Buried Secrets

by Kate Anslinger

  “Oh, gosh no, I was just curious.”

  “These white floors are typically on fishing boats, but you can find them on others as well.”

  Grace hoped to narrow her search to just fishing boats, but it sounded like she had a big job ahead trying to figure out which boats had white floors and which did not.

  “Anything here remind you of Miriam?”

  “Not really, not that I can think of.”

  “Just thought I’d ask since this may have been one of the places you frequented while you were…you know…drinking.”

  “Oh, I’m sure I’ve been here on several occasions, and the more time I spend getting back out on my boat, the more something might come up.”

  Chapter Eight

  School had been out for less than five hours, but the town was in full-blown summer mode as if it were the middle of July. Grace’s thoughts were accompanied by shouts and giggles from children playing in the many town parks she passed on her way to the beach. A teen couple walked hand-in-hand, too lost in their own world to even notice Grace sharing the sidewalk. A cloud of cologne and perfume blended together and left a sting in Grace’s nostrils. She passed one of the many liquor stores and was relieved Michael wasn’t hunched over outside it. Instead, a woman inside struggled to balance a box of wine, various corks and bottle tops peeking out from the top. As soon as Grace turned the corner and stepped onto the main drive that accompanied the shoreline, she was hit by the smell of grilled meat blended with the salty air. The sound of children playing had been taken over by seagulls squawking and the waves gently crashing onto the sand. She had been looking toward the water, soaking it all in, when she heard shouts coming from ahead.

  “Kloe, brake, brake!”

  Grace looked up and saw a little girl barreling down the beach sidewalk toward her. As if in slow motion, the little girl’s back tire, flanked by training wheels, jerked sideways and the bike fell over, spilling her onto the cement.

  “Owwweeeeee!!! Mommy!” She grabbed her knee and pulled it in to her chest, revealing a scrape covered in sand and tiny rocks.

  “Are you okay?” Grace bent down to investigate the scrape, remembering her own scraped knees as a child. Ellen had a special boo-boo bear she kept in the freezer at all times, knowing Grace would inevitably come home with scraped knees from hours of playing games on the neighborhood streets and riding her bike on the bumpy pathway to school.

  “Kloe…Honey, I told you to slow down.” By the time Christie had caught up with a toppled Kloe, a few beads of sweat were cascading down the side of her face and she had to take a moment to catch her breath. “You nearly gave me a heart attack,” she said, clutching her belly, which seemed to have grown enormously since the last time Grace saw her just a few days ago. By the time she caught her breath, she looked up and realized Grace was standing in front of her. “Oh, hey…Detective…I’m so sorry, did she run into you?”

  “Call me Grace. And no, she stopped just in time and apparently risked her life doing so, didn’t you, Kloe?” After reminding Christie to call her Grace, she pushed herself up from her crouch and felt a touch of dizziness, most likely because she had once again forgotten to eat. The heat combined with the lack of food hit her in the gut and a wave of nausea passed over her.

  “Well, thank you…for coming to her rescue while I was waddling my way down the sidewalk like a moose.” Christie leaned against the wall and rested both hands on the shelf of her belly. “I swear this baby has grown like ten pounds since yesterday…or maybe it’s this damn heat that is swelling me up.”

  For a moment Grace, guilty for having the same thought, wondering if Christie had read her mind.

  “Mommy! You said a bad word.”

  “Ooops, sorry, Mommy’s bad.” Christie rolled her eyes and pretended to zip her lips. “I meant darn heat…this DARN heat.”

  “Can I ride down to the end of the beach?” Kloe begged as she pointed the short distance to where the sidewalk ended. There, a small patch of beach grass joined a path that carved its way between another beach wall and a row of houses. “I’ll turn around and come right back.”

  “Yes, but look out for other people on the sidewalk, and slow down when you see someone coming in your direction, okay, pumpkin?” Christie paused for a moment before looking over at Grace. “I’m pretty sure riding a bike on the sideway is illegal, isn’t it?”

  “I’ll let it slide this time.” Grace smiled. “She’s gotta practice somewhere.”

