Chapter 59
59
Brooke smiled wanly. “I saw you come riding up on your bike. I was hoping you wouldn’t see me. What were you digging for over there? Buried treasure?”
Cara hoisted herself up and onto the floor of the tree house. The floor platform was a little larger than a king-size bed. The side walls were actually three foot railings, and the roof was held up by four-by-four posts. This must be what a rich kid’s tree house looked like.
“When I was kicking the sand I felt something solid under my shoe. I guess it was the old threshold for your family’s house.”
That perked her up. “The one that said Loblolly?”
“Yes.”
“I can’t believe you found that. It must be the one thing the fucking Park Service didn’t destroy.”
“You didn’t know they’d torn the house down?”
“No! I had no idea. When I got down to St. Marys on Saturday, I’d already missed the ferry. I should have just gotten a motel room and come the next morning, but in the frame of mind I was in, all I could think of was getting over here to Loblolly. I went to the marina and took a charter boat to the Sea Camp dock. By the time I’d hiked down here, it was almost sunset. For a minute there, I thought maybe I’d somehow gotten turned around and gone the wrong way. Which made no sense. I mean, Dungeness is right over there.”
Her finger stabbed the still, humid air, in the direction of the brick-and-stucco ruins. “So where was our house? I mean, how could it have just disappeared? Then, I saw the pile of bricks, and of course, you can still sort of see the outline of where the house was. I kind of went a little crazy. Okay, I was already halfway there, but the house being gone, that pushed me over the edge.”
“What did you do?” Cara asked.
“You mean after I cried and carried on and stood over there on the bluff and screamed so loud I scared the feral horses and nearly gave a hiker a heart attack because he thought I’d been bit by a rattlesnake?”
“Yes. What did you do after that?”
“I turned around and started to walk back to Sea Camp. But then I realized there wouldn’t be a ferry back to the mainland until the next morning. I had my overnight bag, but no tent or sleeping bag—and it was getting dark. I didn’t know what else to do, so I called Pete.”
“Your ranger friend?”
She nodded. “That day after we ran into him at lunch and I gave him my business card? He texted me after I got back to the office. I texted back, just to say how glad I was to have seen him, and that was it. He asked me to meet him for a drink, even suggested I should bring Harris, but I said no. I never intended to see Pete again.”
“Then why come over here to Cumberland?” Cara asked. “You knew he’d be here, right?”
“I knew Loblolly would be here.” She laughed ruefully. “Anyway, that’s what I told myself. But with Loblolly gone, what else was I going to do? I had Pete’s number in my phone, so I called him and told him where I was, and he came and got me, no questions asked.”
Cara looked around again at the tree house. “I’m guessing you didn’t stay up here.”
“God, no. Pete has one of the little ranger cabins, so I stayed with him. The mosquitoes would have carried me away up here. Anyway, I’d forgotten all about the tree house until I came back over here yesterday, to see if there was anything left of the house that I could salvage. You know, a doorknob, anything at all. The Park Service was very efficient about obliterating every trace of Loblolly.”
“And you really didn’t know the house was going to be torn down? When was the last time you were here?”
“Mmm, maybe my senior year of high school, so that’s like, ten years ago.”
“Nobody in your family mentioned that the house was gone?”
“No, but that’s understandable. My mom was never really crazy about staying at Loblolly. It was too much like camping for her, but I adored being here. We used to come over a couple times a year for a week or two at a time with my uncle Les and his family, but Les has been dealing with his own family stuff for the past couple years. His wife has breast cancer, and my cousin was nearly killed in a car wreck last Christmas and is still in rehab. I don’t even know if Mom knows Loblolly has been torn down.”
Brooke propped her elbows on her knees and looked out toward the riverbank. Cara took the time to study her. Her short, uncharacteristically messy hair was held back from her face with a rolled-up red bandanna, and she wore a pair of too-big wrinkled khaki shorts and a lime-green tie-dye T-shirt. It looked like she’d gone shopping at the St. Marys Goodwill.
“Did my mom send you to get me?”
“No. I promised not to tell where you’d gone. The only other person who knows where we are is Bert, my assistant. It was his idea for me to text you.”
“Then why are you here?”
Cara didn’t answer at first.
“Shhh. Look.” Cara nodded in the direction of Loblolly. A herd of horses had drifted up and they were nosing about the vegetation around the foundation. There were six of them, four mares and two colts. They were so close, she could hear them whinnying.
“They’re so beautiful,” Cara whispered. “Where did they come from?”
“Nobody really knows. When we were kids we used to pretend they were pirate horses. Some people think they came over with Spanish explorers in the 1500s, but there would have been horses on the early plantations too, plus the Carnegies had their own stables. The Park Service has tried to figure out ways to manage the size of the herd, because they say the horses eat the sea oats and beach grasses that are needed to control beach erosion, but a lot of people love those horses, so it’s just another hot topic on the island.”
