Janie wasn’t surprised that Chloe didn’t have a passcode to open it up, either. Chloe had never liked house keys, passwords, or anything she had to remember to keep with her, either in her head or in her purse.
Janie took a breath and opened Chloe’s contacts to find—right there at the start of the Bs—Benjamin. Janie gasped and, before she could stop herself, dialed her father-in-law’s number.
The phone rang three times before he picked up. Adrenaline pulsed through Janie.What am I doing?
His voice was the same as it had been back then: gritty and masculine and powerful, the kind of voice you wanted on board a sailing vessel or an airplane.
Before she said anything, he asked, “Where have you been?”
Janie inhaled sharply, suddenly terrified. It was her one shot at speaking her mind. Was she going to blow it—due to nerves or fears? She couldn’t.
“Chloe?” Benjamin said softly. “Are you upset with me?”
Janie cleared her throat and said, “Benjamin, this is Janie. Janie Whitmore.”
“Janie? What…?”
Janie interrupted him because she couldn’t stand to hear his lies. “Your children have been coming back to Nantucket one by one. They’ve kept a wide berth of this place because they hate what happened here, and they’re all heavy with trauma and angry at the past. Nevertheless, they’re here, and they’ve figured out you aren’t dead. Nice try, though.” She cleared her throat. “I don’t understand why you would abandon your family like that. I don’t understand how or why you’d fake your own death like that. But Benjamin Whitmore, if you care about your children at all—the many, many children in the Whitmore family—then I suggest you get over here and start answering questions. Time is of the essence.”
Janie felt as though she were floating. Her ears rang as she waited for his response. But a moment later came the click of the phone, proof that he’d hung up. Janie fell onto Chloe’s bed and stared at the ceiling. She’d just opened Pandora’s box. Nowthat the chaos had been unleashed, there was no putting it back together again.
Suddenly, there was a figure in the doorway. Frightened that Chloe was back, that she’d been discovered, Janie hopped up, but found only her husband, gazing down at her. He was sun-tanned and sweaty from his walk back up from the beach.
“I was looking for you,” he said, his eyes stirring with questions. “What’s going on?”
Janie swallowed. “Chloe’s off to see Nina and the kids.”
“That’s a doozy,” Alexander said. “How’s she handling it?”
“About as well as anyone would, I guess.” Janie hobbled over to Alexander. She put her palms on his chest, preparing to drop the biggest bomb imaginable. “I just got off the phone with someone.”
Alexander raised his eyebrows. “Oh yeah?”
Janie nodded. “I had a hunch.”
Alexander sniffed with nervous laughter. “You sound like my old private detective. He had hunches about everything. Let me tell you, none of them were right.”
Janie shook her head. “I’m better than your detective.”
“No surprise there,” Alexander said.
Janie took a breath. “I just got off the phone with Benjamin Whitmore. He answered because he thought I was Chloe. Tell your private detective to find a new line of work.”
Alexander’s face drained of its color. He was stunned.
Chapter Twenty-Four
August 2025
Nantucket Island
Now that Alexander had his father’s phone number listed in his cell, he wasn’t sure how to proceed. For years, he’d been searching for him, and for years, Benjamin had been out there, hiding himself from the rest of the Whitmores, biding his time. For what? As Alexander and Janie sat on the back porch, watching their children play in the water, Alexander murmured, “Do you think he’s been dating Chloe this entire time? Is that why he faked his own death? To get away from my mother and build a new life with her?”
“That doesn’t sound rational,” Janie said. “Chloe and I have been in contact through the years. I would have known if she was living with your father.” But there was a hesitance to Janie’s voice that made Alexander want to press her for more details.
“None of this is rational,” Alexander said. He rubbed his red-tinted forehead. “I want to ask Chloe what she knows. She owes us.”
Janie’s face fell. “I don’t want to do that yet. Maybe she doesn’t know anything.” She recounted how Benjamin had insinuated on the phone that he and Chloe hadn’t seen one another for a while. “Then again, she seems to know that he’s out East somewhere.”
