by Tish Cohen
“So he loaned these people money.”
“He made them offers they couldn’t refuse and sat back to wait for them to default.”
Matt felt his stomach drop. How could he have been so stupid? How could he not have known? All those years. He reached up and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “How many people know?”
She shrugged. “Again, it’s a small town.”
Matt stood, disoriented. He’d always believed that, by the time a person reaches midlife, there was a clear “You are here” pointer dot you could count on. His dot had just been erased. He no longer had any idea who he was. His life was built on conceit and lies.
Chapter 31
Elise heard a thump and sat up in bed. Pulled on sweatpants and stepped softly into the hall. She hurried downstairs, forcing herself not to hope it was Gracie. Not to imagine the improbability that her daughter had made her way up the porch steps, pulled a stool to the door, and swept the key off the doorjamb to let herself in. And that now she was sitting on the sofa bursting with questions about coyotes who steal gold medals and what the deductible would be on an insurance-covered wheelchair.
The letdown would be too painful.
The front door was open to the porch and light glowed from Nate’s office. Outside, Elise saw the outline of a cream BMW. Matt was here. She debated what to do, but Matt had already spotted her from Nate’s sofa, where he’d clearly been riffling through the Rubbermaid containers full of files. “I need some of my grandfather’s papers,” was all he said.
“For what?”
He didn’t answer. Picked up an ancient manila file folder and thumbed through it. Pulled out old documents, small scraps of paper. She watched him lay them all out on the desk and move them around like puzzle pieces. As if, in a different order, they’d make more sense. “Unbelievable.”
She moved closer to see rudimentary sketches of property lines and hastily scrawled contracts—one on the back of an envelope. All dated, signed, witnessed. “What are they? Properties he bought?”
“Mortgages.” Matt held one up and leaned back in the chair. The name on it was Williams. “He didn’t buy the properties. He took them. Screwed people out of their land. Turned them out of their homes.” He twisted side to side in his grandfather’s chair, stopping when he faced the wall of framed newspaper clippings. Then turned to Elise again. “And for what? If you think about it.” Matt shrugged a shoulder, motioned around the room. “So he could cruise up the shoreline and feel like he was winning at life somehow?”
She thought about all the Nate moments she’d endured. Would this have been easier on Matt if she’d shared with him what she knew: that Nate put on something of a teeth-gritted display of fairness for his grandson? Had Elise’s kindness been self-serving in the long run—or, worse, an act of cowardice?
She went around the other side of the desk and leaned down to rest her arms around her husband’s shoulders and chest. “I’m sorry. He raised you and you loved him.”
Instead of softening into her touch, Matt stiffened. Turned away from her. She let go and his focus returned immediately to the deeds.
“But,” he said. “It’s not like any of this can’t be undone. I can make good on every single thing. Starting tomorrow. Or tonight. I just need to make a plan of action . . .”
He had deep smudges beneath his eyes and his beard had grown in nearly white. The man wasn’t sleeping. He’d lost maybe ten pounds in less than a week.
“Matt . . .”
“What I have to do—I have to look up these people. Many of whom will be dead. But I can trace their ancestors.” He stopped, glanced at the phone. “I’m going to need a lawyer.”
“You are a lawyer.”
“Not this kind of lawyer.”
As he stuffed various files into his backpack, she could see his hands shaking. “Matt, I think you need to rest tonight. Take something to help you sleep. You have to take care of yourself. This land stuff—you can think about it later. Once we find Gracie. But to take on this enormous task—which has to be emotional—right now . . . it isn’t healthy. You don’t have to deal with it right this minute.”
“Gotta go.” He packed up his bag and strode through the office doorway. Started out onto the porch.
“Matt.”
He stopped, one hand on the knob. Behind him in the misty gloom, the chirrup of crickets was almost deafening.
“Please stay.”
He left with no more to comfort her than a quick “I’ll be at the motel,” and made his way to the car as quickly as he could.
He didn’t need to rush his escape. He was gone before he even backed out of the driveway.
