Emma in the Night

by Wendy Walker

  Only one island matched the description.

  “You ready?” Leo asked as they stood on the dock. A coast guard cutter was standing by. Abby and the forensic team would wait on the boat until the island was cleared. Leo was going with the CIRG team.

  “I’m nervous,” Abby said.

  She stared at the map she’d been given from the satellite. She could see where Freya was positioned, and the structures on the island. She could imagine Cass and Emma standing on the dock, seeing the larger island of Thrumcap and beyond that, the mainland, their freedom close but unattainable. There was no way someone could swim that distance in this water without a wetsuit. And the coast guard had confirmed that the currents were strong. Swimming across this stretch of water would be like swimming twice the distance, and that was only if the currents didn’t pull you toward the rocks on the western end.

  Everything had happened quickly. Too quickly for Abby to make sense of it all. The boat was found two days before Cass returned home, even though it had taken four more days for the dock owner to put the pieces together. Yet she’d said she’d come home that same night, on that boat. And it was found drifting on its own, the key turned to the on position and the gas tank empty.

  “That’s not like Rick,” the dock owner had told them. He had always taken very good care of that boat. “We had no idea he was in trouble till we saw the news this morning. Called the local sheriff, but we didn’t know his real name so no one made the connection.”

  The teams had come the moment they got the call. Foley’s apartment was found in Damariscotta, about ten miles from South Bristol. It had also been rented under the name Conroy. A forensic team was searching the place. So far, they’d found nothing of interest. No papers, no files. Richard Foley had stayed off the grid just like the Pratts, using a different name, paying cash for everything.

  And in several hours of questioning Lisa Jennings, all they’d gotten were more shocking depictions of Jonathan Martin’s diminished morality, and his obsession with furthering the interests of his son. They had found no connection between either of them and the Pratts, no evidence suggesting they knew about Emma’s pregnancy and had tried to help her leave. Their affair, however inappropriate, seemed to have had nothing at all to do with the girls’ disappearance. But Abby already suspected this.

  Lisa Jennings went back to work that morning. And Judy Martin had refused to be interviewed.

  From the cutter, Abby could see the team descend on the shore and disperse into the wooded area that led up to the house. They were live on the coast guard feed and she could hear the reports as they cleared every structure. “The house—clear. The shed—clear. The greenhouse—clear.”

  Two of the CIRG team stayed at the house with Leo. The others spread out deeper into the woods. And the coast guard was given the green light to dock and escort Abby and the others on shore.

  Cass’s stories were playing out in Abby’s head as she approached the island. The house, perched on a hill and looking out at the open ocean. The wood dock, the stairs on one side and the place where Bill Pratt had nearly drowned the baby on the other side. As the cutter landed, Abby pictured them there, terrified as Bill kicked Emma’s hands off the side, making her fingers bleed while she shivered in the frigid water.

  Abby disembarked with one of the coast guard. He walked her up the long path, through sparse woods, to the entrance of the house. Leo met her there.

  “It’s real,” she said.

  Leo nodded. “I know. Wait until you see inside.”

  They walked through the front door, which opened into a small foyer. The stairs were directly across, and Abby could see the hallway above on the second floor. There was a large picture window at the top of the landing, the hallway then turning to the right or left. The windows were closed up tight, making the air stale. Flies buzzed against the glass panes, trying to escape.

  The forensic team spread out, with two agents bounding up the stairs and the third already at work in the first-floor bedroom.

  “Don’t touch anything,” they said to Abby, as if she didn’t already know. But it was her first time at a crime scene, or a potential crime scene. All her work with the Bureau until now had involved an analysis of people—their sanity, their emotions, their motivations. Now she was in a Tyvek suit, her shoes carefully covered, her hands double-gloved. She could not ignore the nervous energy surging through her.

  Leo called out to them from the bottom of the stairs. “We need to know where the hell they’ve gone—anything, papers, documents, computers…”

  “The rowboat,” Abby said, standing beside him. “It wasn’t at the dock.”

