Ismay held her breath as she heard Bo and Bastian at the door. She didn’t want to let on that she was in the house again—and yet, if she didn’t speak up and Bastian later realized she’d been there, it wouldn’t look good.
She sat warring with herself for several seconds and eventually decided she had to get up and say hello. But she couldn’t make herself do it. Bastian would almost certainly get the wrong idea when she popped up behind Bo at the door. That he kept finding them together would make them appear to be far closer than would seem justified by the length of time they’d known each other. She knew that because he’d insinuated she had no right to be at Bo’s when he caught her here the last time. So if there was a chance her presence could slip by unnoticed, she should probably take it. Why open herself up to Bastian’s judgment all over again? Remy’s brother might even be offended, like he was before, that she’d chosen to spend her time with Bo instead of him, a decision that would be hard for her to defend to Remy, especially since it kept happening.
Once she’d sunk back into her seat at the table, she scooted lower to hide herself a little more, should he peer in the window before he left—she wouldn’t put that kind of nosiness past him; since his family owned the bungalow, he’d feel entitled—and could only hope that Bo wouldn’t say anything about her being there. It wasn’t as if she had any way of communicating her thoughts to him at this point...
“My mother’s been trying to reach you and hasn’t heard back,” Bastian was saying.
“I’ve been up on the roof, haven’t had my phone on me,” Bo responded. “I’ll give her a call after I eat. Or...is this some sort of emergency?”
“It’s not an emergency. She just wanted to see if your house was okay. The restoration company called to tell her they can’t get out until tomorrow.”
“Not sure why they bothered her. I had it all lined up. But I’ve been wondering why they didn’t show.”
“They probably called her because she’ll be the one paying their bill, right?”
Ismay bristled at the arrogance in Bastian’s tone. Did he have to be so rude to Bo?
“I work for my compensation, and this house is part of it,” Bo stated, obviously feeling some antagonism himself.
“Whoa! No need to snap at me,” Bastian said. “You asked why they’d call her. I was just pointing out the obvious.”
“I’m aware of the obvious,” Bo bit out.
The hostility between the two men—which had so far remained under the surface—was starting to ooze through the cracks. Actually, Bastian hadn’t changed. It was Bo. He had to be tired of taking Bastian’s shit because he wasn’t allowing Bastian to push him any further.
Ismay couldn’t help being concerned for him. Bo wasn’t in as strong of a position as the spoiled son of the rich family who employed him. She desperately hoped Bastian wouldn’t become aware of the fact that she’d spent much of the day with Bo and even cooked him dinner. That wouldn’t help matters.
“Great. Give her a call. When it’s convenient for you, of course,” Bastian added, as if Bo had been needlessly testy.
Bo said nothing. He just shut the door. Then he walked to the sink where he stopped and stared out, presumably watching Bastian leave.
“Do you think he knows I’m here?” Ismay asked, keeping her voice down.
“No way. That would’ve gone much worse if he did, especially because you were here the last time he came over.”
“I don’t think it went very well as it was,” she said.
He shrugged. “He likes to push my buttons.”
“He likes to push everyone’s buttons.”
“Especially if he feels he can get away with it,” Bo pointed out. “I’ve met guys like him before...”
“Where you grew up?” she asked.
“No, not there,” he replied. “But plenty of other places.”
Other places. He never got specific, didn’t like to talk about his past, but given the violence that’d claimed his mother’s life, she supposed she could understand.
Once she felt safe Bastian wouldn’t be able to see her, she got up and peered through the window, too, just in time to see Remy’s brother disappear behind the hedge between this property and Windsor Cottage. “It was nice of you to offer to let Jack stay here. But now I know we can’t take you up on the offer.”
His eyes focused on her. “You’re not saying that because of Bastian...”
“I am saying it because of Bastian. You don’t need another source of friction between you and your employer’s sons.”
“I can’t help it if Remy and Bastian have been overly indulged and turned out to be arrogant assholes. I’m sorry if that offends you, but I’m not going to let either one of them dictate what I do—beyond what I’m getting paid to do, of course.”
She shoved her hands in the pockets of her faded jeans. “The Windsors own this house. What if they say you can’t charge rent for a roommate?”
“I wasn’t going to charge Jack.”
