The Missing Ones

by Edwin Hill

  Hester followed. “Is it Seth?” she asked.

  “Stay here,” he said.

  “I don’t think so,” Hester said.

  “Then hold the dog.”

  Hester gripped Mindy’s collar. Vaughn slid the screen door open with one finger. “Hello?” he said, stepping over the threshold.

  The darkness swallowed him.

  “What the hell?”

  Hester heard a thump and what sounded like a bag of wet cement falling to the floor. She let Mindy go. The dog hurtled through the open door, with Hester at her heels. It took a second for her eyes to adjust from the bright sun. Vaughn lay slumped on a rug, blood gushing from a gash on his forehead. Over him, Daphne clutched a log from the fireplace, using it to fend off the dog. Dried blood caked her hair, and she had a black eye. Lydia was right—she didn’t resemble the woman Hester had known for all those years. She looked sick and broken.

  Vaughn groaned and tried to stand. Daphne raised the log to hit him again, but Hester shouted, “Stop!”

  Daphne froze.

  Mindy growled.

  “You came,” Daphne said.

  “I did,” Hester said.

  CHAPTER 21

  Daphne. The name felt strange, like an old sweater that didn’t quite fit—one that had stretched out and hung to her knees and made her look like a rectangle—but that she still loved. Was she Daphne or Annie?

  Daphne.

  It was another lifetime, one she didn’t want to slip back into, but Annie was gone, probably for good. For now, she’d need to make that sweater fit.

  She—Daphne—gripped the log, looming over Vaughn, ready to strike again. Someone had locked her in the cellar, and as far as she was concerned it had to have been him. When would he come at her? When would she have an excuse to bash in his brains?

  The world around her revealed itself bit by bit. She took in the sun first. It shone through panes of glass, blinding her after hours or days in the darkness, after all that time lying on a cot, wondering, hoping, dreading. The details in the little house came next, with its walls of books and its secondhand furniture. She heard the barking dog. And she saw her.

  Hester.

  In her pink sweater and green-checked shorts, and those orange sneakers they’d bought together at Marshalls a decade ago, the orange shoes she still wore every fall. After all these years, Hester hadn’t learned to dress herself.

  Hester.

  She tried to say the name, but she couldn’t form the sounds.

  Her friend. Daphne’s friend. Her best friend. She’d come. After everything. She’d come when Daphne had needed her and maybe, she hoped, Hester didn’t hate her for leaving.

  Vaughn groaned again and put his hands to his head. Daphne lunged forward, and Hester’s lips moved, and even though Daphne couldn’t quite put the words together, she stopped. Hester held the dog back, both hands on its collar, her thigh muscles bulging under those shorts. Memories of the dog, of that day on the boat, of the way Mindy had nestled against her as she’d pulled traps from the water, flooded through her.

  “Daphne,” Hester said. “Are you okay?”

  “I don’t know,” she managed to say, her lips dry, her throat parched.

  The thoughts ticked off. Time and space expanded. How long had she been here? And where was here? How long had she been locked in that cellar? A windowless dirt room, really, where no one had come. She remembered the beach. She remembered someone attacking her. And screaming to Ethan, telling him to run. And she remembered waking later, barely being able to open her eyes. They were swollen and heavy. Darkness surrounded her, and she took in what she could with her other senses, the scent of mildew, the dig of a mattress spring in her back, the dampness of the narrow cot.

  And silence.

  Pure silence.

  She’d listened. For wind. For rain. For crashing waves. For the cry of seagulls. The sounds of the island that followed you wherever you went.

  Nothing.

  She’d tried to remember how she’d gotten there, and when she did, she’d called out in desperation. For the boy. “Ethan!” she whispered as loudly as she dared. She listened again, this time for a voice, for crying. For a breath.

  Again, nothing.

  She’d touched her head. It throbbed. She’d rolled to the side, and a sharp pain hit her. It spread through her body from so many points, she couldn’t tell what to tend to first. She’d managed to roll off the mattress and onto a cold, dirt floor. Her clothes were damp. She shook. All over. She willed the tremors to stop, for all of this to end, to be safe. And then she could see. Barely. A tiny shaft of light emanated from the base of a door. She’d crawled toward it. One knee and then the next. The five feet seemed endless, but when she got there, she felt her way up to the knob. It turned, but the door wouldn’t budge. She struggled to her feet, yanking at the unforgiving handle, ignoring the pain surging through her body. No way out. She had felt herself losing control. Panicking. Hyperventilating.

