Summer Secrets (8 page)

Ashley’s eyes were wild, her long hair tangled and falling around her face and shoulders. “I can’t do it, Kate. I can’t get on the damn boat. The wind has died down, but I still feel a breeze, and it’s too much.” Ashley’s words tumbled out in a rush as she stepped into the hallway. “If I don’t photograph all the crews, Mr. Conway will give the assignment to someone else, and I really need the money. But I can’t get on the damn boat. What’s wrong with me? Why do I have to be so afraid all the time?” She waved her hand in frustration, the action sending her purse flying to the ground, the contents spilling on the floor. “Dammit. I can’t do anything right.”

“Oh, Ash,” Kate said, putting a calming hand on her sister’s arm. “It’s going to be fine.”

“No, it’s not.” Ashley stopped abruptly as ‘Tyler squatted down to collect the things that had spilled from her purse. “Who are you?”

“Tyler Jamison,” he said as he stood up and handed Ashley her purse back. “You must be Ashley.”

“The reporter?” Ashley looked from Tyler to Kate in confusion. “You’re talking to the reporter, but you said --“

Kate cut Ashley off with a warning glance. “I said that he was very persistent, and he is.”

“Right. I’m sorry I interrupted you.”

“Oh, this must have come out of your purse, too,” Tyler said, handing Ashley a small bottle of pills.

“Thank you,” Ashley said hastily, sticking the pills in her purse. “I should go.”

“You don’t have to go. Mr. Jamison was just leaving.” Kate sent Tyler a pointed look, willing him to just leave. She needed to deal with Ashley in private.

“All right. I’ll go,” Tyler said. “It was nice to meet you, Ashley. I’ll talk to you later, Kate.”

“Sure, whatever.” Kate shut the door behind him and turned to her sister. “Now then, tell me again why you’re so upset.”

“One of the boat crews is insisting that I photograph them from the deck of the boat. I’ve made up two excuses already, and I’m going to lose the assignment if I don’t take their picture the way they want it.” She shook her head in frustration. “It gets harder every day, Kate. I lived on a boat for three years, and now I can’t get on one for twenty seconds. It’s stupid. I thought the fear would have gone away by now, but it’s worse than it was eight years ago. It’s as if every day the fear pushes me back another step. I used to be able to go out on the Sound, remember? When we first got back, I went on some day trips. I was nervous, but I made it. But each time I went out got shorter and shorter. Now I can’t even get on a damn boat.”

Kate saw the frustration and pain in Ashley’s eyes and wanted so badly to make it all right again, but Ashley’s fears ran deep, probably deeper than Kate even realized. She’d told herself in recent months that Ashley was doing better, that she was fine. It was easier to believe they were all okay now, to pretend that the past no longer had the power to hurt. But it was clear that Ashley wasn’t better, and pretending otherwise would only make it worse. “Do you want me to go with you?” Kate asked. “Maybe it would help.”

“I can’t ask you to do that,” Ashley said, but there was a plea in her eyes that told Kate not to give up too easily.

“I want to do it. I want to help you. It will be fine, you’ll see. We’ll go together and you’ll snap their pictures, and it will be over before you know it. Not nearly as bad as a root canal, I promise.”

“I’m such an idiot.”

“No, you’re not.”

Ashley drew in a deep breath and let it out. “You know, just telling you about it actually makes me feel like I can do it.”

“You can do it. Remember, the boat isn’t going anywhere.”

“I know. My fear is ridiculous. Even if the boat got loose, I could swim back.”

“You could sail back.”

Ashley gave her a reluctant smile. “Yeah, I could do that, too.” She paused. “What did you say to the reporter?”

“As little as possible. I don’t trust him, Ash. He’s got a hidden agenda, but I don’t know what it is.”

“It’s been so long. I didn’t think anyone … What are we going to do?”

“Check him out at the same time he’s checking us out. I already did a brief search on the Internet. He’s been all over the world, covering major stories.”

“That doesn’t sound good.”

“No, it doesn’t. I’d like to find out why he has developed a sudden interest in ocean racing.”

“If he’s been all over the world, maybe we ran into him before and just don’t remember?”