  Leo nodded. “Yeah, I know. You think they could have rowed with four people? And then what—did they have a gun to Emma’s head? Once she got to the mainland, I don’t see how they keep her and a toddler against their will once they get off this island.”

  “I don’t know. But I want to see every room of this house.”

  They started downstairs, first in the living room with the ballet barre and the television. Then the dining room, with the long, rectangular table, eight chairs with red corduroy cushions tied to the seats. A painting of a farmhouse hung over a breakfront. Salt and pepper shakers sat on top of the breakfront, askew as if they had been placed there in haste after cleaning up from a meal. The kitchen, too, was exactly as Cass described. The gas stove. The white china with small blue flowers along the rim. Four of them were neatly stacked in a drying rack next to the sink, along with a frying pan, spatula, glasses. More flies buzzed around a small metal garbage can.

  “Looks like they left in the morning,” Abby said. “They had dinner, washed the dishes, went to bed. They woke up to find Cass gone.”

  They went next to the first-floor bedroom, which was off the kitchen. It was large but informal, and the placement of it in the house indicated it was originally intended for servants and not owners. Three single beds were lined in a row, sheets and blankets sprawled on top, unmade.

  “Shit,” Leo said. He was looking at the bed closest to the far wall. It was stripped bare. “Why would they take the things from this bed and not the others?”

  “Emma’s daughter. The third bed. Everything is like she said.”

  They touched nothing and stepped aside as the forensic team did its work. Drawers were opened, revealing the clothing of a large man, a short but plump woman with a DD breast size. The clothes of a little girl were in the bottom drawer of a dresser—one pair of pink leggings, some flowered shirts and dresses. Several pairs of small white socks with ruffles. They were washed and neatly folded. Long gray hair came from a brush in the bathroom. Grecian Formula boxes were found there as well, below the sink in a small wooden cupboard. Baby shampoo was on the rim of the bathtub.

  “I want to see their rooms upstairs,” Abby said.

  To the right of the landing on the second floor were two small bedrooms and a bath. One of the bedrooms faced the front of the house, into the woods looking west. The second bedroom faced the courtyard, north. The bathroom looked out due east into the Atlantic.

  The drawers in the bedrooms, and behind the mirror and under the sink—all of them were empty, some left open as if the rooms had been cleared in haste.

  Thoughts rushed in as Abby walked through each space where Cass had lived for three years. This is where she watched the lobster boats.… This is where she lay in bed, aching to come home.… This is where she showered, washing the boatman, and her guilt and her pain from her skin.

  From there, they crossed over to the two rooms on the other side of the courtyard, a large bedroom and adjoining bath. It was, or should have been, the master suite. Here, too, the drawers had all been emptied. Not even a bar of soap or a razor or a toothbrush.

  Leo stood in the center, turning slowly in a circle. “Anything?” he asked one of the forensics.

  The woman shook her head. “Not a lot of prints. They tried to wipe it clean. But we’ll find them. Just need to keep looki
ng.”

  Abby sighed, hands on hips, perplexed. “So, they wake up, find Cass gone. Can’t reach Richard Foley. They pack up all of the girls’ belongings, try to wipe down the entire house, then leave in the rowboat? Now we have four people and how many bags of things?”

  “Dumped the bags in the ocean. Put rocks in the bags, sealed them up tight, let them sink,” Leo said.

  Abby walked to the bedroom window and looked out at the ocean.

  “Hey!” the forensic called out. She was kneeling beside the bed. “I found something. It was taped to the frame. Someone was trying to hide it.”

  Abby and Leo walked to where she was and stared at the object in her hand.

  Dangling from the white latex glove was a necklace. It had a thin silver chain and an angel medallion. The chain was broken, just as Cass had told them.

  “Emma’s necklace,” Abby said in a whisper.

  Leo looked at Abby, his eyes wide. “She left it behind.”

