Tide Will Tell (Islands of Intrigue: San Juans) (18 page)

He would probably worry. And he would definitely miss that smile.

Chapter 19

Sam had dropped anchor at the opening of Blind Bay, a little further out than it had been before, and Kate had a sense of freedom she hadn’t experienced in a long time. Being out on the yacht felt like a vacation.

Limping only slightly, she exited the dining room and admired the view that spanned three sides of the main salon. To her left, the lights had started to pop on in Chase’s house and in those of their Shaw Island neighbors. To the right, the town of Orcas lit the tip of Orcas Island. A glass door at the end of the room revealed a gorgeous pink-and-amber-streaked sunset over the boat’s luxurious hot tub deck.

Catching her own reflection in one of the expansive windows, Kate smoothed the Ann Taylor spandex tuxedo trousers and striped boat neck top Chase had picked out for her in a swanky San Francisco shop. It wasn’t the vintage style she loved, but it was comfy and she liked the way she looked in it.

She eased into the room, happy that her knee seemed to be stinging a little less. Sam had given her an elastic bandage, an ice pack, and a good talking-to about self-care, which Kate had accepted with humility and gratitude. Motherly concern had been missing in her life for a long time, and she found herself soaking it up.

Weaving her fingers together, she studied the array of nautically-themed Pacific Northwest artifacts displayed in the room. Old maps and compasses adorned the walls, along with a whale whittled out of something that looked like bone. Most intriguing was a long piece of carved wood which rested on two wrought iron hooks above the sofa. It had a sharp spear on one end that had been chiseled from rock. Kate leaned in to get a better look.

“Ugh. I just hate that thing.” Sam entered from the dining room carrying a tray which held a French press coffee pot, two cups, and some kind of dessert. “I wish Chase would sell it so I wouldn’t have to look at it anymore.”

“What is it?” Kate resisted the urge to touch the splintery wood.

Sam set the tray down on the coffee table. “It’s an old Makah Indian whaling harpoon. Chase sees it as a historical artifact, but all I can think of when I look at it is the poor whales.”

Trying not to dwell on that image, Kate perched on the curved beige sofa and ran her fingers over the soft suede. “I just can’t get over how amazing Chase’s boat is.”

“It’s going to be
your
boat soon too.” Smoothing the fabric of her pants, Sam sat next to Kate. “I hope you don’t mind my staying on it once in a while. It’s so helpful to be in close proximity to Chase when we’re getting ready to close a business deal.”

“Oh, I don’t mind.” Kate shook her head. Talking to Sam at dinner had made Kate realize how much she’d missed being around other women. She could see Sam becoming not only a mentor, but a friend.

Sam smiled. “I’ve thought of buying a little place on the island, but I have to admit to dragging my feet. I mean, who can resist the occasional yacht retreat, right?” She pushed down on the top of the coffee pot. “But I realize things will be different, now that Chase is taking the plunge again. The last thing I want to do is to interfere with your lives.”

Suddenly overcome with a need for a female confidante, Kate wanted to encourage Sam’s presence. “If we’re using the yacht, you could always stay in the guesthouse.”

“Oh, don’t you just love that place?” She filled Kate’s cup with the dark brown liquid. “But Chase likes to keep it available for entertaining business associates. I really do need to invest in a place of my own. Our business has been so crazy lately. It seems like I’m out here half the time.”

Kate bent slightly, inhaling the intoxicating aroma of the coffee. “I had no idea it took so much work to get a new drug on the market.”

“More than you’d ever believe. Some of the hoops we have to jump through…” She paused as she offered Kate a small pitcher of cream. “You’ve probably heard talk about Chase and his business practices.”

Recalling Jocelyn’s comment, Kate answered with an innocent shake of her head as she accepted the pitcher.

“The truth is that when you get into big business where a lot of money changes hands, sometimes you have to make decisions that might seem unethical to some people. That’s just business.” Sam shrugged as she poured a second cup of coffee. “But Chase is a good man.”

Uncertain as to why Sam had felt the need to explain that, Kate picked up a small spoon and gave her coffee a fervent stir.

“I swear,” Sam went on, “between the reporters and the police, it’s hard to say who’s better at putting a negative spin on a perfectly innocent situation.”

