The Missing Ones

by Edwin Hill

  In truth, Vaughn wasn’t bad on the eyes. He was thirty. Maybe thirty-five. Definitely a few years younger than Annie. He had premature salt-and-pepper hair and blue eyes that peered out from under the hood on his slicker. Annie was thirty-seven, maybe too old for Vaughn, but perspectives changed, right? Beds got lonely and cold. How long had it been since his divorce? How long had he gone without sharing a bed with a woman? She’d have to play his game, for a bit at least. She got ready to track her answers, to remember her truth. “I’m off the grid,” she said. “But it’s temporary.”

  “I’m surprised anyone’s still at that house,” Vaughn said. “It usually clears with the summer crowd.”

  When Annie had moved in that June, every room but one in the house had been full. Since Labor Day, though, it had emptied till she’d been the only person left. Then, two weeks earlier, a woman named Frankie and her four-year-old son, Ethan, had set up camp.

  “Are you planning to stick around?” Vaughn asked. “Brave the winter? Only the hearty do. Or the stupid. That place gets cold once the snow comes. Take my advice and move into town. Rents get cheaper real quick around here. And winters are long enough, even with heat and running water, but you’ll always be from away if you can’t handle a Maine winter. What brought you here anyway?”

  Annie thought for a moment before answering. “Luck,” she said.

  The boat lurched in a swell. Annie gripped the washboard with one hand, and Mindy’s collar with the other. A sheet of frigid seawater swept over her, sucking the air from her lungs. She swiped water from her face, the salt lingering on her lips.

  “You okay?” Vaughn asked.

  The summer had taught Annie not to complain. She nodded and told him to keep going.

  “You have good sea legs,” he said.

  “I don’t know anything about boats.”

  “Could have fooled me.”

  He cut the engine back to idle speed, scanned the horizon with a pair of binoculars, and caught a purple and blue buoy with the gaff. “One more stop,” he said, hooking the line to the hauler.

  Annie scanned the horizon, too, as Mindy leaned into her leg with her whole body. The buoys they’d spent the day pulling had all been yellow and orange, and Annie knew enough about lobstering to know what not to do—especially when it came to molesting other lobstermen’s gear. She also knew enough to keep her mouth shut and took her place behind Vaughn, ignoring the feeling of dread in her stomach, or that the easygoing man she’d spent most of the day with had grown tense and aware. What other choice did she have? She was on the water with him, alone. And at the end of the day, Vaughn would pay her with seventy-five bucks and a pair of chicken lobsters, more money than she’d had in months.

  The first trap emerged, and Vaughn examined it. Then he let it fall back into the sea without taking the lobsters out. He did that at the second trap, and the third. Only at the last trap did he pause. “Hot dog!” he said. “Look at that baby!”

  The lobster barely fit in the trap. Vaughn pulled it out, glancing across the choppy sea as if to check that they were still alone, before dangling the lobster in front of himself while Mindy snapped at its tail. It must have weighed more than twenty pounds with claws twice the size of Annie’s hands.

  “Jesus, this’ll get me on Chronicle if it doesn’t swallow the two of us whole!” Vaughn said.

  “She’s beautiful,” Annie said, watching the lobster struggle against Vaughn’s celebration. “How old do you think she is?”

  “Got to be forty, fifty years old,” Vaughn said. “Imagine, outsmarting us for all these years! Hold her. She’s strong. She might rip apart the rest of the catch.”

  Annie held the lobster beneath its claws. This was a creature someone would pay good money for, the kind of illicit catch that would make it onto a centerpiece and into the trash. And it wasn’t fair to her. Not after all this time. Not after surviving.

  Annie tossed the lobster overboard.

  Vaughn clutched at the empty air. “Oh, fuck!” he said, kicking at the side of the boat and spinning around. He seemed as if he might jump in after it. “Fuck. Jesus! Oh, you fucking . . . that was a huge fuckup!” he shouted.

  Annie glanced toward the island, perched on the horizon. She had no idea what Vaughn was capable of, but she did know that he was angry. She remembered Lydia, who’d insisted Annie was worth a chance. “I’m sorry,” she said.

