Chapter 3

Drake Isle

Emmy

“And let yourself go,” Emmy finished in a soft voice. She looked around the yoga studio at eight bodies lying prone on their mats, arms and legs outstretched. Breathing deeply. Eyes closed. Resting in Savasana pose for the final five minutes of her traditional vinyasa class. Corpse Pose was its translation, but Emmy preferred to use Sanskrit terms when she taught.

Besides, the word corpse called up way too many nightmarish images for her to use it every day.

She turned up the meditation music and put some lavender oil into the diffuser. Then she sat cross-legged, touched her forefingers and thumbs together, and closed her own eyes. Yoga had been the only thing to save her after what happened to Piper.

From despair.

From guilt-induced insomnia.

From suicide, if she was honest with herself.

Every day for six months after Emmy’s best friend died, she woke each morning and thought about the ways she would kill herself. Where, when, and how, and what would be the easiest for her loved ones to clean up.

The only thing that stopped her, finally, was the grief of everyone that Piper had left behind. Emmy’s suicide would only compound that grief, and she knew it. There was no easy way to clean up the mess of death, however it occurred. So she moved to Georgia for a while. Then Florida. Then the Keys, as if trying to get as far away from Drake Isle as she could without leaving the country. One day she’d been walking down the street in the middle of a rainstorm, without an umbrella, because it made no difference if she got wet, and looked up to see a small yellow door.

Third Eye Yoga, read the sign on the front. And because Emmy had nothing left to lose, she walked inside and found herself again.

Now she took a deep breath and let it go. Teaching didn’t give her quite the same sense of peace that practicing as a student had, but it did make her feel like she was creating some small difference in the world, bringing quiet and calm to the people on the island, and that counted for a lot to someone who’d lived without quiet and calm for years.

“Begin to reawaken to the room,” she said in a soft voice. She stood and adjusted the music and the lights. “In your own time, find your way back to a comfortable seated position...”

She finished class with the ritualistic words of namaste, her head bowed in prayer over hands and heart, and murmured thanks as her students collected their things and rolled up their mats.

“Don’t forget, Teen Class tomorrow at five,” she said. Kate Dorcas, a shy fifteen year-old who never looked anyone in the eye, gave Emmy a small smile and nodded.

“Thank you,” said Sammi Dorcas, Kate’s mom. “I’m going to try and get my younger one to come too. Lord knows she could use some calming down.”

“It’s only a half-hour,” Emmy reminded her. “It should be a good chance for them to get the hang of it without being overwhelmed.”

She said some more goodbyes and then, after everyone left, locked her front door and walked into the small office behind her studio.

It hadn’t been easy, coming back to Drake Isle. If Emmy’d had much choice in the matter, she would have moved out to Iowa or Minnesota or someplace that held no memories and no meaning. Or maybe she would’ve stayed in the Florida Keys, assuming she could afford it. Someplace she could forget the past and move forward without looking back over her shoulder.

But she would have done almost anything for her mother, so when the sickness set in, she agreed to return. And if Emmy was honest with herself, something about the island had always pulled her back. Unfinished business. Or unburied memories. So she came back.

It wasn’t that she disliked Drake Isle. On the contrary, she’d loved it from the moment she stepped off the ferry as an eighteen year old, heady and naive, with a full scholarship to Misterion College. For four years she’d loved it: the sea at dawn, the sand between her toes, the grasses that never stilled, the sky that went on forever. The people, the homes, the history of the place. The stately stone buildings. The classes and professors that stretched her horizons. The boy who stole her heart.

It was only the final three days that broke her.

Silence settled inside the three-story warehouse she and her mother had painstakingly gutted and redesigned from the bottom up. It’s the investment of a lifetime, her mother had said, and Emmy had to admit she was right. She’d gotten this building for a fraction of what it was worth. Now it had two separate apartments upstairs with huge living rooms, bedrooms, and full kitchens and baths. Ocean views from every room. Meanwhile, the first floor had become Emmy’s studio and her sanctuary, a humming heart, inspiring her and keeping her alive.

Thankfully, the island didn’t have another yoga studio, and the minute she opened her doors, curious island residents started coming to her classes. Her building sat between Sea Change, a kitschy shop that sold everything from dream catchers to stained glass artwork, and The Right Wrench, the island’s only hardware store. On the block behind her was the Medical Center, the police station, the firehouse, and a liquor store. And at the very end of Harbor Street, overlooking the ocean, sat the Anchor and the Mermaid bar, a staple on the island for over a hundred years.

