Emma in the Night

by Wendy Walker

  “Maine has over thirty-five hundred miles of coastland and close to five thousand islands, and off the coast near Rockland there are hundreds,” one of the forensics explained. “So anything else you give us would be helpful.”

  Judy jumped in, impatience seeping from every pore. “Why, Cass, did you wait all night to get back here? Why didn’t you go straight to the police from the shore so they could find this island?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t think about it. I didn’t think it would be so hard to find it. The driver of that truck asked me where I wanted to go and I said the first thing I thought of which was here. Home.”

  She started to cry again.

  “I just wanted to come home.”

  Abby heard footsteps bounding up the stairs; then the door opened. She was sitting in a chair by the bed when Owen Tanner burst in like a tornado. He didn’t greet her, though Abby doubted he’d forgotten who she was. He was simply overwrought. He ran to the bed, hugged his daughter. He was crying, moaning like he was in pain. He was thin and gaunt, as though he’d been slowly disappearing these past three years. She hadn’t noticed it during the investigation, because she had seen him frequently, even after they had concluded their interviews. He would come once a week or more to the field office in New Haven, demanding updates, requesting access to their reports and the list of calls to the hotline. She thought then that his pain had been a parasite, feeding on him all this time. And nothing could bring back the parts of him that had been eaten away. That was what she could hear in his cries as he held his child.

  Owen pulled away, his face wet and contorted with despair. He began his own inquiry about Emma, to know where she was. He had a million questions and he shot them out as if no one else in the room had thought of them before he arrived and “My God!” Emma was at the end of one of them and why couldn’t Cass just tell them where to go and get her?

  When he had finally exhausted his questions on that front and came to accept that finding Emma was not going to happen that moment, he sat down on the edge of the bed, almost on top of his daughter, blocking Judy from her sight. It was then he asked Cass the other question, which Abby knew had tortured him the most since the night he lost his daughters.

  “Why? Why did you and Emma leave with these people?”

  Owen had told Abby during the first investigation that she was wrong to look at the family history. He told her that he understood why teenagers left to join jihads and cults and got lured by perverts. He said in one of his interviews with her, “Those kids were not normal kids. I’ve seen them on the news. Maybe no one saw it before it happened, but after it was all perfectly clear why they’d left. Right? There’s nothing like that with my girls. I’m not sitting here thinking that this all makes perfect sense because of this thing or that thing. Do you understand? There is nothing to find here. Nothing at all!”

  “Why did you leave with these strangers?” Owen asked again, looking for confirmation.

  Cass finally answered him, a hint of anger in her voice that surprised Abby. But it was her answer that surprised them all.

  “We left because Emma was pregnant.”

  FIVE

  Cass

  My father squeezed the breath from my body when he first saw me again. He barreled past Dr. Winter, Special Agent Strauss and Mrs. Martin and fell into me, sobbing. I did not have a chance to even look at him, to absorb the deep lines that grief had carved into his forehead and the grayness that now covered his skin. That would come twelve seconds later. In that moment, those first twelve seconds, he needed to take from me all that was lost over those three years, and he was not deterred by the impossibility of this task. I indulged him because I love my father very much and feeling his arms around me again had me crying also and saying his name over and over.

  Daddy … Daddy …

  I cried for him many times on the island, even though I knew each time, in my heart, what I knew again on my mother’s bed as he held me that morning. No matter how many times I cried his name, the cries a plea for him to help me somehow even if only to give me the strength to help myself, my father had nothing like this to give me.

  I let myself cry and I tried to give him the things he needed. I had expected him to need things from me when I returned home. Still, I was also shocked by the resentment I felt. I wanted to scream at him. I need things, too! I need to tell my story before it explodes right out of my chest! No one seemed to care about my things.

  When I said the words, when I told them we left because Emma was pregnant, my father’s eyes grew wide and frantic, like he was lost in a storm. “I don’t understand! Did she have a baby? Is there a child? My God!”

  I answered the second question first.

  “She had a little girl. But they took her. Bill and Lucy took her from Emma and made her their own. It started out like they were just helping take care of her. They kept her in their room at night. They said it was just for a few days so Emma could rest. Emma didn’t want them to, but they did anyway. Then they just never stopped.”

  “And they wouldn’t let you leave? They held you prisoner? I don’t understand, Cass!” My father demanded an answer.

  “We asked to leave. And when they kept saying not yet, not now, things like that, we made a plan to leave, only we couldn’t see how to do it when they always had Emma’s baby with them. So we decided that I should leave and then bring back help. And I tried, but failed. I’ve been trying to tell you … and when I found another way years later, Emma said she couldn’t leave without her daughter. I tried to make her come with me. You have to believe me, that I tried!”

  I felt a surge of panic like the shock you get when your finger brushes a light socket. The thought of baby feet and baby hair and baby smiles, and the pain when they would take her from my arms, and Emma—I suddenly missed her like I would miss my own heart if it were torn from my body—and all of this was just too strong to hold in.

  “Find them!” I yelled into the room.

  I wanted Emma. I wanted revenge. I wanted that sweet little girl. I wanted justice.