Chapter 32
Just after one in the morning, Elise jumped out of bed. She threw on rubber boots and went out back to dig up first Gunner, then the stag. It went against everything they’d taught Gracie about keeping buried creatures buried—a lesson badly needed when, three months after its funeral, the child dug up a blue jay who’d broken its neck flying into their sliding glass door. Her reason had made plenty of sense to her: she was making a headstone out of a brick and needed to confirm whether the bird was male or female. There wasn’t much left but dessicated bones and claws and an unholy stench.
The guilt of having buried the two animals had been haunting Elise. Was it really such a good thing to put them in the earth to rot? Was it really any better than Gunner sitting on the hearth with a tilted head and a macabre grin, or the stag hanging over the fireplace, watching the family’s every move? More importantly, by playing God with the dog and the deer, might Elise be tempting fate into assigning something equally terrible to her daughter?
What had she been thinking?
Dragging the deer head up and out of the earth was arduous. The ground was wetter now—though not nearly as sodden as it would have been without the heavy canopy of trees overhead. Back in the kitchen, she wiped and brushed both animals clean. Neither emerged unscathed. Both had bald patches. One of the stag’s glass eyeballs fell out onto the floor. She dug through a drawer for a tube of Krazy Glue and reset it, but now it bulged in a way that made him look vaguely unhinged. A journeyman who’d encountered lands and storms he’d never anticipated but, man, did he come back with a story.
Please let Gracie come back with a better story . . .
Unable to still herself, her arms and abdomen aching from the effort, Elise headed out to the dock again. At the edge of the sky, a big, brilliant star shone, a tiny tear in the blackness. It was Sunday morning now and her daughter was still missing. Eight forty a.m. was rushing at her, bringing with it a brutal shift in time reference. They would officially move from days to weeks.
A sharp stinging on her ankle. Elise slapped hard, pulled her hand away to see her dirty fingers smeared with blood. Yet another in the map of bug bites.
“I heard that.” Cass’s voice. The swish of bushes being parted, then Cass’s wild hair. She came along the dock, sandals flapping. Looked at Elise’s ankle. “Blackfly bite,” she said. “Come inside, hon. Let’s treat it before it gets itchy.”
The thought of making small talk with Cass in the middle of the night had no appeal. All Elise wanted was to curl up in bed and hide from the world. “That’s okay. It’s late . . .”
“A little tea tree oil. I swear by the stuff.”
Cass took her forearm, and Elise’s desperation for human touch obliterated any will to resist.
There was no sound but their own footsteps as they climbed up the dirt path through Cass’s yard. Inside, Cass’s back room was crowded with cartons of her glossy new hardcover. A stack of about thirty sat on the floor, the top opened with a black marker poised. As if she’d been signing. “I don’t even want to go ahead with the launch now. But my agent and publisher are adamant. Crazy thing is, all these Woodstock bloggers have found out about the book and it’s starting to sell online.”
Elise had no reply. She looked at the wall, at the black-and-white photos of River. In the
water, on the dock. On a high, jagged cliff overlooking the lake. In jeans, no shirt, with a Batman mask. Another, hands on hips, wearing white briefs and a cape. In the water, floating on his back in a full Spider-Man costume.
On the first step of the stairway, a battalion of green army men stood sentry. Cass climbed straight past them and motioned for Elise to follow. “Sorry about the mess. River loves his soldiers. I told him he’s a little warmonger.”
Elise forced herself to look away. If you’re dying of thirst, the last thing you want to torture yourself with is the sight of someone guzzling water.
“The beauty of tea tree oil is that it disinfects at the same time,” Cass said from the bathroom, where she riffled through a cabinet. “I think every blackfly bite creates a tiny infection, and if you clean it right away, you don’t get the itch or the swelling. Just something I’ve noticed over the years.” More sounds of bathroom items being shuffled. “I’m looking for a cotton pad or anything classier than TP . . .”
