Page 31 of These Summer Storms

“Alice.” Now why did Jack say her name like that? Sure and smooth and commanding, like he could stop her.

Worse, why did she stop?

At least she didn’t look back. Later, she’d be glad of that. Especially because of the shock that came when he said, “You can’t forfeit. Everyone plays, or no one does.”

Chapter

6

Someone had taken herclothes.

It seemed impossible—and very strange—but when Alice stepped out of the shower in the small bathroom at the bottom of the steps to the tower, it was to discover that the clean pajamas she’d packed (the only outfit she’d actually nailed) were gone from where she’d hung them on the back of the door.

They were gone along with the dirty clothes she’d shucked to the floor before stepping into the almost unbearably hot spray, hoping she could incinerate the events of the day. The week. The summer, while she was at it.

It had almost worked, until she’d turned off the water, pushed back the curtain, and climbed out of the claw-foot tub to discover someone had been inside the bathroom while she was showering, and they’d stolen her clothes.

And her towel.

As far as an instrument of familial warfare, it was as juvenile as it went, so she had no doubt Sam had something to do with it. Aside from literally anyone with eyeballs being able to identify him as an assfrom a distance, it was ninep.m., so he couldn’t come and tell her whatever he was thinking to her face—because he wasn’t allowed to speak.

The memory of Jack hard-lining that particular rule that morning had buoyed her spirits a half dozen times that day, as she’d done her best to avoid the family after the morning’s revelations—a feat, honestly, as her father’s insane estate planning meant her family wanted eyes on her at all times. She’d escaped for a run around the perimeter of the island while Jack, she assumed, was kept busy assuring the rest of the family a fourth, fifth, and thirty-first time that yes, Franklin’s trust was legal, and no, there wasn’t some easy way out of it.

Her father had probably cackled his way through those letters he’d written, absolutely delighted to orchestrate one final week of chaos. He’d probably had the last, loudest laugh when he’d decided not to write to Alice. Her final punishment. The ultimate proof of her forever exile.

Except Alice wasn’t interested in being played from the hereafter. She had friends she loved and a job she liked that paid rent on a one-bedroom in Park Slope (barely, now that she was just one person in there, but she’d make it work) and the glimmer of a future as an honest-to-God artist that was hers alone, in spite of her father’s long-standing disdain for the dream. She’d earned it. Without him.

That was why he’d never liked her, wasn’t it? Because he couldn’t lord it over her with half a dozen things he’d done to give her the life she desired like he had with the rest of the family—subsidizing Greta’s forever unpublished novel and Sam’s career and Sila’s myriad club memberships and Emily’s crystal shop and his grandchildren’s schools and camps and ever-changing interests—keeping them all close to home, where he could rule over them.

When people wanted something, Franklin put a hand in his pocket and smiled with a warmth that felt like the sun. But his attention came with a price—control.

And when Alice had stopped paying that price—albeit rather spectacularly—her father had no difficulty turning down the thermostat and leaving her in the cold. She’d spent five years discovering the world beyond the Storms, knowing that choosing to be outside theircircle meant there was no space for her inside. Franklin and Elisabeth built a family like they were royals: in or out…no half measures.

Alice had chosen (or been chosen for): out.

If there’d been any question of her place either in the family or in Franklin’s heart, the meeting over which his lieutenant—a man Alice did not know (except biblically, really embarrassing, that)—had presided would clarify it. Her father hadn’t even cared enough to leave her any final words.

Instead, he’d left her something far worse: the family. The whole crew came looking for her after Jack had dropped his bombs—presumably to tackle the most urgent issue of the inheritance: keeping Alice on the island, as though she might bolt at any moment.

As though she wouldn’t stay for her father’s funeral.

Celebration.

Apparently, they’d taken her on as a joint project. And so, for the rest of the afternoon, she’d been visited by her sisters, mother, and brother in a procession reminiscent of Dickens.

Emily and Claudia arrived first, the Ghosts of Labor Day Vibes waylaying her as she returned from her run. For what it was worth, Claudia seemed authentically concerned about Alice’s mental state (not great), and Alice could only run the perimeter of the island for so long, so she accepted the session her sister-in-law, a trained massage therapist, offered. Yes, Emily decided to drag out the singing bowl during the process, its ring offering a less-than-relaxing soundtrack, but it was better than what was to come when she returned to the house.

The Ghost of Mothers Present, Elisabeth, was in a flat spin. Greta had disappeared, which Alice chalked up to her finally being able to spend all the time she had with Tony in his staff cottage on the northern edge of the island, where her father’s body man was surely lost without his lodestar—no longer waiting to be summoned by Franklin for guarding, driving, or piloting.

Good for Greta; at least someone was getting something nice out of this absolute nightmare.

Her refusal to acknowledge the Greta-and-Tony-of-it-allnotwithstanding, Elisabeth did not feel the same way about the loss of her eldest and most trusted child. She was in dire need of an assistant—someone to whom she could delegate (her favorite pastime). And in the absence of Greta, Alice would have to do.

A series of chores began there, the business of death’s aftermath. Searches for addresses and phone numbers, for forms and certificates. A video chat with Franklin’s personal staff and the PR team at Storm Inc. An overview of the island’s security with the corporate security detail—a precursor to a larger meeting that would involve the Secret Service (when Elisabeth said everyone was coming to pay their respects, she meanteveryone). A call to a funeral director, summoning him to the island the next morning (celebration or not, remains had to be dealt with), calls to florists and caterers from the mainland vying for the opportunity to make a name for themselves—brushing elbows with the VIPs of the 1 percent on mysterious Storm Island.

For a woman who regularly commandeered staff on the corporate payroll for her own use, Elisabeth was strangely committed to keeping these particular arrangements in the family. Or, she might have just been committed to keeping Alice too busy to leave the island.

Then there was Sam, the Ghost of Arrogant Siblings, who spent his even-numbered hours turning on the charm for his sister, cracking jokes as though they hadn’t been at each other’s throats that morning. It might have worked if Sila hadn’t been at his elbow all day, offering to help in her classic way—replete with weaponized helplessness. Saoirse and Oliver even dropped by the office where Elisabeth had trapped Alice, offering to share some whoopie pies purchased from a farmstand on the east side of the Bay (Alice’s favorite—what a coincidence).

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