Writing All Wrongs (2 page)

Olivia watched the waves, which curled onto the shore with a languid murmur, but she knew that within the next twenty-four hours, they would change. The water would surge forward in jagged peaks, sand roiling under its surface, white froth, like the mouths of a thousand rabid animals, crashing against the beach.

“With all those wrecks, it’s no wonder our coast has been the source of so many ghost stories,” Rawlings said. “I’m sure we’ll hear some choice tales this weekend.”

“I like ghost stories,” Olivia said, her gaze sliding to the lighthouse keeper’s cottage. Once, its rooms were haunted by Olivia’s child self. A quiet, lonely girl with long legs, freckles, and sun-bleached hair.

I’m not alone anymore
, Olivia thought and smiled at Rawlings.

Haviland returned and sat on his haunches next to Olivia. His eyes seemed tuned to the shimmering path on the water created by the lighthouse beacon. Rawlings looked at it too. As if to himself, he whispered:

So from the world of spirits there descends

A bridge of light, connecting it with this,

O’er whose unsteady floor, that sways and bends,

Wander our thoughts above the dark abyss.

Olivia squeezed his hand until he turned away from the sea and met her gaze. “We can save both the ghost stories and unsettling poetry for our trip,” she said, feeling a sudden chill. “Let’s go in.”

“All right. No more Longfellow.” Rawlings stood up, collected the wineglasses, and entered the house. After casting a final glance at the water, Olivia called for Haviland and then shut the door. The sound of the waves was diminished but not gone.

As Olivia lay in bed, they lulled her to sleep. She dreamed of shipwrecks. Of wooden carcasses. Large black smudges in a black sea. In her dreams, the sails were raised. And they rippled as if still being filled by a ghostly wind.

*   *   *

Two days later, Olivia parked her Range Rover in the ferry terminal lot.

Rawlings jerked his thumb at the back of the car. “I’m going to track down a luggage cart. There’s no way we can haul all of this gear on board by ourselves.”

Olivia shot him a wry grin. “It’s just a few staples.”

“A pair of suitcases, grocery bags, a packed cooler, and
a waterproof bin filled with books, flashlights, and jigsaw puzzles. Staples, eh?”

Olivia shrugged. “The electricity’s out across the island. Just because we’re without modern conveniences, doesn’t mean we can’t be comfortable. And well fed. Michel packed us a special honeymoon hamper.” She shook her head in distaste. “I feel stupid using that word. It should be relegated to greeting cards or travel brochures.”

Rawlings laughed. “Henceforth, I shall refer to this time together as a marital retreat. Better?”

Olivia tossed a balled-up napkin at him. “No! We’d better hurry. Our ride leaves in fifteen minutes.”

Later, Olivia stood on the ferry’s lower deck, holding the end of Haviland’s leash tightly as the crew cast off. Rawlings was nowhere in sight. He’d left to explore the rest of the boat the moment the ferry eased away from the dock, his eyes gleaming like a boy’s.

When the ferry entered the channel, Olivia noticed a concrete platform sitting squarely in the busy waterway. The potentially dangerous obstacle seemed overtly out of place. Curious, Olivia approached a deckhand and pointed at the platform. “Excuse me. What is that?”

“Quarantine pad, ma’am,” the man answered. “From the old days. Ships had to dock at the quarantine station before they could continue to any port. Folks were terrified of catchin’ diseases like yellow fever or small pox. They had no way to fight ’em, so they did their best to keep ’em out. That platform has been there since the late 1800s and probably saved thousands of lives. There were buildings at the station too, but they burned. Every one. All that’s left is the pad.”

“Isn’t that hunk of concrete a hazard for ships? Especially at night?”

