His dad motioned for him to talk more softly. “If I hadn’t needed Kristian, I think he would have become an entomologist.”
“From where?” Finn repeated, waving the cylinders. “His own laboratory?” That would explain where the cage of bats had been headed.
Rollie’s gaze darted to the trees. “Put those away.”
Finn tucked them into his backpack. So Kristian does have his own lab. “Funny you never mentioned that he’s been moonlighting.”
“That’s a good word for it. I don’t know how he gets by on so little sleep, but I do know I can’t run this project without him. There’s too much data for one man to process. He uses his lab near their apartment after joining Hannah and Milo for dinner. It’s just hobby equipment. Besides the Lyme, he doesn’t keep any pathogens there. And no bats, since I know that’s your next question.”
“When’s the last time you’ve been in it?”
“I see all of the analyses from his time there. Your brother’s always needed space to think. As long as I’m still around, he wouldn’t dare conduct any experiments on her without my permission.”
Finn thought of Cora’s revelation about the spinal tap. If he told Rollie now, and Cora found out, he’d lose any chance of gaining her complete trust. “You sure about that?”
“Positive. I put up with his attitude toward her because I can’t afford to lose his assistance, but Kristian knows that if he ever crosses the line, I’ll tell Sylvia.” Rollie signaled for Finn to hold out his arms so he could check the seals on his gloves.
Finn nodded. He knew that Kristian cared a tremendous amount about Sylvia’s opinion of him. According to Rollie, Sylvia had delicately honored Petra’s memory while easing into the role of Kristian’s mother. Kristian had learned to look forward to the folded, clever riddles in his lunch box long before he realized how much he adored Sylvia.
Finishing the inspection, Rollie leaned back. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
Finn’s pulse quickened. “Shoot.”
Rollie inhaled deeply through his respirator. “Cora killed your grandfather.”
Finn recoiled.
Everyone had told him that Ulrich had died of natural causes. Though, now in retrospect, the closed-casket funeral had seemed odd.
Clenching his fists, Finn pondered if it could be true. The more he learned about his family’s involvement with this woman, the more he sensed that he still didn’t know. The fact that he’d been the only one kept in the dark was infuriating.
“It’s true,” Rollie said softly. “Kristian was there.”
Finn ran his tongue along his teeth. Lily had mentioned Kristian saying something to her about Cora murdering someone in their family. She hadn’t taken him seriously, nor had she remembered his exact wording.
Considering Kristian had also lied about 9/11, when it had suited his needs for their project, Finn believed him capable of twisting the circumstances of Ulrich’s death to vilify Cora.
“Where did it happen?”
“There.” Rollie pointed toward the buildings by the docks.
“You took Kristian’s word for it?”
“I did the autopsy.”
“From what I’ve heard, Gramps deserved it,” Finn said, thinking of the whip mark scars on Cora’s back. Also, an offhand comment that Grandma Angela had once made now had him wondering if Ulrich had played a role in his great-grandfather’s disappearance.
“Did he deserve ‘overkill’?” Rollie asked. “At age ninety-one?”
“Seriously?” Finn asked, wrinkling his nose.
“Kristian brought your grandpa here, one last time, because Ulrich had found religion and wanted to beg Cora for forgiveness. Finn”—his voice cracked—“she showed no mercy. The way his frail body looked: no God-fearing person could have done that.”
Finn didn’t know what to say. He’d witnessed her hatred of his family, so intense she’d wanted to kill him simply because of his last name. Suddenly less confident that she would spare him a third time, he fished from his backpack the scalpel he’d pocketed after their first encounter, which he hoped to trade for his utility knife. Rubbing the small crucifix etched in its ivory hilt, he surmised that Ulrich must have said something that had made her snap. His stomach soured with the realization that the possibilities were endless.
“Why are you telling me this now?”
“So, you understand how dangerous she is.”
“Our family made her this way.”
Rollie exhaled heavily. “That may be the case, but it hasn’t been a one way straight. Did Ulrich influence the way Kristian treats her? Absolutely. But the hatred: that came only after Kristian witnessed Cora slay his grandfather.”
Still processing this new information, Finn balanced her scalpel on his fingertip. His father’s admission had been well timed—an obvious effort to reinforce where Finn’s loyalties should remain during his upcoming encounter with her. Did he believe that Cora was capable of the act Rollie had described? Yes, but that didn’t make it true. Or her fault.
“You should keep that knife handy. Give me your arm,” Rollie said, flashing the roll of duct tape. “Low, out of sight.”
Reluctantly, Finn agreed. But what could one scalpel do against an entire pouchful, wielded by a woman skilled in the art of throwing them?
The pair shifted, so their backs faced the opening in the lighthouse remains. Finn held the scalpel to the underside of his left rubber glove as his dad secured it.
“The way Ulrich treated her changed her,” Rollie said, tucking the roll back into his duffel bag. “She’s no longer a rational, feeling human being. If she shows any signs of aggression, get out of there. She’s killed one of us; she’ll do it again.”
Great pep talk, Finn thought as he stood and faced the interior of her island.
