The Missing Ones

by Edwin Hill

  Morgan ran with the dog around the cul-de-sac four times, till sweat poured down his forehead and he gasped for breath. When he’d finished with the run, he tied the dog to a tree and let Waffles jump down to meet on neutral ground. A few moments later, they were in the back of the minivan, wrestling.

  “Another dog?” Angela said.

  “Trouble,” Morgan said. “But a dog like this one needs a lovable name.” He’d learned years ago to leave names like Butch or Rambo to pugs or French bulldogs. Mixes, especially pit bull mixes, needed sweet names, like Honey or Baby. “Any ideas?” he asked, turning to Kate.

  “Daphne!” Kate said.

  The name hit Morgan in the heart, but he absorbed the hurt the way Hester would. “I don’t know how your mother would feel about that,” he said. “Besides, he’s a boy.”

  “Pancakes,” Kate said.

  Pancakes and Waffles. It was too much, even for Morgan. “How about George?” he said. “That’s easy enough to remember.”

  “George, meet Waffles!” Kate said.

  “George, it is,” Morgan said, turning to face forward.

  Angela sat quietly beside him, waiting. Finally, Morgan said, “If she wanted us to find her, we’d have found her by now. Let’s eat. Let’s have some fun. Let’s find a way to relax for once. Hester’s been crazy ever since the winter, but so have I. Let’s forget that today ever happened.”

  Angela went to say something but stopped.

  “I’m done making excuses,” Morgan said.

  “What did you learn in there? I’m not on duty.”

  “You are for this.”

  “Then you should say something.”

  “I can’t,” Morgan said.

  A moment later, Angela put the car in gear and headed toward town.

  * * *

  As the alarm bell rang out, Rory ran to the upper deck of the ferry. From there, he could smell the acrid smoke of a house fire, and he scanned the horizon for the source.

  “Daphne’s not here,” Barb said, joining him.

  Behind them, the sun hovered near the horizon beyond Bowman Island. Opposite, on Little Ef, thick black smoke and another orange glow rose over the tree line.

  “It’s near the Victorian,” Rory said.

  Barb tried to radio Nate, but he didn’t answer. “Something’s wrong,” she said.

  Three men and a woman in fire gear unlocked the doors on a shed by the pier, backed the island’s only fire truck out, and sped off, the lights flashing and the siren blaring. Like most coastal Maine communities, Finisterre Island had a volunteer fire brigade. A single fire could easily spread and wipe out all of the structures in an area, especially after a dry summer. The few passengers on the boat were all from town. They joined Rory and Barb as they ran up the gangway toward the community center. All around, Rory could feel the town arising. “Get in the Jeep,” Rory said, taking charge. Vaughn appeared out of nowhere and got in on the passenger’s side. “You need all the help you can get,” he said.

  “Fine,” Barb said, as she climbed into the back seat. “But the two of you need to play nice. I don’t want to have to pull you apart again.”

  “I’m game if he is,” Rory said, starting the Jeep and speeding off. A crowd of people ran along the path, fire gear in their hands. They cleared the way to let Rory drive by.

  “How long?” he said to Vaughn.

  “How long what?” Vaughn asked.

  “Everything.”

  “How long have I been working with the cops? Since I passed the test. You should try it one of these days.”

  “Fuck you,” Rory said.

  “What did I say?” Barb said from the back seat. “Get along, or I’ll toss one of you out onto the side of the road.”

  “Right, boss,” Vaughn said, and Rory hated him all over again for the twinkle in his eye. But he told his story. “I joined the DEA right after college. And I’ve been deep undercover almost ever since, working for my father-in-law on the docks. We’ve seen drugs coming in from all different sources, but one of those was the sea. About six months ago, we picked up a woman who’d been running heroin from Portland up through Augusta. One of the balloons she had in her mouth burst when she swallowed it.”

  “Sounds like Frankie,” Barb said.