Elise peeked into River’s room: his bunk bed ran straight across the window so that the other walls could house a desk and packed bookshelves that sagged under the weight of many spines. The bunks were empty. “Where’s River?”
“Sleepover.”
Elise paused in front of a collage of old photos in the hall. Cass as a one-year-old with hands in a chocolate birthday cake. Cass diving from a towering cliff. Cass and her parents with matching hippie headbands. And, right in the center, wrapped in a towel on the bow of a wooden boat, a deeply tanned teenage Cass, joyous and relaxed, her hair untamed in the wind. She was sitting on the lap of an equally summery and contented Matt.
“Here we are.” Cass was holding a dripping cotton pad that smelled like gasoline. She moved into what was likely her room and motioned to the bed. Patted the red tartan duvet, which was folded down to expose sheets dotted with tiny pink roses. “Come. Sit.”
Elise dropped to the edge of the mattress and allowed the woman to press the dripping pad to her ankle while she looked around.
The bedroom floor was strewn with kicked-off jeans, T-shirts, and tanks. A lacy black bra. But the real attention grabbers were on the walls. Black-and-white photographs again, all nudes. Of Cass. Elise stared at the rounded curve of her ass, the pinkness of her labia and the fullness of those breasts. One of Cass swollen with motherhood, her perfectly formed forest child in her womb.
A child whose whereabouts were not a question that might never be answered.
Elise stood. “Thanks. I should go.”
“Are you sure? You could sleep in River’s bunk bed . . .”
Not a chance. As Elise crossed the room, a cellphone pinged on the dresser. She couldn’t help but glance.
At nearly three in the morning, her motel-staying husband had just texted the girl next door.
Back at the cabin, Elise sat on Gracie’s bed, where her daughter’s tiny stuffed animals were still arranged around the pillow. She lay down carefully and, hoping Gracie would approve, raised her arm and let her hand find the animal most in need of her love. Her fingers found a small frog, his legs stretched out long, as if running away from something scary. Or, perhaps, toward something wonderful. He had a loop of string sewn into his back so he could hang from a Christmas tree.
It was a good sign, Elise thought.
Turning onto her side, she coiled her body around the frog and inhaled what little remained of her daughter’s scent on the pillow.
Chapter 33
Matt had dodged Garth’s calls all night and knew he had a slew of messages waiting. Very likely Wolfe’s offer was in, and there’d been more than one local news story about real estate prices dropping as a result of Gracie going missing. Garth was probably in a panic to accept the offer while it was still on the table. There was a lot of money at stake for Garth, too.
One thing at a time.
Matt cracked open the twist top of his six-dollar bottle of wine and looked around the motel room for a glass. The Saran-wrapped plastic cup would do. He poured. Sipped and grimaced. Engine oil would taste better.
The clarity he’d had since moving to the motel was remarkable. It was as if the fog had lifted and he’d sprung into action, knowing exactly what he needed to do. It was after three a.m. and he didn’t have the slightest inclination to sleep.
Music thumped quietly from his iPhone—Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.” He turned it up and poured more wine as he surveyed the notes he’d been studying for hours, spread out on the fake wood table in the corner of his room. To-dos.
First thing in the morning, he would email Barrans to say he wouldn’t be accepting the partnership. Nor would he be coming back at all. At this point, all he could determine was where he didn’t want to be.
What his future would contain would be his daughter. And this baby. He would get Gracie back, along with full custody of both kids. He’d handled enough divorce cases to know his chances were good.
Was that banging on the door? He looked through the peephole to see nothing but insects buzzing around in the eerie yellow light beneath the covered walkway. Another thump, this time clearly from the wall. Matt banged back. His music wasn’t that loud.
Next on the list was to call Dorsey. Tell him to update Matt simultaneously with Elise from here on. Then there was Cass’s book launch. And after that, he’d spend the day systematically researching his grandfather’s former debtors. Figure out a way to make restitution with each and every one of them. Matt had never questioned his identity before. He’d had the good fortune not to need to—or so he’d thought. He was born of decent people. The First Family of the Adirondacks.
