The Man My Sister Left Behind novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Collateral

Beatrice accuses both sisters of stealing the family necklace and takes Wynne's boat as collateral until she brings Cora back, and Ansel orders her to stay where he can see her.

"You're welcome," I said, and my voice came out almost normal.

He stepped out of the dark doorway into the gray light of the hall.

Up close I could see the chip in his front tooth and the pulse in his jaw.

I looked for the scar on his right hand.

It was there, a thin pale crescent across the back of his knuckles.

I had felt it on my hip that night, and never seen it.

"Are you all right?" he asked. "She hit you hard."

"I've had worse on a Tuesday."

He didn't know me.

Of course he didn't.

He had never seen my face, and I had been a dark shape and a voice and a green scarf.

Outside, somebody shouted his name.

We went out through the side door together, because there was nowhere else to go.

Three hundred people had not gone home.

They stood on the church lawn in their good shoes, in clumps, with their phones in their hands.

Beatrice Rooke stood on the top step with the sheriff beside her.

The sheriff was a heavy man in a tan uniform who looked as though he'd rather be fishing.

"There she is," Beatrice said, and everyone turned.

"I've got something to say before anyone leaves."

Her voice was calm, and that was the worst of it.

"The Rooke emeralds were in the bride's room at nine this morning, in their case, on the dresser."

"They've been in this family for a hundred and ten years."

"Every Rooke bride has worn them down that aisle."

She held up a small empty velvet case and opened it so the crowd could see.

"They're gone, and so is the bride."

The lawn made a noise.

"Mrs. Rooke," I said, "my sister didn't steal from you."

"Your sister took my son's heart and my family's necklace on the same morning, and you came home on Monday."

"I was in the bride's room with Cora until ten to eleven."

"That is exactly what I mean," Beatrice said gently.

A man behind me said, "Larkin girls always did stick together."

Something in me went flat and cold and clear.

"All right," I said.

I took the ring out of my pocket and held it up so everyone could see it was Cora's.

"This is the only thing my sister left behind that belongs to your family, and I'm giving it to Ansel."

I crossed the grass and put it in his palm.

He closed his hand around it and didn't look at me.

"Now the necklace," I said to Beatrice. "I'll find it."

"You'll find it."

"And I'll find Cora, and she'll tell you herself."

"Words are cheap," Beatrice said.

"Then take something that isn't."

I turned to the harbor behind the church, where the masts stood up in rows against the gray.

"My father's boat is the Marigold. She's at the end of the Rooke wharf, Slip Fourteen."

"She's the only thing I own in this town."

"Hold her until Sunday week."

"If I haven't put your emeralds and my sister in front of you by then, she's yours."

The lawn was dead silent.

Beatrice smiled for the first time.

It was small, and it was real, and it frightened me.

"Sheriff," she said, "you heard her."

"I heard her," the sheriff said unhappily.

"Sunday week, then," Beatrice said. "Ten days."

She walked down the steps with her pearls glinting and her head high, and the crowd opened for her.

I stood there, and my legs began to shake now that nobody needed me to stand.

"That," said a dry voice beside me, "is the dumbest thing I have seen a Larkin do, and I taught your father to splice rope."

Gus Philbrick was seventy years old, in a navy knit cap and a yellow slicker over his church suit.

He had held my hand at my father's funeral and not said a word, which was the kindest thing anyone did that week.

"Gus," I said, and my eyes stung.

"Don't you start. I've got a handkerchief, but it's got fish on it."

"She'll take the boat."

"She'll take it over my dead body," Gus said. "Hush now."

A shadow fell across us.

Ansel Rooke had come up behind me with Cora's ring still in his fist.

He was looking at me.

"You'll do it where I can see you," he said.

"I'm sorry?"

"If she calls, she'll call you."

"She won't call me," I said. "She didn't tell me anything."

"She'll call you."

His voice cracked on the last word, and he heard it, and his jaw set.

"You have the guest house," he said. "The one behind the boathouse."

"I'd rather sleep on the Marigold."

"She's mine until Sunday week."

I opened my mouth, and Gus put a brass key in my hand.

It was warm from his pocket, with a faded blue tag.

"He gave it to me at the rehearsal," Gus murmured. "For the bride's family."

"Cora's family is me."

"I know," Gus said. "So does he."

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