"I'm gonna give you a star, baby," Bess heard Ned whisper to a sleeping Nancy the next morning. He kissed her forehead and tucked the cover around her, then stepped into the hallway with them.
"Tonight at midnight." Ned nodded. "Until then, someone has to be with her at all times. Since both of you got plenty of sleep last night, I'm sure you're up to it."
George and Bess looked chagrined. "Look, Ned. George should stay here with Nan, I'll go take care of a few last-minute things while you... well, you're probably going to beat the hell out of that bastard," Bess said.
"Is she doing any better?" George asked.
"The... hypnosis, whatever it is, didn't seem to last too long once I brought her back. But whatever he did, I don't know what it is, and I don't trust him at all. And I hate to say it, but I don't trust her not to sleepwalk right back to that damn place."
"Are you sure you want to do this, Ned?" Bess asked, nervously.
"More sure than anything else in my life. I always knew I would, I just never knew when. And it's now."
"All right." Bess smiled impishly and shook her head. "Prepare to have socks knocked off."
"Ahh. So we finally have the famous jealous boyfriend, do we?"
"Yes, we do. And you will stay away from her."
"At no point did I make any advances. At no point at all. Cigarette?"
"Please." Ned took one along with a wooden kitchen match, and sparked the latter to flame with his thumbnail, having tucked the cigarette behind his ear. "Surely you're intelligent. Surely you don't want me after you."
"And why shouldn't we be the best of friends?" Jean took a seat and lit his own cigar. "I'm sure you'd never force Miss Drew into doing anything she didn't want to do. Just as I would never dream of doing so."
"I'm not interested in your dreams or intentions, or being your friend. I do want to see Jamie. If she is here of her own free will, surely she wouldn't mind saying hi to an old friend."
"I believe she's still asleep, but I'll tell her you called." Jean tilted his head, then blew a smoke ring and leaned forward. "I can give her the stars, Mr. Nickerson. What can you give her?"
"Something better than that. Next time I won't come alone." Ned turned on his heel.
Nancy groaned and buried her face in the pillow, then turned enough to grumble a "No" in Bess's direction.
"Yes. Get up. Right now. We have so much work to do."
"Do it yourself," Nancy mumbled, burrowing beneath the covers. "Shut the blinds."
"I didn't want to have to do this," Bess sighed. She untucked all the sheets and blankets, then pulled them off the bed in one smooth motion. Nancy shrieked and buried her face under a pillow. "Well, yeah, I kinda did."
"What the hell is wrong with you!" Nancy screamed, muffled by the pillow. "We're on freaking vacation!"
"Not anymore, sweetie."
"Yes. This one."
The man behind the counter moved briskly, efficiently. "Would you like a box, sir, any ribbon or paper?"
"Just the box. Thanks."
The man glanced at Ned as he wrote up the receipt. "If you don't mind my saying so, excellent choice. Most people don't even stop to look at that cut, but it looks splendid."
Ned smiled tightly. "Thanks. I hope she thinks so."
"You seem to be pretty sure she will," the man commented, a little softer.
"You can never tell with her."
Bess poked her head in the bathroom. "Hurry up, Nan. Your waxing appointment is in fifteen minutes."
The water shut off abruptly. "Waxing what?" Nancy asked in a low, dangerous voice, over the dripping shower head.
"Just worry about that when we get there."
"Waxing what, Elizabeth Marvin?"
"Um... eyebrows, upper lips, upper chest, underarms, legs... Brazilian..."
Nancy grabbed a towel, wrapped it around her hastily, and stepped out, glaring ominously. "Brazilian."
"Yeah."
"I don't..."
"Listen, Nan. We sprung for the whole package. The whole thing. The least you can do is everything in it. After that we have the massage, the facial... I think I'll join you for those two."
"But not the Brazilian."
"Not unless a Brazilian is doing it. Mmmmm." Bess giggled. "Get a move on."
George ran into the police station, breathless, a garment bag slung over her shoulder and a plastic ziplock in her outstretched hand. "I need this analyzed immediately."
"I'm sorry, who are you?"
George rolled her eyes. "I'm from River Heights, working with Nancy Drew on a case. Call Chief McGinnis if you need confirmation. We need this done immediately. Here's our hotel number."
The secretary took the ziplock and hotel stationery, and grinned. "Somehow I don't think that will be the most important news today."
"You may well be right." George sighed and hefted the bag to a more comfortable place on her shoulder. "Thanks."
"You have ten minutes before your manicure and pedicure. Don't do anything irreversible." Bess grinned and closed the door behind them.
Nancy turned to Ned expectantly, but he held up a hand. "Can we... walk down to the beach, Nan?"
