Page 141 of Save the Date
“No,” Cara said slowly. She smacked her forehead. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of it. Loblolly is the name of some house that used to belong to Brooke’s mother’s family. It’s on Cumberland Island.”
“Why would she go to Cumberland Island of all places?”
Cara thought back to her lunch at Johnny Harris, of the lanky park ranger who’d dropped by their table, and Brooke’s confession about their secret romance. What was his name? Pete something?
“I’ve been to Cumberland Island. There’s nothing over there,” Bert was saying.
“Wrong,” Cara said. “There’s a house, someplace that used to be special to Brooke. And a man. He used to be special too. Maybe he still is.”
“And how do you happen to know all this?”
“When I had lunch with Brooke at Johnny Harris last week, we ran into this guy—he was kind of geeky-looking, not at all somebody you’d picture Brooke Trapnell with. But she got all flustered after they spoke. It turns out he was this secret college flame she’d had. She actually told me she was sleeping with him the summer before she started law school—even though she was unofficially engaged to Harris.”
“Oooh. Quel scandal!”
“Right. Anyway, he came by the table before leaving, and was sort of hinting that he wanted to get together with her. He works as some sort of park ranger or something, and he’s temporarily posted on Cumberland Island. Cara told him straight up that she was getting married. She even introduced me as her wedding planner. But she gave him her business card.”
“Which you don’t do unless you want somebody to call you again,” Bert pointed out.
“He asked her if they still went to the family place over there. Loblolly. And Brooke said no, not in years. Listen, where exactly is Cumberland Island? Is it somewhere around Savannah? Or Hilton Head?”
“It’s about two hours south of here. Almost to the Florida line. The whole island used to belong to the Carnegie family—the steel magnates? They had a couple big spooky old mansions and a farm and a few other houses for their staff going all the way back to the late 1800s. But a few years ago they deeded or sold almost all of it over to the National Park Service. One of the mansions burned down years ago, you can still see the ruins, and some of the Carnegie heirs run a really expensive inn you can stay at, but other than that, it’s all just wilderness.. I remember, we went camping out there when I was a Boy Scout. I was totally traumatized when I figured out there was no outlet for my hair dryer in the outhouse.”
“You were a Boy Scout?”
“I liked the uniform,” Bert said. “Are you sure this Loblolly place is on Cumberland? I thought the only people who still had houses over there were Carnegies. Is Marie Trapnell a Carnegie?”
“Who knows? It doesn’t really matter anyway. What matters is, I need to go down there, and find Brooke Trapnell.”
“Is that a good idea?” Bert asked. “Why don’t you just leave that to her fiancé, or her parents?”
“Because I promised her I wouldn’t tell. Anyway, if Brooke really is on that island, I think there’s a chance she’s with that old flame, the park ranger. What do you think Harris would do if he figured that out?”
“Call off the wedding, probably.”
“Which is why I’ve got to go myself,” Cara said. “I’m going to go down to Cumberland Island, and find Brooke Trapnell, and then I’m going to drag her back to Savannah and put on the most amazing wedding anybody in this town has ever seen.”
“High five,” Bert said.
57
Cara raced into her bedroom and unearthed her backpack from her closet while Bert sat on her bed and researched Cumberland Island on Google.
“There are only two ferry departures a day from the Park Service dock at St. Marys, at nine and eleven-forty-five a.m.,” he reported. “You’re supposed to call weekdays before five p.m. to make a reservation.”
“What if you decide on Sunday afternoon that you want to go on Monday morning?”
“Mmm, looks like if you don’t have a reservation it’s first-come, first-serve. You’re supposed to be there half an hour before departure time. Only two return trips a day, at ten-fifteen a.m. and four-forty-five p.m.”
Cara started folding a T-shirt to put in her bag.
“Bad idea,” Bert said. “Long sleeves are the way to go over there. The place is crawling with bugs. Make sure you throw in some insect repellent and some sunscreen too. Can I ask about your plan of attack?”
“You can ask, but I don’t really have one. I guess I’ll get over to Cumberland, track Brooke down, and then hope and pray she’ll listen to good sense.”
“About the tracking-down thing. You do realize the island is like twenty miles long, right? And most of it’s either woods, swamp, or beaches. And only rangers or residents are allowed to have cars.”
Cara threw in a pair of running shorts, a long-sleeved T-shirt, and a pair of blue jeans, then added hiking boots, socks, panties, and a toothbrush to her pack.