“There’s no way he’d stay for free, Bo. He wouldn’t be comfortable if he wasn’t compensating you in some way.”
“Then we’ll work out a trade—the room in exchange for cooking or something.”
That sounded fair. As far as the Windsors knew, he’d be a guest, and she couldn’t see how they could object to Bo having a temporary guest—even if it was her brother. And with Jack staying in the bungalow, she’d have some time to make other arrangements, even if Honey decided not to go visit her family. “I have no doubt he’d help with whatever you need. He’s a handy guy to have around. He could even chop down the tree that fell in the garden and repair the fence.”
“We’ll get along fine. Sounds like you’d better cancel his stay at Hotel Mariners, if you can.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “You’re okay with him coming tonight?”
“As long as he’s okay with the fact that this place isn’t in the best shape at the moment...”
“He won’t care about that. As I said, he’d be happy to help you get it pulled back together.”
“Fine. I’m looking forward to meeting him. There’s no need to make him pay for a hotel.”
“Are you sure?” she asked. “I don’t want to take advantage of your kindness or put you in a bad situation. You barely know me—and you don’t know Jack at all.”
A mock scowl creased his face. “What do you mean? We’ve spent two nights together.”
She smiled at his joke. “And you’ve taught me to play chess. We’ve covered a lot of ground in just a few days.”
She thought he might mention their secret meeting on the beach and the stuff she’d shown him from the duffel bag. In some ways, she felt closer to him than to most people she knew.
He gestured at their food. “Let’s finish eating.”
With a nod, she followed him back to the table. So far, her trip to Mariners hadn’t been anything like she’d envisioned. Instead of enjoying the carefree vacation she’d been hoping for—a chance to rest up and play before having Remy join her, at which point they’d work to fix the cracks in their relationship—she felt more stressed than ever. But she was glad she’d met Bo. She wished she could stay with him and Jack instead of having to go back to the cottage...and Bastian.
Ismay found Bastian sprawled on the couch watching a movie and drinking whiskey from a nearby bottle. He was drunk, and she could tell the moment she walked in.
“There you are!” he bellowed. “I didn’t expect you to be gone all day. Where’ve you been?”
His imperious tone immediately got on her nerves. “I told you where I was going,” she said, fighting to keep the irritation out of her voice. “I went to town.”
“All day? What were you doing?”
She hated having to lie and resented the fact that he was questioning her so closely in the first place. “A lot of things,” she replied.
He pushed himself up. “You don’t have any bags. Must not have done much shopping.”
“I looked around, but I didn’t buy anything. I have to be careful with my money. I’ll be starting my own law practice in the fall.”
“How will you open a law practice if you don’t have any money?” he asked skeptically. Then suspicion dawned on his face and he tipped his glass toward her as if he’d figured out the answer to his own question. “Or is that where Remy comes in?”
She felt her spine stiffen. “Remy doesn’t have anything to do with it. I can take on work without having an office and grow from there.” She pointed to her head. “I have my mind, and I have a computer. That’s all I really need to be able to work.”
“Might not impress your clients to meet you at the public library...”
“I’m barely out of law school, Bastian. Everyone has to start somewhere.”
“My parents know a lot of people,” he said. “They can probably throw a few clients your way.”
“Not unless the people they know live in California, because that’s where I’m licensed.”
He seemed startled by this declaration. “You and Remy won’t be moving to New York?”
She blinked at him. “No.”
“Interesting...”
“Why’s it interesting?”
“I’m pretty sure that’s what my parents are expecting.”
Had Remy led them to believe that? Because he’d never mentioned it to her. And he’d also be licensed in California. “I’m sorry to hear that, because it’s not in our plans.”
He tossed back what was left in his glass. “You don’t like me very much, do you?”
A denial rushed to her lips. But the tension between them was so thick she knew he’d be able to tell she was lying as soon as the words came out of her mouth. So she decided to be honest. “You’ve done everything you can to make me not like you.”
He set his empty glass on the table. “If I stop acting like a prick, will it help?”
She dropped her purse on the table next to the couch opposite his. “It certainly could.”
“Fine. Why don’t we start over? Get things right this time? What do you say? Otherwise, it’s going to be a long summer.”
Summer? Did he plan to stay? Before she could ask, he said, “Let’s go out to dinner tonight to signify the beginning of a brand-new beautiful relationship.”
