Billy shook his head. “I went over to the carriage house to fetch her when we got back from our place, but she told me she was going to ride with Parrish.”
“But I didn’t even come to Shutters,” Parrish said. “I went straight to the ferry from my place.”
“She never left,” Riley said, as the realization washed over her. “She scammed every one of us. She’s still on that damned island.”
* * *
The ferry’s diesel engines shuddered to a sudden halt, slamming so hard against the pier that the impact sent people sprawling onto the water-slicked floor. There was more churning, as the pilot reversed course, and then another, lesser impact. Bells rang, signaling their arrival, and then the engines shut down.
All around them, passengers sprang to life, gathering their belongings and herding toward the exit. Everybody but Evelyn Nolan and her family, who gathered in a small, bewildered knot around their matriarch.
Evelyn clutched Riley’s arm. “Roo is back there. Alone. We have to go back. Riley, you have to talk to Nate.”
“Talk to me about what?” Nate’s face was creased with weariness. He hadn’t shaved, and his jeans and windbreaker were damp and salt-crusted.
“It’s Roo. My sister-in-law. She’s still back on the island. You have to go back and get her. She’s nearly eighty. She can’t ride out that storm by herself. She wanted to stay, and so did I, but Riley made us see it wasn’t safe.” Evelyn was babbling, wild-eyed with anxiety.
“Is that true?” Nate asked.
The other passengers streamed around them, bumping and jostling in their haste to be back on solid land again.
“I’m afraid so,” Riley said. She looked down and saw Maggy, staring up at her, holding Banksy so tightly the dog gave a sharp yip of protest.
“Mama, why don’t you and the others get our stuff and wait for me on the dock,” Riley said. “Maggy, you go with Mimi and Billy.”
“Come on, Mags,” Billy said, touching her arm. “Let’s go get in the car.”
Maggy stayed planted where she was. She looked up solemnly at Nate. Her blue-gray eyes were beseeching. “Will you do it? Will you go back for Roo?”
“I’ll bring her along, Bebo,” Riley told her brother.
“Ask him, Mama,” Maggy implored. “He’ll do it if you ask.”
“It’s not safe,” Riley said, shaking her head. Even now, the heavy boat rocked violently with the break of each wave as the wind buffeted it against its mooring. “I can’t ask you to take the ferry back there, Nate. It’s too dangerous.”
“But she’s all alone,” Maggy cried. “Something bad will happen to her, I know it will. It’s a cat-two storm. They’re not as bad as a three or a four, but people die in cat-two hurricanes. Roo told me eight people died in Hurricane Donna.”
Nate looked from the little girl to her mother. “I can’t ask Wayne to pilot the ferry back to Belle Isle. We’ve only got enough fuel for a one-way trip. But I’ll go back myself. If you want me to.”
“Please, Mama? Let him save Roo. He wants to.” Maggy wrapped her arms around Riley’s waist the same way she had as a preschooler.
Riley stroked her daughter’s hair. She’d shot up this summer, almost as tall as Riley now. In the space of three short months she’d grown up more than any twelve-year-old should have had to. And now there was one more hard lesson.
“No, Maggy. I can’t ask Nate to risk his life and go back to the island for Roo. I know you love her. We all do. But Roo knew what she wanted. She wanted to ride out one more hurricane. So that’s what she’s doing. She doesn’t want to be saved.”
Nate placed his hand on top of Riley’s and squeezed it gently, before releasing it. He leaned over until his face was level with the child’s. “I’ll go back tomorrow, as soon as it’s safe. And I’ll find Roo. I promise.”
Maggy nodded. “Okay.”
“Where will you go tonight?” Nate asked Riley. “There’s a Red Cross shelter set up at the National Guard Armory.”
Riley laughed. “Can you see Evelyn Nolan sleeping on a cot in a gym? Me neither. We’ll probably just drive inland until we see a hotel with a vacancy. What about you?”
“We’ve got family in Fayetteville. They’re expecting us.”
“Will you call me?” Riley asked.
“You call me,” Nate said. “When you’re ready.”
Epilogue
Riley leaned over the rail of the observation deck, closed her eyes, and breathed in everything: the sunshine, the salt air, even the sharp tang of the Carolina Queen’s diesel engines. This was a new sensation, the letting go and letting in. When she opened her eyes and looked down, she saw a pod of dolphins, splashing along joyfully in the ferry’s wake, dipping in and out of the waves of the sound. She was by herself this trip but, out of habit, she scanned the horizon, searching for the first glimpse of Big Belle.
The lighthouse had withstood the storm, but the changed topography of the island was something that would take a long time to get used to.
Hurricane Brody had weakened hours before making landfall just north of the island, but the powerful winds and storm surge had done millions and millions of dollars’ worth of damage. Hundred-year-old oaks had been downed, homes destroyed or badly damaged.
Half a dozen oak trees had fallen at the Shutters, which had sustained only mild wind damage, but the carriage house that had been Aunt Roo’s home had been flattened. Riley’s own small rental cottage near the village had roof damage where a tree limb pierced it, but the supposedly impregnable concrete hulk of her former home on Sand Dollar Lane had borne the brunt of the storm surge and sustained such serious flood damage that she’d heard talk that the new owners were considering it a total loss.
Riley found herself curiously indifferent to the fate of that house. Whatever memories she had of her life there, good or bad, would suffice. These days her work took her to every corner of the island, and when she passed the turnoff for Sand Dollar Lane, she no longer had to avert her eyes to the wreckage.
It was her past, and it was real, but she’d made the decision to move on.
Now it was Columbus Day weekend, and she was coming home. There was still so much to be done, sometimes her stomach still knotted up, sometimes she woke up in the middle of the night, making lists, doing Internet searches, reading everything she could to educate herself in her new job. But this weekend, she vowed, she would be on vacation, a weekender again.
When the five-minute whistle blew, she gathered her bag and moved anxiously to the lower deck, lining up with the rest of the passengers eager for the holiday weekend to begin.
Out of the corner of her eye, Riley spotted her old nemesis, Andrea Payne, who spotted her at the same moment, and deliberately looked away. She’d heard through the islander grapevine that Andrea blamed Riley—and Parrish—for her best friend’s arrest and incarceration. Having Belle Isle Barbie snub her, Riley decided, was the only good outcome from Melody Zimmerman’s predicament.
She allowed herself to merge into the stream of passengers disembarking the ferry, and once she was on the landing, moved quickly toward the parking lot.