The man issued a noncommittal grunt. “It’s on all the nautical charts. Has a light on it now too. The Coast Guard added it after a lady was killed in a boating accident. Sad
business, that.” He swept his arm in a wide arc, incorporating the surrounding waters. “There’s all kinds of hazards here, ma’am. Everywhere you look. Shallows, sandbars, shoals. Hidden bits of reef that’ll tear your hull in two—you don’t take to these waters without a healthy dose of fear. Even the most seasoned captains say a prayer before they head out for Cape Fear.”

“I grew up with fishermen. I’ve learned that it’s unwise not to respect the ocean.” Olivia glanced around the ferry deck. She guessed there were fewer occupants on board than usual. “Did Rose make a big mess?”

The man followed her gaze. “Nothin’ serious. Trees down. Power outages. Some of the roads flooded, but in a day or two, we’ll have forgotten about Rose.” He grinned, displaying a row of tobacco-stained teeth. “A storm has to work much harder than that to impress us.” He lifted his chin to indicate a fellow crew member coiling a length of rope on the port side. The man’s face was weathered by years of working outdoors, and his thick hands and forearms were scarred by rope burns.

“What brings you to Palmetto Island?” the crewman asked. “The Coastal Carolina Festival?”

Olivia nodded. “Yes. My husband grew up hearing tales of buried treasure from his grandfather, and he’s trying to turn those stories into a book.”

“Silas Black sure made a bundle off our history,” the crewman grumbled and then instantly brightened. “But they say he might film episodes of his show on the island. Even hire some local folks as extras. I’d sure get the ladies’ attention if I was on TV. They’re not real impressed when I tell ’em that I work on the ferry, but if I could say I was a pirate on Black’s show? I’d be like a rooster in the henhouse.”

He laughed and Olivia joined in. Raising her head, she saw Rawlings leaning over the rail of the upper deck, waiting to catch her eye. He waved for her to join him.

“I think you’d make a fine pirate. Good luck,” Olivia told the friendly crewman and whistled at Haviland to heel.

On the top deck, Olivia and Rawlings watched brown pelicans dive-bomb into the water. A particularly swift bird off the port side captured a fish, and it glinted like a silver coin in his bill, and then, in a flash, it was gone, disappearing down the bird’s throat. Out in the open, Olivia shivered. The air had a crisp edge to it. It was ocean air. Air that swirled around the humped backs of whales. Air sliced by freighter bows and shark fins. It spoke of the end of tourists and the beginning of gray skies and deserted beaches.

Another ten minutes passed before Olivia spotted the island’s lighthouse. It wasn’t as tall as Oyster Bay’s, but there was something profoundly comforting about the solid pillar of white standing guard over the harbor. Olivia kept her eyes on the old structure until the ferry docked.

As she, Rawlings, and Haviland disembarked, Olivia noticed that signs advertising the Coastal Carolina Fest had been stapled to every pylon. Each poster featured a skull-and-crossbones motif and a list of festival highlights. At the end of the dock, a black banner flapped in the wind.

“Has the arrival area changed much since you were here last?” Olivia asked Rawlings.

“That was a million years ago, so yes.” He pointed at a large building at the end of the pier. “This marina wasn’t here. That hotel had a different name, and the houses surrounding the docks were small and modest. The boats were mostly fishing vessels or skiffs, not these luxury powerboats or yachts. And there were no slips. Just a long dock for loading and unloading.” He shrugged. “It’s the same as Oyster Bay, I guess. When you and I were young, our town was as yet still undiscovered. Palmetto Island was meant to attract tourists much earlier than Oyster Bay, but it wasn’t nearly as developed as it is now.” He gestured at the hotel. “It’s all marshland behind there. No good for building, but the
perfect habitat for alligators. If I didn’t see at least one gator while visiting my grandparents, I was crushed.”

Olivia glanced down at Haviland. “Did you hear that, Captain? Alligators. You have to wear this collar all the time.”

Haviland sniffed the air, his black nose quivering. His eyes darted wildly around and he pranced on the pads of his feet in anticipation.

“I think he picked up a scent coming from that seafood restaurant,” Rawlings said.

