Page 3 of Return to Whitmore (The Whitmore #2)

Chapter Two

T he day that Nina and Amos knocked on the door of Charlotte’s little cottage on Madequecham Beach was also the day Charlotte learned she’d lost funding on her most recent documentary attempt.

It was the third time this happened in the previous three years, the third go-around with another producer and agent.

This time, she’d really thought it would work.

In the wake of their apology email, their let’s give it another go email, Charlotte’s head was spinning, so much so that when she heard the knock and answered the door to find her little sister standing there, she thought maybe she was going crazy.

Nina? Nina, back on Nantucket? After twenty-seven years?

Seeing Nina like that, Charlotte wrapped her in a hug that nearly suffocated them both.

They were sobbing and saying a lot of things that didn’t make sense.

The last time she’d seen Nina, she’d been taken away from Nantucket by their great-aunt Genevieve.

Charlotte had meant to reach out to her. She’d meant to call.

She cursed herself for all the time she’d let go by.

Oh, but Nina was beautiful: whip-smart and thirty-eight years old with a penetrating gaze. In some respects, she had the aura of Francesca, although Charlotte knew she didn’t have any of her blood.

Nina was quick to explain that she’d been on the island the past few weeks, that she and Amos were “getting to the bottom” of whatever it was the Whitmores had been up to in the months leading up to the fire.

Apparently, Nina had met and married an anthologist named Daniel who, it seemed, had always suspected there was a Whitmore treasure under the White Oak Lodge and had tracked her down to the island to secure the treasure for himself.

It was clear that the only man Nina had ever loved had only married her to steal from the Whitmores. It felt like a tale as old as time , Charlotte thought.

Nina suggested there was no treasure. But Charlotte told her with the Whitmores, she’d long ago decided never to be sure of anything.

But Amos was quick to point out that the only treasure he knew about under the White Oak Lodge was drug related.

During high school, he and Jack had run drugs for Tio Angelo, poisoning the great minds of the high schoolers and Nantucketers and tourists with enough cash to secure the goods.

Of course, Amos had an excuse, sort of, in that he and his mother had been dirt-poor and really needed the cash.

In that way, Tio Angelo had taken advantage of Amos and more or less ruined his life.

Although Charlotte had never put two and two together, had never really suspected her Tio Angelo of being an upper-echelon drug dealer on the island, it made sense, given how seedy he’d sometimes been.

He’d been charming, too, but that was the way of Italians, which Charlotte knew all too well.

She’d lived there long enough, after all.

She still sometimes dreamed in Italian.

Nina had figured out she wasn’t Francesca’s daughter, too. To this, Charlotte said, “That’s just the tip of the iceberg.”

Of course, Charlotte could say the same of her own Whitmore knowledge. Although she’d been at the game longer, hunting for answers to questions she’d long ago begun to ask herself, she was still puzzled by her father, her uncle, even her brother, Jack.

Nina had been just a little girl when the White Oak Lodge burned down.

She’d been raised in Michigan for crying out loud.

Charlotte had half-hoped, half-prayed that Nina had forgotten about the White Oak Lodge.

When Charlotte had read that she’d married an anthropologist and become a professor of anthropology herself at Princeton, she’d breathed a sigh of relief.

She’d thought that Nina was safely on her way to a normal life.

But nothing was as simple as it seemed. And Nina was a Whitmore. She couldn’t escape it.

It was clear to Charlotte that, as they’d hunted down “Seth Green,” the man they’d discovered in an old photograph who looked remarkably like Jack Whitmore, Nina and Amos had begun to fall in love with one another.

But now, they were faced with a far more difficult question than anything to do with love: why on earth was Charlotte living at the house owned by “Seth Green”?

Charlotte wasn’t sure how she would answer for herself. She knew that Nina suspected that Jack, Benjamin, and Tio Angelo were all still alive. There hadn’t been death certificates. It was probable that money had been exchanged—money to hide something.

With the Whitmores, there was always money involved.

Charlotte told Nina not to get involved in all this. But she could see plain as day that Nina wouldn’t back away for anything. She was in Nantucket till she figured things out.

The morning after Nina’s first official date with Amos, Nina drove immediately to Charlotte’s place for a recap.

Charlotte had breakfast made: pancakes, eggs, bacon, and mimosas, and she opened the door with a vibrant hello as Nina charged up the porch steps with a smile on her face.

Charlotte felt like the older sister she’d always meant to be for Nina, taking care of her, feeding her when she needed to be fed.

At forty-five, she wanted to be the protector Nina hadn’t had.

