by Edwin Hill
“That’s hardly a secret. Your friend saw me do it.”
“And you aren’t Frankie’s brother.”
“Look, Frankie was an idiot. She was about to go to the state cops and cut a deal. So she had to go. Pretty straightforward.”
“And you killed Trey Pelletier.”
“Did I?”
“Did Frankie?”
“Give me a break. She wouldn’t have killed Trey. She was banging him. Frankie thought she could move here and make Trey pay for everything he’d done. She threatened to reveal their affair to Trey’s wife, where that kid came from. She thought she could make him do what she wanted. Then Trey turned up dead, and she had no cards left to play. And why would I kill him? He protected the coastline and made my job easier.”
“But you took his kids,” Hester said. “You kidnapped Ethan and Oliver.”
“I wasn’t even here when those kids disappeared. That was the cop, the one who has a thing for Lydia.” He paused, adjusting his hold on the rifle. “But what do you care? You’re dead anyway.”
“Is she?”
Daphne stepped into the moonlight. She swung a piece of driftwood into Seth’s temple. He fell back. Then Daphne lifted the wood over her head and smashed his skull. Out on the water, the engine revved and the boat sped away, its headlamp fading into the dark.
“Where’s Ethan?” Hester asked.
“In the lighthouse.”
Hester ran, throwing the door open, lifting the boy from the ground, checking him all over. He seemed fine. Safe. Or as safe as he could ever be. “Do you still like big butts?” she asked.
Ethan smiled. “Yes,” he said.
“Better than Thomas?”
“No.”
“Keep it that way.”
Back on the beach, Seth was unconscious but still breathing. They rolled him to his side and tied his hands behind his back using rope from a buoy that had washed up. Then they sat with the lighthouse to their backs, Ethan sandwiched between them, and the boy talked in excited whispers about running, about the fight. Finally, his eyes grew heavy, and he fell asleep. By then, the tide had swallowed the spit and marooned them. They could hear the party by the extinguished fire, the music growing in intensity, the laughter and conversation filling the night.
“Did you ever . . .” Hester began. “Were you sleeping with Trey?”
“Annie was,” Daphne said, after a moment. “Annie did that kind of thing.”
“What else did Annie do?” Hester asked.
“She survived. Any way she could, but she didn’t kill anyone, and she didn’t burn down a house, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“It is, actually. I’m asking you if you killed Trey. Or, if you want, did Annie?”
Hester focused on the horizon, where the dark night sky met the nighttime ocean, illuminated by a waning gibbous moon. A thought emerged, a connection, something she’d heard earlier that hadn’t fit. Hester turned to Daphne.
“When I left you with Vaughn, after we’d tied him up, did he say anything?”
“He tried to charm his way out of it.”
“What did he do when Rory arrested him?”
“More of the same. More negotiating. He treats Rory like a little brother. It gets under his skin.”
“What did Rory do?” Hester asked.
“He had his gun drawn,” Daphne said. “And he told me to roll on my stomach and put my hands over my head. It pissed me off. Made me feel like a criminal. Then he cuffed Vaughn and brought him outside. I followed a few seconds later.”
The noise from the party on the mainland stopped abruptly, and Barb Kelley’s voice rang out through the trees. “Everyone, go home,” she said into what must have been a bullhorn. “We need to clear the area.”
“Oh, Jesus,” Hester said, thinking again of the fire, of Frankie standing in that window, of what they’d probably found. She ran her fingers through Ethan’s thick hair, and he woke from his sleep.
On the beach, people began to pass by, flashlights and headlamps bobbing along. Hester, Daphne, and Ethan waved their arms and shouted till someone finally heard them. A dinghy launched from the shore, and as it approached, Hester saw Vaughn Roberts standing at the bow with Mindy beside him while Rory rowed. “We were worried about you!” Vaughn shouted.
“We were too!” Hester shouted back. “And we’ll need a medevac here. Someone’s pretty badly hurt.”
“I hope it’s one of the bad guys,” Vaughn shouted.
