All the Way Home

by Wendy Corsi Staub

  She forces herself to get up, feeling slightly dizzy, and, for a moment, like she’s going to throw up. Then she slowly gets out of bed, and realizes that she has to get something to drink. Like, now.

  Without bothering to get dressed, wash up, or brush her teeth, Molly makes her way downstairs, clinging tightly to the railing as she goes.

  The house has a deserted feel to it. Where is everyone?

  Who cares?

  At least there’s no one here to bug you.

  In the kitchen, she pours a huge glass of iced tea and stands at the counter, drinking it down. She’s never been so thirsty in her life.

  She’s pouring a second glass when the phone rings.

  Maybe it’s Ryan.

  Or even Kevin.

  She snatches it up and is bitterly disappointed when a male voice says, “Hello, is Rory there, please?”

  “Nope,” Molly says, without bothering to check. She’s pretty sure no one’s home, and, anyway, even if Rory is around someplace upstairs, Molly’s not about to traipse all the way up there looking for her.

  “Do you know when she’ll be back?”

  “Nope.” God, my head is pounding, she thinks, wincing and rubbing her temples. Does he have to talk so loud?

  “Can you please leave her a message?”

  “I guess so,” Molly says, in a tone that’s meant to convey that she’d really rather not, so he’ll say he’ll just call back later instead.

  No such luck.

  “Thanks,” he says. “My name is—­”

  “Hang on a minute while I get a pen,” she says, opening a drawer and digging for a paper and pen, annoyed. “All right, go ahead.”

  “This is Barrett Maitland.”

  “Uh-­huh.” The name is totally unfamiliar, but she’s sure she knows who it is. The guy Rory was talking to the morning Rebecca disappeared. The one who showed up here as Molly was leaving for the Randalls’. The one with the voice that seemed so familiar.

  In fact, it still does.

  “Do I know you?” she asks.

  “We met briefly the other day on your front steps—­”

  “No, I mean from before. From, like, a long time ago.”

  There’s a moment of silence. “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Are you from Lake Charlotte?”

  “No.”

  “Oh. Then I guess I don’t know you. I just thought your voice sounded kind of familiar. Okay, go ahead . . . what’s the message?”

  “Just tell Rory I had to go out of town for a few days, I can’t leave a number where I can be reached, but I’ll call her when I get back.”

  “Fine,” Molly says, jotting left town, will be back in messy handwriting Rory probably won’t be able to read. Oh, well, too bad.

  I’m not her freaking secretary, Molly thinks grumpily, carelessly shoving the note under a magnet on the refrigerator door.

  “Okay, thanks a lot. ’Bye,” Barrett Maitland is saying, apparently in a hurry to hang up all of a sudden, which is fine with her.

  Molly disconnects the call, and then, still holding the receiver, impulsively starts dialing Ryan’s number.

  “No!” she says aloud, hanging up.

  She stands there, drinking more iced tea, considering it for a few seconds. Why not call him? She can mention casually that she was boating with Amanda, and out at the party at the Curl last night. Let him know that she’s been hanging around with the in crowd, in case he hasn’t called her because he thinks she’s too much of a goober to hang out with.

  Again, she feels a stab of guilt, thinking of Rebecca.

  She tries to quell it. Now that Rebecca’s gone, I have to do something to take my mind off of it, she justifies. Besides, without Rebecca, it’s like I have no friends.

  Christine, who used to eat lunch every day with her and Rebecca, is at camp for the summer, and Annie, another friend of theirs, is visiting her grandmother in Florida until after the Fourth of July.

  No, there’s no one else.

  If Kevin were here, Molly thinks, he’d hang around with me. He’d try to make me feel better about what’s going on with Rebecca.

  Which is basically what Rory has been trying to do, she has to admit, to be fair. But she doesn’t want Rory’s help.

  She dials Ryan’s number again, and this time, she doesn’t hang up.