Kate stopped, mid-stir. “You don’t trust the police?”

“Not after what we’ve been through.” Spooning raw sugar into her cup, Sam nodded toward a plate of elegantly decorated bite-size cakes. “I hope you enjoy these. I’m trying out a new French pastry chef and I’ve been told her profiteroles are to die for.”

Eyes widening, Kate took one of the gooey pastries and bit into it. She savored its melt-in-your-mouth sweetness, but noticed that Sam hadn’t taken one. Probably how she kept her figure so trim.

As Kate washed the other half of the pastry down with the best coffee she’d ever tasted, a realization struck. She swallowed. “So you and Chase work out here sometimes. This must be where you were yesterday after I saw you get off the ferry.”

Nodding from behind her tilted cup, Sam made an affirmative sound. “That’s exactly right.” She set the cup back on its saucer. “Chase knew if we went to the house, we wouldn’t be nearly as productive, and he was right. With all the pre-wedding excitement swirling around, who can focus on work?”

Kate twisted her mouth. “I don’t think anybody else is all that excited about the wedding. Jessica and her friends are just happy to be done with school.”

Compassion filled Sam’s eyes as she set down her coffee and patted Kate’s hand. “Don’t worry about Jessica and Stuart. They’ll both come around and welcome you into the fold eventually.” She gave Kate’s hand a squeeze before releasing it. “They’ve been through a lot, and they don’t always behave as respectfully as they should.”

Kate pursed her lips. Now
that
was an understatement.

Sam eased back into the cushions. “Poor Stuart has always needed extra care, especially since Trina left. I try to be available for him as much as possible.”

“You two are close?” Kate hoped she’d masked her unfavorable impression of
poor
Stuart. If the guy had a positive side, so far he’d done a terrific job of keeping it hidden.

A kind smile crossed Sam’s lips. “I’ve literally known him his whole life. Whenever he’s upset about something, he comes to me. Even when Trina was here, he and I had a special bond. He needs someone to turn to for motherly advice.”

“You know…” Setting down her coffee, Kate welcomed the easy segue. “Stuart said something strange to me. He said I remind him of his mother. Do you know why he’d say that?”

“Blonde hair. Blue eyes.” Sam waved a hand as if the resemblance were more amusing than concerning. “Chase always goes for the same type. You know how men are.”

Type?
Kate pulled in a breath to steady her unease at the reminder that the man she was engaged to had ‘gone for’ other women before her.

Not to mention the disturbing suggestion that if she had picked her second hair dye option—Katy Perry Midnight Black—Chase would have struck up a conversation with some other woman that first night at the club. Was he really only attracted to her because of a quality that wasn’t even real?

“Chase and I have been friends since high school.” Sam topped off their cups, seemingly unaware of Kate’s discomfort. “We were both a couple of social outcasts back then, and we kind of leaned on each other.”

Kate absentmindedly sipped her coffee, trying to picture what they must have looked like back then. Both their attractiveness and success made it hard to believe either of them had ever been on the unpopular track.

Sam continued. “Before Chase met Emily, he’d spent two years obsessing over a cheerleader named Rebecca who had the same gorgeous blonde hair and blue eyes. He finally got the courage to ask her out, and she humiliated him.”

“That’s awful. What did she do?”

“First she laughed at him, then she told all her cheerleader and football player friends about it. They made fun of him for months.”

“How horrible.”

“It was. I’m sure that girl had her regrets when Chase made his first million.”

Kate twisted a strand of blonde hair around her finger. “I’m sure.”

“Anyway, he started dating Emily not long after, and I teased him that he was only doing it to prove something to Rebecca.”

“Was that true?”

“Maybe at first. But eventually he fell head over heels and I figured if I didn’t make friends with Emily too, I’d never see him. Of course, they were a couple, so I made sure I wasn’t around all the time. But the three of us had similar interests, so it worked out.”

“Oh, you were a swimmer?”

“Oh no. Chase and I were more into boating. But we’d go to Emily’s swim meets to be supportive.”

The notion that swimming and boating were ‘similar’ intrigued Kate, but only until a more pressing thought caught her in its grip. “So, you were there when Emily died.” She flinched at the sound of that. “I mean, not there when it happened, but you
knew
her then.”

