by Wendy Walker
Vivid images from her own childhood had already begun flashing before her, like they’d been stored in a secret box that Cass had just opened. Little Meg, hiding under a table as their mother searched for her with a belt in one hand and a bottle of vodka in the other. Their mother wearing a see-through top to their school to watch them in a play. Their mother flirting with a young landscaper out on the lawn. There were so many. Too many. But they were nothing close to the image of Judy Martin with those scissors.
Abby’s father had left when she was five. It’s not easy to live with a narcissist. The constant pushing and pulling to reconfirm your love and commitment grows very tiresome very quickly. For all her manipulative skills, Abby’s mother had misread their father. He had been drawn to her beauty, her charm, which was undeniable, but he wanted a normal life and he found a new woman who could give that to him.
The divorce came as a shock to her mother. Losing her husband dismantled the fragile alter ego that had been protecting her, the delusions of her elevated place in the world. The delusions of her power and control over people. She reacted violently, first by contesting every step of the divorce—not showing up for court, refusing to follow orders that the judge issued—anything to prevent it from ending. But it did end eventually, and when it did, she drowned herself in alcohol. She died one rainy night driving back from a bar, high on cocaine and a blood alcohol level of .22. Abby and Meg had gone to live with their father and his new wife. Both had passed in recent years.
Something had shifted today. Abby could feel it. She was beginning to see the forces at play, to see the patterns in Cass’s behavior and demeanor. Cass had resisted their ongoing efforts to speak with her alone. She wanted her mother there, but it was not for comfort. She wanted her mother to hear the stories about the island and the horrible things that were done to her daughters and her granddaughter. She became desperate and tearful when her mother reacted with surprise or outrage or disbelief. Yes, Abby had concluded. It was the disbelief that caused the greatest shift in Cass’s demeanor, like she was panicked.
And then there were moments when she tensed up and grew quiet. When her eyes searched furiously among the audience, gauging their reactions, their emotions, to what was being said by Judy Martin. She did not like that Abby was being kind to Judy. She was starting to see Abby as an ally—but in what war? Finding the Pratts? Finding Emma? Or something else? There was no doubt Cass Tanner had a plan that she was not revealing.
But Abby had her own plan for Judy Martin. She had studied these people. She knew them inside and out. Judy Martin had to trust her; she had to believe that Abby was under her spell. And then it might come—in the things she didn’t say and the ways she didn’t react. Judy had to trust. And Abby had to be patient.
She’d gone home last night, after the second day, after hearing the horrible story about the dock and the retaliation for Cass’s first attempt to escape. She’d stared at the sketches of Bill and Lucy Pratt, of the boatman Rick, and the truck driver. She had written a preliminary analysis of their psychology, the possible traumas that were at play, and she had spoken to the field teams about her theories. The boatman was easy. Childhood dysfunction had led him to the brutal life on that fishing boat at such a young age. And the rape of that woman on the boat had debilitated him with self-hatred.
As for the Pratts, they had also suffered some kind of trauma. And it had to do with a child. Their desperation to have a baby, but also the lack of compassion for Emma’s daughter as she screamed in terror over the cold, black water—they had grown immune to that kind of attachment. Now the baby was no more than a psychological object. It was not real. Something had numbed them to genuine love.
It was just a working theory, but they had to start somewhere.
When Leo returned with Cass, Judy was right beside her. He gave Abby a look that said he had tried but failed to get Cass alone.
“If you’re ready to start again, we want to hear more about the boatman, Rick. Everything you can tell us about him will be helpful,” Abby said. “You told us he helped you escape. And that the first time you tried, he turned you away.”
“Yes,” Cass said.
“And you said that something changed after that incident on the dock, when they tried to make you leave without the baby.”
“Yes.”
“He had a look on his face, like the Pratts may have crossed the line,” Abby said. “We want you to finish the story, fill in the gap between your first escape attempt and your final escape that brought you home.”
