Stargazey Point (16 page)

When he got to Flora’s, he didn’t go in but peered over the blue-checked half curtains to see inside. The Oakleys were sitting over by the wall, and he could have gone all spring without running into those two, but Bethanne was sitting practically under his nose. She looked up and motioned him in.

“You practicing to be some kind of Peeping Tom?” asked a voice behind him.

“Jeez,” Cab said, turning around to face Sarah. “You’re getting as bad as Ervina.”

“Huh.”

“Actually I came looking for you . . . and Bethanne.”

“Just like a man, come sniffing around to find out what he could just ask outright. Come on in.” Sarah marched past him into the tea shop, a petit, wiry whirlwind.

He nodded to the Oakleys before he sat down. Sarah ignored them completely.

“How long have they been here?” Sarah whispered to Bethanne.

Bethanne leaned across the table. “They were here when I came in, and I thought they were almost finished.”

“When there’s a chance of gossip flowing? Maybe Penny will put hot sauce in their second pot of tea.” Sarah smiled at Penny who was carrying a second teapot over to the far table.

“Shh,” Bethanne said but snorted a giggle.

“And to what do we owe the honor of your visit, Cab?”

“Feeling like a cup of tea.”

“The hell you are,” Sarah said. “He wants to know what we know about Abbie Sinclair.”

“Shh,” Cab said and frowned at Sarah before cutting his eyes toward the middle-aged couple. Not everyone’s favorite people, since Robert Oakley was the tax assessor.

“You staying, Cab?” Penny asked when she stopped by their table.

“For a bit. I’ll have a coffee.”

“Just a coffee?”

“Yeah, and whatever the ladies want.”

Penny laughed. “High tea for three. And a coffee. You are so easy.” Shaking her head, she struck off toward the kitchen.

When Cab turned back to the table, Sarah and Bethanne were grinning at him.

“You never learn, do you?”

“Hell, I can afford to buy you two highfalutin’ tea.”

“You better watch yourself. You’re startin’ to sound just like one of those raving rednecks down at the Backwater.”

“Yeah,” Cab said. “Like that’ll ever happen.”

“Stranger things have happened,” Sarah said darkly.

“What? Like you turning into your great-grandmother? Wring any chicken necks today?”

Sarah punched him in the arm. Penny returned with sandwiches and cakes and enough cookies for two tables. They all dug in.

“We haven’t been seeing much of you these days, Cab,” Bethanne said.

“Busy,” Cab managed between bites. Suddenly he was ravenous.

“You think you’ll get it up and running by June?”

“That was the plan, but I don’t know. There’s a hell of a lot of work still to do.”

“Well, I just hope we have some tourists,” said Bethanne, pouring tea. “Jerome helped me set up the inn’s new website. Thank the Lord for folks like Jerome. He works, he goes to school, he’s over at the community center every spare minute. And helps out whenever I need him. What are we going to do when he goes off to school?”

“Has he heard from any colleges?” Cabot asked.

“A few,” Sarah said. “But we haven’t heard anything about financing.”

There was action at the far side of the room. The Oakleys were leaving. They stopped by the table on their way out.

“Cabot, Bethanne . . .” A pause . . . “Sarah.”

“Miz Oakley. How are you?” Bethanne said brightly. “How’s your spring been?”

“Oh, fair to middlin’; been an awful damp April so far if you ask me.” She looked over the table, but no one asked her.

“Come, my dear, and let’s let these folks have their tea.” Mr. Oakley didn’t leave but leaned over Bethanne’s chair. “Now you just think about our little talk, okay?” He patted her on the shoulder, nodded, and went to pay his bill.

“What little talk?” Cab asked as soon as the Oakleys were gone.

“He’s offered to help me find a buyer if I decide to sell the inn. After all the work Jim and I put into it? He seems to think I can’t run a business because of my bereavement. My bereavement,” Bethanne repeated, teary-eyed. “If I weren’t a good Christian, I’d hire the Mafia to take him out.”

Sarah grinned. “Then it’s a good thing you are. Now let’s forget about both the Oakleys. They can’t make you sell. And Cab’s here to get the scoop on Abbie Sinclair.”

“I am not,” Cab protested.

