Missing Pieces

by Tim Weaver

  You don’t know who you can trust.

  She ripped her eyes away from the harbourmaster and looked at the ferry again. It had emptied, foot passengers – if there had been any – gone, any vehicles, apart from two pickups in the harbour parking lot, already somewhere else. Was it possible one of the pickups belonged to Hain and Lima? She didn’t see them anywhere, and she remembered them saying they were going to bring a trailer with them so they could transport her Cherokee back to the mainland if necessary. It seemed much more likely that the pickups belonged to the two men talking outside the general store.

  Or the harbourmaster.

  She looked at him again. He’d reached inside the shack and had brought out a coffee cup.

  He was now checking his phone.

  He’s got a signal.

  Rebekah looked along Main Street, out to where it connected to the Loop. There were no cars out there. No sign of Hain and Lima. She could make it to the harbourmaster, to his phone, in seconds. All it would take was one phone call for her to be rescued from this.

  No. She closed her eyes. Stick to the plan.

  A couple of minutes later, she unzipped her backpack and took out Stelzik’s alarm clock: 12:17. The ferry didn’t go until 5 p.m. Was she really going to wait almost five hours when there was a usable cellphone less than four hundred feet away? She looked at the harbourmaster again. She could call the cops on the mainland now. She could already have called them – and they could already be on their way. Fear, courage, indecision: it all hit her at once.

  Hain and Lima aren’t here.

  Stick to the plan.

  They’re occupied on the other side of the island.

  No. Stop it.

  You’re not going to get this chance again.

  You could grab that phone and make the call.

  No.

  This could all be over already.

  No. It’s too risky.

  This could be over and you could be speaking to your girls –

  Her body was moving before her brain had caught up.

  She sprang to her feet and took off, leaving the bike where it was on the grass bank, then headed down, onto Main Street, and in through the gates of the harbour. As soon as she did, the harbourmaster saw her. She was hurrying, almost stumbling. The closer she got to him, the more concerned he looked.

  ‘You all right, sir?’ he asked, but as she got closer, panic gripped her: she was disguised as a man, but the instant she spoke, her voice would give her away. She’d never practised for this. She’d never thought about having to make conversation. What was she going to do now? Put on an accent? Drop her voice an octave? You idiot. All of a sudden, she felt overwhelmed by her stupidity, her impulsiveness. You fucking idiot. You should have stayed where you were.

  ‘Sir? Are you okay?’

  She looked at the harbourmaster. As she stopped short of him, breathless, tears welled in her eyes. The kindness in his face, in the smile at the corners of his mouth disarmed her. She hadn’t seen evidence of another person’s kindness for so long she was barely even able to remember what it looked like.

  ‘I, uh … My name’s …’ She stopped. Her voice had come out sounding exactly like her own. What do I do? How do I speak?

  A frown bloomed on the harbourmaster’s face, and Rebekah realized that – despite her clothes, despite the hair, despite all the hours she’d put into the disguise – the instant she talked, he’d known she was a woman.

  ‘Uh …’ He didn’t know how to address her. ‘Miss?’

  ‘My name is Rebekah,’ she said.

  It meant nothing to him, she could see that.

  ‘Are you okay, Rebekah?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ she replied. ‘I’ve been trapped here.’

  He put his coffee aside. ‘What?’

  ‘I’ve been trapped here for five months.’

  He looked like he wasn’t sure if she was joking or not. ‘You’ve …’ He glanced out to the ferry. ‘You’ve been on the island since Halloween?’

  She nodded, swallowed.

  The harbourmaster looked floored. ‘Wha– How?’

  Her breath stalled. Her eyes blurred.

  Tell him.

  You need to tell him.

  ‘Someone tried to kill me.’

  55

  The harbourmaster told her his name was Caleb. Inside the shack, the shelves were laden, but her attention was drawn to a handheld VHF radio. It was on the desk, clearly brought over that morning, because it hadn’t been there during the winter. An orange DISTRESS button was on top.

