Marie’s face lit up. “You do? Oh, I’d love to see those.”
“Me too,” Brooke said.
“They’re in my suitcase,” Lizzie said. “I made copies for you.”
“That’s so thoughtful,” Marie said. “I don’t have many family photos at all. Mama was never much of a saver,” she said wistfully. “I think she didn’t see the point of it.”
“Grandma was the opposite,” Lizzie said. “She saved everything. Newspapers, old letters, play programs, diaries. And scrapbooks! I have an entire trunkful of her scrapbooks. I’ve always thought someday I’d get a book out of that stuff. Maybe even more than one.”
“What kind of a book?” Brooke asked, intrigued.
“Well, there’s that unsolved murder on the island, of course,” Lizzie said.
Brooke stared at her passenger in the rearview mirror. “You don’t mean Talisa.”
“Of course I do,” Lizzie said. “Hasn’t Josephine mentioned Russell Strickland to you?”
“Noooo,” Brooke said. She looked over at her mother. “Does that name mean anything to you?”
“Never heard it before,” Marie said.
Lizzie sucked loudly on her mojito. “It was a huge mystery at the time. Let’s see… 1941? Think that’s right. I say it’s a murder, but actually, nobody really knows what happened to the guy. One minute he was there, at a big fancy party at Shellhaven, and the next morning, he was gone. Poof! Never seen or heard from again.”
“For real?” Brooke asked.
“Absolutely. It was in all the newspapers back in the day. There was even a piece inThe Saturday Evening Post. I found all the clippings in Grandma’s scrapbooks.”
“Who was this Russell Strickland?” Brooke asked. “Why was he on Talisa? How did he know Josephine?”
Lizzie took the last sip of her mojito. “He was from a wealthy family in Boston. According to the newspapers, he came down to Talisa because Josephine’s family was throwing an engagement party for him and his fiancée.”
“Who was his fiancée?” Marie asked.
Lizzie stared at her intently. “Her name was Mildred Everhart.”
26
October 1941
Ruth gingerly touched one of the angry bruises on Millie’s exposed upper thigh. “Did he…?”
Millie reached again for the whiskey bottle and gulped. “Not this time. He was about to, but Gardiner followed us out into the garden. He saw what was happening and made Russell stop.” She blinked back more tears. “Gardiner said he’d kill Russell if he didn’t get off the island. And then he took me back to the house.”
“You said he didn’t do itthis time,” Josephine broke in. “Does that mean he’d…” She lowered her voice. “Has he forced himself on you before?”
Even in the moonlight, they could see Millie blush deeply. She looked away. “He only does it when he’s drunk.”
“When isn’t he drunk?” Ruth demanded, her fists balled up as though she were about to launch a counterattack on her friend’s fiancé. “You can’t marry him, Millie. We won’t let you, will we, girls?”
She looked to Josephine and Varina for an answer.
“No!” Josephine said.
Varina shook her head mutely, her eyes wide. She snuck another sip from the bottle of Jim Beam and this time immediately began coughing and wheezing.
“It burns!” she sputtered.
“Here, Varina,” Millie said, handing the younger girl the cup of champagne. “This tastes much nicer.”
