Elin Hilderbrand - The Castaways

The Chief nodded. “Anything else?”

“He said he’d written her a song, for their anniversary. It had a really strange name.”

“What was it?” the Chief asked. His voice was husky.

“Beyond Beyond.”

“Beyond Beyond?”

“Yeah, as in beyond… beyond.”

The Chief wrote the word twice on his desk blotter. “Okay,” he said. “Is there anything else?”

“No,” she said, and stood up. “Does that help?”

“Yes,” he said. “It helps.”

When she got to the door, the Chief said, “Miss Peck? What made you decide to come in?”

April chewed her lower lip. She said, “My mother died yesterday afternoon. At the hospital.”

He was momentarily speechless. Then he said, “I’m sorry.”

April said, “I have to straighten out my act if I’m ever going to amount to anything.”

And with that, she left.

In a matter of hours, the world was different. He had confessed to Andrea about his affair, he had made love to his wife for the first time in months. And yet life beckoned. Phoebe rose early to get back out to the savannah to help clean up, and Addison went into the office.

It was very early, but Florabel was there, at her desk, drinking the devil’s coffee-black, strong, steaming hot.

“How was the party?” she asked.

The party? It took Addison a minute to figure out what party Florabel was talking about. “It was great!” he said. “The food was delicious!”

“You met my clients? Hank and Legris?”

Addison scratched his nose. Did those names ring a bell? Addison was a professional bullshitter; he was very good at feeling his way through the dark until someone turned on the lights.

“Hank,” he said.

“And his girlfriend, Legris. They’re friends of Phoebe’s? They have that huge sailboat?”

“Oh, right, right, right,” Addison said. The guy with the sailboat, Hank. Friend of Swede and Jennifer’s. Addison had actually been on that boat twice, ten or so years earlier. There had been no Legris then that Addison knew of. Back then, Hank had been newly divorced and had a quartet of young women hanging off him. “Which clients?” he asked.

Florabel gave him a look. “I only have two clients, Dealer. Hank and Legris are buying the Quaise cottage.”

Addison smiled and nodded to mask his sinking heart. Hank the sailboat guy was buying the Quaise cottage. Hank and Legris, friends of Phoebe’s?

“I’m a little confused,” Addison admitted.

“Phoebe is friends with my clients, Hank and Legris, who are buying the Quaise cottage. Phoebe was the one who told them about the cottage in the first place, actually.”

“She was?” Addison’s whole face was itching now. This was not right. Phoebe didn’t know anything about any of his listings, much less his most confidential listing, which was the Quaise cottage.

“Yeah! The reason they bought such a small place is because they have that enormous boat.”

Well, that made sense. But not the other part.

“Phoebe wasn’t the one who told them about the Quaise cottage,” Addison said.

“Yes, she was.”

“She didn’t know about it. She doesn’t know a thing about any of the properties.”

“Well, she knew about the Quaise cottage. I told her about it. She came in here looking for you one day this past spring and I told her you were probably out at the cottage. Remember how much time you spent over the winter fixing it up?”

Fixing it up . Addison scanned his desk for something to grab. Was Florabel making this up to torture him? He was afraid to look at her. He stared at the phone, willing it to ring so that Florabel would answer it and he would have a chance to breathe.

“Phoebe’s never seen the cottage,” he said.

“Sure she has,” Florabel said. “I told her exactly where it was and she went up there. And later she called to thank me. She said she found you, no problem.”

“Found me?” he said.

Florabel nodded, her lips a smug line.

“When was this?”

“This past spring. March, April.”

Addison narrowed his eyes at Florabel. She was such an unpleasant bitch. Was she trying to blackmail him? Was she thinking he would increase her commission, or give her a chunk of cash from the company’s operating budget?”

“What are you after, Florabel?” he asked.

“I’m not after anything, Dealer. I wanted to know if you met Hank and Legris. If Phoebe introduced you. If you made a connection with them, our clients, the buyers of the Quaise cottage.”

“I did not speak to them at the party,” Addison said. “Phoebe did not introduce us.”

“What is wrong with you?” Florabel said. “I was only asking! ”

He immediately wanted a drink. What time did they start serving at the Begonia? Could he go over there and get one? He decided he could not. If he got all muddled and messy right now, he would not be able to sort through this and make everything come out okay. Florabel was wrong. Phoebe did not know about the Quaise cottage. The phone rang and Florabel answered it. This gave Addison a chance to think, slowly and calmly, about what Florabel had said. Florabel said the buyers of the Quaise cottage, Hank (last name?) and his girlfriend Legris (What kind of name was this? It sounded like a name from the bayou), were friends of Phoebe’s. This was true. Although who knew what kind of friends they were. Phoebe had known Hank a long time ago, back when she was actively chairing events and attending events that other people chaired, back when she was hanging out with Jennifer and Swede. Phoebe had reconnected with Jennifer and Swede this summer at Caroline Nieve Masters’s Fourth of July party, and she had, to Addison’s knowledge, been out on Hank’s sailboat twice since then. Okay, let’s say that made them friends. Did Phoebe mention the Quaise cottage to Hank and Legris? No, because Phoebe did not know about the Quaise cottage. Here Addison took a moment to reflect. He did not like the way Florabel called him Dealer to his face. He knew this was his nickname around town, but to call him Dealer to his face was blatantly disrespectful. Addison had never asked Florabel to stop, because he knew she wouldn’t. She was that disobedient, that awful. Why had he not fired her years ago? Whywhywhy? Well, she was one hell of an administrator, more organized than Martha Stewart; she kept the office in order, she overlooked no detail, and… she was honest. She would not cheat him and she would not lie.

And since Florabel did not lie, then what she said was true: Phoebe had showed up at the office one random afternoon in the spring, looking for Addison. Addison was at the Quaise cottage, “fixing it up.” Florabel, because she did not lie, told Phoebe that Addison was at the Quaise cottage. She gave Phoebe directions; she may even have drawn a map to the cottage on a piece of Wheeler Realty notepaper. Phoebe drove out to the Quaise cottage. Then, this summer, she mentioned the cottage to Hank and Legris when they said they were in the market for “a little place.”

All this was fine. But Addison still had questions.

One: Did Florabel know Addison had been meeting someone out at the Quaise cottage? (Another reason that Addison had never fired Florabel was that she was the smartest person Addison knew. She was clinically smart; she belonged to Mensa.) So yes, safe to say she knew exactly what was going on. She sent Phoebe out to the Quaise cottage on purpose, she probably insisted that Phoebe journey out to Quaise to find Addison, because… that was the kind of evil bitch that Florabel was.

The bigger, more crucial question was… when Phoebe drove out to the Quaise cottage, what did she find?