by Edwin Hill
She gasped and inhaled water. She tried to orient herself as the floodlight from the bridge surged closer and careened over her. She’d missed the mark. She hadn’t even managed to catch a glimpse of Lydia or Vaughn.
The rope grew taut. Water surged down her throat and into her ears. She struggled until someone’s hand grabbed her and hauled her to shore.
She gasped for air, crawling across stone, coughing.
“You almost did it,” Rory said, squatting beside her. “A few more yards and you’d have made it.”
“I’ll make it this time.”
“Not a chance,” Rory whispered, but she pushed past him and stumbled to where Trey still gripped the end of the line. One of the horses, tied to a tree by the red hut, whinnied in terror, a sound that muted the storm.
“Trey, please,” she said.
“Shut up,” he whispered.
She heard Rory approaching. She looked across the water to where Lydia still clung to the tree. Lydia had everything Annie had ever wanted—a child, a husband, a business, success—and when Trey had finally seen her, it had made Annie believe that she could have those things too. It had made her believe that she might have found a home.
“This is too dangerous,” Rory said. “We’ll figure out another way.”
“Don’t let go of the line,” Annie said to Trey. She leapt into the water again.
It was as cold as before, but this time she surfaced without fighting the current, lifting her knees to her chest and holding her nose and mouth above the water’s surface. Ahead, she could see the fallen tree against the floodlight. She maneuvered herself to the center of the ravine, hurtling forward till she felt a hand clutching her arm and another grabbing at her leg. Lydia and Vaughn pulled her toward them till she could grasp at one of the tree limbs with her numb fingers.
“What the hell are you doing?” Lydia managed to shout, her lips blue, her teeth chattering.
“Saving your butts,” Annie said.
“Idiotic,” Lydia said.
“So was going in after Vaughn.”
“When we left on the boat this morning,” Vaughn said, exhaustion in his voice. “Who’d have guessed we’d wind up here?”
“You forgive me for the lobster? For wrecking your chance at fame?”
“Done and done.”
On shore, Rory and Trey had lashed the other end of the line to a tree. “We need to get you out of the water,” Annie said.
Lydia rested her head on Vaughn’s chest. He whispered something and kissed her forehead tenderly, and Annie wanted to shout at them both to stop. They’d ruin everything! They’d show Trey what he’d lost. Without Lydia, without the danger of discovery, Annie wouldn’t have a chance with Trey.
The tree shifted in the current.
“We have to go,” Annie said. “Now.”
Thankfully, Lydia pushed herself away from Vaughn. Above them, lights flashed from the bridge as backup finally arrived. Annie tied the rescue can to Lydia’s chest, and Lydia pulled herself hand over hand the thirty yards to shore. Vaughn went next, and Annie waited till Rory had hauled him to shore before following. By then, she barely felt the line in her numb fingers as she edged forward. The current ripped at her as water swept around her shoulders and over her head. She’d never imagined that ninety feet could feel so far. When her feet finally found a rock, she tried to stand. The current shoved her upper body forward while her sneaker stuck in the rocks. She fumbled for the line, losing it in the spray and darkness. Which way was up? How could she have survived this much and let this be her end, stupid enough to stand in a flooded ravine?
Again, it was Rory who reached for her, lifting her out of the current with his strong arms while Lydia and Vaughn gripped a line hastily tied around his waist. He tossed her onto the shore and collapsed beside her, his body wet and warm. “I told you not to stand,” he whispered. “You almost killed us both.”
Annie shoved him away. “Don’t tell me ten seconds in that water had you beat.”
“Ten seconds in that cold would have anyone beat.”
Just then, the tree in the ravine lifted. With a groan, it swept away, snapping the line.
“A few more seconds out there and we’d all have been beat,” Vaughn said.
Rory held a plastic bottle to Annie’s chapped lips. She sucked at the sweet water.
“Gus is making tea,” he said, offering a hand. She took it, though her legs still felt like jelly.
