“So, Charlotte, you were the only person I couldn’t find. I figured that meant you were a good person to start with. Maybe, I thought, you were hiding out for some reason. Maybe you knew more about the Whitmore situation than I did.”
Charlotte sniffed and looked down at her hands. But she didn’t protest, which made Alexander think,She does know more than she’s telling me. Maybe she always has.
Could he trust anyone in the Whitmore family?
Nina sounded flustered. “I don’t understand. What did you see that night?”
Alexander felt it like a needle through his heart. “I don’t think it’ll help anyone if I talk about it. I don’t want you to be at the mercy of whoever’s threatening me.” He glanced from side to side on the veranda, feeling paranoid. But ever since the messages had begun in the early 2000s, he’d felt the same, like someone was watching his every move and waiting for him to make a mistake.
“Whoever leaked information about me to my employer, and my wife found out,” Alexander said. “That’s enough damage for one lifetime, I think. I don’t know if Janie will ever talk to me again.”
Nina squinted at him.
“And my kids…” Alexander trailed off. He remembered his own father, how Benjamin had never let Alexander off the hook when it came to the White Oak Lodge, how he’d forced Alexander through back-breaking work, day in and day out, telling him that it was his legacy. Alexander had hated it. He’d wanted the White Oak Lodge to burn. Figuratively, he thought.
Alexander sputtered, “But how did you know I was the one who sent the investigator?”
Charlotte and Nina exchanged a nervous laugh.
“He was here at the villa, talking to Mom,” Charlotte said. “We were spying on them. But I remembered that my luggage tag had a tracker in it, you know, just in case they lose your luggage. And before Ned left, I ran over and threw it in his car. We watched him drive to that hotel in Florence, so we decided to go over there and demand answers.”
Alexander could hardly believe his ears.
“I went upstairs and waited and watched as you answered the door,” Nina said. “I couldn’t believe it. I considered accosting you, but we panicked and went home to regroup.”
“We even flew back to Nantucket and stayed for a little while,” Charlotte said. “Enough time to decide something absolutely insane.”
Alexander frowned. “What could be more insane than any of this?”
Nina threw her arms up. “We’re going to reopen the White Oak Lodge.”
Alexander was on his feet so fast that he nearly spilled his glass of wine. It teetered to and fro on the table, and he steadied it in the nick of time. “You’re kidding.”
“We’re not,” Charlotte said. “We’ve already got a construction crew hard at work on it, cleaning up the debris and figuring out a path forward. And Amos…”
“Amos? Not Amos the high schooler?” Alexander remembered the kid who’d been involved in Tio Angelo’s scheme, remembered how poor he’d been and how obvious it had been that Tio Angelo had wanted to manipulate him to do whatever he wanted.
Nina looked formidable. “Amos is a very dear friend of mine.”
Alexander sat back down, no longer able to stand. None of this made any sense.
“We met when I got to the island earlier this summer,” Nina said. “He’s told me things about the Lodge, about what he and Jack were doing, that made my toes curl. In essence, it sounds like Tio Angelo ruined his life.” Her eyes were shadowed.
Alexander remembered Jack and Amos, staggering around the grounds of the hotel, cackling, so sure that they were about to rule the world. Tio Angelo had infected them.
“For most of that time, I was never really sure what was going on,” Alexander whispered. “But I had my suspicions. And I curse myself for not stepping in. Maybe I could have fixed it before it all fell apart.”
Charlotte and Nina were quiet, contemplative. Their paths had taken such extraordinary turns since that day in July 1998. But now they were here, together.
“The luggage tag was a good idea,” Alexander said, trying to laugh.
His sisters tried to join him, but everything felt too sad and strange.
Suddenly, Nina perked up and put on a secretive smile. “Question,” she said, sounding more like she had at eleven than the age she was now. “Did you know that our mom isn’t my real mom?”
Alexander’s blood pressure skyrocketed. He remembered how cruel his mother had always been to Nina, how she’dnever spoken Italian to her, and how she’d seemed genuinely exhausted when it came to caring for Nina. It had always boggled his mind back then. Nina had been so curious, kind, introspective, and wonderful. If anything, she’d been the perfect child.
Quietly, he muttered, “You know?”