Kate thought about the rugged, dark-haired man who had just left her house and knew deep in her soul that if she’d ever met him before, she would have remembered. “If our paths crossed, I don’t think we knew it. But it might be interesting to find out what Mr. Jamison was doing eight years ago.”

“Do you think you can?”

“I’m sure going to try.”

“I’d like to look at news articles that appeared eight years ago in reference to the McKenna family’s racing victory,” Tyler told the librarian. Castleton’s library was little more than a two-story Victorian house, but since the McKennas were local, he figured he might get lucky.

“Oh, well, that’s easy,” the librarian replied. “We photocopied and laminated every article we could find, seeing as how the McKennas are hometown heroes. We were so proud of them, you know. They were amazing.”

Tyler nodded. “That’s what I understand.” He followed the librarian into the next room.

“This is where we keep everything on sailing. And this is McKenna shelf,” she added, pointing to several notebooks. “Do you mind if I ask why you’re so interested? It was a long time ago.”

“I’m writing an article on ocean racing featuring famous crews. A where-are-they-now piece.”

“Well, they’re all right here,” she said with a gleam in her eye. “And all quite single. Are you single, Mr. …?

“Jamison. Tyler Jamison. And, yes, I’m single.”

If the woman asking him had been less than seventy years old, he might have felt awkward, but she was clearly not asking for herself.

“Really? A handsome man like you, what are the girls thinking’? Why, if I were twenty years younger, I’d go after you myself.”

“I would count myself lucky.”

“Oh, you’re a charmer, you are. Well, I’ll leave you to your reading. Let me know if you need anything. My name is Sheryl Martin, and I’ll be here until we close at five.”

“Thank you.” Tyler pulled out the first notebook and sat down at a nearby table. He’d already read through several articles on the race that he’d found on the Internet, but most of those articles had been about the race itself: winners of each leg; time handicaps, and weather conditions. Nothing that helped his cause.

He turned to the first page. The headline stated
FIVE
RACERS
LOST
AT
SEA
.

Tyler had read a little about the storm but hadn’t thought much about it, since the McKennas had come through unscathed. Now he wondered if that storm had caused some trauma. Ashley seemed to have a surprising fear of the water. His mind darted back to the bottle of pills that had fallen from her purse. The label had read Xanax which he knew to be an anti-anxiety medication.

Tyler skimmed the article, but there was no mention made of the McKennas or the Moon Dancer. Instead, the article focused on a boat that had capsized, losing all but one of her entire crew to the raging sea. Turning the page, he found more reports on the storm, quotes from some of the sailors.

“The winds were screaming. It was a scene from hell.”

“The waves were three stories high. I couldn’t tell if I was on the boat or in the water.”

“There were Maydays and distress calls everywhere. Flares popping up all over the place, like the Fourth of July. We were no longer racing. We were simply trying to survive.”

Tyler wanted a quote from one of the McKennas. He wanted to know what they had been thinking, what they had been feeling. It sounded terrifying. Certainly something that could bring on a water phobia, maybe even a need to drink, he thought, his mind turning to Caroline and to Duncan. But what about Kate? She didn’t have any noticeable vices or inconsistencies. Had the storm or the race itself affected her in some way? He’d have to find out. Mark was counting on him.

He wondered if Kate had somehow connected him to Mark. It seemed unlikely; they didn’t share the same last name since Mark’s stepfather had adopted him. But she’d obviously been on the Internet. What else had she come up with?

Tyler shook his head. Too many questions, not enough answers. The second notebook focused on the end of the race. There were photos taken of the Moon Dancer’s arrival in Castleton, most of which he’d seen before.

It occurred to him that a week had passed between the official end of the race and the McKennas return to Castleton. It must have been a strange few days, anticlimactic for sure, but what else? Had the McKennas simply sailed home, gotten off their boat, and said good-bye to sailing forever? According to Kate, that was the scenario. He studied the girls’ faces as they waved from the deck of the boat. They looked weathered, exhausted, and completely overwhelmed. He supposed those were natural responses to a race that had gone on for eleven long months. But he knew something else had happened during those eleven months, something no one wanted to talk about.

Turning the page, he found a photo of Ashley and a young man. The caption: Sean Amberson welcomes home high school sweetheart, Ashley McKenna.

