Fiddler's Rest

I said nothing to either Don or Ted when they returned, and I even, in a moment of insanity, wondered if Maddie had been prying into my affairs. I tried to brush it off, rationalizing that maybe I had refolded the will incorrectly myself. But in my heart I knew I hadn't. And I knew that someone had sprung that lock recently. I thought and thought about how to broach the subject with the others in the house. But I kept putting off the confrontation.

And then that worry was brushed aside by an even greater one. I kept a revolver in the drawer of the bureau in the foyer. It's just something my family had always done for personal protection, and I continued that practice without the slightest thought about it. My father had made sure I knew what to do with a gun.

But one day Maddie asked me about the gun—why it wasn't in the bureau. We both searched for it, but it definitely was gone. I should have asked Don and Ted about this too, but now I was genuinely frightened. And I didn't know who or what I was scared of.

In time I would have confronted Don and Ted about this, I'm sure. But time caught up with me.

* * * *

"There's somethin' out front I think you need to attend to."

I had been deep in thought at my writing desk, toiling away on a manuscript that wasn't flowing well, trying to dredge up just the right word. I'd never had to struggle over my prose this hard before. If it weren't for the deadline looming in front of me, I'd have taken time off—gone up to the city or someplace quite different from the Carolina coast—for a couple of days and tried to throw off this blue funk I was in.

The pills didn't help. Seeing that I was out of sorts, Don had given me some pills to help me sleep. All they really did, however, was slow me down and throw my thinking about a half step out of whack. I vowed to stop taking them even if it meant that Don would be displeased with me. Maybe I just wouldn't tell him I wasn't taking them anymore.

Maddie had disrupted my train of thought, which wasn't like her. And I wasn't in the mood for whatever she thought I needed to see out in front of the house. "Can't you take care of it, Maddie? This isn't a good time for—"

"No, Missy Meghan, I think you need to tend to this yourself," Maddie said. She was standing there in the doorway to my study, arms folded across more-than-ample breasts and looking fully as determined as Maddie was able to look—which was strong enough for me to sigh in resignation and rise and move to the front of the house. I passed Ted as I walked by the dining room. He had photographs spread on the table and looked up a bit startled as Maddie and I walked by. He started to get up from his chair, but I breezed right on by. Maddie veered off at the door to the kitchen and left me to open the front door on my own.

Bill Hamilton was out on the drive, leaning his lithe body—the body I had once known so intimately—against the fender of his hunter-green Jaguar in just the pose he was holding the first time I'd seen him. My heart lurched, and I felt the arousal building in me despite all that had happened since we'd last made love.

He didn't look happy. In fact, he looked angry and barely in control of himself. My first thought was that Sondra had told him about my mix up with his twin brother. I decided to just have it out and be done with it. It had been my mistake—and I was the one suffering for it now—but what was done was done.

"I'm sorry, Bill," I said, trying to keep the shaking out of my voice. "It's all my fault. I didn't know until I'd talked with Sondra the other day that you and Jim were identical twins. When I'd seen who I thought was you, making love to Sondra, I . . ."

Suddenly I was at a loss for words. I didn't know how to go on. When I'd started my little confession, I'd lowered my eyes. I didn't want to see the expression on his face when I told him what had motivated my deserting him and leaving abruptly for New York—and coming home with a husband.

But then I did look up, and I was shocked to see not hurt, but confusion—and still the underlying anger.

"What the fuck?" His voice was strangled, his breathing heavy, barely under control.

"It's was a bad misunderstanding," I raced on. "And it's all my fault. And I wish it hadn't happened. Oh, God, I wish it hadn't—"

"Don't know what the hell you're talking about. This. I came here because of this."

He was holding an open magazine at arm's length, pushing it, accusingly out at me. "How could you? How could I have hurt you so badly that not only did you go off and get married, but you had to drag this out also—had to strip me bare like this in public?"

"I . . . I don't understand," I stammered. "You didn't talk with Sondra?"

"You sure as hell know I talked with Sondra. And she told me she'd told you about my mother. She came to see me just as soon as she saw this in the magazine. How could you, Meghan?"

"How could I what?"

