At first, he was interested in Liston himself, an Iraq vet who seemed to do better with animals than with people. At least, that was the way the press described him.
Then the first picture of Joyce appeared, and Henry leaned forward in his desk chair. It showed her in the courtroom. She was blond then, her hair pulled back but not too severely. She was quoted about her new boyfriend, another Iraq vet, Gerrald Blankenship, and how he had been agitated the morning she phoned the police. Gerrald and Hal had never gotten along, she said. They were both too volatile. She suspected each had PTSD.
As he read on, Henry picked at the scar until that callus flipped right off and a trickle of blood ran down his hand. “I’d forgotten she ever looked like that,” he said. Joyce was a brunette now, and in the newspaper picture she was wearing a gray suit with a white blouse. But I didn’t think he was looking at the suit. I think he was looking at the frowsy, shoulder-length, universal mom haircut.
He clicked on a link to the next article, which showed a picture of Gerrald Blankenship in the courtroom, in the middle of demonstrating how he had shot Hal Liston in the neck.
Henry stared at the picture for a long time. Gradually, I realized he wasn’t watching the maneuver itself but the onlookers in the courtroom. There, in the background, was Joyce Liston, with an oh-so-subtle smirk on her face.
In that instant, I no longer guessed, I knew. I knew she may have called the police on Blankenship, but she’d called them too late. She’d given Blankenship time to shoot her ex.
“Goddamn!” Henry said. “Do you think she trained dogs herself?”
“Probably,” I said.
“We know she trained preschoolers . . . I can’t believe I did that. To my own mom.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose. He was tearing up, but he didn’t want me to see. “And I never even reached out later, when I was old enough to know what I’d done. I was so ashamed. And clearly she was ashamed of me, too.”
I rubbed his shoulders. “It’s okay,” I said. I thought about my conversation with Hannah, about Kwan Yin, the goddess of forgiveness and compassion, and the role it played in her and her wai po’s lives. Hannah didn’t exactly say that she talked to Henry’s mom every day, but I knew they were in touch. Henry thought his mom had deserted him. I wondered now if that were true. Hannah and Henry’s mother, Ellen, had been best friends since college. It seemed to me that if you fired one (Ellen), you fired the other (Hannah). Why else would Hannah be around, if not to keep an eye on the kids, since Ellen couldn’t?
I didn’t know anything about the divorce, but I did know that the money was all Mr. Shepherd’s, so the lawyers would have been his, too. If he had thought his wife was abusive, I could understand why he wouldn’t want to incarcerate her for appearance’s sake. He had a business to run after all. But I bet he got a mean restraining order.
“Henry, she knew. Your mom knew you’d been manipulated. I think it’s time to stop blaming yourself and tell the truth about Joyce.”
And then his arms were around me and they were grabbing my waist and they didn’t let go.
He stood up and reached a hand to my neck and pulled me down to him. At first, the kissing was tentative, but then it wasn’t. All I could feel was need. He smelled like misty mornings and calm days on easy waters—even though his life had been anything but, that’s what everyone assumed about the Shepherds. He had everything; all I had I shared with four brothers. The only thing I had ever called my own I had just buried at the edge of the bluff.
Even though I’d thought about this moment, waited for it, maybe even dreamed about it, I pulled away.
Maybe this kiss was displaced—because he was swamped with feelings he didn’t understand, and I was handy.
I didn’t want to be that girl.
“What is it?” he said. “What’s wrong?”
Outside, the troll continued his threats.
Stay . . . Good girl . . .
“Another time, maybe. Right now, we’ve got things to do.”
“Okay . . . ,” Henry said. “I understand.”
His whole body heaved with excitement. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought that excitement was over me. But I knew it had to do with what was coming.
He released his arms from around me and pulled his phone from his back pocket.
“What are you doing?” I tried to grab the phone from him. I was worried he was going to do something rash.
I was too late. He’d already pressed Send.
