Chapter 16
I am lying on a leather sofa, a rotating electric fan purring on the coffee table next to me. My stockinged feet are propped up on a pillow. The breeze sends a delicious shiver through the front of my sheer chemise. At last I can breathe, sweet, sweet air filling my lungs. But—
Why is my dress open in the front?
I sit up with a gasp, clasping my bodice together.
Nash appears with two glasses of lemonade. “Ah, you’re awake.”
“How dare you.”
He sets the lemonades on the table with deliberate calm. The memory of a stolen kiss crowds the space between us.
He switches off the fan, and the brass blades materialize from the blur. When he faces me, his expression is amused, the face of someone smiling at a joke he doesn’t find funny. “Your dress was too tight. Measures needed to be taken if you were to live to enjoy your millions.”
“How much did you see?”
“I can assure you, I made sure to blindfold myself before undoing those very tiny buttons. Now drink.” He hands me a glass.
I snatch a pillow to my front before taking it. The sweet-sour liquid paints a soothing stripe down my throat, and I glug thirstily, despite my mortification. I will never get the dress buttoned up again now.
“I’ve decided to grant your request, even though you have not satisfied me.”
“You will read a statement?”
“Not just read—I will talk to the reporters myself. They’re still swimming around the sound.
Throw out your hook. I’ll reel ’em in. But one favor.
That is all.” He stands abruptly, moving toward his trunk.
“Now, cover yourself. My gallantry has its limits.” With a barely concealed smirk, he shakes out a starched collared shirt.
I clutch the pillow closer and say stiffly, “I would sooner wear this pillow than be seen wearing your clothes.”
His fingers clutch wrinkles into the shirt, and his gaze drops. For a moment I think I might have injured him. “Interesting.” He shows me a grin that looks forced. “I hear you regularly run around in Daniel’s garments. But suit yourself.”
Under a ruddy evening sun, Flossie and I pass sandwiches and fill glasses while Nash, Sveyn, and Boots chat with the reporters invited into the garden.
We have gathered in the natural depression by the water where Mr. Sanders first talked to me so many years ago.
Since then, Mr. Kagaoka has coaxed it into a charming alcove anchored by the Peace Rock on one end, and my Pacific madrone, which Daniel named the Marry Tree, on the other.
A memory floats in, of a teenage Daniel insisting the name “Mary” had been scratched there by Douglas Fairbanks himself, hopelessly in love with Mary Pickford.
“That’s a load of turkey,” Nash scoffed.
“Fine, Ebenezer Scrooge,” Daniel shot back. “But don’t blame me if you never find a girl who’ll take your dreary, unsentimental ass.”
Not long after, I noticed “LUCY” scratched on the Marry Tree in Daniel’s block letters.
“More iced tea, maid,” Nash orders, bringing me back to the present. He is milking this moment for all that it is worth. A four-button mourning suit is perfectly tailored to his trim figure.
I bite my tongue, reminding myself that the maid disguise was my idea.
Not only does it save me from being hounded by reporters, but it is a way to keep an eye on Nash, whose easy familiarity with Sveyn and Boots is a blessing but could also be a liability.
I don’t trust the three not to ally themselves against me while I’m trying to solve the murders.
After Sveyn introduces Nash as our new president, Nash smoothly takes the floor, looking a little too relaxed. I force air through my nose, doubts creeping in. He did not inherit a red cent from Mr. Sanders. There is no reason for him to take this seriously.
“I am honored to be part of my dearly departed uncle’s business,” says Nash, and the reporters scribble in their notebooks.
With the gold evening light hitting his skin, he is as hard to look away from as a falcon on a high branch.
“Dakon Sanders was like a father to me. He taught me the importance of hard work, of paying attention to the small things. He used to say, ‘Success is the sum of details. Don’t overlook them.’ ” Nash does a perfect mimicry of his uncle’s confident and ironic voice, and my throat tightens a notch.
As Nash lays out his “plan” for the company, Sveyn and Boots, both attired in official navy coats with gold SSI insignia and white pants, eye each other, looking secretly pleased, even though this was my idea.
My mark has begun to warm, just as it did the day of my brush with Shadow and Scull.
I touch my damp fingers to it and feel the hurried beating of my pulse.
A few hundred feet down the sea path toward the marina, Koa and Goliath glide like a tall sailboat beside Gilly.