Sam shifted, as if the statement had hit a raw nerve. “I was the first person Chase called when he found her.”

A horrible picture swirled in Kate’s head, hitting her gut with a nauseating wallop. Her brain somehow overlaid the image of Emily’s floating form with the memory of Karen she’d tried so hard to block out. Try as she might, she couldn’t stop the red of Emily’s swimsuit from bleeding out from her torso, forming a circular pattern in the water. The gentle waving motion of her body became the last remnants of a violent struggle to hold onto life even as it was stolen away.

Drawing in a breath, Kate tried desperately to snap herself out of the unwelcome reverie. She couldn’t go there. Not now. “How awful,” she eked out. “For both of you.”

Sam nodded. “He was a mess, as you can imagine. I had to call 9-1-1 for him when I got to the house.”

“And Stuart?” Forcing her focus from her own embellished memory back to Sam’s story, she swallowed a lump of agony. “Where was he?”

“Upstairs asleep, thank goodness. I was the one who had to break the news to him that his mother had drowned.”

“Oh. How horrible.” The story at least gave some explanation as to why he was such a mess as an adult.

“And as if that wasn’t bad enough, people accused Chase of having something to do with it.” Sam’s eyes hardened. “People have no idea what happened. And of course the police just want to find someone to blame. Sometimes I think they’d rather convict the wrong man just to be able to say they solved a case.”

Weariness weighed on Kate, tempting her to call it a night. But too many questions remained unanswered. “So…how
did
it happen?”

Sam pushed a hank of dark hair behind her ear. “The truth is that poor Emily had two unfortunate habits—drinking alone, and swimming alone. That night the combination proved deadly.” She leaned back even further into the cushions and crossed one long leg over the other. “Poor Emily had a blood alcohol level of point one six, and had suffered a blow to the skull. The coroner concluded that she must have dived in and hit her head, knocking herself unconscious. Since no one was there to help her, she drowned.” Sam blinked away tears. It had been more than twenty years, but the emotion still thickened her voice.

Kate cleared her throat and spoke gently. “So, Chase wasn’t home at the time?”

“He was being interviewed at a major radio station. There was even a live audience present.” Sam reached over and gave Kate’s hand a squeeze. “You can rest assured, Kate. Emily’s death was an accident.”

Kate let out a breath. If anybody knew Chase, it would be the friend he’d had since high school. This was definitely the reassurance she’d been looking for. That just left her with the question of what happened to Trina.

She urged Sam to continue. “So then Chase moved to the islands.”

“Yes, and it was a good move.” Pulling in a deep breath, Sam leaned over and grabbed her purse from the other end of the sofa. “This was where he met Trina.” She took out her wallet and opened it to a small photo in a plastic sleeve. Her eyes lingered on it for a moment before she handed it to Kate.

Kate studied the photo of a thirty-something Chase next to a very young blonde. “Trina was…younger than Chase?”

“By about ten years.” Sam crinkled her brow as if considering the significance of that for the first time. “Now that you point it out, Chase’s brides have always been about the same age. Funny, isn’t it? The groom ages but the brides stay the same.”

Failing to find that truly
funny
, Kate handed back the photo. “I heard that Chase hired her to decorate his house.”

“That’s right.” Sam closed her wallet and put it away. “He loved her work. She mostly made things like vases and colorful ornaments.”

Kate felt a twinge of annoyance. When would she stop feeling like a candidate for Outsider of the Year? “So, Trina was a glass artist?”

“Oh…you…didn’t know?” Sam gave another
oh-Chase
shake of her head. “She shared studio space behind her friend Marion’s gallery with a metal-working co-op. She used to sweep up their metal shavings to put in her glass. That became her signature technique.”

Kate felt a chill run through her. “You mean…Trina made the chandelier in Chase’s dining room?”

Sam nodded. “She made it as a wedding gift for him.”

Kate’s heart pinched. What a fool she’d been to think she could compete with that.

“In fact, that was the first time she used her technique. It was so unusual, she actually had it patented.”

Patented?
As in, no one else could make glass that way? Kate thought of the seahorse, fashioned from bits of glass containing metal flecks. Something wasn’t adding up. “Did she ever make other things out of her glass, like mosaic sculptures?”