Chapter 6
“You. And you.” Lily Highgrove wasn’t exactly happy to see them.
Gabby could understand; recent events had been hard on her.
Then again, Gabby herself was the actual victim of some of those events, so as far as she was concerned, Lily could just suck it up.
Her son Andy had imprisoned Gabby onboard a fancy sailboat, after all, even if it was for her own safety.
The Highgroves were a trust fund family who’d settled on Sea Smoke Island to experiment with raising chickens and angora rabbits. Heather always joked that they put a whole different spin on “sea smoke” with their dedication to cannabis consumption.
“Is Andy around?” Luke kept it professional. “Official business.”
“What could it possibly be now? My poor boy hasn’t set a foot wrong since all that mess. In fact, he’s been helping the folks your father sent over, the ones who are trying to track down the missing islanders. We’ve been so proud of him, please tell me—”
“He’s done nothing wrong,” Luke reassured her. “I promise this will be quick and he’s not in trouble.”
“Well…” Lily hesitated, still blocking them from coming in. “I’m worried he might react badly to seeing you, Luke. Is there any chance I can help instead?”
“Actually, yes.” Gabby jumped at the chance to avoid telling Andy she’d given up his secret to Luke.
“We’re trying to track down a home remedy that’s making the rounds.
A few people have gotten sick from it. We don’t want anyone else to get hurt.
Do you know if Andy is taking anything like that? Herbal concoctions, salves, teas?”
Lily toyed with the ends of her hair, which lay in a loose ponytail across her shoulder. She wore a cashmere lounging set in oatmeal, with her bare feet peeking out from under. Did she ever wear shoes? Gabby wondered. “Just the usual,” she said vaguely.
Vague was Lily’s default style. She seemed to float through the world as if none of it was completely real. Maybe that was how she dealt with having a son on the spectrum.
“Can you tell us what the usual is?” Luke asked, taking out his notebook. “And where you acquired it?”
She huffed out a breath. “Must I? Isn’t that sort of thing confidential?”
“It’s up to you, but we’re trying to trace a bad batch of something before someone gets seriously hurt.” He stuck his pen behind his ear in a gesture Gabby knew would be catnip for Heather. “Listen, how about you just give us a list of the doctors or herbalists that you’ve been working with?”
“Is this going to be some kind of witch hunt? Because I won’t be part of that. You can’t blame us for going outside the Western medical system. It has no soul.”
Oh Lord. Gabby bit her lip to keep from laughing at the expression on Luke’s face, as if he’d just stepped into a pit of snakes.
“No witch hunt here. I have nothing against witches. Just toxic substances.”
It took a long moment of debate with herself, but finally she said, with extreme reluctance, “We’ve been working with Tamara Brown since we came to the island. She’s helped us with so many things. Andy’s anxiety, my anxiety, Tessa’s terrible acne, my husband’s erectile dysfunction—”
“We get the picture,” Luke said hastily. “Thank you, Lily, we can take it from here.”
Safely inside the truck, Gabby could finally release the laughter she’d bottled up. “I thought she was worried about confidentiality. Was she going to spill all the family secrets if we let her?”
Luke was chuckling too as he started up the truck. “Funny thing is, I knew about Jason’s issues. When he gets stoned he can’t stop talking. He showed up at the constable’s office in tears, wanting to confess a whole bunch of shit.”
Gabby assessed him with a curious sideways glance. This man was very likely going to be a big part of her life. He was her podcast partner’s partner. That was almost like a brother-in-law. She probably ought to get to know him.
“You like being the constable here, don’t you?”
“I do. This island is full of characters. I’ve gotten to know people on a level I wouldn’t have if I didn’t have this job. I feel like I’m contributing, and that means a lot to me.”
“It’s pretty different from how you grew up.”
“Yeah. I couldn’t choose that. But I can choose this.”
She liked that perspective, partly because it resonated with her own experience. She hadn’t chosen to be the daughter of a high-powered politician and a federal judge. On one hand, she was fortunate, and she knew that. On the other hand, big responsibilities came with that background.
“Was it difficult leaving the family fold?”
“Not for me. I was pretty isolated as a kid. My mother got the blame for breaking up my father’s first marriage. Carson hated me like poison, and Fiona was hot and cold. Barnaby was the only one who stood up for me, and he left when I was fifteen. After that, I was on my own.”
Her attention picked up at the mention of Barnaby. “At least you had someone in your corner.”
“Yeah, Barnaby kept me alive.” He gave a dark chuckle. “Might have been truer than I realized. I’m glad he’s back. I don’t know if he’s glad, but I am. You should give him a chance.”
The sudden shift made her startle. “Me? What do you mean?”
“I know he comes off a certain way sometimes, but he’s an exceptionally good person. Top tier.”
“Okay…I’ll take your word for it, though I usually like to make up my own mind about people. But what does it matter what I think?”
“He likes you.”
