Summer with My Sisters

by Holly Chamberlin

  Chapter 88

  “You never should have told anyone about her using a phony name,” Joel said angrily. “You promised her!”

  Joel and Jon Gascoyne had gotten to the house on Willow Way within twenty minutes of the sisters’ plea. Poppy had made another pot of coffee—stronger, this time—and had offered both men something to eat. They had refused.

  Daisy’s eyes were red from crying. “But I—” she began.

  “Neither of you should ever have made such a promise,” Poppy said forcefully. “It was irresponsible.”

  “It didn’t seem irresponsible,” Daisy argued. “We thought we were helping.”

  “And how could we have known she was going to run off again?” Joel protested.

  “Well,” Jon said, “that’s in the past. Now we have to find her. Look, we can’t be absolutely sure Evie is heading north, can we? Poppy, you take your car and head down toward Bermondsey. Use the back roads. Drive along the beach. She’s not going to be walking out on the highway. At least, I hope she isn’t, the way summer people drive.”

  Daisy burst into tears again. “She could be anywhere,” she cried. “She wouldn’t want to be seen. She could be lost in the woods . . . Oh, God, this is all my fault!”

  “Daisy,” Allie said firmly, putting her arm around her shoulders, “try to stay calm. We believe you. You thought you were acting for the best.”

  Poppy turned to Violet, who was holding Grimace tightly to her chest, as if he were a shield. “Violet, you stay here and wait for Freddie and Sheila to arrive. Julie said that Mack will get out on the road as soon as his shift is over, and he’s spread the news about Evie among the other drivers. And Mr. Woolrich said he’d delay opening The Clamshell today so he and the staff can be available if we need them. And Daisy?” Poppy looked at her sister, feeling a wave of great sympathy for her. “You’ll be on foot through the fields and the wooded areas out back. Anyone who doesn’t know the woods might easily get lost. Evie might still be wandering in circles.”

  Daisy nodded.

  “I called my brother and father right before I picked up Joel,” Jon told them. “They’re waiting for instructions. Allie, you’ll be checking the bus station and the town. Someone out early might have seen her, a farmer making deliveries to a market, someone at one of the breakfast places. With all of us mobilized. . .”

  “I’m off,” Allie said, hurrying out of the kitchen. Jon gave Poppy a reassuring nod and he and Joel followed Allie out to their car.

  Poppy went over to Violet and kissed her forehead. “She’ll be okay,” she told her sister. Violet managed a small smile. Grimace managed a purr. Poppy then turned to Daisy. “Keep a clear head, all right?” And then she kissed her cheek. “This is not your fault, Daisy. It’s not. This all started long before any of us met Evie. Sophie.”

  Daisy nodded and wiped again at her eyes.

  When Poppy got out to her car the others had already gone. She slid behind the wheel and suddenly remembered the conversation she had had with Jon at The Friendly Lobsterman, the conversation about the young hitchhiker he had seen in Wells. About how it was difficult to know how to help people who were homeless. About how dangerous it could be to offer one’s home to someone who needed shelter. And here, for the past weeks, Poppy had unknowingly been doing just that, sharing her family’s home and resources with a homeless and possibly underage teen. Would she have welcomed Evie if she had known more of the truth? Would she have taken the risk? Certainly not if she had known for sure that Evie was still a child. That much was clear. She would have turned to Freddie for answers about what to do for the girl. How to get her home, if there was a home for her to go to. And if there wasn’t . . .

  Poppy pulled onto Shore Road and headed south toward Bermondsey.

  Chapter 89

  Freddie sat at the kitchen table and opened her laptop. “I’m too old to go searching for a missing child on foot,” she told Violet, “but I’m not too old to go searching online or to call in some favors. And armed with the girl’s real name, and the fact that she’d talked about coming from Vermont and New Hampshire, I should have some luck before long.”

  Violet wasn’t sure she believed that, but she said nothing. Grimace, clutched in her arms, wiggled to a more comfortable position. She had been holding him tightly for almost a half hour; she didn’t know how much longer his patience would last.