Olivia gave the poodle’s head an affectionate pat. “We’ll check out the eateries later, Captain. We need to rent a golf cart first.”

Rawlings told Olivia to join the queue in front of the rental shack while he tracked down their luggage.

Just as Olivia and Haviland got in line behind a couple in their early twenties, the young woman let out a dramatic gasp and tugged on her boyfriend’s arm. “OMG, there’s Leigh Whitlow! See? She’s in that golf cart behind the hotel. I can’t believe she’s really
here
!”

The boyfriend cast a disinterested glance at a slim woman with fair skin and glossy dark brown hair. “Who?”

“Seriously? Do you live under a rock?” The woman nudged her boyfriend. “That’s Silas Black’s girlfriend.
Everyone
knows who she is.”

The boyfriend shrugged. “If she was a tavern wench on
No Quarter
, then I’d recognize her. That woman looks kind of used up. You sure Black is banging
her
?”

What a gem
, Olivia thought, glaring daggers at the back of the young man’s skull.

“Hello? I know my celebrities.” The woman pretended to be offended, but she was too fascinated by Leigh Whitlow to maintain the act. “She is
so
thin. I think she looks great for someone in her forties. Shoot, she might even be
fifty
.”

The boyfriend pushed his sunglasses onto his forehead and focused on the dark-haired woman in the golf cart. “She
has to work to hold on to her man,” he said. “He could probably have his pick of a hundred babes, so keeping him interested must be a full-time job.”

Olivia would have loved nothing more than to push the jackass boyfriend right off the dock, but she knew she’d be stuck listening to him for at least another ten minutes. The line was moving at a snail’s pace, and there was no sign of Rawlings.

“There are rumors that Black is fooling around behind Leigh’s back,” the young woman said. “Some chick on his staff. A history geek. Can you imagine? Cheating on Leigh Whitlow with a nerd? Everyone knows that Leigh is one-hundred-percent psych-ward crazy. That’s why Silas won’t leave her. She’d kill any woman who dared to get between them. Oh man, I am
so
glad we decided to come to this festival for extra credit. And I’m even happier that we decided to come earlier so we could rub shoulders with celebrities, aren’t you?”

The boyfriend was no longer listening. A trio of giggling high school girls had caught his attention and he was eyeing them appreciatively.

“If that nerd girl is on the island, there’s going to be a bloodbath,” the young woman gleefully predicted as the line finally moved forward. Having turned to the right in order to keep the large man standing in front of her from blocking her view of Leigh Whitlow, the young woman was completely unaware of the flirtatious glances being exchanged between her boyfriend and the three girls. “I mean it, Rob. If you came here hoping to learn about crime and violence for your creative writing paper, you might just get your wish. Leigh Whitlow’s thrown jealous rages before. She drove Silas’s convertible into a lake this summer and threatened a cute fan who got too cozy with him at some book event in Chicago.”

The line moved again, but the young woman didn’t budge. She was riveted by Leigh Whitlow’s slightest movement—every impatient flick of the famous woman’s dark brown
tresses, how she splayed her nails or adjusted the rings on her fingers, and the way she stared straight ahead, her jaw set in a hard line.

“When will you finally lose it?” the young woman murmured, clearly reveling in Leigh’s discontent. “When will your jealousy finally push you over the edge?”

At that moment, Rawlings came up alongside Olivia. Noticing her pinched expression, he whispered, “Is anything wrong?”

Before she could answer, a man approached Leigh’s golf cart and made a shooing motion, indicating that he wanted her to scoot over to the passenger seat so that he could take the wheel. Scowling fiercely, Leigh complied, and the pair drove off in a cloud of sand-colored dust.

“Not yet,” Olivia said in answer to Rawlings’s question. “But the day is still
young.”

Regardless of how many boats you send to other shores or how many ships arrive upon your shores, you yourself are an island separated by its own pains, secluded in its happiness.