He moved three steps toward me then, still holding the magazine, so I narrowed the distance by coming off the front porch and took the magazine from him. With just a glance, I could see that the article was about Beaufort and St. Helena's Sound, and I could tell from the side bars that it was a cautionary essay on not letting the beauty of the area cloud a neophyte sailor's care in navigating the waters here. The article was laced with photographs. The photographs looked familiar. I thought I'd seen them before.

"I . . . I don't understand?" I repeated dumbly.

"How could you write about my mother's death like this—names and everything? And indicating that she'd been foolhardy, or worse, that seeing the squall coming up, she sailed into it on purpose. What did I do—?"

A chill ran through me, and I barely could speak. "I didn't write this, Bill. I've said nothing about it to anyone. I did not write this."

"We called the magazine. They wouldn't give the author's name. They said it was someone who'd written for them before—someone anonymous, contracted in pen name, and paid by anonymous PayPal. But they said it was a known novelist. That's you written all over it, Meghan."

He was struggling to contain himself; I almost felt like he was within a breath of lashing out and striking me. He was deeply wounded, and I wanted to hold him and comfort him. But most of all I wanted him to understand that I had not done this.

"Bill. How could you think . . .? It wasn't me." I took a closer look at the magazine pages, and my blood ran cold. "I didn't write this. But the photographs. I've seen them before."

At that moment a strangled cry from in back of me arrested what each of us would have said next, and I spun around in time to see Ted, huddled in the doorway against the door frame. All of the color had drained out of his face, and his gaze was riveted to the magazine I was holding out in my hand. Before I could say anything—could ask him anything about the photographs that I now knew I'd seen among his work, in his portfolio—he'd turned and escaped back into the house.

"Your husband? The elusive Don Drake?" Bill asked, his voice full of venom.

"No, his son, Ted. I guess that would make him my step-son." I was turning giddy. I hadn't thought before what my relationship was to Ted. I was turning hysterical, and it was scaring me. And on top of that, I'd taken a couple of the pills Don had given me and I felt lightheaded, as if I was floating above it all. More a spectator of this chilling drama than a participant.

"Your husband's son?" Bill muttered. "God, Meghan, he's as old as you are. You ran away from me to marry an old man?"

"Bill, the magazine article. This is the first I've seen of it. I didn't write the article. I didn't repeat anything Sondra told me about your childhood. But I recognize the photographs. I think I know what happened. Please. Please, wait here just a moment. I've got to talk to Ted."

I turned and walked unsteadily back up on the front porch and through the door, but even as I reached the door, I heard the revving of the Jaguar's engine and turned and watched Bill roar away from me and up the driveway.

I called out for Ted as I entered the foyer and headed for the dining room, where he'd been working with his photos.

Maddie slipped out of the kitchen, and I nearly careened into her. "You and Mr. Hamilton patch it up, hon?" she asked. She had a smile on her face, but her expression froze as she saw that I was in high dudgeon.

"Not now, Maddie," I grunted. "Where's Ted. Have you seen Ted?"

"He and Mr. Drake are out in the side yard by Ted's car," Maddie said. "I saw them from the kitchen window. And I think I hear the car now. You want me—?"

"No, Maddie. Just go back to what you were doing, please. I have to talk with Ted."

I headed out the front door again and was almost at the side of the house when Ted's car passed me and sped up the drive, lost in the dust that Bill's car had raised and that hadn't had time to settle yet.

Don met me at the side of the house.

"Ted told me you had a fight with a man out here, Meg," he said. "And he said something about a magazine article."

"I think Ted—" I began to blurt out. But Don draped an arm around me and pulled me into his side.

"You need to compose yourself, I think, Meg. Come with me and tell me all about it."

My head was spinning from the argument and the effect of the pills, and I docilely leaned against Don as we reentered the house. He led me out onto the porch and told me he'd get me a glass of water and be back in a moment. When he returned, he handed me the glass and a couple more pills.

"Here, these will steady you. After you've taken these and drunk the water, we'll go down to the dock and you can tell me everything."

"I don't know. I don't feel like . . . maybe if I just sit here for a few minutes."

But as soon as I had taken the pills, Don was already pulling me up on my feet and shuffling me toward the screen door out onto the terrace leading down to the dock.