  It was all she could manage.

  “That’s what I get for hiring a flatlander,” Vaughn said. “I’ll think better of it next time. Fifty bucks. That’s what that lobster was worth, and that’s what your little stunt cost me.”

  “That lobster was too big,” Annie said. And poached from someone else’s trap, she nearly added.

  “And she was female,” Vaughn said. “Already notched. Didn’t you see? She would have gone back into the water anyway, if you’d given me a minute. Biggest lobster of the year gets first prize from the lobster pound and a fifty-dollar payout, but I need a photo to prove it. Now no one will believe me. I’m taking the money out of your wage.”

  Fifty dollars. Oh, how Annie needed that money. How could Vaughn possibly know that Annie was down to her last five-dollar bill, that she was desperate, more desperate than she’d ever been in a life of desperation. But Vaughn must have seen it in her threadbare clothes and yellowed nails. He must have known he could do anything he wanted with her here, that she was powerless. She took in a deep breath to keep from begging or losing her last scraps of pride.

  Vaughn punched at the air. “Great cap to the day.”

  “It wasn’t yours,” Annie said, softly.

  “Say that again.”

  “It wasn’t yours to claim,” Annie said. “That fifty dollars belongs to someone else.”

  Vaughn turned the boat and revved the engine as they headed toward the island. The waves had grown higher as the weather had turned, but Vaughn steered the prow of the boat into the surf with the light touch of someone who’d seen worse, focusing on the task at hand and treating Annie like the hired help she was. She’d hoped he might ask her to work for him again. Now, she’d ruined any chance of that happening.

  A swell smashed the starboard side, lurching them off course and filling the hull with water. “Youza,” Vaughn said as he struggled at the helm. “Hold on to the dog! We should have gone in an hour ago.”

  Annie gripped Mindy’s collar and struggled across the deck, tying down anything loose, happy for the diversion. As the boat arced around Bowman Island and toward the harbor, the water calmed a bit. Vaughn cut the engine back and cruised at headway speed, keeping to the channel. Ahead, blue lights from the island’s sole police Jeep flashed, and for a moment Annie wondered if a search party had launched to find them. She wondered what it would feel like to be missed, but more than that, she wished they were still out at sea. At times during the day, she’d forgotten about the world away from the boat, away from two people working in tandem, and now she wanted more than anything to be far from what those flashing blue lights would bring.

  “Ferry’s still here,” Vaughn said, checking his watch. “It’s after four. It should have left twenty minutes ago.”

  He pulled the boat along the dock, and Annie jumped to the planks with a line. It would take another half hour to unload and weigh the catch, but Vaughn leaped after her, tied off the boat, and headed up the gangway without looking back, Mindy at his heels. Annie ran after him. “Let’s unload,” she said.

  “There’s something wrong,” he said. “The ferry runs like a clock.”

  Annie stopped short at the top of the gangway, right as the skies opened and huge drops of warm rain filled the air. Rory Dunbar, the local deputy, leaned against his Jeep. A man wrapped in a blanket sat in the Jeep’s back seat and stared out the window like an abandoned dog. Annie recognized him from his visits to the Victorian.

  “I saw your boat in the harbor and came to meet you,” Rory said as Mindy tried to jump on him. “You been out all afterno
on?”

  “Yep,” Vaughn said, glancing at the man in the back of the Jeep. “He okay?”

  “He’s fine,” Rory said, his voice short, shoving the dog away. “See anyone else out there?”

  “Not really. And if they are still on the water, they’ll be in trouble soon. What’s going on? Why didn’t the ferry leave?”

  Rory crossed to where Annie waited, looking her over like a piece of trash. She felt her stomach clench. Had he come for her?

  “The island’s on lockdown till the state cops get here,” Rory said. “Another boy is missing.”

  CHAPTER 4

  When Oliver disappeared earlier in the summer, the whole town, including Annie, had mobilized, but Rory had been the one to find him. Annie remembered watching from the crowd as the deputy handed the sleeping boy to Lydia and raised his arms over his head in triumph. “You’re a hero!” someone in the crowd shouted, and Rory waved a hand and said, “Just doing my job,” with a false modesty that had lingered with Annie ever since.

