WITH LARGO SETTLED in my bedroom, I rushed downstairs to the library where almost everyone was seated at the long mahogany table, except Joey, who had taken position behind his boss. Marco was smoking another cigar and mindlessly letting ashes drop on the table, though there was an ashtray right by him.
The library was my sanctuary. I loved the way the light was quiet and gray, even on bright days with the draperies pulled open. The comfortable leather-bound wing chairs. The framed maps decorating the few bare stretches of wall: one of the world, another of Lake Erie. Here and there amongst the maps were family photos—Claire and Rosita’s paternal grandparents, Claire and Rosita as children. My favorite photo is of Rosita and her grandfather. She’s proudly holding a fishing pole with a walleye dangling from the hook, and her grandfather is right behind her, both of them grinning widely.
There was a sliding ladder to get to the books on the top shelves by the ceiling. So many books. When not working, the two pleasures I allowed myself on Trouble Island were swimming in the lake, usually by the southwest dock, and reading in here. To see these rough men in my sacred space was jarring.
Eddie gave me a pointed look from his seat at the head of the table. I brought him the key to Rosita’s suite, then sat between Maxine and Seamus. I tried to catch Maxine’s eyes but she pointedly ignored me, still rattled from the night before when I’d suggested she and Henry run away with me. The rest of the staff and Eddie’s entourage sat down the length of the table.
The only people not in the library were Rosita and Cormac.
“What the hell is going on, Eddie?” Marco snarled. His hair was a tangled mess, his silk robe open low enough to reveal his hairy chest and a thick scar running from his sternum up to his chest that looked like it was from a knife fight. His eyes were bleary.
“Rosita is missing,” Eddie said.
Gasps and murmurs arose. I made quick note of everyone’s reactions. Either everyone besides me and Seamus was surprised, or there were some good actors around the table—and the only good actor there was Douglas. Tears sprang to Claire’s eyes. Douglas looked shocked. Liam began whistling in such a soft monotone that it was barely perceptible, and slightly rocking back and forth, something he did when upset. Maxine and Henry shared a shocked look, and Henry put his arm around his wife. Dr. Aldridge shook his head. Even Joey arched an eyebrow.
“What the hell?” Marco said. “You bring me all the way out here, makin’ promises about how Rosita will give up the island without a fight, and now the broad is gone?”
Eddie gave Marco a forced smile. “Don’t worry—we’ll find the bitch. She’s not getting away with some stupid game to try to ruin our deal.”
At that, Marco’s lips curled in a pleased grin, either unaware of or uncaring about the awkward tension among everyone else. Maxine’s eyes widened, and Henry squeezed her hand. Liam fell silent, while Claire and Douglas exchanged alarmed glances. Dr. Aldridge stared down, I held back a snort. Did they really think Eddie was going to act a gentleman if Rosita didn’t go along with his demands?
“Cormac is searching all the rooms now—” Eddie started.
“That’s why you made us come down here at an indecent hour, not even properly dressed, so Cormac can toss our rooms?” Claire asked.
“So Cormac can see if Rosita is hiding in any of the rooms—or the kitchen, the casino, or elsewhere.”
“If she’s not in the mansion,” Joey said, his grin showing he thought he was about to be clever, “did she run off in the storm? Throw herself into the lake?”
His boss gave the boy a hard look, and Joey’s smile dissolved while he shrank back toward the wall. Joey would have to learn his place, and quickly, if he was going to survive in the world of men like Marco and Eddie.
Eddie turned to Henry. “The other buildings—they’re all locked up?”
Henry nodded. “The pool house. The storage buildings by the north and west docks. The storage sheds by the tennis courts and by the gardens.”
Locking those made sense, especially as the dock storage buildings often held bootleg, fuel for the boats, and at least one case of dynamite leftover from the blasting of the hard rock to form the basement for the mansion.
“You’re the only one who has a full set of keys to the mansion, the buildings?”
Henry frowned slightly. “Well, and you—”
“No,” Eddie snapped. “I gave them to Rosita the last time I was here.”
Flung them at her in an argument after Oliver’s burial, I recollected. I was in the suite, setting out a snack and drinks, when Rosita demanded a divorce, and Eddie said he’d never give her one. Then she demanded the keys to her mansion, and he’d thrown them at her, narrowly missing her head. They’d hit the wall. Again, the words he’d shouted at her echoed in my mind: Don’t try my patience. If I have to force you to come back to me, you’ll be sorry …
“They’re not in her suite, so I think she took them with her.”
“You can look in those places but you won’t find her there,” Claire said, her voice raspy. She blinked back tears and cleared her throat. “When we were kids, we loved to come here every summer to spend a few weeks with our grandfather. Well, Rosita did.” She gave a sentimental laugh. “I just loved to be with her, wanted to follow her around everywhere—she had that pull even as a kid, you know?”
