Trouble Island by Franklin W. Dixon

Author:Franklin W. Dixon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aladdin
Published: 2021-02-16T00:00:00+00:00

8 THE TRUTH

JOE

MY STOMACH WASN’T FEELING GREAT, but I tried to force down my nausea. I wanted to hear the whole story.

“My ex-wife Anika and I came to Rubble Island for the first time for an artists’ retreat,” Jacques began. “Anika is the painter. I was just along for the ride. We fell in love with the island—we were seriously thinking about pulling up stakes in Boston and moving out here. We couldn’t imagine how we’d make a living—I worked for a travel website, and she was a teacher, but I couldn’t telecommute, and Rubble Island already had the only teacher it needed.” Jacques smiled. “A few months after the retreat, Anika came running into my study with her laptop. She’d found a posting on some obscure Maine classified section: the Sea Spray Inn on Rubble Island was for sale.”

“Had you noticed it when you visited before?” Frank asked.

Jacques nodded. “We stayed here, actually. The artists were housed in the east outbuilding—that one doesn’t have electricity.” He raised his eyebrows. “We loved it—the history of this place. And we enjoyed not being plugged in every moment. We thought perhaps if we bought the property, we could fix it up and give others that experience. I knew about the travel industry from my job; I felt like I knew what made a hotel work. And Anika was excited to open a real gourmet restaurant here. We reached out to Polly, who was an assistant chef at our favorite bistro in Boston. She loved the idea of a change—and of making a go of island living.”

I nodded, rubbing my stomach. “All right,” I said. “You come out here, and everything’s amazing? Then why are people throwing bricks through your window?”

Jacques’s face fell. “Let me finish. At first it was hard work, but getting the inn running was rewarding. We felt like we were investing in something—building something for our future. Soon the improvements were done, the Salty Duck was open, we got some beautiful write-ups on tourist sites and in magazines. And still, we weren’t making enough to pay for the work we’d done, much less turn a profit.” He sighed. “Life on the island was hard, and lonely, and in the winter months, very isolating. The inn needed so much upkeep and was more expensive than we’d anticipated because of the challenges of having work done on an island. Everything had to be brought in and out by boat—the men, the supplies, the machinery. And we had to work around the ferry schedule, which in the winter was very unpredictable.” He glanced sadly at Dev. “After the first year, Anika and I began arguing. First about big things, and then about every little thing. She was convinced that moving here had been a mistake. She’d envisioned a different sort of life for herself. But I wasn’t ready to give up.” He sighed again. “She hung in there, but eighteen months in, our marriage fell apart. We divorced, and she moved back to Boston.

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