Half Moon Bay

by Alice LaPlante

  The light comes from a candle burning on a table at the bottom of the stairs. Jane turns the corner and finds herself in a fully finished basement, with paneling on the walls and more deep carpeting on the floors. No windows. It is empty except for a washer and dryer in the corner, the latter the source of the muffled booms. No Alma. Nothing but the sound of whatever is in the dryer going around and around. Then Jane sees a sliver of light coming from under a door on the far side of the room.

  Jane crosses the room. The carpet muffles her footsteps. She tentatively opens it. Light shines into her eyes, and at first, she can’t comprehend what she is seeing. All her senses are assailed. A beautiful room, smelling sweetly of hydrangeas, Alma’s favorite perfume. Candles lit on every surface—on the floor, on white tables, on a dresser. Walls painted a soft peach. Stars shining down from the ceiling, presumably of some sort of reflective paint because they glow, reflecting the candlelight. A replica of the moon shines from the center of the room. This moon has a face, loving, wise eyes, and a smile looking directly down below. Jane shifts her eyes. She can take in only one thing at a time. She sees first the princess bed: white four-poster, a girl’s dream of a bed. The thick fluffy white linens. Then a dark-haired girl, tucked into the pristine covers. She appears to be asleep. Victim Number 5: Megan.

  She is asleep. Next to her on a tray are a syringe and several small vials, one of them empty, two full. A cup of milk. Cookies on a plate.

  She’ll be waking soon. Jane spins around. Alma is standing in the doorway.

  So it was you, Jane says. The horror is just beginning to seep into her consciousness.

  Yes.

  But how can this be? Jane asks. She is bewildered. You weren’t even in town when the first girl . . . what was her name? . . . Heidi . . . was taken.

  We’d flown in from Denver. We bought the Toyota for cash from a used lot in South San Jose. We drove back to Denver in time to pick up the Mercedes, turn around, and drive both cars back. Heidi had a great time. They all did. You don’t have to worry about them. They were happy. We were happy.

  You don’t seem happy now, Jane says. It is a statement of fact. Alma still looks as distressed as when she first appeared upstairs. Her usual air of calm assurance is gone.

  The remembering. It’s hard.

  Remembering what?

  Alma walks across the room and sits on the edge of Megan’s bed. She picks up a small white hand and begins stroking it.

  Of what it was like to be a mother. Come on, Jane, you feel the same way when you see Megan, don’t you? You remember Angela. And it is killing you.

  Jane gazes at Megan’s face. How many times had she watched Angela sleep like this? Insensible to the world. Timed her breaths so they were drawing in and releasing air at the same time, as if with the same pair of lungs. Listening to the small heart beating.

  You’re also torn because you love us so much. I know all this is hard to take in, difficult to reconcile. But I’m confident you can do it. Because of how much you love us.

  Love. It always came back to love. And loss. The two were always inextricably entwined.

  Jane doesn’t see Megan or the princess scene anymore. She is thinking of the night the three of them, she, Edward, and Alma, slept together. Waking up in the middle between them. The sun from the window picking up on the gray glints in Edward’s hair, on the curves of the sheet covering Alma’s naked body. Feeling so safe. So cared for.

  What do you want me to do? Jane asks.

  Put her to sleep for good. Give Megan some peace. Give Angela some peace.

  Mesmerized by the flickering candles, Jane approaches the sleeping small figure. She has been expertly rouged. A natural color applied to her lips. Alma gets up and steps away to make room for Jane.

  Jane reaches out and touches Megan’s arm. It is warm. Angela at this age went through a period of night wandering, ending up in bed with Rick and Jane almost every night. Jane would wait until she was asleep and then carry Angela’s unconscious body back to her bed. And then would sit and watch over her, sometimes for minutes, sometimes for hours.

  Don’t you wish they would stay this way? Alma says in a low voice. It’s a shame they have to grow up, isn’t it? Sad for them, sad for us, the mothers.

  Jane listens as she strokes the little girl’s hair. She is falling under a spell.

  We knew you’d understand. We knew you would want to be part of this. You’ve felt the pain. Why should they live when your child hasn’t? Why shouldn’t other mothers go through what you’ve gone through?

