Chapter 24
It was Julien’s last hour of work for the night.
He’d decided to stay later than he had all week, tending to things in the office, sending wretched emails, and mending things with Sylvia, their HR-and-secretary in one, who was now overworked and threatening to quit.
They couldn’t lose her now, just as the season was beginning.
Besides, Hannah had asked for a night off—just one night—and it allowed Julien a little bit of time to think about the rush of falling in love with her.
He couldn’t believe how simple it felt. Had it been this easy with Nina?
Just then, his phone began to buzz. Before he glanced at it, he imagined it would be one of the dock workers, asking him to go to the sailing bar for drinks.
It had been ages since he’d caught up with those guys, and he knew he needed to check in and be friendly.
He didn’t want to frighten Hannah away with the truth that he was an antisocial guy without many friends.
Maybe she’d already figured that out. It wasn’t like she had many friends to speak of, either, though. Maybe they could forge a new reality together. Maybe they were all each other needed.
But when Julien finally looked at his phone, he read: ELEANOR PIKE, and his blood ran cold.
No matter what she’d done for his mother, no matter what she and the rest of the Legacy Club had done for his family all those years ago, he sometimes hated when she called him.
She always wanted a favor. She always needed something from him, and he couldn’t disappoint her.
That was the nature of Nantucket Island—the Legacy Club had all the power.
“Evening, Eleanor,” he said, trying to keep his voice firm and polite.
“Julien, hello. I wondered if you could do me a favor.”
“Of course,” Julien said, thinking, I knew it.
“You have video footage of the dock from this afternoon, don’t you? Footage of everyone entering and exiting the ferry from, say, between three thirty and four o’clock?”
Julien leaned back in his chair. This was a strange request indeed. “We have several cameras up, yes.”
“Do you have the capacity to send that particular half hour of video to me?” Eleanor asked.
Julien let his tongue drift across his teeth. He knew better than to argue with Eleanor. He knew he couldn’t tell her that this was a breach of privacy and against the law.
“As soon as you can, Julien. This is a matter of incredible importance,” Eleanor urged.
Julien found the footage almost immediately.
They kept the last forty-eight hours on file, just in case of emergencies.
It was easy for him to cut the half hour in question, zip the file, and send it to Eleanor’s email address.
The fact that he knew Eleanor’s email was proof of how many times he’d had to do similar things for her over the years. When would it end?
“Received,” Eleanor said brightly. “Wonderful. Thank you, Julien.” She hung up, leaving Julien in the silence of himself, his heartbeat pounding in his ears.
He told himself to shut off the computer and maybe walk the ten minutes to the sailing bar, if only to forget about what he’d maybe just done.
He was probably helping the Legacy Club track down someone.
Probably helping them to either threaten or destroy someone.
He shivered, hating himself for it. Outside, he locked up the office, nodded at a few passing dock workers, and hurried over to the bar. Despite the heat, he was shivering.
Halfway to the sailing bar, his phone rang again. Certain it was Eleanor Pike, asking for something else, he told himself to ignore it. But it kept ringing and ringing. He worried it was his mother, that something had happened to her at her retirement home.
Instead, it was from Hannah. Relief spilled through him.
“Hey there,” he said, his voice entirely different from how it had been a few minutes ago.
Maybe Hannah would be willing to have him over tonight.
Maybe he could have a nightcap at her place and tell her bits and pieces about the Legacy Club again.
He needed to warn her because he wasn’t sure she’d picked up on what he’d been saying about Eleanor Pike.
But Hannah was crying. “Julien? Are you still at the docks?”
Julien froze. Something was very wrong. “I’m here,” he said.
“I’m almost there,” Hannah warbled. “Stay where you are.”
Dumbfounded, Julien waited on the boardwalk, his arms over the railing as he scanned the parking lot near the boats, waiting for Hannah’s crummy car.
When it appeared, she parked crookedly and rushed out of the car, barely remembering to close the door behind her.
Her face was tearstained, and her eyes were enormous.
He went toward her and wrapped his arms around her, trying to fathom what had gone wrong.
“You can tell me,” he breathed. “Anything at all.”
He’d already spilled so many of his own secrets. He’d told her about his father, about Nina. About everything he’d lost. And in turn, she’d told him so much, too. At least, he’d thought so.
“He took her,” Hannah cried into his shoulder. “I can’t believe it, but he took her!”
It took Julien ages to figure out what was going on.
Back in the office, he made Hannah a mug of tea and told her to explain everything from the beginning.
But first, Hannah told him to bring up the same footage he’d sent to Eleanor.
Julien still had the file up, so he clicked through to where Hannah told him to—3:42—and saw a forty-something man and a teenage girl with shiny blond hair, moving up the ramp and onto the ferry.
“That’s Minnie’s dress,” Hannah said, pointing. “She’s wearing a wig. But that’s Kendall. I would know Kendall anywhere. He took her away!” She smashed her fist on her thigh, then bit her lip.
Slowly, Julien leaned back in his chair. The pieces were coming together.
Somehow, some way, Eleanor and the rest of the Legacy Club had learned about Kendall’s return to the island. They’d learned that he was taking Minnie away from Hannah. And—with Hannah getting closer and closer to their secrets—they’d seen an opportunity.
“Eleanor knows where they went,” Hannah breathed, getting up and pacing the office. Her cheeks were blotchy with rage. “She says she’ll give me the address. She’ll tell me where to go. But I have to promise not only to stop investigating the Legacy Club but to join them, too.”
Julien stood to join her, thinking that this was perhaps the strangest of all.
He’d never heard of the Legacy Club recruiting new members.
It was clear that Eleanor had seen in Hannah what Julien had: that she was special, that she had a marvelous energy and intellect.
That she wanted her close to her enterprise, rather than battling it.
“What are you going to do?” Julien asked.
Hannah pulled at her hair. “I don’t want Kendall to die,” she breathed.
“I didn’t get into the business of journalism to let something like that happen!
I wanted to save people. And Julien! I married him.
I had a child with him! But…” Her lower lip shook.
“He took my baby away! He stole millions of dollars, ran off, and now, he’s taken Minnie!
” She looked on the verge of collapsing to the ground.
Again, Julien wrapped his arms around her, trying to stabilize her. He didn’t know what she needed.
“Is it selfish to give in to them?” Hannah asked in a tiny voice. “Is it selfish to want my daughter back so badly that I let them carry on?”
Julien tightened his grip around her. As gently as he could, he told her, “The Legacy Club has been around a lot longer than either of us. Their legacy is stitched into the very fabric of this place. If you destroyed them—if you even managed it—Nantucket Island as we all know it would crumble. Everything and everyone, from me to Viggo’s family, to the numerous hotels and restaurants on the island, to the tourism board, would collapse. ”
Hannah leaned back to look him in the eye. Julien searched his heart, asking himself if he was lying at all. But he knew that everything he’d said was the truth.
Perhaps that was the scariest thing of all.