by Sarah Graves
Which was the main thing Billie had figured out about Eastport: that it wasn't Carmel, California. People here had lost just about every possible way to make a living: fish, factories, shipbuilding. They needed money, and Billie convinced them their only hope of getting any was to list the family home, at a price that to them looked like oceans of cash but was really a joke.
Then she promptly sold it out from under them to people from away, pocketed the commission plus "expenses," and left the sellers to the coldly dawning realization that what they'd gotten for their place wouldn't even make a down payment on a home anywhere else.
Or here, either, now that Billie was jacking up everyone's expectations. "Get your fingers out of my window," Jake grated, stabbing the Up button with one of her own.
When Eastport's other real estate agents discussed Billie, they wore the sour expressions they usually reserved for visiting looky-loos who had no real thought of actually buying any land or houses, but just wanted to kill time by getting shown around.
"I mean it," Jake warned the sun-shriveled opportunist.
Startled, Billie jerked away just in time to avoid losing a few of her claws. Jake's reversing her own car to within a few millimeters of the tiny MG's silvery fender further convinced her of Jake's seriousness; backing out fast, Jake spied the straw-yellow hair and bright scarf zooming away, already half a block distant.
All the way down Water Street, past bright banners snapping crisply in front of shops selling pottery and jewelry, postcards and crafts, Maine-made foods and boat rides, Jake kept reciting a single phrase to herself: Let her be there.
She punched in Helen's number again. "Hi! This is Helen…"
Past the corner convenience store and the old granite post office building, past Rosie's Hot Dog Stand and the big new Coast Guard station on the breakwater, leaving the fishing boats in the boat basin behind and hurrying uphill:
Let her be there, and let me be an idiot who worries about nothing. Just…
Let her be there.
And … let her be okay.
Past the Chowder House restaurant and the ferry dock, Water Street curved between old wood-frame houses in various stages of repair. Jake turned left on Clark Street and soon after that into a warren of packed-earth lanes that tourists never got to see.
Pulled up close to the lanes were tiny house trailers with built-on rooms and small, neat vegetable gardens fenced by big pieces of driftwood. Whitewashed stones edged the flower beds; odd sculptures clustered around some of the iron-railed front steps.
Earlier that summer, Ellie had brought Jake here to visit Ellie's cousins, Charlotte and Edwina. Both their husbands were away with the National Guard, so the sisters were living together in Charlotte's trailer with their kids, all under age five.
Lee had come, too, to play with her young relatives, and Bella had arrived to help; passing the place now, Jake recalled the afternoon, full of diapers, sippy cups, and a steady procession of toddlers by turns either laughing or bawling their heads off, as one of the pleasantest of her life.
By the time they left, under Bella's hands that trailer had been so clean you could eat off any surface anywhere in it, even under the sink. While Jake fixed two leaky faucets, a loose doorknob, and a broken bedpost that in childish hands had threatened to become a deadly weapon, Ellie sang the kids to sleep. In the calm that followed, the pair of young moms sat looking shell-shocked, each with a glass of wine in one hand, a romance novel in the other, and a box of chocolates on the table between them.
A wonderful day; Jake wished it back as the lane narrowed, curving around an ancient apple tree shading a trio of leaning gravestones in the oldest section of Hillside Cemetery. At last the lane widened before the only house in the cul-de-sac beyond the burying place.
It was a small factory-built Cape with gray siding and white shutters, set on a concrete slab. Green-coated Cyclone fence made an enclosure of the backyard; inside it were toys and playground equipment. Jake shut the car off and got out.
"Hello?" But she could already tell that no one was around. Her heart rate quickened. "Helen?"
The baby-sitter's car wasn't here, either. At the top of the poured-concrete steps Jacobia shaded her eyes with her hands to peer through the screen door. No sound came from within.
The spicy aroma of a scented candle mingling with the sharp smell of bleach drifted faintly through the screen's new mesh. On the wall over the kitchen table hung a framed sampler embroidered with the motto No Matter Where I Serve My Guests It Seems They Like My Kitchen Best.