  “Hello?”

  It’s a girl’s voice. Young. Bubbly-­sounding. Ryan doesn’t have a sister. She must have dialed the wrong number.

  ‘‘Hello?” the voice says again, then giggles. “Baker residence.”

  So it is the right number. But who . . . ?

  “Hey, come on, give me that, Jess,” she hears Ryan say in the background, laughing. Then his voice comes on the line. “Hello?”

  Molly hangs up.

  So Jessica is over there with him.

  She should have figured.

  Amanda must have known. She probably hadn’t even bothered to call Ryan about boating yesterday. She’d just used that as a ploy, as Molly had suspected.

  Feeling desolate, she slowly walks out of the kitchen—­then breaks into a run, dashing up the stairs and barely making it into the bathroom in time to throw up.

  I’ve never been so miserable in my entire life, she thinks as dry heaves wrack her body. And I really don’t even care what happens to me. For all I care, the psycho killer can just come and get me.

  She knows, Barrett Maitland thinks, hanging up the old-­fashioned black telephone in Mrs. Shilling’s upstairs hall. He leans his head back against the cushion of the old-­fashioned settee, closing his eyes.

  Molly said she thought his voice sounded familiar.

  He had never thought of the possibility that she’d remember.

  He’d only seen her once. It had been at the playground at Point Cedar Park that day in July. Carleen was standing patiently beside one of those long, winding tunnel slides, trying to coax Molly to come the rest of the way down. Apparently, she had stopped halfway, with a toddler’s stubborn, all-­consuming interest in some bug she’d spotted there.

  So Molly must remember his voice, talking to Carleen.

  What had she heard him say?

  Does she remember that specific incident? Is she connecting him to it? Or is her memory more vague, more speculative . . .

  It has to be. She was so young . . . only three at the time. How could she possibly remember anything clearly enough to—­

  “Barrett? Are you all right?”

  He jerks his head upright to find Mrs. Shilling standing before him, clutching an armload of dirty sheets. She must have been stripping the bed in one of the rooms. He hadn’t realized anyone was up here. The last guest had left this morning, leaving him as the bed and breakfast’s sole occupant, besides the hostess.

  “I’m fine,” he says quickly, wondering if she heard him on the phone. “I just made a call—­ Don’t worry, it was local.”

  “I’m not worried. That phone is blocked from making long-­distance calls,” she says shrewdly, adding, “Not that I don’t trust you, Barrett. But some of my guests . . .” She makes a tsk-­tsk sound and shakes her head.

  “I can imagine. Listen, Mrs. Shilling, I need to leave for a few days. I’ll be back by the end of the week, maybe sooner. I’ll pay to keep my room while I’m gone.”

  “Oh, you don’t have to do that,” she says, looking surprised. “It doesn’t seem fair to charge you for it when you’re not here.”

  “I really don’t mind. I can keep my things there, rather than take them all with me.”

  “If you’re sure,” she says, looking pleased . . . and a bit curious.

  He can see the wheels of her mind turning, wondering how, if he’s just a writer, he can afford to be so free with his money.

  “My publisher is payin
g some of my expenses,” he says quickly. “So it’s really no problem.”

  “Oh, I see.” She still looks curious. “Where are you going?”

  “Back to New York,” he lies, irritated with her prying question. “I have some things to take care of there.”

  Does she believe him?

  He can’t tell.

  One thing is certain. The woman is as nosy as they come. He can expect to have her look through whatever he leaves behind in his room while he’s gone.

  No matter. I’ll just be careful not to leave anything that’ll tip her off that this isn’t the first summer I’ve spent in Lake Charlotte, he thinks, heading into his room to pack. That’s the last thing I need right now.

  “David? You have a visitor.”

  The man in the chair by the window appears not to have heard Lydia McGovern’s words. He sits motionless, looking out through the glass, as though intent on something other than the leafy branches that obscure any other view.