"I don't know, Don. I don't feel—"

"Shush, shush now. The fresh air will do you good. We'll take the sailboat out for a spin."

I felt like a hand was squeezing my heart. I'd never been interested in sailing with Don—certainly not before he'd gained more experience. And most certainly not in the decrepit sailboat he loved.

He was propelling me down the stones of the terrace and over to the stairs down to the dock.

"I don't want to, Don. Ouch, you're hurting me."

"Getting out on the water. A nice sail is just the thing," Don was muttering.

I tried to turn and feebly called out Maddie's name, but Don's grip tightened on me, and he was hurting me. And he was still moving me toward the dock. Down the wooden stairs and out on the dock.

"Maddie," I cried out. But my voice sounded like it was coming from a great distance away. Weak. Feeble. No way she could hear me. I'd sent her back into the kitchen and it faced south, away from where we were moving to the dock.

The impression flashed through my mind that I saw Ted's car at the edge of the drive, but as soon as the image passed in my mind I knew that couldn't be so, because it had only been a few moments since I'd seen him leaving in the car. And I didn't latch onto Ted as being any help here. The photographs. He'd written that article. And Bill had left me in disgust. There was no salvation there. Only Maddie. And I'd sent her away—to where she couldn't hear my pleas.

"Don! Why?" But Don didn't answer. He was pushing me into the sailboat, and as he leaned over to cast off, I saw the gun jammed under his shirt and in his belt. My revolver. The gun that was missing from the drawer in the foyer.

He pushed me roughly down the short flight of stairs into the boat's cabin, and I tripped and fell to the floor, hitting my head on the edge of the bunk. My head was spinning, and I heard the hatch close with a bang just as I blacked out.

I was barely conscious—more from the effect of the pills than from the bump on the head, I think—when the hatch opened again and Don came down the steps and roughly pulled me up onto deck and pushed me onto the fantail bench seat.

I looked around and saw that we were at the mouth of the river and moving into the sound, headed south, parallel to the shore. Don was standing over me, wearing a life jacket, and pointing the gun at me. My gun.

"Don," I whispered groggily.

"Shut up," he growled. He started to say something else, but his head snapped up at a sound that didn't reach me, in my stupor, for a few seconds after he'd heard it. His eyes turned wild and his jaw was working. The anger was oozing from him. But there was more than that. Shock and worry too.

I swiveled my head around to follow his line of sight and saw a motorboat sending up a high-foam wake behind it and closing in on us. Several men were standing in the boat and waving their arms frantically at us. I didn't recognize the voice hailing us across the closing distance, but at least two of the men looked familiar, one very familiar—it looked like my Bill, but even in my groggy state I realized that it must be his twin, James. Bill wouldn't go out on the water. And I thought it might be an hallucination, but one of the other men looked like Ted.

Don uttered an almost animalistic roar and pulled me up, holding me between him and the approaching motorboat, but leaning me out over the stern. I looked down into the foam being churned up by our motor. I could clearly see the blades revolving, and I knew I was within seconds of being pushed face first into those blades. But whether from the effect of the pills or heaviness of the events of the past several months, I didn't seem to care. I could have struggled against Don, but I didn't.

But then Don's hold on me was released, and I heard him cry and felt the clatter of metal across the decking—Don losing possession of the gun. I turned my head in time to see the boom from the sail pulling Don away from me . . . and over the side of the boat, into the water.

* * * *

I fell into the arms of the first man who heaved himself over the side from the motorboat into the well of the sailboat.

"Bill . . . Jim . . .?" I stammered. But I also had the presence of mind to say, "Mind the sail boom."

He didn't have any trouble doing so and held me in a bear hug while the second man over—Ted, it turned out to be—took control of the boom and held it steady. The other men in the motorboat were casting around in the water with oars and a fishing stave, trying to come up with Don. He'd been wearing a life jacket, but I'd heard the crack of the boom across his face as it swept him overboard, so chances were good he was unconscious and taking in water.

"Bill . . . it's Bill," my rescuer mumbled. "Oh, god, Meg, you gave us such a scare."

"Bill?" I muttered. "Couldn't be . . . the water . . . you don't."