Rory pulled at the oars again, his back strong. Hester touched Daphne’s hand. “Before Rory arrested Vaughn,” she said, “did he search the house? Did he go downstairs to the cellar?”
The boat glided to the shore, and Mindy leapt to the sand, dashing toward them. As Daphne stepped into the surf to grab the bow, she said, “Not that I remember.”
It wasn’t the answer Hester had hoped for.
CHAPTER 27
For what seemed like hours, Hester answered Detective Kelley’s questions about Seth and Frankie and Trey, about why she’d come to the island in the first place, why she’d gone to the house, and why she had the child of a dead woman with her.
“If it helps,” Barb said, “it looks like Frankie died of a gunshot wound before the smoke or fire got to her.”
“I tried,” Hester said. “I ran into the fire but couldn’t find her.”
“You did your best.”
Barb jotted something in her notebook anyway.
Hester balanced Ethan on her knee, rocking him gently and letting him fall asleep against her chest. She refused offers to take him away. Where would he go, anyway? She was all he had, at least for the night.
Vaughn had taken Daphne to another room to question her, and Hester hoped that Daphne would stick to the facts. The truth would be the only way through this.
“You had never met Seth, not before coming to the island?” Barb asked for what must have been the fourth time.
Hester was tired, but she kept her cool. “Besides Daphne, I’d never met any of these people, including Seth. Not till yesterday when I gave him twenty bucks,” she said.
Had she mentioned the twenty dollars before? She wanted to keep her answers straight, to stick to the story. But Barb was better at this than she was. Besides, it was late, well after midnight.
“Why the twenty?” Barb asked.
“Because he answered my questions. And he seemed like he needed it.”
“What were your questions about?”
Hester had answered that one already. She sighed to let Barb know that she knew they were playing the same game. “Daphne. I was looking for Daphne.”
“And this Seth. Do you know if that was his real name?”
“How could I? I’d never met him. Who was he anyway?”
Barb contemplated the question for a moment, clearly deciding what to share. Finally, she relented. “He was a midlevel drug dealer in a much bigger network,” she said. “As least that’s what we know so far. It looks like Frankie worked for him, till recently.”
“Daphne saw them together though,” Hester said. “She told me they seemed close.”
“Maybe Frankie didn’t want to get away as much as she thought she did. Seth probably helped her get high again.” Barb’s phone rang. “Kelley here,” she said, listening for a moment. “That was the hospital,” she said when she hung up. “Seth is out of surgery but still unconscious. If he wakes up, we’ll be able to ask him some of these questions.”
Hester was more relieved by the news than she’d expected to be. “I thought I’d killed him,” she said, and immediately regretted it when the detective jotted a note on her pad.
“He’s not out of the woods,” Barb said. “But we’ll see. What do you think he’ll say if he wakes up?”
“It’ll depend on what kind of deal you cut.”
“He’s smart enough for that?”
“Probably not. He’ll tell you that he’s one piece of a big puzzle—and maybe he’ll lead you to a few more pieces—but that
you’ll never put the whole thing together.”
“You got that one right.” Barb put her feet up on the table. “Next time something like this happens, call in the cops. We’re here to help.”
“There won’t be a next time,” Hester said.
“Let’s hope.”
Hester stood, lifting Ethan onto her shoulder. “He’ll stay with me tonight,” she said. It wasn’t a question.
“Someone from family services will be on the ferry tomorrow,” Barb said. That wasn’t a question either.
“Where’s Daphne?”
“She’ll be done soon too, and we’ll bring her to the inn. Go get some rest. That kid is tuckered out.”
Hester rocked Ethan gently, but when he refused to wake up, she decided her biceps could handle a few more minutes of holding him. Outside, the night air was crisp and clear, though the smell of the fire still hung over the town. The sky was filled to overflowing with stars. When Hester reached the inn, she wasn’t quite ready to go inside for the night and headed toward the pier instead, where she saw someone standing by the gangway. It was Rory, who stared out over the water even as she joined him. “This child feels like a bag of cement,” she said.
