I shoved back from my desk and started pacing. She hadn’t given me any more information, and I hadn’t wanted to push. It had seemed hard enough for her to tell me what she had already. But I needed to know what she was dealing with if I was going to help her.
I turned to face my desk again, a war raging inside me. When I bought the island, and the Dowds had told me about their caretaker, they had offered to pass along the background check they’d run before hiring her. But they’d spoken so highly of the woman, I hadn’t ever looked at the thing. I’d come to the island not knowing a damn thing about Shay McCabe. And now, I needed to.
I strode back and sank into the chair, tapping my laptop so it came to life. I pulled up a search engine and typed her name. There was a flurry of hits. But near the top of the page was a headline that stopped me cold. Eleven-year-old boy arrested for the murder of parents and attempted murder of sister.
I clicked on the link without thinking twice, my eyes scanning the text as quickly as possible. Phrases jumped off the page. Parents stabbed to death. Thirteen-year-old Shay McCabe rushed to the hospital with life-threatening injuries. I jumped to a follow-up article and read that, too. Michael McCabe had been sentenced to twenty years in prison for the murder of his parents after they informed him that he was being sent to a residential treatment facility.
Wouldn’t that mean that he was still locked up? At the end of the article, there was an update. After new legal filings, and McCabe’s admission into a new juvenile program at Everest Juvenile Treatment Facility, he will now be eligible for parole after his twenty-first birthday.
I did some quick mental math. As of a month ago, he could be out. And only a couple of hours away. Why hadn’t Shay gone farther than a ferry ride from Seattle? None of it added up.
My stomach churned at the school photo printed in one of the articles. A freckle-faced Shay stared back at me, a small gap between her two front teeth. Her smile was wide and unreserved as if nothing was wrong in her world. But there had been. The article spoke of Michael’s long history with mental illness, even at the age of eleven. Trips to a local psychiatric hospital, and one brief stint at a juvenile detention facility. What would it have been like for a child to grow up in a home, struggling to deal with that? How terrifying.
My jaw worked as my back teeth ground together. I kept reading. Article after article. Everything I could find on Michael and the McCabes. Most of it was a regurgitation of the first two articles I read, but I kept hunting anyway. The truth of what I’d just learned swirled in the back of my mind. Shay had almost died. Because her brother had tried to kill her.
I almost jumped out of my skin when the video chat notification blared to life on my screen. I hit accept, and Carson’s face filled the screen.
“Surfing the internet, slacker?”
I couldn’t seem to force my mouth into a grin. “Just doing some research.”
Carson sobered. “What’s wrong? Press hounding you again?”
“No, nothing like that.” I scrubbed a hand over my face, trying to think of what I could share without betraying Shay’s trust.
“Is Lara giving you shit again? Need me to hire a hitman?”
That almost got a smile out of me. “You know she showed up here the other day?”
Carson’s jaw dropped open. “On your little island in the middle of nowhere?”
“It’s not in the middle of nowhere, but yeah. Flew in and had a boat bring her straight here.”
“No wonder you look like crap.”
I wished it was as simple as Lara showing up and driving me nuts. But she’d been surprisingly understanding when I’d canceled our dinner and promised that she’d heard me and would give me some space to figure out what the new direction in my career might be. I absentmindedly traced a design on my desk with my finger. “It’s not Lara.”
Carson let out a huff. “What then? You regretting your move already?”
“No. I love it here, actually.” The peace I’d found in my routine, the sounds and scents of nature…Shay, they’d all been good for me. I felt healthier and happier than I had in years, even if I hadn’t figured out what my new career path might be. “There’s someone here I care about…”
“Your hottie of a caretaker?” he asked with a mischievous grin.
I scowled at him. Shay had popped her head into my studio a couple of weeks ago when Carson and I had been chatting, and she had met him via video. I hadn’t heard the end of it from Car since. “I’m not saying who. But they’re in trouble. And I’m trying to figure out how I can help.”
“Trouble like avoiding the cops because they were part of a jewel heist, or trouble like they’re hooked on pills? Give me a little direction here.”
“Trouble like they’re lying low from someone who might want to hurt them.”
Carson’s jaw hardened. “If that someone is the slip of a girl living on your island, I’d tell you to keep her close. You want the number of my private investigator? You know he’s discreet, and he can get the lowdown on anything.”
A couple of years ago, Car’s sister had gotten mixed up with a bad dude and hadn’t been able to break free. This P.I. had found enough dirt for Carson to get his sister out and keep her ex away for good. Having more information on Michael, confirming his whereabouts, wouldn’t hurt. “Sure. Send it my way.”
“I’ll text it as soon as we hang up.”
“Thanks, man. How are things with you? Pieces for the show progressing?”
Carson grimaced. “They’re coming. But I’m not sold on any of them yet.”
This time, I did grin. “You hate every sculpture you make. It’s not until after collectors are clamoring all over themselves to outbid each other that you believe they’re halfway decent.”
He fumbled for his pack of cigarettes. “You might have a point.”
“Trust your process.”
His gaze met mine through the screen. “This is why I need you in New York. You remind me to keep my head on straight.”
“No one can keep your head on straight.”
His eye twinkled mischievously. “That little caretaker of yours might…”
“Carson,” I warned.
“Just wanted to see if you’d called dibs or not.”
“That’s the nice thing about living thousands of miles away. I don’t have to. I can just do…this.” I hit end on the call before he could utter another word and closed my laptop screen. A few seconds later, my phone dinged with a message calling me an asshole and then another with the number for his private investigator. I’d place the call in a bit. First, I wanted to talk to Hunter.
I made my way out of the house and down the path towards the construction site. The crew was larger today, unfamiliar faces mixed with the ones I knew. Hunter waved, finishing up a conversation with a man I didn’t recognize. “Hey, Brody.”
“It’s a full house today,” I said, taking in everyone moving in and out of the building.
“It’s time for the guts of it all, and that’s a lot of moving pieces. Did you need something? Or were you just coming to check it all out?”
I turned away from the studio and back to Hunter. “I was wondering if you knew anyone who did security systems.”