16 Gemma
Gemma
Gemma chased her husband into the hurricane, her heart in her throat.
She imagined the roof of the guesthouse caved in.
The girls trapped under sparking electrical wires.
Vienna bleeding from the head, Florence with a leg broken and twisted at a horrible angle.
Grant raced around the pool and across the slippery flagstone patio to the walkway that led to the guesthouse, a few hundred yards from the edge of the patio.
Before she could comprehend what was happening, she saw him run around the back of the small structure . . . chasing someone?
“There was someone watching us!” Vienna shouted, pointing in the direction Grant had gone. She and Florence both stood at the door of the guesthouse, letting the rain and wind inside. Florence was in tears. Vienna, unsurprisingly, had her GoPro strapped to her forehead.
“Are you all right?” Gemma asked, pausing in front of them, curtains of soaking-wet hair half covering her eyes.
“Yes! But Dad!”
Gemma nodded and ran around the corner. Though the rain was doing its best to blind her, she could just make out Grant, grappling on the ground with a much smaller man.
“Grant!”
He rose to his feet, dragging the intruder along with him, his arm locked around the guy’s neck. Gemma noted the trendy beard, the tattoos, the gold rings. Where the hell had this guy come from in this weather? Was this another member of the house staff?
“Get off me!” the guy shouted, slapping uselessly at Grant’s bulging forearm. “I didn’t do anything!”
“Then why were my daughters screaming?” Grant demanded, grinding the words out through gritted teeth.
His face had gone red with the anger and the effort.
Grant was not a natural aggressor, but when it came to protecting his family, he had the ability to go from teddy bear to grizzly bear in a snap.
“I was just looking to see who was in there!”
“Grant!” Gemma shouted again as the wind nearly tossed her sideways.
The mulch from under the hedgerows had been strewn across the patio floor, and several of the flowerpots that had brought pops of color to the small patio had been knocked on their sides, spilling dirt and fertilizer everywhere.
“Bring him inside! We’ll talk to him in there! ”
Grant gave the guy one shake for good measure, then dragged him over to the French door that led to the kitchen and basically tossed him inside.
Gemma followed them, closing the door behind them, and the girls quickly joined, walking in from the front of the house.
Both of them were relatively dry. Gemma, Grant, and the intruder, however, were dripping wet and leaving puddles on the painted tile floor of the kitchen.
“Get towels,” Gemma told the girls as the intruder braced himself against one of the marble counters, his back to it as he stared at his captors.
Florence went. Vienna stayed, undoubtedly wanting to get every bit of this drama on camera.
It was like an unspoken rule between them.
If there was something brewing, it needed to be filmed, so Florence became the gofer. Or the narrator. Or the set designer.
“Talk,” Grant said to the intruder, struggling to catch his breath.
The man said nothing. He was also breathing heavily and looked a bit like a skittish mouse in a trap.
Gemma surmised that he was about thirty years old and, if his expensive jeans and sneakers were any indicator, had probably been one of the guests at last night’s party—not staff.
His eyes were bloodshot, and he was understandably bedraggled.
“Why were you spying on my girls!?” Grant roared.
Florence tripped into the room with the towels, looking at Grant like she was too scared to approach.
“Grant, please,” Gemma said. “Take a breath.”
“I wasn’t! I wasn’t,” the man said, raising his trembling hands. “Look, I just . . . I thought maybe if no one was staying in here I could crash in here instead of—”
“Instead of what?” Gemma asked, taking a towel from Florence and tossing it to him. She handed another to Grant, then took one for herself and started to run it over her hair.
At that moment, they heard the front door open and close, and Marshall entered, shaking off the rain. He’d managed to find a rain jacket, at least. “What’s going on?” he asked, looking around at each of them. “Who’s this?”
“We were just about to find out,” Grant explained. They all looked at the intruder. He closed his eyes, held his breath for a moment, then spoke.
“My name is Cole Shang,” he said. “I’m a promoter at Blue Dragon Records, and I was at the party last night with some friends,” he explained, rubbing at the back of his head with the towel.
Marshall’s nostrils flared. “So you work with Josh Jacoby.”
“I mean, not exactly. He’s like my boss’s boss’s boss,” the man responded.
“Right, well, we sent everyone home from the party around midnight,” Marshall said, crossing his arms over his chest. “So how are you still here?”
“Okay, about that. So . . . we maybe had a little too much fun. It was a great party, man,” he said to Marshall hopefully, like maybe this would buy him some brownie points.
Marshall’s jaw worked, and he said nothing.
Cole cleared his throat. “Anyway, I passed out at some point. When I woke up, I had all these texts saying they were shutting down the party and they couldn’t find me, so they were going.
The house was, like, dark and clearly locked up for the night. So I crashed.”
“Wow. Those are some friends,” Florence muttered under her breath.
“Wait, you’re a promoter?” Vienna asked eagerly.
“Vienna, not now,” Gemma said.
“Where?” Marshall was fully alert.
“Where what?”
“Where did you crash?” he asked impatiently.
“A den or something, I guess? I don’t know what you rich people name all these rooms.” He chuckled, then went serious when no one else joined him. “It’s by the garage.”
Everyone looked at Marshall, who shrugged. It seemed he didn’t know the house as well as they all assumed he did.
“There’s a big TV and some other random crap in there, and there were a couple of couches, so I grabbed a throw and fell asleep. When I woke up this morning, this was happening.” He waved a hand toward the ceiling in an attempt to reference the storm.
“And you’re alone? Did you see anything?” Marshall asked.
Cole did a double take at the question. “See what? No. I just slept. And . . . maybe took some crackers and caviar from the kitchen.”
“Real nice,” Grant said under his breath.
“What? I was starving!” He put the towel fully over his head now, drying his hair, then brought it down to dry his forearms. “And yes, I’m alone.”
“Bullshit,” Florence said.
“Florence!” Gemma admonished, the response automatic.
“No way, Mom! He had someone with him. Whoever it was took off just before he did!” Florence asserted.
“She’s right. I’ve got it all on camera,” Vienna added, gesturing at the ridiculous device on her head.
“I swear to God, I’m alone,” Cole said, but he didn’t quite look anyone in the eye as he said it. “Go check that den room thing. I slept there by myself.”
“Grant, you keep him here,” Marshall said, taking charge. “I’ll get the others. We’re gonna search the house.”
“What? I just told you—”
But Marshall wasn’t listening. He’d clearly moved on to another objective. “Maybe one of them saw what happened to Lincoln.”