She didn’t trust his sudden change of heart. She didn’t understand what had instigated it or how long it would last. “I already ate.”
“Oh, come on,” he said. “You’re far too leery of me. I’m not that bad. Really. And you don’t have to eat. Just order a drink or dessert or something. We don’t even have to go to town. We can walk over to the restaurant you went to last night.”
Except she’d never visited that restaurant. Was there some way he’d be able to figure that out?
She couldn’t see how. If he asked what kind of wine she’d had, she’d say she didn’t remember unless she had the menu in front of her, in which case, she’d just pick one. It would be difficult to turn him down. It was only seven o’clock and she had to pick up her brother with the Jeep, if it was available, at ten o’clock. Her alternative was to sit with Bastian and watch TV until Jack arrived.
She preferred to go to the restaurant. At least there’d be other people around. And he was watching some horror flick she had zero interest in. “Fine. Let me grab a sweater.”
He was waiting for her at the foot of the stairs when she came down. She’d changed, pulled her hair into a messy bun on top of her head, and applied some lip gloss. He’d cleaned up a little, too. She could smell his cologne before she even reached him.
“All set?” he asked.
She was impressed by how well he held his liquor. She guessed he’d had quite a bit, but he didn’t sway or slur his words. He’d combed his hair and pulled on some chinos with a simple cashmere sweater. That sweater had probably cost five hundred dollars, but he wore it as casually as a holey T-shirt.
“I’ve never seen identical twins quite as identical as you and Remy,” she said. “It’s uncanny. I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to it.”
“Are you kidding me? I’m so much better-looking than he is.”
She smiled—grudgingly. She did like the way Bastian wore his hair. It was longer than Remy’s and slightly curly in front, reminding her of the actor Timothée Chalamet.
“You might be too pretty to go out with me,” she said jokingly.
He made a face. “I’m not buying that. You’re gorgeous. With any luck, you’ll decide to marry me instead of my brother.”
He laughed as though he was joking, but she still found that an odd thing to say. “Wow, you really are turning over a new leaf.”
“It might seem like he’s the better man—” he winked “—but you haven’t gotten to know me yet.”
Charming Bastian should’ve bothered her as much as the former version. But it was hard not to soften, at least a little, since he was finally making an effort to be nice. And it wasn’t just that. For the first time, she noticed a hollowness in his eyes that made her wonder if he acted the way he did because he was miserable. And that begged the question—what could possibly be wrong?
Bo had searched the internet for the girl who matched the picture Ismay had given him—and, like Ismay, had come up empty-handed. But without a name, he couldn’t perform a very thorough search. He felt she had to have lived on the island, wasn’t just a tourist. But really, she could be anyone. And the stuff in the duffel bag could have no meaning. But he had little doubt some of the rapists and murderers who’d been behind bars with him had taken trophies that resembled what Ismay had found. He was aware of that behavior in an up close and personal way.
Bottom line, it was a safe bet that anyone who’d hidden such items—in the wall of a closet no less—was trouble, which was why he was so alarmed.
But it wasn’t in just anyone’s closet. It was in Remy’s closet—someone who was supposedly a law-abiding soon-to-be doctor. Did that change anything?
Bo sure as hell hoped so.
He checked the clock. He had some time before Jack would be arriving—time he could use to attempt to solve this mystery.
He grabbed a jacket and pulled it on before stepping outside and locking the door behind him. He thought about asking Ivy Hawthorne, who’d worked at the public library since she was a teenager, and kept abreast of what happened on the island better than almost anyone. But the library had closed for the day.
He could pay Honey another visit, though. It was probably risky to create a potential connection between him and the girl in the photo, but he trusted that Honey would never try to make trouble for him.
When he reached the road, he couldn’t help glancing toward Windsor Cottage and wondering how Ismay was doing with Bastian. Knowing Remy’s brother was alone in the house with her made him feel he needed to figure out what the items in the duffel bag signified as soon as possible.
The porch light was on at Honey’s, even though it wasn’t quite dark. He’d put her lights on a timer, just to help keep her safe, and had set them for thirty minutes before sundown so they’d be glowing even before she needed them.
“Hi, Bo,” she said when she answered his knock. “Don’t tell me you’ve come to cancel our lunch tomorrow...”
