Olivia curled her fingers into her palms, digging her nails into the flesh as rage coursed through her. “I don’t care what the locals say. When I’m done with this man, he will regret his attempts to manipulate me.”
“Ma’am, Hudson swears that he did not send you a letter. He told me that he could guess who’d written it. He left me there then and came back about twenty minutes later with the blood sample. His face was flushed and it seemed like he’d had words with the letter writer, but he refused to give me their name.”
“I wonder why.” Olivia frowned deeply. “I don’t understand any of this! Why would these people take care of some elderly tenant? Why would they pay for his medical bills? Did they think he was some kind of cash cow? And who is the real blackmailer? Who are they protecting?”
Hamilton nodded in sympathy. “This certainly isn’t a clear case, but I didn’t want to push Hudson without talking to you first. He asked me to give the blood to you, in case you were interested in getting a DNA test.” Hamilton kept his voice soft and even. It was obvious that none of his news had been easy for Olivia to take. “Hudson told me you were welcome, once you were convinced that the sick man is your father, to travel to Okracoke and see him before time runs out. He’s keeping his best room reserved for you.”
Exhaling loudly in frustration, Olivia cried, “This guy’s claiming he didn’t write the letter and yet he took the money! What kind of fool does Hudson Salter think I am?”
The private investigator shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “There’s a lab in New Bern where you can get DNA results in twenty-four hours. Would you like the address?”
“Yes,” Olivia answered in a tight voice. She stuffed the vial back into the envelope and then pulled her checkbook from her purse. “At this point your services are no longer required. You’ve done excellent work, Mr. Hamilton, going above and beyond the call of duty. I appreciate your dedication and would be glad to send you a written recommendation for your files.” She scribbled out a check, pressing her signature deep into the paper.
Hamilton waved his hand for her to stop. “You don’t need to worry about payment now, Ms. Limoges. My secretary can send you a bill. This must be quite a shock for you.”
“I’m sure this will more than cover your fee.” Olivia put the check on the table and rose. She desperately wanted the man to leave, needing solitude at this moment more than ever before.
Blinking at the amount of Olivia’s check, Hamilton folded it in half and slid in into his pocket. “This is very generous of you, ma’am, thank you.” He moved to the door and then paused. “I hope you find the closure you were seeking, Ms. Limoges. One way or another.”
And then he was gone.
Olivia sat motionless at the table and listened until she could no longer hear the rumble of Hamilton’s car engine. When all was silent, she shoved her chair back so roughly that it toppled and clattered on the tile floor and she rushed out to the deck, Haviland bounding after her in expectation of a walk. Olivia didn’t even notice as the poodle shot over the dunes ahead of her. Kicking off her sandals, she rushed into the waves, droplets of salt water stinging her eyes. She pumped her arms and legs, going deeper and deeper. When she could no longer touch the sandy bottom, she began to swim. Eyes closed, she struck out toward the cold, dark blue water well offshore.
Haviland yipped from the beach and then dove in after his mistress. An excellent swimmer, the poodle was beside her in a matter of minutes. When Olivia finally became aware of his presence, she stopped her forward progress and began to tread water. She turned toward the shore and watched her house bob up and down in the distance. Her gaze then shifted to the lighthouse keeper’s cottage.
“Come on, Captain,” she said breathlessly, and together, the sodden pair returned more leisurely to the beach.
Back on dry land, Olivia twisted water from her cotton skirt and then walked slowly to the cottage, dripping as she walked. She’d hired her regular contractor to repair the building’s flood damage and, stepping inside, she could see that he’d made decent progress. The carpet had been removed and the floors and baseboards were primed. Without the furniture, it was easy for Olivia to picture the rooms as they’d once been during her girlhood. She could picture her father seated in his favorite chair, whittling a pipe bowl. He often worked on pipes during winter evenings while Olivia and her mother worked a jigsaw puzzle or played card games for pennies.
“It’s you, isn’t it?” she asked the empty room, her voice bouncing off the bare walls. “I can feel it. You’re alive on that island and you can’t die because you’re waiting for me.” Her eyes filled with tears and her lips trembled. “I waited for you for thirty years!” She moved forward, accusing the space where her father’s chair had been. “And all this time you were so close! Didn’t you want to see me? Didn’t you care how I was?”
Haviland whined, nosing Olivia’s hand with his nose.
Olivia was crying freely now. “Why didn’t you love me enough to come back for me?”
Her tears fell on the pristine white floor, mingling with the salt water pooling from her clothes.
She stood in that puddle of salt and water and felt as insignificant and alone as she had as a little girl, the healed scars within her heart pulling apart.
Chapter 14
The blood jet is poetry and there is no stopping it.
—SYLVIA PLATH
Olivia dropped her drenched clothes in the washing machine, showered, and dressed in black yoga pants and a loose, russet-colored cotton shirt. She escorted Haviland to the Range Rover, buckled him into his canine seat belt, and then sped inland toward New Bern.
At the first red light, Olivia examined the blue vein lying just beneath the skin in the crook of her right arm. Her eyes traveled over the freckles on her forearm to her long, graceful hands. They were her mother’s hands. Though several inches taller than her mother, Olivia favored the Limoges line. The women were all naturally thin and graceful. Most had eyes the color of Delft blue pottery, but Olivia and her grandmother’s were of a darker shade and tended to change hue like the shifting colors of the ocean. Olivia looked nothing like her father. The only attributes she’d inherited from him were a strong jaw and a forceful will.
She pondered her parentage on the drive to New Bern, which took far longer than usual. Obstacles seemed to appear from nowhere and Olivia was forced to plod forward below the speed limit for the majority of the trip. On the two-lane highway leading out of town, she got stuck behind a logging truck. When it finally turned off, a line of school buses from the neighboring county got onto the road in front of the Range Rover while Olivia sat helpless beneath the unyielding glare of a red traffic light. She cursed and struck the steering wheel.
Despite maintaining a distance of several car lengths behind the last bus in the row of electric yellow vehicles dispensing clouds of black smoke from their exhaust pipes, Olivia had nowhere else to look but at the children pulling faces at her through the rear windows. They poked out their tongues, stretched their eyes into slits, and wiggled their fingers behind their ears. Taking clear enjoyment in their antics, Haviland bobbed excitedly in his seat. He’d stick his head out of his window, his tongue flapping in the breeze as he smiled at the children, and then he’d come back inside and start the whole routine again.
This comical exchange reminded Olivia of the thieves and the possibility that something about their appearance marked them as being obviously different. She then recalled overhearing one of the chief’s men mention the name Pampticoe High toward the end of her phone conversation with Rawlings yesterday.