Emma in the Night

by Wendy Walker

  Emma’s new boyfriend dumped her. He said his mother made him do it. Emma cried for three days and refused to speak to Hunter. She said she would never forgive him and would hate him forever and blah blah blah. This, too, floated up to the clouds and joined my parents’ blah blah blah.

  It was Witt who stayed on the ground. He waited for Hunter in the parking lot at the club one afternoon. He made a fist and he pounded Hunter’s face. He broke his nose and bruised his eye sockets. But mostly he bruised Hunter’s ego. Mr. Martin paid a visit to my father. I was not there, but I have heard two versions of the same story. In one version, my mother’s, Mr. Martin picked up my father by his jaw and hung him against the door. He told him he would kill him if Witt ever touched his son again. In the other version, my father’s, Mr. Martin came and threatened his life, and my father told him to Go to hell.

  It did not end there. Hunter went to my father’s house late one night and slashed Witt’s tires. Witt reported it to the police, and the police showed up at our house to question Hunter.

  Mr. Martin lied and said Hunter had been home all night. Mrs. Martin kept quiet about the fact that they had been out to dinner around the time it happened. The police wanted no part of this family feud anyway, so they closed the investigation before it ever really got started.

  My father was, again, beside himself with rage but without any plan to seek revenge. Witt, on the other hand, just got himself some new tires. It didn’t matter that Hunter had not been punished. Even after his nose healed, and his skin returned to its normal color, the bruise to his ego would remain forever. And that was enough for my brother. My real brother.

  After that incident, I was left with a clearer understanding about the depths of Hunter’s feelings for Emma. Love, obsession, whatever it was behind those feelings, they were so big that he would sooner destroy her than see her with someone else. And so when I returned from the island and was sitting in Mrs. Martin’s living room, and when Hunter was asking me about Emma and how she was, and how she had survived, and how we were going to find her and save her—and when I could see that his concern came without any emotion, that he really didn’t care about Emma anymore—I was shocked.

  Then I looked at his girlfriend, at Brenda whatever. I watched how she moved and spoke and pouted. And I began to understand. She was the new Emma. It was hard then to zoom out the way Witt could. I wanted to stop everyone right there and yell, That’s it? All of it was for nothing? We went through all of that when there was a new Emma right around the corner? I didn’t know if I could stop myself. I took in air and then pushed it down into my lungs. I pushed it down until it hurt and my head started to get dizzy.

  When we had exhausted the more difficult parts of my story, Hunter leaned into the sofa, his hands laced together, and pressed against the back of his head. “And you never found out who the father was? If it happened in June, I bet it was some prick she met in Paris. We should sue the camp. That’s what we should do. Get their insurance to pay out.”

  He nodded in agreement with himself. Then he continued.

  “Jesus Christ, Cass. I can’t believe this happened to you. I’m so sorry. I’ve thought so many times that maybe I could have helped prevent whatever it was that led to your disappearing. I guess I was wrong to think that.”

  I shrugged. “You couldn’t have done anything.”

  “I know. Now I know.”

  Mr. Martin spoke then, for the first time since we’d sat down for tea. “No one could have done anything about this. Emma had a head of steel. She did what she wanted and no one stopped her. We all loved her for that. But it got her into trouble … right? And more than a few times.”

  I wanted to break his face open with my teacup at that moment. He knew nothing about my sister except what he stole while he was spying on her in the basement with his degenerate son who was now so perfect with his fancy job and his pretty girlfriend. I wished in that moment Dr. Winter had stayed. She would have seen right through all of them!

  I did not break his face with my teacup. Instead, I used my words … the way they taught us at our fancy school. “Why don’t we all just keep working to find her? Then we’ll know, won’t we? We’ll all know what could have been done to save her.”

  Mrs. Martin looked at Mr. Martin. She seemed unnerved. She opened her eyes wide the way people do when they’re trying to send an unspoken message that someone in the room is out of line. I suppose that person was me, and it made me feel better. I wanted to be out of line. I wanted them to wonder what I would do and, for once, fear that it would be out of their control.

