Page 23 of Share with Me

Brinley ledIvan through the French doors and loggia and across the green grass now dark under the floodlights. The stone path was lit with solar-powered luminaries curving parallel to the ocean beyond the sea oats. They walked quietly together, savoring the night.

The ocean with its waves of the night sloshing and swishing on the Atlantic sands evoked memories in Brinley’s mind of Grandpa Brooks’s animated voice regaling tales of worldly nonsense. She could hear her brothers, Parker and Dillon, and her baby sister, Zoe, laughing at Grandpa’s jokes as they picked up seashells on the beach. Brinley was the quiet middle child who’d soaked up everything he’d said with intrigue, meticulously arranging his words in a mental treasure chest as though they were rare jewels.

All forgotten now.

Sometimes in desperate nights, her regret of not having written down Grandpa Brooks’s wisdom gnawed at her, little painful nibbles here and there, plaguing her. Those walks on the beach could never be rewound and replayed, and eventually they ebbed away, as with all things, returning to the nebulousness.

If only a great palm could scoop up what she had lost and bring them back to her.

“Cold night.” Brinley tugged her coat around her.

“Forties, I think.” Ivan sipped more coffee. “Want some?”

“I don’t share cups, not knowingly.”

“Generally, I don’t either. But you’re freezing to death.”

“I’m not.” Brinley unlatched the painted gate. There it was. Grandpa’s pool, an eyesore to some but a gem to others.

“What in the world is that?” Ivan spread his arms and headed for the edge of the lighted pool.

Brinley watched him walk around the violin-shaped pool. He seemed fascinated by the black tiles at the bottom of the pool that stretched like strings from the tailpiece on one end of the pool to the other end where the scroll was. On both sides of the pool were the violin F-holes, also carved with tiles. Tiles from Italy, of course, where the luthier Antonio Stradivari lived until the eighteenth century, making his namesake violins.

“The springboard is in the chin rest. This is crazy!”

Brinley felt his amusement. “Grandpa Brooks was a bit eccentric. He was obsessed with Strads.”

“Only violins?”

“Well, he collected pianos and other musical instruments too.”

“Where did he keep all those things?”

“In a safe place.”

“So you’ve said.” Ivan was still walking around the pool. “You know, musical instruments are meant to be seen and played, not locked in vaults.”

Ivan squatted down and touched the water. “It’s warm.”

“They filled it up because they thought my brother, Dillon, was coming today. He didn’t make it.”

“Why didn’t they make this an indoor pool? You could use it year round.”

“Grandpa could see it better from his chopper if it were outdoors.”

Ivan stood up, straightening his tuxedo. “This must’ve cost a fortune.”

“Not as much as the money he spent hunting down the lost Strad.”

“I bet.”

“No need to bet.” Brinley started to shiver. “I told you.”

Ivan frowned at her. “Let’s get you inside. You’re shivering.”

“Don’t mind me. I’m always cold.” Brinley could have gone up the stairs by the pool to the balcony that was a shortcut to her room, but she decided that it would be too close for comfort. She went around the stairs to the terrace instead.

The door was unlocked. Brinley opened it to chimes. That was good that the chimes worked, but it was bad that the door was unlocked. She’d have to speak to Dad about it. He’d probably say she had lived in Atlanta way too long, where she locked everything, and that Sea Island, as she should have remembered, wasn’t infested with crime.

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