Chapter Twenty-Seven
TWENTY-SEVEN
Mac
It was perfect, the mood joyous and the evening spark-bright.
Mac had stood in the corner of the large room as she thought it, drinking in the scene.
When Nicole realized the lengths that Mac had gone to, her face had been pure elation.
So many times in recent months, Mac would have given anything to see that kind of happiness.
It was comforting to know it hadn’t been snuffed out completely by what Nicole’s husband had done.
Between the bar and the dancing and the crowd circling the room, Mac had quickly lost sight of the guest of honor, and by the time she spotted her again, Nicole was swaying on her heels.
Let her be, Mac told herself, fending off the voice that urged her to press a glass of water into Nicole’s hand.
Old habits die hard, and Mac had years of experience looking after her sister.
It was the timing that worried her, the possibility that too much saccharine alcohol would dissolve whatever barricade Nic had put up, allowing the terror of what had happened in Mikko Helle’s house to come flooding in.
Mac had just gotten back from the ladies’ room when she caught sight of Woody.
His face hovered in the window, spectral in the light-spangled glass.
He was standing outside, beyond the floor-to-ceiling doors that—in summer—the hotel opened to create an indoor–outdoor dining space.
As she watched, Woody flickered like a glitch on a screen before vanishing into the night.
Mac went to the door, and followed.
The staircase off the hotel’s second-floor deck led down to a walking path along the river.
The landscaping seemed greener in the moonlight, a sign of the season to come, but the air held the memory of ice floes and frozen water.
As she walked, Mac folded the lapels of her navy blazer over her chest to seal in the warmth.
Woody was approaching the Adirondack chairs, the row of seats in rainbow colors facing the St. Lawrence and Boldt Castle beyond.
Mac arrived just in time to watch him stumble and drop heavily into a yellow chair.
If Woody and Nicole wanted to drink, that was fine; Blair or even Nash could drive the family home.
Woody wasn’t his usual happy drunk like at the cookout, though.
He looked sullen, and Mac spied the sizzling red cherry of a lit cigarette.
She hadn’t seen her brother-in-law smoke in years.
“Room for one more?” The question was rhetorical, a way to announce herself more than anything else. Eleven empty chairs stretched out beside him.
“Shit,” he said when he saw her, stabbing out his Newport in the cool grass. “Didn’t see you there. Don’t tell Nic, OK? She doesn’t like it when I smoke.”
His words were slow and sibilant, his tongue a fat slug in his mouth. Mac figured his smoking habits were the least of Nicole’s concerns, but she promised not to mention it.
“Nicole seemed surprised,” she said as she took the seat next to him, her own chair painted sky blue. “Thanks for your help with that.”
He shrugged, not once but twice. “It was easy. I told the girls I was taking them all to dinner. They love this place. After that, Nic couldn’t back out even if she wanted to.
Hey, thanks for putting this together.” Woody didn’t look up as he said it, his gaze riveted to his shoes. “Blair says you’re the best aunt ever.”
“I’m her only aunt.”
A chuckle. “God, I’m going to miss her.” He swiveled his head toward the resort. Through the windows, Mac could make out the rhythmic thump of the music. The shiny panes quivered.
“Can I ask you something?” she said.
The lines between Woody’s brows deepened. It was the look she got from suspects when they sensed that Mac was onto them. A unique blend of paranoia, intransigence and fear.
“Are you guys OK?” she said. “Like, money-wise?”
Woody’s jaw clicked into place with a grating snap. Was it unkind to bring it up now, when he’d been drinking? Maybe, but Mac’s qualms were no match for her need to lay his secrets bare.
“Jesus Christ.” Woody scrubbed at his face. “Can’t you give it a rest for one night?”
It wasn’t the first time she’d asked about their financial situation, that much was true, but Mac only wanted to help.
She’d already tried. Last fall, when Blair was consumed by college applications, Mac had gone to the Durhams and sprung the news she’d been sitting on for years: they wouldn’t need to do this alone.
Since the girls were born, first Blair and then Alana, Mac had been saving.
She’d made some good investments, and had a whole account dedicated to her nieces.
She’d been looking forward to that day for a long time, imagining Nicole’s expression when Mac revealed that she could shoulder some of the cost. Announce that nothing would give her more pleasure than to help get the girls the college education they deserved.
She’d been expecting some pushback from Woody.
He’d always been odd about money, paying the tab for a whole table of friends even when he couldn’t afford it.
There was a pained wince when he saw the total, but he kept doing it anyway.
He had this thing about being self-sufficient, refused to “take charity” even back before he started the business.
When Nicole’s father died of an aneurism right before she turned twenty-three, and it came to light that—despite their estrangement—the man had left his only child a sizeable chunk of cash, Woody wouldn’t hear of using Nicole’s inheritance to build Island Adventure.
It had taken two more years of working at the boatyard for him to save enough money.
The man simply couldn’t be swayed. That cash was long gone now, spent on baby furniture and lacrosse cleats and all the other trappings of parenthood and, close to a year after Mac had tendered her proposition, the girls’ money remained in her account.
Woody’s “thanks but no thanks” still stung like a sandbur punched into her skin.
Maybe now things would be different. He had let her pay for the party, hadn’t even attempted to put up a fight.
In just a few months, they’d need to pony up thousands for tuition, meal plans, room and board.
In the meantime, Mac’s visit to the mini putt had left her deeply unsettled.
Island Adventure did OK. It was always packed in the summer.
But how much money could a person really make from a business that was only open five months of the year?
In the dead season, she knew, Woody resold consumer goods on the internet.
