by Edwin Hill
“She said that about her own kid?”
“You don’t have kids, do you?”
“No, maybe someday, though.”
Annie could hear in his answer that Rory had imagined tossing a ball to a son and playing house with his daughter, and he didn’t know that girls sometimes turned out to be tomboys and boys danced ballet, no matter what you wanted as a parent. He didn’t know about the sleepless nights or the boredom or the endless poop.
“Well, don’t give up,” Annie said. “Not yet. You might think that you’re over the hill, or that you’ve missed out on too much, but you’re a baby. You’ll pass that test. You’ll meet a girl, especially if you stop acting like a jerk all the time. And when you do have kids of your own, you’ll learn that parents have all sorts of evil thoughts. Sometimes saying them out loud is the only way to survive.”
Annie heard a catch in Rory’s breathing. To her surprise, his face had broken with sadness; he was about to cry. She wanted to shake him, to tell him he’d never know true regret till he’d ticked through a parenting schedule—the up-all-nights and early mornings, the day care on Tuesday and gymnastics on Wednesday, the relentless planning. He would never know despair until he watched the details of his own life disappear and become someone else’s. She couldn’t explain this to him. Instead, she faced forward, in silence, and pretended not to hear him struggle to regain control. She could offer that small dignity.
A moment later, Rory pulled up to the path that led to the Victorian.
“How long have you loved Lydia?” Annie asked.
“Forever,” Rory said. “As long as I can remember. How did you know?”
“Anyone who saw the two of you together for one second would figure that one out. Did you know about her and Vaughn?”
Rory sighed. “I saw that, didn’t I? In the water. Maybe it’s been there, and I’ve tried not to see it, but I don’t think anyone knew, and secrets don’t stay secret on this island.”
Annie opened the door to leave but stopped herself and kissed Rory on the cheek, like an older sister. Or at least that’s how she’d meant it. “Thanks for the truce,” she said. “I’ll send Frankie out.”
She ran through the rain. Inside, she edged through the foyer, stubbing her toe on one of Ethan’s toys. Then she followed laughter to the kitchen. When Annie walked in, Frankie covered her mouth and tried to squelch a grin. She wore a blue t-shirt that read Mama’s Hangry. A few candles dotted the counters, and even in the dim light, Annie could see that Frankie’s pupils were like saucers. An open box of Tuna Helper spilled across the counter. Seth hovered in the corner juggling three cans.
“Red!” he said. “Yeah, baby! Have dinner with us. Tuna Helper. It’ll be awesome.”
He caught the cans, cranked one open, and dumped the tuna into a ceramic bowl along with a full bottle of mayonnaise. The kitchen reeked of oily fish.
“I almost drowned looking for your son tonight,” Annie said to Frankie. “And you’re higher than a kite.”
The joy drained from Frankie’s face.
“There’s no news,” Annie said quickly. “Good or bad.”
She shouldn’t have judged. She didn’t have the right. No one did. Frankie could approach her grief however she liked, because when it was over, she’d have to find a way to cope. “So many people came out to help,” Annie added. “Practically everyone on the island. We searched for as long as we could. Till it was too dangerous.”
Frankie put her hands to her face as she was wracked with sobs.
“Oh, man,” Seth said, wrapping his gangling arms around her. “Bummer!”
Frankie pushed him away.
“Rory’s outside waiting,” Annie said. “He’s here to bring you in for questioning. And I’m taking the morning ferry,” she added, realizing it was time to leave. No one would miss her. And whatever Trey had wanted from her wasn’t important now. If she stayed, she’d only hurt herself and others. “Good luck. I’m sorry this happened to you.”
Frankie sobbed. “Where are you going?” she asked.
“Anywhere but here,” Annie said.
Upstairs, she listened as their muffled voices echoed through the empty house. A few moments later, the front door opened and shut as Frankie left to meet Rory. Annie lay down on her damp mattress. A tree groaned in the wind, and something hard and plastic whipped through the trees. She imagined the people of the island huddled in their houses, waiting out the wind and rain as they had for centuries.