The fisherman looks like something dragged in from the sea with his nets draped around his body.
Farther inland, the brick laundry house seems to cough out steam in reluctant gasps.
“What can you tell us about the young woman named Lucy who inherited your uncle’s estate?” comes another question.
Nash’s gaze flits briefly to me attempting to carry dishes to a serving table without dropping them. “I can tell you she is an intelligent woman, capable of juggling many plates at once.”
Boots coughs loudly and Sveyn grimaces. The reporters begin talking over one another.
“Was she his mistress?” asks the loudest.
For the first time, a scowl cracks Nash’s composure.
“Of course not,” he says, the words edged with indignation.
With a slow exhale he smooths his expression.
He raises his hands for quiet. “As you know, my uncle never did things the traditional way. The company motto is ‘Choose your own path.’ He always chose his own path, and we must all respect his vision.”
A frown lodges onto my face as I remember how Mr. Sanders kept me in the dark all these years.
His choice protected me, tucking me away in the anonymity of the kitchen, but did it cost him his life?
Well, Mr. Sanders, I am doing my best to bring your killer to justice, though you could’ve left me more clues than riddles.
I hear a plate hit the floor with a crack. Flossie, her hands spread in shock, stares toward the sea. Several hundred feet out, the water has broken apart, and a dark fin pokes from the surface. Water pools around the sea wolf’s back as it rises.
“Christ almighty!” cries a man, and everyone cranes their necks seaward.
The sea wolf circles, a planet that sends the closest boats into another orbit. A great gusting of sea mist bursts from its blowhole, and more cries burst forth. It is too big to be Shadow.
“Those boats better be careful!” shouts a voice near my ear.
“They’ll be fine,” says Sveyn, though he doesn’t sound sure.
The exclamations fall away as a low moaning fills my head. A sense of unhappiness begins to crowd the space inside me, making my bones leaden. Only it is not my own ache that I feel.
The sea wolf is a Jupiter-sized solitary male circling in unfamiliar territory, though how I know this I do not understand. My mark blazes hot, feverish. My father had the same mark. Did his burn when sea wolves were near too? Ridiculous, and yet…
Only you can calm the wolves.
Jupiter moves like a wounded boat that lists to one side.
His pain tastes of metal and throbs around his dorsal fin, which hangs like a broken sail.
The elevated pulsing of his heart thuds at the base of my skull.
My mind reaches for the creature, like a hand in the dark reaching for the clasp of another.
A glimmer of recognition passes between us. The creature steadies, as if somehow my presence has helped it regain its balance. All at once the sea wolf dives, plumes of white bubbles boiling around its descent. The heaviness lifts, leaving me hollow. The skin of my mark cools.
“Folks, we live on an island surrounded by sea life, and every now and then they like to say hello,” booms Sveyn, back to his blustering self, while Boots gestures at Flossie to pick up the broken glass.
“We’ve never had a single incident with the sea wolves.
This concludes our evening’s program. Your escort will be here shortly.
” Sveyn hails Koa, who is already making his way toward us to the jingling of Goliath’s harness.
Several paces behind him now, Gilly grips his head, watching the still-rocking sea with his mouth agape. Slowly, the fisherman turns. His bewildered eyes land on me and sharpen.
By the time I settle into the natural bench-like curve of the Peace Rock to wait for Koa, it is past nine o’clock.
Will he still be annoyed at me for not going to Seattle?
Our conversation from this morning rolls around in my head like a bottle on a boat.
There is no reason for him to refuse that airplane job.
Except, of course, if he really does love me.
Either that or feels an unswerving sense of duty to protect me.
The sky wears a veil of orange clouds, too light to hide anything in shadow yet, and the water is clear of craft.
My mark has not flared since Jupiter’s departure.
Who knew that all it would take to chase away the spectators was a brief appearance by a giant sea wolf?
Word has spread of the commotion it caused, and the verboten word, Orkus, ghosts around conversations once again.
But I plainly felt its injury, and its agitation was not caused by a demon. How did I know that?
A murrelet screams. I flinch so hard, I bite my tongue. Foolish girl. Worry less about demons and more about the murderer on the loose, who may or may not be Shimmelfen.
I pull Daniel’s thick flannel shirt tight around me, heartened to see one of the Rifles passing below on the sea path. He nods curtly, then continues his march.