Cass looked at her hands again, concentration pulling across her face. “Do you think you’ll find him soon? Now that you have the sketch?”
Leo answered her. “The problem is that he has no incentive to come forward. He participated in kidnapping. And he already has a guilty conscience from the incident with that woman on the fishing boat in Alaska. Then there’s the loyalty to the Pratts, whatever might be left of it. It may come down to finding his family. Seeing if they know anything. Did he ever mention that? His own family?”
Cass shook her head. “No. He never did.”
“Okay. That’s fine,” Leo said. “Why don’t you tell us what you can about him.”
Cass nodded slowly, then began to speak about the boatman. “I thought a lot about loyalty.” Her voice was steady, as if she were explaining a term paper she’d written in school. “… I think it’s founded on one of three things. The first is debt. For example, if you saved my life, I may be loyal to you forever. The amount of loyalty and the time it lasts will depend on the debt that is owed.”
Leo leaned forward, confused and about to interrupt her. It was a strange way to begin her story about Rick, and how he went from turning her in to helping her leave. But Abby reached out and touched his hand, shaking her head. Stopping him. This was exactly what she wanted from Cass. The truth would come as much from the digressions as from the story itself.
“What’s the second one, Cass?” Abby asked her.
“The second is money. If you pay me to be loyal, then I will be loyal as long as I need the money.”
Leo nodded. “I can see that. Do you think it was money that made Rick so loyal?”
“Well, the third thing is about keeping secrets. If I know you will keep my secrets, then I will keep yours in return. This is the most pure form of loyalty, I think. But like most pure things, it is also the most vulnerable.”
“Because secrets can hurt you?” Abby offered.
Cass nodded, her gaze somewhere on the table in front of her clasped hands. “I did a lot of thinking about Rick after that first time I tried to leave. I thought about how he didn’t seem to care about anything. The fishing boat may have done bad things to his mind like the Pratts told me, but there was a reason he was on that boat to begin with. Why would someone choose to do that at eighteen?”
Abby drew a long breath and leaned back in her chair. She was buying time before answering the question.
“Sometimes people do things like that to escape emotional pain. Extreme things that cause them to focus their attention away from the cause of the pain.”
Cass glanced up then, an excited look on her face. “Yes! I think that’s it. I think he was already in pain. The thing is, the Pratts did pay him, but he could get work as a boatman anywhere. And from the way he dressed, I didn’t believe they were paying him more than other people might. So that left two things—debt and secrets. The Pratts helped him get off drugs. They paid for some rehab program and let him go to meetings every Wednesday night. If we ever needed something on a Wednesday afternoon or evening, we were out of luck. Lucy told us that every Tuesday because, as she said, ‘I don’t want to hear any complaining tomorrow if you don’t have ice cream or a new DVD.’
“In my mind, he had paid off this debt. The Pratts had gotten him off drugs, and they’d helped him with his conscience, but he had helped them with our kidnapping. He had taken my rowboat and put it back on the dock. And then he’d told them about
my failed escape, and because of him, Emma and her baby were nearly drowned, and we were forced to stay—”
Cass stopped herself. Her face had turned red like she was about to scream or cry or pound the table with her fists. She was so different from other times when she’d told stories that should have been hard to tell. Even harder than this one. But she had been remarkably calm.
Abby touched her hand. “I understand what you’re saying. He repaid that debt.”
“So you think it was about secrets?” Leo asked.
Cass nodded.
“The secret he had about Alaska and how he didn’t help that woman?”
She nodded again. “As far as he knew, the Pratts never told a soul about what he had witnessed in Alaska, what he had let happen in front of his own eyes. But I knew, didn’t I? I know I’m still young. But it shocks me some of the things I know that other people don’t.”
She turned her eyes back to the spot on the table.
“Your secrets are never safe. Not ever. Unless you never tell them to another person. It was so obvious. Lucy felt worthless for not having a baby. Helping Rick was one of her shining moments and it made her feel like she was a good person even though she couldn’t have a child and had to steal Emma’s. But she hated herself so much that it wasn’t enough just to have it inside her, to know it herself. She needed us to know about this wonderful thing she’d done for Rick, and that need trumped any trust that Rick had placed in her.