  I excused myself and went upstairs to lie down. They were all whispering about me once I’d left the room. But I could hear the murmur.

  When I cleared my head and calmed my anger, I thought about Hunter and the way he had held me and not wanted to let go. I considered the possibility that he had missed me. That he had cared for me more than I’d thought. But then the truth came rushing in and I smiled when I felt it. Knowing it felt good because it was true.

  He had thought his past had vanished along with his sisters that night three years ago. And now one of us had returned. He was holding me not because he was happy I was home. He was holding me because somewhere inside his dark mind, he thought he could make me vanish all over again.

  TEN

  Dr. Winter

  On the second day of Cass Tanner’s return, the Martin house was in a state of chaos. Or maybe that was just what it felt like to Abby.

  Media trucks lined the street. Patrol cars blocked the driveway. Two field agents sat at the dining room table with equipment that could trace a call from the landline if Emma called—or the Pratts, for that matter. There was always the possibility of a ransom. Unlikely—but what if they did call and nothing had been done to prepare? Just like the disappearance three years before, there was no protocol that fit this case, and to Abby, it all seemed cobbled together. Chaos inside and out.

  Leo was waiting for her in the living room. He was alone. “Hey,” he said. Abby could see the concern on his face.

  She’d woken up on her kitchen floor, sitting upright, the dog still in her lap, not more than two hours gone by. She’d gotten up and gone through her files, but it was not good, not sleeping. And now it was starting to show on her face.

  “Come and sit down, kiddo.” He handed her coffee in a paper cup poured from a paper box someone had picked up at a doughnut shop.

  Abby took the coffee and inhaled deeply near the rim. “So nothing from the physical exam? Is she on any meds?” she asked.

  Leo nodded. “Small doses of Xanax. We just got the sketches done. We’ll have copies in an hour. Soil analysis from Cass’s shoes turned up shale and limestone. Consistent with coastal Maine.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Upstairs with her babysitter,” he answered sarcastically.

  Abby smiled. “And the husband? Owen? They’re not here?”

  “Jonathan Martin went to the store. Owen went to see his son. Delivering the story in person, I suspect. Not the kind of thing you do on the phone.”

  Abby felt irritated, impatient. “Are we doing this?”

  “She’ll be down. I told her you were on the way,” Leo said calmly.

  “We need the rest of the story, Leo. Start to finish. I don’t have a handle on these people yet. Or Emma, for that matter.”

  “Okay. I hear you.”

  Abby took a sip of the coffee and closed her eyes. The adrenaline was subsiding, and in its place came bone-deep exhaustion.

  “What did you find in your notes?” Leo asked.

  Abby sighed. Shook her head. “I don’t know. I read them all again this morning, with an eye to the pregnancy and the person who might have helped her. Emma’s friends her senior year. The director at the program in France where she may have met the father. The timing’s right. Six weeks to discover the pregnancy and two or three more to find the Pratts and make her plan to leave—that would put her right around the
time of the disappearance.”

  “Yup. And the birth in March.”

  “Do you remember the school counselor? She had a lot to say about Emma, about her observations of her—how she exhibited signs of arrogance but it was really insecurity.”

  Leo let out a soft chuckle. “Ah, yes. The pretty blonde. I believe you had some strong opinions about her. Amateur hour—right? Didn’t she get her degree from some community college?”

  “It was an MSW from an online university.”

  “Right,” Leo said, leaning back into the sofa with a smile. “So, what? You think she knew Emma better than we thought? Maybe Emma was seeing her about her problems? About the pregnancy?”

  Abby shook her head. “No. I don’t know. She seemed very pleased with herself and how much she had observed. But no one said Emma was seeing her beyond casual passings in the hallway.”

