Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
I t was Gale’s second morning at Hilary Salt’s estate. Gorgeous light spilled between the black-out curtains, and she stretched her legs and arms as far out as she could and listened to the twittering of birds outside. From far down the hallway and down the stairs came the sound of Hilary’s yoga video, a woman telling her to breathe. Hilary maintained a strict daily schedule: cleansing, stretching, toning, and eating wonderful things. Sometimes Gale watched her and wondered if maybe this would be how she’d get over Peter. I’ll fully commit to myself.
Gale turned over to hunt for her phone. On the screen were a few missed calls from Lucas, plus a text.
LUCAS: Hey! Sorry to be so aggressive. I have to talk to you about something. Do you want to meet up?
Gale shot out of bed and reread the text message. Does he know something? How could he already know something? Her thumbs fumbled over the screen to type back.
GALE: Sounds good!
Then she wrinkled her nose and remembered to add:
I have plans tonight. Could you meet tomorrow instead?
It was clear that Lucas was up and looking at his phone. A notification indicated he was typing, and then he stopped typing again. Had she said something wrong? Had she made it seem like she wasn’t grateful?But then a text came through.
LUCAS: Tomorrow is perfect. Maybe somewhere private?
Gale’s eyes widened to saucers. She darkened her phone, clambered out of bed, and hurried down to Hilary’s fitness studio, where Hilary was strewn across the floor like she had dropped laundry. Her smile fell immediately. “You look upset. What’s up?”
Gale sat cross-legged next to Hilary’s yoga mat and showed her the text. Hilary clucked her tongue.
“You told him you just left your husband, right?”
“Yes. I did.” Didn’t I? Everything was beginning to run together.
“He’s a good guy,” Hilary promised her. “He wouldn’t cross your boundaries like that.”
“So you’re saying it probably has something to do with my secret twin?” Gale liked to say it as dramatically as possible in order to calm herself down. It sounded so ridiculous—like a spy movie.
“It probably has something to do with your evil twin.” Hilary smiled.
“Do you think it’s like a horror movie?” Gale suggested. “Where only one of us can survive and the other has to go?”
“You have to find her and find that out,” Hilary teased, then jumped off the yoga mat. “Are you hungry? I have biscuits downstairs.”
“Biscuits?” Gale giggled. “So much for that green smoothie diet we talked about last night.”
Hilary waved her hand. “What if your evil twin kills you tomorrow? You don’t want the last thing you eat to be a green smoothie, do you?”
Gale thought Hilary had a point.
The following evening found Gale in front of Hilary’s truly sensational closet. Hilary was off for a hike and dinner with Stella, but she’d instructed Gale to take whatever she wanted for her “non-date” with Lucas. Gale had a vision of how she wanted to look in front of him. She imagined him whipping out an address for her brand-new sister as she sat before him, modelesque in a navy-blue dress, her red hair in beach waves. Unfortunately for Gale, the image that she had of herself also de-aged her by about twenty years. The woman in the reflection of Hilary’s mirror was forty-six and getting divorced. But it had to do.
Not that it matters what I look like right now. I’m on a quest for the truth.
Lucas suggested he pick her up from Hilary’s mansion for a walk along the beach, but Gale told him that Hilary was out and the place was theirs if they wanted it. It was clear this terrified him. She could see it in his face as he walked up the driveway carrying a briefcase and wearing a pair of slacks, a button-down that was opened up, and a V-neck shirt beneath it. He was healthy and tan, a product of island life going back for generations. Gale glanced back down at her outfit—she’d gone with a navy-blue dress that Hilary had approved via text message—and decided to stop overthinking things. She opened the door and said as casually as she could, “Hi!”
Lucas stopped short and smiled. It was as though time stood still and the clouds shimmering through the pink-tinged sky were for them alone.
“So this is Isabella Helin’s old place,” he said.
“The one and only.” Gale smiled. “You know, she was in one of my movies once.” Immediately after she said it, she winced, as she hated talking about her Hollywood connections. She was just a mid-tier screenwriter. Approximately three audience members had seen the Isabella Helin film she’d written.
But Lucas looked intrigued. “Another Nantucket artist. It seems like you flock here and give us boring historians a bad name.”
Gale chuckled and blushed but led Lucas inside and up the back steps to the veranda. Back there, she opened a bottle of red and watched Lucas’s eyes as he observed the sun dunk into the water. She wondered if he had a view like this wherever he lived. She wondered if everyone in Nantucket felt they owned the Nantucket Sound.
Lucas raised his glass of wine toward her. Gale’s heart thudded.
“I need to tell you something,” he said. “I think I have a lead on your sister.”
Gale sat down with a thunk on the chair beside him. It took every bit of her strength not to throw her arms around him. Be professional.
“I fell into it by accident,” he explained.
“You’re a historian. I’m sure it wasn’t by accident.” Her voice wavered.
Lucas took a sip of wine and looked down at his fingers. Slowly, the light shifted, drawing darkness over the island like a blanket. Gale could make out a smattering of stars. She thought, he’s discovered something awful. He doesn’t want to tell me. He’s scared.
“You can just come out with it,” she urged. “I’ve been through a lot this year. I’ll be okay.”
Lucas grimaced. “I think she’s still out there. I just can’t do all the research I need to do from here in Nantucket. She left when she was three years old. Not long after that photograph was taken.”
Gale touched her pocket, where she kept the photograph protected in a plastic bag in her wallet.
