Chapter Fourteen
“SO HOW DID NEZBIT MAKE HIS MONEY?” R.J. asked, leaning back in his chair on two legs, a toothpick in his mouth. Sara thought all that was needed was for Charlie Daniels to be playing in the background.
“That’s the great mystery of the island,” Gideon said, pushing away his plate. He had eaten some of everything Sara had made: fried apples, biscuits, scrambled eggs, bacon, and little pancakes with smiley faces on them. The twins had run outside ten minutes before, probably to get the clean off them. “How old are you?” Gideon asked Sara.
“Too old for you,” R.J. said quickly. “So how do you think your dad—Sorry, Nezbit—makes his money?”
“And who’s the TV shopper?” Sara nodded toward the house below them.
“His wife,” Gideon said, shrugging.
Sara looked at R.J. Gideon didn’t call either of them mother or father.
“I don’t trust any of this,” R.J. said to Gideon and Sara could hear the caution in his voice. “I don’t think any of this is as innocent as you think it is. I think someone means to harm us.”
Gideon looked from one to the other of them. “What’s happened?”
Sara sat down at the table with them. “You need to tell him,” she said to R.J. “We have today and tomorrow and that’s it. If someone opens that— You know what I mean. We have to trust someone.”
Gideon looked at R.J. “I can understand that you don’t trust me since I live here on this god-forsaken island. When I said I’d do anything to get off it, I was telling the truth. Fenny Nezbit has used me as a pack horse since I was six years old. I don’t know where I came from, but I suspect my ancestry has something to do with that house he lives in and with this cabin.”
Getting up, he went to an old cabinet against a wall, pulled out a tattered sketch book, and tossed it on the table. “I drew those.”
R.J. took the book and began flipping pages as Sara looked over his shoulder. There were beautiful drawings of buildings that seemed to rise out of the sea, others that were set back into cliffs so they looked to be part of the landscape. There were pages of drawings of seashells and clams, then the shapes were transformed into houses.
“You have talent,” R.J. said.
“Which proves I’m not Fenny Nezbit’s son.” Gideon sat back down at the table. “He made me quit high school when I turned sixteen. He said too much education ‘waren’t good for a man.’ I was going to run away then. I was going to stow away on that damned ferry boat and leave this island forever.”
There was so much anger in his voice that Sara reached out and put her hand over his. “That’s when he brought the twins home, isn’t it?”
“Yes. He knew me. He said he’d throw the kids out to sea if I left.”
“What about their parents?” R.J. asked.
Gideon shrugged. “I have no idea. Boat wreck, probably. I tried to find out, but couldn’t.”
Sara felt her heart breaking at what the beautiful boy had gone through, but R.J. was sitting back in his seat and watching him. She got the feeling that he didn’t trust Gideon, but she wasn’t sure why. Did he think the boy was lying?
“He’s dead,” R.J. said after a while.
“What?”
“John Fenwick Nezbit is dead. We found him shot through the head and lying in the bathtub in Phyllis Vancurren’s house.”
Gideon’s handsome face turned pale.
“Are you all right?” Sara asked.
“It’s over,” he whispered. “The twins and I are free. We can leave and no one will come after us. Thank you.”
“Wait a minute!” R.J. said. “We didn’t kill him.”
“Then who did?” Gideon asked, then smiled a bit. “Right, you think I should know that.” He got up from the table and went to the front window to look out. “It could have been a hundred people, including Phyllis. Fenny used to pester her until she threatened him with death. Everyone knew she’d been the mistress of some rich man, so Fenny thought she was a whore and should put out for him.”
“Who else?” R.J. asked.
“The other two.”