  A kitten is sleeping in bed next to the child.

  They even get a kitten. Ice cream. As many bedtime stories as they want. Whatever they want. It’s very gentle, in case you’re wondering. They just gradually stop breathing. There’s no pain. No awareness. Just sweetness and love until the end.

  Jane sees Angela in the sleeping girl. What grieving mother wouldn’t? Can’t you feel the tenderness and pity Jane experiences as she watches the unconscious form? Can’t you feel the rage that erupts inside her, all the stronger for having been contained?

  Since Jane became involved with Edward and Alma, her bereavement, although never gone, had been muted. Now it comes back full force. Why should this girl be alive when hers isn’t? Jane’s longing for Angela, for her girl, for her darling, is stronger than ever. She feels tears stinging her eyes. But they will not come. The anger does. The murderous anger that caused her to obliterate the sea of roses of Angela’s murderer, to crash her car, to attempt to steal her daughter. She looks down. Her hands are shaking.

  You feel it too.

  Jane nods.

  The unfairness of death.

  Is that why you do it? To make it less unfair? A deliberate act?

  Spitting in the face of the gods.

  Jane reaches out again to put her hand on the girl’s perfect arm. Peach-colored with tiny brown hairs. The girl stirs, murmurs something, then settles down again. When Angela was a newborn, Jane would take her to bed to nurse for the midnight feedings, the tiny mouth sucking at her breast as Rick slept, oblivious to the miracle happening in the dark right next to him. Shifting position to move Angela to the other breast, the bundle so small she could easily hold it in one hand. And then sometimes dozing off, to awaken with a start and find Angela sleeping, her soft cheek against Jane’s breast, her milky mouth open as she breathed sweetly. Jane was dismayed by every passing day, by the fact that this creature was growing and changing so fast, beyond recognition. But she’s so old now! she’d cried to Rick when Angela passed her third week on earth.

  I knew you’d understand.

  I do. I do.

  We take them. We pamper them. We treat them like the princesses they are. Like my princesses. Like yours. And then we put them to sleep.

  Jane nods.

  A phone starts ringing somewhere in the house. An old-fashioned ring, not a modern cell phone ringtone. It partially wakes Jane up. She sees Alma’s attention has gone from her and Megan to something else.

  The phone stops ringing. After a few minutes, they hear Edward call. Alma! Can you come here? They need to hear both our voices.

  Watch over the angel, Alma says. It’s almost time. It’ll be light in a couple of hours. We’ll need to work fast.

  Alone with the sleeping girl. Jane watches the small chest expand and recede from the shallow breathing. Megan is dressed in a frothy pink dress, the kind any girl her age would pick out for a party. Jane gazes with almost hunger at the bows on the front, the ribbons crisscrossing in the skirt of the dress. How she misses Angela! Oh, how she misses Angela! Jane likes the idea of giving Megan the gift of eternal sleep. Isn’t that what Jane really wanted, after all? To drift into oblivion? To be free of the worries, the responsibilities? The pain. She can see the logic of what Edward and Alma are doing, really she can. They’re just saving these girls, and their families, from the inevitable misery that awaits them in this world. Love and loss. Loss and love. Like that old song. You can
’t have one without the other.

  Jane is vaguely aware that she has a choice to make. Although it seems less like a choice than an inevitability. And afterward? Will things be the same with Edward and Alma? No, she realizes. They could never go back. They would be closer, bound by a deeper, darker bond. One of absolute trust and an even richer and more robust love than before. Because didn’t they trust and love her? To make the choice of their own to tell her, Jane, their secrets?

  Megan stirs on the bed. Her eyelids flutter open for a moment.

  Mom? she says, and then goes back to sleep.

  That one word. That does it. It wakes Jane up. The full horror of the scene hits her. What had she been thinking?

  Jane wastes no time. She gathers Megan up in her arms. Although small for her age, the girl is heavier than she appears—perhaps seventy-five pounds. Jane runs, almost tripping on the deep carpet. Up the stairs, thankful for the thickness under her feet that dampens any noise. She can hear voices coming from the kitchen, where the landline phone is apparently located. She moves quietly and swiftly to the front door.

