Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
A shley thought they were finally having a moment. Learning that what she had feared most was true—Dad had abandoned her—hadn’t crushed her. She lived, she breathed, and she found a surprising inner calm. Because Christopher hadn’t given up on her.
Something had eased in her heart. Her relationship with Dad was over and done. The only reconciliation would be making peace with his memory. She had to search within for forgiveness.
Her husband remained. She had resigned herself to letting him go, and then came a flash of what they’d had. If she could release herself from the guilt over not making amends with Dad and walk ahead with her husband, she’d remove all the obstacles from their path. Did he still love her, or had his allowance been about pity? She needed the answer. In a second, she decided to scare herself and him. She asked for something better than sole ownership of the Inn. She asked for a partnership.
Why didn’t he say anything?
The longer the silence stretched between them, the more tension rose in her stiff limbs. A lump clogged her throat. Instead of lightness, she turned to stone inch by inch.
Maybe because she had said something neither of them would have anticipated, he hadn’t really heard her. Her chin trembled. She darted her tongue over her dry bottom lip. She’d have to put herself out there again. Her mouth opened.
He turned away.
The loss of his attention became a physical ache. She wanted to protest. Her question demanded an answer. She deserved a reply.
As he stared, rapt, focused on the window, a loud boom shook the Inn.
She followed his gaze. Her eyes widened.
The lighthouse was gone.
Against the dark sky, angry orange flames engulfed a pile of stony rubble.
From the safety of the office, she stared at the fire. They had been there on that spot not too long ago. Lonnie and Zach couldn’t be involved. The bad guys were in the back of a cruiser headed to jail. Was this an accident? Or arson? Was someone after them? What if the fire spread? How was it set? Was the entire property in danger?
An alarm sounded.
She heard it from a distance, not quite processing the noise, the scene, or the feelings. Frozen. Immobile. Horrified. Her brain and her body weren’t working in tandem.
“Ashley. Come on. We have to get out of here.” He stood, moving away.
Her skin chilled without his touch. No. He couldn’t move away. He needed to stay and answer her question. He had to agree. Because she couldn’t keep living her life without him. No more unknowns.
When he returned, he grabbed her hand. She almost sighed at his touch, relief making her boneless. She stood, and he pulled her to the secret staircase.
She bobbed along behind him, floating down the steps. Her brain didn’t process the locomotion necessary. Numb and cold, she was so very tired of running. She wanted to stay here with him and give them a chance. Waiting for his answer wasn’t her style. If she started doing that now, she’d gain nothing but maybe lose everything.
At the bottom of the stairs, he didn’t stop. He continued through the hall to the side door.
On the damp grass outside, she slid, thudding into him.
With a hand, he steadied her and gazed into her eyes. She had to ask him again. No, she’d tell him. They were going to be partners. They were not going to be idiots and lose each other in some misguided act of chivalry.
But she could hardly hear herself breathe. The Inn’s fire alarm system blared louder outside than on the top floor.
Guests milled on the lawn in various combinations of coats and pajamas. Employees raced through the chaotic, noisy scene. Conversations and cries mixed into a deafening sound.
The siren from the fire trucks echoed in the night.
“I’ve got to go. Stay here, okay?” Christopher asked.
No, don’t leave. We have to stick together. We’re a team . Her brain buzzed, processing the scene at a rapid pace. Her body didn’t match the speed. She couldn’t speak or move.
She was immobilized.
He squeezed her hand. “I’ll be right back. Stay here. Stay safe. Okay? We can talk later.”
She stared at their clasped hands. His warm palm anchored her in the moment. She nodded.
He leaned close and kissed her forehead.
His aftershave lingered in the air.
Then he turned, racing away.
When he disappeared from view, she let her shoulders drop. In a crisis, she was powerless.
During the lighthouse fire, she’d narrowly escaped the flames. Incapable of dousing the flames, she’d run into Christopher’s arms. Within minutes, he stopped the fire.
