August Unknown (31 page)

“What do you want, Chelsie?” she asked again, louder this
time.

Chelsie stepped up onto
Penny Lane
’s deck, that knife
thrust out the whole time. “Shout like that again, and I’ll cut your tongue
out. Now get down in the cabin. We’re going for a little ride, you and me.”

Chelsie shoved her when she was on the ladder, sending Emily
staggering to her knees onto the small cabin’s floor.

“The keys are in that drawer. Get up. I didn’t push you that
hard.”

“Chelsie, whatever you want, we can talk this through—”

“Shut up! We’re going to talk, all right. I just want to be
sure we don’t get interrupted.”

“We can’t take this boat out of the harbor!”

“Sure we can.” Chelsie narrowed her eyes. “Keys are right
there, in that drawer. Easy now. Don’t try anything, or I’ll cut that pretty
face to ribbons.”

She waited as Emily opened the drawer and retrieved the motor
key. Geoffrey used a banana slug, the buoyant, yellow key fob that kept a
sailor’s keys from sinking if they fell in the water. Chelsie had obviously
been in the boat before, and the key fob identified the motor key at first
glance.

“Let’s go. Up top.”

Emily put the keys in her left hand and used her right to hold
the ladder’s rail on the way back up. Her mind raced with the possibilities.
The night on the
Maraschino
was still murky, but now she remembered red-haired
Sonja.

I’m pregnant
...
I’m pregnant
.

Think! What else happened?

“Was it you in the beach house that morning?”

Chelsie laughed. “Start the motor.” She kept a steely eye on
Emily as she released the ropes from the deck cleats on
Penny Lane
’s
starboard side. “Take us out.”

“Chelsie, no, this is crazy—”

Chelsie’s eyes blazed. She surged forward and lashed out,
nicking Emily on the side of her jaw with the tip of the blade.

“Don’t you dare talk to me like that! I’ve put up with your
sanctimonious bullshit for long enough.”

Emily winced and staggered back, but Chelsie gripped a fistful
of her shirt and yanked her back to the wheel.

“Okay! Okay, Chelsie, take it easy.”

Emily searched the pier, but no one else was around. Surely
there must be people who lived on their boats. If she screamed, could someone
get to her in time? Would anyone even hear? Or would it anger Chelsie into
slashing her with the knife?

“I see you remember how to sail,” Chelsie said as Emily backed
Penny Lane
out of the slip. “What else do you remember that you aren’t
telling me?”

“I don’t know what you mean.” Emily clawed at her memory. What
had happened that stormy day on
Maraschino’s
deck?

She had little time to remember. Chelsie stepped forward and
reversed the throttle for her, and then gave the wheel a spin.
Penny Lane
started a slow trail out of the marina.

A sudden squall, pouring rain, waves topped with white
caps. Seven seasick passengers, all of whom had drunk too much and loitered too
long on Hutchison’s Island. They were scared, nauseated, full of regret. But
there was no danger; Maraschino could hold her own in a storm twice as fierce
...

* * *

Indecision rolled through Geoffrey as he drove, and he nearly
turned around a dozen times. If she wanted to be alone, why was he crowding
her?

He just wanted to explain that he
wouldn’t
crowd her, and
then he’d go home and find some cold cream to help Derek wash the ink off his
face. He smiled again as he thought of that mustache.

He pulled his SUV into the Mermaid’s lot and parked beside
Emily’s red Honda. He stepped out into the brisk morning and tried the front
door. It was locked. Maybe she’d gone to sleep? She certainly hadn’t gotten
much sleep last night.

He grinned like a fool at his own reflection in the glass.
Neither of them had gotten much sleep. He stepped back and looked up at the
small, second-floor window. Maybe she was taking a bath in Gran Millie’s old
clawfoot?

This was a mistake. He should leave her alone if that was what
she wanted. He turned back to the SUV.

“Where’s Emily?”

He recognized the demanding voice before he saw the stocky
young man emerge through the mist.

Colin. The guy was like a gnat you couldn’t get rid of. He
made no effort to conceal his anger.

“She left her parents’ house yesterday, but she’s not
answering her cell phone.”