She looked directly at Douglas. “You know.”
He gave a little nod, dropped his head.
“And she loved the lighthouse, the cottage. They aren’t locked up, are they?”
Henry shook his head.
Eddie gave an impatient wave. “So what, you think she’s hiding there?”
“Maybe. But there are other places, too. A small cave, for one thing, near the north dock.”
Liam stopped rocking. His eyes widened. Eddie gave him a withering look.
What is that about?
Claire stood and moved to a hand-drawn map of the island, hanging on the wall near the library’s entry. She pointed to faint lines crisscrossing it. “Rosita made this map as a kid. She’d learned the shortcut paths our grandfather had cleared across the island. She knew all the hiding spots on the island—the cave near the north dock, other small caves, coves on the edge of the lake.”
“Those would be overgrown by now,” Joey said derisively.
Claire gave him a hard look. “But she’d remember them.”
“Do you?” Eddie asked.
Claire’s shoulders slumped. “Barely.”
“But Rosita told me you and she visited for two weeks every summer,” I said.
Claire cocked an eyebrow and smirked. “That’s what you talked about out by the pool? This damned island?”
We talked about a lot of things, out by the pool at the McGees’ Toledo house, or in the cool sitting room of the mansion, or on the back porch. Or often we didn’t talk. Rosita caught me staring one afternoon with both longing and trepidation at the pool, and asked if I was afraid of water. No, I told her, I used to love to swim. I couldn’t bring myself to tell her why I’d lost that love. She encouraged me—taunted me, really—until I jumped in. Almost immediately, trepidation slid away as I sluiced through the water. I rediscovered my love of swimming. After that, Rosita encouraged me to swim in the pool whenever I wanted, weather permitting. She found great amusement in watching me swim back and forth.
“Maybe you know all her hiding spots, and just aren’t saying,” Claire added. All eyes turned to me, questioning.
I pushed the memory of swimming in the pool, of Rosita encouraging me, aside. I shook my head. “She wasn’t that specific, only said the island was a magical place to her.” My heart panged as I recollected her saying that my presence here had ruined the island for her. “But surely, with the map—”
“You will remember Rosita’s spots,” Eddie snapped, as if he could force Claire into recollection.
Claire sighed. “Okay, the lighthouse. A cave on the northeastern side, near the north dock.” At that, Liam stiffened and stared at Claire.
I noted his reaction.
“Any number of rock formations, trees—”
Marco groaned. “This is ridiculous.”
“Anyone going out there best be careful,” Henry said.
“A little snow won’t hurt us,” Joey said.
“No, but there’s a black bear that I sighted a few weeks ago while I was out. I think she got stuck here as a cub last winter and somehow never left with the rest of her family.”
“There are bears on this island?” Dr. Aldridge spluttered.
“Not usually,” Henry said. “But sometimes in the winter, after the lake freezes, if their hibernation is disturbed they might cross from Canada, seeking a new resting spot, and stop on the island—”
“Yes,” Liam said. “Especially long ago when the Erie Indians lived in this part of the world, animals would cross on the frozen lake. Humans, too. I’ve found arrowheads, and also a few artifacts from Civil War soldiers escaping combat, and also items that I think are from runaway slaves—”
“Some of your people?” Marco chuckled, looking at Henry and Maxine. No one laughed along with him.
Eddie glared at Henry. “There was a bear on this island, while I had guests here? Why didn’t you shoot it?”
“The guests rarely walk the main path, and never go off of it. They stay in the mansion, on the grounds, and the bear wasn’t aggressive. She was probably confused after waking up this past spring, and I’m hoping this winter she’ll leave on the ice—”
“No one gives a damn, just shoot it if you see it,” Eddie said.
Cormac entered the library. He shook his head.
Eddie’s face slackened for a moment.
“Right,” Eddie finally said. “So we’re going to divide into search parties—”
“Boss,” Cormac said. It was a shock to hear him interrupt Eddie. “What if Mrs. McGee left? In one of the speedboats.”
“She doesn’t know how to drive them, and she’s afraid of the lake. She’s here—somewhere on this island!”
Eddie’s voice strained with the frantic need to believe what he said. But as we looked at one another, I could see in everyone else’s eyes that they thought Cormac’s explanation was much more likely.
My heart sped.
I wish I could say it was due to concern for Rosita, out on the dangerous, icy lake. And it was, in part.
But I also knew that if we didn’t find Rosita, or some evidence that I had had nothing to do with her leaving, then Eddie would likely tell everyone who I was, what brought me to Trouble Island.
For if Rosita blamed my murdering Pony as the catalyst of events that led to Oliver’s death, then so, too, would Marco blame me for being the root cause of his nephew’s death.
He’d have Joey shoot me.
Or do it himself.
With everyone alert and looking for Rosita, I had no chance to escape for the time being.
I had to find Rosita.