"Sure." She reached for his hand and held it all the way there, pensive. "This isn't just Bess and George springing for a spa day, is it."
Ned shook his head. "I hope not."
"Well, it'll be the only day like it. I'm never having..."
Nancy trailed off as Ned shot her a bemused glance. "I'm almost afraid to ask."
"Please don't. It involves hot wax and a German woman." Nancy shuddered. "So... what did you want to talk about?"
Ned took a deep breath, then another. "I want to marry you, Nan."
"I know you do." She smiled up at him. "Oh, it's a little more serious than that, isn't it."
"Like about this serious." Ned opened the box and a thousand rainbows spilled out around them.
Nancy took a sharp breath. "Ned... oh..." she plucked it from its box and stared at it for a second, then slid it onto her ring finger. "It fits just right... you really...?" She gasped, then laughed as he picked her up and swung her around. "I should call River Heights right now if you're thinking about a June wedding, maybe—"
"I was thinking a bit sooner than that."
"But, with your school and everything..."
"I was thinking about tonight."
Nancy hand dropped to her side and she stared out at the ocean, took a step toward it. "What... what did I do last night..."
"You went to him in the middle of the night. I've never seen you like that, and it scared me. I saw him this morning, and he said that he promised you..."
"...the stars," Nancy finished. "I thought it was a dream."
"I wish it had been a nightmare," he said. "I'm afraid. That's why you haven't been alone all day."
"Have you— is Jamie there?"
"I believe that you did see her there, and I'm trying to get enough evidence to get the cops in there. Since you can't go in and kick all their butts, in your weakened condition." He smiled at her.
"You mean... tonight?"
"At midnight. Well, I'm not quite sure when the cops will go in. I'd presume tomorrow."
"You mean... in..." Nancy glanced down at her watch. "You mean in nine hours? Nine hours to find a dress? Headpiece? Shoes? Oh my— I have to call my dad..."
"Bess and George are taking care of the wedding stuff. But I'm sure you want to tell your dad yourself. So go ahead and do that. Quick. Before the French manicure or whatever Bess has planned for you."
Nancy studied Ned's eyes, then the ring, then his eyes again. "Are you sure we're ready for this?"
"I am. I'm ready if you are. It gives me the right to make sure you're so completely occupied all night that you don't even think of going over to see him." Ned smiled. "If you want to postpone this, I understand. But that's not going to stop me from watching you every second of tonight, just to make sure he can't finish what he's started." He brushed a lock of hair from her forehead. "I'll always be here."
Nancy looked down at the ring again and gave him a half-smile. "Okay," she whispered. "Okay, I will. Tonight."
He picked her up again and twirled her around, only to put her back down as they heard Bess calling rather insistently for Nancy.
"I'll see you later, sweetheart," he murmured, leaning down to kiss her. He was startled by the strength with which she returned his kiss.
"Altogether too much of me, thanks to Bess," Nancy laughed, and ran back toward the hotel spa.
The moon was a perfect semicircle in the sky and the water was black beneath their bare feet. Bess and George had selected their own dresses; George had unconsciously chosen a dress identical to Jamie's, while Bess had opted for a strapless rose sheath. Both of them carried single white lilies. Ned wore black pants and a pale grey shirt.
Nancy's veil was fingertip-length; her dress was watered silk that shimmered in the moonlight, flowing from the points of her shoulders tight to her navel, then flaring into a chapel train at her heels. She carried two white and one red rose.
The minister stood in the rear of the gazebo, framed by the pitch-black sky and pounding surf, and lifted his voice to be heard above it. Bess giggled and snapped pictures, while George only smiled quietly.
Later, she remembered it only in snapshots. Not just the ones Bess took, but the mental images, the minister lit by hurricane lamp and peering at his enormous Bible, the feel of Ned's fingers on hers as he slid the wedding band on, George gasping as a dolphin's silhouette broke the surface of the water and dove back into the sea. The words they pledged they had said to each other a hundred times before, always the same situation, while their personal world threatened to fall at the hand of natural disaster, criminal mastermind, or roving eye. But if any of Jean's spell had been left, it fell at the portents of those words. There would be no taking this back, no failures in this pledge.
After they had been pronounced, after the first kiss, George opened her hand and tossed pebbles back into the sea. "I just needed to throw something," she confessed, laughing.
"So where are you staying tonight?" Ned asked, once they were alone. Bess had taken Nancy's veil with her; Ned had unbuttoned his shirt completely. They walked arm in arm, feet in the water, with Nancy's skirts gathered over one arm to keep them from getting wet.
"I think our little honeymoon kit is in your room. Everything was so hectic today, I'm not sure." Nancy yawned, then smiled, looking down at her hand. "I still can't believe this..."
He lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed it. "I've never been this happy," he whispered.
"Me either," she replied, drawing his face down to hers. They stood still for a long moment while they kissed, and then she pulled back. "I think... I think we should go back to your room now."
"I thought you'd never ask," he grinned.
Nancy gasped. "They've really outdone themselves, haven't they," Ned whispered behind her.
"It's all the stars..."
Bess and George must have done it immediately upon returning. It would have taken all the time, all the lit tea candles on every available surface in Ned's hotel room.
"Nan, honey, move just a little bit..." Ned nudged her forward, kissing the back of her neck, fingers feeling down her spine for the buttons. He kicked the door shut behind them.
"Not in this, not in this," she moaned, leaning into his kisses. "I'm sure... Ned, just give me a minute," she whispered, putting her arms up around his neck, kissing him slow and deep. She tugged his shirt down and trailed her fingers ever so lightly down his chest, then shoved him back. "Give me a damn minute, pull the sheets back and I'll be right with you," she said.
"Promise?" he murmured, raising an eyebrow.
Nancy grinned in response as she shut the door of the bathroom behind her.
This was all candlelight too. She had no idea how the smoke detectors weren't going off; maybe they had disabled them. Nancy's sponge bag stood open on the countertop, toothbrush, toothpaste... she peeled herself carefully out of the dress, hung it in the garment bag, stood in her merry widow and garter belt and brushed her teeth thoroughly.
Ned was out there. Ned was in the bedroom waiting for her. Nancy shivered and spat lather into the sink, washed her mouth out, stood and flipped the lights on. She studied herself carefully, scowling at every perceived imperfection, mentally blaming them all on guilty French fries and misguided hamburgers, late-night pizza deliveries. She flipped off the overhead and they faded in the forgiving light of the candles.
And then she saw the flyaway babydoll, white ribbon tie and sheer skirt, thong hanging jauntily from the hanger in a touch she knew had to be Bess's. She thought about Ned's fingers, trembling with anticipation, and how they'd punch right through the sheer stockings. Maybe later, maybe another Saturday night, another set of circumstances. She peeled them off carefully, happy at the smoothness of her legs beneath them.
Her fingers were trembling so badly that it took both hands to open the door, and the diamond's muted reflection caught her gaze. This was all right now, wasn't it, this was okay...
She ran her hands through her hair and forced them to her sides, staring down at her white-tipped toenails. She took a deep breath, held it, and walked through the doorway.
He was sitting on the edge of the bed, black silk boxers, hands clasped near his knees. He looked up, rose to his feet, and extended a hand to her.
"I didn't carry you over the threshold. Maybe I should just carry you to bed."
"I'll lie back and think of England." She bit her trembling lower lip. "Ned, I swear you're the only one, you've always been the only one, please... just take this slow and maybe I can handle it..."
Ned cocked an eyebrow. "Oh, you'll handle it?" He shook his head, smiling slightly. "Come here," he whispered, folding his fingers into his palm.
Her thumb found the diamond and she twirled it once around her ring finger before she took her carefully measured steps toward him. He reached down and swept her up into his arms in one fluid movement, and her pulse was so frenzied she was surprised it wasn't audible and echoing around the room.
"Nancy..." Ned leaned down and rested his forehead against hers. "Nan, shhh, calm down, okay? Shhh... it's gonna be all right, baby, okay? Say yes."
Nancy put her arms up around his neck and leaned against him, eyes closed, breath impossibly fast. "This is gonna be okay, this is..." She trailed her lips down his neck and felt him moan.
She smiled. "This is gonna be great."
"Ned, not in public," Nancy hissed.
"I just saw a couple over there completely going at it and I can't even touch your arm?"
Nancy's eyes fluttered shut behind her sunglasses. She wore a pristine white swimsuit, strapless top and low-cut bikini bottoms, and was trying to take advantage of the incredible sun on the edge of the water. Ned had bored of this rather quickly and was running a slow, lazy hand up and down her arm.
She reached up, ran her fingers through his hair, and drew his face down to hers. "You call it touching my arm, I call it that in a second I'm going to rip those shorts off and have my way with you."
"Well, you didn't want any tan lines anyway, did you," he murmured, kissing her hard. "Why are we out here when we could be in bed, doing terribly naughty things to each other?"
"Because absence makes the heart grow fonder." She smiled at him through the growing haze that his presence cast over her will to do anything else besides whatever he said. He whispered something in reply that made her blush lightly and smack him in mock disgust.
"Do you want to know what I've always thought would be really sexy?" she asked him, and when he nodded she whispered things into his ear that made his toes curl in the sand and his hands grasp her waist hard.