Rory took Ethan from her, resting the boy’s head of dark hair on his shoulder. “How is he?”
“He seems fine on the outside,” Hester said. “That psychiatrist, Dr. Feldman, gave him a once-over, for whatever that’s worth, but we all have bruises, right? Ones that never quite heal. Sometimes it’s best to tell someone the truth. Sometimes it’s the only way to survive.”
“You mean Lydia and me? Everyone knows that already.” Rory laughed, as though realizing the gravity of the situation for the first time. “The whole town. Everyone I grew up with, everyone I’ve ever known, they think I kidnapped Oliver to steal his mother away from his father. They actually think I could do that.”
“Well, didn’t you?” Hester asked. “Take Oliver?”
“I’ve done a lot of things,” Rory said. “But that’s not one of them.”
Hester glanced around the pier. They were the only ones out at this hour, the only ones who could hear what was said. This was a place meant for secrets.
“Like what?” she whispered.
Rory glanced up. Would he deny what she knew must be true? But Rory laid Ethan on a bench and placed his coat over the boy. “You don’t know anything,” he said.
“I do, though,” Hester said. “I know that things you said didn’t add up. Things you claimed that you saw. At Vaughn’s house, you never went downstairs. You couldn’t have seen the lock on the cellar door or the drugs. But you told people about them as if you had. You told me about them.”
“How do you know I didn’t search the house?” Rory asked, his voice tipping toward anger.
“Daphne was there.”
“And she’d been held in a cellar for almost two days. Beaten, confused. What she says won’t matter.”
“None of this does, even if you tell me,” Hester said. “It’ll all be hearsay. Right now, it’s us. You and me. And you can tell me. You can let all of this go. It’s better to share.”
Rory put both hands on the iron railing and bounced on his toes like a gymnast getting ready to launch himself high in the air. “Barb will be disappointed,” he said. “That’s what really hurts. She likes me and believes in me like no one else ever has.”
Hester felt the winter again. She felt the cold. She thought about Sam, about Gabe as he sat in that cell in Devens. Those unread letters in plain white envelopes in her closet at home. “I’ve seen awful things,” she said. “And I’ve known terrible people. Dangerous people. You aren’t one of them.”
She heard him catch his breath and exhale slowly, steeling himself for a future he didn’t need to choose, and Hester wanted to tell him to push this down, to forget it ever happened. Good people do bad things. She’d done plenty herself. He could live his life, one with value, but he’d have to give himself a chance. He’d have to forgive himself. He could let Seth take the fall. Seth had killed Frankie. He’d burned that house, and what was the difference between one and two murders anyway? “Don’t say anything,” she whispered. “Not even to me.”
But he did. He told her everything.
* * *
The town was asleep. Quiet. Rory passed by Cappy’s and The Dock. At the inn, he stopped outside the picket fence. A light burned in the first-floor sitting room, where he imagined Lydia on the sofa with Oliver beside her, like the night of the storm. He could have let himself in through the gate and stood outside the window looking in as he had on so many other nights. Did Lydia know? Did she know that he’d watched over her all these years? He wondered a lot of things about Lydia, like how much she’d learned about Trey, what she’d participated in and what she’d chosen to ignore. But there was enough blame already, enough for him to take on. And even though a part of him wanted to walk through the garden and tap on the glass to ask her to come outside, to have one more conversation before the end, he knew he wouldn’t know what to say. And no matter what he asked, he didn’t want the answers.
On the night of the storm, as the rain had begun to slow and the sky had turned gray with the coming sun, he’d been right here, thinking about Pete.
When a truck rumbled down the path, Rory stepped behind a tree, if only because he didn’t have the strength to face anyone, not yet. But when the truck passed by, its headlights extinguished, he recognized Trey behind the wheel. Why drive without headlights? Why pass by his own home? It was easy enough for Rory to follow him, into the woods, along the paths till Trey parked outside Vaughn’s house and lugged something inside that looked like a body.
