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Why would this person be tracking anyone’s net worth? Maybe the second note had nothing to do with what was written above. It was the same person—I could tell by the penmanship—but written at a different time.
Harriet was being catty. Why was anyone who dated someone wealthy, man or woman, suspected of being a gold digger?
She could be right. Harriet might in fact have a better grasp of human nature than most. Bookish people were often more observant.
I have more than one wealthy client who had been the target of unscrupulous con artists. One of my favorite clients, a sweet seventy-year-old retired secretary, had invested five percent of her paycheck every week and every bonus for over forty years in the company she worked for—IBM. When she retired, she was worth more than $10 million. She’d been scammed once—lost over $100,000—and then was romanced by a younger man who wanted her to cash out her investment fund so that they could travel the world together. Fortunately, her children talked her out of it.
So yes, there were assholes out there in the world, though preying on a senior citizen was a lot different than dating a wealthy man.
The running commentary in the margins was both salacious and addictive. Who was Harriet writing about? Trevor and CeeCee? Andrew and Sherry? Another unmarried couple on the island?
I flipped through the pages, looking for something like a receipt or a room key that might identify the previous owner. Dozens of passages were highlighted. Notes dotted the margins, all written in the same handwriting.
About two thirds through the book, the writing stopped... and at the page headedChapter Thirty-Two, I found a business card that had likely been used as a bookmark.
She writes in books but doesn’t dog-ear pages... she gets a point for that.
The business card read:
Broussard Antiques & Collectibles
The address was in New Orleans, Louisiana. Why did that sound familiar? I had never been to New Orleans. But I knew I recently readsomethingabout New Orleans.
I left the card sticking up and continued to read, finding myself reading faster than usual with an eye on the margins to discover what my new friend wrote next. A few words in the text were underlined or circled, but I couldn’t make any sense of them with no accompanying notes.Home?Child?Port?
In the middle of chapter three, an entire paragraph was underlined:
“I told your dad years ago, when you were just a pup, that the Santa Regina was cursed. He told me curses can be broken. Be careful, Gabrielle. The coins showing up now... I don’t think this is the work of divine providence.”
In the margins was written what appeared to be a math equation:
$2.7m—bonds + $350K - bank + property $4m 5% @ $200K—convert into gold? Check business net. 2012, $1m liquid–more? (If I’d have known there was so much potential here I would have come years ago!)
Potential? What didthatmean? Whoever she was writing about didn’t have the wealth of the first person with more property and net worth, but they certainly weren’t paupers.
I started flipping through the pages, not reading the book but looking for the comments, more interested in the story in the margins.
At the end of one chapter, Harriet had circled a snippet of dialogue—an argument between the hero and heroine—and written:
Fool me once, shame on me? Hell no. Why do people think they can walk all over anyone they think is weak? Do they think I’mstupid? I haven’t been stupid since I walked out of the house when I was 18 and took control of my life...
I leaned back and wondered about this woman. She was self-confident, a take-control type who didn’t let people push her aside.Shewould have told Amber Jones to move out of her way.
A scream from the ocean startled me. I looked up and didn’t see anyone. The volleyball players were gone. Brie had left. A couple I hadn’t seen before were walking south on the beach, toward the dock. A family played a good fifty yards away, kids running in and out of the surf, laughing.
It must have been the kids, I thought, scanning the ocean.
A head bobbed up out of the calm water, then went back down again. I jumped up, the book falling to my lounge chair. Someone was in trouble.
I called out, “Help! Someone’s drowning!” as I kicked off my flip-flops and ran to the water’s edge. The lazy waves rolled over my feet, then back. Was there an undertow here? Or had a swimmer cramped? Or maybe someone was tangled in seaweed, the tide rolling in and out over them.
Quickly, I waded into the water, then dove against the gentle surf, taking long strokes toward the bobbing head. The water was refreshing, not cold. A minute later I stopped, looked around me for any sign of life, fearing I was too late and a freak accident had taken someone’s life. My toes just barely touched the sandy ocean floor. Flora or fauna caressed my ankle, and I shivered in surprise. The water was clear. I could almost see the bottom. Something bright pink was floating under the surface.
Twenty feet from me, a man surfaced and groaned. He was hurt. “I’m coming!” I called out to him, and swam over.
He looked at me, his face twisted, and he groaned again, his entire body convulsing. He must have been stung by a jellyfish and was having a seizure.
“Take my hand. It’s not too deep. I’ll help you to shore,” I said, reaching for him.