by Edwin Hill
“Good ol’ Rory,” Lydia said. “My bet is he wants this pinned on anyone but himself, which I get. I’ve known Rory my whole life. He wouldn’t do anything, ever, to hurt Oliver or me. So whatever people are saying, don’t pay attention. And if there’s some mystery connection between Oliver and Ethan, it has nothing to do with him. Got it?”
The intensity in Lydia’s voice surprised Annie, but small towns ran on rumors that could be more destructive than the coming storm. To truly know what people believed, you had to become part of the fiber of the place. “You went to high school with him?” she said.
“Yeah, did Vaughn tell you that?” Lydia said. “Vaughn’s got one big mouth on him. Practically impossible to get him to shut up. What else did he tell you?”
“Not much,” Annie said. “He said he’s divorced and moved back here this summer.”
“Vaughn split with his wife Sophie a few months ago. I don’t think he’s too happy about being here, but that’s life. And I’m glad he’s here.” Lydia’s phone beeped, and she glanced at a text. “That’s Trey. He’s on his way. They’re in the boat from the mainland now, so things should get going soon. And he wants to talk to you.” She ruffled Oliver’s hair. “Be a good boy. Do what Annie tells you.”
“We’ll have a blast,” Annie said.
“A blaft,” Oliver said, in a way that Annie suspected he did it on purpose, to melt her heart.
As Lydia turned to leave, Annie asked, “Do you know who uses purple and blue buoys for their traps?”
“Yeah,” Lydia said. “Me.”
“You have traps?”
“Just a few. They’re not commercial. Most people on the island have some for themselves. Why do you ask?”
“I found one. On the beach. I wanted to return it.”
“Lucky. It wouldn’t have lasted the night,” Lydia said, then hurried off through town.
Annie waited till she’d turned the corner to pull Oliver in close. He was too old to smell of talc, but Annie loved the way he babbled, his words just tipping over the line of forming coherent sentences. She loved him, more than he knew, more than his parents could ever understand.
“I’m an inch worm!” she said, holding her arms at her side and pretending to slither along the ground.
“I’m a bee!” Oliver ran from flower to flower, sticking his nose deep into each one.
“I’m a bear! And I want honey!” Annie said, standing tall and looming over Oliver till he shrieked and darted away. She chased after him, catching up and offering a hand.
He took it, without question.
The community center was an old multipurpose building that served as police headquarters, the volunteer fire department, space for community gatherings, a summertime church, and the jail, when needed. Today, as the afternoon turned toward evening and wind and rain increased in intensity, people spilled from the building and huddled under awnings. A group of young men in flannel poured beer from growlers into red plastic cups. From inside the building, the strum of a guitar and the wistful notes of a local folk singer floated on the wind. The whole scene felt more like a celebration than a search for a missing child. Annie hung back, bracing herself against the gusts of thick, warm air. One of the men offered her a beer, and she took it while a band of children chased one another, weaving in and out of the crowd. Oliver joined them, melting into a sea of faces. Annie ran after him, forcing her way through a wall of bodies till she saw that he’d joined a circle of other children in the one-room schoolhouse while the local teacher watched over them. Annie told the teacher that Oliver had joined the kids, and the young woman raised a gentle hand. “I’ve got it,” she said.
Back outside in the rain, Annie saw Vaughn stride up the hill, like her, still in his oilskins. He lit a cigarette as he began conferring with some of the people. A moment later, he went inside and came back out with a bullhorn. “No luck finding this kid yet,” he said to the group. “The state police are on their way, but in the meantime we’ll need every one of you to do the best you can in the time we have left. The storm’ll be raging soon.” He waited for the murmurs to stop as people in the crowd whispered to one another. “There’s an Amber Alert out, and they’re working that on the mainland. But here, tonight, we’ll assume that Ethan is still local. He may be lost. He may be confused. He may be injured. Understood?”