“Who took her?” Gale demanded. She hadn’t considered kidnapping before this, but it ran through her mind now.
“I take it you don’t know anything about your father?” Lucas asked.
Gale’s tongue felt numb. She suddenly needed to drink a lot of water. “My mother refused to tell me anything. I learned to stop asking at an early age.”
We don’t need anyone, Evelyn had told her so many times. It’s just us.
And then when Gale had tried to help Evelyn later on, Evelyn had told her, I don’t need anyone. It’s just me.
“What was his name?” Gale asked now.
“Johnny Samson.”
Gale leaned back against her chair and crossed her arms over her chest. The name meant nothing to her. It could have been any stranger on the street. “Johnny Samson,” she repeated.
“He was a Nantucketer,” Lucas said. “A beloved Nantucketer at that. He was a golden boy. Football. Basketball. Baseball. Lifeguarding. The whole nine yards.”
Gale swallowed. Evelyn had been a gorgeous creature back in her day. It was no surprise that she’d nabbed a man like that.
“He left her?” Gale asked.
Lucas sighed. “Sort of. It sounds like he was cheating on her, and she found out, and she kicked him out.” He paused. “During a hurricane.”
Gale gasped and clapped her hand over her mouth. This had Evelyn Dobbs written all over it, all right. The drama!
And then she remembered how her mother reacted when she learned about Peter. She’d immediately assumed he’d cheated on her. It was her own experience.
“Johnny almost died when he drove through the hurricane winds,” Lucas continued. “He left after he got out of the hospital. And he brought someone with him. A woman he’d been having an affair with.” He wet his lips. “Your mother was pregnant at the time.”
Pregnant with the twins.
Lucas opened his briefcase to remove a folder that held photographs from the eighties; photographs that were toned sepia in Lilian and Gale’s style. Two of them were of Evelyn in her midtwenties, so thin and startlingly beautiful, standing on a Nantucket beach in the arms of a gorgeous blond man. He looked every bit like an eighties lifeguard with his dark tan and muscular arms and winning smile. The kind of smile that helped you understand you would be okay. Evelyn looked smitten. Gale realized she’d never seen her like this. This is before you learned you were an island, Mom . She panged with regret.
Another photograph showed the same handsome man. He wore a turtleneck and a pair of Levi’s jeans, and in the crook of his arm was another woman—a brunette with red lipstick.
“Is that the woman he left with?” Gale’s voice broke.
“Yes.” Lucas’s voice was soft. “They went to Florida.”
“Florida?” Gale cried. The state was so foreign to her. A place people went on vacation. A place where alligators roamed on the loose.
“It looks like your father’s still down there,” Lucas said. “But there’s no sign of the woman he went with. Bethany Cicero is her name.”
“Bethany Cicero,” Gale repeated. She felt as though she floated somewhere over the veranda. She imagined Hilary coming home and seeing her up in the air, unable to drop down.
“This is all a lot to take in. I know that.” Lucas sighed and tugged his hair. “But there’s more.”
“Don’t wait. I can handle it.” But can I?
“I have reason to believe Bethany and your father took Lilian away when she was three years old.”
Gale took a breath. Overhead, a seagull cawed and swooped.
“Did they kidnap her?” Gale breathed.
“I don’t know,” Lucas said. “But there’s no mention of it in any police records here on the island. That means your mother never came forward.”
“So it’s likely she knew exactly what happened,” Gale said.
Lucas raised his shoulders. It meant he agreed, but he wanted to be passive about it. This was delicate. Gale respected that.
“I called around your father’s Florida town. To the records office. To the courthouse,” Lucas said. “I hope that was all right?”
“Of course.” Gale sputtered. She couldn’t believe he’d gone to such lengths for her.
“But I couldn’t really get anywhere,” Lucas continued. “People didn’t want to talk to me. They don’t want to discuss private records over the phone. It’s a small town—not unlike Nantucket.”
The corner of Gale’s lips curled into a smile. “We should go down and charm them. Show them who we are. Heck, who knows? Maybe my dad and this Bethany lady changed Lilian’s name after they took her. Maybe she’s just down there, waiting for us. For me.”
Lucas smacked his thigh. His smile could have lit up a stadium. “I wasn’t sure you’d be up for it.”
Gale laughed. She felt euphoric. “You don’t really want to go down there, do you?” Why would this stranger want to come with me to Florida of all places?
Lucas lost his coloring. “I mean, I don’t want to step on your toes. Please tell me if I’m stepping on your toes.”
Gale felt so soft and light. The orange sun illuminated her skin. “You’re not stepping on my toes.” She spread her arms out to gesture to the massive house behind them. “Look at me. I’m basically homeless.”
“That’s quite a house to say that in front of,” Lucas said.
“Okay. I’m crashing at my wealthy friend’s house,” Gale said. “My mother won’t talk to me. And my sister might be out there somewhere. Maybe she doesn’t even know about me.” She pressed her lips together. She was suddenly resolute. “If you want to go to Florida with me—and use your historian expertise—I would welcome the journey. I’ll even drive.”
“Let’s split it,” Lucas said.
Gale marveled at this turn of events. She wanted to ask him where on earth did you come from ? But she didn’t want to sound too much like one of her rom-com characters in the screenplay she was supposed to be writing. It occurred to her that this trip to Florida might rip through her writer’s block. It also occurred to her that she was apt to fall in love with anyone in her delicate post-Peter state. She had to be careful with her bruised heart. Especially out there on the road, where anything could happen.