Again, on the day of the explosion, she probably would have drowned, too shocked for her survival instincts and years of swim lessons to kick in, if Steve Prim hadn’t been nearby. Was damsel in distress her true identity?
She felt so helpless. She hated that. It wasn’t just Dad or Christopher. It was herself.
She needed to prove her value and her worth. Not just to Christopher or the community. To herself most of all. If she didn’t want to be a joke, she had to be serious. Starting now. He hadn’t responded to her question. She would prove herself to be a capable partner and take charge in the midst of the chaos.
In the distance, above the buzz of furtive conversations, another siren echoed.
The emergency vehicle came closer with each passing second. She took a shaky breath. Help was near. Above the crowd, she heard the crack of breaking branches. Paramedics and the fire department must have arrived.
Turning toward the sound, she saw movement in the darkness just past the light cast from the Inn. She squinted and narrowed her gaze. Nothing in particular stood out. A person? An animal? A ghost? She gulped. Not a ghost and not a joke. She needed to be serious and assess the threat.
On tiptoes, she raced toward the dark tree line, skirting the shrubs at the perimeter of the property, following the thick forest towards the spot where she hid in wait for a warm dinner all those nights ago. Funny how moments came full circle. She would have laughed if fear hadn’t slid its fiery grip around her throat and squeezed tight.
Did anyone see?
A low murmur came from a few yards ahead.
“No. Too focused on the Soupy fools,” a familiar voice said.
Steve. She started to shake, her teeth chattering. She clamped a hand over her mouth, an ineffectual attempt at subduing her fear. She knew the voice. She’d known it for years. What were the chances on having two such betrayals in one evening?
“Well, that was an unexpected piece of good news. You can’t control every detail. Maybe it’s better not to have that ability.” Carl Prim chuckled a horrible, raspy laugh. He coughed, a dry, hacking sound.
She strained for more. What was the unexpected good news? Why are they here?
“You okay, Dad? Let’s get out of here. We can come back and finish up in the morning.”
Steve was the voice of reason? She’d always thought him as the stooge. Had it all been an act? Under the guise of friendliness, did a killer lurk?
Ashley didn’t like her proximity to the pair. She inched her way back, unseeing. She faced her foes, hoping her shocked but familiar expression might save her from a gunshot to the back of the head.
Snap.
She froze, squeezing her eyes shut. She’d stepped on a fallen limb in Christopher’s otherwise meticulously manicured manor. Her bad luck continued.
“What was that?” Carl rasped.
“Who’s there?” Steve called.
Her lungs burned with the breath she held. Could she somehow disappear? Her body refused to move as her brain whirred with terrifying scenarios at top speed. Would they kill her? Take her somewhere? How long before anyone looked for her?
The crunch of sneakers against the fallen pine needles was as loud as roller skates gliding over a sheet of bubble wrap.
“Ashley?” Steve asked.
“Oh. Hi, Steve.” She opened her eyes and smoothed back her hair. “Pretty wild night, huh? I was just upstairs when I heard all the commotion and came down. Thought I’d see if I could be useful, you know?”
Steve shook his head, rolling his shoulders forward. “Oh, Ashley.”
“What’s this?” Carl asked in his gruff tone, stopping at his son’s side. “Better take her with us.”
“Me? Where? Why?” She belatedly added a gasp. She’d never been subtle. Her biggest role in high school came as an actor in the background of Bye Bye Birdie . She’d been told to tone down her performance, that her pantomime distracted from the rest of the scene.
“Enough of your nonsense,” Carl said. “Grab her, Steve.”
Steve gripped a hand on her elbow, jerking the arm up.
She flinched. “Hey. Ouch. Listen. Think about this. I don’t know anything. If you take me, you’re in huge trouble. Do you really want to get arrested for kidnapping? Christopher is litigious. He’ll go after you no matter what happens to me.” She shivered, hoping “ no matter what happens” was a metaphor and not about to become her destiny.
“We have a plan. It was better without you here, but now we can use you to our advantage.” Carl rasped and coughed.