  “So, what are you doing over here now…taking a break from the office?”

  “Yeah, just out for a walk, I’m meeting Mark on the beach in a little,” Grace said just as she remembered she was talking to his ex-girlfriend. As if Mark and Christie had just broken up, Grace felt an odd need to change the subject. “So, do you know if you are having a boy or a girl?”

  “We actually don’t know…so old-fashioned, right? Just didn’t want to find out. We found out with Kloe and figure this will be the last huge surprise, so we are gonna find out in, well, a few more weeks if all goes as planned. And since this is our last baby, then it’s our last surprise. I can’t see myself waddling around like this for another nine months so…this is it.” Christie patted her belly, as if making a deal with the growing baby.

  “That’s great. Might as well be surprised. So, do you have any names picked out?” Grace asked the questions she’d heard others ask pregnant women. Having only a couple of friends with kids, she never knew what was and wasn’t appropriate to ask.

  “Scott if it’s a boy and Annabelle if it’s a girl, named after Scott’s sister, of course.”

  “Oh, that’s nice. I bet his sister is honored.”

  “Well, actually, Scott’s sister passed a long time ago. He was only about six at the time, but she certainly left a mark on his heart for sure.”

  “Wow, what happened to her? She must’ve been young.”

  “Terrible. It was just a terrible thing. She was kidnapped—slow down, Kloe!” Christie was pulled back into the present moment.

  “So, Miriam lost her little girl?” Grace asked, starting to piece together why the images flashed before her when she was face-to-face with Miriam. “But who kidnapped her? Did they ever find out who took her?”

  “No, and I don’t ask a lot about it because as you can imagine, it’s a major source of angst in this family. Being a detective, I would’ve thought you had heard about it.”

  “Well, where did it happen?”

  “Oh, they were living in the North End back when it happened.”

  “That explains it then. Even in the police world, Bridgeton is in somewhat of a bubble. We tend to be blind to anything going on outside of town.”

  “The way it happened, as far as I know, was completely surprising, not something you’d expect. Like, the little girl was snatched in broad daylight. But, don’t take my word for it, this is all hearsay…” Christie held up her hands. “I don’t get a whole lot out of Scott. And the really creepy part about all this, which I’m sure takes a toll on his emotions, is that Kloe looks just like Annabelle did. I mean, to a certain extent all little four-year-old girls look alike with their clothes and little features, but I saw a photo of Annabelle taken just weeks before the disappearance, and it was like looking into my own daughter’s eyes. I imagine that weighs on Scott immensely. But you know how men are…they don’t talk.”

  “What about Miriam, does she ever talk about it?”

  “Not a word.” Christie lowered her voice when she saw Kloe approaching. “But can you blame her? As a mother, I imagine that talking about it brings it back to the surface. I know I wouldn’t want to relive that over and over. But I will tell you she’s the best grandmother to Kloe. And I’m sure in some sense, she looks at Kloe as a piece of Annabelle. I’m sure it’s hard not to.”

  “What about Grammy?” Kloe looked up, her pale blue eyes squinting in the sunlight as her My Little Pony helmet pressed a few strands of wet, brown locks against her face.
>
  “Oh, we were just saying how great she is.”

  “She’s the best Grammy in the whole entire world! Can we get ice cream, Mommy?” Just like that, the subject was diverted with the help of an energetic little girl.

  “Yeah, but just a small one. Daddy is meeting us at the yacht club for fries later, remember? Well, it was nice seeing you again, Detective—I mean, Grace. I’m sure I’ll see you around.”

  “Did you say you are going to the yacht club? Are you guys members?”

  “Yeah, we’ve been members at the Bridgeton Yacht Club for years. Kinda goes along with the whole being born here as the third generation, ya know.”

  “I get it, it’s a great place. Looking into getting a membership myself,” Grace said as she turned on a heel, fulfilled with the information she’d just learned.

  Christie waddled off trying to keep up with Kloe, who was already speeding off toward “Cone Village,” an ice cream stand visible from the other end of the beach. A giant pink and white swirled cone protruded from the small white box at the heart of the beach, and the long line that extended out from it was proof it had the best cone in town.