  “Find them and make them pay for what they’ve done!”

  My father covered his face with his hands. I think it was at this moment he started to understand the kind of place I was trying to tell him about, trying to tell all of them. There was just so much and I didn’t want to forget anything so I kept trying to go back to the beginning. Maybe I should have started with the first time I tried to escape and what they did when I got caught. Or the things I had to do to finally make it home. In so many ways, I still felt like a child, afraid I would be in trouble. Afraid no one would believe me.

  My father stood up. “We need more agents! We need to do something! Right now! My daughter and granddaughter are being held prisoner by these people! My God!”

  Behind my father, I could see Mrs. Martin looking at me like I was crazy. She’d been doing that all morning and I wanted to scream at her Maybe you’re the one who’s crazy! and then watch her break into pieces.

  Agent Strauss tried to reassure him. “We have a team of agents ready to begin the search. We will find this island.”

  My father hung his head and held it firmly between his palms. He started to nod then, and I could read his thoughts—Yes, of course. That’s why a girl leaves home. That’s what was so compelling, she would leave everything behind.

  He turned to look at my mother for some kind of solidarity. His shoulders lifted slightly, his palms now stretched out and open to the sky and tears streaming down his face.

  “We couldn’t have known, Judy. We couldn’t.”

  He was trying to be kind, but Mrs. Martin didn’t want his kindness.

  My father used to make comments about the relationship between Emma and our mother, about how Mrs. Martin looked at Emma like a younger version of herself. He said she liked it when Emma got attention as a little girl. She would tell him that people did the same thing when she was little—turn their heads and ooh and ahh. She and Emma w
ere cut from the same cloth. They were the same. What my father didn’t understand was that after Emma got older, Mrs. Martin didn’t talk about her likeness to Emma, because of pride. It was her way of stealing back the attention Emma got—attention that used to be hers.

  I knew what my father was thinking as he tried to comfort her. That this ignorance of such an important fact about Emma might be a blow to her pride, to her ego. If she and Emma were so alike, how did she not know Emma was pregnant?

  I was never able to sit still when this thing was happening between them—my mother silently brooding and my father prancing around like a circus clown trying to cheer her up. It made me feel rage inside because he couldn’t see anything. He couldn’t see that she still knew how to reach inside him and twist him up even after she broke his heart and stole his house and his children. Even then.

  I was not surprised when this was Mrs. Martin’s response after he tried to comfort her on the day I returned.

  “Of course I couldn’t have known! You drove a wedge between us so she never talked to me about these things. You did that! And look what happened!”

  Dr. Winter did not seem surprised either that my father tried to comfort my mother, or that my mother used his kindness to whack him in the head. That was when I knew she had been involved before, when we disappeared. I imagine she had learned a lot about our family when they were trying to find us. But it was the lack of surprise she had in this moment that made me think she could see our family.

  Agent Strauss stepped in. “I think we need to hear what happened—from the beginning. Please … let’s get things to the lab and let’s hear the story, Cass. If you’re up to it.”

  Dr. Winter smiled at me and nodded. The people from the forensic team left. Everyone sat back down, my father on the end of the bed, my mother back next to me. Dr. Winter sat in a chair with a small notepad flipped open and a pen in her hand. Agent Strauss was standing beside her.

  “We should speak to Cass alone,” he said to my parents. They looked at each other, then at me. They didn’t move.

  “No…” I said. “I need them here. Please…”

  My breath was choppy from the attack of emotions and I tried hard to steady my voice. I could not tell my story without my mother with me to hear it.

  Agent Strauss sighed. “For now,” he said. He glanced at Dr. Winter, who nodded in agreement.

  I asked if I should start from the very first night and Agent Strauss said yes. I let out two long breaths, like long sighs, and I started to calm down. Then I went back to that night in our house. The night we disappeared.

  “The night we left, Emma and I were fighting. Do you remember that?”

  Mrs. Martin answered. “Yes. Over that necklace.”

  I had never forgotten the first time I heard her say this in an interview. I remembered everything she said about it, about the necklace. And about that night.

  “I loved that necklace, so Emma wore it every day because she knew it upset me to see it on her neck. That day, at school, we were walking home together and Emma was nervous about something. I could tell. She was distracted. We walked in silence the whole way. When we got home, she went to her room and closed her door. She didn’t come down for dinner, remember?”

  Mrs. Martin shook her head and stared at me like she was losing her patience. It made me want to ramble on and on.

  “I don’t know, Cass. I don’t remember about dinner,” she said.

  “I tried to talk to her but she wouldn’t let me in her room. I pounded on the door until she opened it. She was afraid you would hear and she didn’t want to draw attention to what she was doing. I walked into her room and saw some clothes laid out on her bed. She had just taken a shower. So I asked her if she was going out, and where and why on a school night. I was trying to make her mad because she had been so weird all day. But she seemed different. Less interested somehow, like this was all beneath her. She started organizing her purse. She put on her clothes. Then she turned toward the bathroom door and just pushed me out of the way. ‘Come back here!’ I screamed at her.… Do you remember all of that?”

