Chapter 35
thirty-five
FRANCIE
“Welcome home, stranger,” Skyler says, hugging me tight as I step off the ferry. “I missed you.”
“It’s only been three days,” I point out, but I’m still smiling because it’s so good to see her.
After I left Misty Lakes – promising to return soon so that my brothers and I can start working on my brand new cabin – I took a charter plane from Virginia to the local airport, where a car was waiting to whisk me onto the ferry.
And now Skyler is here, her face beaming, and it feels like everything is slotting into place.
I get into her car, and as she drives out of Main Street and into the country lanes that weave to the middle of the island, I tell her about my revelations to my brothers, and how well it went.
She tells me about Ayda’s latest obsession with unicorns, and how she wants to be one when she grows up, when I realize she’s taken a wrong turn.
“You missed the road to the lighthouse,” I tell her, smiling.
“You’re coming to the Captain’s House,” she says. “Didn’t Asher tell you?”
I frown, because no, Asher didn’t tell me. In fact, he hasn’t replied to any of my messages.
I assumed his Nokia needed charging. Or he’s busy trying to sort out the breach. Just because I’ve managed to sail through my issues with my brothers, doesn’t mean I should expect him to be at my beck and call.
But I miss him. And I wish he was here.
“Did he say why?”
Skyler shrugs. “No idea. Hudson just said it was important, and I should make sure you’re comfortable and fed.
” She rolls her eyes. “That’s his way of telling me to be hospitable, I think.
Which I am because I put a bottle of wine into the refrigerator as soon as I heard you were coming, which is good of me since I can’t drink any. So I’m completely hospitable.”
I smile at her. “It’s only three in the afternoon.”
“It’s six o’clock somewhere.”
I look at my phone again, feeling my stomach dip. “Is there something wrong with Asher?” I ask her, because if Hudson is asking her to bring me home with her there has to be a reason, doesn’t there?
She frowns. “Not that I know. Why?”
“He hasn’t replied to my messages today. And now this. It feels… like somebody’s about to give me bad news.”
Skyler pulls into the road that leads to the Captain’s House.
The white stuccoed building complete with a nineteenth century cupola appears in the windshield.
“As far as I know, Asher is okay.” She frowns.
“He called this morning, Hudson said he had to go to New York, then later he called me and told me to pick you up. I don’t know if you know, but he knows all about you and Asher.
I mentioned something – because pregnancy brain – and he told me he already knew.
” She parks and looks at me. “Fuck, they’re doing that thing aren’t they? ”
“What thing?” I frown, because I have no idea what she’s talking about. Skyler has a habit of jumping about three thoughts ahead of everybody else.
She sighs. “The ‘keep the women safe while the big, bad men run around making terrible decisions’ thing. Hudson does it all the time, thinking he knows better than me. Or he did, until I started locking him out of the bedroom.”
Oh that.
We exchange glances. I know exactly what she means. My brothers are the kings of doing it. Or they were until the last few days, when I showed them I was just as good as they are at keeping secrets.
“Shit,” she says. “I’m going to kill Hudson. That conniving asshole. ‘Look after Francie, have some fun. Put on some face masks.’”
I try not to smile at her impression of Hudson. And then the urge disappears, because it’s replaced by a thought.
What’s going on that Asher wants me here, cooped up at the Captain’s house. Why won’t he reply to my messages?
“I’m going to call Asher.”
“Good. They can’t get away with this macho bullshit.” She narrows her eyes as I pull up his number and hit the call button. Then narrows them even more when I put his voicemail on speaker.
“Don’t leave a message,” she tells me. “If they’re going to ignore us, two can play at that game.”
I don’t point out that Hudson isn’t ignoring her, he’s just misinforming her, because it’s nice to have somebody on my side.
“I guess this is what it feels like to be ghosted,” I say.
She sighs dramatically, reaching for the door handle. “They’d just prefer we go all faint and lie back on our chaise lounges while they fight the dragons.”
“Do you have any chaise lounges?” I ask her. Because truthfully, lying on one of those sounds pretty good right now.
She shakes her head sadly. “No.”
“Shame.”
For a second neither of us say anything. Then she looks at me, her eyes twinkling. “You know what I do have though?”
“What?”
“A car.”
I blink in confusion. Because yes, I know that. We’re sitting in it. “Um, well done?”
She pushes my arm. “I mean, we have a car. We don’t have to sit around and act all faint. We can do something. Like drive to New York and find out what the hell our emotionally constipated men are up to.”
