“Come on,” Billy said, tugging at Maggy’s hand. “I’ll walk you up. I’ll even see if I can find that raggedy old Little Mermaid blankie you used to love.”
“Mimi probably threw it away,” Maggy said, her voice forlorn, allowing herself to be led from the room.
“No way,” Billy said firmly. “Mimi never throws anything away.”
* * *
“What’s going on between you and Wendell?” Scott asked, as soon as Maggy was out of earshot.
“Absolutely nothing,” Riley said.
“And what’s that mean?”
Riley fetched the wine jug and poured herself another glass. “I don’t even know where to start.” She hesitated. “This was supposed to be the weekend we break the news to Maggy that we’re separating. But Wendell pulled a disappearing act, and now all hell is breaking loose.”
She recounted the day’s events, including the discovery of the foreclosure notice tacked to her front door.
“Ed tried calling the sheriff’s office, but the dispatcher doesn’t know what’s going on. It looks like we might have to wait until Tuesday to get everything straightened out.”
Scott pointed at Riley’s cell phone, which she’d plugged into the only outlet on the kitchen counter. “And you still haven’t heard from Wendell?”
“Not a word. Maggy’s furious at me, I’m furious at him, and tonight … when Mama finds out, well, you know…” Her voice trailed off.
Scott took a bottle of water from the refrigerator and uncapped it. He took a long swig. “Why do you say that? You don’t think Evelyn’s going to blame you for everything that’s happened—do you?”
“She’s sure not gonna blame St. Wendell,” Riley said. “According to Mama, he can do no wrong.”
“Families.” The way Scott said it came out as a prolonged sigh.
* * *
She took the wine upstairs, set it carefully on the nightstand on her side of the bed, and looked around the room.
Not much had changed since Evelyn had fixed up what she called “the honeymoon suite” twenty years earlier. The floral wallpaper still had bright blue morning glories twining up sea-green stripes. The ugly marble-topped Victorian dresser that had been her grandmother’s still wore a hand-crocheted doily precisely in the middle, with a nearly full bottle of yellowing Youth Dew perfume planted in the middle of it.
The mahogany four-poster bed stood on a sun-faded Oriental rug, and the forty-year-old mattress—that had been her parent’s until her father flatly refused to sleep one more night in a double bed—still sagged in the middle.
That was another thing Evelyn didn’t believe in spending money on—new mattresses—unless it was for her own bed.
The room was warm and stuffy, and it smelled of lemon Pledge. Riley went to the double-wide window that looked out on the back lawn—and the bay, and tugged upward on the wooden sash until it opened with a screech of protest.
Warm, humid air floated into the room, and Riley felt strangely reassured. Her suitcase stood, unopened, at the foot of the bed, but out of curiosity more than anything else, she opened the top dresser drawer.
Sure enough, she found a stack of neatly folded cotton nightgowns, right where she’d left them—how long ago? Seven, eight years?
She pulled the cotton gown over her head and let its folds settle lightly over her skin, then climbed into bed and poured herself another tumbler of wine.
Riley picked up her cell phone one more time. It had bars, and was fully charged, but what it did not have was any type of communication from Wendell Griggs.
Her mind kept going back to the boldfaced notice taped to her front door. To the sight of her locked front door. And the face of the sheriff’s deputy, who’d served her with the foreclosure notice. She wanted to scream. She wanted to throw something. Preferably at Wendell Griggs.
Instead, she found a dog-eared Agatha Christie paperback in the nightstand drawer and started reading and sipping.
By the time Riley finally drifted off to sleep, Miss Jane Marple had discovered the body in the vicarage, and was puzzling over the railway schedule to St. Mary Mead and a single, suspicious fingernail clipping.
* * *
“Riley!” A hand clamped firmly over her shoulder. “Riley, wake up.”
She rolled onto her back.
“What on earth?” Evelyn Nolan was perched on the side of the bed, staring down at her slumbering daughter. She was still dressed for the full moon party, in a pair of crisp white linen slacks, a red-and-white-striped blouse, and a navy blue linen Ralph Lauren blazer. Her size-four feet were shod in sporty white kid loafers, and she wore a red silk Hermès scarf knotted at the open neck of her shirt. This was her mother’s idea of beachwear. She looked like a tiny, angry robin pecking at a helpless worm. And Riley felt like that worm.
Evelyn didn’t wait for Riley to reply.
“Billy told me some crazy story about your house being foreclosed? How can that be?”
Riley struggled to sit up as her mother continued to volley questions at her. “What did the sheriff’s office say? Did Ed talk to the sheriff? Where’s Wendell?”
She got out of bed, went into the bathroom, closed the door, threw her head back, and screamed silently. Then she scrubbed the taste of cheap white wine from her mouth, peed, flushed, washed her hands, and went back into the room.
“Well?” Evelyn’s penciled-on brown eyebrows formed perfect inverted Vs, and her face powder had settled into the deep furrows on either side of her lips.
Riley climbed back into the bed. “The sheriff’s office couldn’t tell us anything. Ed tried, but was unable to talk to the sheriff and, as to your last question, I have no idea where Wendell is.”
“I don’t understand any of this,” Evelyn said. “Wendell makes a wonderful salary at Belle Isle Enterprises. Your daddy saw to that. Honey, why didn’t you tell me things had gotten so bad?”
“I didn’t know things had gotten bad. I still don’t know that they have. There has to be some kind of a mix-up.”
“I should hope so! Everybody on the island is talking, you know. According to Frances Carter, that dreadful Payne woman was going around telling people Wendell had you served with divorce papers on the ferry today. Franny told her she was mistaken, but you know how people talk.”
Riley hesitated, then shrugged. “Andrea Payne is actually about half right. You might as well know, Wendell and I are splitting up.”
“I can’t believe you would do such a thing.”
“Me? Mama, what makes you think I’m the one doing the divorcing?”
“Because I know Wendell. He would never hurt our family by doing something like that. He adores Maggy. He would never let his daughter go through a divorce.”
“I notice you don’t say he adores his wife,” Riley said pointedly.
“Don’t be silly. Wendell is devoted to you, and you know it.”
“Unfortunately, I don’t know it. Mama, when was the last time you saw Wendell with me and Maggy?”
“You know I don’t keep track of things like that,” Evelyn said. “Anyway, Wendell’s a busy man, trying to provide for his family. He’s traveling between here and Raleigh and New York, and he’s got all these plans for the new development.… Your father wasn’t home much either when you and Billy were young, but that didn’t mean he didn’t love his family. And me.”