The Beach Hut on Plum Island

8. CHAPTER 8

Finn adjusted the strap of Maggie’s backpack one final time, ensuring it was snug but not too tight. Maggie, already bubbling with excitement, tugged at her brother’s sleeve, eager to leave. The kids had been talking nonstop about their upcoming trip to the Hamptons to visit their new extended family. Finn could hardly suppress a smile at their enthusiasm, yet a part of him ached at the thought of the quiet that would soon envelop his house.

“Dad, are you sure you don’t need us here?” Tucker’s concern broke through Finn’s thoughts, his young face etched with a maturity that tugged at Finn’s heartstrings. “We can stay if you need help with Harriet.” He zipped his bag and pushed it toward the front door.

Finn placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “Hey, I appreciate that, buddy. But you guys have fun with the Danes in the Hamptons. I’ll handle things here, and I’ll keep you updated, promise.”

Maggie, not to be left out, hugged Finn tightly. “You’ll call us if you need anything, right?”

“Every day,” Finn assured her, smoothing her hair. Finally, Betty Swan and Sam Donovan arrived, their cheerful greetings momentarily lifting the morning’s emotional weight.

After a flurry of hugs, last-minute reminders, and final waves, Finn watched the car leave the driveway. He exhaled slowly, not realizing he had been holding his breath, the departure of his kids leaving a bittersweet silence behind. Finn closed the front door and walked toward the kitchen to make some coffee.

He had just started making coffee when the doorbell rang. A worried frown marred Finn’s brow. He thought it might be Betty and Sam because his kids had forgotten something, but he was pleasantly surprised to find Harriet on his doorstep. Her appearance was a welcome sight, but the troubled expression on her face erased any smile that had begun to form.

“Harriet, what’s wrong?” Finn’s voice was tinged with concern as he stepped aside to let her in.

Without a word, Harriet handed him her phone open on a photo. Finn’s brow furrowed as he took the phone and saw the disturbing image of himself throwing a duffle bag into a wrecked, burning car. The photo was large enough that he could see where the duffle had burst open and looked to be stuffed with colorful dots in little plastic bags. “Where did you get this?” Finn’s voice was low as he looked into Harriet’s wide eyes.

“I just received this from Estelle, with a text saying this is only one of many she still has.” Harriet’s voice trembled slightly as she spoke. “She was in my suite earlier and threatened me with…” She glanced at her phone in his hand, pointing at it. “This.”

Finn’s stomach churned as he took in the image—a moment from one of the darkest days of his life manipulated into a sinister narrative. He remembered the day well, and it was one day that Finn wished he could forget. It was forever etched in his mind like a tattoo that you wanted, only to regret it later on. But it was too late. There was nothing you could do but live with it.

“I don’t understand?” Finn looked at Harriet, passing her phone back, and noticed how her hands shook when she took it. He realized there was a lot more going on with her. “Harriet, what’s going on?”

“I’m so, so, sorry, Finn.” Harriet’s voice dropped, and her eyes shone with unshed tears. “You thought you were doing me a favor, and instead, I’ve dragged you into the infinite drama, lies, deceit, and backstabbing that is a part of my world.”

“No!” Finn reached out and took the top of her arms. Sparks zapped his fingertips where they touched her warm, smooth skin. “Harriet, this isn’t your fault.” He glanced at her phone. “That also seems to be more a me drama than you drama.”

“It wouldn’t have come out at all if you weren’t trying to help me,” Harriet pointed out, closing her eyes and swallowing as she calmed herself.

“I was making coffee,” Finn told her, dropping his hands. “I have some mint tea if you’d prefer that. Let’s go to the kitchen, and you can tell me what’s going on.”

Harriet nodded and followed Finn to the kitchen.

“Your home is lovely,” Harriet commented. “The layout is similar to the holiday home, but the design is different.”

“I wanted each house to be a bit different,” Finn told her.

Harriet sat at the kitchen counter while Finn made some tea and coffee. “Want to tell me where you ran into Estelle and why she sent you that photo of me?” He stopped what he was doing, holding two mugs in his hands, and looked at her. “How did she even get that photo?”

Harriet told Finn about her encounter with Estelle, and by the time she was finished, he was seated in front of her on the opposite side of the counter, sipping some coffee.

