“Everyone, please cool it,” Scott declared firmly. “The road isn’t passable unless you’ve got a four-wheel drive, and the weather isn’t fit to drive in anyway. That means we’ve got to spend the night here together whether we like it or not.”
That was funny—whether we like it or not. I wondered who he thought belonged in the former group.
“Besides,” he added, “I’m sure Devon wouldn’t want us at each other’s throats. Let’s all be civil, okay?”
His suggestion lacked passion, but it did the trick at least. Cap’s muscles relaxed and Richard slunk off into the shadows. Scott asked who would like wine, and after several people raised their hands in the dim light, he opened two bottles and began pouring glasses. We accepted our drinks and then gathered in various clusters on the couches and armchairs. No one said much of anything, though we had to listen to Tory wail on her cell phone to someone at her agency about the need to cancel her shoot tomorrow. I emailed Nash with an update.
At one point Jessie wandered over to the island, and I followed a minute later.
“Remember I said I felt like I was in a horror movie?” she said. “Well, I was kidding then. But I’m not now. I’m starting to feel spooked. What if Devon’s death wasn’t natural? What if someone’s cut the power? What if we’re all in danger?”
“I wouldn’t worry too much,” I told her. “I have no idea how Devon died, but I do know that we had exactly the kind of storm that knocks down power lines. I really don’t think there’s anything fishy going on with the lights.”
I was doing my best to sound calm—and I really didn’t think the power outage was intentional—but the situation was definitely creepy. Tomorrow morning couldn’t come soon enough.
The somber mood of the room lifted a tiny bit when Sandy and Laura arrived and laid out the remains from the antipasto lunch we’d had the day before. Sandy apologized for the leftovers (without actually sounding sorry), and explained that she hadn’t expected to serve dinner to everyone.
People pulled closer around the coffee table and began to make idle small talk—everyone except Tory. She had taken her plate over to the dining table and sat sulking in the dark shadows at the far end of the room. At the risk of having a drink tossed in my face for supposedly flirting with her man on the deck earlier, I headed over there and pulled out a chair next to her.
“I hope you don’t think I was actually making a play for Tommy earlier,” I said quietly. “That’s not my style.”
“I’m not blaming you for anything,” she said. “I just want to get out of here. This is like some freaking catalogue shoot that never, ever ends.”
“This can’t have been an easy weekend for you. That whole thing Devon pulled Saturday night—her coming on to Tommy in front of everyone.”
She shrugged a shoulder. “It wasn’t nice, but I don’t want to say anything bad about her. I hear it’s bad luck to say something nasty about a dead person.”
Gosh, where did this girl get her information?
“I hear Devon actually introduced you to Tommy,” I said.
“Yup.”
“That’s kind of interesting, isn’t it? A lot of girls wouldn’t feel comfortable seeing their ex-boyfriend with a friend.”
“She said she didn’t care. I mean, she was kind of upset when they broke up, but she said she got over it.”
“What kind of time was she having this weekend? Whenever I saw her, she seemed to be a bit on edge.”
“I dunno. I didn’t actually talk to her all that much. Plus, it was hard sometimes to know what she was really thinking. She liked to keep things to herself.”
“Did you notice how thin she was—and how little she ate?”
“That’s our job—to be thin.”
“But there’s thin and there’s thin. Do you think she was suffering from an eating disorder?”
Tory shook her head back and forth, lifting the shiny black layers of her hair.
“People always say stuff like that about models,” she said after a moment. “I think most of the time they’re just jealous.”
“Did you happen to see a bottle of ipecac syrup in her bathroom? That’s something people use to induce vomiting.”
“I never went in Devon’s room the entire weekend. I was too busy in mine—if you know what I mean.”
She stood up, leaving her plate on the table, clearly done with the conversation.
For the next hour or so we all just sat around, bunched fairly close together as if we were on a lifeboat in the Atlantic. The lack of electricity meant no music and no coffee machine, though Sandy put out stuff for tea because the stove ran on gas. The two wood-burning stoves in the great room provided some heat, but the room could hardly have been described as toasty warm.
After a while Scott suggested poker, but only he, Tommy, and Richard played. Whitney pulled her yarn and knitting needles out of a bag and started clicking again. The rest of us leafed through books and magazines by candlelight and picked at the remains of our dinner. We ran through several bottles of wine, about 50 percent of which was consumed by Richard.
At around nine thirty, Ralph showed up with an update. The power was out all over the area, and it would probably be out through part of the next day. According to the most recent weather report, the temperature would rise again in the morning, and he was pretty sure he could have the road in shape sometime before noon. He and Sandy had rounded up more flashlights, and he distributed one to each of us and then deposited several on top of the big island.
“We’ve got plenty of candles, too,” he said gruffly, “but we’d appreciate it if you rely mostly on the flashlights. The last thing we need right now is a fire.”
I wasn’t looking forward to heading back to my room, but after Ralph left, people started to drift away, the beams from their flashlights bobbing spookily as they descended the stairs. There seemed to be no point in hanging around. Jessie barely made eye contact with Scott when we said good night and then practically attached herself to my hip. I took a glass of wine with me.
“If it weren’t for Mr. Kinky Pants, I would have stayed over there for hours,” Jessie whispered as we reached our rooms. “I dread the idea of being back in my room alone.”
I smiled woefully, in total sympathy with how she was feeling.
“I really don’t believe anyone will try to get into our rooms tonight,” I said, “but just to be on the safe side, why don’t you pull a chair or table in front of your door? Or if you really want, you can bunk down with me.”
“You don’t know how close I am to saying yes to your offer. But if Scott found out tomorrow that we’d shared a room, he’d end up walking around with a boner until we left.”
I smiled. “Just knock on my door if you get scared, okay?”
Once in my room, I took my own advice and dragged an end table over the floor and lodged it against the door. The gas fueled wood-burning stove had been lit and was giving off decent heat. Despite Ralph’s warning, I lit the scented candle from the bathroom, placed it on the table by the armchair, and then collapsed, my legs tucked underneath me and BlackBerry in hand. I tried Beau again, with the little bit of power I still had in my phone. Never expecting a power outage, I hadn’t bothered to charge it earlier. Once again, I reached only Beau’s voice mail.
“Hey,” I said. “Not sure when your plane is due. Call me, will you? Some crazy stuff has happened up here, and I would love to talk to you.”
I started to press disconnect but instead gave him a brief description of Devon’s death and how we’d been held hostage by the storm.
The flames from the candle and the wood-burning stove created phantomlike shadows that danced on the walls. I sipped my wine, trying to sort through everything that was jostling around in my brain. I was so immersed in my thoughts that I almost didn’t hear the sound of someone knocking on my bedroom door. Jessie, I thought. She had obviously decided not to tough it out.