  The whole incident had cast a pall over the summer, but to Annie, the missing boy had almost been a relief. It had given her something to talk about. Something to bond over. Something to connect her to these small people on this small island. Best of all, it had led to a friendship with Lydia.

  Now, Vaughn turned to Rory. “Who is it this time?”

  “Another four-year-old. His name’s Ethan, mother’s name is Frankie. From away,” Rory added, as if that mattered. He nodded at Annie. “You know them, right?”

  Ethan and Frankie lived at the Victorian, too, though she hardly knew them. They’d shown up right after Labor Day when most people were leaving the island for the season.

  “Tell me about them,” Rory said.

  Annie stalled by gripping a rusted metal railing, and she must have looked on the verge of fainting, because Vaughn stepped to her side, one hand under her arm. A part of her wanted to fold into Vaughn. To give in. She also wanted to run. But to where? There was no place to hide. Not on this tiny island. “I’m okay,” she said, waving off the assistance. “Ethan’s a good kid.”

  “And his mother?” Rory asked.

  Annie pictured Frankie, with her stringy blond hair and bleeding gums. She could have been pretty after a bath and a roll of floss. What Annie wouldn’t tell Rory was how often she’d seen Frankie wipe powder from her nose while Ethan screamed and smelled of shit. In another life, Annie would have called family services. Here, alone, she said, “She seems okay.”

  “When was the last time you saw Ethan?” Rory asked.

  “Last night. When I went to bed. How do you know he didn’t wander anyway? There are plenty of places to get lost here.”

  “I don’t,” Rory said. “But even if he did, he’s four years old and on his own. We better find him before this storm hits, especially if he’s hurt. Besides, he’s been gone for a few hours now. You didn’t see him since last night? Not at all?”

  “We headed out in the boat early this morning,” Annie said. “Long before he’d have gotten up.”

  “It’s true,” Vaughn said. “We left at seven.”

  Rory took a step forward. He was tall, even taller than Annie. And he used it to take up her space. To intimidate. “I hear it’s just the three of you out there now,” he said. “That all those other losers left for the winter. You know that everyone’s a suspect till we pin this on someone.”

  “Fuck you,” Annie said, which, even as it passed her lips, sounded extreme. Ever since she’d come to town, Rory had treated her the way she looked, dirty and worthless.

  Rory’s face turned red. A vein throbbed in his neck. “Oliver went missing in July,” he said. “Right after you moved to town. And two is a trend.”

  Vaughn stepped between them. “Take it down a notch,” he said. “You too, Rory-boy.”

  Rory shoved him away.

  “We all know there are summer people coming and going all the time,” Vaughn said.

  Rory smoothed his shirt and adjusted his badge. “Fine,” he said. “The state cops will be here within the hour, then we’ll get the ferry off. Till then, I’ll need your help. Unload that catch, then go to the community center. That’s where everyone’s meeting. See if you can get people organized and out there searching on Little Ef. That’s where Ethan will be if he wandered off. I have to stay here with the ferry.”

  “I can do that,” Vaughn said. “This’ll take me ten minutes.”

  Rory climbed into the Jeep, slamming the door hard enough to make the man sitting in the back jump.

  “Wait,” Annie said, calling after him. “Where’s Frankie now?”

  “She’s at the house,” Rory said through the open window. “Hoping her son comes home.”

  Vaughn watched Rory speeding down the gravel path and said, “Don’t mind him. He’s just being a dick.”

  The kindness in his voice surprised Annie. She hadn’t forgotten the lobster or the fifty dollars she owed him.

  “He’s my sister’s husband’s cousin’s nephew,” Vaughn added. “If you can follow that. We went to high school together. Lydia too. The three of us used to ride the ferry over every Monday, and Rory would stay with me at my aunt and uncle’s house during the week. I know him well enough to know that he’s pissed off because the state police are here again. The same thing happened in July when Oliver went missing, just like whenever something interesting happens around here. Rory doesn’t like outsiders on his turf.”

  “You and Rory are the same age?” Annie said.