"Dammit, Nan," he whispered, and he'd swung her on top of him, both of them laughing, when Bess walked up.
"Don't let me disturb you two. Well... I take that back. Get off him, Nan, you'll have plenty of time for that later."
"Nancy was just telling me that she's secretly always wanted to have a threesome. You up for it, Bess?" Ned grinned up at her, while Nancy smacked him.
"As much as I've always wanted to see you two give in to all the sexual tension, I'll have to pass. There are a couple of really hot cops looking for Nancy. If you don't mind, I'll borrow one when you're done with them. Alex and I never got a chance to try out the hot tub." Bess grinned.
Nancy tilted her head back, and Ned took advantage of the opportunity. "Why?" she asked, trying unsuccessfully to detach her husband.
"They're about to search Jean's house."
Nancy touched the edge of a silver frame. "They're all beautiful. Are they all missing?"
The cop Bess had set her sights on called over his shoulder, "We don't know yet. We're going to fax their pictures to the mainland, just in case."
The hallway didn't quite stretch to infinity, but the pictures almost seemed to do so. Silver frames around black and white headshots, all the way down the hall. All about the same age as Nancy and Jamie. Nancy couldn't see a pattern besides the obvious. But the headshots seemed familiar. The headshots.
Nancy looked at Ned, who was also scrutinizing the pictures. "These look like the same headshots Chief McGinnis gave me."
"Are they public information?"
Nancy shook her head slowly. "They're available through the placement service, the official matchmakers. But they are pretty expensive. I think mostly for selection of mistresses." Nancy ran her fingers along the raised wooden ledge beneath the pictures. "Jean has money. Jean was known for being a player."
"And now Jean is missing," Ned finished. "And the girls aren't here. Assuming all these guys went missing, that is."
"Jamie's not here." Nancy let her hand drop to her side, raised her voice. "Has the entire house been searched?"
"Yes, and there is no sign of where he went. No convenient notes by the phone or canceled credit card receipts for plane tickets. Just absolutely no sign and a butler who claims he knows nothing. I don't believe that, but in the time it takes him to crack, God knows where they could get to."
"So you've checked the recent activity on his credit card?"
"He has his own private jet," the other cop called. "Wouldn't do any good, but we're gonna do it anyway."
Ned walked over and slid a casual arm around her waist. "So, is your spidey sense going off?" he asked, as his fingers found their way under her tank top and barely into the top of her jeans, and stroked the skin there gently.
"Don't distract me," she said, then stood on her tiptoes and whispered into his ear, "at least not until later."
Bess slid into the hot tub slowly, gasping at the temperature of the water, then smiled up at the cop and took the drink he offered her. "Thanks. Mmm, coconut," she said.
"So, where are you from?" he asked, taking a swig from a bottle of beer.
"Oh, a little town in Illinois you've never heard of," Bess giggled. "But let's not talk about boring old me, let's talk about you and the job you do. It must be so exciting."
"Sometimes it is. But it's all really the same old, same old. Like today, you were there." He put his bottle of beer down and started gesturing. "Guy meets girl, guy gets sick of girl being clingy, guy offs girl. Doesn't matter if it's one or ten or thirty-two."
"Is that how many pictures were in the hallway? Thirty-two?"
The cop nodded. "Three of them have already come back as missing persons cases. But I don't expect too many more, not even if he has every single one of them buried in the backyard. People come here to start over, start new lives. Sometimes it just so happens that those lives start off at the bottom of the ocean."
Bess's eyes narrowed. "Does that happen often?"
He caught her expression. "Not so often that I'm desensitized to it, no. And I haven't been here as long as my partner. He doesn't even see the assault and battery cases as that far out of the ordinary anymore."
"I thought people came here for rather casual relationships. I mean, sure, quick marriages, but then back to life, right?"
"This isn't the only part of the island I'm assigned to patrol. But you'd be surprised. It takes a certain kind of person to come here, looking for love." He looked at her over the mouth of his bottle. "No offense meant."
"None taken," Bess replied evenly. "I came here with my friend. Just thought I'd soak up some sun, dance my nights away... go back home with a few snapshots."
"Amen to that," he said, and they toasted.
Nancy's breath caught and she exhaled slowly in the light of the much sturdier pillar candle.
She tilted her head back and
Jamie was walking down the hallway, a rush of dark brown and red silk, candle cupped in her hands, down the long hallway they had seen earlier. Down into the basement, girls with dark eyes and blonde hair and sequined gowns and the same expression of self-satisfied obedience.
