Chapter 38
CHAPTER 38
SAWYER
“ Y ou sure you don’t want an actual beer, Malone?”
I looked over at Ed Cartwright, where he stood manning the taps at one end of the bar at OBX Brewhouse. Technically, this was entirely Bree’s domain now, but he hadn’t completely retired. During extra busy times, or simply when he felt like it, he resumed the position he’d occupied for more than thirty years, pulling pints and chatting up customers. As the afternoon had worn on, he’d kept my glass of ginger ale full. But my fingers were, even now, tapping the glass.
“Nah, I’m good.”
I wasn’t. Even without the kind of social anxiety Willa had, this was too damned many extra people on-island for my taste. There were too many unknown factors, and I didn’t like being this far from my wife. Not that I thought anything was likely to happen to her in broad daylight in front of this many people, but the niggle of unease that had been in the back of my brain since her failed attempt to remember at Osprey Beach was burrowing deeper. Maybe I’d have felt better if I’d heard a damned thing from Jace or Dax, but all had been radio silent from that direction.
Cheers carried on the breeze from down by the water. Presumably the winner of the latest race had just crossed the finish line. I knew—because I’d gone to look twice—that Willa was in the thick of it, congratulating the winners and encouraging competitors. I didn’t really understand why she needed to be there for all that. But she’d seemed to be holding up okay when I’d checked. So I kept returning to this barstool, occasionally engaging in conversation with Ed and the rest of his cronies, affectionately dubbed the Gray Beards by Bree.
“That there is a man itching to get back to his woman,” Wally Briggs announced.
Duck Adams—so named for the unusual waddling gait he’d acquired after his hip replacement—nodded sagely. “Still in that newlywed phase. Can’t go too long without gettin’ some.”
“Eh? Without gettin’ what?” Milt Mitchell asked. The man was practically deaf as a post and refused to get a hearing aid.
“Lucky!” Duck shouted.
“Who’s lucky?” Milt wanted to know.
Duck rolled his eyes. “Sawyer! Keep up, man.”
Wally snagged a mozzarella stick off the plate of appetizers they were all sharing. “Pretty little thing like Willa… can’t blame him for that. He’s one lucky SOB.”
“On account of the fact that I’ve known Willa since she was knee high to a grasshopper, I gotta ask y’all to stop,” Cliff Clark insisted. He’d spent thirty years working as a pilot for the ferry company, so no doubt he still saw her as a little girl.
“What?” Duck protested. “We’re just callin’ it like it is. The boy’s balls are getting bluer by the minute.”
Bree came by, a bar towel tossed over her shoulder. “Maybe keep it down, fellas. I don’t think Sawyer wants his love life broadcast for the entire bar to hear.”
I scrubbed a hand down my face. God save me from nosy old men. Not that they were entirely wrong, but that wasn’t the reason I was about to crawl out of my skin.
When my phone finally vibrated in my pocket, I yanked it out, praying it was Willa texting me to come get her. Instead, it was an unfamiliar number flashing across the screen. I almost sent it to voicemail, in case it was a spam call. But at the last second I hit answer.
“Hello?”
“Sawyer. Thank God. I’ve been tryin’ to get through for nearly an hour.”
“Jace. Hang on. Let me get somewhere quieter.” I looked around the bar for somewhere that wouldn’t be as noisy as the dining room. The bathroom maybe?
Bree tapped me on the shoulder. “Take it back to the office.”
“Thanks.”
I edged around the end of the bar and pushed through the swinging door, into the kitchen. The staff gave me a curious look, but I just pointed to the phone and shut myself into the little office where Bree managed the books. I could still hear the clatter of dishes and the sizzle of food cooking, but it was a lot quieter than the main bar.
“Okay. Hey. Sorry about that. It’s Founder’s Day, and the island is nuts.”
“Did Busby rope Willa into helping?”
“Oh yeah. She’s currently judging the regatta. I’m at the Brewhouse. Do you have news?” Circling around the desk, I took the chair, absently scanning the room. My gaze zeroed in on the wall of photos, which actually included one of Bree with Ford in front of the original tavern from when they’d been about sixteen. Huh. I’d have laid money down that she’d want those all hidden away, if not destroyed. Maybe it was about the tavern itself and not him.