—K
AHLIL
G
IBRAN

T
he house Olivia had rented was far too big for one man, one woman, and a poodle. She hadn’t selected it for its spaciousness or because it had been recently renovated, but because it was located at the end of a private road and featured expansive wraparound decks overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.

Rawlings pulled his overloaded golf cart to a stop by the side door. Turning to Olivia, he whistled. “Is this Jay Gatsby’s beach bungalow?”

Olivia parked her cart behind Rawlings’s and told Haviland to jump down. “It’s called Lifesaver, actually.” She pointed at a plaque affixed to the left of the front door. “The rental agent said that all the houses on the island have names.”

Rawlings frowned. “‘Lifesaver’ doesn’t exactly inspire confidence. I’m envisioning people strapping on floatation devices while a storm surge rushes up the beach and floods the ground floor.”

Laughing, Olivia gathered up the grocery bags. “The
agent told me all sorts of facts about this place. For example, the house was built on the former site of the Cape Fear Lifesaving Station. Once upon a time, men lived on the island year-round. Their job was to watch the shoals night and day in case a ship ran into trouble. Their vigilant gazes saved many a sailor.”

Rawlings took the key from Olivia and unlocked the door. “I imagine their conditions were less plush than ours.”

Haviland immediately pushed past Rawlings into the roomy kitchen and rushed off to explore the rest of the house. Olivia could hear his claws clicking on the hardwood floors.

“What happened to ladies first?” Rawlings called out in mock censure. He then turned to Olivia with an impish grin. “Why don’t you organize the food while I unload the rest of our
staples
. Unless you’d like to step back outside so I can carry you over the threshold. How about it?”

In reply, Olivia grabbed a crab-shaped pot holder from a hook near the stove and tossed it at him. Rawlings caught the crab, stuffed it down his shirt, and headed for the golf carts.

Olivia decided to leave the groceries on the counter and search the cabinets for flashlights or battery-powered lanterns instead. The kitchen was well stocked with both.

Next, she walked into the sunlit living room and was pleased to discover a stack of firewood and a basket of kindling positioned next to a fireplace opposite a large sectional sofa. Someone had left a battery-operated DVD player on the coffee table, and Olivia found a dozen board games in the corner cupboard. In addition to the games was a treasure trove of books on Palmetto Island. Some were pictorial histories while others were academic tomes concentrating on the island’s unique ecosystem or maritime history. Finally, there was an illustrated collection of ghost stories and, topping the pile like a Christmas tree star, a Nicholas
Sparks novel. Olivia assumed the Sparks novel held pride of place because the movie based on the book had been filmed across the Cape Fear River.

Olivia continued her tour by glancing into the dining room and sunroom. The air in the house felt slightly stale, so Olivia cracked a dozen windows. By the time she was done, Rawlings had finished unloading the golf carts. “There are two bedrooms on this floor. Does that mean Haviland is sleeping downstairs?”

“Not likely,” Olivia said. “He’s probably staking his claim on the master suite as we speak.”

Taking her suitcase from Rawlings, Olivia climbed the stairs to find Haviland industriously sniffing the curtains on the wall next to the king-size bed.

“A fireplace in the bedroom?” Rawlings came into the room behind Olivia. “Who needs electricity?” Humming contentedly, he began to unpack.

Eager to check out the view from the beach, Olivia decided to organize her things later. “I think Haviland and I will go treasure hunting,” she said, slipping on her old tennis shoes.

“I’m going to take a self-guided golf cart tour—see how much things have changed since I was a kid.” Rawlings produced a paper map of the island. “Judging from this, the changes are significant. But I want to know if any of my old haunts still exist.” His expression turned wistful. “I hope it’s not all different. It’s hard to come face-to-face with what the passage of time does to a place. In my memory, it’s a place of adventure, mystery, and beauty. A Robert Louis Stevenson island.” He glanced at Olivia. “Do I sound ridiculous?”