Nancy opened her eyes and let go, let go of everything, let her body respond to Ned's touch. She drowned in the rhythm of their movements, and
Nancy was walking down the same hallway in her wedding gown, candle cupped in her hands. The crystal chandeliers split the light into a thousand stars on the ceiling, and she moved among them, the drugged girls, she moved
He moved and she moaned against his mouth, fingers wet and twitching against his, her every nerve mouth open and waiting
and the crowd parted and Jean was there, his eyes, the knowing smile, he knew, he knew, and she stood before him in her wedding gown with all the maids in waiting around them, in the circle of candlelight
Nancy screamed in horror and the ecstasy of Ned's touch, forcing her eyes open to see him above her. "Don't let me go, Ned, don't let me, oh God, oh God..." she wrapped herself around him and turned her face into the pillow, screaming full-throated. After, their bodies slowed, then stopped, his forehead against hers, their breath mingling in the dark.
Ned finally recovered. "Um... Nan? You okay?" His palms slid down her legs, caressing, and he untangled her from around him, then rolled off her, onto his side. She started shaking and he put his arm around her, pulled her to him, smelling his scent on her skin. "Shh, baby, what's wrong?"
"He's calling me again," she whispered, burying her face against his chest. "I don't want to go... He was calling me to the house. I thought it was empty. I thought there would be cops there and I thought he was gone for good but he's calling me there, with the other girls..."
"Shh, shh," he whispered. He leaned down and kissed her, hard, and she put her hand behind his neck and held him to her. "If you think he's there, I will go there right now and get him."
"Don't leave me," she cried, wrapping her body around his. "Don't leave me here, I'll do anything you want..."
"It's okay," he whispered, smiling. "Give me a minute and I'll take you up on that."
George slid onto a barstool. "What'll it be?" the woman behind the counter asked, polite interest on her face, but no glimmer of recognition.
"Gin and tonic," George instructed, watching her mix it. "Why is your picture in Jean's basement?"
The woman's hands slowed for a moment before she finished. "Because I was his for a while. And then it wore off."
"What wore off?"
She shrugged and handed George her drink. "The spell. The drug. Whatever it was. I can barely remember it, anyway. I spent a week in some kind of trance, and then I woke up in my room with this giant headache and... Jean..."
"Jean was there?"
She shook her head. "That's all I can remember. Jean. Smoking a cigarette. But he does that while he's here. I don't remember the house or the gowns..."
George raised her eyebrow. "Gowns?"
"Sequined. Long. In candlelight." The woman shook her head rapidly. "I really don't want to think about it."
"So you don't know why any of it happened?"
"All I know is that they're gone. That I would be too, if something hadn't gone wrong. And that no one would have missed me. They'll never come back."
"Jamie? Our friend? She's on the wall. Nancy saw her in the house."
The bartender shook her head. "Have a drink in her memory."
"Come with me."
Ned was drowning. He couldn't get any air into his lungs. It was so heavy, individual droplets of lead, clogging in his joints, slowing the beating veins in his head.
Fingers, fingers around his numb hand, pressure up his right arm all the way up to the elbow. Warm pulsebeat and the quiet calm presence and
He finally forced a lungful of air down and it hurt like hell, like he hadn't used his lungs in months instead of nanoseconds. It caught and he coughed, and the fingers tightened around his.
"It's all right. We're almost there, honey." The hysteria. He hadn't heard it before. The thinnest edge, the intake of her breath as she finished the words, as though she could suck them back in, terrible mistakes that should never have been. "Almost there. Ned, oh God."
Keep walking. If he kept walking it would make sense.
With supreme effort he drove the wedge in, and stopped so suddenly that Nancy was taken off balance, especially in the long gown, the silk gleaming in the moonlight. Ned stared at it blindly. Wedding dress. Her fingers still wrapped around his, but he could feel the twitch, a long sibilant shudder traveling up and down the length of her body, waiting to drive her feet toward...
He didn't. He couldn't look over there. He knew.
"Nancy, what the hell are you doing?"
"He wants me. He wants me to come back to him tonight. In this dress. We have to..." She was shaking her head, back and forth, faster and faster. He had anticipated her, and her fingers writhed in his grip but found no purchase. "I have to go there..."
"I want you. Right here. Tonight. Right now." He wrapped his other arm around her waist. "Out here on the beach. Right here." He leaned down, his mouth against her ear, and now his breath was the cause of the shudder he could feel under his palm.
Her knees gave way as she stared into his eyes, unabashed interest in her own. She murmured slowly, "I want you to drown out the sound of his voice in my head, in my head, oh God I can hear him..."
"No," Ned whispered. "No. Right now. I'm going to take you back to the room and when I find him, when you're strong enough to let me find him..."
