Heartbroken (41 page)

Her father, wise man that he was, had never liked Joe Burke. Her father had demanded that Birdie protect her inheritance with a prenuptial agreement, something that was far ahead of its time. She didn’t understand it then, but she always did what her father told her to do. If Joe were to leave her, he’d get none of her money. Not a penny. He made a good salary, to be sure. But there would be no Manhattan penthouse, no sailboat kept on Long Island or ski trips to Switzerland—not for him. Even the island, which he never loved, really, but about which he loved to say: “Oh, we have an island on the lake.” When it came down to it, he couldn’t give up all of that. Not even for “true love.”

Her cough worsened; the smoke was growing thicker. The air around her was so hot, her body felt soaked in sweat. The house was turning into an oven. An ache had started in her sinuses and was clawing its way over her crown. How long until she would be overcome? It was meant to be fast, mercifully fast. And peaceful. But
no, she wouldn’t let Joe off the hook that easily. She fully intended to outlive him. She walked out the door and tossed the album onto the ground below, heard it land with a thud. Then she went back inside.

She grabbed the girl by her hands. For such a tiny thing, she seemed to weigh a ton. It took all of Birdie’s strength to pull her from the room. She didn’t look back at the burning structure, couldn’t care less about the clothes, the furniture, even the jewelry on her nightstand. She dragged the unconscious woman down the stairs and over the rocks. There would be bruising; it wasn’t a graceful or particularly gentle descent. But it was the best she could do. Birdie pulled her down, down and away from the house, until she came to rest on the large smooth rocks at the shore. The girl groaned. No, life wasn’t precious. But sometimes it was the punishment you deserved.

chapter thirty-five

J
ohn Cross wasn’t sure what woke him from his sleep. Some type of popping noise. He’d lain there for a while, listening but hearing nothing. He’d just started to drift off again when he saw a strange orange glow from outside. He stumbled down the stairs and to the picture window, where he saw the house on Heart Island in flames. At first he almost didn’t believe his eyes. And then, as if propelled by some unseen hand, he was running out of the house and down to his own dock.

From his right, he watched the slow approach of emergency boats, their flashing lights bouncing in the rough water. On Heart Island, the flames looked like dancers, tall and lithe, reaching up into the sky. He stood at the edge of the dock, heart pounding and panic keeping him paralyzed. What should he do? What
could
he do?

He heard the sound of voices yelling. Was someone calling for help? Unthinking, he began untying the lines of his boat. He was inexperienced in such choppy water. But he could hardly stand here when people were in trouble. He searched the water and thought he caught sight of swimmers, their cries echoing and carrying over the night. The wind had died down, but the water was rough. And cold. No one could stay in it long without being overcome.

He started the engine on his boat and backed out of his dock, knocking twice against it, then revving the engine to give himself enough power to pull away. He pointed his spotlight and saw two heads bobbing in the water, clearly struggling.

Slowly, he moved toward them, the boat rolling and bucking beneath him. He felt a wave of nausea but bit it back. He felt ill equipped to the task. How could he man the helm and help the people aboard, whoever they were? He couldn’t anchor in water like this. The water would wash in and sink the boat.

As he approached, he saw one of the swimmers waving a frantic arm. Closer still, he could see that it was a woman. With a deftness he didn’t even know he had, he tossed out a life ring and tied it onto one of the cleats. Then he let down the ladder on the side and raced back to the helm to correct the boat, which was veering away from the swimmers. He brought it back around and watched as one of them grabbed the ring and then grabbed the other person and started pulling toward the vessel.

It was the girl who climbed out first. She looked so young and terrified. Her hair hung in sodden rivulets, her wet clothes clinging to her thin body.

“My friend is drowning,” she said, her voice shrill with panic. “We can’t pull her out.”

“Can you take the helm?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said. “I can.”

“Try to keep it steady.”

She took it with a confidence beyond her years, and John climbed down the ladder. He saw Kate Burke trying to keep the head of an unconscious girl above water. He climbed into the water, still holding on to the ladder, and took hold of the girl, then dragged her back onto the boat. It was pure adrenaline. He hadn’t a thought in his head as he lifted her over the side. If anyone had asked him yesterday whether he could have done it, he’d have said no. It was a good thing the girl was light.