  “Sounds like a lot of people, unfortunately,” Vaughn said. “We had to deal with an OD, but once she came around she implicated the state police. That’s when the focus turned to Trey, and I came to the island. He was smart, though. He didn’t leave any kind of electronic trail, and he changed up his sources. For a while, they were leaving the shipments in his lobster traps, or at least that’s the theory, but I’ve checked them a few times and they’ve been empty. I think Trey got wind of the investigation, because whatever was happening here seemed to stop, at least till this last shipment came through.”

  “The one that killed Pete,” Rory said.

  “Yeah,” Vaughn said. “Again, I am truly sorry about that.”

  “I’ve known you forever!” Rory said. “And I’m a cop. Maybe if you’d let me know what was going on, I could have helped. Maybe Pete wouldn’t have died! I thought you were my friend. And you knew Pete was an addict. Why the hell didn’t you tell me?”

  “It’s not how it works,” Vaughn said. “I was already investigating the police, and I was on my own. I can tell you that I didn’t know the fentanyl had made it to the island till Pete died.”

  Rory punched at the steering wheel and glared at the road. He couldn’t cry. Not here. Not in front of Vaughn, of all people.

  “Working undercover does something to you,” Vaughn said. “You lie to everyone, all day, and it makes you dishonest. But you know I’d do anything for you that I could, right?”

  “And Lydia?” Rory asked. “Were you using her?”

  “No,” Vaughn said. “But I doubt she’ll see it that way. Not in the end. Not when she finds out everything I’ve done, everything I’ve lied about. Be a friend and let me be the one to tell her. And then be a friend to her and listen to what she has to say. It’s all I can ask.”

  “I can try,” Rory said as he rounded the bend.

  Down the road, a crowd had gathered by the Victorian. The fire truck had pulled as close to the house as possible, and a team had attached a hose to the nearest hydrant a few hundred yards away. Rory jumped out of the Jeep to join the group. “Do we know if anyone’s inside?” he asked the head of the fire brigade.

  “If anyone was still in there, God help them,” she said.

  “Have you seen a woman with blond hair, or the kid who went missing the other night?” Rory asked. “They live here.”

  “There was an officer here too,” Barb said. “Nate Turner. He was watching her.”

  “We haven’t seen anyone,” the chief said. “And we can’t send anyone in, not now. It’s too dangerous.”

  “Damn it!” Rory said. They’d spent too much time and energy trying to save Ethan to have it come to this, but the house was an inferno, and no one had the equipment or training to do more than contain a fire like this one. Rory watched the house burn, the turrets collapsing in on themselves. Whatever had gone on here, whatever this house brought to the island, would still be there in the morning. The rot would be impossible to cut away, but maybe with the house gone, a part of that evil would go too. Rory took a turn at the hose, and when he finished, a group had tapped a keg and started handing out cups of beer. “There may be a dead woman in that house,” Rory said to them. “A kid too. And a cop. Let’s show respect.”

  He joined Vaughn and Barb, who stopped talking as he approached. Barb took a few steps toward the fire. “See that line there, toward the back,” she said. “I don’t know much about arson—and just like with the murder, we’ll need an expert to come out here and confirm it—but to me, that looks like someone poured accelerant along the foundation of the house.”

  “And the arsonist knew that the house would go up like a tinderbox,” Vaughn said.

  “W
hat else were you talking about?” Rory asked.

  “We’re wondering where Daphne or Annie or whatever she wants to call herself might have gone,” Barb said. “Anytime something happens on this island, she seems to be right in the middle of it.”

  Rory heard a rustling in the tall hedges beside him. Nate crawled out of the trees, and Barb rushed to his side. “What happened?” she asked.

  “Someone hit me,” Nate groaned. “From behind. I didn’t see it coming.”

  Right then, Mindy ran through the trees toward them. Vaughn called to the dog and knelt to let her lap at his face. He glared at Rory. “Tell me you didn’t just leave her at my house when you arrested me?”

  “I just saw her at the inn.” Rory scanned the burning house. “She was with Hester. The question is, what’s happened to her?”