“Don’t start without me,” Penny called from the kitchen. Two minutes later the closed sign was up, and three expectant faces were all focused on Cab.

“We don’t know a thing,” Bethanne said. “Sarah was kidding her about you two going on a date, and I got upset and ran out and I should go apologize, but it’s so embarrassing. I don’t know how I could do something so stupid.”

“And don’t look at me like that, Cabot Reynolds,” Sarah said, her eyes wide. “It was just a little joke. Before I could kiss my grits, Bethanne turns into an afternoon shower—”

“I did not.”

“And I was left staring at Miz ‘It’s All My Fault’ before she plunked down a twenty and bolted and I was left looking at nothing and wondering what the hell had happened. I think it must have been
your
fault.”

“Mine?” Cab said. “Why would it be my fault? Millie trapped me into taking her around. That’s the long and the short of it.”

“And it was so awful that you ended up bringing her back here and showing her the carousel.”

“You didn’t,” Bethanne said, widening her eyes at Sarah.

Penny fanned her face with her fingers. “Well, Lord bless us. It
was
a date. And, Bethanne, don’t you dare cry.”

“I won’t. I don’t know why I did then. It was just the way she said it. For a split second, it was like I felt her pain, and she felt mine.”

“Oh, God,” moaned Cab. “Have you all gone hoodoo on me?”

“It’s in the water and it’ll get’chu, too.” Penny crossed her eyes and broke into a fit of maniacal laughing.

“It’s not a magic thing,” Bethanne explained. “It’s a girl thing.”

“Uh-huh. And that was it?”

“That was it. Why?”

“I just thought she might have told you something about herself.” Cab leaned back in his chair. How much should he tell them about what happened last night? They obviously didn’t know any more than he did.

“You mean you spent the whole day with her and didn’t find out anything about her?” Penny asked incredulously.

“Pretty much.” He’d spent a lot of time last night going over the events of the day. After a rocky start, they’d had fun. They’d talked enough, but for the life of him he couldn’t remember what they’d talked about. Georgetown, its architecture, and how the town had developed a tourist industry, about how Stargazey might do the same. But he had told her a lot more about his life than she had told him about hers. All he knew was that she was no longer a weathergirl.

How had she done that? And the big question. Had she done it on purpose?

“So why do you want to know about her?” Sarah asked innocently.

“It’s not what you think,” Cab countered.

The three women exchanged knowing looks.

“Then why don’t you tell us what it is?”

“I don’t know. She’s like a woman without a past.”

“Oh, puh-lease. Didn’t you ask her about herself?”

Penny snorted. “Just like a man, gabbing on about himself and not letting her get a word in edgewise.”

“She talked.”

“But not about herself.”

“Exactly.”

“So why didn’t you ask her?”

“I think I did.”

“Oh, jeez,” Sarah said.

“Did you google her?” asked Bethanne.

“No, of course not.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. I’m trying to get away from that kind of life.”

“The kind that makes you interested in other people? You content to live with a bunch of wooden animals that don’t talk back?” Sarah said at her most Southern.

“God, crawl off, okay? I don’t want that. I have friends.”

“You don’t have girlfriends.”

“What about you three? You’re not friends?”

“You know what kind of girlfriends we’re talking about.”

They were getting into dangerous territory. “I will when I’m ready.”

A chorus of groans from his tablemates.

“Please tell me you’re not pining over Brittany, or Tiffany, or whatever her name was.”

“Bailey.”

Sarah rolled her eyes.

Cabot rubbed his hand over his face. He’d almost forgotten about Frank’s phone call.

“What?”

“Be warned. Bailey’s making an appearance this weekend.”

Three dumbfounded women stared back at him.

Sarah found her voice first. “Are you crazy? Or are you having a change of heart?”

“No and no. Some colleagues are in the area for meetings. They’re bringing her along.”

“Sounds suspicious to me,” Penny said.

“Sounds like we might need to plan an intervention,” Sarah said.

“God, no. I’m meeting them for dinner. Period. I didn’t think quick enough to get out of it. I don’t need anybody intervening or sticking their noses in my business.”

“This from the man who showed a virtual stranger his prized possession.”