  ‘We need to call the cops,’ he said, watching her, curious, perhaps even wary, still struggling to comprehend the extent of what she was telling him. ‘You’ve really been on the island this whole time?’

  She frowned. ‘Why would I lie?’

  He held up a hand. ‘I ain’t accusing you of lying.’

  ‘I know, I just …’ Rebekah took a breath. ‘I’m sorry. I came here with my brother and I don’t know where he is.’

  ‘You two got separated?’

  ‘In the forest, when they tried to kill us. I don’t know if Johnny’s dead or alive. I don’t know if he’s in a grave out here – or if he made it back home.’

  But the question she’d asked herself, every single day for five months, was, if he had made it back home, if he was still alive, why hadn’t he sent help?

  ‘The guy who tried to kill me, he’s here right now.’

  ‘On the island?’

  Rebekah nodded, but there was something in Caleb’s face. Was he just humouring her? Did he not believe her? Should she have trusted him at all? She started to panic again, her chest tightening, her throat shrinking, but then she forced herself to calm down, to breathe, to think. For now, she had to run with this, make it work. She’d made her choice by not sticking to the plan.

  Caleb glanced through the window, to the empty lot and the ocean beyond. ‘Okay, well, the most important thing is you’re safe with me now.’ Rebekah wasn’t sure if that was true or not, and Caleb didn’t seem entirely certain either. He was obviously trying to think about the best course of action. ‘You said the guy who tried to kill you took your cell?’

  At the mention of a cell, she switched on again: ‘Can I use your phone?’ she asked. ‘I need to call home. I need to speak to my girls.’

  Caleb unclipped his phone from his belt.

  As he did so, Rebekah thought of Hain and Lima.

  The ferry had docked almost an hour and a half ago so, given the fact that – unknown to them – they’d never find her body, it seemed likely they’d still be out there, among the trees somewhere.

  Likely.

  But not certain.

  She glanced out of the window, into the mist that was hanging over the harbour, and then down, into her lap, at her hands. Dirt and grime – the stains of existing here for five months, of finding out how to survive with no help – marked her fingers, engrained in them despite a thousand washes. There were fine cuts everywhere, bruises on her arms and legs. There was a constant throb in her head and neck, worse some days than others, from when she’d fallen into the gully. She’d repaired the cut, stitched it, dressed it, and removed the stitches after it had healed, but it was always there. And as she saw the blemishes, every reminder of what had happened, the doubt started to gnaw at her again. This man can’t protect me.

  I should have stuck to the plan.

  ‘Miss?’

  She looked up at Caleb.

  He was holding out a cellphone to her.

  She took it from him. ‘Thank you,’ she said, and as she looked down at the screen, her doubts vanished: the name of the network was in the middle; at the top were four bars.

  This is real. It’s actually happening.

  She could finally call home.

  And then someone knocked on the door of the shack.

  A New Life

  Travis woke to the sound of wind at the windows. For a while, he lay there, adrift on the e
dge of sleep, listening to the weather, its rhythm, the hum of the neighbourhood. Then he rolled over and checked the time.

  It was nine twenty.

  In a past life, he would have been at the office for two, maybe three, hours already. The early starts had been a part of his routine, one that went all the way back to his first days as a detective. The earlier the start, the longer the quiet lasted. The quiet had always helped him focus. Sometimes an investigation had taken him so deep in those first hours of the day, he would look up after what felt like thirty minutes, and it would be afternoon.

  But not any more.

  He moved to the edge of the bed, staring at himself in the mirror. His shoulder throbbed. He rolled it, feeling the normal spark of aches and pains in his hip, and then he stared at the sixty-year-old in the mirror. There had been a slow creep of excess around his belly and face for the last couple of months; his hair and beard were still mostly black, although the thicker he’d let his beard grow, the more grey he was starting to see. The biggest difference was less easy to pin down: he was diminished somehow, less impressive, as if he’d left a part of himself behind, or lost it entirely. If he were on the other side of a table in an interview room, the cop that Travis had been would have looked at this version of himself and seen a man who carried sadness like a bruise on the skin. It was as if he were grieving for someone.