  “Is it the hair?” Vaughn asked, touching his white head.

  It wasn’t the hair, but to Annie, Vaughn seemed more solid, more fully formed and adult than the deputy. “I wish he’d leave me alone,” she said.

  “New things, new people, scare him. And he takes it out on anyone he can. Besides, he has some family things going on, and he’s had a tough summer. He wants to be a state cop but failed his exam for the third time. And his brother. Pete. You saw him in the back of the Jeep there. Rory’s whole family . . . well, you don’t have anything to do with him being sad and dumb, so don’t beat yourself up.”

  Vaughn pulled two fifty-dollar bills from his wallet. They flapped in the wind, and it was all Annie could do not to snatch them away. “I thought you were docking me,” she said.

  “I don’t stay angry too long,” Vaughn said. “And missing kids put things in perspective. Besides, it’s good to have a soft heart. Even on the water. And anyone who can get under Rory’s skin can’t be all bad.”

  “You owe me seventy-five dollars. I don’t have change.”

  “Keep it. And keep the story about the lobster and where it came from between us, okay? I don’t need any more rumors flying. Maybe you can come out with me again in a few days. After the storm.”

  Annie’s fingertips itched to take the money, even with strings attached. She understood secrets, what they meant, what they could carry with them. But she remembered the five-dollar bill, folded up and tucked into her knapsack to keep herself from spending it. She remembered how much hunger hurt. She took the two bills and stuffed them into her pocket.

  “We have a deal,” Vaughn said.

  “We do,” Annie said.

  A hundred bucks! She nearly said thank you.

  “You go,” Vaughn said. “I’ll see you at the community center when I’m done.”

  Vaughn headed down the gangway to the boat. He looked up at her from under the hood on his oilskins, pausing. “Go,” he shouted.

  “I’ll find you later,” Annie said, walking toward the harbor.

  The harbor had three sections. On the commercial side, fishermen docked to unload catches and weigh them at the lobster pound. On the public side, yachts and other pleasure boats pulled up all summer long to refuel. Now, with the storm coming, the team at Finisterre Boats was working overtime pulling the few remaining vessels from the water and loading them into drydock. The third section was the pier, where ferries from the mainland docked. Two ferry li
nes ran to the island, one from Bar Harbor, in the north, and the other from Boothbay Harbor, to the west.

  Annie headed to town, where wooden signs hanging above the doors of the few establishments swung precariously in the wind. Halfway up the road, Lydia’s bed-and-breakfast sat nestled behind two beech trees. The house was a small, shingled cottage painted blue and white. The garden, in the last throes of fall, sat behind a white picket fence. In summer, guests sat in the white rocking chairs that filled the inn’s front porch, and people from all over town spilled out of the modest bakery attached to the side of the house.

  Annie stopped at the gate, hesitating before going in, as she always did. Lydia was her friend. Her best friend. It was because of Lydia that Annie had a hundred dollars burning a hole in her pocket. And yet, a part of her still felt like an outsider, like an interloper. Part of her wondered why someone like Lydia would even give her the time of the day.

  “Aunt Annie!” said a little voice, followed by the squelch-squelch of tiny feet moving through mud.

  Annie spun around to greet the source of her joy, Oliver, who ran toward her through the rain. He ran the way four-year-olds do, putting everything into it, too innocent to hold back. She lifted him, his raincoat slick with water.

  “I had lunch today,” he whispered in her ear.

  If only he knew how lucky he was to say that, and to believe that it might always be true. “I bet it was delicious,” she said.

  Lydia followed him, decked out in head-to-toe blue Patagonia to match her eyes, her dark hair tied in two happy knots on the sides of her head. Lydia managed to bring brightness wherever she went, even on a search for a missing child. “Just who I needed!” Lydia said. “I have to get the horses for the search. It’ll take me about fifteen minutes to get over there and back. Take Oliver to the community center, would you? There’ll be someone there to watch kids.” She stepped in close and kissed Annie’s cheek. “How was the job?”

  “Good,” Annie said. “Till Rory met the boat and told us what was going on. He tried to pin this on me.”