Fucking joke of a lifetime.
He had to atone; it was that simple. And fast. It would lead to his daughter. You did good shit, good shit happened.
Not until these land investigations were complete would he speak to Garth.
He refilled his plastic cup. Toasted his newfound drive.
There was one more person on his to-do list. He picked up his phone and stared at the text he’d sent twenty minutes before: “I left Elise.”
Moments later, Cass was in the doorway, a bottle of wine, a flowered pillow, and a red tartan duvet in her arms. “I refuse to sleep on motel bedding,” she said. She looked around at the nearly empty wine bottle, his notes, the untouched bed he should have been hunkered down in. “What’s going on here, Sorenson?” She picked up his wet towel. “It’s three thirty in the morning . . .”
He grabbed her and kissed her deeply, the door closing with a thump. His pelvis mashed hard into hers as he pressed her against the wall. Cass pulled away long enough to throw her duvet cover over the polyester bedspread, then tugged a shirtless Matt on top of her. “You okay, buddy boy?”
He kissed her again, then sat up to rub his jaw. “I can’t lie still.”
“You are way strung out,” she said, leaning up on one elbow. She patted the duvet. “Lie back. Let’s pull your energy earthward, wind you down. Let me give you a little massage. I’ll make you sleep like a baby.”
“I just need to send a quick email.” He jumped up and went to the table—his master control center. He opened his laptop and started to type a Dear John letter to the man who’d offered him a piece of the company.
“Can’t it wait until morning—actual morning? You need to rest.”
He shook his head as he typed. “No. I have to quit my job.”
“Wait, stop!” She crawled across the bed and leaned over his computer, pulled his hands away. “You’re not thinking straight. Don’t make a decision like that right now . . . hyper and drunk and”—she started to laugh, looking at him in his underwear—“unbelievably hot.”
“I’m not drunk.”
“You’re still unbelievably hot. Plus, you need to sleep.”
“I’ll be able to sleep once I send this.” He held up a finger to hush her for a moment and focused on his screen. He needed to word his resignation very carefully.
The dream was one he never
wanted to wake from. He was walking along Whiteface Inn Lane, just north of 86. Gunner trotted by his side. They passed cabins that sat tight to the road and curving driveways flanked with massive stone walls and elaborate landscaping that hinted of large houses tucked just out of sight. It was late September. The summer foliage was tinged with scarlet sugar maples and sumac, orangey-red smoke bush, and pinkish-yellow katsura trees—all fragrant with hints of brown sugar. Gunner heard it first—the yipping of puppies up a long, rutted driveway lined with trees cracked and craggy from brutal winter storms. The happy barking led them to a tumbledown kennel made of particle board, two-by-fours, and peeling black paint. A corrugated metal roof had rusted gashes. Must have leaked something terrible.
Gunner rushed forward to push the busted door open. As Matt approached, he heard Gunner’s tail thwacking the walls. The dog yelped excitedly. Matt burst inside to the sweetest sight possible: Gracie grinning on the concrete floor, her freckled nose scrunched up in delight as Gunner licked her face.
Matt scooped her up. With Gunner dancing around his feet, Matt held his daughter so tight they almost became one. Her soft cheek against his. Hair scented with Johnson’s baby shampoo in his eyes, his mouth, nearly weightless arms around his head. Finally, Gracie pulled away to look at him. She held up a finger in mock admonishment. “What took you so long, Daddy? I waited forever . . .”
It was just past sunup and Cass was grinning at him, snapping photos as he rolled over in bed. “Someone was out like a light.”
“I didn’t mean to sleep.” He rubbed the hollows above his eyes, checked the clock: 5:12. “I dreamed I found her. God, she was so perfect. The way she smiles big and can’t keep her eyes open. Sweet freckled nose and cheeks.”
“It’s a sign.”
Yes. It had to be. Please let it be.
“It’s going to happen.” She took his bearded chin between thumb and forefinger. “Matty, we’re going to find her, you hear me? I’m witchy about these things.”