Nancy put her finger over his lips. "Shh," she murmured. "Don't let me go. Don't let me."
"He's there."
The cop shook his head. "No, he's not. Believe me. We've had guards posted around the clock, and there hasn't been so much as a cricket out of place. No movement at all."
"He went somewhere though. His jet is still here. He's still here."
He shrugged. "Even if he did, we have no proof. There's nothing wrong with having headshots, nothing wrong with having a woman living with him."
Bess scowled. "I wouldn't be this worried if it weren't my best friend we're talking about here."
"But she's married. She has more than enough to distract her from trying to track this jerk down. I think you need another drink."
"Maybe we just need distractions from the distractions."
He sank to his knees behind her, unfastening every button, all the way down. He reached the last and his hands fell to his sides, and Nancy turned around to find him staring up at her.
"You're so beautiful, I can't believe you're mine," he whispered.
"I've been yours from the first moment I saw you," Nancy replied, sinking to her knees gracefully before him. She took his hands. "Always."
He leaned forward and they kissed, hungrily, he reached up and pushed the dress off her shoulders and she shrugged out of it, then gasped for breath as he left her lips to trace a path down to her collarbone. He groaned as he encountered the formidable fastenings of her strapless bra.
"Let me," she whispered, and after a few swift complicated movements she was naked to the waist, rising from the lake of white silk that gleamed around them. She looked up at him and a tiny smile crossed her face.
"Can you hear him right now?" Ned asked, fingertips sliding over her ears. "Can you hear his voice?"
She shook her head. "All I hear is you," she whispered, shivering as his hands slid down to her waist. She smiled at his sudden expelled breath when she kissed the place between his neck and shoulder, as she tugged at his sleeping shorts. "All I want is you."
He pulled her up from her knees and she rose, a blushing angel, from the tomb of white silk, and they went to bed naked, wrapped around each other as though for dear life. She lifted his hand to her mouth and kissed his ring quietly, and as he stared into her eyes he found himself paralyzed again. She rubbed the side of her foot lazily against his leg.
"Are you all right?"
Ned shook his head slowly. "I thought that ring on your finger meant it would never happen again. I thought you'd never go out in the middle of the night again, I thought I was enough..."
Nancy's lip was trembling, and her eyes were wet. "Ned, please... don't say that..."
"You can't tell me it won't happen again."
"If I knew how to stop this, if I knew what to do, I'd do it, I'd chain myself to you, I'd never let you go..."
"What's going to make this enough?"
Nancy brushed the side of her hand angrily against her wet face. "I love you," she whispered, pleading. "Ned, love me, please love me..."
He kissed her, sudden, hard, and she cried out in relief, her body melting against and into his. "Nan, I love you so much and I've never felt less in control than when you walk out that door to him..."
"It's not me!" she cried out, tears spilling down her cheeks again. "It's not me! I would never, I love you so much, I love you, I want you—"
She buried her face against his shoulder, heedless of anything, clinging to him as surely as he clung to her. She felt a sob rising and stifled it, and breathed "Hurt."
"Oh God," Ned whispered. He ran a hand over her hair. "Nan..."
"Shh," she whispered, eyes closed, all her energy spent. "Just hold me."
He waited until she was asleep. He'd thought that he could just slip out. But despite himself, despite her occasional gasped breath, he felt himself slipping. He thought maybe his presence was hurting her, just his being there beside her, but she was warm and naked and he was so tired, so tired, and she was holding the arm he had slung over her stomach.
When he woke she wasn't in bed with him anymore. He found her on their balcony staring moodily out to sea, her eyes matching the grey of the sky. She was wrapped in the hotel bathrobe, holding it tight around her, leaning against the rail, against the wind.
"Hey," he said quietly. He rested a hand on her back.
"Hey," she replied, toneless.
"I'm sorry," he said after a long silence had stretched between them.
She smiled wryly and stroked her abs. "Yeah. Well, I doubt I'll do that again."
"Go walking in your sleep?"
"Something like that." Nancy leaned forward again.
Ned took a deep breath. "I think we need to get out of here."
Nancy turned to him, opened her mouth, then shook her head and leaned forward again.
"What is it?"
"And go where, Ned?" Nancy burst out.
Ned's brow furrowed. "Back to River Heights."
Nancy shook her head. "You don't understand," she muttered.
"I don't understand what?" Ned grabbed her arm and turned her toward him. "What do I not understand?"
Nancy's eyes widened. "Are you going to hurt me again?"
"I hurt her," Ned breathed.
Bess picked at her pretzel. A flying grain of salt hit Ned on his tanned arm. "I think we do need to get out of here. I say they make one last sweep of the mansion and then we hit the next plane." She shivered. "I want to get out of here."
