The Islanders (8 page)

THE FRONT DOORBELL RANG A
third time before Zoey reached it. She hoped Lucas was smart enough not to let Nina see him as he climbed back up the hill. “I'm coming, Nina,” she muttered. “Jeez, hang on a minute.”

She paused for a moment, closed her eyes, and tried to catch her breath. Nina knew her too well. She might easily notice the furious blush on her neck.

Zoey opened the door. Her breath caught in her chest. Claire stood there, looking grim. A few steps behind her, looking uncomfortable, was Jake.

“Claire?” Zoey asked. And then, in a more suspicious tone, “Jake?”

“Morning, Zoey,” Claire said coolly. “Do you mind if we come in?”

We
? As in Claire-and-Jake
we
? Zoey held open the door. Claire glided past. Jake came up and leaned forward to plant a light kiss on her cheek. She sent him a questioning look, but he
just shrugged and made a point of pressing on, like he was in a hurry to get past her.

Claire led the way to the family room, as if she were in her own home escorting guests. She seemed to be barely suppressing some urgent need, but intent on acting in control. She sat on an easy chair, legs crossed like a man, arms wide. A forced smile on her lips was betrayed by a cold, dangerous light in her eyes.

Jake flopped on the couch, alternately scowling and averting his eyes. He shifted every few seconds, uncomfortable with himself, yet clearly sullen and angry as well.

Zoey stood with her arms crossed, looking from one to the other. There was no point in pretending that this little visit was normal.

“What's up?” Zoey demanded.

Claire affected a casual shrug. “We just wanted to talk to you.”

Again with the
we.

“You. And Jake. At nine forty-five in the morning.”

Claire made a show of noticing Zoey's nightshirt. “I hope we didn't wake you up.”

“No, I was up,” Zoey said.

“Won't you sit down?” Claire asked, motioning toward the couch.

Jake patted the cushion beside him.

“Excuse me, both of you, but this is
my
house,” Zoey said. “I'll decide whether I want to sit down or not. Now, I haven't had a shower yet, and I'm not up for a long discussion about the weather, so why don't you two tell me what's on your minds?”

Claire met her gaze and held it, her black-on-black eyes boring into Zoey's. Zoey looked away, then looked back.

“I think you know what this is about,” Claire said. “My little sister isn't a very good liar, you know. She said
she
spoke to Lucas, but Nina is weak on making up convincing details.”

Zoey tried not to flinch or show any guilty reaction, but the result was that she just stood there in the middle of the room, staring stonily.

“Look, Zo,” Jake said, “it's no big deal if, you know, he kind of took you by surprise and you talked to him for a couple of seconds or whatever. I mean, like I told Claire, you're a nice person. Your natural instinct is to be nice.”

“How nice of you to defend me to Claire,” Zoey said sarcastically. “When did this little discussion take place?”

Jake wrinkled his brow and looked upset, but Claire stepped in smoothly. “I called him last night. Also, we discussed it on the way over here.”

“On the way over? You live on the point, Claire, and Jake is down island from here.”

“I asked him to pick me up in his truck,” Claire said blandly.

“This is amazing,” Zoey said. “What is this, the Spanish Inquisition?”

“We're just asking, Zo, did you talk to Lucas?” Jake smiled placatingly. “That's all. Simple question.”

“What if I don't want to answer your simple question?” Zoey said, trying to buy time. What could she say? They were just asking about her very brief conversation with Lucas in the backyard. They didn't even know about the breakwater, or that he'd been there just minutes before, raising her fingers to his lips—

“You're no better at lying than Nina is,” Claire said contemptuously.

“Are you calling me a liar?” Zoey asked, loading her voice with outrage.

“I'm saying you talked to Lucas Cabral,” Claire said, unintimidated. “It's a yes or no answer.”

Zoey glanced desperately toward Jake, but his gaze had hardened, drawing on Claire's determination.

“I spoke to him.”

“Damn it!” Jake exploded. He shot to his feet and began pacing angrily back and forth.

Claire nodded. “So. What did he have to say?”

“Who cares what that creep had to say?” Jake stormed. “I thought you understood, Zoey. I mean, what were you thinking
of? Did you at least tell him to hump off?”

“He caught me by surprise,” Zoey protested weakly. “I was out back sunbathing and suddenly he's talking to me. I didn't know what to do.” She flopped her arms at her side.

“Tell him the truth,” Claire suggested. “I'm sure he won't be surprised. Just tell him we don't talk to people who do the kinds of things he did.”

“I don't think he did it on purpose,” Zoey said. Instantly she realized she'd made a mistake.

Jake whirled on her, his face contorted in rage. “On purpose? Who the hell cares if it was on purpose? He was drunk and he got behind the wheel of a car. Maybe he didn't say, ‘I'm going to ram this car into a tree and kill Wade McRoyan,' but he knew he was drunk and he knew he was driving, end of damn story. If I go running around town shooting off a gun, maybe I don't
plan
to kill anyone, but if I do, I can't just shrug my shoulders and say, ‘Hey, sorry, pal, I didn't plan to kill you.' It doesn't matter. You're just as dead.”

Zoey recoiled, startled by Jake's rage. But at the same time his words hit home. He was right, wasn't he? Lucas might seem like a perfectly nice person, even a sad, lonely person in need of a friend, but did that change what he had done?

Wade was dead. That was reality. The guilty thrill she'd felt when Lucas told her she looked wonderful, the disturbing
warmth that had flowed through her when he kissed her hand . . . that was illusion. Reality was Wade. And Claire, not her closest friend, perhaps, but not an enemy, either. And Jake, his fury now softening into a look of confused betrayal.