“Wait!” Finn put the cup down. “Estelle wants Gloria Gladstone to become queen of Joyce Isles?”

Harriet nodded. “Yup!” She stirred honey into the mint tea. “I’m afraid it’s official.” She took a careful sip of the hot brew. “Estelle is delusional.” She shook her head. “Not only would my uncle not marry again, but there’s no way he’d even think of marrying Gloria Gladstone.”

“Doesn’t he like Gloria?” Finn asked.

“No, it’s not that,” Harriet explained. “He likes and respects Gloria just fine. Or at least I think he does. Uncle Titus has never said a bad word about her. Still, when my grandfather suggested after my father announced he was marrying my mother, my uncle apparently voiced his opinions on that rather strongly.”

“Ah!” Finn nodded. “So, Estelle doesn’t want to be a queen. She wants the woman she sees as her mother to be one so her future is secure.”

“I don’t know.” Harriet sighed. “I mean, why would she even think I’d be able to get my uncle and Gloria together?” Her face scrunched up in confusion before she looked at him with a glint of contemplation in her beautiful green eyes. “You know, I felt there was something else going on with Estelle.” She took another sip of tea before putting the cup down but leaving her hands wrapped around the mug. “Estelle’s whole attitude was wrong. She went from catty to spiteful. There were flashes of worry, and it was almost like her threat was more of a warning.”

“I still can’t believe she set her cousin up to get arrested,” Finn said, shaking his head a little. “It’s similar to what she did to Martin Atkins and my late ex-wife, Trudy.”

“Trudy?” Harriet frowned. “I thought you were married to Jessica Wyse?”

“Her full name was Trudy Jessica Wyse. She hated the name Trudy. Only I ever called her that,” Finn told Harriet, pausing as he sipped his coffee. “So she used her middle name as her professional one.”

“Ah!” Harriet nodded. “She was one of the best skiers I’ve ever seen.”

“Trudy was until she threw it all away.” Finn’s voice resonated with anger, disgust, and hurt.

“Wait!” Harriet’s eyes widened. “Her name was Trudy?”

“Yes.” Finn nodded. “Why?”

“I should’ve known!” Harriet said, rolling her eyes. “Why didn’t I put it together sooner?” She shook her head. “Trudy Taylor.”

“You knew my late ex-wife?” Finn looked at her in surprise. “Only a few people knew her as Trudy Taylor. Her mother was a single parent until she married Trudy’s stepfather, who adopted her and gave her his last name, Wyse.” It suddenly dawned on him. “I met Trudy at the Joyce Island Open Classic that the locals hosted in order to raise funds for victims of a terrible hurricane that nearly destroyed one part of Joyce Island.”

“That’s where you met your late ex-wife?” Harriet’s eyes widened. “I never knew that.”

“Trudy was one of the judges,” Finn told her.

“I only met Trudy once or twice,” Harriet told Finn. “When I first met her, she was visiting Estelle for the summer, and Leon Senior brought them to Joyce Isles.”

“Was she still Trudy Taylor then?” Finn asked.

“Trudy’s mother had just remarried, if I remember correctly,” Harriet told him. “I think her mother may even have been on honeymoon or something.” She shrugged. “I wasn’t paying much attention. I had all my friends with me, and we did our things.”

“She once told me she knew the Joyce royal family,” Finn said. “I just thought it was because she skied competitively on Joyce Isles a lot.”

“What a crazy world we live in.” Harriet gave a soft laugh. “It’s like our lives have always somehow been connected while we passed each other without even knowing.”

They fell into a companionable silence as they sipped their beverages. Harriet’s phone was lying on the counter beside her, and Finn knew it was time to let her into his crazy world. As it was now being melded with hers, and if they were going to get dragged into some crazy mystery drama, there was no room for secrets.

“Harriet, about that photo,” Finn began. “I know it looks incriminating, but trust me, it really isn’t what it looks like.” He frowned. “Well, it is a bit, I guess.”

“It’s okay, Finn,” Harriet told him. “You don’t have to tell me anything. I just needed you to know what Estelle was up to and for you to be careful.”