  Rory can only see the back of his head, but his short hair is the exact shade as his sister’s, the rich, soft yellow of butter.

  She glances at the woman beside her, and she urges Rory to go ahead, approach him.

  Still, she hesitates, instead glancing around the room, taking in the stark furnishings—­just a twin bed, a dresser that’s bolted to the wall, and the one chair. There are no curtains at the window, and the carpet beneath her feet is strictly utilitarian, a dull, tightly woven gray, the kind of carpet you might find in a finished basement.

  The room is fairly stark.

  Still, on the wall there are a few framed prints, surprisingly of a much higher quality and more appealing style than those in the downstairs reception area. Both are watercolors, in thick, burnished gold frames that are obviously made of wood, not metal. One scene shows a sailboat riding blue waves, with a quaint harbor town in the distance, dotted with white picket fences, shops, and an old-­fashioned drawbridge, half raised, across an inlet. The other is of a small boy in a sailor hat and a girl with a long blond braid, shown only from the back, holding hands and barefoot on a sandy beach.

  There are some children’s picture books on top of the dresser, and some crayons. The bed is covered in a bright patchwork quilt, and there are several stuffed animals tossed near the pillow. And, Rory realizes, as she looks at them, and then at David Anghardt, that despite his age, he’s apparently little more than a child. A lonely, abandoned child, trapped in a man’s body.

  She takes a step closer to him, calls his name.

  No response.

  “Stand in front of him, so that he can see you,” the director suggests.

  Rory moves closer, arrives in front of David Anghardt, looks down at his face. There is nothing of Emily here.

  He has the classic features of one who is severely brain-­damaged—­the smallish, slanted eyes, the heavy, jutting brows, the lolling tongue, the malformed ears. He stares at her, or maybe through her. Rory shifts her weight, uncertain what to do.

  “Hello, David,” she says.

  And of course, there’s no response. He just looks at her.

  She turns to Lydia McGovern. “Can he talk?” she asks, half wishing she hadn’t come, half glad she has.

  “No, not in the true sense. He does make sounds. Sometimes a word or two can be discerned. But if you’re not used to communicating with him, it’s very difficult to tell what he’s saying.”

  “Should I stay?”

  “Certainly. I’ll leave you two alone.”

  No! Rory wants to protest. Don’t leave me here alone with him. Help me. I don’t know what to say, how to act.

  The woman walks briskly out of the room, and Rory is alone with Emily’s twin brother, whose very existence was apparently so painful for his family that they didn’t tell a soul he existed.

  That might not be true, Rory reminds herself. All you know is that Emily didn’t tell you.

  For whatever reason, her friend had kept David a secret.

  And maybe, Rory realizes now, that reason had nothing to do with her father being ashamed of him.

  Maybe it was Emily who was ashamed. Maybe, being the new girl, she wanted so desperately to fit in that she decided not to mention David.

  After all, you never know how ­people are going to react to something like that.

  Rory looks down at the man-­child in front of her, pain twisting her heart. “Hello, David,” she says again.

  Should she tell him that she’s from Lake Charlotte? That she knew his sister?

  No. He probably won’t understand . . . and even if he does, why bring up Emily? He must be wondering what ever happened to her. I don’t want to bring up painful memories for him. It’s better to just keep things light.

  “So, David,” she says, crouching in front of him, her hand cupping her chin as though she’s the most relaxed person in the world, “what kinds of things do you like to do?”

  Great question, Rory. Nice going. What do you think he likes to do?

  “Do you like to look out the window at the trees?” she asks, following his gaze. “Do you like to look for birdies?”

  For Pete’s sake, he isn’t a little tiny kid. You don’t have to talk to him like that.

  Or do I?

  She has no idea what to do, how to act.

  So she just starts talking. About anything. About nothing, really.