He showed me the text: I know what you did. I’m gonna tell Dad who really burned my hand. You and I both know the truth.
This was bad. If I was right, Joyce had graduated from manipulating to outright killing. Who knew what she’d do to Henry? “We should’ve gone to your dad with this,” I said. “We definitely shouldn’t tease the psycho.”
“Are you kidding? Dad relies on her. She runs his life. He likes his comfort. He won’t believe anything that threatens that. All I’ve got are the memories of a five-year-old me. It won’t be enough.”
“What about agent Armstrong, then?”
“And tell him what? That we suspect that she’s a sociopath?”
His phone beeped. Joyce had texted back. Henry showed me his screen.
You always were such a good little soldier. Meet me in the garage in ten minutes.
Outside, the sea kept rising, and I could hear the troll saying Yesss . . .
The thought splashed through my mind:
Everything dead eventually washes up in Useless Bay.
twenty
HENRY
The wind was blowing sideways as we crossed the path between the main house and the garage.
“I don’t like this, Henry,” said Pixie. “Can we please go find agent Armstrong?”
“No way. Not before I confront Joyce. You can stay in the house if you want to, but this is something I’ve gotta do.”
She bit her lip. “Do you at least have a plan?”
“Sure. Turn on my phone, get her to talk, and record her. Simple. You’re being kind of a wuss about this, Pix. It’s not like you.”
She looked out at the beach and got a face full of saltwater splash from a high wave. She jumped back as if that spray were trying to grab her. She wiped her face with her wet sleeve. Then she cocked her head, as if listening for something coming from the shore.
I’d never seen her this skittish before, but I didn’t have time to worry about her. I had to rely on her staying solid. She was a Gray. I was going to meet Joyce at any second, and there was going to be a reckoning.
“So, are you coming or what?”
She nodded. “If you’re going to do this, you’re not doing it alone.”
I took her arm in mine and kept walking. I was glad she was with me.
I let us in the side door of the garage.
The Lexus was parked in its usual space, and the rowboat was back in its spot and secured, surrounded with crime-scene tape. Kayaks and life preservers hung from hooks on the walls.
Remembering my fight with Todd Wishlow, I thought: Now I have a weapon. I wouldn’t mind fracturing Joyce’s clavicle. I knew from experience the satisfying crack an oar made when it struck bone.
Pix still seemed spooked by what was going on outside. It’s just a storm, I wanted to say. It’s true that this felt like something bigger. The sliding doors that looked out onto the beach were rattling so loud I thought they might break and dump a whole lot of sea-water into the place. Wind whistled through the corners of the seaward doors, and with every wave came a thump, as if something was trying to get in.
I heard a scrambling noise over by the rowboat. Pix pulled out her flashlight and shone it in that direction.
What we saw in the beam was not what I expected.
Meredith and Sammy were sitting in the spot that Tonka, the second-best bloodhound in the state, had tracked Grant’s scent to. They were holding hands easily, but that was the only thing about them that was easy. Their for
eheads were pressed together, and they were whispering intently about something that seemed important.
The mood was somber; but there was no question. The two of them were a couple.
“Meredith? You’re with Sammy?” I don’t know what surprised me more, the fact that my sister was involved with a Gray before I had taken my chance with Pix, or that she’d picked Sammy over all the rest—even Dean, who, by all accounts, was the best of the lot. The Golden Boy of Golden Boys.
Pix seemed just as surprised as I was. “How long has this been going on?”
“I don’t know,” Sammy said. “It seems like forever . . . But listen, there’s something we need to tell you about. We should’ve told you sooner . . .”
Water was beginning to pool beneath the seaward doors.
“Not now,” I said. “You two need to get out—”
“Wait a minute,” Pixie said. “Grant knew about you two, didn’t he?”
Neither of them bothered to deny it.
“He knew that this was where you liked to rendezvous, and he came to get you after I rowed him back yesterday. When he said he needed to find someone better to help him, he meant you two. Not Henry.”