  Stop.

  Think.

  She’d used the little light she had to scan the room. A black rectangle had to be the mattress. Another shadow outlined a chair. She followed the edges of the room, the pain of moving trumped by panic. She ran her hand along a stone wall, damp with trickling water.

  And the silence ended. Outside, beyond the door, footsteps crossed solid dirt and a shadow fell across the line of light. “Help!” she shouted. “Please. Let me out!”

  The footsteps retreated.

  “Come back!” Daphne shouted, pounding at the door.

  But when she stopped to listen again, all she heard was silence. She put her back to the wall and slid to the ground. When she crawled toward the cot, her hand hit a cellophane bag, and her stomach grumbled. She’d torn the package open, her hands shoveling something salty and cheesy into her mouth. Combos. Pizza flavored.

  They’d never tasted so good. It didn’t even occur to her to save any.

  She’d felt along the floor and found a plastic bottle. Carbonation burst as she twisted the lid and sucked down sweet, spicy ginger ale, drinking half the bottle in one long gulp. When her hand found a small vial that shook with pills, she twisted the lid off and sniffed. What did Tylenol smell like? She ached, and she yearned to take some of the hurt away, and someone had been kind enough to leave her food, even if he’d locked her away in the dark, so she’d taken a chance and swallowed the pills, two, not three, with a gulp of ginger ale.

  On the cot, she’d fallen into a deep, fitful sleep, drugged, she was sure. She’d awoken, cheek wet from a pool of her own drool. She had no idea how long she’d been asleep. No idea how long she’d been in the room at all, but the door that had been locked was ajar. Gray light had filtered in, and she’d heard murmurs above her. Voices. Outside the room, she’d found another dirt room, this one lined with firewood, a long table covered in vials, pills spilling to the floor. Pills like the ones she’d seen Frankie snorting. And a staircase leading toward the light. This was her chance. Her one chance to survive. She’d taken a log and headed upstairs, where she’d waited. To attack.

  Vaughn moaned and sheltered his head with his arms. The dog lunged again. Daphne held the log between her and the snarling teeth, but Hester dug a random treat from her pocket and coaxed the dog outdoors, slamming the French doors shut. The dog pawed at the glass and then sat and panted.

  “She’s a lab,” Hester said. “How vicious can she be?”

  “Not very,” Vaughn managed to say from the floor.

  “Shut up,” Hester said.

  She crossed the room, throwing open drawers till she found a pile of dishtowels.

  “What day is it?” Daphne asked.

  “Thursday. You’ve been missing since yesterday,” Hester said, tearing the towels into strips. “Don’t move,” she said to Vaughn, “or we’ll bash your brains in.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Vaughn said.

  Hester bound Vaughn’s hands behind his back with the strips of cloth and folded a
nother towel and held it to the gash on his forehead. “Press here,” she said to Daphne, giving her a kiss. “There’s no phone. But don’t go anywhere. Please. We’ll talk when I get back.”

  Hester ran from the house, slamming the front door behind her. Daphne crouched beside the barely conscious man—her kidnapper—and pressed the cloth to his wound till blood seeped through the fabric. Outside the French doors, the dog stopped barking and took off, and Daphne imagined Hester running through trees, a blanket catching on a limb, the dog in close pursuit, like in a postmodern fairy tale.

  “Hey, Red,” Vaughn croaked, struggling to sit up.

  Daphne let the cloth drop and scrambled away.

  “Where’d Hester go?”

  “She went for help.”

  “She’ll bring Rory, I bet. This’ll make his day. He’s had it in for me since, well, since as long as I can remember. I’m feeling a bit like that thirty-pound lobster right now. Like I could use a little pity. Could you show me some mercy?”

