by Jen Blood
“Look, Diggs, it was just one of those things—I don’t even know how it happened. And we didn’t actually do anything. I mean, we might have, if Matt hadn’t called, but…” I was babbling. In an effort to stop myself, I took a sharp right turn back to the investigation. “He had to leave. And then, this morning, I found something that made me think—”
Diggs’ face darkened. “I’m too tired for a play-by-play, Solomon. I should get going.”
Before I could launch into my theory on Juarez and his connection with the Payson Church, Diggs was out the door.
It was clear that I’d be on my own while Juarez was lost at sea and Diggs nursed his bruised ego, so I did my best to come up with a plan of action that involved neither of them. I might not have the scrapbooks I’d taken from Hammond, but I still had the Washington phone number I’d found. This time, I didn’t have to wait for fifteen rings before someone picked up. It rang twice before I got a recording.
The number had been disconnected.
Despite everything, I wasn’t surprised—if the voice I’d heard had indeed belonged to my father, he’d gone through a hell of a lot to disappear. Disconnecting his telephone seemed pretty minor by comparison.
I regrouped and kept my head in the game. By noon, I’d organized my notes and drafted a new chapter for the Payson book. Kat still hadn’t returned any of my calls, and so far all roads tended to lead back to Hammond’s investigation and the research my mother had taken from my room.
I had just made the decision to go ahead and drive to Portland to get Hammond’s notes back, possibly extracting them from Kat’s cold dead hands, when my phone rang. According to caller ID, the number belonged to a Dr. Maya Pearce. When I answered, the voice was one I didn’t recognize.
“Erin? I’m a colleague of your mother’s—I’m calling to find out if you’ve spoken with her recently?”
“She left here last night. Why? She’s not at work?”
“She never came home last night, and she was a no-show this morning. No call in, nothing.”
Alarm bells went off and sirens sounded in my head. It didn’t matter how pissed off she might have been over our argument, there was no way in hell Kat would miss work.
“Have you called the police?”
There was a pause on the line. “I was hoping things had worked out with you two, and she just needed a little extra time.”
Her words from the beginning of the conversation clicked. “You said she never came home—I’m sorry, who are you, exactly?”
Another pause. “Maya—I’m a…friend, of your mother’s.”
Alrighty then. I stored that tidbit to deal with later and focused on the issue at hand.
“You should call highway patrol—find out if there were any accidents.” My mouth went dry just saying the words. “I’ll get in touch with the police here and see what I can find out. I’ll call you as soon as I know anything.”
All I could think of was Hammond’s burning house. He died for what he’d known—for the research he’d done. Research Kat had taken from me before I had a chance to make sense of it myself. And now, she was missing.
I called Juarez first, thinking again of his warning to stay off the island. Of his connection with the Paysons. What had he said when he was on the phone with Matt? You don’t need to protect anyone anymore. Who was Matt Perkins protecting? And what had he done to keep them safe?
Juarez didn’t answer his phone. I left a rambling, panic-stricken message on his voicemail, then called back a few minutes later when I didn’t hear from him right away. I disconnected without leaving a second message.
My next call was to Sheriff Finnegan. He hadn’t heard of any accidents involving a red VW Beetle in the area. It was too early to file a missing persons report, but given Hammond’s murder and the link between my mother and the dead man, he agreed to put out an APB on her car. When I mentioned Marine Patrol, Finnegan hesitated.
“In this weather, we can’t just send a boat out on a hunch. It seems like you and your mom had a few issues—maybe she’s just taking a little time.”
“My mother doesn’t take time—not away from work. She could ignore my calls ‘til the cows came home and I wouldn’t think anything of it, but she wouldn’t just ditch the hospital.”
“The winds are supposed to die down overnight—how about if I arrange to have Patrol take a ride out to the island first thing tomorrow morning? We’ll keep checking the mainland for her, I’ll have my guys look for her car, and you can contact the local hospitals. But I promise you, I see this kind of thing all the time. I’m sure it’s just a miscommunication. Chances are, she’ll turn up fine in no time.”
I wished I had half his confidence.
I went to the newsroom next, already on the fence as to the wisdom of bothering Diggs with my mother’s disappearing act. One of the reporters whose name escaped me—a smallish man with glasses and a stained tie—intercepted me just before I reached Diggs’ door.
“Unless you have a copy of Freewheelin’ Dylan on vinyl or Scarlet Johansen’s phone number in your back pocket, you might want to wait on that,” he said. The way he looked at me made it clear he was protecting Diggs from more than just another work-related annoyance.
“He’s that pissed at me, huh?” I said.
“He’s tired,” he said, not unkindly. “Just give him a little space. I’m sure he’ll be fine.”
I wasn’t so sure about that. Lately, it seemed that all Diggs and I did was argue, while he tried to keep me safe and I fought him every step of the way. It would probably be kinder to just leave the poor guy alone. I walked away without leaving a note, determined to find Kat without his help.
◊◊◊◊◊
Outside, the storm of the century was just gaining steam. Einstein’s least favorite thing on the planet was rain, so he wasn’t pleased when I forced him out for another quick pee break before we returned to the car. He shook all over the backseat and whimpered indignantly, but—unlike everyone else in my life—at least he was still speaking to me.
