Part 20 (1/2)

I could have said a lot of things. That Sonny had worked his a.s.s off driving the business into the ground. That I hadn't set the conditions, Etienne had. That I could think of no other way to keep Morrow Island in the family. But Sonny spoke instead.

”Babe, you don't look too good. What's wrong?”

Livvie's voice, hot with anger just seconds before, quavered as she said, ”Marie Halsey just called. Sarah turned herself in to the police. They're charging her with Ray Wilson's murder.”

Sonny came out from behind the desk like a shot and took Livvie in his arms. ”I am so sorry, babe.”

”I don't understand,” Livvie said. ”How could she have murdered him? How could she have hung him from that staircase?”

I cleared my throat. ”They think Chris Durand helped her.”

Livvie leaned against Sonny for support. ”Oh, no.”

Sonny hugged her tight. ”Chris Durand. Still spreading trouble wherever he goes.”

”They think he helped her because he and Sarah are lovers. Why didn't you tell me?” I demanded of Livvie.

”They-” Livvie started to deny it. But then she saw the look on my face and decided not to lie. ”You had a harmless crush. I didn't see how it could hurt anyone. I did warn you he came with baggage.”

A harmless crush? My eyes stung with the idea that my baby sister had seen me like a schoolgirl. The way she would see Page in just a couple years. She'd begged me to upend my life and return to town to save the business. Then she'd patronized and lied to me and sided with her husband at every turn. It was all too much for me.

I tried to squeeze past where she and Sonny stood in the doorway. ”Get out of my way.”

”Where are you going now?”

”To New York City to meet with Tony Poitras and negotiate the sale of Morrow Island. I've had as much of this as I can take. I'm out.”

I pushed into the hallway and sped down the backstairs. Behind me I could hear Sonny yelling. ”Leave, Julia! Leave like you always do!”

Chapter 48.

I ran through the driving rain to the garage and backed my mother's car out, my heart pumping with fury. I couldn't abide this. I couldn't abide it one more minute. Family. Responsibility. The endless arguments with Sonny. No home of my own. No privacy, and as I'd just been made savagely aware, no social life. Not a single thing that was mine.

The only way out was Tony Poitras. I'd exhausted every other avenue I could think of. If I could speak to him in person, perhaps I could get a better deal for my mother. I could use the information Quentin Tupper had given me to strengthen my negotiating position. That was the only thing left to salvage. I had just enough time to get to New York to see Tony before the deadline on the offer expired.

The stop sign at the bottom of the hill on Main Street had been there all my life. My school bus had stopped there every day. My mother had stopped there every time she took Livvie and me to the grocery store. When my dad taught me to drive, we'd gone down the hill and stopped at that corner dozens of times.

But somehow, with my winds.h.i.+eld wipers working at top speed in the gloom of the day, rehearsing my speech to Tony in my head, somehow, I drove right through it, and . . .

Bam!

A pickup truck flew out of nowhere on my right and crashed into my car, causing it to slip into a spin. The airbag punched me in the chest, took my breath away, and slapped my hands from the steering wheel. I closed my eyes, helpless, as the world continued to turn.

When I opened my eyes, I was on the opposite corner, facing backwards. My chest stung and I moved my arms gingerly, anxious to see if they worked. Still in sopping wet clothes, I honestly couldn't tell if I'd peed my pants.

A dark green pickup sat in the intersection, its front end caved in, hood open like a hungry maw. The poor driver, a kid of not more than nineteen or twenty, was already out of the cab and running toward me.

”Oh my G.o.d! Are you all right?”

I shook my hands out and took a deep breath. ”I think so.”

”I didn't see you. I'm so sorry!”

For a moment, I thought he might cry.

”It was all my fault,” I said. And it was. All of it.

It was Officer Howland, Sonny's friend, who came to the scene, adding to my humiliation, if that was even possible. At least it wasn't Jamie. I explained that I'd run the stop sign, that the kid was in the right. The side of my mother's Buick was unrecognizable as anything resembling a motor vehicle. We started the ritual exchange of information.

Howland explained that we'd have quite a wait for tow trucks. It was a Friday evening in the summer season and raining. After he'd filled out some paperwork, he and the kid pushed the disabled truck out of the intersection. I leaned against the driver's side door of my mother's car in the rain and watched.

When who should drive up in his ancient Ford pickup, sitting straight up in his seat and peering over the steering wheel? Gus. Would the horrors of this day never end?

He pulled up behind Howland's cruiser and got out, spoke briefly to Howland, and then crossed the street toward me. ”You're drenched.”

I looked down at the clothes clinging to my body, the sweats.h.i.+rt, jeans, and work boots I'd been in all day. I was so sick of these clothes. ”I was wet when I left my house,” I said stupidly.

Gus didn't ask what that meant. He only said, ”Howland says the tow trucks will still be awhile. You wait in my truck.”

I shook my head. The last thing I wanted was to be in a confined s.p.a.ce with Gus.

But he was having none of it. ”I've got the heater running. C'mon. You'll catch your death.”

I finally agreed. Not because I was afraid I'd catch my death, but because I was afraid he would. n.o.body except maybe Mrs. Gus knew how old he was, but he wore only a thin jacket against the rain. On top of all my oh-so-many disastrous activities that day, I didn't want to be responsible for killing a town icon.

We crossed the street and I got in his truck. He turned up the heater.

”You want to tell me what happened?”

”No.” I stared at my lap, fearful of looking anywhere else. But it was useless to fight it. Tears slid down my nose and soon I was telling Gus everything. About the call from Ditzy and Tony's offer and Etienne's offer with its terrible condition. I told him about how I'd screwed up the business plan and doomed the Snowden Family Clambake before the season even started. I confessed about my epic battles with Sonny and how Livvie was on his side. I even told him about Quentin Tupper's refusal to bid on our property and that Jean-Jacques might be back.

Gus listened to it all with a nod of his head. There might be no crying in Gus's restaurant, but there was plenty of crying in Gus's truck that evening. I told him about Sarah and Chris's arrests. I even told about the kiss from Jamie and the terrible mistake I had made, misunderstanding Chris's friends.h.i.+p and thinking it meant more.

In the end, I pulled myself to a shuddering stop and told Gus the only way out I could see was to sell the island to Tony. At least then I could salvage something for my mother.

Gus didn't say anything for a long time. Then he turned to me and said, ”Are you sure you want to do that? You have something more than a business there.”

”Please, Gus,” I cried. ”I just can't hear about how much I owe the town or our employees right now.”

”I don't mean that. I meant you have more than a business. You have a family.”