She was no better than Frankie.
She’d been no better than Frankie. That’s why she’d left.
But she’d changed. She really had. And she had to leave here before the cops came for her in the morning. Before the questioning began. Before she had to face Trey again. Or Lydia. Before she had to face her own truth.
She rummaged through her knapsack till she found the burner phone. It had one bar and 5 percent power. She typed out the message first and added in that one phone number she knew by heart. Then she stared at the screen, her thumb hovering over Send. It was good to be remembered, to be missed. It was even better knowing someone out there might care enough to respond. And if she was in danger, someone should know.
She hit Send and almost immediately regretted it.
But some things you cannot undo.
CHAPTER 10
Frankie Sullivan felt light enough to blow away as Rory led her across the muddy ground from the Jeep toward the community center, where a generator buzzed to allow lights to blaze. Frankie hadn’t said a word to him during the drive here, not even asking about Ethan. Inside the old building, Barb stood by the map of Finisterre Island studying the grid.
“Whatever you’re on,” Rory whispered in Frankie’s ear, “you won’t be able to get any more. Not here. Not with everything that’s going on.”
Frankie’s eyes were blank. How many hours a day did she spend on a high? And what would she do a few hours from now when she begged for a hit and none came? Would she trade her secrets for a thumbnail of heroin?
“Come,” he said, surprised by the sudden weight of the woman. Her feet remained planted to the carpet, but Barb seemed to sense Frankie’s fear. She flashed her a welcoming smile and gave her the softest of hugs. “Honey,” she said. “It feels like it took all night to get you here. I thought you’d have come yourself. You know, taken charge. Ripped the bullhorn out of my hands and started issuing orders.”
Frankie squinted, processing Barb’s words and everything they implied. “Where’s Trey?” she asked.
“Off somewhere,” Barb said. “We were focused on the search, but that’s over, so now we can focus on other things, like talking to you and finding out what’s going on. Come. Sit. You want some tea?”
Frankie nodded.
“I’ll get it,” Barb said. “You try to relax.”
Frankie waited for Barb to cross the room before asking, “Do you know him? Trey?”
“Do you?” Rory asked.
“What’s he like?”
“I couldn’t say.”
Frankie brushed hair behind her ear. “Is he good to his son? Does he love him?”
“Is there any reason he wouldn’t?” Rory asked.
“He has to care.”
Rory leaned in. Barb wanted him to play bad cop. Why not start right now? “The only person who doesn’t seem to care is you,” he said.
Frankie covered her face with her hands. Barb returned as if on cue and set a mug on the desk. “Looks like we’ve already started,” she said, waiting for Frankie’s tears to subside. “You must be exhausted. And it’s late. What do you need? We have tons of food out there. People bring food when there’s a crisis. It gives them something to do! Someone made Rice Krispies treats out of Froot Loops. You want one of those?”
“I need to find Ethan,” Frankie said, and this time her voice had an edge to it, one Rory hadn’t heard from her yet.
Barb leaned forward and spoke softly. “I’m a mother too,” she said. “Thoug
h you don’t need to be a detective to know that. If you looked up Mother of Two in the dictionary, it would say, See Barb Kelley. I mean, look at me! I know you want to find your son more than anything in the world. And that’s exactly what we’re trying to do. Find your son. And you’re going to help, right?”
“I am,” Frankie said.
“So, tell me when you saw him last.”
“This afternoon. We had lunch.”
“What did you have?”
“Peanut butter. It’s the only thing we ever have.”
“Why?”
“Because we don’t have a refrigerator.”
Barb wrote something on her pad and handed Frankie a tissue.
“I thought it would be better out here,” Frankie said. “On the island.”
“Has it been?”
“It’s more of the same. What’s that saying? Wherever you are . . .”
“Wherever you go, there you are,” Barb said, waiting a moment before speaking again. “You had lunch, right. And then?”
“Seth came.”
Barb glanced at Rory. “Who’s Seth?”
“My . . . brother. Or he’s like a brother. He watches out for me.”