“Did you ever try to ride one of those horses?” Cara asked.
“You still haven’t answered my question.”
“I came here to Cumberland to find you and make you understand what a big mistake you’re making. Now you. What are you doing here, Brooke?”
Brooke hugged her knees to her chest. “I guess I’m looking for me too.”
“Oh God,” Cara groaned. “Spare me the existentialism.”
“I just wanted things to slow down a little, okay? I’ve been working all these hours for this trial coming up, and then Friday, my boss came in and said the other side had decided to settle out of court! It was like this huge load had been lifted. But I still had all the wedding stuff to contend with, and my dad and Patricia, and yes, even my mom, although she means well, it was all too, too much.”
Brooke studied Cara. “Haven’t you ever wanted to run away?”
“Sure,” Cara said. “All the time. Everybody wants to run away at some time or another.”
“But not everybody does.”
“True that.” Cara paused, trying to remember the speech she’d rehearsed on the ferryboat. “Harris and your mom are worried sick about you, Brooke. Your mom knows the pressure you’ve been under, and she told me she’s afraid you’ll hurt yourself.”
“Me?” Brooke looked shocked. “Mom thinks I’m suicidal?”
“She doesn’t know what to think. And Harris—he really loves you, Brooke. He broke down in tears when I talked to him. He blames himself for your leaving.”
“He did?” Brooke looked away.
“Why didn’t you just let them know you were going to take a few days off?” Cara asked. “They would have understood.”
Brooke was looking down at something on the floor. She lowered a fingertip to a plank, then lifted it up so Cara could see a tiny ladybug perched there.
“I didn’t plan to leave. I’d been dreading the bachelorette party. I’ve never understood why a girl feels the need to get dressed up in some stupid ‘I’m the Bride’ tiara and beauty-pageant sash and go riding around town with her girlfriends in a limo, getting shit-faced on candy-colored cocktails.”
“Then why have one?”
“Holly—she’s my best friend. And Harris’s sister. I couldn’t hurt her feelings and tell her I didn’t feel like going clubbing. It’s not normal to not want a bachelorette party. Finally, I made myself put on my game face. I was almost ready when I got a text from a number I didn’t recognize. There was no message, just a link.”
“To Harris’s Facebook page,” Cara said. “And the stripper photos.”
Brooke’s head bent over the ladybug, who was beetling her way up her wrist.
“We had another fight about the bachelor party Friday morning, before I left for work. Harris offered not to go—said he’d stay home if it was going to make me that upset. Which made me even angrier. I knew all the guys would blame me if Harris didn’t go, and they’d say he was pussy-whipped.”
“Damned if you do, damned if you don’t,” Cara said.
“He sent me a beautiful bouquet of flowers at work Friday, with the sweetest note, apologizing again and telling me how much he loved me.” Brooke’s face softened.
“He sent you flowers from another florist?” Cara said indignantly.
“He’s a guy. I’m sure he got his secretary to send the flowers,” Brooke said. “Anyway, so then I was feeling guilty about making him feel guilty, but I was still dreading going out. And then that text came Saturday afternoon. And I saw those pictures of him—with that woman—riding him—with her boobs pushed up in his face.…”
“I saw the pictures too, Brooke. He was drunk. So drunk he passed out in the van afterward.”
“Harris told you that? Is he the one who told you the pictures were on Facebook?” She buried her head in her arms. “Did everybody in Savannah see them?”
“Layne, your caterer, saw them, and she sent me the link. Harris deleted the pictures as soon as he found out his friend Mike Bingham had posted them. Brooke? Did you ever figure out who texted you with the Facebook link?”
“No.” She looked up. “I deleted it afterward. Does it matter? Somebody would have told me sooner or later anyway.”
Cara felt herself grinding her back molars. “I have a pretty good idea who wanted to make sure you saw them.”
“Who?”
“I can’t prove it, but I bet Cullen Kane was behind it.”
“The florist? The one Patricia wanted to hire?”
“That’s the one. He’ll do anything he can to mess with me.”
“I don’t get it,” Brooke said.
“It’s a long story. But let’s get back to you. That’s why you left? Because of the photos?”
“Yes.” She held her right hand up to her left and let the ladybug cross over the fingertip bridge. There was a faint band of pale skin where her engagement ring had been. “Honestly? No. That’s the lie I told myself the whole drive down here. I thought I wanted to hurt Harris as much as he’d hurt me. I decided I’d come over here, stay a couple nights at Loblolly, and then go back and get married.”
“You can still go back and get married. Harris won’t care where you’ve been. He just wants you to come back.”
Brooke shook her head. “It’s too late for that now. I can’t marry Harris. I won’t marry him.” She looked over at Cara. “And nothing you can say is going to change my mind.”
She tilted her right hand slightly, and the ladybug nimbly transitioned into the palm of her hand. Brooke stood up and leaned over the wooden railing. She raised her palm to her lips and blew gently.