I drove through Littlehope going over everything Kat and I had said to each other before she left. I wished it had been the only conversation I’d ever wanted to take back, but the truth was, my mother and I had never really known anything but harsh words and hard feelings. We had nine years together when I was growing up, most of that time colored by a venom I’d never felt for anyone but her. Maybe she drank too much and cared too little in those days, maybe her temper had gotten the best of her more than once where I was concerned, but did that really excuse the way I’d treated her all this time? The fact was, my mother had torn my world apart once when I was nine years old, and I’d been making her pay ever since.
And now, it turned out that I’d had her motives all wrong when it came to that single, defining event.
Your father didn’t want you.
And neither had she. But, whether out of guilt or duty or some twisted form of motherly love, she’d stepped up to the plate.
I turned down another of Littlehope’s multitude of backwoods roads, scanning driveways and ditches for any sign of a red Volkswagen Beetle.
There were none.
By the time I reached Edie Woolrich’s place, it was just after one o’clock—lunchtime. Several residents were gathered around the same dining room table where Noel Hammond, Edie, and I had met just a few days before. Sandwiches were piled high on a plate at the center of the table, tortilla chips in two plastic green bowls on either end. Everyone looked up when I came in. I did my best to appear moderately professional—or at least not on the verge of a mental breakdown.
Apparently I failed, because Edie clearly sensed trouble afoot. She excused herself, shut the French doors behind her, and nodded to the sitting room sofa.
“Why don’t you have a seat, hon? Can I get you something hot to drink? You look chilled to the bone.”
“I’m okay. I just had a couple of questions. Since you were so helpful the other day, I thought you
might be able to tell me a few things now.”
“I’ll do what I can.”
“When Matt first brought Jack Juarez here, did you hear any talk around town? People must have said something. I mean, a confirmed bachelor shows up with a good-looking teenager to live with him, claiming it was his nephew?”
She got the implication. “Well, you’re right about that—people did talk. I think they would’ve said more about it if Matt hadn’t been trying to find him for so long, though.”
“Do you remember when he started looking? Was it before or after the Payson fire?”
“After,” she said immediately. “Not long after, as a matter of fact. I remember, because your mum and me were working at the clinic one weekend when Teddy Harjula and a couple of his cronies came in, and—” she pulled up short. “But I guess that doesn’t really matter, does it?
“Anyway, it wasn’t long after the Payson fire that Matt started traveling whenever he had a few days. He’d always come back a little quieter, a little sadder, than when he left. He never was the sanest fish in the barrel, if you know what I mean—I think folks ‘round here just figured before he found Jack, that we’d let it alone and nothing would come of all his talk about this long-lost nephew of his.”
“Do you remember what Matt said when he talked about him? Before he found Jack, I mean?”
“I don’t remember much—just how there was somebody out there, and he had to find him. I only really talked to him about it once. Me and Fred were up at the Grange one night, and Matt came along and tied one on pretty good. He didn’t say much—I do remember how he kept saying that he knew the boy was out there, and he owed it to her to find him.”
My attention had been waning, but this pulled me back. “Her? Did he say who he meant by that?”
“He didn’t. We just figured maybe he had some long-lost sister out there somewhere—whoever was the boy’s mum, I imagine.”
I tried to piece that in with my hypothetical scenario of what happened on Payson Isle. If Zion had been saved while the rest of the church burned, and then the boy was taken off the island by some third party…Could that have been my father? And if that was the case, then…what? Matt Perkins found out, and went on a quest far and wide to find Rebecca’s son and bring back the boy he now claimed as his own blood?
I noticed Edie looking through the doors to the next room. I’d come at a bad time, I knew, and she was just too polite to say anything. “I appreciate you talking to me. I just have one last, quick question.”
“Anything I can do to help. What else can I tell you?”
I hesitated. “Do you think Matt’s a dangerous man? You’ve worked with him here for a while now, right? Could he be a danger to others?”
A shadow crossed her usually cheerful face. I thought for a second that she was about to brush me off, insist everything was fine. She didn’t.
“Didn’t Agent Juarez tell you?” she asked.
I shook my head.
“About three months back, Matt went after Joe Ashmont with one of those big survival knifes you see in the back of Soldier of Fortune magazines—Fred subscribes, that’s how I know about them. Anyway, he stuck him in the thigh, probably would’ve killed him if Joe hadn’t been quicker. That’s why we called Agent Juarez out here from his job in D.C.—we didn’t know what else to do. It was so unlike him…I know Matt’s always been a little off, but nobody’d ever seen him like this. Joe wouldn’t press charges, but Matt was still in the Togus psych ward for a good month before they’d let him out.”
She pressed her lips together as she considered my question. “Whatever demons Matt Perkins is fighting, they’ve done a number on him. The doctors all said he wasn’t a real danger anymore, but…” I waited for her to get down to whatever it was she didn’t want to say. “Just between you and me, when he came back I never once left my bedroom door unlocked. There’s something not right there.”
“If Matt wanted to get away from everyone, can you think of someplace he might go?”