“Tell me you heard me.”
“Got it,” Finn replied, his attention on the tree canopy. Taking a deep breath, he waded through the wild grass, toward the woman who’d viciously murdered his grandfather.
Fifteen Minutes Later
inn stepped into the shadow of the nurses’ residence, and a chill passed over his skin. Sapling limbs stretched from the first-floor windows, and kudzu vines covered the facade. Within a few decades they would tear the building apart. Would Cora still be trapped here to witness its collapse? Not if he could help it.
Glancing around the gloomy wild, he still couldn’t believe she’d survived here alone for forty-four years. If she didn’t announce her arrival by piercing him with one of her scalpels, he could offer to install a few “pretty lights in the trees.” Then again, her list of more practical needs had to be a mile long. Not that she would accept any kindness from a Gettler. Returning had been a mistake, yet not doing so hadn’t seemed like an option.
He should continue moving farther from Rollie, but he wanted Cora to find him here, near her favorite building.
To appear nonchalant, he studied the interplay of shade and deeper shadows on the brick façade. If he made it off this island, he would sketch this scene.
The squawking of the herons made it difficult to concentrate. She had to be awake; no one could sleep through that racket. Perspiration was pooling between his shoulder blades, and it would only get hotter within his suit as the sun rose.
“I knew you’d be back.”
Instinctively, his hands flew upward to shield his head, and he peered into the tree canopy, his visor limiting his field of vision. If he couldn’t see her, the scalpel taped to his glove would be useless, even as an empty threat. Rotating, he searched for her.
“You Gettlers don’t know when to quit, do you?”
The sound of his breathing roared in his ears. “I wanted to apologize.”
“Well, that’s a first.” She coughed. “I’m guessing that wasn’t in Daddy’s instructions.”
<
br /> She had been watching them. “Do you ever sleep?”
“I siesta.”
“Of course you do,” he muttered, continuing to turn. “Can you please come down?” “Am I making you nervous?”
“Yes.”
An upper branch of a nearby tree bobbed, and a blue jay alighted on a pokeberry bush entwined in the tennis court fence.
If she’s as brutal as Rollie claims, why hasn’t she finished them off, too? Finn asked himself. His dad claimed that the sheer volume of her medical records, stored in his Upper East Side lab, kept them safe. Given all his family had done to her, data alone didn’t seem like a compelling reason for her to spare them. Or him. If the files were so important, why hadn’t she demanded they hand them over when she’d had Finn chained to the morgue roof?
There had to be another reason. Finn sensed that Rollie was withholding something. If Finn could gain Cora’s cooperation today, he would use his influence with her as leverage to get answers from his dad.
“How’s this?”
He whirled toward her voice.
In the middle of the ivy-covered street that led to the staff house, she was standing with her hands on her hips. His cheeks heated at the memory of her showering there. Today, in another pair of cargo pants and a tank top, she looked dangerously alluring. In the early morning light, filtered through the trees, he could just make out the faint scars that dotted her face. Again, her hair was braided and tied off with a vine.
“Much better.”
“At first, with that suit, I thought you were Kristian.” She examined the palm of her olive-green work glove. “But you’re taller than him. And thinner.”
“Better-looking, too.” He grinned to show he was joking.
She didn’t return the smile. “But not smarter.”
“Ouch. I thought you hated him.”
“‘Hate’ isn’t the right word. Is he with your father in the lightkeeper’s house?”
“Really? You missed our landing?” he asked, raising his hands in mock surprise.
“Just tell me.” Cora hugged herself. “Please.”
Finn lowered his arms. “No, he’s not.”
She really must be afraid of him, Finn thought. “Seriously, though, you should consider rigging those rocks so some hooligan from Brooklyn Heights doesn’t catch you by surprise.”
Her face crinkled into a smile. “Firstly, the herons are my alarm system at this end. And secondly, as it turned out, I arrived too early. I could have gone without seeing you in your drawers.”
He cringed. “You mean my Speedo. Totally different. By the way, these days the cool kids use a’s and b’s.”
Her smile winked out. “You think I’m old-fashioned.” She edged around a street curb, upended by the roots of a cottonwood. “It’s not like I’ve been completely cut off from the world. When people sneak onto this island, they think they’re alone. They’re not. I’m always listening from above. And I pay attention to their diction. Capiche?”
His ninth-grade math teacher had loved that word. “Sorry, that was thoughtless.” He sighed. “I’m sorry for a lot of things.”
“I know why you’re here, and the answer’s still no.” She reached for the lowest branch of the cottonwood, and Finn could tell he was about to lose her.
“You don’t know me as well as you think.” He patted his overstuffed backpack.
“I don’t need your charity,” she said, eyeing the bag.
“I get it. You don’t want to owe a Gettler.”
He unzipped the main compartment and located the encased dime magazine. Between two of its pages, he’d tucked an illustration of the Astor Hotel at the height of the Great White Way’s popularity in the early 1900s. If she contemplated the hours of billable time he’d forfeited to draw it, she wouldn’t accept the gesture. Not that it would matter; he planned to be long gone by the time she discovered it.