Jace’s voice dragged my focus back to the call. “Yeah. Sorry it took so long for me to get back to you. I had to call in a bunch of favors before I found somebody who could dig far enough to get me the information I wanted. I was right. Nicholas Caldwell was military.”
“Who the hell is Nicholas Caldwell?”
“The real name of Dr. Collin Caswell. He changed it after he retired from the military.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Because of the kinds of missions he ran. The guy’s a PsyOps specialist, and he was known for the kind of interrogations we just don’t talk about.”
My fingers curled into a fist. “What does that mean, exactly?”
“I don’t know anything conclusively, but I think he did something to Willa. I think she saw something that night, and somebody had Caswell use his skills to keep her from remembering. Her reactions look far too much like fear-based conditioning.”
I didn’t want to know how he knew what that looked like. “You’re saying she was tortured?”
“In a sense. Yeah.”
If Jace was right, that confirmed all my suspicions that someone out there had a secret to protect. Someone who believed Willa was a threat.
“Who?” I demanded.
“I don’t know. I don’t know if he’d ever even been to Hatterwick. I’m betting he knows somebody who hired him or called in a favor, and they found some way to manipulate my parents into sending her to that particular facility.”
“Well, where the hell is the guy now?” I’d find a way to make him tell me who’d hired him.
“Dead. Taken out about five years ago under suspicious circumstances. The official report was a car accident, but the redacted version is that his brake line was cut. He had a head-on collision with an 18-wheeler.”
“Shit.” Disappointment slid through me that the guy was already dead, and that it had likely been quick. The man had deserved to suffer.
“Guy with his background wouldn’t have talked, even if he was still around. I’ll keep digging, try to find out if he had some connection to the island.”
“Dax is already looking, so maybe touch base with him, if you can.”
“I’ll do that. In the meantime, stick close to Willa. We don’t know who the threat is, and I don’t think she needs to be alone right now.”
“Understood. I’ll do whatever I have to in order to protect her.”
“Thank you. And stay safe, brother.”
“You, too.”
I didn’t give a good damn what festivities Miles had roped her into. I wanted to get her home.
On my way out of the kitchen, I snagged Bree. “I’m going to find Willa.”
“Everything okay?”
“I don’t know that it’s not.” In quick, quiet tones, I gave her the update. “I’m going to find her. Keep an eye out, would you? And loop in Gabi and Daniel if you see them. I’ll try to text them, but the network isn’t handling all these extra people well.”
“Of course.”
I paused just long enough to send the group a message, only to have it bounce back. Looked like, for now, I was on my own.
Stepping out of the bar, I wove my way to the marina, already formulating a reason for security to let me past the barricade. But when I got there, the barricades were gone, and so were the founding family committee members. Where the hell were they?
“Are you looking for your sweet bride?”
I turned toward the voice to find Marsha McCubbins, the town librarian. “Yes, ma’am. I was trying to catch her before the regatta was over. Do you know where she’s gotten to?”
“Oh, you missed the end. Stevie Clapham squeaked out a win over Kelvin Armstrong, and he was fit to be tied, I tell you. Anyway, the mayor and the others have gone out to the cemetery for the ceremonial wreath laying.”
Damn. I’d missed her. They’d be driven out to the cemetery on the outskirts of town. There was far less pomp and circumstance around the honoring of the actual ancestors who’d founded Hatterwick. Most folks weren’t too keen on being present for the laying of the wreaths at those crypts.
I turned toward the north, as if that would somehow grant me x-ray vision to see through the wall-to-wall bodies. I was more than a mile from where we’d had to park, and given the crowds, it would take me longer to get out there and back than it would to simply wait for her to make it to the staging area for the parade. No matter how much I disliked it, tactically, it made more sense to sit tight.
“Thanks, Mrs. McCubbins. Do you know where they’re organizing before the parade?”
As she gave me directions, I forced myself to stay calm.
Nothing had actually changed, other than having my suspicions confirmed.
It would be fine.