Kit took a third slice of pizza for himself. When he offered her another slice, she shook her head. “That was delicious. I’ve had plenty, thanks.”
Her thoughts drifted back to hard times, when a bite of pizza from a garbage can had been her meal for the day. So many struggles that should have never happened to a teenage girl. She’d endured more than most adults would in a lifetime. Sleeping outside in freezing temperatures, going days without anything to eat, shoes with the soles worn down so thin she’d had to stuff them with newspapers. And now, just when she thought better times were ahead, everyone she came in contact with seemed to have some kind of trouble. She wondered if she was a jinx. Her nomadic lifestyle hadn’t been perfect, but she’d never allowed anyone to get too close to her. Now she had Valentina, Renée, and Kit as friends, though they didn’t know one another well. She felt guilty for bringing her bad mojo to Palmetto Island.
“You’re quiet. Deep thoughts?” Kit asked as soon as he finished his pizza.
She walked over to the window, looking out at the water. “I don’t have deep thoughts. I think on something for a bit. That’s all,” she said.
He walked across the room and stood beside her. “You don’t have a very high opinion of yourself, do you?”
She watched the ebb and flow of the gulf. The moonlight shone on the wet sand. Closing her eyes, she imagined the feel of tiny granules of sand beneath her bare feet, the warm water rippling across her as she wiggled her toes in the sand. Somewhere, she’d heard it was therapeutic for one to dig their toes into the sand, to walk barefoot on the water’s edge. She didn’t know if it were true or not, but right now, it sounded good to her. Alison wanted to go outside and feel the humid night air moisten her skin, the salt air tangle her hair.
“Alison? Are you all right?” Kit asked.
“Sorry, just dreaming,” she told him.
“Good or bad?”
She turned to face him. “A bit of both. I was thinking how it feels when you’re standing on the beach, digging your feet in the sand, the warm water rolling over the top of your feet. Silly, huh?”
“That’s the good part. Care to tell me the bad?” he asked.
Ali wondered if she should tell him a small truth. No, now wasn’t the time. This evening was all about finding a young girl.
“No, nothing worth hearing,” she said as casually as she could manage.
“You wanna go down to the beach now?” he asked.
“I have to wait for the police and Valentina. In different circumstances, I’d love to. This has been my dream for so many years. I keep pinching myself so I know it’s real, living here and all,” she told him.
“I love the beach myself, though I don’t get to spend as much time as I’d like with my work schedule. Though I had a lot of good memories growing up here,” he said.
Ali turned to look at him. “Here, on Palmetto Island?”
He stared down at her. His height should’ve been intimidating, but it wasn’t. He had kind eyes and a gentle smile. “Yes, I lived here for a while growing up.”
“Is that why you’re working on this cult thing?” she asked, wondering if he or any of his family had experience with the cult.
“Let’s just say I’ve known about the cult’s existence for a while. When I left for college, I forgot about it for a time. I wondered if it was even true. Kids make up all kinds of stories, especially a bunch of teenagers on the beach at night, along with a campfire and a few beers stolen from our parents. Later, when I started working as a journalist, I was assigned to do a story on a cult, though it had nothing to do with the Cyrus story. While I was researching, I came across a few tidbits about the island, always telling myself I’d come back and find out the truth. Without revealing too much, in my research I discovered a very disturbing group of folks. I’m sorry I can’t tell you more. I respect my sources’ privacy.”
“This might sound far-fetched, but could the cult be responsible for Renée’s disappearance?”
He sighed and stepped away from the window, taking a seat on the large, lavish white sofa. She sat across from him in a matching white chair.
“I wouldn’t know. Let’s just cross our fingers that isn’t the case. Maybe Renée just had a fight with her mother and decided to give her a scare.”
She shook her head. “No, she wouldn’t do that. I haven’t known either of them very long, but I think they’re more like sisters. They seem to have a good mother-daughter relationship, as far as I can tell. They tease one another, yet Valentina is strict with her. Won’t let her go near John Wilson, who lives a couple houses down. From what little I observed, Renée always obeys her mom.”
“I can’t believe John is still around here,” Kit said. “A total loser, if you ask me. He’s a few years older than I. Was always starting trouble, with his parents bailing him out.”
She was unsure whether or not to tell Kit what she’d been told. She didn’t like John, plus she didn’t feel she was saying anything he couldn’t hear in one of the bars at the Pass. “Valentina says he messes with little girls. Very little, like eight or nine. His parents would do what they could to pay off whomever was needed to keep him out of trouble. I had a couple encounters with him. He’s a real ass.”
Kit listened to her, and she watched his expression change as she told him what she’d heard.
“John is an ass, but a pedophile? I don’t know. I never heard that about him. Do you know if charges were ever brought against him?”
“Like I said, Val told me his parents paid his way out of any trouble he got himself into. I assume he had to be doing something if he’s being accused of molesting a child. That jerk makes me sick,” she said, anger giving her a second burst of energy. She got up and stood at the window. Shouldn’t the police be here by now? And Valentina, too?
“I’ve been away a long time. But I don’t recall any rumors about that when I lived here. Gossip spreads like melted butter on the island and in Fort Charlotte. That’s a fact that hasn’t changed.”
“It was like that when you lived here, too?”
“Yes, people running their mouths with nothing better to do. Off-season was quiet, so people needed entertainment. Not my kind of fun, but the fishermen and the shrimpers ate it up. Many of them weren’t from around here, so listening to the locals tell tall tales about whomever, whatever, seemed to be the gig then.”
Ali considered what he said. “Were these tall tales hints of what might’ve been happening on the island then?”
“Maybe. No way to know. I was a teenager, so I didn’t pay too much attention then. Though Rhett might’ve heard. He was hitting the bars up starting on his eighteenth birthday. That was the legal age at the time.”
“Too young,” she said, thinking back to when she was eighteen. Nightclubs hadn’t been her thing and still weren’t. “Your parents were readers?” she said out of the blue.
“Yes, my father is. Mom, not so much. She spent what little time I knew her in bed. Sick. She passed when I was ten, during Rhett’s first year of high school. Bad times.”