My Sister's Keeper

Chapter 20

20

I HADN'T HAD TIME to get a coat and the cold air was almost unbearable as I trailed the Corvette through town. The helmet's interior support straps dug into my stitches and tormented me with every bump. I took down the man's license plate number and was about to head back when he made a left turn toward Wrightsville Beach and I decided to stay with him a little longer.

He crossed the bridge to the barrier island and turned north where the air got much colder and tasted heavily of salt. The moon accompanied me, its reflection sparkling like diamonds off the ocean.

Many of the homes in Wrightsville Beach had been built in the first half of the twentieth century. One-story wooden white structures with colorful shutters and screened porches that sometimes wrapped completely around them. The vegetation was minimal and most driveways were sand, shell, or rock. In summer, there would be cars parked all around the cottages with surfboards on their roofs or leaning against the buildings, flags flapping in the wind, and men and women in flip-flops and sandals walking everywhere.

As we rode farther up the island, the houses got newer and larger. Finally, the Corvette slowed and turned into the drive of a well-lit elegant three-story residence sitting high on pilings overlooking the ocean.

Slowing, I turned up the driveway of an unoccupied weekend rental on the opposite side of the road, parked the bike under it, and lifted the helmet off.

Across the road, the car slid up under the beach house and extinguished its lights. John-Boy got out, leapt up the wide front staircase to the main floor, and disappeared inside.

Outdoor lighting burned brightly around the house and I doubted I'd be able to get very close until it was off. Leaving the bike, I hiked up the road, cut through a vacant lot to the beach, and drifted back toward the house.

An icy breeze blustered off the ocean and the flags up and down the shore popped and clinked on their metal poles. Waves crashed onto shore and pushed almost to the dunes before receding. With sea foam blowing past my feet, I stuffed my hands under my armpits and proceeded on toward the brightly-lit house. Sand, carried by the wind, stung my face and collected in my eyes. I lowered my head and ploughed forward. As I drew nearer, I spied two giggly young women on a patio behind the house wrapped in blankets passing a joint back and forth. I wondered who these people were and if Ashleigh had spent time there, and if she could be there now. Alive.

The house looked like something out of Architectural Digest with large windows, unusual portals, and ornate colored glass. There were porches on all three floors running the entire width of the house with stairs joining each level to a dock-like walk that connected the house to the beach—humped in the middle to rise over the dunes.

I dropped into the sea oats on a sand dune next door and waited for the lights to go out. Around 1:00 a.m., the girls disappeared inside and the outside lights went off. Soon after, lights inside began going out and eventually the last of the lights on the third floor went off.

I waited another twenty minutes before crawling over the dunes into the back yard. Immediately, the floodlights snapped back on and my heart did a double slam in my chest. I held my composure, acted a little tipsy, and continued on hoping the lights had been turned on by an automatic sensor and not by security personnel.

As I passed the side of the house, I ducked under a set of stairs, held my breath, and listened. The pounding of the surf made it impossible to hear if anyone was coming, so I pressed back into the shadows and waited. The raw wind off the ocean swirled around me and robbed me of heat. My body shivered, my teeth chattered, and sand stuck to my skin. Pulling my knees up, I wrapped my arms around them, jerked my shirt up over my nose, and breathed into it to capture the warmth.

At 2:00 a.m., the outside lights went off again. Ten minutes later I prowled from my hiding space and inched up the stairs to the first level.

The porch held a dozen white rockers set in ghostly motion by the steady ocean breeze. There were a few shrubs and ornamental trees in stone planters. Gazing over the top step, I could see little more than the moon reflecting back at me off the sliding glass doors. I squeezed in behind a recently manicured square bush and crawled up to the house under cover of a budding Ficus tree. The moon passed behind a cloud and darkness closed in.

I shielded my eyes against the salt-glazed glass and stared into a dark room. The moon reappeared and I could make out a giant-sized TV screen, walls lined with videocassettes, DVDs, and speaker grills, along with plush couches and chairs neatly arranged to face the screen. It was a private movie theater.

As the moonlight again faded, a sliding glass door rumbled open at the other end of the porch. Hidden behind the tree, I watched as a young woman stepped out onto the deck and gently closed the door behind her. She strode barefooted to the stairs and down a few steps where she pulled her thin robe tightly around her and sat less than a dozen feet from me facing the ocean. She lifted a cell phone from a pocket, flipped it open, turned it on, and pressed the lighted number pad. I could hear the various tones as she touched each one. It sounded like Mary Had a Little Lamb with a note too high at the end. She held the phone to her ear, covered her mouth with her hand, and waited. Finally, she whispered something I couldn't hear then raised her voice a little.

"Bobby, it's me, Angie." She turned her head and looked back at the dark house. The moon reappeared and lit the porch like a floodlight. I remained motionless watching her through the budding tree.

"No, I'm still here," she whispered, turning away and tucking her head down. "I don't know—tomorrow maybe. Something's happened to one of the girls. Everything has been crazy."

A light came on in the room behind me and Angie hopped down a couple of steps, bent lower, and twisted around surveying the activity inside with frightened eyes. I dared not move. I would now be a silhouette against the bright room to Angie and easily visible through the glass from the inside. I was trapped.

I could hear my heart pounding and resisted the instinctive urge to leap over Angie and flee for my life.

"I've got to go," Angie whispered. "I love you, too. I'll call you later." She turned the phone off, dropped it back into her robe pocket, and hunkered lower on the steps. Her reddish hair was pinned up behind her ears and her face was covered with freckles. She couldn't have been more than eighteen and looked closer to fifteen. She slid backward another step and clasped the neck of her robe closed. She suddenly gasped and flailed backward nearly losing her balance as her bright blue eyes discovered me.