“No,” she said. “You sound like the romantic you are. But I hope you find some of your boyhood landmarks unchanged. They’re symbols of your past, so they’re important.” She followed Rawlings back to the kitchen. “Happy hunting.”

“You too,” he said. “Who knows? Maybe Tropical Storm
Rose deposited rare coins or priceless jewelry on the beach for you to find.”

Olivia shrugged. “More often than not, the items with no monetary value are the most interesting. You know that I have pickle jars filled with such things. Shotgun casings, wheat pennies, belt buckles, buttons. Mulling over the story behind each object is what I like most about beachcombing.”

After promising to return in time for cocktails, Rawlings pushed a baseball cap over his salt-and-pepper hair, grabbed a bottle of water, and hopped into a golf cart.

Haviland released a series of questioning barks as the chief reversed the cart, but the moment Olivia showed the poodle the familiar backpack containing a folding trench shovel, trowel, and sieve, he stopped barking and wagged his tail instead.

Shouldering her new Bounty Hunter Legacy—a wedding gift from the Bayside Book Writers—Olivia struck out for the beach.

Signs of Rose’s passing were noticeable. The beach was strewn with palmetto fronds and clumps of sea grass. The waves had carved sluiceways from the shoreline to the dunes, and a precise pattern of ripples covered the sand. The design was an indication that the sand had been battered by wind and salt water for hours without pause.

Olivia wanted to walk out on Cape Fear Point first, so she kept her metal detector turned off as she and Haviland left their beach and approached the raked and debris-free area designated for the guests of Land End Lodge.

No one was on the boardwalk skirting the dunes behind the cedar-sided clubhouse, and Olivia didn’t run into a single person as she turned away from the picturesque lodge and made for the spit of land jutting out into the Atlantic Ocean.

Cape Fear Point was not dissimilar in shape to the Point near her house in Oyster Bay, but there was something far more humbling about standing alone where powerful ocean
currents rose up to meet the sky. The two entities were so close that their magnitude was nearly overwhelming. Olivia felt infinitely small as she listened to the waves smash against the sandbar. The deadly shallows of Frying Pan Shoals stretched before her, and it was easy to imagine ships breaking apart against the finger of land. It would be challenging enough to avoid the dangers on a calm day. During a storm, with the wind raging and water pouring from the sky and rising up from the sea, Olivia didn’t see how anyone safely navigated around the island.

Olivia recalled how Rawlings had described the peacefulness of this spot, but she didn’t feel at all peaceful. She felt uneasy. Gooseflesh erupted along her arms, and she was suddenly cold. It was as though a shadow had fallen over her despite the fact that she stood directly in the path of the afternoon sun.

Olivia was not a superstitious person, but she could almost hear the voices of drowned men on the wind. The crashing of the waves grew louder, roaring in her head like thunder. As she began to retreat, to return to the wider stretch of beach, she couldn’t help but wonder if the recent storm had stirred up more than shells and seaweed. Perhaps the old bones of hundreds of doomed seamen had shifted as well.

She jumped when Haviland let out a sharp bark. Having spotted a willet, he’d sprinted back the way they’d come. More than ready to leave Cape Fear behind, Olivia returned to the part of beach that seemed remarkably solid in comparison to the vulnerable point sticking out into the ocean.

Chiding herself for being silly, Olivia unshouldered her metal detector, slipped on her headphones, and listened to a series of chirps and beeps as she and Haviland headed to the west.

Land End Lodge was barely out of sight when the detector made a high-pitched shriek, signaling the discovery of a metal that wasn’t tin.

“Haviland!” Olivia shouted. “Come dig!”

The poodle was thrilled to oblige and plunged his front paws into the sand while Olivia worked with the trench shovel. After ten minutes of digging, alternating with frenzied bouts of shifting sand through her sieve, Olivia exclaimed, “We found something, Captain!”