  CHAPTER 26

  The light had begun to fade. The ocean consumed the sand on each side of the spit as, little by little, it narrowed with the incoming tide. Hester and Ethan had managed to make it through the list of Thomas’s friends twice during the time that had passed. An hour, maybe? An eternity? Hester still didn’t dare move them from their hiding place. Her damp clothing clung to her skin, and as the autumn chill set in, she could feel the cold, right to her numb left pinky, and it brought her back to last winter. To feeling helpless and afraid. She checked her pockets one more time for her phone, if only to distract herself, though she could still hear it clattering to the floor in the fire. She piled up rocks, each the size of her palm, and tried not to worry about Daphne or wonder why her friend had been at the house. And she held Ethan.

  By now, the fire at the Victorian was dying down. Only plumes of dark smoke against the darkening sky remained. Hester could hear a celebration beginning by the burned house, and she imagined people gathering, a keg being tapped, children running, music playing. They couldn’t be more than a few hundred yards from the crowd, from safety, but she couldn’t risk the exposure of crossing the sandy spit in the open.

  “I’m hungry,” Ethan said.

  Hester had learned not to travel without a ready supply of snacks—cellophane packages of raisins and Goldfish—but a day without Kate had freed her from all sorts of restrictions. She felt in her pockets and came up only with dog treats. They could resort to eating those if they had to, but not yet. “We’ll find something soon,” she said.

  “Okay,” Ethan said, and Hester heard in his voice that he’d grown used to hunger.

  “For real,” she said. “Anything you want.”

  A wave crashed on the shore, the water coming in far enough to meet her toes. The spit would disappear soon.

  “We have to go out to the lighthouse,” she whispered.

  It was almost dark. The sun had disappeared, and only the grayest of light still filtered over the horizon. It had to be safe to move.

  Hester lifted Ethan onto her hip. Kate would have demanded to walk on her own, but Ethan seemed content to cling to her, his arms encircling her shoulders. Her joints had grown stiff with the cold, so she was glad to move slowly, glad to hold Ethan, his legs wrapped around her waist and his head pressed to her chest. She stumbled across the sand. Behind her, she imagined the waters surging in, swallowing their escape route. Allowing plenty of time for the police to find the shooter, for Daphne to raise the alarm. But where was Daphne? The alarm should have been raised by now, and the troops should have come. Maybe, at the lighthouse, she could entice Ethan to sleep. Maybe they both could sleep and later, they could slip into town under the cover of darkness. Maybe, when they got to the inn, Daphne would be in bed, asleep. Or maybe she’d be reading with Mindy curled up beside her on the bed. She’d put a bookmark between the pages and say, “I’ve been waiting for you!”

  But that wouldn’t make sense either. That would only piss Hester off.

  They reached the island, and Hester collapsed to the ground. It was drier here, above the water, and the stone still held warmth from the day’s sun.

  “Where’s my mommy?” Ethan asked, and Hester didn’t have the resolve to lie.

  “Your mom saved you,” she said. “She did everything she could for you.”

  They sat in silence, Hester letting her mind wander. Ethan grew restless, kicking his feet against stone.

  “Are there songs you like?” she asked.

  “Def Leppard,” Ethan said.

  “What are you, like fourteen years old or something?”

  Ethan giggled. “I’m four,” he said, grinning into her chest.

  “Well, I like Def Leppard too,” Hester said. “‘Pour Some Sugar on Me’? Do you know that one?”

  Ethan sang a few lines, and Hester joined in. At first, she thought about changing the lyrics, skipping over the dirty parts, but what did Ethan know? Peaches were peaches to a four-year-old.

  “Do you know the Wiggles?” she asked when they’d finished singing, and Ethan shook his head. “I wish I didn’t know them either,” Hester added. “How about ‘Like a Virgin’ by Madonna?”

  Ethan shook his head again.

  “I’ll teach you. And when it’s darker, we can dance.”

  Hester sang a few of the lyrics, listening as Ethan sang them back at her, his voice soft and high-pitched. She wondered what he’d sound like as a man, whether he’d be a bass or a tenor, or whether he’d be one of those people who mouthed the lyrics when forced to participate. She remembered, however fleeting the thought, when she’d considered abandoning him, and she committed right then, no matter what, to see him through to what came next, and beyond. And she sang a little louder. Her own voice was a low and croaky contralto that hit the right note only by luck.