Vaughn spent the next few minutes organizing people into small groups, which then set out on foot or piled into the few trucks on the island. When he caught Annie staring, he waved her over. She pretended not to see and retreated inside the community center, but a moment later, he found her again. “Are you avoiding me?” he asked as he held a cup of coffee toward her. “Cream and sugar, right? Friends remember those details.”
Annie took the coffee and let the friend comment wash away.
“We’re nearly organized,” Vaughn said. “There’s only another hour of light, though, and it’s a moon tide tonight on top of everything else, which means flooding. Half the island lost power about ten minutes ago. The other half should follow, at least for anyone who doesn’t have a generator.”
Vaughn bit into a sandwich, which was all Annie needed to feel her hunger at last. Her stomach rumbled, and Vaughn pointed to a corner of the room where a group of women had set up tables and seemed to celebrate each time another platter arrived. “Gotta grab some sustenance before you head out.”
Annie pushed her way to the table, where she wolfed down a sandwich, barely taking the time to chew. A smorgasbord of food stretched out across the surface, and Annie ignored the way the women attending the setup looked at her as she refilled her coffee cup. One of them, with steely gray hair, approached with a smile. Annie suspected that she was the type who took her dahlias seriously. “Can I help you, dear?” she asked.
Annie wiped a hand on her oilskins. “I’m a volunteer. Like everyone else.”
These women, with their boats and their L.L.Bean fashion, had never had to fight for anything in their lives. They wouldn’t survive a day of Annie’s life. And they wanted her to leave. She felt her resolve washing away right as a hand slipped around her waist. It was Lydia, who dropped two boxes from the bakery on the table.
“Thanks for rallying the troops,” Lydia said to the older woman. “It’ll be a long night. You’ve met Annie, right?”
“Of course,” the woman said.
“She’s my friend, so be nice,” Lydia said, steering Annie away from the table.
They stopped by the schoolhouse to check on Oliver and then went outside and crossed the muddy path to where Lydia had tied two draft horses to a tree. Annie stood back as her friend ran a hand through the horses’ manes. The horses were huge, one black and the other a mottled dun color, the kind bred to work a farm, not for riding in the countryside. Lydia waved Annie over and handed her the reins. The horse whinnied, and Annie couldn’t help but take a step away.
“Nothing to worry about with these two,” Lydia said. “They’re both about twenty-five years old and tuckered out, but they’ve always been gentle. The black one is Lenny.” Lydia took Annie’s hand and rested it on the horse’s mane. Her fingers ran through the rough hair. “This one is Squiggy,” Lydia said. “Don’t tell Lenny, but Squiggy is my favorite.”
Annie reached toward Squiggy but withdrew her hand when he brayed and showed his yellowed teeth.
“They don’t bite.”
Vaughn appeared at Lydia’s side, taking Lenny’s reins from her. Annie stepped away, grateful for the distance. Lydia swung under Squiggy’s neck and held him by the muzzle. “There you are,” she said to Vaughn as she leaned against the horse’s shoulder.
Vaughn pulled an apple from his pocket and offered it to Lenny. “You ready?” he asked.
“Should we wait for Trey?” Lydia asked.
“We should get going,” Vaughn said. “There’s a missing kid.”
Lydia nodded, and Vaughn cupped his hands to give her a leg up. She leaned into him. “Have you been smoking?” sh
e asked.
“No.”
“Liar.”
Lydia swung into the saddle and fixed her boots in the stirrups. The horse took a step backward, then steadied himself with a snort. Vaughn lifted himself onto Lenny. Annie watched them in silence till Lydia seemed to remember she was there.
“Is that woman at your house by herself?” Lydia asked. “The mother? You should go be with her.”
“We’re not friends,” Annie said.
“Still, you know she’s worried sick. And you’re the only other person who lives there.”
“Why do you care?” Annie asked.
“Because I’ve been there. I know what it’s like to feel completely alone. Promise me you’ll go.”
“Okay,” Annie said. Lydia was right. No one should be alone in their worst moments, not even Frankie.