Bess and Ned were the only guests under the canopy. A strong wind had kicked up, and Bess was shivering in her sundress. She looked at him over the table and pulled a cardigan over her shoulders.
"Maybe once we get out of here she'll forget about him."
"There's no evidence of anyone having been back here."
Jeff turned to Bess. "I don't know what else to tell you."
Bess leaned down and picked up a gum wrapper. She twisted it between her fingers and let the weak sun gleam off it. "Thanks," she murmured. "You'll let me know if you find her, won't you?"
"Sure thing."
Bess walked away, still folding the wrapper between her fingers.
"Believe me, if it were up to me I'd stay here," Nancy said, shooting a dirty glance over her shoulder. "Daniel, I really don't know what to tell you. I think she doesn't want to be found. Do you really want to keep looking for someone who doesn't want to come back?"
After Nancy had hung up the phone, Ned pulled back the covers on her side of the bed, patted the mattress. "Come on in," he said.
Nancy reached for her tennis shoes. "I'm going to take a walk," she said.
Ned took her arm, gently. "Talk to me," he whispered.
"There's nothing to talk about."
"There are a lot of things to talk about." He slid his fingers down her arm, down to her fingers. "Why have you shut me out like this?"
Nancy shuddered. "You hurt me," she whispered.
"I swear to God I didn't mean to."
"What would that have changed?" Nancy stood up and paced the space between the bed and the balcony. "What if I walk out tonight, are you going to bring me back and rape me—"
"I didn't rape you." Ned stood, his voice low and dangerous.
"I know that." Nancy wiped tears from her eyes. "Not this time."
"I would never." Ned's fist convulsively clenched and unclenched.
"I don't know who I am, what I'm doing, I can't—"
"How can you even say that."
Nancy dropped to the floor, sobbing. "Ned I'm sorry just don't touch me—"
"I'll touch you anytime I damn well want," he growled, grabbing her by the arm and throwing her onto their bed. She cried out and watched him through red-rimmed eyes, curled in on herself, shaking for fear he'd touch her again.
"Nancy..." Ned shook his head suddenly. "I'm sorry. Look, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you last night, I just... how could you possibly think that?"
Nancy grabbed a kleenex from the box on the bedside table and wiped her face. "Could you just calm down and think for a minute that when we got here you and I were just dating?"
"But we'd talked about getting married before..."
"Where the hell are we going to live, Ned?" Nancy laughed harshly. "I look at another guy and you..." Nancy swept her arm wide, over the bed. "Whatever happened last night. I needed it, you needed it, I wanted you to do that, but I have no idea what happened. No idea. I feel like I woke from one nightmare to another one. You're jealous and I'm afraid and I want this to be over, but I have no idea how to fix it. Or how long I'm going to remember last night every time you touch me."
"Right now?" he whispered. "Right now are you remembering it?" He slid his fingers all the way down her arm, and she shivered.
Nancy closed her eyes. "Don't hurt me again." Her fingers twitched under his.
"I swear to you I will never hurt you again."
"If I tell you to stop..." her lips were trembling.
"Then I'll stop. Doesn't matter where we are."
He pulled the shades and turned off the lights, then took off his clothes and joined her under the covers, where she was shaking, similarly waiting. He laced his fingers between hers and they lay with foreheads touching.
"Are you okay?" he whispered.
She nodded. "Yeah," she replied.
He curved an arm around her shoulders and pulled them together. "I'm actually tired," Ned laughed. "This has been one of the longest days of my life."
"You too?" Nancy looped her arms around his neck. "I'll take a raincheck, trust me."
"Come on, please," Bess giggled. "For me. It's not like we have that much time."
"Fine." Jeff grumbled, but smiled at her, as he picked up the phone and called headquarters. After a brief conversation, he hung up the phone and grabbed Bess.
She squealed and pushed him back after a few kisses. "So?"
"Results haven't come back from the lab yet."
"Remind me to give you my forwarding address when we're done here."
"Yeah, because you're about to have your mind blown, baby." He grinned and kissed her again.
"I left you a note," Nancy called over her shoulder.
"I didn't find it," Ned replied. "But I was strangely calm when I didn't find you beside me."
He leaned over and studied the sand castle she was making in the moonlight, the waves barely lapping at her heels. Her fingers traced curves in the mound's surface.
"This is it," she whispered. "I didn't find her. I feel like I let Daniel down."
Ned settled down behind Nancy, his chest solidly against her back, his legs spread to envelop hers, his arms around her waist. She paused for a second as he adjusted, then went back to smoothing a pile of sand up into a tower, without turning around to face him.