“The supplies are repayment for letting me borrow this.” He waved the booklet.
Cora dashed across the clearing and snatched it from him.
Before he’d fully registered her proximity, she’d returned to her original spot, the story clutched to her chest.
His pulse pounded in his temples. “The library would never let something that rare go into circulation.”
“This is nothing. I’ve got something here far more valuable. Follow me.” She tucked the booklet into her shoulder bag and darted into the foliage.
Wavering, Finn decided that if he wanted her to trust him, he first had to prove he was willing to do the same. At least this time he had backup.
With his gloved hands outstretched to ward off the branches that threatened to snag his suit, he followed her.
Ten yards ahead, she moved as lithely on the ground as she did within the trees. He struggled to keep her in sight while staying afoot.
A massive spider web, stretching between two trees, suddenly came into focus and he ducked to miss it.
Ahead, a two-story, utilitarian brick structure, which had to be the service building, appeared through the vegetation. Cora stopped at its front entrance.
She opened the door and motioned for him to enter.
He hesitated.
“Don’t worry, I’ve no intention of harming Lily’s soulmate.”
He knew she’d meant it to sound mocking, and that she didn’t want his pity, so he said nothing and stepped inside. His boots crunched on dried leaves and plaster. Poorly ventilated, the lobby had to be at least ten degrees warmer than outside. Given the greenhouse effect created by his suit, the temperature of the air trapped against his body would quickly rise.
She strode down a hallway, one of its walls skewed from the weight of the metal support beams.
He hustled to catch up.
They passed an open door marked Principal’s Office.
“I bet you wish you could’ve been a student here,” he said.
“In a way, I was, for four years. After the war, I would tend the shrubs below the windows. On all but the coldest days, the teachers kept them cracked open. High school English was on the first floor.”
“Ah, your love of grammar.”
“My favorite was sentence diagramming. I’d use a stick in the dirt to complete the exercises along with the class.”
Finn pictured her crouched on the ground, biting her lip in concentration, and felt a sudden urge to kiss her. Shaking his head, he dispelled the unwelcome thought.
Although it would make his task easier, he couldn’t lead her on. Feigning interest in the deteriorating papers underfoot, he bent to decipher their markings.
She turned away and continued down the corridor.
Conversely, he realized, acting like he didn’t care about her would get him nowhere. “It must have been tough, being on the outside,” he said, hurrying to catch up.
She shrugged. “There’s a theater in here. I used to watch their films from outside. I’d love to see a real cinema, and another movie.”
“It’ll happen. Have faith.”
“In your family? Ha.”
She opened a stairwell door, and he hurried to catch it. “Where are we going?”
“The roof.”
He raised his hand. “Based on our last rooftop experience, I’ll take a pass.”
“Fair enough, considering I’m passing on exposing myself to Lyme.” She began climbing.
“That’s not why I’m here.” He followed her. “Well, it’s not the main reason.”
“But you do love your mom?”
“I do.”
“I loved my mother, too. In 1902, she was told I’d died from typhus. How do you think that felt?”
“My family’s done a lot of shitty things to you.” They didn’t deserve her altruism. “I will make them stop; I swear.”
“Sure, you will. Ri
ght after I give you Borrelia antibodies. You’ll become just like them. It’s just a matter of time.” She rapped on a door to the second-story hallway. “The science classrooms are that way. It was hard to hear those lectures.”
The men in his family had always known so much more about her body than she had. No wonder she’d lost conviction that any of their theories would work. “Next time I’ll bring some medical textbooks.”
“Next time?” She resumed her ascent. “The nesting season ends in two weeks.”
Finn wasn’t sure why he’d said that. He’d informed his dad that if she said no to the injection today, then he was done. And that he’d do everything in his power to ensure the same held true for them.
Regardless of today’s outcome, Finn knew that every time he glimpsed the East River this winter, he would think of her, cold and alone. At least he wouldn’t have to worry about his family antagonizing her then; Rollie had explained that even with the tunnel, there was far too much at stake to risk being caught trespassing by authorized visitors during the winter.
She stopped at the door to the roof. “Don’t you think it’s a little ironic, your mother having Lyme?”
He narrowed his eyes. “How so?”
“Before Ulrich started his research on the black-legged deer tick, the disease didn’t exist in North America.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“They really did keep you in the dark,” she said with a sniff of disdain. “One of his projects at Lab Two Fifty-Seven was studying the tick as a vector for Borrelia burgdorferi. It was separate from his work on me, since, back then, Bb wasn’t strong enough to coexist with my immune system. The first documented cases in the United States occurred in Lyme, Connecticut. Interestingly, that town happens to be right across Long Island Sound from Plum Island.” She clicked her tongue. “I guess he should have been more careful with those little buggers.”
Finn pictured the cage of bats so haphazardly positioned on that old, wooden spool. Considering how paranoid Kristian was about the inevitability of a global pandemic, such a reckless action from him didn’t seem plausible. Yet there was no one else they could have belonged to.
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