“No. I just wanted to make sure the timer on the lights was still working.”
“It’s been working perfectly. Just like magic,” she said. “Why don’t you come in?” She pushed the screen door wider. “I’ll give you a piece of the coffee cake I just baked for our lunch tomorrow.”
He could smell it from the door. “Sounds great.”
Her place was getting a bit threadbare since she didn’t replace anything as it grew older, but it was always clean and tidy. He sat at her small kitchenette, where she offered him a cup of coffee with the cake, which he gladly accepted. There was a small TV on the counter. She had a classic black-and-white movie on, and Clementine immediately jumped into his lap and twitched her tail back and forth. “Can I bring anything for lunch tomorrow?”
“Good Lord, no,” she said. “I can certainly manage a meal for four.”
“It’s nice of you to do it—and to consider letting Jack house-sit if you go to Pennsylvania.”
“Divorce is so hard,” she said, shaking her head.
He wouldn’t know, but he could imagine it wasn’t easy.
While he ate the cake, Honey pulled Clementine into her own lap, and they talked about the historical society and the house Honey had been helping them save—the oldest house on the island—which they’d moved to safer ground before it could be lost to erosion. He was finished with his cake and his coffee by the time he brought the conversation around to the real reason he’d come. “Have you ever seen this girl?” he asked, showing her the picture Ismay had sent him on his phone.
Honey nudged Clementine so the cat would jump down, and got her reading glasses from a stack of magazines she’d pushed off to one side of the table. “She’s not familiar to me. Why do you ask?”
“I found this photograph tucked inside one of the library books I have and wanted to find its owner,” he said, using the lie he’d prepared in advance.
“That’s so nice of you. Old photographs can be priceless treasures. But—” Honey shook her head “—I can’t say she’s from around here.”
“No worries. At least I tried.” He thanked her for dessert and said he’d better get back and prepare for Jack’s arrival. It was getting late, and he still needed to remove his weights from that room and make up the bed.
He was already on his way to the door when she called him back.
“Bo?”
“What?”
“I just thought of something,” she said. “Can I see that picture again?”
He took out his phone and turned the screen toward her.
She pursed her lips as she took it and studied it closely. “This could be the girl who died in that fire...”
“What fire?” he asked.
“The one at the McMurtry place over by the golf course.”
“I don’t remember a fire.”
“It happened before you got here, probably eight, nine years ago. Sean McMurtry was a prominent artist who lived here half the year. His stuff is still in some of the galleries in town. Anyway, his son and some friends were partying one night when he and his wife were off the island. The power went out, so they were using candles and... I don’t remember exactly what happened. Two kids started fighting or something, a liquor bottle fell and smashed on the floor, and a candle got knocked over.”
“That’s what started the fire?”
“If memory serves. And if this girl is the one I’m thinking of, everyone got out except her.”
“Do the McMurtrys still live on Mariners?”
“No. Once the insurance money rebuilt the house, they sold it. I don’t think any of them have been back since. Who’d want to face that memory?”
“What about her family?”
She gave his phone back. “If I remember right, they were locals who lived here year-round. Her father managed one of the hotels in town. I doubt they’re still here, though.”
“Do you remember their name?”
She shook her head. “But you could probably look it up. There must’ve been an article or two written about it—maybe not in the national news but something local. The incident rocked the whole island. The McMurtrys were criticized for leaving their son unchaperoned, and the boy had a rough go of it, too. It was a tragedy for everyone concerned.”
“Sounds like it.” Bo slipped his phone back in his pocket. “I’ll look for an article. Considering the circumstances, this picture might be important to the girl’s family.”
“That’s a strong possibility. It’s nice of you to go to the trouble. You’re so good to everyone.”
Since he didn’t deserve the praise—not in regard to this—he chafed at it. “See you tomorrow.”
She walked him to the door and called out, “Good night,” as he left, and he moved as if he weren’t in any particular hurry. But once he reached the darkness outside the circle of her porch light, he picked up the pace. He was eager to learn if the girl in the photograph was, indeed, the one who’d lost her life in that house fire. Because if he could establish who she was, he might also be able to figure out why Remy would have a picture of her in a duffel bag hidden in the wall of his closet with some underwear and jewelry...