want to be with her husband. And two, I think she wants to talk with you. She asked me specifically if you would be there.”
Great, Daria thought. Once on the mainland, she would have to worry not only about the fate of the Sea Shanty and the well-being of her anxious, phobic sister, but she would have to answer Grace’s questions about an accident she could not honestly discuss.
Rory must have picked up her dismay. “Maybe I should have told her not to come,” he said.
“It’ll be all right,” Daria said, and she helped Zack lift the next sheet of plywood into place.
That night they packed their suitcases, carried Daria’s tools into the cottage from the first-story workroom and brought the porch furniture inside. Shelly threw up half the night, and Daria felt nearly as sick.
Early the following morning, she sat up in bed and looked out the window toward the ocean. The waves were distinctly swollen and frothy, the sea oats blew nearly parallel to the sand, and the sky was low and thick with bloated gray clouds. Even in her room, Daria felt that shift in the atmosphere that was so hard to describe but so clearly an indicator that the storm was well on its way. The air seemed to lack oxygen; it was hard to breathe.
She dressed quickly and went downstairs, where Chloe was making a fruit salad for breakfast.
“Where’s Shelly?” Daria asked. Shelly was usually first up in the morning and her absence sent an instant chill up Daria’s spine.
“I haven’t seen her,” Chloe said.
“I told her last night that she should be ready to leave by eight this morning.”
It was already seven-thirty.
“I have a bad feeling about this,” Daria said.
Chloe looked up from the peach she was slicing.
“Maybe she’s on the beach,” she suggested.
“One last chance to gather shells before the storm.”
“I’m going upstairs to see if she’s at least packed.” With a mounting sense of dread, Daria climbed the stairs. Her knock on Shelly’s door was not answered, and she went into the room. Shelly’s bed was neatly made, but there was no sign of a suitcase. Maybe she hadn’t packed yet. Then Daria spotted the note taped to the mirror above Shelly’s dresser. She moved closer to read it.
Go on without me, it read.
Daria and Chloe set off in one direction on the beach, while Rory and Zack headed in the other.
“If Shelly’s out here, we’ll find her,” Rory had reassured her. Daria had alerted them to Shelly’s disappearance after combing the Sea Shanty from top to bottom. She’d looked in the work room, the closets and under the beds, but Shelly was no where to be found. Pete had been right, she thought. Shelly’s judgment was atrocious. She needed more super vision than Daria was able to give her.
There were still a few hearty souls on the beach, dressed in windbreakers, their hair whipping around their heads as they stared out to sea to watch the sky darken and the water chum. Daria and Chloe didn’t speak as they walked. It was too difficult; the wind threw their words back in their faces. Even walking itself was a chore, and it distressed Daria to think that Shelly might be out here some where, expecting to weather the storm alone on the beach. But by the time she and Chloe had thoroughly scoured the beach to the south, and Rory and Zack to the north, Daria was convinced her sister was not on the beach, after all. Those few people who had been out to watch the storm’s approach had disappeared as well by then, wisely heeding the warnings to leave the Outer Banks.
She searched the Sea Shanty once again, checking the nooks and crannies, peering inside her car and Chloe’s car and Rory’s Jeep. It was close to noon, and Jill and her family, Linda, Jackie and the dogs had long since left the cul-de-sac.
Only the Wheelers remained, and they were packing up their minivan and station wagon, filling them with suitcases and kids.
Daria stood on the bare porch with Rory, a well of frustration in her chest. Her hair was thick and woolly as it blew around her face, and she tightened her windbreaker across her chest.
“You and Zack need to get out of here,” she said to Rory.
“What are you going to do?” Rory asked.
“I’m not leaving until I find her,” Daria said. She felt the quivering of her chin, betraying her worry, and Rory reached out to squeeze her arm.
“I’m not going, either, then.” He glanced down the cul-de-sac toward the Wheelers’ cottage.
“Let me see if Zack can go with them. It would thrill him, I’m sure. Then I can stay behind.”
“You really should go,” she said, although she desperately wanted him to stay.
“We might not be able to get out of here, and it could get dangerous. And won’t Grace be expecting you to show up at the motel?”
“Yes, but at least she’ll be safe. I can’t leave without knowing that Shelly is, too.” He looked toward the Wheelers’ cottage again.
“I’ll be right back,” he said.
She watched him walk down the cul-de-sac to the Wheelers’ cottage, where he spoke with Ruth Wheeler. Tears burned Daria’s eyes; she wanted him to stay so badly. After a minute, he walked back to Poll-Rory, and she guessed he was asking Zack if he would mind going with the Wheelers. She was still standing on the porch when Zack emerged from the cottage, carrying a duffel bag. He waved to Daria as he started walking toward the Wheelers’, and Rory rejoined her on the porch.
“Okay,” he said.
“I’m yours as long as you need me.”