Sammy nodded. “He wanted someone sneaky, and he knew about Meredith and me meeting on the sly. He figured he stood a better chance with us than he did with you two.”
While it still bugged me that Grant hadn’t come to me first, knowing what I did now, I couldn’t help thinking he was right. Sammy said he and Meredith had been together forever, but I had no clue until this moment. They seemed so easy about it, but that took stealth.
Sammy was still talking. “I know this will be hard to hear, but Grant was in the closet in the Breakers when Joyce strangled Lyudmila. The poor kid was totally traumatized. He begged us to take him and hide him. So we enlisted Hannah’s help. Her wai po runs the berry farm in Greenbank. He would be safe there.”
“I know,” Pixie said. “That’s a good place for him.”
I stared at her. I felt betrayed. “You knew where he was? You let me think he was drowned or kidnapped all this time?”
“No, I had no idea,” she said. “But I talked to Hannah before I went looking for you and she told me about her wai po. Grant is safe. She has a huge farm. And she sounds like someone you can count on.”
“And you two,” I pointed at Sammy and Meredith. “Do you have any idea the scale of the manhunt you’ve kicked off? Good people are out there, dragging the bay, searching through beach grass. To say nothing of the APB and the FBI here and at every ferry landing on the island . . . ”
“Sorry, man,” Sammy said. “We didn’t think that one through. All we cared about was getting Grant away from Joyce. Mere says she’s one slippery bitch. We didn’t think she’d heard of Hannah’s wai po. We were really just trying to buy some time until something better came up. We’ve been trying to think of a way to prove that Joyce did it while Grant is still safely hidden. We didn’t want him to have to relive it for the cops after what he’s just been through. You’re the planner, Henry. What do we do next?”
The seawater leaking from under the doors was up to our calves now, and Meredith was shivering.
My plan, direct confrontation, wasn’t any better than theirs.
Any instant now the psycho that I’d threatened was going to come in through that side door. “First, get to high ground. The tide’s coming in quickly. Grab everyone who’s left down here. Get ’em to Pixie’s house.”
“Don’t even bother with a car,” Pixie said. “Everyone will be trying to get out on the shore drive. Just take what you need and run up the dike path through the lagoon.”
“What about you two?”
“Henry has some unfinished business,” Pixie said.
I felt as if I were going to rupture, as though someone had poked me with a stick.
The doorknob started to rattle. She was here.
“Too late. Get out of sight. Now,” I said.
twenty-one
PIXIE
Stay . . . Good girl . . .
I knew I should be more worried about Joyce than I actually was, but I couldn’t concentrate. The troll was so loud! That skulking whisper I’d heard all those years in my nightmares? It was now a menacing growl. It sounded as though he were just on the other side of the seaward doors, which thumped loudly as each wave hit.
The water splashed around our calves. There was seaweed in it that grabbed for our legs and threatened to haul us out into the bay.
This was bad. This was tsunami-bad.
Henry was more worried about Joyce. She trudged in, her raincoat floating around her, just as Sammy and Meredith hid on the other side of the Lexus. She sloshed two steps into the garage, forcing the side door closed behind her.
Joyce smiled, and I hated her almost as much as Henry did. How could such a psycho smile so professionally? All this time, no one had seen what was behind that smile. But I was beginning to.
Her eyes glimmered with a perverse sort of excitement as she looked at Henry and me, as though she was ready to take us on.
The seaward doors rattled and groaned. Seawater gushed underneath.
“Well, little soldier,” she said to Henry. “I see you brought your security blanket.” She jutted her chin at me.
“You can’t control me anymore, Joyce. I’m not a little kid. You killed Lyudmila, and now you’re out of time. Agent Armstrong is going to prove what you really are, and I’ll be first in line to see you marched off to prison,” Henry said.
