by Wendy Walker
“I woke up to the sound of music playing and the wind on my forehead. Emma had rolled her window all the way down. Her head was hanging far enough out so the wind could catch her hair and blow it hard away from her face. She was humming and Bill and Lucy were smiling. It was an Adele song. Do you remember how much she loved Adele?”
Emma didn’t like to drive me places. But sometimes, when something bad enough had happened in our house, she’d get very drunk and then she would take me in her car and she would make me drive, even though I was not old enough. We would go down North Ave because it was straight and we could go very fast. She would roll down the window, stick her head out just enough for the wind to catch her hair. And she would sing so loud and so hard, she would start to cry. Sometimes she would smoke a cigarette. But mostly she would sing until she cried and I would just drive and watch her from the corner of my eye and be frozen by the sight of her. It was like watching a tornado. Beautiful. Terrifying. Sometimes I wished I could be like that, and feel things like that. But Emma felt enough for two people, and I was mostly grateful that she had her role and I had mine.
I think there are two types of people. Ones who have a scream inside them and ones who don’t. People who have a scream are too angry or too sad or laugh too hard, swear too much, use drugs or never sit still. Sometimes they sing at the top of their lungs with the windows rolled down. I don’t think people are born with it. I think other people put it inside you with the things they do to you, and say to you, or the things you see them do or say to other people. And I don’t think you can get rid of it. If you don’t have a scream, you can’t understand.
As I watched Dr. Winter that first day, I got the sense that she had a scream. She was not a normal person. It takes one to know one, I guess, and I could just tell. She was beautiful—blond hair, very fit, big pouty lips and high cheekbones. Her eyes were pale blue but suspended in a perpetual state of anxiety, and she walked and talked and moved with strength, more like a man than a woman. Her eyes, and the way she moved, stood in such stark contrast to her otherwise feminine traits that it made her intriguing. Mysterious. I imagine men found her irresistible. And yet she did not wear a wedding ring. People like Dr. Winter, intriguing, mysterious people, always have a scream inside them.
I didn’t know I had one until the night I finally escaped from the island.
No one answered my question about Emma liking that music, so I continued my story. “I can still remember exactly how I felt when we got to the dock and Bill opened the car door and the cool air came in with that smell, the Christmas tree smell, and also the smell of the water. It was nothing like the water here, or even when we went to Nantucket that summer when I was ten I think, or maybe nine. There was no fish smell, or seaweed, or you know that rotting smell that comes when it’s really hot and there are all those open shells? There was none of that. Just water and Christmas, cool against my face while my body was warm under the blanket. And then, also, there was a sense of adventure and something else that I’ve thought about all the time since that night because it was part of what made me get out of the car and get on Rick’s boat instead of running away into the woods.”
Agent Strauss interrupted me to ask about the woods. “What kind of woods? Were there streets and houses, like a neighborhood or just trees and the shoreline? And what about the boat?”
I told him what I remembered—that when I woke up, I felt that cool air and then saw water on one side, with the dock and a small motorboat. And the boatman. Behind us and all around was a forest of pine trees and brush. The road was not paved. There was no parking lot or building. Just a small wooden dock and one boat and the boatman.
“So this boatman, Rick, he must have taken the boat to the dock from somewhere else? Sounds like he didn’t keep the boat there, or you would have seen his car.…”
It went on like this for several minutes. I had already described the boatman to them, and not just his accent but that he seemed as old as Dr. Winter, and he was always tan and had a scruffy layer of light facial hair all the time—never cleanly shaven and never a full beard. He was not much taller than I was, maybe five nine with a thick, muscular build. His neck seemed larger than it needed to be, or maybe his head was small by comparison. And he had very short hair, dark brown. His eyes were brown as well. He wasn’t ugly but he wasn’t someone Emma would have even looked at twice. He was the kind of guy who passes in a hallway without being noticed.
I knew that the Pratts paid him to come back and forth to the island and that I thought he relied on them a lot for money because he was very loyal to them. I did not know how loyal until much later. Until the first time I tried to escape.
Dr. Winter was not a patient person. I could tell by the way she shifted her body in the chair, crossing and recrossing her legs. Fidgeting with her pen. But she let Agent Strauss go on until he was done even though she didn’t seem to care much about the woods and trees and cars, or even about the boatman. When she asked me the next question, I started to believe that we would actually find my sister.
“Cass, go back to that night. Go back to that feeling you had—the one that made you get on that boat.”
I took a long, deep breath and closed my eyes. This part was important and I wanted to make sure everyone knew it.
“I told you that I had a plan to go home in the morning, but that I wanted to find out what was going on and where we were and why Emma knew this man and why she had run away. When I knew all of that and I knew she was safe, I would go home. And because I had this plan that would make it impossible for anyone to blame me for anything, and then the smell of the trees and water—it just felt so clean. I felt so clean. And because I was clean, I could let myself enjoy this one night when everything was being turned upside down, when everyone would have to stop and open their eyes to see that things were not perfect for Emma because she had left this way and taken me with her. I felt alive. I felt hopeful. It’s hard to describe. Something had lifted off me. Something heavy.”