"There are no leads, there's no trail to follow. And I'm afraid if we stay here that you'll lose your mind, or I will." He rested his head against her shoulder, his mouth close to her ear. "I love you so much," he whispered.
"I love you too," she replied. Her fingers shook a little and one of the towers partially crumbled into an uneven pile of damp sand. He sighed and she felt it brush against the fine hairs on her neck, and she shivered.
"What is it?"
In answer he pulled her to his chest and leaned back, until his back was against the sand and his chin was against the crown of her head. She held his arms over her stomach, and carefully balanced her legs on his spread ones, not wanting to disturb the castle complex between them.
He was quiet for a long moment, then he laughed, reached up and brushed some of her hair out of his face. "I kind of want to know why you came out here tonight," he finally murmured.
"I wanted to see the stars one last time. They're so beautiful here, away from all the city lights."
"Are you sure you don't feel him?"
"I'm sure now." Her tone was hard, but not cold.
"Will you come back to bed with me and let me love you?"
She smiled. "How long have I been waiting to hear you speak those words."
"Hey," Bess called sleepily in the morning.
"Hey," Jeff replied, smiling at Bess's tousled hair. "Have a nice flight."
"You too." She gave him the finger when he chuckled. "Hey, bring me my purse. I want to give you my address and phone number for those test results."
"I could send them to Nancy," Jeff replied, but brought her the purse anyway. She started digging through it for a pen.
"Well, yeah, but what if I wanted to arrange a little return visit?" Bess smiled, still searching. She came up with a handful of assorted bits of paper she had in her purse, and one of the first things she pulled from her fingers was the slightly crumpled gum wrapper.
"Hey. Jeff?"
"What is it?"
"Get this analyzed too."
Jeff accepted the wrapper with a wrinkled forehead. "A gum wrapper you found in the bottom of your purse."
"No. I found it at Jean's house. I wasn't sure if it meant anything."
"What makes you think it does mean anything? That wrapper could have just blown onto his property."
"Look, humor me. I'll definitely eat my words if it turns out to be nothing." Bess ran her fingers through her hair. "Prove me wrong, you know you want to."
"You're so cute when you're angry," Jeff laughed.
George nodded to the stewardess. "Screwdriver."
Bess had been staring intently at the LED screen on the back of the seat in front of her. Slowly she paused the movie, moved an earphone from her ear, and turned to stare at her cousin. "I'm sorry, I think I just heard you say..."
"Here's your screwdriver," the stewardess said, placing a punch-sized plastic cup in front of George along with the napkin and tiny bag of honey roasted peanuts. "You?"
Bess shook her head. "Just a Sprite, please." She gestured the woman to move on once she had received her drink, not wanting her to stick around and hear Nancy and Ned's less than inconspicuous murmurings. "Killing a hangover?"
"You'd know if you hadn't called it an early night with that cop." George tossed back her drink and tore open the peanut bag.
"Excuse me if I didn't want to stick around and watch you dirty dancing with Mister All-American. What was his name again?"
"I didn't quite catch the name."
"Oh? Too busy falling asleep while watching movies?"
"Something like that. So did your little tryst with the cop actually result in anything, like getting those test results back?"
Bess sighed, crossed her arms and leaned back in her seat. "Not yet. But at least I gave him the gum wrapper before we left."
"You sure we shouldn't just have taken it to Chief McGinnis? I think he might have gotten things done a bit faster than some island cop you wrapped around your little finger."
Bess shrugged. "The longer we stayed there, the less optimistic I was about finding Jamie. Especially if what Nancy said is true, that Jean has Jamie. Jean is viciously hot. Daniel may be a cutie, but he'd never pass for Johnny Depp even if you gave him a wig and brown contacts."
"But he might have Jamie drugged. Like Ned was sure he did to Nancy."
Bess started chewing the end of her straw once she'd drained her punch cup. "Yeah, but she sure looks fine now, doesn't she?"
George stared past her cousin and had to admit she was right. Gone was the jealous, paranoid guy Ned had started to become. George could hardly believe Bess's account of what had happened between Nancy and Ned a couple of nights before, not with his hand firmly holding Nancy's, his eyes laughing into hers.
George dropped her voice. "Has she talked to you any more about him... getting rough with her?"
Bess shook her head slowly. "She didn't even tell me. He did."
George sighed and popped another peanut into her mouth. "I am going to be so glad to get back to River Heights. Away from all this paranoid chatter about missing girls." She crumpled the bag in her fist and stuffed it into the rear pocket, then folded up her tray table. "Wake me up after Lord of the Rings," she yawned, gesturing to Bess's paused movie screen.
"Sure," Bess agreed.