“Sarah!” Bethanne exclaimed.

Sarah gave her a look. “I meant the carousel.”

“Oh.”

“What day are they coming? I’ll make sure to keep the inn’s restaurant open.”

“Thanks, and you know I’d eat at the inn every night if you were open, but not this time, not with Sarah and Penny lurking behind the potted palms.”

He stood up, paid for tea, and left before they could ask any more questions. Most people in town thought he was independently wealthy, which he wasn’t, slightly eccentric, which he guessed he was, and following in Beau Crispin’s path toward bachelorhood. After the first few months, everyone had stopped trying to set him up with dates.

He didn’t mind the kidding; it was all good-natured, and he really did count them as friends. He wasn’t sure why he blanched at the thought of them meeting Tony, Frank, and Bailey. He wasn’t afraid of what people thought he was now, but maybe he didn’t want anyone to see the way he had been. He didn’t want any part of that life encroaching on his new life. Not even the woman he’d once asked to come with him.

Instead of going back to the carousel, he went home. He’d gotten a good deal of work done today and he deserved a night with his feet up in front of his flatscreen, one of the few things he’d brought with him.

He stopped on the sidewalk in front of his house and marveled as he did most nights at how he could be content with an old house in need of some major TLC. He’d given up a contemporary apartment with cutting-edge everything and a skyline view for a rotten porch, broken windows, and peeling paint. And he was content.

At least he had been until Abbie Sinclair arrived and his former life decided to make an appearance. He just hoped it didn’t snowball from here.

T
he first part of Cab’s evening went as planned. He got a beer out of the fridge, took off his boots, and turned on the television. Turned it off again. Walked into the spare bedroom that he’d meant to use as an office but had never gotten around to unpacking.

His laptop was sitting on a cardboard box. It was plugged in, though he hardly ever booted it up. He occasionally ordered something online, but most of the time, he just called the suppliers. He’d canceled his Facebook and Twitter accounts. He no longer surfed the web or played online games. He did have two websites, one for the carousel and one for his restoration business that he paid Jerome to keep updated.

He didn’t miss it. But tonight it beckoned. Information about Abbie Sinclair was just a couple of clicks away. She would be there. At least mentioned as the weathergirl, and she probably had a social media presence, too. It would be so easy, and it would set his mind at ease.

With this innocent motive in mind, he opened the laptop, typed in her name. And got over eight thousands hits. A whole slough of Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn accounts.

Great. He refined his search to Abbie Sinclair weather. And he was in business.

He read for a while, got a little background. Found out a bit about her family, large, parents still alive, five brothers and sisters. All seemed to do a lot of volunteering, do-gooders or activists or both.

Opened up images and scrolled through photos of a younger Abbie with a pointer in her hand, a map behind her. It made him smile. An even younger Abbie standing with a group of students by a bus that would take them to Guatemala to build houses for Habitat for Humanity.

Following the family tradition, he supposed. And he’d thought she was a developer. He’d been way off the mark. And then he came to another photo and learned who Werner was. And what he looked like. A documentary filmmaker. A handsome guy. His search took a detour as he followed Werner Landseer. Werner had a list of impressive credits, and further search showed exactly when Abbie had joined his team. She hadn’t been a weathergirl for over eight years. She’d been with Werner.

Why had she let him think she was between jobs?

The places they had been pretty much covered the globe. The last one he found was in Peru. Cabot had read something about a documentary team that was filming in Peru when a landslide buried half the village. It had been a year ago. He thought back. Brought up another site. And his stomach turned.

The article was short. The leader of a documentary team, Werner Landseer, had been arrested while filming the mud slide. Abbie wasn’t mentioned, but several locals who’d worked for them were also jailed. And then he saw the YouTube entry.

He sat staring at the screen, not really wanting to know what it contained. Got another beer and stared some more. And finally he pressed play. The video clip was taken by a cell phone, and it was more gruesome than he had imagined.

Chaos as the person holding the phone runs to another position. Dirt and tremors, the back of a cameraman. A deafening rumble. The phone rises to show the side of the hill sweeping away a wooden building as if it were made of matchsticks. More chaos, screams, and people fleeing, and then quiet. Like the eye of a tornado.