She carried what appeared to be a copper coin to the water’s edge and rinsed it in the salt water. Scraping caked sand off its surface with her thumbnail, she frowned when the face on the coin became clear. It was a man’s face—not the embossed profile seen on many coins, but the frontal view of a bearded man barring his teeth. His ears were pierced with large hoops, and his hair was bushy and wild, as were his thick brows. His eyes were dark, angry holes.

Though Olivia assumed she’d found play money or a token from a children’s pirate treasure chest, she was surprised by the hostility of the pirate’s expression, by the force of rage and hatred in the voids where his eyes were meant to be.

The coin’s reverse depicted a ship and a word too faded to read, and Olivia immediately felt silly for having reacted so strongly to a child’s coin. But the moment she gazed down at the pirate’s face again, she found herself wanting to be rid of her discovery. Without hesitating, she threw it as hard as she could and heard a satisfying plop as it hit the water.

She filled in the hole she and Haviland had made and decided to try again farther up the beach. She’d barely gone five hundred feet when she spotted the shapes of two dogs racing straight for them.

“Haviland. Heel,” she commanded.

Though Haviland tended to make overtures of friendship with all dogs, Olivia knew it was best to be wary. Not every dog—or their owners for that matter—were as well mannered as Haviland.

“Easy boy,” she murmured, but Haviland’s ears were
pricked, and his tail bobbed in anticipation. He couldn’t wait to meet the new arrivals. Judging from their coloring, their long, lean bodies, and the speed with which they flew over the sand, Olivia believed them to be greyhounds.

A man appeared over a dune rise. Cupping his hands on either side of his mouth, he shouted. Though his words were swallowed by the waves before Olivia could catch them, the greyhounds instantly froze.

The man jogged toward them and the dogs watched him over their shoulders, torn between curiosity and obedience.

“Come!” the man shouted sternly.

Responding to the authoritative tone, the dogs turned and ran to their owner.

The man waved at Olivia and headed toward her. His pace was relaxed, and his dogs trotted by his side, their pink tongues lolling and their tails whipping back and forth.

Olivia also continued her forward progress, and as the two groups drew close, she felt there was something familiar about the man. His tousled brown hair and tortoiseshell glasses struck a chord with her.

“Professor Billinger?” she called out.

The man shielded his eyes. “Ms. Limoges? Is that you?”

“It’s okay, Haviland,” Olivia said. “You can introduce yourself.”

The poodle pranced forward, and within seconds, he and the two greyhounds were circling around one another, snorting and grunting, dizzy with excitement.

Taking Olivia’s hand and holding on to it with obvious delight, Professor Billinger said, “I can’t believe it.
You.
Here.
On this tiny island. Have you come for the festival?”

“I have.” Olivia smiled. She was happy to see Emmett Billinger. A professor of history at the University of North Carolina, Emmett had helped Olivia and the Bayside Book Writers more than once when they’d gotten involved in a criminal
investigation. And though Olivia always enjoyed her infrequent encounters and lively phone conversations with Emmett, she hadn’t spoken to him in six months. Suddenly, she realized that she’d failed to reply to an e-mail he’d sent back in June.

“Are you looking for pirate treasure?” Emmett asked. “Because Caesar, Calpurnia, and I can help you dig it up.”

Tall and slim like Olivia, Emmett was handsome in a bookish way. He had the salubrious glow of one who spends his free time outdoors, and Olivia knew that Emmett loved to bike, fish, and sail. Just shy of fifty, he had a youthful, vivacious air about him. Olivia liked his face, seeing in it a contrary mixture of boyish zeal and the quiet wisdom of a man who’s devoted his life to the pursuit of knowledge.

“I can’t believe I’ve never met them before.” Olivia held out her palm for the greyhounds to sniff. “They’re beautiful.”

Emmett beamed like a proud parent. Like Olivia, he had no children and doted on his greyhounds. “And I finally get to see the magnificent Captain Haviland in person. It looks like he and my two have become fast friends.”