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He’d seen her speaking to Stacey. Could he have overheard what she was saying?
“No, that was someone else. A possible client.”
He carefully flips the fillets and then turns back, locking eyes with her. A chill races down her spine.
“Is everything okay?”
He can tell something is chewing away at her insides.
“Uh, not exactly. To be honest, Taylor’s death is still really getting to me.”
“I know, me, too. But let’s try to forget about it for a few hours. And relish being here together.”
She forces herself to nod. “Yes, you’re right.”
“Would you mind grabbing the wine, sweetheart?”
After collecting a bottle of white from the fridge, Emma takes a seat at the nearby table, which Tom has already set. He’s also lit a citronella candle to ward off mosquitoes as well as two kerosene hurricane lamps even though there’s still quite a bit of light in the sky.Please, Emma prays to herself,don’t let this be a sign he wants to linger over the meal.
He plates the salmon and they take turns serving themselves the rice and simple green salad he’s prepared.
“That’s all you’re having, Em?” he says when he sees her plate.
“It all looks wonderful. I just don’t have a huge appetite tonight.” She sweeps her gaze around the veranda, forcing a smile. “We talked a little about Block Island when I was here last, but tell me more. What do you know about the history?”
Fortunately, he’s happy to oblige, and as he shares what he’s read—about the early American Indian inhabitants, the arrival of Europeans in the 1600s, the sense of comfort his property provided after he became a widower—all Emma does is nod and keep forcing smiles. The light begins to seep from the sky. She glances surreptitiously at her watch and almost gasps: she doesn’t have much more than an hour.
“Look, I know you have calls to make, and you did all that cooking,” she says once they’ve set down their utensils. “So let me clean up, okay?”
“I can at least give you a hand.”
“No, no. I have nothing else to do tonight.”
“Okay, thanks. PR wants to fill me in on the game plan for the next few days. We have to minimize the fallout, of course, but transparency will be key.”
She wants to laugh.Transparency. That’s going to be tough for you, she wants to say.Because you’re the master of deceit.
And for the first time she notices another emotion lurking beneath her fear and distress:anger. Yes, maybe she’s been a fool for believing him, but he tricked her and put her whole world at risk.
While Tom heads to his office, Emma grabs a tray and quickly piles it with plates and utensils and once inside shoves it onto the counter. Her eyes dart around the kitchen area, hoping to spot his car keys but there’s no sign of them. Like usual, they must be in his pants pocket. She’s going to have get a taxi to the ferry dock and try to make sure Tom doesn’t spot her climbing into it.
After bolting to the bedroom, she grabs her duffel bag and purse and runs her gaze over the bedroom, making sure she hasn’t missed anything important, and is halfway out the door when she decides to swap her sandals for sneakers. Her hands work jerkily, tugging the back of the sneakers up over her heels, tying the laces.
She’s almost done when she hears the sound of the veranda door—and her heart stops. She tiptoes into the open doorway and peeks out. Tom’s nowhere in sight. It must have been the breeze rattling the glass.
But it forces her to realize that there’s no way she can simply exit from the veranda and do a mad dash down the road. It’s not dark yet and Tom will be bound to notice her since his office window faces that direction. Steeling herself, Emma slips out the rear door instead, makes her way to the garden from the back of the house, and then plunges into the thick foliage that lines the road.
It turns out to be tough going. Tree branches swipe at her face, and though she’s wearing jeans and a cotton sweater over her T-shirt, the thorns from the berry bushes tear at her exposed skin.
After five or six minutes of staggering through the brush, wondering what might be scurrying around in there at this hour, Emma steps closer to the road, pokes her head out, and looks back up at the house, its lights twinkling in the dusk. She’s pretty sure she’ll be out of sight if she emerges now. After breaking through to the road, she scurries downhill, her duffel bag bouncing against her leg, until she reaches the driveway of the first house on the left after Tom’s.
Dropping her bags, she digs her phone from her back pocket and summons the number for one of the cab companies she’d programmed in when she was here last. Thankfully, after close to ten rings, the dispatcher finally answers. She tells him she needs a cab as soon as possible on Bayberry Road, at the second to the last house on the right before the top of the hill.
“Best I can do is twenty-five minutes,” the guy tells her.
Her heart sinks. “Uh, never mind.”
Uber isn’t an option since it’s not allowed on the island, so she tries the number of the other cab company, pleading with the gods.