“Do you ever feel conflicted by this?” she asked, her eyes now on Abby.
“I’m not sure I understand.”
“I know that we all need people. I mean, we need to trust people and we’re always seeking out love, aren’t we? But I can’t ignore what’s in my head. Everyone I could ever trust, everyone you could ever trust, could betray you. It doesn’t matter who they are or whether they mean to do it. Your friends. Your husband. Your wife. Your siblings. Your child. Even your parents. Some people just do it and they don’t care. They don’t think twice about it. But others do it and they justify it in their heads so you can’t even blame them. They have their reasons. Do you know what I’m talking about?”
Abby nodded cautiously.
“That’s what I meant when I said this kind of loyalty is vulnerable. Because your secrets are never safe and that person who has your loyalty will betray you one day. That’s what Lucy did to Rick. Do you see?”
Leo answered her question. “Yes, Cass. I see.”
But Judy Martin did not see, and she could not stay silent for one more second. Something about this had gotten under her skin. “This is very silly talk, sweetheart. If this was true, we would all be killing each other, wouldn’t we? Some people can be trusted. If you choose the right ones. And if you are the type of person who’s worthy of their loyalty. That’s what I believe,” she said, finishing with a determined nod.
Cass ignored her and continued.
“When I was on the island and I came to these terrible conclusions, I was not sad. I added these conclusions to the expression I had seen on Rick’s face that day on the dock. Suddenly my plan to escape felt real, so real that it filled me with excitement.
“One day I was sitting on the dock waiting for the boat. Rick tied up the boat and tucked the keys into a small pouch he carried around his waist so we couldn’t steal it. He looked surprised but didn’t ask me why I was there. I watched him do his work and then grab some bags of groceries. ‘Can I help you?’ I asked. He said no. He started to walk and I followed him. And then I just blurted it out. ‘I’m sorry about what happened to you in Alaska.’ He missed a step, stopped, but did not look back at me. He started up again and I let him go. That was enough then. I had planted the seed.”
Abby knew exactly what she had done. “You were letting him know that they had betrayed his trust. They had gossiped about a horrible thing he had done, that he was deeply ashamed of.”
Leo spoke then. “So you could sever the loyalty?”
Cass nodded. “It was the beginning, yes. It took a long time for that to eat away inside him, but it did. And when it did, it left a void.”
“A void which you filled?” Abby asked. She already knew the answer. It was the next logical step in this plan of manipulation.
“Yes.”
“Were you intimate with him, Cass? Do you know what I mean by that?”
Cass nodded and looked up abruptly, her eyes sharp and focused, and directed at Abby. “Yes,” she answered.
Judy gasped and covered her mouth with her hand like she was horrified. “Cass!” she said. “How could you not tell us this right away?”
Abby ignored her. “How did this happen? And when? Can you tell us that?”
“It took me a long time, but I used that power, you know? With sex. Sex power. It’s how women get power over men, right?” She was looking at her mother then. The room grew quiet for a moment.
Abby wanted desperately to go down this road, but not now. Not with Judy here. So she moved on. “You created the void and then filled it with something new.”
“Yes. I filled it with something new. I filled it with pieces of me. And every time I gave him a piece, it would take me days to remember why I was doing it,” she said.
Abby nodded. “It must have been very hard to be with someone like that. For reasons that are not known to him, only to you.”
The room grew silent for a long moment before Leo pushed forward. “So when you were able to sneak out one night, he was there waiting. With the boat and the friend with the truck on the mainland?”
“Yes,” she answered again. “Like I said. It was not easy. And it took a long time. It took months.”
“And in all that time, there must have been conversations. Does anything stand out? Anything at all about where you were, where Rick was from, how he knew the Pratts, how they paid him—?”