”I want to tell you,“ Finn assured her. “Harriet, if we’re going to make our engagement work and seem real enough to fool your uncle, you need to know about my past as well.”

“Only if you want to tell me,” Harriet said.

“That photo must’ve been taken seven years ago,” Finn began, his voice steady despite the turmoil brewing inside him as it always did when he spoke about that day. “It was the day Trudy and her new husband died in a crash.”

“That photo is from that day?“ Harriet’s eyes widened in disbelief. “That accident made the news all over America.”

Finn nodded. “Trudy and her new husband, who was her coach, by the way, were coming back from a belated honeymoon in Cancun.” He ran a hand through his hair, trying to keep the flashbacks at bay. “They had invited other guests along with them on honeymoon—guests like Estelle.”

“Was she in the car with them?” Harriet’s eyes narrowed.

“No.” Finn shook his head. “As far as I remember, Estelle only arrived on the scene when the emergency vehicles got there.” He frowned. “I barely remember talking to her. I was in shock as Trudy had just died in my arms.” He closed his eyes. “She seemed fine when I pulled her from the car. Her safety belt was stuck because the passenger door had been hit.” He cleared his throat. “Her husband was already dead, but I had to get him out of the car first, as the driver’s door was the only door I could pull open.”

“I’m sorry, Finn.” Harriet’s voice was soft and full of compassion. “You don’t have to go on if you don’t want to.”

“I’m fine,” Finn lied, but it did feel good to talk about it to her. “I got her out of the car, and she was babbling about something under her seat that I had to get rid of.”

“The bag of pills!” Harriet guessed, and Finn nodded in confirmation.

“The car was burning, and I managed to reach in.” Finn held out his hand to show the burn marks on them. “It was already so hot that I burned my hands but pulled the bag, which was actually beneath her husband’s seat, up to the back window that I’d smashed.”

“And the car was alight with flames?” Harriet gasped.

“I managed to nearly get the bag out of the window when one of the other cars that was involved in the accident exploded,” Finn told her. “You can’t see it in that photo because of the angle. But I wasn’t throwing the bag into the car. I was trying to get it out of the car, but I dropped it.”

Harriet clicked her phone and looked at the picture, examining it a little closer, “The picture was taken at the precise moment you dropped the bag, making it look like you dumped it into the car.”

Finn nodded in agreement as he continued the story. “I couldn’t reach back into the car to try to get it again because the flames got higher, and a firefighter managed to pull me away just in time before it just exploded.”

“You’re lucky you didn’t get worse burns than those on your hands.” Harriet’s eyes were filled with concern.

“I got a few burns on parts of my back from the blast,” Finn told her. “But I didn’t even realize it as I rushed back to Trudy’s side to tell her the bag was engulfed in flames.” He pinched the bridge of his nose and drew in a breath. “Her last words were, that’s good, Finn, that’s good.”

“So it was true about Trudy being the one selling sports-enhancing drugs to athletes and taking them herself?” Harriet asked.

“Yes.” Finn nodded. “Trudy and I had been separated for two months. After Maggie was born, Trudy became a different person. When we’d had Tucker, she’d vowed she’d never have another kid, then Maggie came along six years later. You know she barely held Maggie more than three times.”

“No!” Harriet’s brow wrinkled, and her eyes filled with sorrow. “Maggie is the sweetest kid. I can only imagine she must’ve been an angel as a baby.”

“Compared to Tucker, she was.” Finn laughed. “Aunt Betty and Caroline helped me look after my kids as Trudy always seemed to have one foot out the door of our marriage and her kids’ lives.”

“I don’t understand how a mother can do that,” Harriet exclaimed. “Don’t they have a mother’s instincts?”

“I think some women are not born with it,” Finn said with a shrug. “To Trudy, our kids were just bargaining chips to get control of my company.”

“Wait,” Harriet held up her hands, stopping him. “Can we come back to this? I have some questions about the accident.”

“Sure.” Finn nodded.

“How were you near where the accident happened?” Harriet asked.

Finn finished his coffee before answering. “Trudy and her new husband had stopped at a roadside diner in a town near the Mexican border to get something to eat, and Trudy’s purse was stolen.” He looked into his empty cup and sighed. “I still had some of her boxes at the house, which had our marriage documents in, as well as a copy of her driver’s license. She needed some identification because her passport was in the purse that was stolen.”