Lydia turned the horse and began walking it down the path with Vaughn following. The sound of hooves clopping on mud floated beneath the roar of the wind. Annie walked after them, down the hill and away from the crowd, watching till Lydia and Vaughn disappeared into the rain.
All summer long, Annie had done anything she could to learn more about Lydia, to learn the things a best friend should know. Lydia liked mountain biking and spaghetti carbonara and listening to Phil Collins without irony. She seemed to tolerate her husband, Trey, and definitely loved her son. But in three months, Lydia hadn’t mentioned Vaughn Roberts once, not till yesterday when she’d told Annie that a friend from high school needed a sternman on his boat. “He comes to the bakery all the time,” she said, with a dismissive wave of her hand. “We used to be friends, but now I barely know him.”
Now, Annie reached the swing bridge and glanced at the raging water below. As she crossed, clinging to the metal railing, a smile slowly crept across her face. Before that very moment at the community center, she hadn’t ever been alone with Lydia and Vaughn. Not once. But she’d experienced enough in her life to know what she’d seen. Those two were in love. And knowing that truth made everything, all of it, so much easier.
CHAPTER 5
Somehow, Hester’s whole day had melted away till, well into the afternoon, she and Kate wound up in the Union Square Market Basket, wandering up and down the narrow, crowded aisles of the supermarket, the heels of Hester’s sneakers slipping on the sawdust-covered floor. Flowers, she told herself. Don’t forget the flowers. What would a birthday party be without them? And a cake. And candles, of course. In truth, Hester was thrilled that Morgan’s birthday party would coincide with tonight’s storm. It would be fun to ride it out with friends, and she hoped the storm would provide enough of a distraction from Daphne’s absence so that she and Morgan wouldn’t actually talk about it. That would be too hard.
“What should we have for dinner?” Hester asked Kate.
They’d been here for over a half hour, and Hester hadn’t managed to put a single item in her cart. Maybe she’d make a roast or a stew, something that fit the stormy weather. But she stood with her feet rooted to the ground in front of the long cases filled with meat of every cut and couldn’t decide. Couldn’t commit.
“Arugula!” Kate said.
Arugula. Always arugula. At least Kate was consistent. “And chicken fingers?”
Kate raised both hands over her head. Score! But you couldn’t feed adults with chicken fingers and ketchup.
“Will Mommy come to the party?” Kate asked.
Hester touched the girl’s curly, honey-colored hair. Daphne came up in conversation less and less these days, though Hester still made a point of taking out a photo of her from time to time. Still, Kate picked up on things that surprised Hester, making connections on her own. “Mommy has the same birthday as Uncle Morgan. They’re twins, right?” Hester said.
“Like Isabel and Aiden.”
Hester resisted asking who Isabel and Aiden might be. It had been over a month since Kate had been to school, let alone had a playdate. Best case, they were stuffed animals. Worst case had Kate reverting to creepy imaginary friends, and twins no less.
“I don’t think your mother will make it tonight,” Hester said. “Though I’d love it if she did.”
Kate took the news in stride, humming to herself, her face tied in thought as Hester pushed the empty cart forward.
Flowers.
That would be easy.
Get the cart there. Choose a bouquet. Move on.
But when Hester maneuvered to the front of the store, the choices—the roses and the carnations and the dahlias and the tulips—overwhelmed her. None of this was hard, she reminded herself. She’d chosen flowers dozens of times in her life. How about roses? Who didn’t like roses? And they came in red and pink and white and some strange shade of orange.
“Blue!” Kate said, pointing with her entire body to a bouquet of daisies, dyed electric blue and dusted with glitter.
“Blue?” Hester said.
“Yes!” Kate said.
There was a choice. An easy one. Give in to blue daisies, no matter how ugly. “Pretty, right?” Hester said, tossing the bouquet into the cart. Not too hard!
“Orange!” Kate said, this time pointing to the orange roses.
“Orange!” Hester said, and she tossed those into the cart too.
“Pink!” Kate said, and Hester grabbed two bouquets of pink tulips. Pink would lighten up the evening on a fall night. Besides, giving in was easier than choosing on her own.