Crayon drawings were stuck haphazardly to the front of the refrigerator. A khaki cap with a Maine Guide badge stitched to it hung from a hook. A stack of manila folders imprinted with the legend Maine Literacy Initiative lay on the counter. Helen's mother, Jerrilyn, volunteered in the program, which gave individual— and, most importantly, confidential—tutoring to local adults who couldn't read and wanted to learn.
"Anyone home?" Jake tried the screen door: unlocked. It was possible that in the half hour since Jake spoke with her, Helen had managed to get Lee down for a nap, then fallen asleep, too. Maybe her mother had taken the car. But it was wildly unlikely.
Sturdy as a fireplug, with Ellie's gold-dust freckles and strawberry-blond hair, little Leonora White-Valentine was cute, charming—except for her biting habit—and so precocious, she'd already taught herself to read. But when it came to morning naps she was approximately as manageable as a Tasmanian devil.
Jake went in, crossed the kitchen to the back door, and peered out into the fenced yard: empty. Besides volunteering, Jerrilyn did hands-on outdoor work-Jake wasn't sure what— while Helen's stepfather, Jody Pierce, was a registered Maine Guide who made his living taking visitors on hunting and fishing trips. He also taught wilderness survival to folks who aspired to be Guides themselves, and he repaired electronic gear—global satellite positioners, depth finders, and radios—for working fishermen.
A note on the kitchen counter said milk, bread, margarine. Jake pressed the blinking red button on the phone machine.
"Helen? Hi, it's eleven o'clock and I just wanted to confirm you can take Madison this afternoon. At one o'clock and I'll need you to keep her until four, so call me, okay?"
No other messages. But this one had come in…Jake glanced at the black cartoon-cat clock whose pendulum tail ticked off the seconds, over the stove. Twenty minutes ago, right after Helen had called Jake back.
Don't panic. There are plenty of explanations for…
But there weren't. One reason everyone loved leaving their kids with Helen was her reliability. Other girls, even women, could be dicey: have a boyfriend over to your place while caring for your kid. Or worse, take your kid to their boyfriend's.
Helen, though…Safe as houses, everyone always said. So why wasn't she here with Lee? Where was her car? Had there been some sudden medical emergency? Or…
Jake entered the family room. Blue shag rug, woodstove on a brick hearth. A granny quilt lay on the oversized recliner sofa, in front of the big TV.
A TV Guide and a pair of reading glasses lay on the cherry-veneer end table. A family portrait—Helen, Jerrilyn, and a man Jake recognized as Jody Pierce, Jerrilyn's second husband and Helen's stepfather—hung over a bookcase containing textbooks for the adult reading lessons Jerrilyn taught.
On the wall over the TV hung a 1960s-era clock in a gold-plated metal sun-ray frame. Eleven twenty-one, only nine minutes until the time Jake had promised she'd pick Lee up from Helen, and neither of them was around.
Okay, Jake thought, still trying to quell her fright. A good look at the place just to be sure they weren't playing hide-and-seek in the closets, or something. And then she'd summon her old pal, Bob Arnold, again.…
Yet another cry-wolf call this morning would kill her credibility with him for weeks, not that it was all that great in the first place. And her sweaty palms notwithstanding, it was still a fair bet she was getting all nervous for something that would turn out to
be a false alarm, she tried convincing herself.
So two guys in the hardware store had been asking about her. Big deal. And Campbell had called. But that didn't mean there was any connection to this situation, or that Campbell was nearby. So why was she still standing here uncertainly in the family room, frowning at the hallway that led to the two bedrooms, spare room, and bath at the rear of the house?
Taking a deep breath, she padded down the hall on the soft, silent, green wall-to-wall shag carpet. Bathroom: pink tile. She snapped back the plastic shower curtain, finding nothing behind it but a worn soap on a rope.
The first bedroom held a queen-sized bed, neatly made up with a white chenille bedspread and matching throw pillows. The curtains, like the ones in the family room, were heavy brocade with fringed tie-backs, only in here they were blue.
