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Authors: Lisa Jackson

BOOK: You Don't Want To Know
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“All clear,” he told the dog as he reattached the collar, then gave Rover another pat before straightening and wishing he'd thought to stock the mini-fridge with a beer or two.
His plan was that tomorrow morning, after taking care of the stock, he would boat across the bay to Anchorville, check out the tone, nose around a bit. If he had the time, he hoped to sift through the local gossip without arousing any suspicion and learn more about Church Island and its inhabitants.
If possible.
Now he walked to the window facing Neptune's Gate and looked up at the gargantuan house. Lights were still glowing in some of the windows, though he couldn't spy Ava Garrison's room from this vantage point. That bothered him a little, especially now, after her surprising dive into the bay a few hours earlier. But he couldn't make a scene about where he lived, about the fact that he needed a spot where he could keep an eye on her, or he would arouse suspicion. As it was, he had to be careful.
After yanking the blinds closed, he double-checked his hiding spot, one of the holes in the wall covered by a picture of a clipper ship riding angry waves. Earlier, he'd carefully superglued a strong, waterproof pocket to the inside of the paneling, as far down the hole as he could reach. The pocket had a Velcro flap, and inside were several items, including a prepaid cell phone that couldn't be traced, at least not easily; an Internet connective device that he didn't want anyone to find; and a small jump drive that held all the information he dared keep on the island. The backup info was tucked far away at a private data backup site on the mainland, one that kept it away from prying eyes. The last item was his gun. A Glock that couldn't be traced to him.
Nonetheless, he never felt completely safe, was always wary.
“Comes with the territory,” he reminded himself as he extracted the Internet connection device and the data stick from their hiding spots. After checking the dead bolt, he opened his laptop and connected to the Internet, ready to write his notes on what he'd discovered on his first day under the employ of Ava Garrison.
Unfortunately, at this point, he had more questions than he had answers.
But that would change.
The dog let out a long sigh and closed his eyes.
Dern glanced at the smelly shepherd.
He figured the beast might just be his only friend on the island.
Then again, that suited him just fine.
CHAPTER 4
S
he awoke alone.
Again.
Wyatt's side of the bed was cold, as if he'd never joined her.
“Good,” she whispered, then made a face at the sound of her relief. It was just wrong. She'd already lost her son and, it seemed, her own identity, so she should be holding fast to her husband and her marriage. But she was seriously in danger of losing both and all she felt was relief.
When had
that
started?
At first, after Noah's death, she and Wyatt had clung together, holding each other, tasting each other's tears. There had been a tenderness and a desperation to their lovemaking that had evaporated over the months with the realization that he wasn't returning, that their boy was gone forever.
Wyatt began staying on the mainland, and when he returned, they rarely slept together.
Despite her need for another baby.
One child cannot replace another.
She knew that. But she wanted another child. Someone to love.
Through the closed door, she heard the sound of Jewel-Anne's wheelchair whirring outside her door. Had her invalid cousin been spying again? Jewel-Anne was getting creepier by the minute, and Ava found her patience with her cousin wearing thin. And why the hell would Jewel-Anne be hiding and watching her, eavesdropping on her conversations? Was her cousin that bored? It just didn't make a helluva lot of sense.
Again, Ava's headache raged, and again she felt as if the world were collapsing around her. She was groggy, the remnants of deep sleep dragging her down, but she fought it. She'd always been a light sleeper, but lately . . .
You were drugged. Obviously. Since you have been ignoring the sleeping pills Dr. McPherson prescribed, she probably slipped them into that damned cocoa you sipped so greedily last night. Hadn't she been in the kitchen with Demetria?
She drew a breath.
Don't go there. Evelyn McPherson is a well-respected doctor, a psychologist trying to help.
Closing her eyes for a quick second, Ava tried to force herself out of bed, to face the day, but it seemed daunting.
You can't just lie here and feel sorry for yourself, can't feed the paranoia that everyone's against you. Get out of bed and do something. Anything!
Throwing off the covers, she forced herself to roll off the mattress and hunt for her slippers. The cozy, rumpled bed beckoned, but she ignored the temptation of dropping back onto the mussed covers, laying her pounding head on the pillow and closing her eyes again to block out the world. What good would that do?
Slippers on her feet, she paused to stretch, listening to her spine pop, feeling a yawn coming on.