  “Yes. Yes, she did,” Abby said.

  “She hid it from the Pratts.”

  “Yes,” Abby agreed.

  Leo was confused. “Why didn’t she take it with her?”

  But Abby already knew. “Because she wanted us to find it.”

  NINETEEN

  Cass

  In the spring of Hunter’s senior year at boarding school, something terrible happened. It started with his acceptance to Hamilton College. Both he and Mr. Martin had been very puffed up about it since the letter arrived in late March—right after we returned from St. Barts. Mr. Martin went to college at Hamilton, and he talked about it like it was Harvard. Even now I feel annoyed by this. I was in eighth grade at the time. Emma was a sophomore, and at our school you have to start thinking about college very early. Between Emma and Hunter, our house was filled with talk of SATs and ACTs and APs and the summer grid. Even when Hunter didn’t come home for the weekend, Mr. Martin was obsessed with his son getting into college—Hamilton, in particular—and Mrs. Martin was then obsessed with Emma’s college choices because her children were just as important as his. If Mr. Martin had talked about Hunter joining the circus, Mrs. Martin would have taken Emma to tightrope classes.

  She could not admit to herself that he was better educated or more sophisticated than she was, because then he might feel more powerful and he was only allowed to feel that way in the bedroom, even though he was both those things, and even though the bedroom was the only place he lost his power. And that just proves my point about this sex power women have and how limited and flawed it is. Even Mrs. Martin’s sex power paled beside Mr. Martin’s status and money power, and she knew it. She knew it in her bones.

  Mr. Martin had to pay a lot of money to Hamilton for Hunter to even have a chance of getting in because his grades were not good and his scores were not good. And he was not good, overall. He did not have any varsity sports and he did not belong to any clubs or do any charity work. I don’t know how much money it cost to get that letter, but Mr. Martin worried and complained about it for months, so it must have been a lot. But it was worth it to him. Hunter was Mr. Martin’s only child. He was named after his dead grandfather, and he had lived full-time with Mr. Martin for his entire life. Everything Mr. Martin did and everything he was began and ended with his son. His sacred progeny. His legacy.

  My mother didn’t go to college, but she spoke about Hamilton in a dismissive way when Mr. Martin was not around. She said it was a second-tier school and she told Emma she had better study and keep her grades up so she could do better. Our father’s family had connections at Columbia. Our father went there and so did Witt, although I know Witt could have gotten in on his own because he also got into Princeton and we don’t know anyone there. My mother had not known the difference between schools like Columbia and Hamilton until that year, when it became necessary for her power struggle with her husband. No one was better than she was. No child better than her child.

  After the letter came, there was great relief in our house. Mr. Martin was full of pride. My mother was full of determination for Emma. I was full of annoyance. And Hunter was full of himself. He was so full, in fact, that he imagined himself invincible. He got arrogant. And careless. One weekend, he was so careless that he got caught doing cocaine on the campus of his boarding school.

  Mr. Martin went on and on about how back in the day, such a thing would have gotten you a suspension. But not now. People had a different attitude about drugs, and schools that were not tough on drugs would not attract the best students and the parents with the most money. The school held a disciplinary hearing. It consisted of students and faculty members, who were allowed to question Hunter, hear his apologies, and watch him beg for leniency in his senior year. Mr. Martin wrote another check, this time to the boarding school. Another very big check.

  None of that was enough. Hunter had not done himself any favors by being the kind of person he was, and most of the faculty and the students who were worthy of being on the disciplinary committee disliked him. Some hated him, it seems. They recommended expulsion, and after three years and seven months of paid enrollment, Hunter Martin was expelled from his fancy boarding school. Of course, Hamilton then withdrew its offer and told Mr. Martin that Hunter could apply again the following year, but that he would be “well advised” to pursue a meaningful endeavor during the year off, and turn his life around.