Their garage looked like a storage facility, but given the intense competition online, Mac wasn’t convinced sales from that sideline were booming.
Something was wrong, something that went beyond the problems in their marriage.
If Mac hadn’t been certain of that before, she needed only to look at Woody’s sallow face.
“I’m only asking because of Blair,” she said. “Did you hear her up there? She’s so excited about college. If there’s something going on, if you need more help—”
“More help,” he repeated with a thick snort. Woody’s skin glowing like a Christmas bulb. “Aunt Maureen to the rescue, as always. You act like we’re a week away from fucking food stamps. We’re fine.”
Are you? “Sure, Woody,” she said. “Just checking in, that’s all. I want you guys to know I’m always here for you. For you, and for the girls.”
“Yeah, we’re well aware. For future reference, you don’t need to keep asking. You have no faith in me at all, do you? You’re just like your sister. No fucking idea what I can do.”
Woody had leaned back in his chair, but the sharp angle of the Adirondack shape caused him to slip forward, and he flailed for a moment as he tried to right himself.
By the time he was settled again, his expression had darkened.
The shift in his mood was visceral. Mac felt it lift the fine blonde hairs on her arms.
“What can you do, Woody?” she asked, keeping very still.
He wagged a finger in her face and said, “I’ve got a plan. No one gives me any credit for my plans. You think it’s easy starting up a business? I did that. And that was only the beginning.”
Mac wasn’t following. Woody opened Island Adventure two decades ago.
Only the beginning? His conspiratorial tone, and the fact that this was the first Mac was hearing about some scheme to make money, coalesced into a lump of anxiety in her throat.
She glanced around to make sure they were alone, but saw no one else in the darkness.
Across the river, Boldt Castle looked unmoored, floating on water flat and black as oil.
“This plan,” said Mac. “It has something to do with Island Adventure?”
“It has something to do with our future”—Woody’s jaw made a sound like a broken twig—“and it’s going to change our fucking lives.
Remember how it used to be?” His eyes softened briefly, like he was lost in time.
“In high school? Remember how much fun we used to have? It’s going to be amazing, Maureen. And we’re gonna fix it.”
Was he talking about his marriage? Their finances? What?
“I don’t know, Woody.” She said it slowly.
It was a balancing act, coaxing information out of someone like Woody Durham.
He was drunk, but deep down he knew he shouldn’t be talking to her.
Woody had always been excitable, though, and that trait could be exploited.
She needed to rile him, for Nicole’s sake.
Her sister hadn’t said a word about a business.
Whatever Woody was hiding, Nicole might have no idea.
“You know what they say,” Mac said carefully. “You can’t ever go back.”
“That’s a load of crap. I am going back.”
“I don’t think so, Woody.”
He looked at her for a long time. Then, “Aww, fuck it. We’re reopening the Rivermouth!”
Mac froze, trying to process what she’d just heard. The Rivermouth? Woody couldn’t be serious. The building, once a hub of activity for families and teens all over the county, had been shuttered twenty years ago. These days, it was scarcely standing. “How?” Mac stammered. “Why?”
“Why?” Woody parroted, incredulous. “It’s a good investment, that’s why. People are gonna come from all over, that’s why. We’re gonna give them something to do, all year round, and I know how. I’ll run it. There’s nobody better than me.”
Mac’s mind was reeling. “Does Nicole know about this?”
“Of course she fucking knows—but don’t tell the girls. It’s a secret. A surprise.”
As she gaped at Woody, who was still yapping about the fortune to be made on the site of their old high school haunt, Mac pictured the building the way it had looked when she, Nicole, Woody, and all of their friends spent Saturday nights skating to Dire Straits and playing arcade games.
She didn’t have to try very hard to remember the cool, chemical smell of the ice, the plink and buzz of the arcade games that splashed blue and orange light across the walls.
It was sensory overload, always. A riot of music and noise.
It closed down when Mac was in her thirties, but before that it had been a candy-coated teenage dream, so much so that Mac was depressed for days when she heard it was finally shutting its doors.
She remembered something else about the Rivermouth.
There had been an auction last September, a chance for people to bid on the abandoned property.
A news report on TV announcing someone had purchased the place and planned to renovate.
Mac had seen that report—everyone had—and she’d bet her life the man credited with making the purchase was not her brother-in-law.
Investment. That’s the word Woody had used just moments prior. Christ, was he for real? Had Woody and Nicole actually done this? Renovating a huge amusement center that was in a severe state of disrepair would cost a goddamn fortune, and that was money she was sure they didn’t have.
“Woody.” Mac heard the shift, knew her voice sounded too urgent, but she couldn’t concern herself with that now. “What the hell did you do?”
He studied her for a long time. In the half-light, he almost looked young again, his eye bags and wrinkles ferried away. The vision might have engendered pity, if Mac hadn’t known that Woody Durham was far from innocent.
“Should have known you wouldn’t understand,” he said, his fiery bluster replaced once again by the flinty expression Mac had seen before.
With difficulty, Woody wriggled out of his chair, and lurched across black grass toward the party.
The moment he was gone, Mac took out her phone.
Googled Rivermouth Arena auction purchase, and watched a series of videos appear in the search results.
It took some digging to find the one she remembered seeing last year.
The structure and surrounding land had gone for just over seven hundred thousand, an amount Mac knew was nowhere near the balance in Nicole and Woody’s bank account.
There was no mention of Woody Durham in any of the stories. The original articles hadn’t included the buyer’s name, either.
They did, however, mention that the new owner was from out of town.
A D.C. resident who, though presented with countless other options, had chosen to lay roots and spend his summers in the North Country.