“I’m sorry, Josie. I know you miss her.”
“So much.” Josie bit back a sob. “Even Tom misses her and you know him—he likes things settled and orderly and Miri’s never been that way. She puts smiley faces on his coffee or bags him up chocolate cake when he came in to grab a muffin.”
Anahera felt a stab of suspicion, shook it away at once. Tom Taufa was as in love with Josie as it was possible for a man to be with a woman; the idea of him cheating on his wife… no, it didn’t fit.
But she’d thought Vincent a man of honor, too. “Do they know each other well?” she asked and hated herself for mistrusting a man who’d done nothing to deserve it.
“Well, he’s her cousin—in a long, roundabout way. Used to babysit her way back when. I think he still sees her as that small girl.” A smile in her next words. “Now and then, when we see her dressed up to party, he shakes his head and mutters about her short hems. Honestly, he can be a fuddy-duddy, but I adore him.”
A man who noticed the length of a woman’s dress might just be a protective older cousin—or a jealous one. No. Anahera fisted her hand. She couldn’t allow this situation to poison her ability to trust. Tom was a stick-in-the-mud tradesman who didn’t enjoy change. He’d do nothing to fracture his life with Josie. “I’m in awe of how you’ve managed to keep him in the dark about your own wild ways, Josephine.”
Josie giggled at the pointed use of her full name. “Shh. Josephine the Bad Girl shed her skin and became Josie the Good Girl the day I realized Tom had grown up into a big, beautiful creature I wanted to kiss.”
“Yes, I remember your sudden fondness for church.” Josie had made Anahera go week after week.
Laughing, Josie said, “Faith, keeping his promises to God, that’s always been important to Tom.” Her voice softened. “I knew from the first that Tom Taufa would never break any vows he made to me.”
A sharp, beeping sound.
“Oh, I have to go! That’s the oven timer.”
Hanging up, Anahera wondered what a man of such deep faith would think of a young woman who was partner to the sin of adultery. “No,” she said again, this time with conviction. She’d known Tom his entire life and had never seen him be violent.
This whole situation was just getting to her.
She consciously put aside the dark thoughts and got herself ready for the day—and as soon as the clock ticked over to seven, she called Nikau. “I wanted to make sure you weren’t passed out drunk.”
“I’m making hot dogs for breakfast,” Nik replied. “Want one?”
“No, thanks, I’ll stick with cereal.” That done, she called Jemima, exhaling quietly when the other woman answered.
“Anahera, I’m so glad you called.”
“Is everything all right?” Anahera went to stand in the open doorway, watch dull morning light creep over a turbulent ocean. “You sound different.”
Jemima laughed. “I’m happy,” she said. “Vincent came home last night with the most gorgeous diamond necklace for me and a huge bunch of red roses. I don’t know what’s gotten into him, but it’s like I have my husband back again. He’s the way he was when we were first dating.”
Anahera’s hand clenched on the phone, a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach. “I’m very happy for you,” she said, while her mind tried to make sense of Vincent’s abrupt burst of affection. “Are you both going to be in town for a while?”
“Yes. Vincent doesn’t need me to accompany him to any cocktail functions. He’s also going to fly in and out when he does have meetings. Doesn’t want to be away from me.” The poised and elegant woman sounded like a teenager in love for the first time, a giggly excitement to her.
After Anahera hung up, she stared at the sea. Was it possible that Will’s interrogation of him had brought it home to Vincent just how much he had to lose? He’d smothered Jemima in love in the aftermath. Edward had been like that at times, so suddenly loving. In his case, Anahera thought it must’ve been as a result of guilt.
With Vincent, could it be a combination of guilt and fear of losing his family?
It made sense. But Anahera wasn’t inside the Baker marriage, could only guess—and hope for Jemima’s sake that Vincent wasn’t setting her up for an even worse fall. Because it could be that he’d shrugged off Miriama’s loss and turned his attention to another conquest. It sounded cold, but it was also cold to ignore and isolate your wife while stringing along a gifted young woman full of dreams.
She called a few others on the pretext of catching up, but no one had worry in their voice for anyone but Miriama. Whatever Will had found, whoever Will had found, it wasn’t a person who’d already been missed. It might, she suddenly realized, not be anything suspicious at all—one of the locals who lived rough could’ve had an accident. Sad, but not a thing of horror.
Despite that realization, she felt too restless to stay inside the cabin. She needed air, needed the salt, the sand. Pulling on a lightweight jacket, she slipped her phone into a zippered pocket. It was cold out, the sky heavy, but Anahera didn’t want to be too comfortable. She wanted to feel the chill on her face, wanted to experience the wind cutting across her skin, wanted to be brilliantly, painfully alive.
She closed the door behind herself but didn’t bother to lock it—though, surprisingly, the old lock on the door still worked. Whoever had picked it after Anahera left Golden Cove hadn’t damaged the mechanism. Josie had even dug up a copy of the key.
While Anahera used it at night, when she slept, she couldn’t see the point otherwise. She’d hidden her laptops, old and new, under a hiding spot beneath the floorboards, and there was nothing else for anyone to take. Anahera wasn’t naïve; she knew people stole even in a small town. But she also knew that if the clouds broke, someone might stumble out of the bush seeking shelter.
She was halfway down the porch steps when she paused.
What if the person who’d taken Miriama hadn’t done it because she was Miriama? What if he’d done it because she was a beautiful young woman?
Anahera didn’t consider herself beautiful by any measure. Neither was she tall and lissome like Miriama, but she was a woman. And some predators weren’t that picky. Frowning, she went back inside the cabin and brought out a blanket to leave on the chair outside. She added a bottle of water and several energy bars.
Then she locked the door and pocketed the key.
The winds were hard but not vicious today, and she scrambled her way down to the beach without too much trouble, though she did have to keep her eyes on the path the entire way down. A single slip and she would’ve gone tumbling.
Anahera did not want her headstone to read “Death by Stupidity.”
When she reached the beach at last, her heart was racing and her breath coming in hot puffs. Drawing in the salt-laced air, she looked up at the sound of chopper blades. Daniel, no doubt, being an arrogant ass flying in such portentous weather. Her guess seemed borne out when the chopper swept around to face her.
As if he was saying hello.
Anahera waved up at him. Yes, he could be an egotistical bastard, but it wasn’t looking like he’d had anything to do with Miriama in life or in death.