My mouth twitches. “You want to storm the city?”
She grins. “It beats waiting at home like a good little wife appliance.”
I’m not sure who she’s describing, because Skyler in no way fits the phrase wife appliance.
Unless you’re talking about a washing machine that not only refuses to do laundry but also organizes all the other domestic appliances to rise up against the patriarchy, because white goods have feelings too.
But she also has a point.
“It really does.” I’ve been from Liberty to New York to Virginia and then back to Liberty in the past few days. What’s another few hundred miles between friends?
I look down at my phone again. Still no reply.
I raise my brows. “You sure you’re up for a five-hour road trip?’”
Skyler shrugs. “The baby’s fine with it. It’s my bladder that’s the problem.”
“Okay,” I say. “But you need to drive. I’m a menace on the roads. Plus I’m a writer on a deadline, remember?”
“Absolutely. You can write a death scene from the passenger seat,” she tells me. “Preferably involving two brothers who think they know better than anybody else.” She pulls out her phone. “Let me just call Jesse and ask if he can keep Ayda overnight.”
Jesse is Skyler’s half-brother. And Ayda is in love with him. I’m pretty sure the feeling’s mutual. “I’ll tell him we’re channeling our inner Thelma and Louise.”
“Without the death scene,” I remind her.
“Obviously.” Skyler looks so buzzed she’s practically vibrating in her seat. “Unless Asher or Hudson try to pull more of their macho-man nonsense, in which case all bets are off.
“I’m totally fine with that,” I tell her, unbuckling my seat belt.
While she calls Jesse, who agrees with equanimity because the man doesn’t have a bad bone in his body, I climb out of the car and slip my phone behind the big ceramic plant pot by her front door.
She catches me as I’m climbing back in. “What did you do with your phone?”
I shrug. “I figure if Asher decides to use his stupid technology and track me, he’ll think I’m chilling here.”
“Ooh, you’re a devious little genius.” She grins widely. “I love it.”
It takes her a few minutes to run inside and pack an overnight bag for herself and Ayda. Then we swing by Jesse’s place. He’s waiting on the porch with Ayda clinging to one hand, the other holding out his phone like he’s about to defuse a bomb.
“Thanks,” Skyler says, squeezing Ayda tight, then swapping phones with Jesse. “Text me if she starts climbing the walls.”
“I have no idea why you’re making me use your phone,” he mutters as he slides hers into his pocket. “I’m too scared to ask.”
“In case we’re tracked,” Skyler says, like we’re in the middle of a spy movie. “We’re going full-on Mission Impossible.”
Jesse blinks. “Right. Obviously.”
Before he can ask any more questions we peel out of the driveway, making a quick stop at Mylene’s for coffee because Skyler claims she can’t launch a rescue mission without caffeine.
“I need fuel, even if it’s only decaf. What if I have to chase a man down?” she asks as we walk up to Mylene’s counter.
Mylene raises an eyebrow. “Should I even ask?”
I wrinkle my nose. “Probably not.”
But Skyler is way too excited to keep quiet. “We’re going to pick a fight with the patriarchy,” she says. “Maybe stage an emotional intervention. Depends on traffic.”
Mylene nods as though this is perfectly normal. Which it kind of is around here.
Five minutes later, we’re back in the car with two large coffees – decaffeinated for Skyler – along with a bag of emergency muffins.
Skyler starts the engine. “You ready for this?”
I pull my laptop out of the sleeve at my feet, ready to write on our way to New York as we head down the road toward the ferry, where the gates are open for us.
“I’m ready,” I confirm. “And I’m putting a horrific death in chapter thirty.”
Skyler glances at me. “Asher or Hudson?”
I look at the manuscript. I’m so close to the end. “I’m not sure. Possibly both of them in one amazing blaze of glory.”
She grins, putting her foot on the gas as the ferry captain beckons us forward. “Remind me to stay on your good side.”
“You’re always on my good side, Thelma,” I promise her. We’re really doing this. Going full rogue. While writing a book and without our phones.
It’s the twenty-first century version of The Heroine’s Journey. And I’m here for it. Even if my heart feels one beat out of sync the whole way there.
ASHER
West and Hudson stare at the draft agreement that my lawyer sent over for my approval, scowls pulling at both of their lips.
“There has to be another way,” Hudson says. He looks at West who just lifts his brows.
Because he knows as well as I do that there isn’t any other way. If I want to stop those videos from becoming public property, I have to give Annalise what she wants.