“You couldn’t help it! We knew you had all that power up at the Lodge.” Amos laughed good-naturedly. He took over where Nina left off with the vegetables, telling her to sit down and rest. Nina did, sipping her wine and watching the rest of them. Charlotte put on a playlist and bopped around the kitchen, crunching on one of the peppers that Alexander had chopped.
“That, and your uncle told me to steer clear of you,” Amos added, furrowing his brow. It was as though he’d just remembered it.
Alexander sat on a stool and swirled his wine. “I’m not surprised about that. He knew I was watching him. I wanted to shut down his whole operation, but I failed at every turn.”
Amos sighed. “I think he had people in the police force he was working with anyway. There’s a reason he, Benjamin, and Jack were able to disappear like that.”
“Maybe Dad caught him and threatened him,” Charlotte suggested, “and Tio Angelo explained that he had a deal with the cops that made everything safe for the Lodge?”
“But then why were the cops fishing around during the months before the fire?” Nina asked.
“I’m sure they had to keep up appearances,” Amos said. “People were talking. I remember because they were always talking right behind my back.” His face turned stony.
Alexander’s chest suddenly felt hollow. It occurred to him that, although he was now safe on Nantucket—safe with Charlotte and Nina—and that his relationship with his mother was somewhat mended, so many questions were still left unanswered. Where was Jack? They were living in a house that belonged to him, for crying out loud. It felt strange to use his plates and bowls, walk on his veranda, stomp the sand from their feet onto his welcome mat, and still know that he wasn’t going to darken the doorway any time soon. Plus, there was the issue of Jack’s relatively new disappearance from Hawaii. His wife said that he’d been seen in conversation with an older man. Was that Tio Angelo? Were Jack and Tio Angelo still up to no good?
If so, how had Charlotte lived and built such a profound relationship with Jack during their twenties? Which version of Jack was the “real” version?
Somehow, the five of them managed to halt all historical topics for the night and focus on a task that excited them all, save for Alexander: the reopening of the White Oak Lodge. Amos outlined his conversations with various contractors and showed off artificially created images of what a ballroom might look like if they wanted to build on it, and what the dining room would look like if they wanted to update everything completely. He showed artificial photographs of interior suites, gorgeous beds, and glowing windows, depicting completely updated grounds—fresh tennis courts, improved stables, and so on.This project will take a great deal of time, Alexander thought. But Amos speculated that they’d reopen by the following season. 2026.
It felt impossible.
“I don’t know what to say,” Alexander offered, looking again at the artificial photograph of a suite, imagining himself and Janie staying there, with their children down the hall. The idea of it almost overwhelmed him, and he handed Amos’s phone back across the table.
“Vincent said he’ll consider being our chef,” Charlotte said, reaching for Vincent’s knee under the table.
Vincent grinned. “The idea of being the top chef at the iconic White Oak Lodge is thrilling, to say the least.”
“And the reopening will bring in tons of press,” Nina said. “We’ll have everyone picking around at our past, demanding answers for what happened. It’ll bring in loads of guests, obviously. Everyone loves a dramatic story. But we’ll need to figure out a way to spin it.”
Charlotte grinned. “You’re so smart, Nina.”
Nina laughed.
“She has a Ph.D., for crying out loud,” Amos boasted, gazing at Nina adoringly.
Suddenly, everyone turned their heads to look at Alexander, as though they needed final approval from him, the eldest Whitmore, the “heir to the throne,” so to speak.
After a long time, he sputtered, “It sounds wonderful. Let me know how I can help.”
But did he mean it?
The following early evening, Alexander showered, put on a pair of slacks and a dark blue button-down, and drove the rental out to Vincent’s restaurant to meet his wife for dinner. Vincent had ensured they were given the very best table on the veranda, with what he said was the best view of the sunset on all the islands. Alexander had wanted to pick Janie up from her guesthouse, but she’d insisted they meet there. Probably, she wanted to make sure she had a quick escape.
Alexander was the enemy.
Alexander entered the swanky restaurant and greeted the hostess, who showed him to a table in the far back corner of the veranda. A few eyes flickered toward him as he walked, and he wondered if they recognized him as a Whitmore. He knew he looked like Benjamin, like his grandfather. People had even said he looked like Ronald, Benjamin’s brother, who drowned in that awful accident. None of the tables nearby had been taken yet, and Alexander secretly hoped nobody would fill them so that he and Janie could hash out what they needed to say without prying ears. A server came up, and Alexander ordered himself a glass of dry red wine because he wanted to do something with his hands.
As he waited for Janie, he remembered a scene from January of this year, when Janie asked him for a divorce. He’d just returned from three weeks of flying all over South America,and he’d missed everything: Gwen’s music recital, Xander’s basketball games, and Conor’s speech competitions. It was like he was a character in the wrong book. Janie had said, “If you don’t want to be part of this family, if you don’t want to be a part of any family, you need to go.” It had broken him apart.
“Don’t you see,” he’d wanted to say, “there’s a hole in my chest that I can’t recover from.” He wondered if it was leftover from his father’s disappearance. He asked if it was because he was so worried that whoever had been threatening him years ago would pick back up again. Lo and behold, they had.
Janie appeared before him in a soft buttercream sundress, her hair spilling down her shoulders. She was tanner than she’d been back in California, more muscular around the shoulders, and the sight of her made Alexander jump to his feet to say hello. All he wanted was to wrap his arms around her and apologize. Was it too soon?
“Janie,” he said, because he didn’t know what else to do. “You made it.”
Janie tucked her hair behind her ear and sat down. “This is quite a restaurant.”
Alexander flinched. “You don’t like it? Charlotte’s boyfriend is the chef and owner—he recommended it. But we can leave if you want to.”
