“And I’m taking it away, until you can figure out how to behave responsibly.”
Riley pushed up from the bed and walked unsteadily to the bedroom door, the cell phone gripped firmly in her hand.
The door slammed shut behind her, and a moment later she heard what sounded like a tennis shoe being thrown against the wooden door. “I hate you!” Maggy screamed.
21
Billy breezed through the back door of his mother’s house. He was dressed in tennis whites with a racquet slung over his shoulder.
“Maggy!” he called, walking through the hallway and calling up toward the stairway. “Let’s go! We’re supposed to be on the courts in twenty minutes.”
The house was quiet. Eerily so. He heard a door open and close upstairs.
“Maggy? Mama? Riley?”
Light footsteps.
Riley walked slowly down the stairs. She looked, her brother thought, like she’d been through the wringer.
Bless her heart, he thought.
“Hey,” she said softly, as she reached the bottom stair. “Sorry. I guess I should have called to let you know. Maggy won’t be playing in the tournament.”
“Is she still pulling that crap about tennis being stupid?” he asked, frowning. “Where is she? I bet I can change her mind.”
“I bet you could. Unfortunately, she’s under house arrest. So she’s not going anywhere for the next few days.”
Billy glanced upward. “What’d she do? Rob a bank?”
“It’s not funny,” Riley said. “She snuck out of the house this morning and went out on a boat with Shane Billingsley and a bunch of other kids. They were racing around the bay, the boat got beached on a sandbar, and she was out there, with no food or water, or her meds. It’s only by the grace of God—and that damned Nate Milas—that she made it back alive.”
“Ohhh.” Billy spun his racquet on his shoulder. “She’s not sick though—right?”
“No, fortunately, she’s sunburned but okay. Nate gave her some juice and fed her and got her back to the marina to pick up her insulin in time. Then he delivered her to me—along with an incredibly annoying and self-righteous sermon about what a neglectful, irresponsible parent I am.”
“Well, fuck him,” Billy said cheerfully.
“That’s sort of what I told him,” Riley said. “Now, I feel kind of bad about that. I know he meant well.” She shrugged. “I’m really not having a good week.”
Billy gave her a hug. “I know. I’m sorry about all of this. So Mags is giving you a hard time?”
She nodded. “It’s like she’s testing just how far she can push my buttons.”
“How’d she manage to get out of the house without you seeing her? Did she figure out how to climb out that bedroom window onto the porch roof and slide down the drainpipe already? Damn! I didn’t get around to that until I was fourteen or fifteen.”
“No, hopefully she hasn’t figured that out yet. As far as I know, she just waited until Mama was gone and left.” She hesitated. “I haven’t been sleeping, you know. Last night, after everybody else was in bed, I kind of wandered around the island on the golf cart. I had to see for myself where it happened. You know. Where they found Wendell’s body.”
“I saw you coming back to the house,” Billy said. “I figured maybe it was something like that.”
“Yeah.” Riley sat on the bottom stair. “Last night, seeing the seawall, and the place where the sheriff marked it off, it shook me up. I couldn’t get to sleep after I got home. When I finally did fall asleep—around dawn, I didn’t wake up until nearly two! I didn’t even know Maggy was gone until Nate rang the doorbell. He’s right. I really am a shitty mother.”
“Oh, sis,” Billy said. “You know that’s not true.” He sat down beside her on the stair, and Riley leaned her head on his shoulder.
“Maggy’s just going through the kind of crap kids do at that age. Remember what a terror I was? All the schools I got kicked out of? And, look, I survived, right? Just remember she’s a good kid who’s going through a bad time. I’ll talk to her if you want. Maybe she’ll listen to me.”
“There’s something I haven’t told you yet,” Riley said, keeping her voice low. “A television reporter from Raleigh has been calling and leaving me voice messages. About Wendell. She claims the FBI is investigating Wendell’s involvement in some bank failure on the coast.”
“The FBI?” Billy felt a cold shiver run down his spine. “You don’t think it’s true—do you?”
“I don’t know,” Riley said. “I don’t know anything about Wendell’s business dealings. Except,” she said bitterly, “he somehow managed to lose our house here.”
“What are you going to do?” Billy asked.
“What can I do? I’m going to the courthouse first thing tomorrow, to try to figure out the foreclosure and to see if I can sniff out anything else Wendell might have been up to. I talked to a lawyer yesterday, but since I can’t guarantee I can pay her a retainer, I guess I’m going to have to try and figure this stuff out for myself.”
Billy turned to look at his sister. “What can I do to help?”
She gave him a wan smile. “Keep Mama off my back. She’s driving me nuts insisting we have to have what she calls a ‘proper memorial service’ for Wendell. She’s already got everything planned. And in the meantime, I don’t even know when the coroner is going to release Wendell’s body. I know it’s awful, but I’m dreading this whole ordeal.”
“It’s not awful,” Billy assured her. “Why don’t you just tell Mama to back off? There’s no law that says you absolutely have to have a funeral if you don’t want one. Especially under the circumstances.”
“No law?” She snorted. “There’s Evelyn Riley Nolan’s law. It’s the only one that matters on Belle Isle.”
22
Riley’s cell phone shattered the peace of the morning. “Mrs. Griggs? This is Sheriff Schumann. I was wondering if you’d have time to answer some questions for me.”
It was barely 8 a.m. on Tuesday. Riley was sitting on the front porch at Shutters, sipping her coffee and watching a blue heron poking around at something in the front yard. It had rained overnight, and the air was cool and fresh. Butterflies hovered over the red salvia in her mother’s flower beds, and the day would have seemed ripe with the promise of summer. If only.
“Yes,” she said cautiously.
“Is now a good time?”
She looked down at her cotton nightgown and bare feet and sprang from the wooden rocking chair.
“Right now?”
“I could come over there if you like. I’m at the ferry dock in Southpoint, as a matter of fact.”
“No, no,” Riley said quickly. “If it’s all right with you, could I meet you someplace else? My daughter is still pretty upset about everything.”
“Have you had breakfast?”
“Just coffee,” Riley said.