The Secret Hour (41 page)

 
“Can I help you?” he asked.

 
Blushing, she nodded as he helped her lift the Scottie from the tub. John held out fresh towels, and they dried her off.

 
“I wanted you to come back,” he said as she put Bonnie down. The second the dog’s short legs hit the tile floor, she went flying off in search of Brainer.

 
“You did?” she asked, clearing her throat, still feeling overwhelmed.

 
He nodded. “And not just to kiss you,” he said. “When I told my dad about you, about breaching Merrill’s confidence to you, he asked if I talked to you a lot; confided in you often. Something like that…it got me to thinking. I wish I could tell you more.”

 
“I thought the same thing,” Kate said. As she looked into his eyes, desire flowed into something else: a feeling of connection deep in her heart. “So many times after I got back to Washington, I’d think of you, and I’d wish I could ask you how things were going, how Maggie and Teddy were.”

 
John kissed her again, more insistently than before. If their first kiss had been a surprise, and their second one had been filled with passion, then this one was a zero-to-sixty blood-rush neither of them had felt in years, and they both knew that in ten more seconds they’d be unable to stop.

 
“Whoa, John,” Kate breathed, clutching his arms.

 
“Kate…” he said, smiling widely, swaying with her, pulling her body against his.

 
He laughed. Taking her hand, he led her from the marble bathroom into the master bedroom. It was getting dark out; the waves crashed, drawing her to the window. Branches scratched against the pane, stirred up by the building wind. Kate gazed down the coastline, seeing the waves break on the sandbar, her Chincoteague storm sense kicking in.

 
“We’re in for a nor’easter,” she said.

 
“What?” John asked, standing behind her, kissing the back of her neck, as if weather was the last thing on his mind.

 
Just then, John’s phone rang; he reached for it. “I was out of the office all day, and just in case…” he explained apologetically to Kate.

 
“Answer it,” she urged, smiling, still feeling the tingle on her neck.

 
“Hello?” John said. Then, “Dad—what’s wrong?”

 
Kate froze, watching John’s face twist.

 
“Teddy?” John asked. “Is he all right? Is he home? Put him on the phone—”

 
But Teddy couldn’t, or wouldn’t, come to the phone. Kate watched John’s eyes as he listened to his father for another minute, and then he disconnected.

 
“I have to go home,” he said. “Teddy needs me.”

 
“Of course. I understand. Go—I’ll head back to the inn.”

 
“I want you to come with me, Kate,” he said urgently. “Please?”

 
“Of course,” Kate said, taking his hand, looking deep into his eyes. “Of course, I’ll come, John.”

 
Hand-in-hand, damp dogs at their heels, John and Kate had raced together back to John’s car in the turnaround. When they got to the Judge’s house, they found Teddy wild with worry.

 
“She’s not here,” he kept saying, rushing around the house. “Maggie’s supposed to be home, and I can’t find her!”

 
“Teddy,” John said, grabbing his son by the shoulders. “Slow down—tell me what’s wrong!”

“Let me go, Dad!” Teddy said, trying to wrench himself away, suddenly noticing Kate. “I have to find Maggie!” he said, facing her.

 
“Of course, Teddy,” she said, instantly feeling his anguish.

 
“Did something happen?” John asked.

 
Teddy let out a cry. Kate watched the boy smash himself out of his father’s grip, then run upstairs. John’s eyes were wide, shocked, full of hurt. Maeve sat in a chair in the living room, murmuring softly as she fingered rosary beads dangling from her hand. The Judge, dressed in jacket and tie as before, shook his head with dismay.

 
“I called you, John, because he’s been like this since he got home.”

 
“Where was he?”

 
“At practice. He said he and Maggie had made plans to do something…draw pictures. He said she’d been looking forward to it, that she’d never miss it. He’s completely beside himself—nothing I said would calm him down.”

 
John didn’t wait to hear any more. He followed Teddy upstairs, and Kate heard his voice drifting down, trying to talk to his son. The tone was calm but insistent, but it was met with a roaring sob. The boy’s pain tugged her so hard, she didn’t even hesitate, but ran up the stairs where she hadn’t been invited.

 
“Nothing happened, Dad,” Teddy shouted, “but that’s the point—I don’t want something to happen to Maggie. Enough’s happened already.”

 
“I know.”

 
“You don’t know,” Teddy cried. “Always talking about people’s rights—but the rights of
bad
guys. Guys who
hurt
people. What about innocent people, Dad? Like those girls in the breakwaters? Maggie’s not home, and she’s supposed to be.”

 
“She’s grounded,” John said. “She’s a good girl. She wouldn’t go anywhere.”

 
“Then where is she, Dad?”

 
“Teddy,” John began, color rushing into his face, stepping closer to his son.

 
But Teddy just tore into what had to be Maggie’s room. A yellow nightgown was folded on the pillow, a blue robe with white lace cuffs hung on the bedpost. Kate and John exchanged glances as Teddy began to rifle Maggie’s desk, her bedside table.

 
“She came home from school, right?” John asked, panic building in his voice, as if Teddy’s words had triggered real fear.

 
“I don’t know!” Teddy cried over his shoulder. “She wasn’t here when I came in. Her bike’s not in the yard.”

 
“She’s been here,” Kate said quietly, wanting to be calm.

 
“How do you know?” John asked.

 
Kate pointed. There, in the drawer, was the yellow envelope she’d left on the hall table just hours earlier. Addressed to Maggie, it had been opened. She saw the ragged tear marks left by a little girl eager to read the card.

 
“You left this for her?” Teddy asked, picking it up, looking at Kate.