“The islands, I guess. He knows this bay like the back of his hand—if he wanted a break, he’d probably choose one of those little islands out there where nobody ever goes.”
I pictured the topographical map of Penobscot Bay we used to have in my elementary school classroom. It had been peppered with tiny, uncharted land masses and a dozen larger, established islands.
“Any one in particular?” I asked hopelessly.
She just shook her head. She looked stricken as realization dawned. “That fire that killed poor Noel the other night—you don’t think…?”
“I don’t know.” I stood before she could ask anything else. “I should go, let you get back to lunch. If you think of anything else, could you call my cell phone? Anything at all.”
I gave her my business card and left, trying to figure out where to go from there.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
As soon as I was back in the car, I called Sheriff Finnegan again. With great patience, he repeated the promise he’d made earlier: if Kat still hadn’t shown up by morning, he would call out Marine Patrol. Until then, though, I just needed to sit tight and ride out the storm.
Right.
My next stop was the town landing. It was empty except for a couple of pickups in the parking lot, couples inside the cabs watching as waves battered the wharf and fishing boats bobbed like children’s toys on the stormy seas. I left Einstein in the car and walked the dock’s rain-slicked planks to get to my speedboat. It had taken on water, maybe six inches in its fiberglass bottom, the seats dripping.
I searched the harbor until I found Noel Hammond’s boat, riding the waves at its mooring. Juarez had warned me specifically: Don’t go out to the island today.
He’d obviously said it for a reason—the more time that passed without hearing from him and the longer Kat was missing, the more convinced I was that Payson Isle was the key. That’s where I would find my mother.
The speedboat would never make it the ten miles out there—not in this weather. I needed something more seaworthy…Like Hammond’s boat. Hammond certainly wouldn’t be using it again. So, if you took the raging winds, stormy seas, and raving madman out of the equation, there really was no reason I shouldn’t take it. I just needed the keys…Which I didn’t have. And of course, the fact that Diggs was probably the one hanging onto those keys now that Hammond was gone didn’t make things any easier.
Back at the Trib yet again, I pushed sopping hair from my face and, this time, didn’t hesitate before I knocked on Diggs’ office door. I went in without waiting for an answer.
Diggs took one look at me standing there shivering, dripping rainwater onto his faded linoleum floor, and all traces of his earlier anger vanished.
“Jerry, you wanna grab a couple towels?” he shouted into the other room.
“Don’t bother, I’m fine,” I said. “I’m not staying. I just need a quick favor—I know you’re pissed, but I just…” I kept my eyes on the floor. I just needed to hold it together. How many times had my mother handled situations ten times worse than this? Death and destruction all around on a regular basis, and she rode out every storm as if she’d been born for it.
I met his gaze with a newfound sense of calm. “I need to borrow the keys to Noel’s boat.”
His jaw actually, physically dropped. I knew there was no way he would hand them over without an explanation, so I gave him an abridged version of events up to that point: Kat was missing, as was Matt Perkins. And Jack Juarez, of course, who may or may not be the psychotic, long-lost son of Rebecca and Joe Ashmont. I told him I thought Perkins had taken Kat, and now they were out on Payson Isle.
Despite my protests, Diggs handed me a towel and made me sit and dry off while he tried to make sense of my story.
“You can’t be sure Perkins has her, though,” he insisted. Even he didn’t look convinced, though. “She could be lost, or something. Maybe she was just in an accident—a small one,” he amended quickly. “She could have
amnesia. Somewhere, there’s a very surly Jane Doe scaring the hell out of orderlies in some small-town hospital between here and Portland.”
“I’ve called all the hospitals,” I said.
“And Finnegan won’t budge?”
I shook my head.
Which brought us back to my request.
“So, your plan is to take Hammond’s boat—a boat bigger than any you’ve ever driven before, unless you took up yachting since I saw you last—and brave a violent storm to go out to Payson Isle. And once you get there, how are you planning to get on the island?”
I hadn’t thought that far ahead. The mooring was at least a hundred yards from the island itself, and there would be no tripped-out speedboat waiting to take me from Hammond’s boat to shore. “I’ll improvise,” I said.
“Good plan,” Diggs said. “That always works. And even if you do make it to shore, what happens then? You find Perkins with Kat and…talk him out of it? And what if Juarez is in on this whole thing, too? You’re gonna take out an armed, seasoned FBI man?”
“He’s not in on it.”
Diggs looked like he felt sorry for me. I bristled.
“He’s not,” I insisted. I sounded remarkably sure of myself for someone who wasn’t sure at all.
Diggs sat down on the couch beside me. I scooted over to the edge, leaving a foot or more of space between us. Einstein watched all of this from a spot in the corner of the room. He was wet and bedraggled and, thanks to him, Diggs’ office now stank of wet dog. I wondered why the hell Diggs had put up with me all these years.
“The guy who attacked you on the island—you said he was a fighter, right? He knew what he was doing?”
I nodded.
“You said he was in good shape. Taller than you. Solid. You don’t think it was Joe Ashmont, and it sure as hell wasn’t Matt Perkins—if only because you know for a fact that he was in the hospital at the time.”