  “Your turn,” she said when they finished. “What’s another song?”

  “ ‘Baby Got Back’?” Ethan said, and this time he laughed in a way that told Hester he knew this one was dirty.

  “I like big butts . . .” she sang, pointing to him.

  Ethan picked up the lyric and finished it. “And I cannot lie.”

  A light blinded her. A voice from behind it said, “How sweet.”

  Hester stepped in front of Ethan. She’d been so focused on entertaining the boy that she’d stopped listening. A sharp cry followed, and Daphne stumbled forward, shoved from behind. Then the light went out.

  “I thought we might find you here.”

  As her eyes adjusted to the dark, Hester could see Seth’s silhouette outlined against the water. He held a rifle and pointed it at them.

  “Fire’s out,” he said.

  “What happened to Frankie?” Hester asked.

  “I bet you can guess. Though she managed to save the little one, for now. And it’s the same thing that’ll happen to you,” Seth said, rubbing the barrel of the rifle against Hester’s cheek. She gripped it and shoved it aside.

  “Don’t make this into a porn movie,” she said.

  “Then how about a snuff film?” Seth said. “Better than porn.”

  “You’ll be lucky to make it off the island.”

  “I have people,” Seth said. “They’re coming to pick me up. Frankie should have remembered that. We both had people to count on, if we played the game right. But she wanted out.”

  “Did he hurt you?” Hester asked Daphne.

  “No,” Daphne said. “I tried to stop him. That’s when I got burned.”

  Seth aimed the rifle at Daphne. “Did you know that even Frankie thought you’re a nasty whore? She told me all about you.”

  Hester ignored him, turning to Daphne. “Look at me,” Hester said. “You saved me last winter. I didn’t get a chance to tell you. You were with me the whole time, in the snow, in the cold. With Kate. I kept thinking about that class, the one where we first met, the one you were teaching. Do you remember it?”

  The self-defense course. Please remember.

  “I remember,” Daphne said.

  “You,” Seth said to Hester. “You also need to shut up.”

  He shoved her, and she purposefully fell to the grou
nd and palmed a stone.

  “Get up,” Seth said.

  He wrenched her arm, and she shoved him off her. He took a step back and fell off balance. And she swung. Hard. Smashing the side of his face.

  Seth staggered. When the rifle went off, Hester tried in vain to grab it as it clattered across the stones. Daphne crouched and sprung at Seth, driving her bony shoulder into his gut. He doubled over and fell. Hester lifted Ethan, clutched at Daphne’s hand, and they fled into the darkness.

  “Run,” Hester said, shoving Ethan into Daphne’s arms. “Get back to shore, even if you have to swim.”

  Hester turned and bolted across the granite, making as much noise as she could. Behind her came footsteps, pounding, the sound of heavy breathing. But she turned to face off. And when Seth came at her, she slammed another rock into the side of his head. A hand hooked around her ankle. She fell forward, her hands slipping. Blood flooded her mouth as she bit her tongue. She swung again. The rock connected with something hard and fleshy, and Seth let go enough so that she could scramble forward into rosebushes, her hands waving wildly in front of her, shoving branches away. Her shin snapped as she hit a boulder. She tumbled over it headfirst. She was on her feet again, rounding the lighthouse. She imagined Daphne, on the beach, lit by the moon, with Ethan clinging to her. She imagined them safe. Hester stopped, back to a boulder, facing the sea. She willed herself not to breathe. Daphne would bring help. Soon. In front of her, the inky water rose and fell. A sleek motorboat sped toward where she hid, a bright light glaring from the bow.

  “Here they are.” A voice in her ear once more. “My friends. Just in time.”

  Seth jabbed the barrel of the rifle, hard, into Hester’s temple.

  “I shouldn’t say friends,” he said. “They’d get rid of me, just like I got rid of Frankie. They’re business acquaintances. With a boat that will get my ass out of here.”

  “Go,” Hester said. “I’m good at keeping secrets. I’m even better at lying.”

  “What’s my secret?” Seth asked.

  “You burned the house.”