"For you, dear love, I'd walk on fire," Bill answered. There was a catch in his throat, and I just clung to him for dear life, as the adrenaline pumped through me and began to clear my mind of the drugs Don had forced into me.

I looked over to Ted now. "I don't understand. You were leaving the house. And the article, Ted. Those were your photos."

"I know, Meghan," Ted answered. "I'm so sorry. I thought I could protect you, but—"

"Protect me?" I said. I was so confused.

"Yes. I worried about you. I always half suspected my father killed my mother. And then when Don married you and I found out about it—but not from him—I was frightened for you. That's why I came here."

"You came here to protect me? From Don."

"Yes, if my suspicions had foundation. I couldn't be sure. But today, when I saw that magazine article . . . with the photographs I'd taken. Then I suddenly knew. Dad stole the photographs and wrote the article to establish foundation for what he was planning to do to you. He bought an old sailboat on purpose—so it would be less suspicious when you had a boating accident in it. I'm sure he planned all along to push you out of the boat into the sound and then to steer close enough to the coast to swim to shore himself after he'd made sure the sailboat would sink."

"But you were leaving the house." Somehow I couldn't get that out of my mind.

"Yes, when I saw the photographs, I went directly to Dad and accused him of writing the article. I knew he was publishing work under a pen name. I had discovered in recent weeks he was taking good manuscripts submitted to him for representation and rejecting them, but keeping copies and making a few minor changes and passing them off as his own work, published under a pen name. I'll bet the magazine article is published under that name. So I confronted him, and he denied it, and I was going to drive down to Savannah to the magazine's offices and have it out with them."

"But you came back."

"Yes, I came back. I hadn't made it far up the road when I realized that this was all coming to a head—that if Dad was going to carry out what I suspected he was, that he'd have to do it now. So, I turned around and came back and arrived just in time to see him forcing you onto the sailboat."

"That's when he called in a 911," Bill interjected. "He told them what he feared was happening, and the sheriff called me on the way to the marina and the police motorboat. We picked Ted up on the dock at Fiddler's Rest, because he'd recognize Don's sailboat. And here we are."

"Yes, here we are," I answered. "But Don?"

The three of us turned and looked over to the motorboat, which a deputy was moving with an oar all around our boat. The older man in the boat—the sheriff—just looked at us and shrugged his shoulders.

And that's when I broke down and started to sob uncontrollably—from grief or relief or the sudden recognition of what almost happened to me, I know not. But Bill was there, holding me tight, being there for me.

* * * *

"There's something you need to see out on the drive," Maddie said, breaking into my concentration as I sat at the desk in my study and put the finishing touches on reading the proofs for my next book.

"A minute, please, Maddie," I answered. "Just a few more minutes on this. Or can you see to it, please? I need to concentrate on this."

"No, hon, this you need to take care of yourself."

When had I heard that said before? I was too preoccupied to realize that this had become somewhat of a mantra with Maddie.

It had been three weeks since the day Don had tried to kill me. His body had surfed up on a Port Royal beach the following morning. I'd taken him to New York for burial—or, rather, Ted had made all of the arrangements and I went along in somewhat of a haze. Once again I dragged out my only outfit in somber colors, the dark-gray Palazzo pants and black jacket over a black shell. As I packed this ensemble in my bag, my thoughts went back to the last time I'd worn it—for Sal Singleton's funeral—and I marveled at all that had happened to me in the intervening two years. I had met Don the last time I wore this outfit, and now I would be wearing it at his funeral. If I'd written this in one of my Romances, Taylor Winthrop would have told me it was not plausible enough and that I needed to rewrite.

I'd stayed in New York until this weekend, tracking down Don's accounts, doing what I could to determine the actual authors of the book manuscripts he had stolen and passed off as his, and consulting with Taylor at Fabian's on the cleanup of this latest novel of mine.

I'd come back to Fiddler's Rest alone. Ted was off for Europe on a photography spree that he had interrupted to come here and try to protect me. I hadn't had a moment's time yet to drive into Beaufort, let alone check with anyone there.

"Are ya comin'?" Maddie said in that tone of voice of hers that declared that I'd better get up and follow her into the main section of the house, which I did.