  Or something.

  ‘Dad?’

  He tore his gaze away from the mirror. Gaby was leaning against the door frame, a frown on her face, and he realized she must have been there for a while, studying him. ‘Morning, honey,’ he said, trying to clear his expression.

  ‘You okay?’

  ‘I’m good. How are you?’

  Gaby shrugged.

  She was dressed in one of Travis’s old robes, way too big for her, and her hair was damp. She was a tall blonde twenty-one-year-old who looked like her mother; only her smile belonged to Travis. Sometimes it was unerring, and was why he’d always liked to make Gaby laugh. Her laughter completely changed her face and helped erode the reminders of Naomi, the countless ways in which Travis’s ex-wife had screwed with his life since the divorce.

  It was a bitterness he’d let fester and flourish, even if he’d tried his best over the years never to articulate it in front of Gaby and Mark. For the last ten days, though, it had been especially important to gain control of it, to sink the enmity he felt for Naomi and try to forget it, because if he didn’t, he knew it would drive a wedge between him and his children. Mark maybe not as much as Gaby: his son had already returned to LA and he was built more like Naomi – sober, pragmatic, sometimes a little aloof. Gaby was different, more like Travis, much more demonstrative and temperate. She didn’t need to hear Travis recounting the ways in which Naomi had made his life a misery – how much of his money and security she’d taken, how every barbed comment hurt.

  Not so soon after Naomi had died.

  ‘I might go to the cemetery today,’ Gaby said.

  Travis nodded.

  ‘Put some lilies on Mom’s grave.’

  ‘Sure, honey. She loved lilies. That sounds nice.’

  Gaby eyed him. ‘You don’t want to come with me?’

  ‘It’s not that,’ he said, though that wasn’t entirely truthful. ‘I’m happy to drive you down there, but I’m meant to meet Amy Houser for lunch at twelve.’

  ‘Your friend from the force?’ A smile twitched at the corner of Gaby’s mouth. ‘Is she attached?’

  Travis laughed. ‘I’m old enough to be her dad, kiddo. And, no, I don’t know if she’s seeing anyone. I don’t ask about her love life – it would be creepy. But even if that wasn’t the case, I’m pretty sure Amy – or anyone else under the age of fifty-five, come to that – isn’t interested in an old man who spends his days watching ESPN in a sweet terry-cloth robe.’

  Gaby laughed.

  Travis enjoyed the sound.

  ‘I just want you to meet someone,’ she said.

  It had become a familiar refrain over the years, and one that he never let annoy him. It came from a good place. He loved his daughter and he knew the thing that bothered her most was the idea of him being alone for the rest of his life. The truthful answer would have been that some people just weren’t destined to be plural, only ever singular, but he reverted to his stock response: ‘I’m happy, honey. You really don’t need to worry about me.’

  But every time he said it he was never sure if he was lying to Gaby or not: he didn’t feel unhappy per se, just a little lost. He missed the work and he pined for the routine desperately. It was why he felt – and appeared to himself in the mirror – like a man in mourning. Because he was.

  It was three months to the day since he’d retired.

  He was grieving for the job he’d lost.

  56

  Rebekah was so consumed by the cellphone Caleb had handed her that, for a second, the knock on the door didn’t even register with her – and, by the time it did, Caleb was already pushing the door open. She looked from Caleb, to the window, through the glass to the man waiting outside the shack, and then to a photograph he was readying.

  ‘How you doing, pal?’

  At the sound of his voice, time slowed down.

  It was him.

  Oh, shit, it’s Lima.

  ‘I’m doing all right,’ Caleb replied.

  ‘Cool. You recognize this woman?’