Of course, unlike Charlotte, Nina actually had children, two of them, Will and Fiona, who were away at camp for the summer.

It probably meant Nina could take better care of Charlotte than the other way around.

Nina looked floaty and thrilled. She inhaled a few bites of pancakes and threw her head back. “I know this isn’t the time to fall in love with anyone,” she said, “but I can’t help myself.”

Charlotte’s heart filled. “Why isn’t it the time?”

“I don’t know. I’m back in Nantucket for the first time in a thousand years. I’m going through a divorce. It’s possible that the family story I’ve been told all my life is made up.”

Nina gave Charlotte a look that meant you know more than you’re letting on .

“Besides, I have children,” Nina went on. “They adore their father.”

“Well, their father cheated on you,” Charlotte reminded her, arching her brow. “They’ll understand that one day.”

Nina moaned and rubbed her face till her cheeks turned pink. “What about you, Sis?”

Charlotte laughed. “What about me?”

Nina gestured vaguely. “You’ve been back on the island for about a year, right? Have you met anyone? Tried to date?”

Charlotte let out a strange cackle that made her feel witchy and weird. She pressed her hand to her mouth and let her shoulders hang. “No,” she said finally. “Sometimes I think that phase of my life is over.”

“Really?” Nina tilted her head. “Did something happen?”

Charlotte didn’t know how to begin to answer that question.

Did one thing happen? No. Did it feel as though her life consisted of a thousand missed opportunities and romantic disappointments and fizzled-out hopes?

Yes. Nothing ever amounted to anything else.

It was a stupendous waste of time, time she’d rather spend making another documentary—another documentary that no production studio would go for, apparently.

Wow, she was tired.

But to her little sister she said, “I’ve dated my fair share. I almost got married, once, but it didn’t work out. Mom was irate when I told her it wasn’t happening. I think she’d already bought a dress.”

Nina wrinkled her nose. Charlotte could feel the tremendous horror lurking behind the story; the story she wasn’t telling. But she couldn’t speak it aloud.

“I’m sorry,” Charlotte said softly. “I won’t talk about Mom. I’m sure it’s not easy.”

Nina waved her hands. “No, it’s okay. I haven’t seen or heard from her since I was eleven years old. She’s more like a figment of my imagination by now.”

Charlotte remembered a point she’d brought up to her mother on the day they’d left Nantucket: that Francesca was the only mother Nina had ever known, that for the majority of her life, Nina had assumed her mother had abandoned her.

“I knew it was a struggle for her to raise me,” Nina offered. “I always thought I was an accident, someone she was too tired for when I came along. She’d already had four children. But I didn’t know how emotionally complex it really was.”

“She agreed to take Dad back,” Charlotte reminded her. “She should have known that meant showing love for you too.”

“Francesca was never so good at love,” Nina said with a soft smile.

“Maybe I got that from her,” Charlotte said.

Nina scoffed and reached across the table to take her hand.

Charlotte was startled at the intensity in her eyes.

“You were a brilliant and loving older sister. You were always there for me.” She wet her lips.

“And you and Vincent were so loving, too. I was eleven and didn’t know anything about love, but I was so desperately jealous of your relationship! I think I had a little crush on him.”

Charlotte hadn’t heard the name “Vincent” in twenty-seven years.

Immediately, her eyes filled with tears that she quickly brushed away. Did Nina notice? If she did, she didn’t say anything.

Charlotte considered telling Nina how awful it had been to leave Vincent behind, that she hadn’t known what to do, that Francesca had said we’re going and they’d fled to the airport.

They were quiet for a moment. Nina released her hand from Charlotte’s and took a sip of mimosa. Their breakfasts were chilling between them. Charlotte got up to pour herself a mug of coffee and search her mind for another topic. Maybe she could ask Nina for more details about her date with Amos?

But that’s when Nina said, “Remember when you said that Francesca not being my mother was just the tip of the iceberg?”

Charlotte felt frozen with fear. Was this when Nina would ask her point-blank why she was living in Seth Green’s house? Was this when Nina would demand information that Charlotte had either promised never to give anyone—or didn’t even know herself?

“I remember,” Charlotte said meekly. Allegra would have said, stop being such a wimp.

“Can you explain what you meant by that?” Nina asked.

It was intelligent, Charlotte thought. Nina was allowing Charlotte the floor, asking her to say only what she felt called to say about a past that Nina hadn’t been privy to. Perhaps Charlotte owed her an explanation. Perhaps Charlotte could pick what she said.