“Uh, no, he doesn’t.” Gabby had to correct that misinformation immediately. “We didn’t get off on the right foot, put it that way.”
“I know. That’s why I’m saying you should give him another chance.”
He turned down the southwest road, the one she’d traveled just the other day in search of Tamara Brown. In Luke’s company, it felt different. The woods didn’t seem to crowd the road so closely, and an afternoon patch of sun turned the roadside chicory flowers an especially cheerful blue.
Gabby decided to change the subject since talking about Barnaby made her oddly uncomfortable. “By the way, I went looking for Tamara once before and got lost in a blackberry thicket.”
“Did you take the wrong trail? It can be confusing.”
“I mean, I must have, but I don’t know where the right trail is. Have you been to her place?”
“No. But I know where it is.”
His confidence turned out to be correct. He spotted the trail as soon as he brought the truck to a halt.
“There,” he said, pointing to a narrow footpath winding into a lush grove of hemlock trees. She hopped out and stood exactly where she’d been the other day, when she’d only seen two trails. There it was, quite obvious now that he’d pointed it out.
“That is the strangest thing. I swear I looked this way and didn’t see any trail.”
Luke shrugged as he lifted a low-sweeping branch for her to pass under. “The wind can hide things. A trick of light can make you miss it. Why were you looking for Tamara, by the way?”
She winked at him. “That’s podcast business.”
“Hm. Well, just as long as we’re clear that anything she says to me during this visit stays off the pod, you’re welcome to come along.”
“I will respect those boundaries.” What choice did she have? “All I want is to set up a time to talk to her about her family lineage.”
“Fair enough.” He ducked under another branch. “I think this path is meant for shorter people.”
“I know what you mean.” After just a few steps along the mossy trail, she was already picking twigs and lichen out of her hair.
These woods had a depth to them that made her shiver.
They held secrets, the thought came to her.
Whispered secrets from centuries past. In here, she couldn’t hear any of the usual distant engine sounds, the mowers, the chainsaws, the speedboat engines, even the airplanes.
The thick growth of the forest muffled all of it.
Bird sounds, on the other hand, rang through clearly, each one distinct and full of personality. Gabby had never paid much attention to birdsongs before, but these were impossible to ignore. “It sounds like they’re talking about us,” she whispered to Luke.
“Hang on.” He paused, putting a finger to his lips. A new sound filtered through the woods. Human voices. The deep rumble of a man’s voice, just a bass note, really, little more than a male register vibration. Then came a woman’s voice, pitched higher and rising upwards.
“Sounds like something’s going down,” she whispered.
“Stay behind me.” Luke picked up the pace, loping down the path, dodging branches, sometimes unsuccessfully. He’d have some scratches from this. Gabby moved a little more carefully, since she’d recently spent a rough night in these woods and still had flashbacks from the experience.
As they burst into the clearing, Gabby nearly collided with Luke, who had stopped abruptly.
“What the hell?” he exclaimed loudly. “What are you doing here?”
Ignoring her instructions to stay behind Luke, Gabby brushed past him to see, of all people, Barnaby Carmichael facing off with a tiny elderly woman with a cloud of silvery hair and a weathered face that suggested either a lot of sun or a stray African ancestor or two.
She wore emerald-green corduroy pants and a fringed shawl.
A forest gnome, Gabby thought whimsically.
“Luke. Gabby. Hey there.” Barnaby nodded to them both, looking resigned.
She didn’t notice any bits of lichen or twigs in the tangled mess of his black hair.
Had he come here by some other route? She hadn’t noticed any other vehicles in the cul-de-sac.
“This is Tamara Brown. Tamara, this my brother Luke and…a friend, Gabby Ramon.”
He didn’t say the word “friend” as if he meant it.
Tamara turned to sweep her gaze across Luke and Gabby. That was how it felt, as if a beam of attention had swept across them like a lighthouse. It was an odd feeling, like being x-rayed without warning.
“Why am I suddenly so popular?” Tamara’s voice sounded like it belonged to a much bigger person. Such a tiny form, but such a self-possessed presence. Gabby was already fascinated by her, no matter if she knew anything about her pirate ancestor or not.
“Tamara had nothing to do with any of the medical incidents,” Barnaby told them. “She doesn’t use toxic plants.”
“That’s not entirely true. I do use them in some of my blends, but only in the tiniest—”
Barnaby shushed her with a hand, probably trying to stop her from incriminating herself. “She had nothing to do with it,” he repeated firmly. “She works with very small doses and has never given a patient an adverse reaction.”
Luke scratched at the back of his head, flicking away a leaf scrap that had gotten stuck in his hair. He didn’t seem to be paying attention to anything his brother said. He kept looking from one to the other of them. “I don’t understand. How do you even know Tamara?”
“Tamara is…” Barnaby glanced down at the tiny woman, who gave a small shrug of one shoulder. “She’s my grandmother.”