  Rebekah’s heart stopped. Lima’s hand appeared inside the shack, the photograph of her out in front of him. She was close enough to see that it was the photo from her driver’s licence. She looked from the picture to Caleb, and slid off the chair, onto her knees, shuffling as far under the desk as she could go. By the time she realized what a dumb move it was – she’d boxed herself in and made herself an easy target – it was too late: Caleb was replying.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘She don’t seem familiar. Who is she?’

  She glanced at Caleb. He didn’t look back – not with his head, not even with his eyes. He didn’t adjust a single part of himself.

  He’s trying to protect me.

  ‘No one’s been asking about her?’ Lima responded. ‘You haven’t seen her car before? A blue Jeep Cherokee?’

  He’d avoided Caleb’s question but that wasn’t the only thing that had lodged with Rebekah: why was he asking about the Cherokee when he would have already seen it parked in Simmons Gully?

  ‘No,’ Caleb said simply.

  ‘You haven’t seen her?’

  ‘No.’

  A pause.

  Something had already changed: it was like the air had become heavy. Lima knows something’s up, Rebekah thought. Her throat began to pulse, as if an insect was trapped in her windpipe.

  And then she looked down at the phone.

  Call 911.

  She pushed 9 and it made a soft beep.

  Inside the shack, it was like a scream. Rebekah muted the volume, but by the time she was done, ready to put the rest of the numbers in, Lima was talking again: ‘You sure no one’s come asking about her or her car?’

  ‘I’m sure,’ Caleb replied.

  Her car again.

  Why was he asking about the car?

  But then, a second later, it hit her. Shit. The tyre. On the last day of the season, Lima had slashed it with a knife – but then Rebekah had replaced it. That was why Lima wasn’t still in the forest. It was why he’d come back to Helena so quickly. It was why he was here: because it had taken one look at the new tyre on the Jeep to know something was up.

  ‘What are you,’ Caleb said, ‘a cop?’

  ‘Yeah, something like that.’

  ‘“Something like that”? What does that mean?’

  That’s enough, Caleb, she thought. Don’t push him any further. Just let him leave. Above her, through a window to her left, she could see the high point of the grass bank she’d been on before coming down here.

  Why the hell hadn’t she stayed there?

  Why hadn’t she stuck to the plan
?

  She pushed 1 on the phone.

  ‘So, are you a cop or not?’ Caleb said. He was trying to help, trying to get Rebekah some answers – but all he was doing was making it worse.

  Stop asking him questions.

  Another 1.

  ‘If you’re a cop, where’s your ID?’

  Her finger hovered over Call. She couldn’t have a conversation with the cops without Lima hearing it.

  She stared at the 911 on the screen.

  ‘Where’s my ID?’ Lima repeated, from the doorway.

  Rebekah looked around the room for a weapon. On the shelves between her and Caleb was a wrench. It wasn’t heavy, but it would do enough damage if it came to that.

  She started shuffling forward on her knees.

  Halfway out, she stopped again. There was a set of shelves immediately to Caleb’s right. Out of sight of Lima, his hand was moving.

  No, Caleb.

  No, please don’t do that.

  He was reaching for a hammer.

  57

  ‘Where is it then?’ Caleb said again. ‘Where’s your ID?’

  Rebekah had got far enough to see part of Lima’s profile. As Caleb asked him for ID, he glanced behind him into the parking lot. It took her a second to grasp why: He’s making sure no one’s watching.

  But, before she’d even finished the thought, it was already too late.

  In the blink of an eye, Caleb stumbled back, against the shelves he’d been trying to grab the hammer from, and crashed into the far wall. Pots of nails emptied over him; chunks of old machine parts, oilskins. He’d barely hit the floor and Lima was inside the shack, bent over, grabbing hold of his neck.

  His other hand was inside his coat.

  He’s going for his gun.

  Rebekah rocked forward, springing to her feet. She saw the surprise in Lima’s face as he looked at her, the horror, his bronzed skin blanching at the sight of a dead woman. Then his eyes went to the shelves next to her: he had no idea what was missing from them, he just knew she’d grabbed something. He tried to adjust, to turn, to pull out his gun. But Rebekah got there first.