CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
DEAR READER
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
EXTRACT
Deep gray fog rolled over the surface of Lake Huron, slipping through the open door to the ferry deck, and blocking out the afternoon sun. Meg Duff braced her palm against the doorframe and took in a long, cleansing breath. The smell of impending rain filled the air. She stood with her feet just inside the threshold of the crowded passenger lounge. Pale blue eyes stared out into the void. Wind brushed against her face, tossing her dark, chin-length hair. A shiver ran down her spine. The deck was deserted.
Just two more days until the wedding, Meg. All you’ve got to do is hold it together until then. Somewhere on this boat were a young bride and groom headed to Manitoulin Island for their dream wedding. The last thing they needed was to find out their wedding planner was having a panic attack.
She glanced at her cell phone. Twenty minutes until they reached shore. Her palm pressed against her chest. She focused on its rhythmic rise and fall. As the only professional wedding planner on a beautiful and remote island, she’d organized more than her fair share of weddings for big-city couples, who’d parachute into her community just long enough say “I do” and cut the cake. But this wedding had quickly become the most expensive and demanding of her career. The young couple were college students in Toronto, who’d agreed to get married on the island to butter up the bride’s elderly grandmother who lived there, and who was paying the bills. The wedding had been organized solely with the high-strung bride, and almost entirely by phone and email. Within five minutes of joining the wedding party at the mainland ferry docks, the bride had launched into a string of ridiculously detailed questions about decorations at the reception venue, while the imposing best man had made an unwanted romantic advance that left Meg feeling both flustered and insulted.
But that was nothing compared to the panic that had coursed through her when she looked into the young groom’s eyes and was struck by flashbacks of a tragic night so many years ago.
Why hadn’t she realized she was actually planning a wedding for the cousin of someone whose senseless death still haunted her nightmares?
It had been fourteen years since a truck had collided with two teenaged boys on snowmobiles—the groom’s cousin Chris, and Meg’s younger brother, Benji. She’d been seventeen. But the young groom, Wesley, had only been seven at the time. His family had moved off the island shortly afterward. She hadn’t even recognized his name until she’d seen his face. He’d given no sign that he recognized hers. Did the groom and his bride even know how that night also tore her life in two? Should she tell them? Surely if she didn’t, someone else on the island would. But how could she damper the happiest day of their lives by bringing up memories like that?
A bag knocked hard against her back, almost forcing her out into the fog. She glanced over her shoulder, but the culprit had already disappeared into the crowd without so much as an apology. She turned back to the gloom, shoved her phone into her pocket and wrapped her scarf twice around her neck. Crocheted strands tumbled down her slender frame, all the way to her knees, but did little to protect against the damp. Silhouettes of the shoreline swirled into focus for a moment, before being swallowed back up by the never-ending gray. She should really close the door.
“Excuse me, miss?”
There was a man behind her. Tall, with the broad shoulders and the tapered build of an athlete. His brown leather jacket was faded and worn, while his tousled, sun-kissed hair would’ve made her presume he was just another thrill-seeking tourist if it wasn’t for how very intently his dark eyes were now searching her face.
A flush of heat rose to her cheeks. “Can I help you?”
His mouth turned up ever so slightly into a casual, laid-back grin. But the intensity of his gaze never faltered for a second. The warmth spread down her neck and through her shoulders. It looked like the smile of a man who’d seen more than his fair share of danger.
It was the kind of smile that made her feel anything but safe.
“My name is Jack Brooks. I’m a reporter with Torchlight News, Toronto.” Too late she saw the voice recorder in his outstretched hand. He raised the microphone toward her. “Would it be all right if I asked you a few questions?”
Her blood ran cold. A reporter? Was the press actually going to cover this wedding? As if it wasn’t bad enough she’d had to watch those scandal-seeking newshounds trampling all over her lawn as a teenager, while her brother lay in the hospital fighting for his life. They’d kept coming back, every few years, to revisit the story. Now it seemed she had to face them again, just because she hadn’t been quick enough to realize a connection between that tragedy and this groom. Was the shadow of that night going to follow her for the rest of her life?
All this and it was still only Thursday. How was she ever going to make it through this weekend without falling apart?
Jack Brooks could waste all the handsome grins on her that he wanted. She knew the look of a man who was after something. He wasn’t going to get it from her. “No. I’m sorry. I don’t talk to reporters.”
Then before he could say anything more, she pushed through the open doorway and out into the cool, damp air, barely even noticing something clatter behind her. He didn’t follow. A thick blanket of gray enveloped her body. She strode down the deck. The babble of voices faded completely. Then the light of the lounge disappeared in the fog.
There was muffled sound to her right. A rustling, like footsteps shuffling. Hang on, had someone else actually wandered out on deck in this weather?
Meg turned. “Hello?” No one there. Silence filled her ears, except for the thrum of the engines beneath her. A jittery feeling brushed along the back of her neck. She slid her hands onto the railing.
Enough of this. She was stressed. Rattled. Nothing more. She just needed to pray. A deep breath filled her lungs. She let it out slowly. Her eyes closed as the words of her favorite hymn moved through her mind like a prayer, “Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say, It is well. It is well with my—”
The full-body blow was hard and without warning as her attacker pushed her into the railing. The air was knocked from her chest. A scream barely escaped from her lungs before a leather-gloved hand clamped over her mouth, forcing her silent.
Ice-cold panic gripped her chest so tightly her body felt paralyzed. The attacker’s other hand grabbed the scarf at her throat and twisted it like a noose. Slowly he squeezed the air from her windpipe. The desperate need to breathe burst through her body. She shoved back against her attacker with every ounce of energy she had. Her head thrashed. The gloved hand slipped just enough to let her glance back. But all she could see was the orange hood of a raincoat.
He shoved her forward again, pinning her body against the railing, her small frame no match for his strength. Then he let go of her mouth. She opened her lips, but could barely make a sound as she gasped to fill her lungs with air. He grabbed hold of the bottom ends of her scarf and twisted them around her wrists, tying her hands together. Then he lifted her off the deck. She kicked out hard, her feet desperately searching for grip while she wrenched her bound hands, trying to get them free. But even as she struggled, he forced her over the railing
