The Summer House (36 page)

“And now the Vineyard’s in darkness,” Danny said. He thought of his mother, stranded in the darkness. At least Aunt BeBe was there to keep her company, he thought. At least Moe and Curly were there. And Clay. Danny hoped they’d had the sense to board up the windows.

He wondered if his mother had run to Josh for protection.

Feeling suddenly queasy, he turned to LeeAnn. “Mind if we go outside?” he asked.

“Excuse me? I believe there’s a hurricane ripping out there with hundred-mile-an-hour winds.”

“Yeah, I know. But more than anything I could use some fresh air. And if I don’t get some fast, I’ll probably puke.”

“Jesus,” LeeAnn said lightly, “if it’s not one end with you handicapped people, it’s the other.”

Danny did not take it personally.

“Feel better?” LeeAnn asked through the wind that whipped through the cracks between the boards covering porch screens.

Danny smiled. “Yeah. Actually, I’ve felt better since we boarded the
Annabella
than I’ve felt in four years. Maybe longer.”

“You’ve only been in that chair three years, Danny.”

“Guess I wasn’t much happier before.”

LeeAnn leaned against the windowsill and looked sincerely into his face. “You were going to be a doctor. That made you happy, didn’t it?”

He studied his fingernails. “Yeah, well, things change.”

The wind sang now, a low, ponderous hum. “But you
always said you were going to be an old-fashioned doctor who really cared about his patients. Someone as far from a politician as possible.”

“Well, I’m still no politician. That hasn’t changed. I guess the family torch will be passed off to Greg. He’s a lot like …” he caught himself, for a second not knowing how to complete his sentence. He would have loved to share his news with LeeAnn, with someone, if only so he didn’t have to feel its weight all alone. But it was news not to be shared. It was simply too ugly. To mask his discomfort, Danny laughed and said, “Greg’s a lot like my father.”

“Well, I think you’ll make a better doctor, anyway. You’re right about one thing. You’re very different from your father.”

Danny was struck by the thought that maybe LeeAnn already knew. She would have to know. How else could she be so certain he was different from him? She barely knew Michael; in fact, Danny couldn’t remember if the two had ever met. Well, yes, he decided, there was that one time in the hospital. Had that been enough for her to make that judgment, or had she—had all the islanders—already known?

His stomach flipped again. His throat felt as if it were closing, his airway shrinking, as if a boa constrictor had wrapped itself around his neck and was squeezing tighter, tighter. He tried to force his thoughts from a visualization of his mother and Josh Miller, from a picture of them lying together—where? On the beach where Danny used to go clamming with Mags and Greg? Down by the cove? In the same bed where she slept with Michael?

An overwhelming pity for Michael—the man he knew as his father—rushed into Danny as strongly as the wind rushed outside. If Michael had known about Josh, he probably would have waited it out, waited for his mother to come to her senses, he loved her that much.

Maybe, Danny thought, he had waited too long. And
now the two men were fighting the biggest battle of all. Suddenly Danny wondered just how much of this election was about the White House, and how much was about Josh Miller’s unresolved childhood jealousy—a conflict that Michael didn’t deserve.

“Danny?” LeeAnn interrupted his thoughts. “I said you are different from your father. Does that upset you? I didn’t mean to upset you …”

Danny blinked. “How do you know?” he blurted out.

“How do I know what?” she asked.

Pain crept around his eyes, around his throat, around his heart. “How do you know I’m different from my father?” Suddenly the image of Josh Miller repulsed him, and he did not wait for LeeAnn to reply. “If this storm is ever over, and we end up alive,” he said, “I need to get back to the Vineyard. Then I need to get off-island and find my father. He needs me to help with the campaign.”

The screen door slammed open. “LeeAnn?” barked a voice. “What the hell are you two doing out here?”

“Staying out of the rain, Jake,” LeeAnn responded to the old man whom Danny had been told was the harbormaster, the keeper of the island or at least of all its comings and goings.

“Well, for chrissakes, you’re not going to believe this, but your friend there has a phone call.”