  She forgot the gate. How can she get out? She sees the intercom near the front door. A number of buttons are below the speaker. She pushes all of them, and then once again to be safe. The keys to the Toyota are still in her pocket. She fishes them out. Then she’s out the door, depositing Megan into the backseat of the Toyota and jumping into the driver’s seat. The engine almost catches, and for one heart-stopping moment she worries she’s flooded it. Then it starts, she puts it in reverse, and roars backward down the driveway just as Alma and Edward burst out of the front door. She makes it to the gate just as it is starting to close. It catches on her front bumper, and she thinks she won’t make it. Then, with a crunch of metal, she’s free.

  She turns the car around, steps on the gas, and roars toward Route 1. But just half a minute later—how could they have been so fast?—she sees headlights behind her in the rearview mirror. She presses harder on the gas pedal. Turns the corner and she’s heading north on Route 1. The police in Half Moon Bay. Her best bet. Could she make it?

  Her cell phone rings. She looks. Edward, the display says. She ignores it. After four rings it stops, goes into voicemail. Then it starts ringing again. And again. And again. She turns off the ringer, but it buzzes. Finally, she reaches over and presses speaker. The headlights are gaining behind her. She passes a road sign. Twelve miles to Half Moon Bay.

  Alma’s voice crackles over the phone.

  Route 1 isn’t very safe at night. So many twists and turns.

  Jane concentrates on driving.

  You can’t outrace us, Jane, not in the old Toyota.

  She could see the headlights getting closer. They were right, she couldn’t outrun them.

  Jane, don’t fight us. Without us, you’re nothing.

  Jane is getting closer to Martins Beach. A dot-com billionaire had bought it and promptly forbade the surfers to go there, but they merely climbed over the fence and went, anyway. There was no way to fence in the ocean.

  She can see the headlights of the Mercedes behind her.

  Jane, come on. Give us the girl.

  Jane presses on the accelerator and barely misses wrapping herself around a eucalyptus tree. Megan murmurs behind her. She is waking up. Jane is having trouble focusing. The yellow line in the middle of the road is elusive. Sometimes on the right of her car, sometimes on the left. Trees loom. The streetlights throw out pitiful showers of beams into the inky black. The lights behind her close in.

  You will not get away, Jane.

  Her mouth is dry, and her jaw is clenched.

  She makes a sharp right onto 92. Now she’s heading toward Smithson’s Nursery, the only place she knows as a possible refuge. She has the keys. She can go inside and lock them out. Retreat to the break room, which has no windows. Barricade the door until help comes. She makes a sharp right and snaps the chain to the parking lot.

  That was unintelligent, Jane. We’re right behind you.

  They are. There’s no time to get to the door and unlock it, much less get Megan inside. Jane brakes and stops. She has nowhere else to go. Looking in the rearview mirror, she sees Megan’s eyelids flutter. The doors! She scrambles to lock them, but the automatic lock button doesn’t respond. Only a feeble click, but nothing happens.

  The Mercedes pulls up beside her, and Edward and Alma get out. They approach the Toyota. Alma has the needle and an ampule in her hands.

  This won’t take a second, Alma calls.

  No, Jane tries to say, but her jaw clenches up. She scrambles out of her seat and into the back. She pushes Megan away from the open door.

  Please, she says.

  Jane, this is unworthy of you. This is Alma. She has now opened the back door, is pulling Jane out by the arm.

  To be disappointed again. This is Edward.

  I’m calling the police, Jane says, but remembers her cell phone is on the front seat. Edward opens the driver’s door, reaches into the car, and easily captures it.

  Here. I’ll dial it for you, he says, and taps 9, then 1, then 1 again. His finger hovers over the green call button.

  Do you really want me to do this?

  Yes, says Jane. She nods.

  If we go down, you come with us, he says.

  Jane doesn’t answer. Megan’s eyes are now open, but she’s not yet fully conscious. Jane strokes her hair.

  We mean it, says Alma. You will be implicated. We’ll say it was your idea. That you masterminded it.