  “And I’m not too feeble to make some phone calls,” Sheila said, taking a seat across from Freddie. “There’s your buddy Jim Gannon, Freddie. Didn’t he use to work for the District Attorney’s office in New Hampshire? Maybe he knows someone who can help us.”

  “Good. Call him. He knows everyone.”

  “I wish we knew exactly where Evie—Sophie—came from,” Violet said suddenly, aware of the note of anxiety in her voice. “It would save us a lot of time. We can’t afford to waste any time.”

  “Now, don’t go worrying, Violet,” Freddie said briskly.

  Violet watched as both women began their work on Evie’s— Sophie’s—behalf, Freddie typing away on the keyboard and Sheila talking to Freddie’s old friend. She knew that everyone would do their best to find Evie, but the thought of her out there somewhere all on her own, at the mercy of unscrupulous people, badly frightened her. And because Evie was a friend, whatever happened to her would in some way also happen to Daisy and to Poppy and even to Violet. To everyone in Yorktide who had formed a connection to Evie!

  Suddenly, Violet realized that she felt very young and very helpless. She realized that she wanted her mother and her father more in that moment than she had at any other time since their passing. She needed them.

  That’s when it happened.

  Her arms went rigid, forcing Grimace to yowl and leap to the floor. Her vision swirled as her heart rate ramped up. She felt sweat pour from her skin and at the same time she felt terribly cold. Her knees began to wobble....

  When Violet came to she was seated at the kitchen table, her head resting on its surface, Grimace in her lap. Sheila was kneeling by her side, her arm around Violet’s shoulders. A hand—Freddie’s—put a glass of water close by. “Drink this,” she said. “When you’re able.”

  “Is this the first time?” Sheila asked gently.

  Slowly, Violet sat up in her seat and put her hands on Grimace’s back. “No,” she said in a weak voice. “It’s not the first time.”

  “You poor child. Have you told anyone?”

  “No. I thought I could handle it by myself.”

  “If you’re all right, Violet,” Freddie said, not unkindly, “I’m going to get back to my search. Like you said, we can’t afford to waste time.”

  “I’m fine,” Violet said.

  With a loud groan Sheila got to her feet and sat next to Violet at the table. “Kneeling,” she said, “is not advisable after the age of fifty.”

  Violet managed a smile. “I’m sorry I’ve been so much trouble.”

  Sheila pushed the glass of water toward Violet. “No trouble at all. I’m sorry I didn’t realize you were experiencing . . . What is it, exactly, that you’ve been experiencing, Violet?”

  “Fear,” she said promptly.

  “Of what?”

  “Of losing the rest of my family. Of losing Grimace and my home.”

  Sheila sighed. “You poor, poor girl. I do see why you would be afraid after all you’ve been through. But I do wish you had come to me or gone to Poppy. Will you promise that from now on you’ll be open about your feelings with those of us who love you?”

  As if urging Violet to say yes to Sheila’s request, Grimace got to his feet on Violet’s lap and tapped her face with one massive paw. “I promise,” Violet said. “I’ll really try.”

  “Bingo. Maybe.”

  “What is it?” Sheila asked.

  “Looks like I might have found something,” Freddie reported. “An e-mail back from someone I know—don’t ask how—in the Vermont state police. A Joanne and Ron Shettleworth filed a missing pe
rsons report when their niece—one Sophie Steuben, age sixteen—ran off a few months ago.”

  “How exactly are these people related?” Sheila asked. “Are they really blood relatives?”

  “Yes. The uncle, Ron, was brother to Sophie’s mother, Evelyn. At least, that’s what they told the police.”

  Before they could absorb this latest information, Sheila’s cell phone rang.

  Violet listened to Sheila’s side of the conversation, which consisted only of remarks on the nature of “oh,” and “I see.” Finally, she thanked the caller. “That was Jim Gannon,” she told Freddie and Violet when the call was ended.

  “That was fast. You called him less than an hour ago.”