  In just a matter of minutes, Grace had gotten some extremely useful information. Miriam had a daughter who was kidnapped, so she wanted revenge, years later maybe, and killed the girl’s kidnapper. That would mean Annabelle was found—dead. Grace shuddered at the thought. But why didn’t this guy ever get put in jail? Or maybe Annabelle wasn’t found at all. Grace leaned up against the stone wall and slipped off her black flats in exchange for the flip flops she pulled out of her bag. It seemed like everything Grace owned was black, from her flats to her bag to her flip-flops. Even the blanket she had packed for their picnic was black. Maybe it was time she started adding some color to her life. She walked along the cement path that led to the central part of the beach, where Mark was supposed to meet her. A layer of sand covered the path and the tiny particles made their way between her toes after just a few steps.

  “Go get her!” Grace could hear Mark’s voice and she looked up just in time to see Brody barreling toward her. Bracing herself for his inevitable smothering, she let her bag fall off her shoulder and onto the sand as she crouched down, prepared for his slobbery kisses.

  “Hey buddy, what are you doing here?” Grace scratched the side of his massive snout and brushed off the clumps of sand that had started to gather from his habit of burrowing his snout into the sand. “You know you’re not supposed to be on the beach this time of year.”

  “Oh, will you stop following the law for once in your life and just live a little?” Mark walked up to them, his warm-up pants rolled up to his knees, revealing little speckles of wet sand clustered on his shapely calves. He threw a ball attached to a rope at Brody and they both watched it land at the big dog’s feet. Brody eased his rump down so he was in a sitting position on the sand before he used his paws to angle his body out into a belly flop. “There are two other dogs on the beach and nobody is bothering them,” Mark said.

  “Well, I guess we don’t have much of a choice now, do we?” Grace motioned to Brody resting his snout between his two sandy paws, easing into slow and steady breathing that was emphasized with a few little snores every few seconds. “I guess we are setting up shop right here.”

  Grace pulled the black, fleece blanket out of her bag and waved it a few times before laying it on the sand in front of Brody. He didn’t even budge as Mark slipped a bin of strawberries and a bottle of wine from his duffel bag, followed by Caprese skewers and little sandwiches seemingly conjured from nowhere.

  “My fave, but they are better with prosciutto,” Grace joked as she plucked a skewer from the rectangular Tupperware container and went to work clearing the mozzarella balls and tomatoes off the stick with her front teeth. “So, are you ready for some news?”

  “Always,” Mark said before popping a perfectly cut cucumber sandwich into his mouth.

  “Scott’s younger sister was kidnapped.”

  “Say what?” Mark said between bites of his sandwich.

  “Yeah, a long time ago. But something doesn’t make sense. Why here? Why did Miriam pack up their lives in the North End and want to move here?”

  “Change of pace? Chance to build new memories?” Mark asked as he leaned back on one arm and reached over to pet Brody with the other. “Don’t people do that when they are suffering from grief?”

  “Yeah, I get that, but why here? Why Bridgeton?”

  “The bridge to nowhere,” Mark said. “Do you think she knew someone here and that’s what made her pick this town? That seems to happen a lot. People come to visit and they are hooked. And then…they never leave,” Mark let out a zombie-like growl, mocking the mysterious residents who came into the town and went months without setting foot outside the island.

  “I have a couple of theories, and that is one, but I’m thinking more along the lines that maybe, just maybe, she is hiding from something. And based on my visions—the man who haunts me and the fish tank that serves as a backdrop—maybe she came here to hide.”

  “Don’t people usually go to other countries for that type of hiding?”

  “Yeah, but she can easily blend in here. She’s a little old lady who volunteers for everything. Hundreds of little old ladies volunteer in this town. Scott did say Miriam summered here as a kid, but I’m not sure if I buy that.”

  “So, what’s the deal with the fish tank?”

  “I have no idea, but my gut is telling me to take a trip to the aquarium. Feel like joining me tomorrow?”