Almost everyone who either visited Drake Isle or lived on it had to pass by the front door of Inner Sanctum, and Emmy thanked her lucky stars every day that she’d been able to afford the building when island real estate prices tanked after the college closed.

Silver linings, her mother always reminded her. They’re all around us. We just have to look hard to find them sometimes.

Emmy sank into her desk chair. Today’s silver lining was that she had no more classes to teach until this afternoon, which gave her plenty of time to straighten out her mortgage mess with the bank. She scanned the last email from them.

...if you cannot complete your missed mortgage payments, the Bay Bank will not adjust your future payment schedule...unfortunately, foreclosure is the next step...

She hadn’t meant to fall behind. Who did? But a faulty boiler, then a blown transmission in her ten-year-old car, then her mother’s medical bills, had left her struggling. She’d never dreamed how much even a modest funeral could cost. Thankfully, just as she’d been exploring the idea of either selling her building or taking out another mortgage on it, her mother’s alma mater had sent a generous donation, and she had the money to catch up.

The check had arrived two days ago, but Kim at the bank had told her it might take up to forty-eight hours to clear, so she’d waited impatiently. Now Emmy opened her savings account to double-check the balance before she started moving money around.

“The mortgage first,” she said aloud, ticking off priorities on her fingers. “Then my credit card bills, and then the electric bill.” Or maybe the electric bill first? She wasn’t sure how long before Island Power might turn off her account. The owner’s daughter took yoga classes on a regular basis, but Emmy knew she could only hope for mercy for so long.

She logged in, scanned her checking account – a fat three hundred and forty-two dollars in that one – clicked over to her savings account, and froze.

“Okay, I hit the wrong key or something.” She logged out, logged back in and checked again. Her throat went tight. Her chest followed suit.

Three hundred dollars?

She went back to her checking account. Nope, the donation hadn’t been deposited there by mistake. She pulled the banking receipt from her wallet, dated two days ago. Five thousand dollars had definitely gone in.

And now, somehow, sometime in the last two days, it had gone back out.

She grabbed her cell phone and dialed the bank.

“Customer service, how may I help you?”

“Kim, it’s Emerson Doyle.”

“Hey, Em, how are you?”

“Not so good. I’m looking at my savings account, and it says there’s only a couple hundred dollars in it. But I just deposited a check for five thousand dollars the other day.”

Kim didn’t say anything for a moment. “Okay, give me the number of the account and then the last four of your social security number.”

Emmy did so, running her fingers over the keyboard. Just a mistake. An accounting error. It had to be. In a minute, Kim would make the correction, and Emmy’s computer would update with the right balance, and everything would be fine. Technology was amazing that way.

“Em, that money was taken out in two separate withdrawals. Yesterday and this morning.”

Chills splashed over her. “What are you talking about?”

“There’s an electronic withdrawal for two thousand dollars right before noon yesterday, and then another for a little over three thousand dollars, with a timestamp of six o’clock this morning.” Kim paused. “You’re saying you didn’t take it out? Either time?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

There was a pause, a clicking sound, and then Kim said, “Hang on. Let me transfer you to the manager.”

It was the longest five minutes of Emmy’s life. When she finally hung up the phone seven minutes later, she could barely breathe.

He stole from me.

He stole from me?

It had to be Bryan. Who else had access to her savings account?

She closed her eyes and summoned up a Sanskrit prayer. Then she pulled her knees into her chest and called her best friend.

“Hey, Em.” Liza James answered on the first ring.

“Bryan cleaned out my savings account. All the money I had to catch up on my mortgage payments. It’s gone.” Her voice shook. The phone shook in her hand. This isn’t happening. This can’t be happening.

“Wait, what? How? Didn’t you break up with him?”

“Last week.” Actually, it had been ten days ago, and her ex had taken nearly twelve hours to pack the two bags he’d brought with him last year when he moved in. Aspiring guitarist. A musician just waiting on his big break from Nashville. Except he’d done more waiting and living off Emmy and Inner Sanctum than anything else.

“You’re sure it was him?”

“No. But how else does five thousand dollars disappear overnight without some major breach at the bank? I already called them. Kim told me it was two separate withdrawals, yesterday and this morning. It had to be him.” She hit her head against her hand until she saw stars. I’m an idiot.

“He had access to your account?”