Coffee, that's what you need. Two, maybe three cups of Italian roast or any blend with a crazy lot of caffeine.
At the window facing Anchorville, she winced a little as a slim shaft of sunlight pierced through the opening between the nearly closed curtains and cut through her brain like a hot knife. God, her head hurt. But then it always did in the morning.
She flung the heavy drapes aside and stared outside to a day already begun. The sun was up in the east, shafts of bright light hitting the water and sparkling so brightly she had to squint to make out the ferry, just churning away from the shoreline of the town of Monroe—a hamlet, really—on this side of the bay. Little more than a general store with a post office, a café that was open on the whim of its owner, a small inn, and a coffee kiosk surrounded by a smattering of houses, Monroe boasted seventy-eight full-time residents. The few children who lived there caught the ferry to school in Anchorville, and most of Monroe's residents were employed on the mainland as well or worked at the old hotel, which was now a bed-and-breakfast, the only lodging on the island.
Now the ferry was churning away from the island, gliding across the sun-spangled water effortlessly. A few recreational boats were chugging their way from the marina to the open sea.
Instinctively she looked back at the dock, listing in the water, its weathered boards drying in the sun. Nothing looked out of place today; there wasn't a hint of anything amiss, no physical reminders of her boy in his little red sweatshirt and jeans. No one standing at the misty dock's edge.
“You're losing it,” she whispered.
Just like they think.
She turned to try to catch a glimpse of the stable and the apartment where Austin Dern now resided, but of course she couldn't see it from this angle.
Get a move on.
Turning, she spied her morning meds, three cherry-colored pills placed in a cut glass holder the size of an espresso cup sitting next to a glass of water.
Someone, Wyatt probably, had brought them in this morning while she slept. She hadn't heard the person arrive. A chill slid down her spine as she thought of what anyone could do while she slept so soundly. She didn't want to swallow anything that might dull her mind, but Wyatt and McPherson insisted she needed the meds.
“Bull,” she muttered under her breath, carrying the glass into the bathroom, tossing the brightly colored pills into the toilet, and flushing them away.
The water was still running in the old pipes when she returned to the room and replaced the medication glass on the nightstand.
Throwing on a pair of jeans and long-sleeved T-shirt, she rummaged in her closet for a pair of beat-up tennis shoes and a green fleece pullover, the pullover something she'd worn for years that now was at least a size too big.
Spying the sweater she'd worn the night before, she scrounged around in the right pocket and slipped out the key that had been left inside.
“Where do you fit?” she wondered aloud, staring at the jagged, worn notches in the blade of the key. There were no identifiable markings on it, nothing to indicate what it unlocked, but she slipped the slim bit of metal into the front pocket of her jeans, just in case she figured it out.
Walking out of her room, she thought she might trip over Jewel-Anne, but her cousin was far too clever to be caught spying and had whizzed away. If she'd really been outside Ava's door at all.
In the kitchen, Ava found the coffeepot and poured herself a dose of whatever blend Virginia had brewed, then grabbed a napkin and a slice of some apple coffee cake that was already cut and left to cool on the counter. The house was quiet for once, not even Graciela's off-key humming or Jewel-Anne's wheelchair disturbing the silence.
Odd, she thought, but then what wasn't? Her entire life seemed surreal these days. She walked through the back door and across the porch to the outside where the autumn air was brisk, a few dry leaves skittering over the lawn, the smell of the sea ever present. Today, in the sunlight, the island seemed peaceful and serene, no hint of the evil that seemed to ooze over the hillsides and seep through the walls of Neptune's Gate at night.
All in your mind, sweetie. All in your mind.
Looking over the bay, she sat on the porch swing and slowly rocked.
The coffee was strong and hot, burning a path down her throat and taking the edge off her headache. Virginia's coffee cake was still slightly warm and filled with cinnamon and cooked apples, probably from the twisted trees in the orchard that still bore fruit.
So what the hell are you doing? Waiting for something to happen? That's not you, Ava. Never has been. You were—make that
are
—a take-charge woman. Remember? Didn't you graduate from college in a little over three years? Weren't you an entrepreneur who started her own advertising business, making a fortune on e-marketing before you sold the company? Didn't you parlay a nice inheritance into a fortune that allowed you to buy out your cousins and siblings so that you would eventually own most of this island? If it weren't for Jewel-Anne holding out, Neptune's Gate would be yours alone and wasn't that your dream?