“So you were playing the good samaritan even after everything she’d done to you!” Harriet watched him intently.

“Her mother couldn’t drive, and her new husband had no family or any of her documents stored at their new house,” Finn told Harriet. “I was her only hope.”

“That accident did clear your name, though,” Harriet pointed out. “Even though the drugs were in the car, they didn’t all burn, and when they searched Trudy and her new husband’s house, they found proof of their illicit business.”

“They also found a taped recording of Trudy asking me to take the fall for the drug charge that would’ve ended her career,” Finn told Harriet. “Trudy’s team manager had a strict rule that no drugs or sports enhancement supplements could be used. You either won because you were the best without enhancements, or you didn’t deserve to be on the team.”

“But you were a surfer, and it’s sort of expected,” Harriet added, shaking her head. “Only you were the poster child that knocked the surfing stereotype off track because you were clean.”

“Until I took the drug test for Trudy, that is,” Finn told her. “After that, the world was led to believe it was the other way around. Trudy was the one who took drug tests for me so I could keep my clean reputation.”

“What drug tests did you have to take to surf?” Harriet frowned. “I didn’t even know they did that to surfers.”

“They don’t generally,” Finn said. “It was when she got caught. Trudy told her team that I was on probation for drugs, and she had to test my urine. She gave the wrong sample as we took our urine samples at the same time.”

“Clever.” Harriet nodded.

“After that, my career went downhill, and I lost a lot of sponsors,” Finn breathed. “My business, FinnShaw boards, and Skis started taking a nose dive. Then Trudy announced to the press, not me, that we were getting a divorce. She’d been dealing with my drug habit all this time, and she couldn’t take it anymore. She’d moved on.”

“I’ve seen some nasty breakups in my life,” Harriet told him. “But what Trudy did to you was brutal.”

“You mean when she told me on live television she was divorcing me?” Finn asked and gave a brittle laugh. “After that, Trudy and her husband used my kids’ custody to get control of my company, which they ran into the ground within six months.”

“Oh, Finn, I’m sorry,” Harriet said, and he could see it was heartfelt and not pitying. “But you got the better half of your marriage.” She gave him a warm smile. “You got two beautiful, loving kids.”

“I did.” Finn nodded in agreement. “What makes me sad, though, is that they never really knew their mother. Tucker was nine when Trudy and I got divorced, but she was never around him. She never spent time with him. I don’t think she even hugged him unless it was in front of a camera for a publicity shot.”

“At least he had his Aunt Caroline and Aunt Betty,” Harriet pointed out.

“Yeah, he’s never really spoken about Trudy,” Finn told her. “Maggie was only four when Trudy died, and she didn’t even know who Trudy was really.”

“That’s such a shame,” Harriet said, and they fell quiet for a few seconds before she frowned. “Estelle said she had other photos or evidence about something on you.” She bit the side of her mouth in contemplation. “Any idea what she could have?”

“No.” Finn shook his head. “I told the police what had happened, and the firefighters backed up my story as they were all screaming at me to get back. They also all heard what Trudy asked me to do and warned me not to do it.”

“You don’t think…” Harriet’s voice trailed off, and she shook her head. “No, that’s silly.”

“I don’t think what?” Finn asked.

“That maybe Trudy was trying to set you up to look like the one she was bringing the drugs into the country for?” Harriet asked. “I mean, there are other ways of proving your identity without you having to travel all the way to the Mexican border.”

“Actually, that thought crossed my mind many times,” Finn told her. “Especially when they found her purse with the charred remains of her passport in it.”

“Wow!” Harriet said, alarmed. “I want to say the gall of the woman.” She looked at Finn, shaking her head. “But, Finn, really? Didn’t it occur to you before you rushed off to save Trudy yet again that she may just be wanting to use you as a fall guy again?”

“Honestly,” Finn sighed. “I can’t deny I did think of that on the way. But luckily for me, Trudy got my voicemail and left a message for me to bring her ID documents.”

“That’s a relief.” Harriet gestured with her hands. “But I still wonder what Estelle has on you.”

“Let’s not bend to her demands and find out!” Finn suggested.