“Me?” Danny asked. He glanced back toward the Vineyard; the power was still out. He wondered if cell phones would work in the storm.

“Damnedest thing,” Jake continued. “I didn’t know we had a celebrity here, LeeAnn. Well,” the old man said with a scratch of his beard, “you’d betta’ take the call, young man. I think it’s important.”

Danny closed his eyes. “My mother?” he asked.

“Nope,” the harbormaster replied. “Someone who says he’s Josh Miller. And he sounds like he’s pissed.”

It was the middle of the night in the middle of a hurricane, and BeBe was stuck in the middle of a jail cell. The guard had given her two chemical light sticks in case she wanted to see: not that there was much to see except a calendar with New England scenes taped to one wall and a chrome sink and matching toilet in the corner. Still, one might have thought a jailhouse would have an emergency generator.

“We do,” the guard had told her. “But it’s on the fritz.”

Fritz
, BeBe thought now. What a stupid, stupid word.
Fritz, fritz
. She ran the syllable over and around her tongue just as the guard reappeared in the doorway.

“Someone to see you, Ms. Adams.”

“A visitor? How nice. Just like a real prisoner.”

“I’m not just a visitor.” It was brother Roger’s voice. “I’m here to take you home.”

“But I thought …” BeBe said, then quickly stood. “Is it about Danny?”

Roger shook his head. “No word yet.”

The guard glanced at Roger then back at BeBe. They all looked ridiculously ghoulish in the glowing green chemical light.

“I tried to tell your brother that we can hold you up to twenty-four hours for questioning,” the guard said, “but he said in Florida, the law’s only twelve hours, and that’s where you’re wanted.” Then he unlocked the old-fashioned barred door. “You can’t get off the island, anyway. And I want to get home and check up on my family. This storm’s a pisser.” He pronounced
pisser
like
pissah
in that exaggerated New England way that drove BeBe crazy. But right now she didn’t much care, because as the guard said it, he swung the door open. She stood there and stared at her brother.

“You came all the way to Edgartown just to get me? Are you an idiot? There’s a hurricane outside.”

“I’m not an idiot,” he said, guiding BeBe from the cell, “but I have been. I decided to steal the Secret Service agents’ car. I had to come get you, Beebs. I need your help. It’s about Evelyn.”

BeBe asked no more questions, but let him lead her down the corridor to the front door. She turned around to be sure the guard had not followed them. “They can only hold someone for questioning twelve hours in Florida?”

Roger shrugged. “I made that up. It’s not as if he can check. The power’s out, you know.”

BeBe didn’t know whether she should laugh or cry. Instead, she slapped her brother on the shoulder and said, “My big brother. At last you’ve located your balls.”

Liz was washing out pots from the chowder she had helped make, wondering if this would be considered the upper-class rendition of a soup kitchen. It was almost six
A.M.:
the worst of the storm was, hopefully, over. Yet Liz couldn’t sleep, she was far too restless between the sounds of the rain and the wind and the incessant back-and-forth guilt-chatter going on in her mind.

From the big room, melodic strains of semi-sleeping drifted on an occasional softened whisper of one person to another, all trying to be respectful of their neighbors who now lived on the next cot and not down the street. As Liz put away the last big pot, Hugh Talbot came into the kitchen.

“We’re lucky the media left the island with Josh Miller and didn’t know your husband was on the way,” he said. “Imagine what fun they’d have with the next First Lady serving soup to the hurricane-homeless.”

Liz did not bother to try to smile; she was too weary, she was too dead on the inside. She had avoided Michael all through the night; she had also avoided Roger, though, like Danny, he seemed to have disappeared. She had needed to keep busy. That was the real reason she had wanted to work in the kitchen: not for a photo op, but for an escape. She had even let Evelyn tell her what to do, how many potatoes to put in the pot, how much butter, how much milk.