She bit the edge of her lip and thought. What had become of the woman she'd once been, the one who had set her sights on Wyatt Garrison and never let go? Where was the athlete who'd once run marathons? What had happened to the person who had shrewdly bought out most of her relatives so that she could own Neptune's Gate herself, a woman who had planned to restore this old house to its former grandeur?
She's gone . . . lost when her only child disappeared.
A tear rolled from Ava's eye, and she angrily brushed it away.
No more moping around grieving! No more letting others push you around! No more playing the damned victim! Toughen up, Ava. And if the past bothers you so much, then figure it out. Find out what happened to your boy and move the hell on.
“Oh, God,” she whispered, suddenly afraid to let go.
Come on, Ava! For the love of Christ, do something!
Downing the remainder of her coffee, she nearly cracked the glass-topped table as she slammed her mug down onto its dusty top. She crumpled her napkin, stuffed it into her jeans pocket, then walked down to the dock and boathouse. Inside she discovered only the dingy was still there, but the powerboat was missing, its slip empty, the lift down. She'd always been fascinated with the boathouse as a child, how it smelled brackish from the sea, the way the water was always restless, the hidden attic above where the mechanism for the boat lift was hidden along with a few abandoned mud wasps' nests and a multitude of sticky cobwebs that, filled with the bodies of desiccated insects, dangled and draped over the single dirty window.
She and Kelvin had hidden there as children, away from parents whose fights were as volatile as their passionate affection.
Kelvin.
Her heart twisted when she thought of her brother, and she walked swiftly from the boathouse, refusing to let the memories of her only sibling draw her back to that dark place that forever seemed to call her. First Kelvin, then Noah.
Maybe all the members of her family who thought she was crazy were right. There was a good chance that she was certifiable.
Then again . . .
From the boathouse, she made her way up a series of rock steps to the garden, where, in the summer, roses, hydrangea, and heather flourished. Today the garden was weed-choked and neglected, grass growing over the stones. She stopped at the marker, a rock carved with Noah's name. There was no birth date, nor was the day he disappeared etched onto the uneven stone. It contained only his name. She bent and rested on one knee, leaning forward and touching the letters, then kissing her fingers and brushing them over the hard surface. “I miss you,” she whispered, then felt as if she were being watched, studied by unseen eyes.
She glanced over her shoulder at the house but saw no one in the dark windows that reflected the sea.
Wyatt was right. She couldn't go on this way. Living in the past. Not knowing what happened to her boy.
You have to find out what happened to him. You. You know you can't rely on anyone else.
Straightening, she looked down at the dock and scowled. Why was it that she always saw him
there
? It wasn't as if he'd been playing near the boathouse when he'd disappeared, and yet in her dreams or in her waking visions of him, she always viewed his little backside at the edge of the dock, so dangerously close to the water.
Why did her nightmares always take her there?
Through a rusting gate, she walked to the rear of the house where she eyed the stable, barn, and outbuildings. The horses and a few head of cattle were grazing in a pasture, sunlight burnishing their shaggy coats. Curious, Ava eyed the area, searching for Dern, but he wasn't anywhere outside. When she explored the stable and barn and even climbed the stairs to his apartment, she found it locked and no one answered her knock. Dern, like everyone else in the household, appeared to be MIA this morning, which was too bad because she wanted to talk to him, find out more about the man who had pulled her from the bay.
From the stable, she walked to the front of the house and let herself in the front door. No longer was she alone. Virginia was rattling around in the kitchen. Also, Ava heard footsteps on the floor above, then the smooth hum of Jewel-Anne's wheelchair.
No, she was no longer alone.
And she didn't know if that was a good thing.
Or bad.
She wandered to the kitchen where Virginia, balanced on a step stool, was straightening cans in the pantry, every tin label facing out, the larger cans in the back, smaller in the front. Boxes of pasta, too, were visible, along with an array of spices and the basics of rice, beans, flour, and sugar in square glass jars, all labeled precisely. Glancing over her shoulder, Virginia asked, “You get something to eat?” She righted a crooked carton of chicken stock.
“I pilfered a slice of your coffee cake. It was good.”
“That's not much. You want something more?”
“No, thanks.”
A stack of tuna cans was twisted to perfection. Virginia glanced at her watch. “Lunch won't be for another couple of hours.”

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