilot a boat, but none of the natives report one missing. No one's reported one missing, or come in to say they took Ginny out.”

“A day-tripper?”

“Yeah.” She nodded, tried to accept it. “That's what most people are starting to think. She got a wild hair and took off with someone. She's done it before, but never when she was scheduled to work, and never without leaving word.”

He remembered the way she'd smiled at him.
Hey, handsome
. “She was hitting the tequila pretty steady last night.”

“Yeah, they're saying that too.” She jerked away from him. “Ginny's not some cheap, irresponsible drunk.”

“I didn't say that, Jo, and I didn't mean that.”

“It's so easy to say she didn't care, didn't give a damn. She just left without a word to anyone, without a thought to anyone.” Jo sprang up as the words tumbled out. “Left her home and her family and everyone who loved her without a second thought for how sick with worry and hurt they would be.”

Her eyes glittered with fury, her voice rose with it. She no longer cared that it was her mother she spoke of now. No longer cared that she could see by the sober and sympathetic look on his face that he knew it.

“I don't believe it.” She caught her breath, let it out slowly. “And I've never believed it.”

“I'm sorry.” He got to his feet, put his arms around her. Though she shoved, strained against him, he kept them firm. “I'm sorry, Jo.”

“I don't want your sympathy. I don't want anything from you or anyone else. Let me go.”

“No.” She'd been let go too often and by too many, Nathan thought. He pressed his cheek to her hair and waited her out.

She stopped struggling abruptly and wrapped her arms tight around him. “Oh, Nathan, I'm so scared. It's like going through it all again, and still not knowing why.”

He stared over her head to the rioting garden of snapdragons and Canterbury bells. “Would it make a difference? Would it help to know why?”

“Maybe not. Sometimes I think it would make it worse. For all of us.” She turned her face into his throat, pathetically grateful that he was there, that he was solid. “I hate seeing my father remember, and Brian and Lexy. We don't talk about it, can't seem to bring ourselves to talk about it. But it's there. Pushing at us, and I guess it's pushed us away from each other most of our lives.” She let out a long sigh, lulled by the steady beat of his heart against hers. “I find myself thinking more about Mama than Ginny, and I hate myself for it.”

“Don't.” He touched his lips to her temple, her cheekbone, then her mouth. “Don't,” he repeated and slid more easily and more deeply into the kiss than he'd intended.

She didn't pull away, but opened to him. The simple comfort he'd meant to offer grew into something with the backbeat of urgency. His hands came up, framed her face, then slid down her in one long, slow caress that made her stomach drop away to her knees.

The need that rose up in her was so sweet, so ripe, so huge. She wanted nothing more than to fall into it. Where did this come from? she thought dizzily. And where could it go? She wished suddenly and with all her heart that they could just be two people drowning each other in this slow, endless kiss while the sun dipped low in the sky and shadows grew long and deep.

“I can't do this,” she murmured.

“I have to.” He changed the angle of the kiss and took her under again. “Hold on to me again, for just a minute,” he said when her arms dropped limply away. “Need me again, for just a minute.”

She couldn't resist it, couldn't deny either of them, so she held close and held tight and let the moment spin out around them. Dimly she heard tires spin on the road below. Reality slipped back in and she drew back.

“I have to go.”

He reached out, took her by the fingertips. “Come back with me. Come home with me. Get away from this for a while.”

Emotions surged into her eyes, filled them, made them intensely blue. “I can't.”

She backed up, then rushed up the stairs, closing the door behind her quickly and without looking back.

T
HIRTY-SIX hours after Ginny had failed to show up for work, Brian dragged into the family parlor and stretched out on the ancient davenport. He was exhausted, and there was simply nothing else to be done. The island had been searched in every direction, dozens of calls had been made. Finally, the police had been notified.

Not that they'd seemed terribly interested, Brian thought, as he studied the plaster rosettes edging the coffered ceiling. After all, they were dealing with a twenty-six-year-old woman—a woman with a reputation. A woman who was free to come and go as she pleased, had no known enemies and a predilection for taking strolls on the wild side.

He already knew the authorities would give the matter a glance, do the basics, then file it.

They had done a bit more than that twenty years before, he remembered, when another woman had vanished. They'd worked harder and longer to find Annabelle. Cops prowling the island, asking questions, taking notes, looking soberly concerned. But money had been involved there—trust funds, property, inheritances. It had taken him some time to realize that the police had been pursuing an angle of foul play. And that, briefly, his father had been the prime suspect.

It had scared the hell out of him.

But no evidence of foul play had ever been found, and interest eventually waned. Brian imagined interest would wane in Ginny Pendleton's case much sooner.

And he'd simply run out of things to do.

He thought fleetingly about reaching for the remote, switching on the television or stereo and just zoning out for an hour. The parlor—or the family room, as Kate insisted on calling it—was rarely used.

It was Kate who'd chosen the casual and comfortable furnishings, mixing the deep, wide chairs, the heavy old tables, the stretch-out-and-nap sofa. She'd tossed in colorful floor pillows, with some idea, Brian imagined, that the room might actually be too crowded now and then for everyone to have a traditional seat.

But most often, the room was occupied by no more than one person at a time.

The Hathaways weren't the gather-together-to-watch-the-evening-news type. They were loners, he thought, every one of them, finding more excuses to be apart than to bond together.