No one behind them; she let out a breath she hadn't known she was holding. The louvered closet door opened with a creak.
Packed full of clothes, some zippered into garment bags; Helen's mom and stepdad obviously shared this one closet. A pair of plain dressers, one with a mirror hung on the wall above it, made up the rest of the furniture in the small bedchamber.
In the hall again, Jake paused. So far she'd found nothing amiss in the house, except that Helen and Lee weren't anywhere in it. Just a few more places to check: Helen's room, which took but a glance—its tiny dimensions and single, miniature louvered window would've made it more suitable for a sewing room, or in a pinch maybe a baby's bedroom—and the spare room Jody worked in, plus an added-on room that was more like a glorified sunporch.
Jody's room was windowless, closetless, and full of the kind of gear he repaired. A police-band scanner sat on a small workbench, its case off and its insides out. Plain wooden shelves held other jobs with paper tags bearing the owners’ names. A very pretty old Crosley radio in a silver Bakelite case stood on a low shelf of its own with a bill of sale and packing material stuffed in next to it.
But nothing more. She was hurrying toward the screened porch when she heard the crash. Glass breaking…
A quick glance outside showed no other car in the turnaround except hers. But intruders didn't necessarily come in cars, or if they did they might not leave them nearby, in plain sight.
She hesitated again in the family room. A glass-fronted gun case in the corner, built of fine tiger maple and holding half a dozen rifles plus an over-and-under pump shotgun, offered a next move. Having a gun-expert husband came in handy sometimes, she reflected as she approached the case.
But its door was locked, and the weapons were probably all trigger-locked and unloaded, the shells kept securely somewhere else. A fellow whose stepdaughter did child care for a living would take special precautions, unless he was a complete idiot.
And nothing about this place—neat, clean, comfortable and beautifully maintained, with not a single needed repair anywhere to be seen—suggested that anyone who lived here was an idiot or anything like one.
No sound from the sunporch. Helen kept the kids she sat for out there in good weather; Jake tiptoed toward it. The crash had been like a drinking glass breaking, not the bigger shattering of a window or door.
She swallowed past the hard lump of fear in her throat, well aware that she'd left the door open coming in here, wishing hard for a pair of eyes in the back of her head. Then:
Oh, screw it. There's no one there. No more strange sounds, no small betraying eddies disturbed the silent air, no alien smells of sweat or cigarettes floated warningly Steeling herself, on the count of three she lunged through the door to the sunroom.
As she'd thought, no one was in it. But the room itself…Jake gave herself a mental shake, trying to make sense of it.
A small easeled chalkboard, overturned and with its colored chalks scattered across the floor. Child-sized plastic chairs all scattered around, a giant beanbag seat flung against a wall.
A china coffee cup—Helen's, Jake thought distantly; she'd never have let Lee drink from anything that might break—lay in shards, a few drops of tan milky liquid spilled around it. It had stood on a shelf, gotten bumped maybe, then teetered and set-tled. Until a breeze toppled it…but what shoved it to the edge of the shelf in the first place?
Helen wouldn't have left it there. One thing was for sure: either a fight-to-the-death struggle had happened here recently, or someone had gone to a lot of trouble to fake one.
Then she spotted the worst thing: a pair of miniature six-guns in holsters, part of a child's toy cowboy outfit, lay tossed into a corner along with a matching hat, neckerchief, and fringed black-and-white imitation cowhide vest.
Lee… It was the outfit Jake had dressed the little girl in that morning at the child's stubborn insistence, atop a turquoise sweatshirt, navy blue overalls, and nylon anklets with ruffles.
Plus cowboy boots. The morning had been warm; Lee would've shed the extra clothing once she reached Helen's place. Probably she was still wearing the boots.
"Where are you?" Jake whispered. Scared, now.
Really scared. She dug her cell phone from her bag to call Bob Arnold, but before she could, it rang in her hand.
"Hello?" Her voice was shaking. "Listen, whoever this is, I can't talk now. I've got to—"
Then something about the silence on the line alerted her. A waiting silence…
"Who is this?" she demanded.