“He paid the bills the last couple of months. Said he was helping me out.” Oh my God, what’s wrong with me? Baby mamas on daytime talk shows had more brains and better decision-making capabilities than she did. “So yeah, he knew the passwords I used.” She wanted to wring her own neck. Why didn’t I change them? Mind-blowing sex and the charm of having someone write her love songs had lowered her guard. This one will be different, she’d told herself. This one will last.

Yeah, right.

“What did Kim say?”

“Well, she, and then the manager, confirmed that someone with the right username and password logged in and withdrew the money. Or transferred it to another account, I guess, but now that account is closed or they can’t trace it or something.” She hadn’t been able to concentrate long enough to hear the details. “There weren’t any red flags because the amounts were small enough. And the name and password were right. I didn’t get hacked. I just got robbed.” Her throat tightened around the words. “It happened somewhere in or around Boston. That’s the most they could narrow it down.”

“He’s in Boston?”

“Apparently.” Bryan had friends all over the country, other musicians also waiting for their own big breaks and letting each other crash on couches and eat cold takeout. And maybe also stealing from starry-eyed girlfriends.

You were right, Mom. She looked at the picture of her and her mother at the Jersey shore last summer, the last time they’d traveled together. Matching smiles and red hair and arms looped around each other’s necks, the boardwalk bright and busy behind them. Before the cancer. Before the chemo and the vomit and the heartbreak.

“Did you call the police?”

“Not yet.”

“You have to.”

“I know. But they’ll think I’m an idiot. Or that I’m lying. He had my username and password, Liza. Up until a month ago, we were sleeping together.”

“Doesn’t matter. His name wasn’t on the account. Was it?”

“No. I’m not that stupid.” Just a little left of that degree of stupidity, apparently. “Damn it!” She punched the desk. Pain shot all the way up her wrist.

“Hang on,” she said as Liza babbled on. “Someone’s knocking.” She walked through the studio and peered through the curtains on the front door. Her hours were posted outside, and most people in town knew if the flowered Open sign was turned over, her door was locked. She couldn’t see anyone from her angle inside the foyer, though. All she could make out was a shadow and a black Mercedes parked at the curb.

The person knocked again. Emmy sighed. “Let me call you back,” she said as she turned the deadbolt. She opened the door, and the phone slipped from her hand.

A ghost stared down at her, with a face that looked like a man she’d known a long time ago. In another life. He stood on the step with an uncertain expression, one hand straightening an expensive-looking tie that didn’t need to be straightened.

“Blake?”

But it couldn’t be.

She hadn’t seen or spoken to her college boyfriend in ten years. Since the week before graduation. Since Piper Townsend died, and the world as they both knew it shattered. It’s not Blake. It just looked like him. Plenty of men on the island were tall and dark-haired and blue-eyed. She was tired from everything she’d been through the last few months. Or hallucinating, or still confused by her conversation with the bank. Or dehydrated or something. Because what would Blake Carter be doing back on Drake Isle?

The ghost on her doorstep opened his mouth, and ten years vanished in the span of a heartbeat.

“Hi, Emmy. It’s been a while.”

Fourteen Years Earlier, Delta Eta Chi House: Blake

“See the redhead by the keg?” Blake had been eyeing her for the last hour, downing beer after beer and trying to get up the nerve to approach her.

“Yeah.” Trey shaded his eyes against the too-bright lights of the fraternity house basement. He belched and sucked down a jello shot, then chased it with a beer. “Nice rack.”

Nice everything, Blake wanted to say, but he contented himself with the view. He’d seen her a few times around campus, but this was the first time she’d come to a Delta party. That in itself made her interesting. Most of the other freshmen girls sold their eyeteeth, or at least left their panties at home, to get in the front door of Delta as soon as they arrived on campus.

Not the redhead. He hadn’t seen her anywhere near the fraternity quad until tonight.

He watched her laugh at something one of the senior brothers said, and jealousy surged through him. The red plastic cup in his hand cracked, and beer ran down his wrist.

Trey laughed. “Just go talk to her.”

But that was easier said than done. She had a crowd of admirers standing around her, hanging on every word. Blake might be a Legacy Delta brother, but right now, in this hot, damp basement that smelled like spilled beer and weed and cheap cologne, he was a tongue-tied freshman who couldn’t do anything more than lean against the wall and stare.

She’d done that, even from the start. Emerson Doyle had made Blake’s world spin out of control, and nothing had ever been the same after.