The line had been drawn very clearly. On one side: Jake. And Claire, and to a lesser extent Nina and Aisha. On the other side Lucas. Just Lucas.

Zoey drew in a deep, shaky breath. “I . . . I'm sorry. I guess . . . I mean, it never affected me directly. I didn't really know Wade that well, him being older and all.”

“You know me well,” Jake said softly. “I know you didn't mean any harm, Zo. But this is important to me. See, I want that bastard out of my life, and I want it to work out peacefully, no trouble for anyone. And that only works if we all stick together on this.”

“I understand,” Zoey said numbly.

“If you love me . . .” He smiled crookedly. “If you just even care about me, you'll stay away from Lucas Cabral.”

Zoey nodded mutely and bit her lip.

Claire smiled brightly, as if everything were perfect again. She slapped the arms of her chair and rose to her feet. “Well. That's over, at least.”

“You want me to drive you back?” Jake asked.

“Not necessary,” Claire said magnanimously. “It's nice out.”

“You want to do anything today?” Jake asked Zoey, striving for an air of normalcy.

“I still haven't had a shower or breakfast yet,” Zoey said, adopting his tone. “How about if I come over to your house later?”

“Sounds good,” Jake said gratefully. He kissed her on the lips, a hurried, uncertain kiss.

Claire was at the door to the breakfast nook, looking thoughtfully at the table. In a flash, Zoey realized one of Mrs. Cabral's famous sweet rolls was still on the table.

Claire went on toward the door, Jake following behind. “I realize this is tougher for you, in a way, than for the rest of us,” Claire said, eyeing Zoey thoughtfully. “After all, Lucas is your next-door neighbor.”

Jake opened the front door and walked out into the morning sun, looking as if he were glad to be escaping some prison. Claire waited till he was halfway across the lawn, then she favored Zoey with her cool smile. “Plus, Lucas always was cute. Those soulful eyes. That slightly lost look of his. Hard for any girl to resist.”

She let the faintest sneer form and then disappear, swallowed up in a brightly artificial smile.

She knows, Zoey realized. Not everything, not the details, but she knows he was here this morning.

“He had a message for you,” Zoey blurted.

The way Claire's mouth opened in surprise and her face seemed to pale was very rewarding.

“Oh. Did he?”

“He said you shouldn't worry so much. He said he keeps his promises.”

Claire's brow furrowed. For a moment her eyes were genuinely troubled, far, far away as if she were listening to some faint, distant music. Then, with an impatient shake of her head, she put her mask of indifference back in place. “How cryptic.”

“What does it mean?” Zoey asked.

“I have no idea,” Claire said.

Zoey ended up taking a cold shower, which did very little to improve her mood. To make things worse, she forgot to rinse the shampoo out of her hair, which meant she had to get back under the cold spray after she'd already started drying off.

It had been a completely unsettling morning.

She dressed and spent a few minutes looking through her quote books for some insights. The only things that stood out made her feel worse, not better. Good old Confucius saying,
To know what is right and not to do it is the worst cowardice.

It sounded good, but of course her problem was that she didn't know what was right. She was perfectly balanced between two opposite points of view:

And there were complications making either point of view hard to completely accept.

Her eye settled on a well-known saying from Thoreau:
If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.

Easy for Thoreau to say. He wasn't trapped on a tiny island with people who knew everything you did within twenty-four hours of the time you did it.

Still, she wrote down the quote and stuck it on the wall beside her window. Then, after a moment's hesitation, she added the Confucius quote, too.

Okay, so maybe she was a coward. Or maybe she was just confused.

She had to get out of here, that much was certain. Any minute now Nina would come by and she'd have to go into the whole thing blow by blow, word by word. And if she told Nina about the breakwater, or worse yet, what had happened that morning with Lucas (knees buckling, throat choked, eyes very heavy, head sinking toward her right shoulder) . . . well, she'd inevitably spill it to Claire, who would undoubtedly have to talk it over with Jake.

Zoey pressed her lips into an angry line. The nerve of those two, coming over and trying to discipline her like she was a naughty child.

Definitely had to get out of the house. She glanced at the clock on her dresser. No, off the island! She could just make the eleven ten if she didn't blow-dry her hair.

She had completely forgotten what Lucas had said about her mom and Benjamin taking the eleven ten until she saw them up by the front rail of the
Titanic.
Benjamin was leaning over the rail, his hands clasped. Her mom was sitting in the passenger seat of a van, chatting with the driver, who happened to be the woman who ran the island grocery store. Her mother noticed her and waved a casual hello.

“Hi, Benjamin,” Zoey said as she came up beside him.

“Hey, Zoey.”

The whistle blew shrilly and the ferry began backing away from the pier.

“You decide to come shopping with us?” Benjamin asked.

“Actually, I didn't know you'd be here,” Zoey said.

Benjamin turned to show her a dubious grin. “Lucas didn't tell you?”

“Maybe he did, but I forgot,” Zoey said, feeling a little annoyed. She'd escaped a cross-examination by Nina, only to run into one from Benjamin.

“So, you
did
talk to him this morning.”

“Kind of.”

The ferry began to pull clear of the dock and headed across
the harbor, blasting its horn at a careless sailboat that was getting too close.

Benjamin removed his shades and rubbed his eyes with his free hand. “Damn pollen is thick today. It doesn't seem fair if your eyes aren't going to work that they should itch.”

He turned toward her, his dark eyes blank, their focus aimed just slightly to the left of her. Then he pulled a tiny bottle of Visine from the pocket of his jeans, tilted back his head, and settled two drops in each eye.

Zoey felt relieved when he replaced his shades.

“A little eerie?” he suggested.

“What?”

“My eyes. They look weird, don't they? I mean, I can imagine. Like the lights are on but no one's home inside?”