Cass started shaking her head wildly. “No! Don’t you think I would have told you? He barely spoke to me. And if I had pushed him on anything like that, he would have stopped believing that he could trust me!”
“Okay, Cass. It’s okay. What about the truck driver? Did Rick say how he knew this man?” Leo was not giving up.
Cass shook her head.
Abby jumped in then. “Cass, we need you to see another doctor. An adult doctor.”
But Cass refused. “I want you to do that examination, the one my mother keeps asking for. The one that will prove I’m not crazy.”
“No one thinks you’re crazy, Cass,” Leo said.
“We’ll do it tomorrow,” Abby agreed.
“Okay.” Cass seemed relieved. “Are you still going to find them? Find the island? Find those horrible people, even though I did what I did with the boatman?”
Leo looked at Abby. She could see the father in him screaming to come out. This was one of those moments when Cass seemed like a child, and it stood in glaring contrast with the other moments when she was wise beyond her years.
All of this was alarming to Abby.
“We will find them,” Leo said with conviction. “And we will find your sister.”
Cass appeared neither surprised nor comforted by the reaction she had provoked. It was something else, something akin to satisfaction, which meant it was calculated.
Cass Tanner was taking them all on a journey, and the only way they would find Emma was to go along for the ride.
THIRTEEN
Cass
Our mother had taught us about “sex power” around the time when Emma was thirteen. It was just after Mrs. Martin had started having sex with Mr. Martin behind our father’s back, and so I think she was very pleased with herself because she had discovered that this power had not left her. Mr. Martin was very powerful, and my mother was getting older.
It’s not just about age and beauty, girls, she used to say with that smile I hated. It’s how you make them feel—like they’re the ones who are powerful! Like they make you melt like no other man. It’s a trick women play. Think of it like a game.<
br />
She gave us lessons like this whenever something came up that seemed relevant to her. A woman with big breasts and a low-cut shirt at the club—See how all the men are trying to talk to her? Things like that. Emma always listened but pretended not to. I always pretended to listen when I was actually blocking out the sound of her silly voice and her even sillier words.
When I first met Dr. Winter, I knew she had never used Mrs. Martin’s sex power on a man. I don’t know how I knew this. Maybe because she was still single. Maybe because she did not react to Mrs. Martin the way most women do, which is with a mix of envy and contempt because they wish they had her sex power but hate that they need it to get things in life. I think that when you see a woman who has sex power but chooses not to use it, she is someone you can trust.
I considered then the possibility of trusting Dr. Winter. I considered falling apart in her arms the way I did with my brother when I saw him the next day, and telling her about my mother and the things she had done. But I had learned my lesson years before with that woman from the court, and with my father. It’s like I keep saying—people believe what they want to believe, and I had no idea what Dr. Winter wanted to believe. I feared I had already told her too much with the story about Emma’s hair.
Sex power has its limits. I knew this because of the things that had happened at home before I left. I knew this again when I saw Hunter and his girlfriend. And I knew this from Mr. Martin and how he looked at Emma when Mrs. Martin was right there for the taking, every second of every day.
I knew this before the naked photos of Emma were posted on the Internet. So when I saw them, I knew who had taken them.
The IP address was traced to our Internet at our home, which meant they had to have been sent from the desktop computer we all shared, or Hunter’s laptop. Neither of them had any stored photos of Emma without her top, so it was also assumed that they had been deleted. We could have had the computers sent away to see if they could find traces of them in the deleted files, but Mr. Martin refused. He told my mother that because Emma was a minor, if a technician found traces of naked photos, they could all be accused of child pornography because the computer technician would have to turn the information over to the FBI. The technician confirmed this. He told Mr. Martin that this very thing had happened in divorce cases—a suspicious wife let him poke around the deleted files of her husband’s computer, and he found images of underage girls from sites that pop up when you’re surfing porn. The husband probably wasn’t looking for underage girls when he was doing his porn surfing, but that’s what he got, and once it’s on your computer, it never really leaves.