Carl was cruel. She’d heard rumors and had been shielded from knowing him personally. Growing up, she’d felt sort of like a kindred spirit with Steve. She had a difficult father, too. But Xavier had a heart.
“Steve, think about this,” she murmured.
Steve held her tighter. “It’s my plan, Ashley. If you’re gone and Christopher is run out of business, the Prims can finally claim the land that should have always been ours. Let’s move.”
Carl strode ahead.
Steve tugged her away from the Inn and into the darkness.
She let him lead without any comment. With her heart pounding, she wasn’t sure she could have formed a sentence without choking. Finally, as her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she uncovered where she’d hidden her backbone. She’d humanize herself to them. Give the pair a false sense of security that she was on their side. “Where are we going?” she whispered.
“The boathouse,” Steve replied.
She nodded. Okay, she knew their destination. Knowledge was power, right?
They’d drag her through the woods separating the properties. Unfortunately, in the dark forest, she couldn’t grab the attention of a bystander. But maybe Steve and Carl would have to move her somewhere else. They wouldn’t kill her inside their family-run business. She had some time. “And you’ve been behind everything?”
She found an odd sense of relief in the midst of her terror. Perhaps Christopher was right to stick to logic and reason. Without an imagination stoking all sorts of thoughts, the world was remarkably flat. Predictable. Boring. Nothing to do with a ghost.
Dad was gone. She couldn’t hold out hope for a reconciliation. She reached a place of reluctant, emotional peace.
“Define everything?” Steve asked.
“The fire?” she asked.
“No. You did that,” he replied.
And now she was shocked all over again.
Was the ghost still hanging around? Could Dad help? She prayed hard that her father would stay and save her. She was running out of options.
Christopher . He’d been the answer all along. She’d run off without asking him for the truth. He’d finally told her, and her instinctual response had been to push back against him, to deny and continue to accept the lies she told herself.
Why? Because she was her own worst enemy? She had to take action to rescue herself. Now or never.
She slipped off her hair tie with her free hand, glad she’d used a bright loop to secure her ponytail. The scrunchie was a throwback to her youth. Zach Jenkins wasn’t the only fan of nostalgia. Could her love of mall accessories help save her?
When her captors stared ahead, she dropped it behind her. Please let it be enough to grab Christopher’s attention and realize she was in trouble. She hoped not life or death.
* * *
Christopher hated standing by and watching.
He’d spent so much of his early life at the mercy of others’ whims, that staying silent was second nature. As a teen, when he had first started seeing Ashley as something more than a friend, he slipped into his old patterns of letting her call the shots. However, in the years since she’d been gone, he had assumed control of his life.
And now, as everything he’d so carefully worked for hovered near total ruin, he had to take charge.
She didn’t fight him about staying put.
He gave her hand one last squeeze, instilling his touch and smile with every promise he had. They couldn’t go back. He was sorry to ruin her final impression of her father. But if doing so cleared the air for them to move forward, he could be grateful for the chance.
She was safe.
He strode toward the burning island. He wasn’t foolish. He wouldn’t attempt to fight the fire himself. If Lonnie and Zach had set the explosives to cover their tracks, they would be in for bad news. As soon as the fire department had the situation under control, Christopher intended to level additional charges against the pair. Trespassing, arson, and attempted murder. He hadn’t thought Zach hated him enough to kill. But he’d been wrong.
“Mr. Willie,” Christopher called as he neared the groundskeeper blocking the bridge with his crossed arms. “Thank you.”
With a nod, Mr. Willie turned and faced the smoldering ruins. “Never thought I’d see this.”
“Me either.”
“D’you suppose there is a ghost?”
Christopher stared straight ahead, unseeing. He didn’t want to respond to the man. While he appreciated Ashley’s creativity and whimsy, he didn’t need her working the whole community into a frenzy. He had been a hypocrite to her, berating her for the ghost while encouraging the myth of Soupy. Ashley deserved his sincerest apology.