  Dr. Winter answered. “I remember your mother telling us about that. How she heard you fighting and then she saw the car pull out of the driveway.”

  My mother had this story down perfectly. And so did I.

  “I knew she was leaving because she’d put her car keys in her purse. The necklace was on the bed next to the clothes and I snatched it up before she came back for it. I put it around my neck. ‘I have the necklace!’ I said. ‘You can’t have it back until you tell me where you’re going!’ She came storming out of the bathroom, yelling at me to give it back. She tried to grab it off my neck and I pushed her away. Then she finally got her hand on it and she ripped it off me. It broke the chain. But she didn’t care. She put it on her neck and tied the chain like a rope, in a knot, so it would stay. She looked in the mirror and adjusted the angel. Then she just turned and went back into the bathroom.

  “I was so furious! I went out to her car and got in the way back. She keeps blankets in there for when they go to the beach to drink and I hid under them. I thought, ‘I’m gonna go where she goes and get pictures of her doing things she’s not supposed to be doing and then I’m gonna get her in trouble.’ It’s all so stupid, isn’t it?”

  Dr. Winter looked at me sympathetically. “No, Cass. You were fifteen. It sounds very normal.”

  Mrs. Martin copied her. She was very good at taking cues when she didn’t want anyone to see what was in her mind. Or her heart.

  “Yes, sweetheart.” Her words were nice but her tone was laced with frustration.

  “I waited there for a long time before the driver’s-side door opened and closed and then we started to move. I remember feeling nervous about my plan to get her in trouble. The car stopped at the beach, in a spot in the very back of the lot. I heard Emma sigh really hard and long, like she was nervous, too. But then she got out of the car, left her purse, and the keys, and walked to the shore. I waited a few seconds and then got out, slowly and quietly. I followed her and I know she didn’t see me, because she kept going toward the water without looking back. When she got there, she took off her shoes and waded into the water. I stood behind the changing room, peeking out from the side. I could see her in the moonlight, and I thought maybe she was going to swim with all her clothes on. But she didn’t move. She just stood there looking at the water and splashing it with her toes.

  “And then there were headlights coming from behind me. They shined onto her and she seemed startled but then she started walking toward the car, away from the water. I know she was startled because she forgot her shoes. She walked right past the changing rooms where I was hiding and watching. The lights went off. Then the engine. A door opened and a man got out. There was also a woman in the car but she stayed inside.

  “Emma started to walk toward the car, toward this man, and I felt this horrible fear that she was leaving forever. I ran toward the car and screamed her name. ‘Emma!’ I started to see him more clearly. He was older. He had brown hair and a kind smile and he folded Emma into his arms in a big hug.

  “They both stopped when they heard me call out for her. The man looked at Emma, and his smile went away. Emma stormed over to me. She was so angry. She was desperate. She knew I had just spoiled her plan. She grabbed my arms and told me she was leaving, that she couldn’t take it anymore. I started crying, grabbing at her. I was so upset. I couldn’t imagine life without Emma. She was my sister and I had never been without her.

  “She pulled away and walked toward the car. She said to the man, ‘Let’s just go.’ But he shook his head. They spoke in whispers. Then she shook her head and he grabbed her shoulders and looked at her sternly. She came back to me and she said ‘Now you have to come with us.’ I was scared. I didn’t know where they were going. We saw headlights coming down the beach. It was the sand groomer. It always comes at night. There was no time to think. Emma grabbed my arm and pulled me to
ward the car. I don’t know if I tried to break free. I honestly don’t know. My feet were moving and they walked me to the car. We all got in and we drove away.”

  I stopped there and looked around the room. Dr. Winter, Agent Strauss, Mrs. Martin—they were all staring at me now, mesmerized by the story.

  It was Agent Strauss who broke the spell. “Do you remember anything else that this man said? Either on the beach or in the car? Did they introduce themselves, explain what was happening?”

  I shook my head. “No one said anything. It was creepy. We just drove until we got to the boat.”

  “Do you remember how long you drove? What time you left and what time the car finally stopped?”

  “I wish I could. I know that would be helpful because we went right from the beach to the boat, and then to the island. I fell asleep for a while. We stopped for food and to use the bathroom. We stopped for gas another time and it was still dark out and much colder than it had been at the beach. It was still dark when we got to a dock. It smelled like pine trees. I’m sorry. I usually keep good track of the time.”

  “That’s okay, Cass. Just continue the story. What happened next?” Agent Strauss said.

  “I remember thinking that maybe I didn’t know my own sister at all. I mean, I had not known about Bill. I had not known about her plan to leave home. I had not even known she was pregnant. I thought she was going out to meet a guy. I was so stupid! It made me scared and I wanted to leave and run home as fast as I could. But then I thought I would be in so much trouble if I left without knowing where Emma was going, and for leaving in the first place and for hiding in Emma’s car. It’s so clear what I would do now, being older, and knowing what could happen to us. But then, in my mind, and not knowing, I felt like I had to stay with her until I knew where she was going. I made a plan to do that, and then to find my way home. I remember feeling better having this plan and I lay my head down against the window. The woman, Lucy, had given me a blanket and I pulled it over my head, over my whole face and everything.