The Bookstore on the Beach - Brenda Novak Page 0,44
can call me Drake, if you like.”
She didn’t plan to become familiar enough to call him by his first name, but she didn’t say so.
“You look good,” he told her. “Really good.”
She supposed he was trying to make her feel comfortable, but that was impossible. “Thank you.”
He set his drink on the wooden ledge running the length of the wall and straddled the stool next to hers. “I appreciate you taking the time to meet me.”
“How did you find me—after so long?”
“You called me.”
She didn’t laugh, even though he was trying to be funny. “What brought you to Sable Beach?”
“The receptionist for the psychologist you used to see right after you escaped said you talked about this place, even showed her a picture of it once in a magazine. She said she’d always imagined you living here, finally happy.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it. It wasn’t a lot, but it took a great deal of effort to find her, and it was the only lead I had. I guessed you wouldn’t stick around Nashville, where you were born, because that was also where you’d been kidnapped. I believed you’d be eager to escape the memories, and that the beach would probably sound nice.”
That was why he hadn’t known her new name and had still been looking for a Bailey.
He jerked his head toward the cashier. “Can I get you something?”
The coffee she’d drunk this morning was already burning a hole in her stomach. “No. I don’t mean to be rude, Mr. Owens, but I don’t want to be here very long. Please, tell me what you’ve come to say so I can go.”
He lowered his voice, which added more gravity to his words. “It’s a bit unusual...”
Curling her nails into her palms, she said, “I’m listening...”
“Nora Skinner is out of prison.”
Rubbing her temple, she stared at the floor as she processed this information. She’d expected as much, and yet it still came as a blow to hear that the woman who’d helped victimize her for seven long years was walking around free. So many times after she’d awakened from one of her nightmares, she’d soothed herself with the reminder that both Jeff and Nora were in prison—that they could never reach her again.
Now she knew for certain that was no longer true, which wouldn’t make those nights any easier.
She lifted her gaze. “And her husband?”
“Still in.”
She let her breath go, hadn’t even realized she’d been holding it. “He deserves to rot there.”
“I agree. And I don’t doubt that he will.”
A blast of hot, humid air rolled over Mary as a large group held the door open until they could all get in. “How long has it been since she was released?”
“It was November so...about seven months?”
“Where is she now?”
“I couldn’t tell you. But just so you know, she goes by Lynette Workman these days.”
Was he giving her this information in case Nora were ever to try and contact her? “After getting busted for what she did, she didn’t want to stick with her real name, huh? So she switched to her middle name and her maiden name?”
“I’m surprised you remember such small details.”
It had been three and a half decades since she’d been a prisoner of the Skinners. But certain memories refused to fade. A particular sight or smell, even a specific sound, could bring various details back to her—many of them terrible. “You have to remember, I lived with them for one-third of my childhood. I knew them well. There are so many things I can’t forget—and I’ve tried,” she said flatly.
He took off his glasses and used his shirttail to clean them. “I’m sorry for what they put you through. Truly.”
“Then why are you here?” she asked earnestly. “Why are you working for Nora?”
“I was reluctant to take the job, at first,” he admitted as he put his glasses back on. “I felt you should be left in peace. But I work for Tammy, not Nora.”
Mary jerked up straighter, as if someone had just kicked her in the back. Tammy... That was another name Mary tried never to think about, although for very different reasons. Remembering Jeff and Nora’s daughter affected her worse than remembering Jeff and Nora, because it took her back to that locked basement and how hard it had been to take care of Autumn in those circumstances, especially once Autumn grew old enough to understand that the door at the top of the stairs led to freedom. Autumn would stand there and bang on the panel, hoping