“Stand back,” a voice called.
Christopher stepped to the side, breaking from Mr. Willie to allow several volunteer firefighters in full gear to race down the bridge, carrying a hose. He made his way back toward the crowd, reassuring the guests that the Inn was safe, the fire was under control, and that they could all return to their beds.
He was eager to do just that but waited to be sure the staff had corralled the guests back inside. Exhaustion crept up his body until it threatened to pull him down to the ground to curl into a little ball on the soft grass. He dragged his heavy feet and hung his head, too weary to lift his chin, too tired for more pleasant small talk.
She must be exhausted, too.
He reached the side of the Inn. Away from the curious gazes of visitors and staff, he lifted his head and smiled. Coming back to her felt good, natural, and cozy. Like coming home. But where was she?
He rubbed his eyes and looked again at the spot where she had been. The side of the building was empty. No one loitered nearby. Perhaps she’d gotten sleepy and went inside to rest after the truck arrived. He pulled open the door to an empty back hallway and darkened stairwell.
The hair on the back of his neck rose on end. She hated being in the building without the lights on. If she’d headed upstairs, she would have left the switch for him to turn off. No, she wasn’t inside. He shut the door and strode around the building, first taking large lunges. By the time he reached the front door and still hadn’t found her, he was jogging. His blood pumped through his veins at top speed; the sluggish feeling evaporated in the wake of the horrible pins and needles sensation pricking every inch of his skin. At the back of the Inn, on the patio, he nearly collided with Mr. Willie.
“Have you seen Ashley?” he shouted at the groundskeeper, panting.
“What?” Mr. Willie twisted his head from one side to the other. “Ashley? Ashley Hale-Lewis? Your Ashley?”
She’s never been mine. For a second, he’d stood before her with no more secrets. They’d approached either the end or the beginning. And disaster struck, killing his second chance. “Yes, my wife.” He bit out the words.
“No. Haven’t seen her.”
Oh no . Christopher couldn’t lose her now. He couldn’t come so close to getting her back to miss out on the rest of his life with her. And he hadn’t really said everything, had he? Fear held his tongue. Regret would be his constant companion.
“Sir? Are you okay?” Mr. Willie grabbed him by the shoulders. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
In another circumstance, Christopher might have laughed at that turn of phrase. All he wanted to do was cry. “Come with me.” He continued around the side of the Inn toward the spot where he’d last seen her. Had he missed her? Was she curled up against the building?
He pulled out the flashlight from his back pocket, glad he’d kept it after the commotion, and powered on the thin beam of light, shining it in every direction.
Mr. Willie turned on the flashlight app on his cell phone and did the same on the other side, facing the trees. “Over there. I see something.” He headed into the tree line edging the lawn.
Christopher followed and felt his heart drop.
Mr. Willie held a brightly colored, fluffy hair tie.
The same kind Ashley was always pulling out of her pockets to get her hair out of her face quickly. Someone took her. Christopher hated the feeling sinking into his bones. Certainty was a cruel sort of torture.
He stared, unseeing and unblinking. What if he’d been wrong about everything? What if the fire and tonight’s explosion hadn’t been Zach? Perhaps worse, Christopher needed the other man’s help. Zach knew too much. Could he harness his gossip for good? “Mr. Willie, I need to go to the sheriff. Can you please check on everyone inside?”
“Do you need me to come with you?”
In that moment, Christopher almost said yes. He didn’t have any friends, none besides his wife. But he could count on a few people. And the groundskeeper was one of that select number. “I’ll be fine. Please, look after the Inn.” Without waiting for acknowledgment, Christopher slipped out of the forest, crossed the lawn, and jogged to his car, glad he’d taken his keys with him when he’d left his office.
He drove at top speed, reaching the station in a few minutes and bolting out of the car to bang with both fists on the locked door.
A uniformed deputy approached the glass door with a puzzled expression. He unlocked the door and pulled it open a crack. “May I help you?”