“But he’s not your brother,” Rory said. “You have to tell the truth here.”
Barb held up a hand, signaling Rory to back off. “Your brother came to the island this morning,” she said. “Before Ethan went missing. Why would he come? With the storm and everything. I mean, he must have known this wasn’t the best day to choose.”
“He showed up,” Frankie said. “Out of the blue.”
“He showed up and your son went missing.” Barb glanced at Rory. “Have you talked to this guy?” she asked, her voice no longer gentle.
Rory shook his head. This was the first he’d heard of him.
“Take me through this again,” Barb said. “I want to be sure I have the details right.” She flipped a few pages back in her notepad and read through what she’d written. “From what I hear, you found Deputy Dunbar earlier today, and you were panicked. Right? You were in a panic, I should say. And you should have been, because Ethan was missing. He is missing. And that’s what good parents do. You were panicked because you have a four-year-old son, and you should have known where he was, right?”
“I was panicked,” Frankie said.
“How long was it?” Barb asked. “From the time you started looking for Ethan till the panic set in. Like the full-on ‘I can’t control this, I’m going to run into the streets and flag down a cop and start screaming’ panic. I mean, that’s what you did, right? You screamed in the road.”
Rory nodded to confirm. “It’s what I saw,” he said.
“How long?” Barb asked.
“Right away,” Frankie said. “He should have been in bed. I put him down for a nap, and when I came back, he was gone.”
“That was after lunch?”
“Yes, after lunch.”
“And you had . . . ?”
“Peanut butter! I already told you that.”
Barb flipped through her notes. “Yep,” she said. “Peanut butter. Because you don’t have a refrigerator. And your brother. Or whoever. Where was he during all of this?”
“I don’t know.”
“Was he in the house?”
“The house is big. It has lots of rooms. He could have been anywhere.”
“And Ethan could have been anywhere too, right? He’s four years old. He knows how to get into mischief. He could have been in one of those rooms. Did you look in the rooms first, or did you run out to find Deputy Dunbar first?”
“I don’t know,” Frankie said. “I couldn’t find him.”
“Who’s ‘him’?”
“Ethan!”
“See, I have kids,” Barb said, pulling out her phone and flashing a photo of a girl and a boy on a beach. “They’re three and four years old. Irish twins. And they make me panic all the time. Like this day, at the beach, when I took this photo. Used to be I loved the beach, but now when we go, I spend the whole day hoping, no, praying, that they don’t get swept out to sea or eaten by a shark or pecked to death by seagulls. That last one isn’t even rational, and I know it, but I still worry about it. And we live in Portland, kind of a big city. It has some crime here and there, but it’s mostly safe, these days. My daughter is the same age as Ethan. Her name is Chloe. And this is the thing: when Chloe disappears, which is not an infrequent occurrence by the way, my first instinct is usually annoyance. Or frustration. Or amusement. Because usually, she’s off at the neighbor’s or in the pantry sneaking cookies, or down in my office banging away on my work computer. It’s only when none of these things are true that the panic sets in. For the panic to set in, I have to not know something. Or, I have to know something. So, what didn’t you know? Or know?”
Frankie stared at Barb.
“Let me ask a different way,” Barb said. “What are your secrets?”
“I want to find my son,” Frankie said.
“I hope that’s not a secret,” Barb said. “And so do we. It’s the only thing we want to do.”
Rory leaned toward Frankie. “Do you remember when you found me today? When I was on the path by your house? You said Ethan was missing, right? And then, what did I say?”
“I don’t remember,” Frankie said.
“I bet you do.”
“Okay. You said that people on the island let their kids run wild. They think it’s safe. They think bad things don’t happen to good people. And you said that I shouldn’t worry.”
“And then you said the same thing to Annie,” Rory said. “You told her that you thought Ethan might have wandered off. That he’d done this before. You called him an asshole.”
“Did you say that?” Barb asked.
Frankie’s shoulders and head fell forward.
“My kids are assholes too,” Barb said.
