Tidewater Inn (28 page)

He noticed red marks on her ankle. “What happened there?” he asked, pointing.

Her gaze searched his face. She rubbed her ankle. “A diver tried to drown me a little while ago.” She studied the marks. “I didn't realize he'd left marks.”

He sat forward. “What? Someone tried to
kill
you?”

She nodded. “Samson and I went for a swim. A diver in a black wetsuit dragged me to the bottom and tried to hold me there. I managed to get away, and Samson helped until I got to shore.”

He clenched his fists. “Why didn't you say anything to Tom?”

She shrugged. “He has his mind made up.”

He pointed to her ankle. “You have proof.”

“I didn't realize he'd left marks. And the sheriff would say I scraped it on something anyway.”

Alec leaned forward and studied the marks on her skin. “Looks like fingers. We need to show Tom.”

She rubbed her ankle, then shook her head. “He'd say I did it myself.”

“No, he won't.” He grabbed the portable phone on the swing and called his cousin. When he explained what happened, Tom told him to take pictures and bring her into the office tomorrow.

She was watching him talk with shadowed eyes. “What did he say?”

“He believed me. He wants pictures tomorrow and said to take some tonight too. He wants to get to the bottom of this, Libby.”

She bit her lip and her head went down. Alec pulled out his phone and snapped several shots of her injury.

The screen banged open and Vanessa stomped out onto the porch. Her hands were curled into fists and her mouth was pinched.

She glared at Libby through narrowed eyes. “Don't think this changes anything! You'll never be part of this family.”

“This isn't my fault, Vanessa. Mom and Dad did this, not me.”

“Don't call him that! He was Daddy, always.”

Alec found their conversation impossible to decipher. “What's going on?”

Libby sighed and leaned back. “It appears Vanessa and I are full sisters.”

“You've got to be kidding.” He eyed them both. There was a definite resemblance. They'd look alike whenever Vanessa lost the petulant expression she usually wore.

Libby tucked her hair behind her ears. “When our parents divorced, they each took a child. Our mother wanted nothing to do with our father and insisted this was the way it had to be.”

“That's nuts,” Alec said. This situation gave credence to her story of an atypical mother. “And neither of you knew?”

She shook her head, then glanced up at Vanessa. “Sit down, Vanessa. Standing over me like that isn't going to solve anything.”

“Neither will talking.” But Vanessa took a hesitant step forward.

Alec left the chair and moved to sit beside Libby on the swing. Vanessa shot him a grateful look. He liked being this close to Libby. The vanilla fragrance on her skin was enticing. “Did you remember another sister at all? Weren't you three when your parents split?”

Vanessa knotted her hands together. “I remember an imaginary friend. Her name was Bee.”

“Bee. Lib-BEE,” Alec said. “Maybe that was your nickname for her.”

Vanessa frowned and shook her head. “I'm sure she was imaginary. She had a monkey named Fred.”

“I had a monkey named Fred,” Libby said in a low voice. “I still have him. He was a sock monkey.”

Vanessa straightened. “He had an eye missing.”

Libby nodded. “And his ear had been chewed by the cat.”

“I remember that,” Vanessa said in a stunned voice. “Do you remember me at all?”

Libby frowned. “I don't have very many memories from childhood. Things were so rocky and constantly in flux. I have only snippets of things, and most of them aren't pleasant.”

Vanessa's face clouded and she looked down at her hands. “You'd think you would remember a sister!”

Alec could feel Libby tense beside him. “Stress can damage memories, Vanessa,” he said. “Doesn't mean she didn't love you.”

“I don't care if she did or didn't,” Vanessa snapped.

The screen door opened again and Pearl came out. Her feet were bare under her housedress. “I thought I heard voices out here.” She chewed on her lip as she glanced at Vanessa. “Everyone doing okay?”

“Don't tiptoe around it, Aunt Pearl,” Vanessa snapped. “How could you keep this from me?”

“If you would have opened your door, I would have talked to you about it.”

Alec got up to offer his seat to Pearl, but she waved him off so he sat back down. She leaned her bulk against the porch post. “I'm not staying. This is something the girls have to work out on their own.” Her gaze stayed on Vanessa. “I just wanted to assure Vanessa that this is true. I was there. I tried to talk them out of it, but your mother was adamant.”

“My mother,” Vanessa said, her voice stunned. “I just realized. Tina wasn't my mother!” Her voice broke, and her eyes filled with horror.

“She loved you as much as she loved Brent,” Pearl said. “You know she did.”

“I can't believe this,” Vanessa said. She turned to stare at Libby. “Tell me about our mother. And what was her name? I don't even know her name!”

“Her name was Ursula.” Libby held her gaze. “My childhood wasn't like yours, Vanessa. We moved around a lot. Mom was always looking for the rainbow over the next hill. She married again and divorced, then we had a revolving door with men coming and going. She was never happy. She always wanted more and more but never got it. Possessions were important to her, maybe because of her childhood. Still, she loved me more than her things, more than her men. But maybe not more than her beer. In spite of that, my childhood wasn't bad. Just constantly disrupted.”