“My wife…” Christopher panted. “She’s missing. Abducted, I think. Are the two men arrested at the Inn earlier still in custody? Were they bonded out?”
The deputy shook his head. “No. They are still here.”
“I need to speak with them. I think they have information about my wife.”
The door shut.
For a second, Christopher considered pushing his way inside. Getting thrown in jail alongside the trespassers would only delay him. He needed help. Now. He had to save her.
Then, mercifully, the door opened inward, and the deputy waved Christopher inside.
The door shut behind him, and he could hear murmurs coming from an open doorway. Following the sound, he spotted Lonnie and Zach in the holding cell.
Lonnie sat on a metal bench, his back against the wall.
Zach rested his forehead against the bars, straightening as Christopher entered view. “Are you coming to drop the charges? We can’t get anyone to answer our calls tonight and bail us out. Did you call a town meeting? Lure everyone away from their phones?”
“You don’t…” Christopher stopped. For once, he had more information than his nemesis. He would savor the victory if it wasn’t so bittersweet and tinged with even more ignorance. “There’s been an explosion.”
“What?” Lonnie gasped.
“The rest of the lighthouse was obliterated. Like that.” Christopher snapped his fingers.
The men turned pale and green.
Was it fear? Relief? Worry? Christopher hoped for a little of each. “What were you doing there? Setting explosives?”
“Never. We were trying to get photos of Soupy,” Zach said.
Christopher rolled his eyes. “On the island, you said you were digging for the treasure. Pick a lie and stick to it.”
Zach pulled a little toy out of his back pocket. “It’s true. We thought we could stage something to help launch the legend.”
Christopher crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m supposed to believe you now?”
“It sounded childish. Hunting for treasure was the better reason if we were going to be arrested for trespassing,” Zach said. “It’s why we brought shovels. I could only find a garden trowel.”
If that was their excuse, it was pretty slim. “Where is Seth?” Christopher asked.
“Elise asked him to meet her by the old sawmill dock. It’s a full moon,” Zach said.
“The Prim family reported a couple odd occurrences over that way,” Lonnie added. “She’s not part of what we’ve been doing.”
“Weren’t those sightings all related to a sturgeon?” Christopher’s patience, already stretched thin, was near to breaking.
“Soupy isn’t harming anyone.” Lonnie shrugged. “Helping a friend isn’t a crime.”
“I wish that was still true.” Christopher didn’t know what to believe in anymore. Legends, myths, and oaths. All he knew was he trusted Ashley, and he needed to save her. “I might consider dropping the charges. If you help.”
“Why would we help you?” Zach curled his upper lip.
“Ashley’s in trouble.” Christopher’s voice cracked, emotion choking him.
Zach turned a ghostly pale. “What do you mean?”
“She’s gone. Taken.” Christopher ran a hand through his hair. “And if it’s not you two. I don’t know who it is. I can’t lose her. Please.”
Lonnie stood, approaching his partner in crime. “Maybe you do understand the bonds of family.”
Christopher darted his gaze between the pair. “Of course, I do.”
“We weren’t so sure. We all thought you only cared about profit, not people,” Zach said.
“I care about profit because of people.” Christopher bit out the words. He didn’t want a reckoning now. He wanted a rescue. “Listen, I admit to overstepping the interests of my business. I can take my approach down a few notches. But after saving the resort from near ruin, I couldn’t let the shops go down, too.”
Zach stuck a hand through the bars.
Christopher shook on a truce.
“Get us out, and we’ll take the secret path to the boat house,” Zach said.
“Boathouse?” Christopher asked.
Lonnie sighed. “Yep. If Ashley’s missing, it’ll be the Prims. They’re the only ones with anything to gain from her disappearance.”
“And they aren’t clever enough to think of another hiding spot. Most gullible, naive people,” Zach said.
But in his arrogance, Christopher underestimated the real foes and imagined the danger lurked elsewhere. And now she was at risk. He had so much to say and apologize for.
He needed more time.