Frankie began to sob. A single tear, leading into full, body-aching sobs. When they finally passed, she sat up and seemed spent.
“Your tea is cold,” Barb said. “Do you want another cup?”
Frankie nodded.
“We’ll put sugar in it. And milk. Tea fixes just about anything, right?” Barb’s smile had only grown more wolfish. Frankie seemed to retreat.
“We’ll be back in a minute. You sit tight.” Barb led Rory across the room. “Get out to that house. Find this guy Seth and bring him in.”
“What about her?” Rory asked.
“Leave her to me,” Barb said.
Back out in the storm, Rory drove as fast as he could to the Victorian. He headed into the trees where, unlike at the community center with its generator, the darkness was so complete he couldn’t see a hand an inch from his face. Once inside the house, he flipped on his headlamp and swore he saw the glow of eyes as something scampered away. The storm swirled around the house, pressing on the walls as rain poured from the ceilings. He hadn’t been inside here in months, and in that time the smells had grown worse. The place should have been condemned years ago. After tonight, he wondered if they’d have a choice. “Who’s home?” he shouted.
In the kitchen, the remnants of a makeshift dinner littered a huge wooden table. Upstairs he tapped open each of the bedroom doors along the long hallway. In one of the rooms a suitcase sat open with women’s and children’s clothing spilling out of it. The last room was filled with chests of drawers. He peered over the furniture, where Annie slept on a single mattress. He tapped her with the end of his flashlight, and she woke with a start, sitting up and scrambling away from him.
“It’s me,” Rory said.
“Fuck you,” Annie said, sweeping her greasy hair out of her eyes. “What happened to the truce?”
“Why didn’t you tell me about Seth?” Rory asked, flipping off the flashlight. “Frankie’s brother. He showed up today, on the day Ethan disappeared. At least that’s what she told us. That would have been good information to have.”
“Well I just met him,” Annie said
.
“Has anyone come to see Frankie besides her brother? Anyone from town? Strangers?” Rory paused. “Any men?”
“Like a boyfriend?”
“Or not.”
“You think she might be a hooker?”
“I don’t think anything,” Rory said. “But I’ve seen plenty of shit go down in this house. I’m just asking questions.”
“What would you think if I had a man come by?”
“I wouldn’t care, unless he was here last night or today. Your kid isn’t the one missing.” Rory paused for a beat. “Have you had any men come by?”
“No,” Annie said. “And neither has Frankie. We’ve been out here by ourselves since Labor Day.”
“Well, where is Seth? He’s not here, and I need to talk to him. Now.”
“I don’t know. He was here when I went to bed.”
“If he shows up,” Rory said, “tell him to come find me.”
Out in the Jeep, he called Barb on his phone. “The guy’s not here. Seth. Did you get anything else out of the mother?” he asked.
“Not much,” Barb said. “Though she’s definitely dealt drugs before, which is hardly a surprise.”
“Did she deal here?”
“She says no.”
“Do you believe her?”
“I don’t believe anything she says. Get back here. I need my bad cop.”
Rory was glad she couldn’t see him grin. “I’ll do one more loop around the island.”
“See if you can find Trey too. He hasn’t answered his phone or his radio in an hour.”
“He may be out of cell range,” Rory said.
“That’s why we have CBs. Call it in if you find anyone. No one should be out in this storm, and that includes you, so come in afterward.”
“Roger that,” Rory said.
He drove around Little Ef, stopping by the lighthouse, its reliable beam flashing out to sea. The tide had begun to recede, and soon the lighthouse would be connected to the land again. Here, alone, Rory finally let himself think about Pete. When the first wave of opioids had hit the island, Rory had fantasized about rooting them out, finding the source, marching the culprit to the docks for everyone in town to see. It was part of the reason he’d joined the police force, and why he’d agreed to island patrol. That was before he realized how many leaks there were in the supply chain, and that finding a way to plug up one only made the others flow more freely. But he did know one thing: He wouldn’t think twice about killing whoever had supplied Pete with this latest hit. And he suspected this guy Seth had something to do with it.