Above his annoyance, a pleasantly warm vapor crept over
Geoffrey. Emily had turned off her phone so they wouldn’t be disturbed.

“Was she with you last night?” Colin advanced steadily, trying
to be intimidating. Geoffrey stood his ground, and the other man stopped a few
paces away.

“You need to ask Emily where she stayed last night. If she
wants you to know, she’ll tell you.”

“Why can’t you back off, man? She’s confused and you’re making
it worse.”

Geoffrey said nothing.

Colin balled his hands into fists. “You’re setting yourself up
for a fall. Take the easy way out, dude. Trust me on that. You think you’re the
first guy to come sniffing around with an eye for Emily? There’ve been others,
plenty others, but it’s me she always stays with.”

“If you’re so confident, why are you here?”

Colin scowled and glanced away. Geoffrey could see he was
teetering between worry and fury.

“It isn’t the same this time. She was hurt, and still doesn’t
really know what happened—”

“What
did
happen, Colin?” Geoffrey advanced a step. “Why
was she arguing with her best friend?”

Colin wouldn’t meet his eyes. “I don’t know.”

“I don’t believe you.”

That got the other man’s attention.

“You might as well come clean. She’s going to remember, sooner
or later.”

Colin’s scowl deepened. “Did you stop to think about what
you’re doing to Emily? Of what she’s going through with you messing with her
head?” He pointed a finger accusingly. “Just because you’re rich doesn’t mean
you can give her a better life. She doesn’t need to live in a glass house, she
likes the life she had. Things were good in Astoria before she met you. The
most expensive truck on the planet and a bigger diamond doesn’t mean you’re the
better man for her.”

Colin advanced, turning his jabbing finger to his own chest as
he spoke. “I’m the one who stood by her after her old man started drinking. I’m
the one who gave her the life she wants. Northern Expeditions was her family’s
before my father bought it, and it’ll be hers again when we get married.”

Geoffrey refused to be intimidated by an arrogant kid with a
hot temper. Colin was burly, but he was too, and taller by at least four
inches. “All right, I’ll make you a deal. You look me straight in the eye and
tell me everything was perfect with your relationship, and I’ll step down.” His
heart leaped with his daring.

Colin’s eyes narrowed and he stared hard for a long minute.
Then he glanced away, a muscle working in his jaw.

“You wouldn’t be here right now if there wasn’t something in
your past that might drive her away,” Geoffrey continued before the other man
could accept his foolish wager. “You’re just hoping to convince her back to
Astoria because you want me out of sight and out of mind. If there’s one thing
I’ve learned about Emily, she’s smart. Do you really think she’d be happy to hear
you’re interfering with her decision?”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about. There’s nothing.”

“I think I do. In fact, I’ll bet it’s probably something you
did, and you want to keep her from finding—”

Geoffrey froze. He stepped past Colin, staring through the
fog. A small sloop with familiar lines motored slowly out of the marina. He
strained to see the spot where
Penny Lane
was usually visible from the
Mirthful Mermaid’s doorway, past the edge of the marina’s cinderblock
restrooms. He couldn’t be sure, but the slip beside his neighbor’s
Yankawa
Express
looked empty.

“Oh no.”

“What is it?” Colin’s voice held a hint of alarm, as though he
knew Geoffrey’s trepidation concerned Emily.

He was right.

“My boat is leaving the marina.”

* * *

“Nice place your boyfriend’s got. Were you going to string him
along forever, like you’ve done to Colin all these years?”

“It
was
you that day.”

“And it was me in the alley that night, too.”

“Why, Chelsie?”

Why? Why, why, why
...think, dammit! What happened
between them that was so horrible Chelsie wanted to kill her?

In an instant, one thing was clear; she hadn’t been afraid of
the red-haired woman—Sonja—she’d been aghast. A glimpse of that night on
Maraschino
flashed through her mind.

“Why do you think?” Chelsie snapped, dragging her away from
the memory she fought to reclaim.

“Colin?”

“Of course, Colin,” Chelsie hissed. “It’s always been Colin.”

Colin! But how? When? Was it something so horrible she would
never remember?