  In May of that year, Hunter returned home. He enrolled in the public high school so he could earn a degree, which was deeply humiliating for him. He had to take exams for classes he hadn’t been in all year and he got very bad grades, even worse than he was getting before. Many of the kids there he knew from town, from partying in the summer, or from years before when he was in grade school with them. Hunter did not handle humiliation well. Neither did Mr. Martin. There were many phone calls in all directions, assigning blame and plotting a way out of the mess Hunter had created for himself and his family.

  I understood Mr. Martin. He had spent a lot of money for Hunter to have the name of that school on his résumé. It was something he would have for the rest of his life. Anyone can graduate from public high school. They have to take you if you live in the same town. As Mr. Martin explained it to Hunter, at some point in life, your grades and accomplishments in high school don’t matter. All that matters is the name of it, and the name of the college it helped you get into. Then it would be the name of the place you worked, the company or the person or even the school if you became a professor. Names, names, names. It was no different from shopping for groceries. Will you buy Heinz ketchup or generic? If you can afford Heinz, you will buy Heinz. He was desperate for his son to understand.

  Hunter could not defend himself, so he didn’t try. And also, he knew Mr. Martin had taken those pictures of Emma, so Mr. Martin was not exactly standing on high ground when it came to being a good person. He did his best to twist things.

  You had everything at stake. Everything to lose. All you had to do was hold it together for seven weeks. That’s it. Seven fucking weeks! You could have come home to snort your cocaine. Did you want to get thrown out, just to spite me? But now, look what you’ve done. You’ve hurt no one but yourself!

  Mr. Martin swore he wouldn’t write another check to Hamilton College, but I knew he would. He could not stand for Hunter not to go there, not to collect names for his résumé.

  The story we told people was that Hunter had decided to defer his enrollment so he could do community service and get some life experience. My father found him a volunteer job at an old age center for the summer. From there, he would spend three weeks building houses in Costa Rica. Then he would come home and find a job and make money, and volunteer somewhere on the weekends. He would also complete a drug- and alcohol-abuse program. It sounded bad, even to me.

  There are so many pieces to our story, pieces that, if taken away, might have changed the whole course of it. And it’s not just the big things, like Mrs. Martin having sex with Mr. Martin and leaving our father, or
our father smoking pot again and having to give up his fight for custody, or Emma sleeping with that boy from Hunter’s school. There was also Hunter calling her a whore, Emma dropping her dress for Mr. Martin, Mr. Martin giving in to his fantasies and taking a picture, Hunter posting pictures on the Internet. The suntan lotion in St. Barts, then another summer of name-calling and snuggling on the sofa. It also took this last thing—Hunter being expelled and not going to Hamilton after his senior year. And, of course, it took all of us, our flaws and our desires. My hunger for power, which I will get to next. It was all in it, in our story, like the ingredients to a complicated recipe.

  I remember the day Emma found out about Hunter being expelled and his admission to Hamilton being placed on hold. She came to my room, where I was doing homework, and threw herself spread eagle on my bed, something she rarely did. I was always going to her room, barging in, begging to be let in, sneaking in. She came to my room only in the night, sometimes when she needed to say things she could not say to any other human being because they were ugly things—things that came from anger or sadness or fear. Emma could not tolerate anyone thinking she was ugly, inside or out, and she knew that I could never see her as anything less than beautiful.

  Ha-ha!

  She said that a few times and with total glee.

  That little prick. That weenie. He thought he could get away with anything. But he was wrong.

  She told me what had happened, and I could not believe it. Not because Hunter didn’t do things like that but because he had seemed to me to be invincible—one of those people death would never take, no matter how many bad things he did or how much he deserved it. It seemed to defy logic that he was going to get what he deserved.

  I am going to make him suffer. He thought what he did to me in St. Barts was bad. Just wait! Everyone in this town is going to know what happened. He’s going to have to walk around with a bag over his head!

  Emma was good for her word. She told everyone she knew—and she knew a lot of people. Hunter didn’t have a chance to spin it, and when he came home the following night, social media was already buzzing about his fall.