He helped Kate up, and she knelt beside Lulu. “Mom,” the girl yelled from the helm. “Is she all right?”

Kate started pumping on her chest; John watched, stunned, as she performed CPR. He walked over to the weeping child and
moved her away from the wheel. She fell on her knees beside her friend. “Lulu,” she said. “Please.”

He began steering toward the emergency boat he’d seen. As he approached the island, he heard the girl start to sputter and cough. The other two let out loud cries of joy and relief. He found that his hands were shaking and that his heart was a turbine engine in his chest. Great flames were rising into the sky. It was the most beautiful and terrible thing he’d ever seen.

B
irdie was having trouble catching her breath, and the girl was starting to stir beside her. “You burned down my house,” she said.

Emily didn’t move again or make a sound. Birdie found she couldn’t muster any real anger. She felt blank and empty, as if it were all happening to someone else, another Birdie, another life.

That was when she noticed him, standing just as he had when she first saw him. Who was he? What did he want? Was this, after all, one of Caroline’s ghosts? The ghost of Richard Cameron, come to haunt her. If he’d died the summer Birdie had seen him kiss her mother, was she somehow responsible for his death? Had he killed himself? Maybe her father had killed him? Maybe her mother had? All because she’d discovered their affair that summer night? But that was her imagination running wild.

“Who’s there?” she yelled. “What do you want?”

She took the gun from her waist and held it. How silly, an old woman holding a gun against a ghost as her island burned. Her hands were shaking. If she were smart, she’d get in the water and swim like the girls. If she were smart, she’d have done so when they had. But she was in so much pain, and so tired. She thought,
No, I’ll just sit here and see what happens
.

The girl was moaning, and the form started moving toward them. It had the purpose of a man. It was no apparition.

She heard voices drawing near. They were yelling, and it sounded like someone was barking orders. But the man kept moving closer.

“Stay back,” she said. “Stay where you are.”

As he came into view, she could see that it wasn’t poor Richard Cameron at all. It wasn’t a ghost haunting Heart Island, not tonight. She realized that he must be the man who’d been chasing Emily, the one looking for money. He didn’t have some generation-old grudge to satisfy. What did he want? The money the girl had mentioned—Birdie didn’t know where it was. Did he want the girl? What could he possibly want with her now? And no, there was nothing in that safe. It was empty, always had been. All of this nightmare, caused by people who knew only how to rob and steal, to kill each other, to set things on fire. It made her angry, so angry. She let that rage fill her and bring her to her feet.

“I have a gun,” she said. Even with her anger, that was all she had the strength to say.

A long time ago, her father had taught her, Caroline, and Gene how to fire a gun. They’d line up bottles on the rocks and shoot. Birdie had loved the loud concussion, the smell of cordite in her nose. Gene was a horrible shot, always flinching from the noise and the recoil. But once they got the hang of it, Birdie and Caroline hardly ever missed. Birdie loved the way the glass shattered.

“I don’t have any money,” she said. “And neither does this foolish girl.”

He stopped for a moment. “Where is it?” he asked. His voice sounded like a growl.

“How should I know?” she said.

“I have it,” said Emily. “It’s here.” She pointed to a bag she had strapped around her body. Birdie hadn’t noticed it when she pulled the girl from the house. The girl opened the flap and found the canvas envelope inside. She took it and flung it at the man.

“How much is it?” Birdie yelled. “Was it worth all of this?”

She thought he’d take the money and leave them, try to make his escape. Anyone would have done that. But he kept moving toward them, leaving the envelope where it lay. Birdie warned him one more time. He didn’t stop coming. So she raised the gun, aimed center mass as he drew closer still and showed no signs of slowing. Finally, she opened fire.

R
oger Murphy heard the shots ring out. The sound carried, echoing the way it did on the bay. He moved heavily over the rocks. His breathing was labored, and he refused to acknowledge the stitch in his side. He didn’t like to be reminded how out of shape he had allowed himself to become.