Joyce sighed. “Oh, my little soldier. You grew up so fast. I should’ve counted on this happening one day. Finally throwing off that blanket of denial.” She reached out to touch his cheek, but he jerked away. “So it’s going to be that way, is it?” She pulled out a gun. “Now. Give me your phones. We don’t want anyone recording this, do we?”
I pulled my phone out of my jeans pocket and slid it toward her. It wasn’t a clean slide since it was under a foot of water, but, fishing around, Joyce managed to find it and then smash it hard with one of her best shoes. Same with Henry’s phone.
Henry’s plan was now floating in pieces.
Yess . . . crunch you . . . reap you . . . , the troll groaned.
Something was going to get us—if not Joyce, then this creature. It was as inevitable as the rising tide.
“Believe me, this isn’t the happily ever after I expected,” Joyce said. “I thought we’d be one big happy family. I thought there was still time for your dad and me to have a child of our own. I’m only forty-two. That’s not too old, is it?” We said nothing. “You’re right, I suppose. Tick tock. It was supposed to be thirty. That was when you and I got rid of your mother.”
Henry balled his hands into fists at his sides, spilling over with rage.
“But then that Russian skank showed up. She wasn’t supposed to be marriage material. She outmaneuvered me. I should’ve thought about getting knocked up like she did. As far as I was concerned, yesterday’s happy little accident was correcting a mistake. A ten-year mistake. But now”—she waved her gun around—“I’m going to have to start all over again. All the media attention is going to mean I can’t stay here any longer. So this is what we’re going to do. You’re going to drive me to the Port Townsend Ferry, and from there we’ll drive to Port Angeles, where you’ll see me safely off on the boat to Canada.”
Canada? She wanted to go to Canada? Now? Granted, Canada was so close you could see it if you leaned a little to the left, but what about extradition? Plus this was a high-profile case. Everyone would know her by sight. There wasn’t going to be an easy escape for her. Surely she had to see that.
But then again, she was bat-shit crazy when it came to getting her way.
Thump! Stay . . . Good girl . . .
I flinched. The troll was beating at the door.
I had to think quickly. I had to get us out of here without gunfire and before the troll claimed us all. “Training,” I said.
Joyce focused he
r attention on me.
“I was just thinking that you were right,” I continued. “Some men are like dogs. I’m sure you’ll find one who just needs the proper training.”
Joyce’s eyes narrowed. “Some men? All men, honey. This one right here that you think you’ve got on the leash? He thinks he’s all independent now, but he’s really just waiting for his next command to make his life simpler.”
Henry looked as though he was going to spit. For the first time, I could see how he could get so mad he’d break a kid’s collarbone.
Joyce’s back was to the seaward door. Wham! A wave hit it, and it leaned inward.
The troll spoke, his voice was even louder. Yess . . . sstay . . .
“Henry,” I whispered, “I don’t think that door’s gonna hold all the way.”
“Not our problem,” Joyce said. “This whole estate was an ecological mistake. But we’ll let Rupe worry about that. Now, let’s get in the car and get going, shall we?”
She reached into her coat pocket and withdrew a set of keys, which she tossed to Henry.
This was a problem because Meredith and Sammy were crouched on the other side of the Lexus. And even though I was trying not to look over there, I had hoped one of them was holding out a phone, recording everything Joyce said.
Sammy had his moments.
“I don’t think we can do this,” I said. “The water is too deep on the shore drive. We have to run for higher ground.”
But I must’ve given something away. My eyes must’ve flicked to the far side of the car.
Joyce’s eyes followed. “Why, you little bitch! You brought backup.” She raised her gun. “Who’s there?” she yelled.
Sammy and Meredith stood up.
I knew she was crazy, but I didn’t know she was crazy enough to start firing. I heard Sammy scream. I saw the bullet hit my brother’s hand that held his phone. I saw the blood gush out of a space where something was gone, something he needed.
But at least she bought me some time. I reached into my pocket, pulled out Lawford’s second-best Taser, and fired. Two bolts shot out; and when they hit her, she toppled into the water at her feet, immobilized with pain.
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