Chapter 15
Throughout the following day, Julien felt jittery, as though someone was following him, as though he were being watched.
He reminded himself to stay focused, to keep his mind on the job.
But he couldn’t help but glance behind his shoulders, to study the eyes of the men who worked for him and try to deduce what they were thinking.
When he got into his pickup at the end of the workday, he put his forehead on the steering wheel and tried to convince himself that he’d gotten away with it.
So what if his mother had spoken loudly at the retirement facility?
She’d spilled dirty secrets aloud in a place and at a time when she shouldn’t have.
But Nora was a sick woman. She couldn’t be blamed for what she’d done.
Even the Legacy Club had to understand that.
Then again, Julien knew that the blame could be moved from Nora to Julien, that people in the Legacy Club never forgot what you owed them, or how you’d betrayed them.
They kept perfect records.
Julien drove the rest of the way to his little house on the water, trying to focus on the things that mattered: what he was going to make for dinner and how many beers he had in the fridge.
Just one? Or did he have another one, hiding somewhere in the back?
Maybe tonight he could catch the back half of the basketball game.
He told himself that he wouldn’t fall asleep in front of the television, not tonight. It was getting pathetic.
Julien entered the house through the side door, opened his fridge, pulled out a beer, and put a one-person lasagna into the microwave.
The microwave began its familiar buzzing song.
When he turned back around, he clicked on the light in the adjoining living room.
Immediately, all the blood rushed out of his head.
But he bit his tongue to keep from screaming.
A woman was sitting in his armchair, watching him.
Julien’s heart rate was impossibly high. But rather than show his fear, he raised his beer toward her, sipped it, and set it on the counter. He wanted to show her that these kinds of tactics didn’t work on him (although, of course, they did).
“Evening, Eleanor,” he said. “Would you like a beer?”
“No, thank you, Julien. I haven’t had a beer in fifty years.” Eleanor scoffed.
Eleanor remained seated, her hands folded primly over her thighs. Julien wondered how long she’d been there, sitting in the dark, waiting for him. She probably knew his schedule down to the minute, just as she knew everything.
Julien was prepared to stand up for his mother.
He prepared to tell Eleanor that Nora was losing her memory more and more every day, that nothing Nora had said was a secret in that retirement place anyway, that Eleanor’s tricks and schemes were everybody on Nantucket’s business.
But he decided to wait it out, to see what she had to say.
“Why don’t you sit down, Julien?” Eleanor gestured toward the sofa opposite the chair. “You’ve been on your feet all day.”
Julien wanted to roll his eyes at her so-called thoughtfulness. But he obeyed her anyway, sitting on the edge of the sofa and maintaining eye contact as best as he could.
The clock that hung on the wall ticked and ticked. Julien wanted to throw it in the ocean.
“Do you remember the last time we saw one another?” Eleanor asked.
“I suppose it was at the funeral,” Julien said, although that wasn’t true.
He’d spotted Eleanor, Rosamund, and Clarice coming out of the Sutton Book Club a few nights ago.
As far as he knew, Esme Sutton wasn’t involved in their secret society, but Eleanor had always loved to read, and she’d always found Esme Sutton to be “charming.”
Regardless, he’d given them a wide berth.
“Do you remember what we spoke about?” Eleanor asked. It felt like a quiz at elementary school, something meant to stump him.
“I suppose not,” Julien said. Sweat was slick at the back of his neck.
“I’ll enlighten you. We spoke about the newcomer, Hannah Moore,” Eleanor said. “I believe I asked you to keep tabs on her? To make sure she wasn’t getting too close?”
Julien’s ears rang. Was it possible that Eleanor had spotted Hannah and Julien on the boardwalk last night? Had she heard Hannah asking Julien about the Legacy Club?
“I haven’t really seen her,” Julien said. “We met by chance at the funeral, but we don’t know each other.”
Eleanor raised a single eyebrow, assessing him. “According to several sources, she was heard asking around about various things last night. Things she shouldn’t know about.”
Julien’s chest ached with worry. “I don’t know anything about that.”
Eleanor sniffed. “Yes, well. It’s come to our attention that Hannah bought Georgia Kaiser’s old place. You remember the one? Terrible dump, these days. Georgia must be rolling over in her grave.”
Julien remembered Georgia Kaiser, all right. That ancient woman who’d moved down the boardwalk at a snail’s pace, looking at everyone distrustfully.
“Georgia was always a nostalgic woman,” Eleanor continued. “Clarice suggested that Georgia might have left things in the house. Things that, perhaps, Hannah has discovered.”
“What kind of things?” Julien asked.
“That’s not anything we can answer for ourselves,” Eleanor retorted. “But Rosamund suggested that you should go.”
Julien was taken aback. “You’re kidding.”
Eleanor laughed. “Have you ever known me to joke?”
“Like I said, I don’t know Hannah. We’re strangers,” Julien said.
“You were seen getting out of her vehicle on the day of the funeral,” Eleanor pointed out.
“That was a chance encounter,” he said. “She was parking in a no-parking zone and needed help finding a spot. It was an act of service. It’s what anyone would do.”
Eleanor tapped her nail against her thigh.
“It sounds to me like you know her better than anyone else in Nantucket. More than that? Shall I say it? You’re a handsome man.
She’s single and lonely after a difficult breakup down South.
The more we learn about it, about everything that happened in Florida, the more alarmed we are.
It seems that she really made a mess of things.
” Eleanor paused. “Do you want her to make a mess of things here on our beautiful island? Do you want her to destroy everything we’ve built? ”
Julien knew better to say what he was thinking. He knew better than to belt out, I don’t care about your stupid club. Why can’t you leave me alone? He remembered the past. He remembered all that had happened and all they were sure he owed them. So he shook his head.
“That’s settled then,” Eleanor said. “You’ll go to Hannah’s. You’ll be very discreet. You’ll figure out what she knows and how she knows it. And, Julien? It will be helpful to you if she falls in love with you. I hope you remember how to make someone fall in love with you?”
Julien flared his nostrils. “That must be a joke,” he said.
This time, Eleanor chuckled good-naturedly. “Of course it was,” she said. “Maybe I still have a little comedy left in me. Who would have thought?”
Eleanor stood grandly, then walked through the kitchen, through the foyer, and into the darkness that awaited her outside.
There was no telling how she’d arrived, nor where she’d parked a car if she’d driven herself.
Julien listened for the sound of a motor that never came.
It was almost as if she could fly—a thought that made him laugh darkly, as he’d thought she was a witch when he was younger.
Leaning back on the sofa with his beer in hand, he thought about what he’d told Eleanor he would do.
He brought Hannah into his mind’s eye, remembering how beautiful and sharp-witted she was.
He’d loved getting into her clunky car and helping her find a parking spot.
Being around her had been easy. It had reminded him of his first wife, how simple it had felt to be quiet together.
They hadn’t demanded anything from one another.
Had it been that way for Hannah with her first husband?
He sat for no more than twenty minutes before a text buzzed through his phone.
UNKNOWN: We meant today, not some other time in the future. We want this cleaned up as soon as possible.
Julien’s heart ached with what he needed to do. But it was only seven thirty at night, not late by any standards, and it was summertime, warmer than yesterday, with gray-rose waves that rolled gently toward shore. Maybe today was a good time to see Hannah, no matter the reason.
Maybe he could pretend he was there with only good intentions and her journalistic instincts wouldn’t kick in and peg him as a fraud. He hoped they wouldn’t. He was in over his head.