Unless . . . unless Lisa and CiCi were in cahoots. Maybe they were a team . . . with Lisa’s job to convince Maddie to hire CiCi for a percent of the agent’s commission. Judging by the value, even a small percent would be significant to a lobsterman and an administrator at the town hall. And it would surely buy their son, Charlie, a set of braces.
And Maddie couldn’t discount Owen. Had he seen the first letter her father sent back? It would be like him to have steamed it open . . . and would account for why he seemed to know more than she thought he could by eavesdropping on Rafe’s side of her phone conversation with him.
She ate a bit more, thought a bit more. Then she decided that her ex didn’t have the guts to kill anyone. He often acted like a bully, but in reality, he was consumed with trying to convince people that he was the star of the show, any show. Murder would not achieve that.
“Maddie?” Brandon waved a hand in front of her face.
“Oh. Sorry. I know I’m overthinking this. But I feel like I’m not getting the whole story about much of anything, so I’m grasping at straws.”
He laughed.
She finished her pancakes while trying not to think.
But suddenly . . .
She gulped.
She wondered about Joe. Had his comment that some people had donated their land in Aquinnah back to the tribe been preplanned? Could that soft-spoken, gentle man who’d built her hobbit house have killed Grandma Nancy? The same man who right now was with . . .Rafe?
It felt as if a thousand fireworks exploded in her mind. She leaped out of her chair. She teeter-tottered (as Evelyn had warned her could happen) on her cast. She grabbed for the wooden railing, then lost her balance, flipped over the rail, and began to tumble down the Gay Head Cliffs.
It happened so fast, Brandon couldn’t catch her.
Chapter 24
Buzzing, humming, and beeping buzzed and hummed and beeped in Maddie’s head.
“Her eyes are blinking!” A man’s voice was familiar, but she couldn’t place it. It was drowned out by the buzzing and the rest. Then, between blinks, she saw a blurry image bend down close to her where she was . . . lying down?
Where was she?
What was going on?
“Get the nurse!” the voice shouted. ”Hurry!”
She wanted to open her eyes and keep them open, but it was exhausting. So she closed them again.
“Mom? Wake up!”
Her eyes opened that time. She tried to smile at her son.
“Hi, honey,” she said. “What happened? Where am I?”
He sat on the edge of the bed, his sturdy shoulders slumping just a little.
Which was when she realized she was in a bed and had tubes snaking out of her.
“You’re in the hospital, Mom.”
Then two nurses rushed in.
“What happened?” she muttered again.
The nurses calmly moved Rafe out of the way and went to either side of the bed. One nurse had a smiley mouth painted on her mask; she checked a monitor and tap-tapped the screen of the tablet she was holding. The other nurse aimed a beam of light into Maddie’s eyes.
“You had a fall,” the nurse with the painted-on smile said. “At the cliffs up in Aquinnah. Do you remember?”
No, Maddie did not.