 
She nodded. “I did.”

 
“It must’ve meant a lot to her,” he said, his voice raw and eyes red. “This is her special drawer. She has one at home, too, where she keeps the things that matter to her. Except the scarf. She never takes the white scarf off.”

 
“I’m glad she likes it,” Kate said quietly, meeting Teddy’s gaze, feeling the primal power of the love he had for his sister.

 
“She does…”

 
“Are you okay, Teddy?” she asked softly, some instinct making her careful not to touch him.

 
He shrugged, shoulders heaving in silent sobs. Swallowing them back, when he could speak, he looked directly at Kate, excluding his father. “I can’t be okay,” Teddy said, “till I know Maggie is.”

 
“I’ll go out and look for her,” John said.

 
“Me, too,” Teddy said. “I’m coming too.”

 
“I want you to stay here,” John said, hands On Teddy’s shoulders. “Okay, Ted? Just wait here, and call me if your sister gets home before I find her.”

 
“Where would she be?” Teddy asked, frowning. “Where are you going to look for her?”

 
“Maybe the library,” John said. “Our old house—even though I told her not to go there…”

 
Teddy touched Kate’s note. “Maybe the East Wind,” he said. “Maggie knows Kate stayed there. Maybe she went over—to look for Kate.”

 
“Good idea. I’ll start there,” John said. Then, raising his eyes, he looked at Kate. “Will you stay with him?”

 
Kate nodded. Suddenly her instinct took over, and she knew exactly what to do next: She put her arm around Teddy’s shoulders—like an older sister, like a baby-sitter, like a mother—and gave him a strong squeeze. He felt big and strong, as if he had grown since she’d last been there, but he leaned, just like a little boy, into the curve of her embrace.

 
“There’s nothing else I’d rather do,” she said.

 
White scarf flying out behind, Maggie rode her bike from Gramps’s house to the Beach Road. Late in the day, after school, the day’s last light gleamed pewter gray, flat and hard. A few lines of orange blazed in the storm clouds. She rode harder, leaving the main road at the East Wind Inn, cutting through the apple orchard, over the small brook that bordered her own yard and the Nature Sanctuary, and onto the dirt road.

 
Along the way, she stopped to pick dried flowers and grasses—her bike basket nearly overflowed with them. The storm clouds darkened, and the wind picked up; involuntarily, Maggie glanced up at the lighthouse. It stood about a hundred yards away, gleaming white against the sky.

 
That was the best place to find salt hay: at the top of the bluff, where it had the best chance of being bleached by the sun, wind, and spray. Kate had made everything about Chincoteague sound so beautiful and salty; Maggie felt the same way about Silver Bay, and she wanted her bouquet to show it.

 
Zooming over the bumpy road, feeling the storm coming, Maggie felt a great need building in her chest. Sometimes, since her mother’s death, she thought her heart had hardened—grown tight and small, like a walnut. Her shoulders had caved in, as if they could grow together in front, forming a protective cage. Was it just this way in girls, or did Teddy feel it, too?

 
Now, riding her bike down the dirt road, Maggie thought of her dad. The cold wind made her eyes and nose stream. She imagined her dad, making a long voyage across a vast and stormy sea, with two motherless children by his side.

 
The more she pictured her father, the wetter her face became. He tried very hard. He was so protective. Remembering the way he had rocked her the day she had glimpsed that evil photo filled Maggie with such emotion she had to pull off to the side of the dirt road and catch her breath.

 
With his hands, he had stroked her hair. She had felt his mouth against her cheek and ear, and she had heard him whisper, “You’re my little girl, Maggie. I’ll always take care of you…”

 
Maggie held her handlebars tight, as if they could keep her from blowing away. Her father had known how afraid the picture had made her; he was trying to reassure her that nothing so terrible would ever happen to her. She had the feeling that the new curtains at her bedroom window had something to do with that.

 
That single photo had made Maggie more afraid than she had ever been in her life. Maybe that’s why it meant so much, that Kate had given her the white scarf. Wearing it now, the white silk wrapped around her neck, gave Maggie the feeling of courage.

 
The sandy clay road had a few fresh tire tracks, probably from the lighthouse’s caretaker. There were always things to repair in buildings close to the sea. The road diverged, just past a heavy chain strung across it. One spur went inland, to a small dump. The other veered right, straight to the lighthouse. Maggie wheeled her bike around the stanchion, then climbed back on.

 
Choosing the right lane, Maggie saw the white tower rising above her. The road was dusty with tire tracks, but there were no cars or vans in sight. It was just as well. Even though she knew Caleb and Mr. Jenkins, a shiver tickled her spine as she remembered what her father always said: “Stay away from men in vans, Maggie. People in any car, for that matter. If anyone ever tries to pull you in, scream as loud as you can and run away.”

 
Her dad knew what he was talking about, considering his criminal defense work.

 
But…the Jenkinses were friends, and this was practically home. Couldn’t she see her own house, just across the field, on the other side of that shallow cove? Turning to look, she located her own bedroom window in the big white house half a mile away and felt reassured. Nothing bad could happen here—this was her own backyard!

 
Gazing up at the lighthouse, she noticed how sturdy it looked. White brick walls that could withstand a hurricane! Maggie counted the windows: six vertical ones, and twelve around the top. Perhaps Rapunzel dwelled in there. She could let down her golden hair…

 
The image made Maggie stop. A strong shiver went all through her body, as if the wind had started blowing colder, or as if she was getting a cold, a fever. That image of Rapunzel: a girl trapped in a tower, unable to escape.