  It was strange how Abby remembered all these interviews and the image of the girls that had formed from them. Yet now the details that were drawing her attention were entirely different. She was no longer seeing the information through the same lens—what had driven the girls to leave or fall victim to a predator or engage in reckless behavior? They knew where the girls had gone and the circumstances of their disappearance. The new lens had turned on the people left behind. Who would have helped her? And who would have lied about it?

  “What about the half brother, Witt Tanner?”

  Abby started to tell him about that interview all over again, but he had been there, in the room. He had asked the questions and listened to the same answers Abby had heard and written down meticulously.

  The interview of Witt Tanner from three years ago had been the hardest to revisit. He had told them things that even his father, Owen, had not offered. Things about Judy Martin like the story of the necklace and stories about life in the Martin home—including some naked photos of Emma that Hunter had posted on a Web site. That was just the beginning. Witt’s affection for his half sisters was undeniable. Their disappearance had torn him up. And he had been sincere and forthcoming about the childhood he had witnessed from a distance. As she read her notes of that interview, Abby had stared at three words, words Witt had spoken and that Abby had written down on a piece of lined yellow paper.

  She is evil.

  Abby had dwelled on those words and on the stories he’d told her. Before the divorce, when Witt stayed at the house every other weekend, there would be fights between Judy and Owen—fights Witt and his sisters could hear without even trying. “Take care of your fucking children!” Owen would yell. And she would yell back, “You take care of them, asshole! You’re the one who wanted them!” And then Owen, “Really? I’m not the one who lied about taking the pill!” Cass would fold into herself like she was trying to disappear. Emma would stare into space with a look of concentrated defiance, like perhaps she was plotting revenge against both of them for not wanting to take care of their own children, and for making them feel so unworthy.

  When they got older and Witt no longer came to the old house, Witt said that his sisters would tell him about the fights between Emma and her mother, unthinkable words flying from their mouths. Bitch! Whore! Cunt! Emma would laugh about borrowing her mother’s clothes—something that made her crazy. Cass would usually finish the story in a way that killed the laughter, like the time Judy forced Emma to take off a dress that belonged to her right in the kitchen, in front of Cass. Emma ran upstairs crying, dressed only in her bra and underpants. Judy then took the dress and put it into the garbage can.

  Witt had tried to explain it.

  “Emma always made light of things, like nothing Judy did could touch her. But Cass, she told the stories like they were warnings about the future—like they were lessons about who Judy Martin was and what she was capable of doing.”

  The stories went on and on—some of them witnessed firsthand. Others that had been recounted by the girls when they saw Witt at their father’s house. When Leo had heard all this during the original investigation, he had reminded her of other things. “Witt hated Hunter for slashing his tires. Witt hated Judy Martin for stealing his father and ruining his home. He was angry and violent, full of rage with a thirst for revenge.”

  Any story could be told to tip the scale in one direction or another. Maybe Witt had exaggerated. Maybe the facts seemed more ominous when they were filtered through Witt’s dark lens, and his angry voice, and his watery eyes.

  Leo’s question still hung in the air. What about Witt Tanner?

  “Abby?” he said when she didn’t answer.

  Abby shook her head and shrugged. “Nothing, really. But no way he was the one who helped Emma leave. That kid was wrecked when the girls disappeared.”

  There had not been anything new. That part was not a lie. But those three words, “She is evil,” had been added to the file Abby was now keeping in her head.

  Two sets of footsteps came from down the hall. Cass and Judy Martin entered the room, causing both Leo and Abby to stand.

  “I see you got some clothes,” Abby said, smiling at Cass, who sat down neatly in a small chair pulled from a desk. She folded her hands in her lap. Her knees and ankles glued together. Shoulders straight as a board.

  “My mother let me borrow some. The shoes belonged to Hunter.” Her voice was flat, unemotional. “He’s coming to visit later.”