  Vaughn’s voice was as soft as Daphne remembered. She’d thought about him in that cellar, in the dark, about his kindness. No one had been truly kind to her in so long, she’d forgotten what it felt like. She’d believed that they were friends.

  She moved in closer and pressed the cloth to his head again. “That lobster didn’t weigh thirty pounds,” she said. “Twenty, maybe.”

  “You’re probably right,” Vaughn said. “And your friend must have been a Girl Scout. She ties a good knot. I’m not going anywhere. But listen to yourself on this one. Listen to your own judgment.”

  “The boy,” Daphne said. “Ethan. What happened to him?”

  “He’s fine. Wandered home after the storm. He got stuck by the lighthouse when the tide came in.”

  And she remembered. She could run toward danger. She could protect. Hadn’t she done something good, something that mattered? “He was on the beach,” she said.

  “Were you on the beach?” Vaughn asked.

  “By the lighthouse. As the sun came up.”

  “Who else was there?” Vaughn asked. “Who did you see?”

  Trey. She’d seen Trey. He’d come at her. He’d attacked her, and she’d woken in that cellar. But she didn’t want to believe Trey would do that. She didn’t want to believe he’d hurt her. “Why do you have all those pills?” she asked.

  “Pills?” he said.

  Daphne lifted the cloth. The bleeding had stopped. “There are pills downstairs. Vials and vials of pills.”

  Outside, a Jeep roared up the narrow path. She had to decide who to trust. Now.

  “Trey was on the beach,” she said, quickly. “And he knows. About you and Lydia. He knows you’re having an affair. Be careful. Don’t say anything. He wants to take you down.”

  Saying Trey’s name still made her heart beat faster, even as she remembered his face as he screamed at her. She remembered the sand rushing toward her and telling Ethan to run. She’d kicked at him, hadn’t she? She’d swung that rock. In her heart, she knew that Trey had never loved her, but she still wanted him. How could she have been so pathetic? How could she be so pathetic?

  “Oh, Annie,” Vaughn said, and the look in his face gave something away. It woke up a little voice, a whisper that told her not to listen. Not to trust, no matter what.

  “My name is Daphne,” she said. “Annie wasn’t real. She wasn’t anyone.”

  “She was someone to me,” Vaughn said. “We were friends. I liked her.”

  The door flew open. Rory crouched, gun gripped in both fists. He shouted, telling Daphne to put her hands up, to roll on her stomach.

  “Really?” she said.

  “Now!”

  Even though it made her feel like a criminal, she faced the braided rug, with its grains of sand and dog hair. She wasn’t sure how much fight she had left in her anyway. Rory moved forward. He passed her, and in a few deft moves he’d snapped a set of handcuffs onto Vaughn.

  “I’m not going anywhere, buddy,” Vaughn said.

  “Shut up,” Rory said. “Try anything. One thing, and I’ll hurt you worse than she already has.”

  “We’ll get this sorted out,” Vaughn said.

  “Don’t talk,” Rory said. “I don’t want to hear it. You’re under arrest.”

  He read Vaughn his rights and hauled him to his feet. As soon as the door clicked shut, Daphne leapt up and ran after them, into the sun. The sun. The bright warmth on her face. She breathed deeply, letting oxygen flow into her lungs, letting the world swirl around her in a sea of shapes and colors. At the Jeep, Rory guided Vaughn’s head as he eased him into the back of the car. By the trees, Hester held the dog by a burgundy-colored leash. Once Vaughn was safely locked away, Rory ambled toward Daphne. “I was worried about you,” he said, his voice kinder than she’d expected. “I’m glad you turned up. I’ll need to get you to a doctor.”

  “I’m fine,” she said, ignoring the aches and pains.

  “You don’t look fine. You got a beating. Come in the car.”

  “Nothing’s broken, and I want to be outside. I’ll walk.”

  Rory looked as if he might argue, but he gave in. “Go right to the inn and wait there,” he said, glancing at Hester. “You too. I’ll send the doctor around. And you’ll need to talk to the state police about what happened here. There were pills all over the place in there. And a lock on the door.” He glanced toward the Jeep. “Sick.”