Trey had killed Vaughn. Or at least that’s what Rory believed. And for a moment, he also believed that all his problems had been solved for him. And that he could be a hero. Lydia’s hero. He drew his firearm and edged into the house. Downstairs, Trey breathed heavily. Rory slipped down the stairs, where he saw Daphne slumped on the floor while Trey dumped prescription vials onto a table from a duffel bag. He spun around at the sound of Rory’s footsteps.
“Jesus, Rory,” he said.
Rory pointed the gun at him and descended the final few steps.
“Put that away,” Trey said, in a voice of someone used to getting everything he wanted. It was a voice that incensed Rory. “I found this crazy bitch,” Trey said. “She had that kid locked up in the lighthouse the whole time. She took Oliver too. For them. I’m trying to get out, you know. I’ve been trying to get out all summer. And they keep threatening me. They sent her. And she attacked me.”
“Where’s Ethan?” Rory asked.
“I brought him home,” Trey said. “I left him outside the back door. They’ll find him soon enough.”
“Then why is she here?” Rory asked.
“To help me,” Trey said.
“Do what?”
“Put her in that room. We’ll lock her in.”
“If she kidnapped Ethan, then I’ll arrest her,” Rory said, still pointing the gun.
Trey pulled a wad of twenty-dollar bills from the duffel bag and tossed it on the floor. “There,” he said. “How’s that for motivation? There’s more, you know. Plenty more. Don’t be an idiot. We can both win.”
Rory was across the room in two steps. He was bigger than Trey. Stronger too. And when Trey tried to tackle him, Rory got him into a headlock, one that reminded him of being on a playground, of knuckles digging into skulls. They slammed into the table, and amber-orange prescription bottles scattered across the floor. One of them opened, and pills spilled out, and for Rory, all the pieces fell into place.
“What are those?” he said.
“They’re nothing,” Trey said.
“Then you take one.”
“Are you serious?”
Rory dug the barrel of the gun into Trey’s head. He pulled the man across the small room to a sink, where he filled a dirty glass with water. He shoved the pill into Trey’s mouth and forced him
to drink.
“Come on, man,” Trey said. “Enough, okay?”
“Enough?” Rory shouted. “Pete is dead. My brother is dead. My whole family is dead. And you’ve been in the middle of it this whole time. Take another one!”
“No!”
Rory hit him in the head with the gun. “Take another, or I’ll blow your brains out.”
* * *
Afterward, Rory sat outside the locked room and listened. Soon, a voice crackled over the radio. They’d found Ethan, sitting on the stoop outside his house, like Trey had said they would. Rory could still have done the right thing then, and he’d have forgiven himself for everything that came before. He could have taken the padlock off and left all this behind. But he wanted Lydia, and for that, he needed Vaughn out of the way. So he left what food he could find in a pile on the floor while Daphne lay unconscious on a cot. He waited till he heard Daphne move. She crawled to the door and shook it. He heard her cry out, though the panic hadn’t hit her voice yet. And then he left her there, lifting Trey’s body into the car, taking Vaughn’s knife from his boat in drydock, and bringing the body to the shore, where he plunged the knife into the man’s back to be sure he was dead. And to frame Vaughn. He hoped the seagulls would peck out Trey’s eyes before the tide carried him out to sea. Neither wish had worked out.
* * *
Vaughn was leaving the community center as Rory approached. “We’re finished up for the evening,” Vaughn said.
“You off to see Lydia?” Rory asked, and Vaughn had the decency to look at the ground. “Be honest with her,” Rory said. “It’s all you can do.”
“Thanks, man,” Vaughn said, shaking his hand. “See you around.”
Inside, Barb was on the phone. She rolled her eyes when she saw him and made a talking gesture with her hand.
“I need to tell you something,” Rory whispered to her. “But I can wait.”
This would be his last night here on the island. His last night at home. She could take as much time as she needed.
CHAPTER 28
Hester watched where Rory had disappeared into the dark long after he left. She wished she could have convinced him to keep his secrets—their secrets now—but he was a better person than she was.