  “Be that as it may, he informed me that a man named Daniel Steuben was taken in for vagrancy about six or seven months ago, but was never charged. Seems the decision maker at the police station recognized him—there had been some crossing of professional paths at one time—and knew his story—a car accident that killed his wife—”

  “A car accident?” Freddie frowned. “That’s news to me.”

  “And then a slide into an addiction to painkillers, which resulted in him losing his job, his house, and his daughter.”

  “Poor man,” Violet murmured.

  “Yes. Good man, bad luck. Anyway,” Sheila went on, “he was let go with a warning and some kind advice. Since then Mr. Steuben seems to have gotten his life somewhat back on track. He’s living in a furnished room in a town just outside of Portsmouth and has a job. Jim will e-mail you the address, Freddie, and the phone number of the landlady.”

  Freddie nodded. “I think,” she said, “that we found Sophie’s family.”

  “Now,” Sheila said quietly, “all we need to do is find Sophie.”

  Violet leaned down and rested her head against Grimace’s.

  Chapter 90

  “Evie! Can you hear me? It’s Daisy! Evie!”

  She was getting hoarse from shouting but shout on she would. Since Daisy had left the house in search of her friend almost two hours earlier she had replayed every conversation she had ever had with Evie—well, those she could remember—searching her memory for something she had missed, some clue that might have told her that Evie was not really eighteen, that maybe the story Evie had told about her mother’s death from cancer and her father’s alcoholism wasn’t entirely true. But she kept coming up blank. She should have realized that something was wrong, that Evie was hiding something more about her past, but she hadn’t, though Poppy, Allie, and Violet had all been smart enough to suspect.

  Daisy had already walked the fields surrounding the house, scanning the horizon for a telltale pink spot that might be a hoodie, even peering through the dirty windows of the old, unused storage shed that had been there forever and that no one claimed or bothered to tear down. But Evie was nowhere to be found. Now she turned her attention to searching the heavily wooded area that extended for about three miles south and west. She was thankful it wasn’t hunting season as she was wearing an old olive-colored shirt and dark jeans, nothing to distinguish her from the natural world of tree trunks and crumbling stone walls and moss-covered boulders. And here under the thick canopy of leaves the light was never really bright and often played tricks with your eyes.

  “Evie!” Daisy listened as carefully as she ever had listened in her life. But she heard nothing but the chirping of birds and the noise her own feet made as she stepped on broken twigs.

  It was true that Daisy felt plagued by self-recrimination, but if she were honest with herself—and why wouldn’t she be now?—she also felt a bit angry with Evie. Evie hadn’t trusted in their friendship; she had chosen to turn her back on the relationship they had been building. Evie might have needed Daisy in all sorts of ways, but Daisy had needed Evie, too. I still need her, she thought now. And she’s gone.

  Eyes darting from side to side, Daisy walked on, hoping for some evidence that Evie had come this way. She was deep in the woods now where the leaves were still wet with dew and the rain that had fallen for a while the night before. Daisy brushed away a low-hanging branch and was showered with water, cold without the influence of the sun. She was sure she looked every bit as bedraggled as she felt inside.

  “Evie! Don’t be afraid! Everything’s going to be okay! Evie, are you there?”

  Nothing.

  About that self-recrimination . . . Daisy couldn’t help but wonder what her sisters, and Allie and Joel and Jon, would think of her if Evie was found hurt—or worse. She didn’t see how she would be able to go on with her life while facing the condemnation of the people she loved. She knew that she shouldn’t be focused on her own selfish concerns, not when Evie’s survival was at stake, but she was only human, only a stupid, misguided kid! She had a good excuse for being weak and scared and . . .

  “Ooof!” Daisy landed heavily on her knees and the palms of her hands. “Stupid tree root!” she muttered, climbing awkwardly to her feet. Tears of frustration spilled from her eyes and hastily she wiped them away, realizing only after that she had probably smeared her face with soil and bits of last year’s fallen leaves.

  Focus, Daisy, she told herself. Again she called out Evie’s name as loud as she could and then waited, still and silent, for a response. Again, nothing.