  He slid into the driver’s seat, revved the engine, and drove too aggressively into the trees. The dog, which had seemed so menacing at the house, wagged her whole body as Daphne approached. “Strays always manage to find you,” she said to Hester.

  “We’ll take her with us,” Hester said. “Figure out what to do. Vaughn has plenty of friends who’ll look out for her.”

  Daphne surveyed the coast, holding a hand up to block out the sun. She was safe. Ethan was safe, for now at least, and it was because of her. She was a hero, even if no one knew it yet, a hero like Hester had been with Kate last winter. Daphne had read everything about the kidnapping. More than once over these months, she’d wondered if she’d have done the same, whether she could have found the strength to save her own child.

  Kate.

  If she was a good mother, Kate would have been her first thought when she saw Hester, her sole thought, but she’d remembered the girl only now. “Is she here?” Daphne asked.

  A subtle shift in Hester’s expression revealed that need to protect at any cost. Daphne remembered wanting to feel that way, watching mothers bonding with their children and asking what she’d done wrong to never have that. Hester’s every waking thought probably involved a child now. The way Daphne’s should have.

  “Kate’s with Morgan,” Hester said. “In Portland. He’s looking for you. We both are.”

  Daphne imagined her little brother—they were twins, really, but Morgan was twelve minutes younger, something she’d never let him forget—she imagined him trying to interrogate the people he’d need to talk to, the ones she’d known, the desperate and the destitute. He’d never understand that world, because he wouldn’t be able to comprehend how far she’d fallen.

  “The last ferry is at four,” Hester said. “And we need to get you to the doctor and talk to the police before it leaves. If I’m not on it, I think Morgan may actually give up on me. He’s meeting us in Boothbay Harbor.”

  “Will Kate be there?”

  “Unless he manages to lose her,” Hester said, glancing at her phone. “No service here.”

  “Not till we get closer to town.”

  Daphne kept smiling, a mask to hide behind. She protected herself, even with Hester. It would take ten minutes to get to town, where phone service was reliable, ten minutes before Hester texted Morgan something like, Mission accomplished! Ten minutes before she asked Daphne to pose for a selfie, to smile into the phone, to grin for her brother and daughter. What did Daphne want? She had to decide and get Hester to trust her again. First step, a hug. Tentative. Let H
ester believe Daphne didn’t know whether she’d earned it. Hester held her tight, though, without inhibitions, like she always did, and released her long after Daphne was ready to stop.

  “Let’s go,” Hester said, already hurrying.

  The dog trotted along beside them as they headed into the trees.

  “Tell me what happened,” Hester said.

  And Daphne told her what she could, about the storm and the lighthouse and releasing Ethan and waking up on the cot and taking the pills that she hoped were Tylenol. She told her about finding the door ajar. She didn’t tell Hester about Trey. Not yet. When she saw Trey, she’d know. She’d know whether he’d meant to hurt her. “Are the state police still here?” she asked. “Have they been looking for me? Did Trey raise the alarm?”

  Hester took a deep breath.

  “What’s wrong?” Daphne asked.

  “Trey Pelletier,” Hester said.

  There had to be a reason why he’d been on the beach.

  “Did you know him?” Hester asked.

  Of course, she knew him. She loved him. “A bit,” Daphne said. “He’s married to my best friend.”

  “Lydia Pelletier is your best friend?” Hester said.

  “She’s Annie’s best friend,” Daphne said.

  “Well, I’m glad. Lydia needs friends. Trey is dead.”

  The words didn’t make sense. Nothing did. Daphne saw herself, her legs moving, her arms swaying, as she floated across the mossy forest floor. She tried to latch on to what Hester had said, to string words together into a whole. Hester glanced at her phone again, and she remembered that Hester had hated technology, hated being bothered by the world. But a year could change anyone. It had certainly changed her. It had made her into Annie.

  “What did you say about . . . Trey?”

  “I found him on the beach by the lighthouse with a knife in his back. I suppose they’ll try to pin that on Vaughn now too,” Hester said.

  This time Daphne heard all the words. And they brought her crashing to earth. “I saw Trey on the beach,” she said. “After I found Ethan. He attacked me. I swear he had a knife.”

  “Why would he attack you?”

  “I don’t know!”