  Jane shakes her head. Megan will live. That’s all that matters.

  Edward drops the phone and lunges at Jane. He throws her onto the ground. Megan half tumbles out too. Her head hits the car door, and she lets out a small cry.

  No! cries Jane as Alma hands the syringe and the bottle to Edward. He inserts the needle into the neck of the ampule and extracts the clear liquid. Megan is sitting up now on the edge of the car seat, her eyes fixed on Alma with bewilderment. Mommy? she asks. Edward moves in with the syringe in his right hand. He squats down to get to Megan’s level.

  Jane makes a superhuman effort and grabs a large eucalyptus branch that is on the ground next to her. She swings it up and around with all her strength and hits Edward in the neck. He gives a surprised yelp and misses Megan’s arm. The branch tears a gash in the shoulder of his shirt. Blood seeps out. Edward clutches his arm, then turns savagely toward Jane. How could she have thought him beautiful? He is poisonous.

  You can’t stop this, Edward says.

  Oh yes I can.

  Jane lunges from the ground, pushing with her feet against the ground with all her might. She manages to tackle Edward right above the knees. His legs collapse and he falls, hitting his head on the side of the car door. So much blood! The syringe lies broken amid the dirty crabgrass.

  Edward gets up on his knees slowly. Jane is lying in the dirt.

  That’s unacceptable, he says.

  But we are done, says Jane, pointing to the broken syringe. Alma is standing off to one side, her look calculating. Jane knows she only has so much time to get Megan away, to raise help.

  What the hell? A different voice, called from a different direction. Jane turns her head painfully. Adam. Running toward the car, wearing his Grateful Dead boxer shorts and nothing else.

  Hey, man, stop right there! Leave her alone! He moves swiftly over to the car.

  Jane slowly pushes herself up, sits down heavily. She is only inches away from Edward. She can smell him. Blood is trickling down his face.

  Jane, he says, and her heart shatters.

  Janey, says Adam from behind her. He leans down and helps her to her feet. He tries to put an arm around her, but she manages a smile and says, No.

  I’m okay, she says.

  Flashing lights and sirens. Cars pour into the parking lot.

  I called the cops, Adam says, unnecessarily. Then, uncertainly, Will you be able to explain this? Because I certainly can’t.

  Megan emerges
from the car, shrinking away from Edward. Jane steps forward and puts her arms around the girl, leans down to whisper in her ear.

  It’s going to be all right. This time it’s all going to be all right.

  Acknowledgments

  I would like to thank my editor at Scribner, Roz Lippel, for her insightful editing of the manuscript, and Julia Lee McGill for her skillful guiding of the book through the publication process. My agent, Victoria Skurnick at Levine Greenberg Rostan Literary Agency, was, as usual, immensely wise in her advice and extraordinarily energetic in her efforts on behalf of my work. And, as always, my love and gratitude to David and Sarah, the rocks of my world.

  The lyrics on page 112 are from the song “Draw Me Close” by Kelly Carpenter. The lyrics on page 201 come from “Death Is Only a Dream,” a traditional hymn.

  A Scribner Reading Group Guide

  Half Moon Bay

  Alice LaPlante

  This reading group guide for Half Moon Bay includes an introduction, discussion questions, and ideas for enhancing your book club. The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for your discussion. We hope that these ideas will enrich your conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book.

  Introduction

  Half Moon Bay is a smart, haunting tale of psychological suspense from the award-winning New York Times bestselling author of Turn of Mind.

  Jane loses everything when her teenage daughter is killed in a senseless accident. Jane is devastated, but sometime later, she makes one tiny stab at a new life: she moves from San Francisco to the tiny seaside town of Half Moon Bay. She is inconsolable, and yet, as the months go by, she is able to cobble together some version of a job, of friends, of the possibility of peace.

  And then, children begin to disappear. And soon, Jane sees her own pain reflected in all the parents in the town. She wonders if she will be able to live through the aching loss, the fear all around her. But as the disappearances continue, she begins to see that what her neighbors are wondering is if it is Jane herself who has unleashed the horror of loss on the town.