The Burke girl—she wasn’t a girl anymore—yelled to him from the Cross boat that her mother was on the island. She still looked like a child to him; he’d known her all her life. Just as he’d known her mother when she was a girl. But Kate Burke was a mother herself, and Birdie was an old woman. Everything had changed except the islands, which were the same as they’d always been. Except now they were occupied by the huge homes of the wealthy.

There had always been some resentment among the townies toward the rich people buying up the islands. Used to be when he was young that the islands belonged to whoever might land upon them. You could take your run-down old boat and have your choice of picnic spots or campsites. You could pitch a tent. All of a sudden, that was considered trespassing.

But he always liked to watch the summer people arrive. He’d see them come in the early days of summer, when they would arrive pale and tired-looking. Months later, they’d depart brown and smiling. He felt sorry for them, having to leave. He knew they felt sorry for him, having to stay.

The Heart girls were untouchable, the sun and the moon. But he watched them. He thought of the rumor again, that Lana Heart
had been running around on her husband with Richard Cameron. Having read Cameron’s books, Roger felt sorry for any woman who was foolish enough to get involved with the author. The women in his books were all whores and murderesses; they were crazed and died violent deaths, were brutalized and raped. Richard Cameron was ghostly and strange, never smiled, came in early summer, left just before the cold settled. Until the year he didn’t leave at all.

Three more shots rang out. Roger’s radio crackled at his hip, and he heard the chief’s voice. “We have a body on the northwest coast of the island. The stolen vessel
Serendipity
is in distress, taking on water.”

Roger moved through the trees. He saw two forms on the ground and one sitting by the shore. He drew his gun. “Police,” he said. “Don’t move.”

His wife always said that his voice boomed. It didn’t feel like that now. The night swallowed it. Nevertheless, the seated figure stretched arms to the sky. “You’re a bit late.”

He recognized the voice.

“Birdie Burke?” said Roger. “Is that you?”

“Who else?” she said. “Watch your step. I think I just killed a ghost.”

Roger looked down to see a dead man at his feet. A large man with long hair, a battered face, and a chest full of lead. There was a horrible gurgling sound coming from the man. Roger had heard it before. It was the sound of the end, the death rattle. The man’s chest was black and wet in the moonlight. Roger had always heard that the Burke girls were dead shots. He knelt beside the man. As he did, the labored breathing came to a shuddering end. Roger put a hand to the man’s neck and felt no pulse; his skin already had a chill to it.

“Who’s that beside you?” he asked.

“A girl,” she said. “One of the intruders.”

Roger tried to take in the scene. Usually, on these calls out to the islands, you found some teenagers high and making love on the
beach. Or maybe there was a vagrant taking up residence in the house. Tonight, a fire and dead people. Heart Island, which always seemed to him so idyllic. Not the biggest but somehow the most beautiful island in the area.

“Is he real?” asked Birdie. “That man there?”

It was an odd question, and Roger wondered if Birdie was going into shock. “He looks real to me.”

Roger approached and saw that she didn’t look well. She’d aged since he saw her yesterday. The smoke was blowing their way, and Roger found himself coughing.

“It’s time to go, Mrs. Burke,” he said, leaning down to help her up. “Fire department is on the way.” The girl beside Birdie had her eyes open but was staring blankly at the sky. “Can she walk?”

“I don’t know,” said Birdie. “I pulled her from the house and dragged her this far. Ask her.”

The roar of the fire was loud, its sound filling the night. The cracking and shattering of the building, the odd moaning sound that a burning structure made, was ghostly and strange. There was enough distance between the trees and the house that the fire was contained to the structure. But if the fireboat didn’t get here soon, they might be looking at a total loss.

He was about to radio for someone to bring the police boat around when John Cross pulled his vessel up as close to the shore as he could. He was alone on his smaller outboard craft. He hopped out with the line and splashed through the water, coming to shore.

“Let’s get Mrs. Burke on board first,” said Roger.

“I’m not leaving,” she said. Her tone was stubborn and imperious, but he saw that she was shaking badly and holding back tears. He felt a flash of pity for her, something he never thought he’d feel for someone like Birdie Burke. But there she was, as old and as alone as anyone else.