“Red!” Kate said.
Maybe choosing meant buying everything. Maybe Hester would fill the cart with nothing but flowers, and she could fill the house with long-lost cheer. That’s something Hester’s mother would have done, unfettered, blissful, tossing fistfuls of petals while Hester scurried behind her, trying to create a sense of order. And that thought stopped Hester, her hand hovering over the red roses. Whatever happened, she couldn’t become her mother.
“Red!” Kate said, her face turning a similar shade.
It used to be that Hester could distract Kate with princesses or with a raspberry. For the longest time, Kate called raspberries “rubles” and she’d come in for sneak attacks, covering Hester’s ear or cheek with spray. Hester could use numbers now for an even longer distraction, but she missed the rubles. She missed the surprise. She missed that she’d missed the last one, that she’d probably wiped it off with the back of her hand instead of leaving it there to dry.
“How many flowers do we already have?” she asked. “Count them.”
It worked. Kate’s face softened as she moved from the precipice of a tantrum to contemplating the flowers in the cart. She began to count right as Hester’s phone rang. Hester glanced at the display, which told her it was someone calling from Scituate, on the South Shore, near where she’d grown up. Near her mother.
These days, Hester usually ignored calls from numbers she didn’t recognize, preferring to stick to her small, close-knit group of friends. But she needed a distraction from the flowers. She needed to keep herself from buying the store out. And when she answered, the resulting conversation was what she’d expected: a potential client; a man (be wary); looking for a woman (very wary); one he’d dated (alert!) as a teenager. His voice was steady with a touch of the South Shore in his long vowels. He talked about the Iraq War, about leaving town, and a baby that might have been his. “I wasn’t ready then,” he said. “But I guess I am now. I guess I want to see if I can make up for lost time.”
Until last winter, Hester had run a side business finding missing people—adopted children, long-lost prom dates, friends from elementary school. And until last winter, it had all seemed so innocuous, innocent even. She’d believed that she provided a service, one where everyone she touched benefited. She hadn’t realized how much danger lurked in secrets, or that some things—some people—were better left lost.
The man kept talking, and she should have stopped him right away, but there was something in his story, something in his voice that made her want him to continue. She used to pride herself on being abl
e to weed out the crazies in the first few sentences, something about the tenor of their voices or the words they chose gave them away. This guy’s voice sounded genuine—and his name was Charlie! How could you get more genuine than Charlie? She imagined him, the straight back and close-cropped hair of a youth in the military. He was probably close to her age, staring down forty and trying to undo his few (or many) regrets.
“What else can I tell you?” the man asked.
“I’m sorry,” Hester said.
“What else do you need to know about the case.”
“Nothing,” Hester said.
“I didn’t tell you much.”
Kate tugged on Hester’s sleeve. “Forty-eight,” she whispered. “Forty-eight flowers.”
“Good job,” Hester whispered back. “I don’t do that anymore,” she added into the phone. “Find people. I gave it up.”
“But I read about you,” the man said. “Online.”
Hester wished she could find every website that mentioned her name, that told a version of her story, and delete it, but there were too many of them. And what did she really know about Charlie anyway? No matter how nice he sounded, he probably had a wife, a family, people who didn’t want the unpleasant truths Hester might bring to their lives. Who was she to decide anyone’s fate?
And maybe he was bullshitting her. Maybe he wanted to find his long-lost ex and her new husband. Maybe he’d already bought a shotgun and a hundred rounds and drove around at night in a rusted-out Chevy Nova hoping to hunt them down.
“If you’re serious about finding this woman,” Hester said, “I’d hire a real private detective. I’m just a librarian. Good luck.”
She clicked the phone off before he could protest. Then she returned all the flowers but the blue daisies, paid for them, and left the store, ignoring Kate’s protests the whole way.
* * *
Triage, Rory reminded himself. He could only do so much. And he had to choose. He forced his way through the crowd on the pier. It was well past five o’clock now, over an hour since the ferry should have left. More than one voice shouted his name. Someone called him an asshole.