Dr. Winter looked at me with narrow eyes, like she was concentrating very hard. “What wasn’t perfect, Cass? What did you want people to see when you left?”
The room got quiet and I realized I had said too much. Agent Strauss didn’t let me answer, and I was relieved.
“It sounds like you felt powerful,” he said.
“Yes! Like by going on that boat, I was going to change everything.”
“So you got on the boat. Emma got on the boat. Then Bill…” Agent Strauss said, moving the story forward even more. Dr. Winter let him do it, but I could sense that she wanted to go back to her question, the one Agent Strauss had not made me answer.
“And then Rick untied the lines and pushed us off. I thought for a second that he was going to stay on the dock because we started to move away and he was still pushing. But then he grabbed hold of the rail and got on with us. I remembered the boats in Nantucket and how we were told not to try to do that, try to get on a boat that was moving away from the dock, because if we fell in and the water pushed the boat back toward the dock, it could crush us. Is that right, Dad? Did that happen in Nantucket?”
My father was staring at me but he didn’t answer. I think he was in a state of shock, or maybe swept away by the storm inside his head. Mrs. Martin said his name sternly. She said it twice, like this. “Owen Tanner! Owen!”
I realized then that he had been listening and that he had heard my question because he answered it. “Yes. I did say that. That did happen in Nantucket.”
But my father did not want to hear about the boat and the dock and how I felt powerful the night I went to the island.
“Cass,” he said, “was this Bill person the father? Did this man get your sister pregnant?”
I tried to explain the best I could.
“I couldn’t talk to Emma that night. We were never alone, not for a minute. We were given separate rooms. Bill and Lucy brought us into their house and got us settled. I couldn’t see much. It was very d
ark and because the house runs on a generator, they use flashlights and candles at night after dark. Lucy gave me a sandwich and a toothbrush and she did her best to pretend she wasn’t bothered by me being there, but I knew she was. I heard her speaking harshly to Bill when she thought I was brushing my teeth. But I wasn’t brushing my teeth. I was standing near the bathroom door, listening. Emma was taken down another hallway. She looked back at me and smiled like she was really excited and I should be excited, too.
“So I just tried to go to sleep. The room was small. It had a twin bed and a dresser and a mirror. That was it. But it did have a window. I turned out the light and got under the covers. I was tired but my mind was racing. I don’t know how long I lay there awake before I heard Emma’s voice.
“I went to the window and saw that Emma was in a room across a small courtyard. I didn’t know anything about the house that night, but of course I came to know it well. Every inch of it. There was a courtyard in the back and the house formed a U shape around it. So across the courtyard, I could see the bedrooms on the other side, and that night I could see Emma, Bill and Lucy in Emma’s room. They were talking and then they both hugged Emma. As soon as they left, I opened my window and called out. I tried to do it in a whisper, but she couldn’t hear me so I raised my voice until she did. She came to her window and leaned out the way I was. ‘Where are we?’ I asked. But she didn’t answer. She just looked back with this knowing smile, like she knew exactly what she was doing and like she was certain that what she was doing was the best thing anyone could ever do. She rubbed the silver angel on the necklace.
“I kept thinking that night that we were in a safe place. Once Rick left, there was only a large wooden rowboat at the dock and no cars anywhere. I knew we were on an island because the boat approached from the back and docked on the side, and from the front, where the house faced, you could see it was just water forever and ever. I was excited about this new place, but I barely slept because I was so worried about how I would get a ride home or find a phone to call you to come and get me. I went over the things I would say to Emma and Bill or maybe Lucy. I was already feeling bad because we had traveled far and getting home would be difficult. I knew Emma would be furious with me. I didn’t know then that she was pregnant.
“The next day was when she told me. I asked her who the father was and she said she couldn’t tell me that. She said Bill and Lucy were going to help her have the baby and start a new life. You have to believe me. I did plan to come home. But all of that changed in the morning when Emma pleaded with me. She said if I went home, you would make me tell you where she was and that she wouldn’t be able to have her baby, so I promised her I would stay. I’m so sorry! I know I caused a lot of problems. But I had to choose my sister.”
I looked at my mother then, and said it one more time so there would be no doubt.
“I had to choose Emma.”
SIX
Dr. Winter
They interviewed Cass Tanner for two hours after the forensics team left. She had given them more than enough to begin the search for the island where she and her sister had been held captive for nearly three years. She was physically and emotionally drained and had once again asked to rest.
Leo wanted her to go to the hospital for a thorough physical examination. Abby wanted to give her a comprehensive psychological examination. She had refused both, and because she confirmed there had been no sexual or physical abuse, because she had shown no signs of cognitive impairment, they let it go. For now.
Her parents had stood behind her on this and had already begun fighting over whose house she should be resting in. Abby and the agents agreed to return in a few hours so Cass could continue her story and work with a sketch artist on drawings of the Pratts, of the boatman, Rick, and of the man with the truck. It would take that long to get someone in from the city on a Sunday morning anyway. Still, a few hours would not pass quickly.