  “I’d love to but I have back-to-back clients.”

  Just as Grace started to plot out tomorrow’s trip to the aquarium, her phone rang, Michael Jackson’s voice singing “Man in the Mirror.”

  “This looks like a Cabotville number, weird.”

  “What’s so weird about that?”

  “Well, I talk to maybe three people in the town where I live, so not sure who would be calling me from the ville.”

  Just as Grace was contemplating answering the phone, Mark tore it out of her hand. She gave him a look of shock as he calmly said, “Hello.” As soon as the word came out he looked at Grace with a furrowed brow, worry on his face. “Just a minute, she’s right here.” He passed the phone to her as he mouthed, “It’s about your mom.”

  “Hi Grace, this is Bobby Baker, your neighbor. The one in the yellow house.”

  “Yes.” Grace could feel her heart rate speeding up.

  “Well, I don’t mean to alarm you, but well, your mom was just kind of wandering over in my yard. And she, well, she looked a bit dazed. I thought you should know. I’m not sure if she is on medication or if she has any…issues, but when I approached her she got quite mad. Started yelling at me like I was someone else that she was really really mad at. I think she had me confused with someone else. Anyway, I talked her down and walked her back to your house. After a while I convinced her to give me your number, but she wasn’t happy about me telling you. She said not to bother you, but I figured you should know, ‘cause it was…kind of alarming.”

  “Thank you, Bobby, I really appreciate it. I’ll head home and check on her.” Grace gave Mark a defeated look and hung up the phone.

  “Shit. My mom had another episode.” This was the second time something like this happened over the past six months. The last time, Ellen had cornered a man at her local community center who had been minding his own business playing ping pong. She kept calling him Clark and asking him to read lines with her, as if she was going back in time to when she was an aspiring actress.

  “I better go home to check on her. I’m so sorry. We can never seem to get a moment to ourselves these days.” Grace watched as a family nearby walked along the beach holding hands like a set of Christmas lights strung together. A man with blonde, shaggy hair, lanky limbs and abs covered with a slight layer of fat held hands with two little girls, one on each side of him. A woman with brown hair pulled up in a messy bun on the top of her head a
nd a black one-piece swimsuit held the hand of one of the girls. The four walked down the beach together, stopping every few seconds to examine a shell or a piece of sea glass on the sand. For a moment, Grace longed to know what it would be like to have Mark’s babies and be that family walking down the beach in a world of their own as if they were in on one big, permanent secret together.

  “Go, go take care of Ellen.” Mark started loading up the supplies without missing a beat. “I could use a couple hours to get caught up on membership paperwork at the gym anyway.”

  “You’re not mad?” Grace lifted the blanket and, without thinking, started to shake it out.

  “Well, I’m a bit annoyed that you just shook sand out right in front of me and got it in my eyes.” Mark squinted and wiped at his eyes. “But, no, I’m not mad that you have to take care of your mother. What do you think I am, some kind of monster?” he joked.

  “Speaking of monsters, I’ll take this one home,” Grace said as she lifted Brody’s leash and tugged at it to get him moving. The three of them walked toward the sidewalk, Brody lagging behind, having used up all his energy for the day.

  “Grace, I know you don’t want to talk about this but, I know a good doctor who specializes in…Alzheimer’s. He’s a geriatric psychiatrist and he…”

  “I can’t…I just can’t even.” Grace had trouble getting the words to surface without tears. “Geriatric, like I can’t even bear to think about my mom losing her memory; she’s always been so sharp. I mean, just six months ago she was jumping from activity to activity and sharp as a tack, and now she is threatening the neighbors and accusing a guy of being someone he’s not. I just don’t get it.”

  “I know, babe, we will figure this out.” Mark grabbed her free hand and clutched it tight, squeezing it three times—a gesture he did whenever she felt down.

  Brody had officially passed out in the back seat of the Jeep by the time Grace pulled into her driveway. She saw Ellen’s small frame sitting on the front steps, hunched over, looking defeated. As she approached her, Grace cautioned herself to be gentle with her words.