  “It sure is a nice day out there, David. It’s warm and sunny. I had my car windows down the whole way. I like summertime, don’t you? But I like the other seasons, too. Like fall, when the leaves come down. And winter, when there’s snow . . . I miss snow,” she adds thoughtfully, thinking again that it might be nice to come back to the northeast. At least for a while.

  Not to settle down. No, she doesn’t want to settle down yet. Maybe not ever.

  For some reason, an image of Barrett Maitland flits into her mind.

  It was nice, walking with him by the water the other night. They hadn’t talked much, or held hands, or anything like that. Still, it had been pleasant. If she trusted him, she might even take the initiative to see him again.

  But she doesn’t trust him.

  It’s just instinctive.

  So it’s best to stay away.

  David Anghardt makes a noise. A hissing sound, forced through his big lips, and she looks up to see him staring at her. This time, there’s no mistaking that he sees her. His eyes are fastened on her, and he’s trying to say something.

  “What is it, David?” she asks, trying hard not to show that she’s taken aback. “What are you telling me?”

  He just makes that hissing noise again, this time more urgent.

  Chilled, Rory wonders if she should go find Lydia McGovern.

  Or maybe she should just leave. After all, she’s paid her visit. She’s found out that Emily’s twin brother really does exist—­and that there’s no way he’s going to shed any light on Emily’s disappearance.

  But what about spending some time with him out of the goodness of your heart? What about visiting some of the other residents?

  I will . . . just not today. Molly’s at home. I didn’t tell her where I was going. She might need me.

  “I have to go now, David,” she says hurriedly, standing and backing toward the door, waving and trying to sound cheerful. “You take care of yourself, okay? I’ll . . . I’ll come back and visit you again someday, okay?”

  His only reply is that same urgent sound, as though he’s trying desperately to communicate something to her.

  “Ssss . . . Ssss . . .”

  He’s turned toward her, those brown eyes—­their shade the same unusual amber-­flecked color as Emily’s—­following her, burning into her.

  She tries to shut it out of her mind as she strides down the hall toward the stairs, eager to leave David Anghardt—­and his
depressing existence—­behind.

  Michelle scrubs at the grout between the tiles above the old claw-­foot bathtub, knowing it’s futile. The mildew stains are never going to come off. The house is old and falling apart, and she and Lou would be better off selling it now and cutting their losses, instead of putting any kind of money into renovations.

  Too bad John didn’t advise us to do just that last night, she thinks, remembering how much time her cousin had spent here, talking with Lou about the plans he was going to draw up for the new room.

  While the two of them walked around the house, taking measurements upstairs and down, and talking about possibilities for other improvements, Michelle had busied herself ironing sheets—­something she has never done before in her life. She was just desperate for something to do, other than talk about the house.

  “I’ll start working on the plans right away, okay, guys?” John had promised when he left, carrying a plastic bag filled with chocolate chip cookies Michelle had given him to bring to Ashley and Jason.

  “You don’t have to rush,” Michelle had told him. “There’s plenty of time.”

  “But Lou said you want to get started on the room as soon as possible, with the baby on the way.”

  “Lou wants to get started on the room. I’m not so certain it’s a good idea,” she’d said, not bothering to keep her voice down. Who cared if Lou, reading Ozzie his bedtime story in the living room, heard her?

  And he obviously had. The moment she’d closed the door and walked back into the living room, Lou had asked what was wrong with her. “I knew you thought this house needed a lot of work, but I didn’t realize you thought it was a lost cause,” he’d said, setting Ozzie on the floor with his book and focusing his attention on Michelle. “What’s changed your mind?”

  What was she supposed to say to that?

  It’s just a bad feeling I’m getting around here lately.

  And some weird things that have happened.

  Like vanishing food.

  And now I’m really starting to think the place is haunted, she thinks, spraying more Tilex onto the stained wall above the tub and scrubbing furiously.

  She can just hear Lou echoing her, sarcasm dripping.

  Haunted? Yeah, sure, Michelle.