  And she walked on, hoping beyond hope that she would come across her friend, while absolutely dreading what she might find. There was a stream a few hundred yards ahead. If Evie had tried to cross it in the dark, she might have slipped on the wet rocks, fallen and twisted an ankle or hit her head and been knocked unconscious. She might have drowned. And if she had been able to cry out for help before losing consciousness, who would have heard her? Only the bears. There were bears in these parts.

  “Aaaaahhh!”

  Daisy jumped and whirled in the direction from which she thought the terrifying sound had come. “Evie!” she called. No reply. And then, as if hearing the noise in retrospect, she realized that it had been the voice of a fox, a vixen’s scream, not the cry of a desperately wounded woman seeking help. She had heard the sound many times before. She should have known.

  Daisy’s frustration was mounting. She hoped that Allie was having better luck at the bus station or in town, or that Jon and Joel, who were heading north, had come across Evie along the road, or that Poppy, going south toward Bermondsey, would stumble across someone who had seen a brown-haired teenage girl with a backpack and a pink hoodie. And Freddie was super smart and she knew so many people in high places.... Daisy hoped that Freddie, at least, had located Evie’s father or someone who might know more about her. . . .

  But hope alone wasn’t going to get results. With grim determination Daisy walked on in the direction of the stream.

  Chapter 91

  Poppy pulled into the parking lot of a strip mall to gather her thoughts and review her progress—rather, the lack thereof—she had made so far. She had taken Route 1 as far as Bermondsey and then farther south to the next town of Foreston. She had tried to get a look in every car she passed or that passed her, wondering if she might see Evie in the passenger seat. She had gone into every gas station she came upon and asked if anyone had seen a girl about sixteen to eighteen years old, alone and on foot. She wished she had a picture to show, but a verbal description was all she could provide and not an entirely accurate one at that. Daisy had told her that Evie’s wardrobe was severely limited but that didn’t mean they knew exactly what she had been wearing when she left the house in the middle of the night. All they knew for sure was that she had taken her backpack.

  At one point Poppy had parked in a ridiculously expensive lot and gone down to the beach on foot. Evie might have gone there to rest, assuming she had made it this far. Assuming she was heading south. Assuming she hadn’t already gotten into bad trouble.

  But she had seen no one even remotely fitting Evie’s description. And she was beginning to despair, and not just about the runaway girl. For the past few hours, since the search party had mobi
lized, Poppy had been worried about her sisters almost as much as she had been worried about Evie. She had seen the look on Violet’s face, the way she was clutching poor Grimace as if he were a lifeline.

  And Daisy. If anything bad happened to Evie, Daisy would further blame herself. Poppy looked at her watch—her father’s watch—and thought about taking a minute to call her sisters. But time was wasting and she didn’t want to tie up the lines of communication. Besides, Freddie and Sheila were at the house and would be of some comfort to the girls. I am a lioness with her cubs, she thought. She had never dreamed she would come to feel so fiercely protective over Daisy and Violet in such a short period of time.

  But what to do next for Evie . . . Suddenly, Poppy’s cell phone rang. She reached for it on the passenger seat, but in her agitation she dropped the phone on the floor of the car where it slid half under the seat. “Damn!” she cried, scrabbling for it as it continued to ring. “Sorry, hello?” she said, finally bringing the phone to her ear.

  “We got her,” Jon said without preamble. “Daisy was right, she was heading north. We called 911 immediately and I’m pulling up to the hospital now behind the ambulance.”

  “Is she . . .”

  “She’s alive, Poppy. She’s got a fever though. I’m no doctor, but I think it’s pretty bad.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  Poppy ended the call and rested her head on the steering wheel. The sense of relief made her feel slightly dizzy. And then she remembered how she had been too late for her mother’s final moment. She lifted her head, took a deep breath, and started the engine.

  “Please, God, let her be all right,” she prayed aloud as she drove out of the parking lot. And though Poppy didn’t make it a practice to talk on her cell phone while driving, in this moment she made an exception.