Vanessa winced and turned her attention back to Pearl. “Why did Tina agree to the deception?”

Pearl patted her shoulder. “You started calling her Mama as soon as they were engaged. It just gradually happened. I think your father thought you'd be happier if you didn't remember another mother and sister.”

Alec had idolized Ray Mitchell forever. To find he had such feet of clay was indescribably shocking. This kind of tangle was going to be hard to unravel. Alec doubted the women would ever manage to be close. It would take a miracle from God's hand.

Vanessa jumped to her feet and rushed back into the house. Pearl followed, calling Vanessa's name. The seaside cicadas filled the silence as Alec and Libby were left alone on the porch.

Alec stretched his arm across the back of the swing, not quite daring to embrace her, though the thought strangely crossed his mind. “How are you dealing with this?”

She leaned back and her hair brushed his arm. “I don't quite know what to think. It's hard to realize I have a family but that I'm about as welcome as a bedbug. But I don't care about any of this, really. I'm finding it hard to care about anything since Bree found Nicole's belongings. I don't want to believe she's dead.”

He hugged her. “I'm sorry, Libby. I wish I could change things.”

She swallowed hard and sighed. “Thanks for being here, Alec.”

“Does Brent know yet? About you and Vanessa?”

She shook her head. “He's been gone all day. I suppose Vanessa could have called him, but if she did, I don't know about it.”

Headlamps pierced the darkness. “I think that's him now.”

T
WENTY
-N
INE

L
ibby could almost imagine they were friends, maybe more than friends, as she sat near Alec with his arm on the back of the swing. Did he feel the connection she felt? He'd offered to help her, and he'd kissed her. With a man like him, that had to mean something.

Brent would be here any minute, but she'd rather sit in the silence than endure more confrontation. Her brother was about to find out he was more alone than he'd thought. Would this change his relationship with Vanessa?

Brent's shadow loomed in the glow from the lamps along the walk, then he walked up the steps to the porch. “You're sitting here in the dark?”

“We have the porch light,” Alec said, pulling his arm down.

Libby felt cold without his warmth radiating to her back. Or maybe it was the way Brent's lips pressed together at the sight of her.

“Have a seat, Brent. You've been gone all day and a lot has happened,” Alec said.

Brent still stood in the shadows. “I'll stand, thanks. What's up?”

“Libby and Vanessa are sisters,” Alec said.

“Sisters? That's not news.”

“
Full
sisters. Not half.”

Libby listened to Alec explain what they'd discovered today. The deep tones of his voice soothed her. She was still jumping at every sound. Was her attacker out there even now, watching and waiting for the next time? And why had he targeted her? She eyed her half brother. Could Brent want her out of the way so he could inherit? She didn't have a will in place, so by law he and Vanessa would inherit as her closest relatives.

She hated to suspect her own brother, but someone in this town wanted her dead. That someone had already killed her friend, it seemed. Tears welled in her eyes at the likelihood that she would never see Nicole again. She became aware that Alec had asked her something. “I'm sorry?”

“I wondered if you had anything to add?”

She stared at Brent's expressionless face. Though they had only been around each other a few times, she got the impression that he took in everything behind those calculating eyes.

He shifted and she saw what dangled from his hand. Tanks and a regulator. She caught her breath. “Where have you been, Brent?” she asked, noting his broad shoulders. Could he have attacked her himself?

“What's that got to do with anything?” he demanded.

“I see you dive,” she said, pointing to his dive equipment.

He glanced down at his equipment. “Yeah, so what? It's the Graveyard of the Atlantic out there, remember? Diving mecca.”

“Where were you diving today?”

He gestured. “Out at a wreck offshore. What difference does it make?”

“A diver tried to drown me. Right offshore here. He wore a black wetsuit.”

If the thought of her being drowned bothered him, he didn't show it. “Most wetsuits are black.”

She stared at him. “Do you hate me, Brent?”

“I don't know you well enough to like or dislike you.”

“Did you try to kill me?”

“No.” His face was expressionless.

“Can I see your arms?”

He frowned, then shrugged and held both arms out where she could see them under the porch light. The skin was smooth and unmarked. “Samson bit my attacker.”

“As you can see, I have not been bitten.”

He could have hired someone, but she might as well let it go. Even if he was guilty, she'd never be able to tell.

Tires crunched up the drive. Samson stretched and yawned, then bounded down the steps to meet his owners. Libby followed.

Bree held out her arms. “I'm so sorry, Libby,” she murmured. “I wanted to tell you myself, but the sheriff wouldn't let me.”

“She can't be dead,” Libby moaned, burying her face in her new friend's shoulder.

“Samson and I will do what we can,” Bree promised. “We'll help you get to the bottom of this.”

Libby lifted her head. “Someone tried to drown me tonight, Bree. A diver grabbed me and took me under. I'm frightened.”

Bree went still. “But what could be the motive?”

Libby pulled away. “Money, property? I don't know.”

“Don't go anywhere alone until we solve this mystery,” Bree said. “I'm afraid for you.”

Libby nodded and lifted Hunter from his car seat. “I'm going to stay close to Alec from here on out.”