Amberson? Wasn’t that the name of one of the men lost at sea?

Tyler flipped back to the article on the storm, tracing the names of the five sailors lost with his finger. The final name was Jeremy Amberson. The brother of Ashley’s boyfriend? That was an interesting connection. Sean Amberson sounded like someone who might have insight into the McKenna family, especially Ashley. If he couldn’t get answers from the McKenna sisters, maybe he could get them from their friends.

“Ready?” Kate asked, watching Ashley take a deep breath before boarding the sailboat. “They’re waiting for you.”

“Thanks for coming with me. I know you should be at work,” Ashley said.

“It’s fine. Theresa handles the store as well as I do. Although I hate to admit that. You know me, control freak to the end.”

Ashley nodded, but Kate could tell her sister wasn’t listening. Her mind was wrestling with the task ahead of her. It saddened Kate to see her once-courageous sister battling simple and often imagined fears. At one time, Ashley had been so decisive, so eager to explore the unknown. Now there always seemed to be a battle going on between mind and body, between right and wrong, truth and lies.

“Here I go.” Ashley squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. She called to one of the crew that she was coming aboard. An eager male came to assist her, stretching out a strong, secure hand for Ashley to take. And she did, stepping onto the boat with just a bit of a stumble.

Kate watched while Ashley went into photographer mode. With the camera in her hand and the vast expanse of water at her back, she seemed able to keep the fear at bay as she instructed them on where to stand and where to look.

While Ashley took care of business, Kate looked around. It was a beautiful day. The stormy night had blown away all the dust, leaving the sky a bright, brilliant blue, and the water glistened like diamonds in the sunlight. There were colors everywhere, from the sails on the boats to the multicolored roses in planters along the waterfront that gave Rose Harbor its name. There was excitement in the air, too. The slips were filling up with boats, the local bars teeming with racers looking for crews.

For a moment, Kate felt a strange sense of yearning that she didn’t begin to understand. She’d turned her back on this world a long time ago. And she didn’t regret it. She didn’t miss the life she’d led. Not for a second. She knew how quickly the magic could go, the wind could change, the race could turn from one of friendly competition to cutthroat obsession. Out in the middle of the ocean anything could happen. The sea could swallow up a boat without anyone knowing. People could disappear.

Kate turned her back on the water and tried to quell the sudden nausea in her stomach. She shouldn’t have come down here. She should have stayed safe at home or in the bookstore. God, she was getting as bad as Ashley.

“Kate?”

“Sean,” Kate murmured in surprise as he approached. “Ashley said you were back.” She slipped her hands in the pockets of her slacks. She always felt awkward around Sean, especially since he’d grown into a man, a man who reminded her of Jeremy.

“What are you doing down here?” he asked.

“I came along with Ashley.” Kate tipped her head in Ashley’s direction.

He nodded with a pleased smile. “Ah, she got on the boat. I guess the sun brought out her courage.”

Kate looked away. His brown eyes were too familiar.

“It’s all right. I know I remind you of my brother,” he said quietly. “I figure that’s why you avoid me.”

“I don’t mean to,” she said, forcing herself to meet his gaze.

“It’s just easier if I’m not around.”

“Ashley said you came back to race in the Castleton.”

“I thought it was about time. So many of these racers remind me of Jeremy, young, reckless, willing to sign on with anyone to go anywhere. Do you remember the first Castleton that Jeremy sailed in?”

“I --I don’t know.”

“He was fourteen, but he lied and said he was eighteen. By the time my parents found out, he was halfway across Puget Sound. He was fearless. I admired him so much.”

“Why are you racing now, Sean?” she asked, searching his eyes for the answer, but she couldn’t find one. “Why would you want to do the one thing that will hurt your family even more?”

He thought for a moment. “Because I need to know. I need to feel what Jeremy felt. I don’t think I can let him go until I know what he went through, what he experienced, what he saw. I’ve never been more than a couple of miles offshore. I can’t imagine what it would feel like to be two or three days from land.”

“It feels lonely and scary. Everything is bigger than you are -- the waves, the wind, the sky. I’ve never felt so helpless, so vulnerable.”