The boat? My heart pounded. I hurried to the study doors and out into the storm. Rain smashed into my face like a hard slap. The sky frothed with violence. Dark, cancerous clouds pummeled each other, lightning leaping from them to earth in obscene caresses. In seconds, I was drenched to the skin. I shaded my hands against the wind and the rain, trying to make out the stretch of terrain from the house to the dock. I stumbled forward, past the dark shape of the greenhouse, into the blackness of the night.
I had gotten to the beach-the ill-fated beach that gave this island its terrible name. For a moment, in the glassiness of vision in unrelenting rain, I thought I saw the shadows of a dozen boys, lying in the sand in their tattered uniforms, throats laid open like Rufus's. I gagged and yelled out. But there were no boys, there was only a dark shape lying on the beach, facedown in the wet sand. I stumbled forward and pulled on a shoulder, heaving him over.
Philip. I screamed out his name and leaned close to him. Ragged breath hit my ear. I felt up and down his head, his body, trying to see what was wrong. Sand daubed in a wound on his head. I had to wait for a flicker of lightning to see it'd been creased by a bullet. I yelled his name again, but he didn't answer.
Lights flicked on, out on the water. The boat. I ran toward it, the wind slamming into me, screaming out at Uncle Mutt.
Waves rocked the small boat. In the pale gleam of its running lights, I saw Wendy hurriedly donning a life preserver. And I could see Mutt's second boat, Little Brutus, its lines cut, bouncing in the pounding waves. Unreachable.
“Don't leave us! Don't leave us here, you asshole!” I hollered into the wind. “You murderer! Murderer!”
I couldn't see them clearly; the rain cut at my eyes like talons. Their boat bobbed in the hard swells, bumped against the dock, and turned out toward the bay.
Now I was on the dock, arms flailing, trying to keep my balance in the violent gale. A wave struck their boat, it rocked. And began moving away.
“Don't! Don't!” I screamed. If they ever heard me, there was no indication.
The dock jolted and tottered under my feet. I turned away from the fleeing vessel and hurried back to Philip. He still wasn't conscious and I slowly pulled him up into a fireman's carry, hoping I wasn't hurting him worse if he had suffered injuries I hadn't detected.
Halfway back to the house, Tom and Pop found me. Pop seized me in a grateful hug, nearly making me drop Philip. They eased him from my shoulders (he was not light) and we headed toward the house.
I came up after them onto the porch, staggering with delayed shock. I steadied Philip's back as Pop and Tom carried him in between them. I stumbled as we headed onto the porch, and my hand smashed through one of the panes of glass in the study door, cutting it deeply. I yowled as warm blood gushed over my hand.
“Oh, Christ,” I muttered.
Jake still sat in the study, watching us with wide eyes. He looked like a little boy on a too-scary adventure. “What's happened?” he cried.
“Mutt-or Wendy-shot Philip. The bullet creased his head,” I managed to gasp. “They've left us. They've taken one of the boats and cut loose the other.”
Jake got to his feet with more alacrity than I'd have given him credit for. His eyes were bright furnaces of shock. “The phones are still out,” he said. “I just tried a minute ago-”
“Get Philip on the settee,” Pop gasped. “Tom, hurry. Get Deborah down here.” They lowered Philip down to the sofa and Tom sprinted up the stairs. In the dim light of my candle, which Jake had kept lit, Philip's wound didn't appear so grave-more of a deep bruise and a nasty laceration. It was clear the bullet hadn't penetrated his skull. But he was shockingly pale, and I started cleaning the clumped sand from around his face.
“Oh, Jordy, your hand,” Pop muttered. “I'll take care of Philip. That's a bad cut. Gonna need stitches. We got to get Deborah to look at it.”
“It'll keep,” I answered. “Oh, shit, Pop, Mutt did all this. That bastard-”
Deborah and Gretchen barreled down the stairs with Tom. Gretchen let out a little shriek at the sight of Rufus's body. Deb paused at Rufus, but saw he was dead. She pushed us out of the way to examine Philip. She began issuing orders to the others.
“Come here, Jordan,” Jake called. “Let Philip be. Deb'll take good care of him. Let me tend to that cut.”
“Go ahead, Jordy,” Pop ordered. “You got to be sure you got the glass out of there.”
“I was a medic in the war,” Jake said. “I know how to fix a cut.” He led me, as though I were a small boy, into the hallway and down to his room.
“Ever since I needed a cane,” Jake said, “Mutt put me in this downstairs room. But I like it.” He took my candle and lit another candle on a mantelpiece over a small stone fireplace.
It was a nice room. The furniture was oak antique; plants hung in profusion from shelves and the ceiling, like an extension of Mutt's beloved greenhouse. A beautiful writing desk stood in the corner and I remembered Mutt mentioning Jake had many pen pals. He'd have a hell of a story to tell now. Family pictures dotted the walls, most of Mutt at various ages. There were some of a man I recognized as a much younger Jake with a child.
“That's Mutt,” Jake said. He went into the adjoining bathroom. “Pretty child he was, just like you.”
I shivered in delayed shock, soaked and chilled. My hand was a bright flame of pain. “He's not pretty, Uncle Jake. He's a murderer.”
“I'd prefer not to ponder that right now,” Jake answered. His tone was mild, as though this were a normal framework for conversation. He lit another candle in the bathroom. “Got to keep candles around when you live on the coast. Hate to take a dump in the dark.”
Despite the horrors of the night, I managed to laugh. Not much of a laugh, but a laugh. I suddenly wanted to see and hold Candace very badly.
“Now get over to the sink and rinse out that hand good. I'll fix you up a bandage.” I obeyed him, standing before the sink and rinsing my hand under the cool cascade of water. I was still soaking wet, but the water from the faucet seemed kinder than the rain. Blood spilled from my hand in ropy threads and I gritted my teeth against the sting. Jake, peering into his medicine cabinet by candlelight, hummed and extracted a box of bandages, antiseptic spray, and surgical tape.
“Quite a dispensary,” I said. The cut hurt like hell and I hoped glass hadn't lingered in the wound.
“Always had to be prepared,” he muttered. “Lolly so damn clumsy she was always hurting herself. I tended her more than she tended me.” He moved behind me and out of the small bathroom, giving me some room. “Use a towel to stanch the bleeding, son. I'll get your bandage ready.”
I pressed my forehead against the mirror, still wincing at the slicing pain across my palm. The glass felt cool against my forehead, like a tonic. This was not how I expected a family gathering to end-in murder, betrayal, and such deep sorrow. I felt like curling into a ball and letting my exhaustion take me.
Mutt had killed Lolly and Rufus, tried to kill Aubrey. Who wouldn't he have destroyed to hide his past? And I had so wanted to believe in him, to trust him.
But something was wrong. Why try to kill Aubrey? If Aubrey had discovered Mutt's plot to fake a death and light out with a new identity, Aubrey would have told Sass immediately. They were too concerned for their inheritance not to. Some piece of this puzzle was still missing. I remembered the note on Lolly's desk pad to return Aubrey's phone call. Had she confided in him, then blustered at the dinner table when she realized he was collecting information for a book about screwy families? Then if Aubrey knew what Lolly knew, Mutt did have reason to kill him. But I could prove nothing now. I blinked in quivering fatigue.
“Jordan? You okay?” Jake's voice was gentle.
I wiped my nose with my good hand. “Yes.” I came out of the bathroom. Jake sat me down on his bed, steadying himself with his cane. He took my lacerated hand gently in his. He applied the bandage-already wet with medicine- to the wound with a hard strength, like he was pressing a flower into a memory book.