“The press learned that Danny is missing,” she said to Hugh. “I can’t imagine how they found out.” She did not want to accuse him, although aside from the family, he’d been the only one who had known. Still, she would not accuse him because she needed him on their side; she needed his help; she needed his cooperation.

Hugh shrugged. “I suppose the media has its own devious ways.” He scratched his unshaven chin. “The storm’s lessening a bit. I’m going to try and make it over to Menemsha to the Texaco station. They have a generator and a two-way. Maybe I can locate someone who saw the
Annabella
. Someone who maybe saw Danny.”

She dropped the damp linen cloth. “I’m going with you.”

He shook his head. “Sorry. Not allowed.”

“I have to go, Sheriff. Danny is my son.”

“I appreciate that, Liz.” He spoke with the familiarity now of those who have been brought together by disaster.

“Danny … has special needs.”

Hugh nodded. “Which is exactly why I’m going to the station. Maybe I can also rustle up someone on the mainland and see if they know how much longer before this storm is long gone to sea.”

“Please let me come, Hugh. If I stay here one more
minute not knowing where Danny is, I’m going to lose my mind.”

“I’ll take full responsibility,” Michael said from behind her. “In fact, I’ll drive her myself.”

Liz stiffened.

“We’ll follow you down,” Michael continued. “If a tree lands on the car, it won’t be your fault.”

Hugh hesitated.

“Please,” Michael said as Liz gripped the edge of the sink, “please let us help find our son.”

As Roger had said, he had stolen the car from the Secret Service agents. What he had not told BeBe was that Keith had caught him, and agreed to let him go to Edgartown only if he went along.

Which was why he sat in the backseat now, behind BeBe, and why she was stunned when Roger spoke up right there in front of him and said, “I know about Danny. And I know where he is.” He drove with his face practically pressed to the windshield, trying to see through the rain that pounded the glass.

“What?” BeBe asked. “You know where he is?”

“I think he’s on Cuttyhunk. I think he’s with those kids—those friends of his. Reggie and LeeAnn. I didn’t figure it out, though. Evelyn did.” He wiped the fog that smoldered on the inside of the window, and then continued. “But that’s not everything, Beebs. I know the rest, too. About Danny. About Josh Miller.”

BeBe turned her head to look out the window. In the backseat, Keith said nothing, the silent Secret Service agent, privy to it all. “Fuck,” she muttered. “How did you find out?”

“Evelyn. She overheard Liz tell Michael.”

She raked her fingers through her tangled orange hair.
“Liz told Michael?” It wasn’t difficult to picture Evelyn lurking in doorways, hearing it all. It was difficult, however, to imagine Liz telling Michael, to imagine her sister’s guilt and her pain.

Roger nodded. “And I’m afraid, BeBe. That’s why I had to come and get you.”

BeBe wanted to ask what he was afraid of, but didn’t want to in front of Keith.

As if reading her mind, the agent said, “I’m here to help you, BeBe. I care about your sister. I care about your family.”

BeBe cast a sidelong glance at Roger.

“I had to tell him,” Roger said. “Or he wouldn’t let me come get you.”

“But I already knew,” Keith said.

Yes, BeBe thought, of course he knew. It was his job to know everything, to protect and defend. And to play chess and make it appear as if he wasn’t paying attention. “Did my father tell you?” she asked.

“Yes. As soon as Miller made noises about entering the race, your father feared for what might be ahead. He knew he needed someone he could trust.”

BeBe snickered. Father. Everywhere, always. “And do tell. What made you so special that Father could trust you?”

Keith paused, then said, “I was your brother Daniel’s second lieutenant at Fort Dix. I was there when he was killed.”

It was a moment before BeBe was able to digest the information: Keith had known Daniel. Keith was a friend. She swallowed with difficulty and asked, “So what about your sidekick? What’s so trustworthy about Joe?”

“He doesn’t know everything. But he is trustworthy. He is my son.”

They drove another quarter mile before Keith spoke
again. “I’ve studied this from all angles, BeBe. And as I told Roger earlier, I had no doubt that Josh would not use this … 
situation
 … against Michael.”