“It’s going to be in the details. In something she doesn’t even know is important,” Leo said.
They had retreated to his car to escape the swarm of agents and local cops—not to mention the Martins and Owen Tanner. A press conference was being planned, and after that, the house would be a circus.
The field offices in New Haven and Maine had already run searches through the FBI’s National Crime Information Center, or NCIC, and the DMV, turning up nothing on Bill and Lucy Pratt. No land records, deeds, birth certificates, tax filings. No social security numbers. They would move on to utilities, credit cards, cell phone carriers—but this road was narrowing fast.
“They’re off the grid. Or Pratt isn’t their real name. Maybe both.”
Abby looked at the house from the passenger-seat window. “Fits the story. If these people were taking in runaway teens, it makes sense they wouldn’t use their real names.”
Leo turned the ignition so he could roll down the windows. “Do you mind? It’s so damn hot. And I’m so damn old. Can’t stand the summers anymore.”
Abby didn’t answer him.
“What are you thinking?” he asked.
She turned her gaze from the house to the dashboard. “We need to go back through the file. There’s no way this happened without a trace of anything—no calls or e-mails or text messages. Maybe there was some kind of code when she was making this plan. Maybe she told the father, whoever he is, and he was pressuring her. Maybe we’ll see it—now that we know what to look for.”
Leo shrugged. “I don’t know, Abigail. Or we could just spin wheels again.”
The story of the night the Tanner sisters disappeared had been shocking to hear. It explained everything—the shoes at the beach, the car. Why Cass left with nothing but also why nothing of hers was found at the beach or in the car with Emma’s. It explained the fight over the necklace and the car leaving late at night. And it explained why neither girl returned.
Still, the complete absence of any evidence of Emma’s pregnancy or her plan to leave home to have the baby was unsettling.
Cass had gone on from the story of that first night to explain why she didn’t try to leave, and why she didn’t know who the father was. Abby had hung on her every word, desperate to fill in the missing pieces after so many years of wondering. Everything had made sense while she was telling the story, but it had left Abby hungry for more.
“So Emma wouldn’t tell Cass who the father was or how she found the Pratts?” Leo asked, though the question was rhetorical. “That seems strange if they were so close.”
“It fits their relationship,” Abby answered. “Emma keeping secrets like ammunition. Cass treating Emma like an authority figure, like a mother. Not asking questions. Doing what she was told. Not demanding answers.”
She started to say more about this. How there is always the “chosen” child in families like this one, the one who becomes the target of the sick parent, leaving the other neglected sibling to turn to that chosen child for needs that should have been met by a grown caregiver. But all of this was tied to the theory of the case Abby had not been able to let go of—that Judy Martin was a narcissist, that her illness was somehow related to the girls’ disappearance. It was the theory that had caused the Martins to retreat and hide three years before. And the theory that had driven a wedge between Abby and Leo. None of that would be productive now. Still, Abby added it to her file.
Leo pulled out his phone. He had a sheepish look on his face. “I may have accidentally recorded the interview,” he said. It was against Bureau policy to record interviews with witnesses without their consent.
Abby smiled and pulled out hers. “I may have made the same mistake.”
Leo searched the recording of their session on his phone.
“Here it is,” he said, pressing play.
“She said if I ever left, I would tell the police who had helped her. And if she told me about the father, I would tell that, too, and then he would take the baby. She was scared. This wasn’t about her keeping secrets from me just to be mean, which
she did a lot. And she was also right. If I had left the island, I would have told everything and anything I could to help find her and save her. And to punish the wicked people who wouldn’t let us leave. I’m doing that now. I’m telling you everything I can think of and I don’t care who gets in trouble.”
Leo stopped the recording. “She says later that she thinks the father was a boy Emma met in Paris that summer—at her summer program. The timing of that fits.”
“She had the baby in March. She was in Paris June and July. It does fit. But what about this mysterious person who links her to the Pratts?”
Leo found another piece of the interview to play.
“She just said it was someone she trusted. She said when she told this person she was pregnant and needed to leave home to have her baby, this person found the Pratts. Emma said it took nearly two weeks. That it had something to do with runaway teenagers. Emma said that the Pratts were not going to adopt the baby but were just going to help her take care of it until she could figure out what to do. I can’t even tell you how strange it was when we both saw Lucy get crazy, keeping the baby for herself, keeping Emma away from her own child, there was like this panic that grew so slowly, a little every day, from little moments that were just not right, but then what did we know about what was right? We had never raised a baby. We had never had a child. Maybe this is what people do when they help you like that.”
“That’s when she looked right at you, Abby? Remember?”
Abby nodded, her eyes fixed on Leo’s phone and the voice of Cass Tanner.
“When you don’t know something like that—like how to take care of a baby—but then the people who have taken care of you and pretended to love you are doing something that seems wrong, it can make you feel crazy. Like your thoughts about them being wrong are crazy because they’re saying all these things that sound right. And because there are these moments when it seems as though the love is real.”