  “Years ago, I put on some weight,” Judy said, not able to help herself as she found her way into a formal armchair. She was no more than a size or two smaller than her daughter, something that Abby had not even noticed until it was mentioned. But Judy could not take any chances. There could be no mistake that she was thinner than her daughter, who was now a beautiful young woman.

  Abby felt her gaze pulled back to Cass, who watched intently as though willing her to see something only they could see.

  “Should we continue where we left off?” Leo asked. “I think Dr. Winter has some avenues she wants to explore about the island.”

  Cass nodded and smiled again, politely. Her demeanor had changed drastically from the day before. There were no tears. No desperate pleas.

  “Cass, you said it was that night that made you believe the boatman would eventually help you?” Abby asked her, looking down at a legal pad.

  “Yes. Well, not that night but because of that night.”

  She looked tired, as though she hadn’t slept much either.

  “Because of what happened after you got back to the house—after the first time you tried to escape?”

  “Yes. Should I tell the story now?”

  “Yes,” Abby said.

  Cass took a breath, in and out, then began to speak in a slow, methodical rhythm.

  “It was three days later. That night, when I got back to the house, it was dark and dead quiet, except for the generator. It came on and off when something in the house needed electricity, like heat or hot water. It was pretty loud and it was on when I got to the front door, so I went inside and up to Emma’s room with no one hearing anything. ‘What happened?’ she asked me. I could see she was distraught that I was still there, on the island. I told her about the current and the oars and Rick taking the boat. She grabbed my arms and shook me, hard, and yelled at me through a whisper that I had ruined everything. And she was right. Six months of planning was gone. She ordered me to leave and I did. I could hear her crying as I walked down the hall.

  “My room was on the other side of the upstairs, like I said, and so I had to be quiet as I walked around. I lay down but didn’t sleep. And in the morning, when Rick showed up with groceries and mail, I forced myself to stay at the desk where we studied and do what I always do, which is glance up and then look away because he was hard to look at. If you looked at him too long, you could feel his anger like water in a kettle. I had never considered asking him for help or telling him anything, even before Lucy told me about his past and how they had saved him from drugs and his guilt.

  “He came and left and everything seemed normal
. I slept that night, relieved and grateful because I thought he hadn’t told them and it would just be forgotten. Another day passed, and another night of sleep. I felt my nerves settle down and when they did, the disappointment poured in. I realized then that I was right back to where I had been, and that I had exhausted myself and worried Emma for nothing. Just to be back in the same place.

  “It didn’t help that Emma was mad at me, and not just pretend mad for our plan. She was mad because I had failed.

  “On the third day, Emma and I came downstairs to breakfast set at the table. Usually we just made some toast and took it to our desks. Lucy didn’t like us being around the baby. ‘Sit down,’ Bill said. It was strange that they were both there in the kitchen like that. But we did what was asked of us and sat down. Lucy poured us some juice and then gave us plates with two toaster waffles and syrup. Then she sat down as well, with the baby in her arms and Bill standing behind her.

  “‘We’ve been thinking,’ Lucy said. ‘Maybe you girls have been here long enough. Maybe it’s time to go home.’

  “I felt a rush of happiness! I thought Rick had told them about the boat and the rocks and the oars that wouldn’t steer me out of the current and now they were just going to let us leave. We weren’t prisoners. How stupid we had been! Why didn’t we just ask to leave? All this time, they would have let us go! And then I felt guilty for thinking bad things about Bill and Lucy, for being so stupid and melodramatic.

  “Emma looked at her baby and started to cry. ‘Really?’ she asked. ‘We can go home now?’ Lucy smiled. ‘Of course! You always could.’ They told us to finish eating and then go pack our things, which we did. But before that, when we were at the top of the stairs, Emma about to turn left and me right, she grabbed me and hugged me and told me I had saved us all. I packed so fast, you can’t imagine! I put things into three plastic bags because that was all I had, and I left whatever didn’t fit inside. Emma and I were on the dock within half an hour. It was February, and the cold is hard to describe. It cuts into you.