Page 90 of The Beach Trap

None of it will get done unless I do it. I’m all I’ve got.

•••

I spend thenext several hours vacuuming up water—thank goodness Henry left his Shop-Vac here the other day—then emptying the tank over the deck railing, over and over until my back is aching. I open all the windows and grab a couple of fans from the upstairs closets, then turn them on to get air flowing through the house.

Every hour or so, I call Shaky Oaks for an update on Granddad. They haven’t found him, but they assure me the police are looking for him and they’ve given them a list of places I thought he might go.

I’m scared, feeling helpless, and I even look up plane tickets online, thinking maybe I’ll ditch this flooded beach house and go back to Minnesota to join the search for Granddad. But last-minute tickets are ridiculously expensive—thousands of dollars—and I’d be equally helpless in the air.

So I keep working. Keep vacuuming up water, my phone within arm’s reach at all times. I’ve felt lonely many times in my life, but this may top them all. No one to talk to, no one to turn to. Hours pass and finally my phone rings with a call from Shaky Oaks.

“Hello?” I say, breathless.

“It’s Vincent. We’ve found your grandfather.”

My knees go limp with relief, and I collapse on the wet wood floor in the middle of the living room. “Where was he?”

“He was found at the movie theater,” Vincent says. “Somehow, he sweet-talked the ticket taker into believing that his wife was already in the theater ahead of him, and they let him in. He’s been watching movies all day. Happy as a lark, though he did say he was disappointed there were no John Wayne movies showing.”

My eyes fill with tears. “Thank God. And thank you for calling me.”

As much as I hated Vincent a few hours ago, I could kiss him right now.

Vincent pauses, then clears his throat. “Ms.O’Neill. I hope you know that I’m concerned about the welfare of every member of our community here at Shaky Oaks. I want your grandfather to be safe.”

“I know,” I say, taking a deep breath. None of this is Vincent’s fault. Granddad has needed a higher level of care for months now. We’re lucky that nothing worse happened.

“We have an opening coming up in the memory care building next week,” Vincent says. His voice is kind, and I realize he was so sharp with me earlier becausehewas scared, too. “We either need to move your grandfather into that room, or you need to find another placement for him. The choice is yours.”

I don’t hesitate: “I’ll take the room.”

I’ll have to empty my bank account to pay the first month’sfee. I’ll survive on peanut butter and brown sugar sandwiches until I get back to the Vanderhaavens, then figure out some way to make extra money for the next month.

I could take on an extra job, something in retail so I can work on the weekends and evenings when I’m not nannying. I could sell plasma. Donate my eggs. Maybe walk other neighborhood dogs while the Vanderhaavens’ kids are at school? Whatever it takes.

“It would be ideal if you could help him move to the new room,” Vincent says.

I bite my lip. It’s a nearly twenty-hour drive there, but Vincent is right. Granddad will be disoriented and frightened transitioning to a new place. I can’t let strangers get him settled in.

“Of course,” I say, hoping the dog won’t mind another road trip. “I’ll be there.”

•••

After I endthe call with Vincent, I take a look around the beach house. I’ve been so wrapped up in my worries that I haven’t allowed myself to pause and take in the damage yet.

It’s bad. Really bad. The wood floor is already warping, and it’s only going to get worse the more it dries out. Best-case scenario, it’ll need to be sanded down and refinished; worst-case scenario, torn up and replaced. The bottom few inches of all the drywall is soaked through and might need to be removed; same with the baseboards.

The chandelier in the dining room that Kat got from a sponsorship is a goner. I’m not sure we’ll be able to save the table or chairs, but the living room furniture should be salvageable if I clean the upholstery.

But the worst part is that weeks and weeks of backbreaking labor have been for nothing.

For the first time in weeks, I feel like I can’t leave Destin soon enough. The connection I thought I had with this beach house was just wishful thinking. I didn’t grow up in this family. I never knew my paternal grandparents, and if they ever knew about me, they didn’t care enough to seek me out. Like Kat said that first day she came barging in like a hurricane, I don’t belong here.

I’ll spend the next week getting the house cleaned up, then head back to Minnesota to get Granddad settled. Once that’s done, I might need to return here to finalize things—either to sell the house to Kat or list it with that real estate agent if Kat didn’t scare her away. Either way, I shouldn’t need to stay long.

It’s time for me to get back to my real life and put all this behind me.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

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