"You know who it is. I want something. Now you do, too. So let's make a deal, Jacobia. I'll call back."
Click.
Ozzie Campbell had hung up.
"You didn't have to hit her that hard," said the guy in the passenger seat sulkily.
He was young, twenty or so, with dark hair and a big nose, spotty skin just starting to clear up. Bound hand and foot with harsh rope in the backseat with an oily-tasting rag stuck in her mouth, Helen Nevelson tried to memorize her abductors’ features. But her left eye was already swollen shut, and her head ached so badly she could barely see out of the right one. Struggling to breathe, she fought back the impulse to gag on the filthy cloth.
"Hey," snapped the driver in reply. "What do you think, I should maybe just've let her win? Oh, sorry, honey, you fight so good I guess I'll just give up my whole plan, here?"
He made a sound of disgust. "How the hell was I supposed to know the chick'd turn out to be a freakin’ Amazon?"
He glanced in the rearview at her, his annoyance turning to humor. "Man, they really feed ‘em here, though, don't they? Outta my weight class, for sure," he added.
Helen felt her face flush with humiliation even through her pain. The younger one was a bastard, but this guy with his gold chains, manicured nails, and strutting attitude—
This one was mean. A surge of fear went through her, so bad that she almost couldn't feel her body. The way they'd come in so suddenly, rushing into the house without a word, the young one grabbing her and holding her while the other one snatched Lee—
Lee. The child lay motionless on the seat beside her. Once they were out of town they had given her something to drink, forcing it down her throat by holding her nose, yanking away the Raggedy Ann doll the child tried swatting them with and pouring the stuff into her mouth while she kicked and struggled.
Minutes later, the little girl had fallen asleep. With tears streaming on her cheeks, Helen managed painfully to turn her head enough to see that Lee was at least still breathing, her bowl-cut blond hair fallen over her flushed, feverish-looking face.
But the doll was gone. A sob rose painfully into Helen's throat. They'd left the island, speeding over the causeway into Pleasant Point, where the Passamaquoddy tribal land spread out on both sides of the road.
As they did so she'd had a moment of hope that since neither of the men was from around here—that much had been clear to her right away, from their accents—they might just keep on speeding through the reservation. If they had, they'd have been caught by one of the reservation's black-and-white squad car's radar guns.
But her captors had slowed
obediently for the speed limit sign, and although she'd tried raising herself up high enough to be seen through the car window, nobody had spotted her.
"So now what?" the passenger-seat guy wanted to know.
The driver looked in the rearview mirror at Helen again, then glanced at his partner significantly, patting something in the inside pocket of his black leather jacket.
Gun, Helen thought, another bolt of terror running through her. Beside her Lee muttered fretfully and slept again.
"She saw your face. And my face," the driver said as if trying to explain something to a not-quite-bright person. "Now, I suppose if we want to, we could just let her go."
"We could've covered our faces," said the passenger guy. "We could've waited, gotten the kid out of there somehow without the baby-sitter getting a look."
Helen could still feel his hands gripping her, smell his breath and the reek of his clothes. When she'd screamed, kicking viciously backward in hopes of getting his shin, the short one had turned curiously, like a scientist observing a new species, then punched her hard in the side of the head with his fist.
She didn't remember anything else until they were out of town, when they'd pulled over briefly to give Lee the drug-laced drink. But she had the strong feeling that more time had passed than she knew about, and when she craned her neck again to squint sideways at the Timex she wore, she saw that it was true.
Quarter after twelve…she'd been out cold for an hour. "But we didn't, did we?" the driver said reasonably to his buddy. "We didn't screw around with masks and so on."
Her clothes weren't disarranged, nor were Lee's. So in the missing time at least they hadn't been doing anything disgusting.
Yet. Why? her brain screamed at them. Why are you doing this to us? But the slightest movement of her throat sent waves of nausea sweeping over her once more. Then the driver's eyes found her in the rearview again.
"We got on with it," their owner said flatly, and from the remark and his expression she understood that, from his point of view, anyway, omitting the masks had been deliberate.