“...
Emily, help Sonja bring in the storm sail and batten ’er
down. We’ll motor the rest of the way. These kids are too sick for half-reefed
sails. And could you secure that loose winch? I should’ve had that thing fixed
weeks ago
.”

“
Sure, Graham. You’ve just got to be gentle with it. Let me
get my lifejacket
.”

She’d gone up on deck. Joe was forward, Sonja at the mizzen.
Her longtime friend looked up and saw her. She hesitated, tormented
contemplation on her face, before she changed her mind and edged closer on the
slippery deck.

“
We need to talk
.”

“
Sonja, what’s been eating you these past few days?
”

“
I think you know
.”

“
I don’t. But I’m sick of this. Just say it, or get over it
.”

“
I’m pregnant. It’s Colin’s. We were together the night of
the Spring Fling
.”

Emily closed her eyes. Molten anguish flooded her gut as she
relived it, exactly as it had that stormy afternoon on
Maraschino
. Sonja
was pregnant, and the baby was Colin’s.

Sonja, water streaming down her face, her red hair in
soaking wet strands. “You don’t want to marry him. If you did, you wouldn’t
have refused to set a date all these years. Let him go, so he can do right by
this baby
.”

Emily hadn’t known what to say.

“
You don’t love him, don’t need him. Do the right thing and
bow out
.”

The memory suddenly came clear. At that moment on deck, with
the sea tossing and the sky growling, Emily had realized she knew exactly when
Colin and Sonja had gone off together at Spring Fling.

“
You wretched bitch. How could you do that to me? You’re my
best friend. And you’re wrong, I do love him. But you can have him. You two
deserve each other
.”

“
Emily, we didn’t mean to
—”

“
Spare me the excuses. 2We didn’t mean to.’ Do you think
I’m stupid?
”

“
I never wanted to hurt you
.”

“
Get out of my sight. I never want to see either of you
again
.”

Emily stared into the milky whiteness in front of
Penny
Lane
with unseeing eyes. She had taken off her engagement ring and dropped
it in the electronics compartment. Warm drops mixed with the cold rain on her
face as her tears gushed. She remembered wiping them away with the back of her
hand, ashamed. Colin and Sonja had played her for a fool.

“Nice try.” Chelsie shoved her aside. She adjusted the wheel
and
Penny Lane
glided out of the path of a harbor buoy.

“You really don’t remember, do you?”

Poor Sonja. Desperate, alone, pregnant. In the face of peril,
Emily’s anger toward her best friend suddenly vanished. None of that mattered
now that she was staring down the pointed end of a hunting knife. She would
never get the chance to tell her best friend she forgave her.

“You know they blamed Sonja, but the police didn’t have
anything to hold her on. Not yet, anyway.”

She knew that much from what Colin had told her, only now she
understood why he had believed Sonja responsible so intently.

Chelsie’s words echoed in her mind and their deadly intent
rang clear.
Not yet, anyway
.

Emily caught her breath as she steadied herself on
Penny
Lane
’s lifeline. “What do you mean?”

“If you don’t remember what happened...” Chelsie looked her up
and down with surprised disbelief. “And you clearly don’t...then you haven’t
told anyone she didn’t push you.”

Emily swallowed. “I do remember. I told Geoffrey.”

Chelsie laughed. “You always were a lousy liar.”

“What are you going to do?” Emily finally found the courage to
ask the question. She needed to know what was planned for her. It was obvious,
but she wanted to hear Chelsie say it.

“I’m going to finish what I started that night, of course. You
were supposed to drown.”

Emily gasped and backed away. The backs of her knees collided
with the low roof to the main cabin. There was no place to run, no place to
hide.
Penny Lane
’s small dinghy was secured astern. Even if she could
get to it, she’d never get it down with only one hand, and certainly not with a
crazed slasher hot on her heels.

Chelsie only laughed. “Going to make it easy for me and jump?”
She took a plastic ziplock baggie from her pocket and unsealed it. “This time
they’ll have the evidence they need to send Sonja away.”

Emily watched in horror as she removed a small clump of red
hair and jammed it into the crevasse under a bolt on the compass. Sonja’s hair.

“She’s pregnant, you know,” Emily said. If she could convince Chelsie
that Sonja was her biggest problem, she might let her go.