“Thanks, man,” Vaughn said to Rory.
“Doing my job,” Rory said. “Nothing else. And it’s Annie who took all the risk.”
“Well, I’m thanking you anyway,” Vaughn said. “And you,” he said to Annie, “you saved our lives.”
Above, Annie heard someone slipping down the embankment. They only had a moment before the rest of the world descended on them. “Where did Trey go?” she asked.
“He took off,” Rory said.
“What?” Lydia said. “Why?”
“I’ll give you one guess,” Rory said.
Lydia glanced at Vaughn, her expression defiant. “I don’t know what you think you saw . . .”
“I know exactly what I saw,” Rory said. “We all do.”
Annie felt numb. And she was horrified as a sob started in her chest. The more she tried to push it down, the more her face crumpled in despair.
Rory glanced away.
“It’s okay,” Vaughn mumbled. “We’re all safe.”
But it was Lydia who came to her side. “You are a hero!” Lydia said. “Really. We owe you so much. We owe you everything!”
“I’m fine. I’m fine,” Annie said, wiping tears away with a fist. “It’s so embarrassing.”
Somehow, she’d still hoped that if she brought Lydia to shore, Trey would be here for her, waiting. She’d thought they’d go back to the way it had been, and she’d have been happy to keep secrets. But he’d seen too much. He knew too much. The fantasies she’d clung to, the ones that had kept her moving forward, swept away in a single instant.
“The search is over for the night,” Barb shouted as she descended the final few yards to join them.
Annie wiped away the last of the tears and stepped out of Lydia’s embrace. “You found Ethan?” she asked. “Is he okay?”
“We haven’t found anyone,” Barb said. “But it’s too dangerous to keep going. We’ve already had a tree land on a truck, and now this. It’s time to bring people in.”
“But you haven’t found him!” Lydia said. “He’s out in this storm.”
“It’s over,” Barb said. “At least till morning.” She seemed to take in the motley crew for the first time. “What happened here anyway?”
Rory briefed her quickly.
“You’re Annie, huh?” Barb said. “You’re a tough cookie if you took on this mess. But come on. We need to get everyone out of this storm and inside. Dunbar, get everyone up on the bridge and checked for injuries. Then do a sweep around the island to send people in.”
A moment later, the group had climbed the embankment to the bridge. Lydia took Annie by the arm and led her to the side of the road. “I know what you’re thinking,” she whispered. “And I know what you saw out there. But things happen. And you don’t mean them to, then people who’ve been there your whole life . . . they suddenly mean more than you realize. If you don’t do something about it, then life passes you by.”
Rory unhooked the floodlight from the bridge, plunging them into darkness. Annie reached for Lydia. Her skin was cold to the touch. After Oliver had disappeared, after he’d been found, Annie had believed that having Lydia was enough. They were best friends. And from the outside, Lydia’s marriage to Trey had seemed mostly good. Then, one night, Annie had heard them fight as she went through the bakery’s trash searching for day-old muffins. She found two and her hunger almost kept her from catching the fierce whisper that floated through an open window. “Get out!” Lydia spat at Trey.
“I can’t,” Trey said.
; “Do it. While you still can.”
* * *
“What about Trey?” Annie asked Lydia. “What will you tell him?”
“I’ll face that later,” Lydia said. “Right now, I’m bringing my horses home and picking up my son from the community center.”
Lydia walked to where she’d tied Lenny and Squiggy to a tree. Vaughn joined her, but she shrugged him off as she stroked the horses’ manes and kissed their noses.
Annie shivered, the events of the evening finally catching up with her. She watched as Rory came out of the red hut and walked toward her. “Look at those two,” he said, glaring toward Lydia and Vaughn as he draped a blanket over her shoulders and handed her a mug filled with hot tea. “You okay?”
“I’m fine.”
But even as she sucked the warm liquid down, it didn’t help. She allowed herself to feel everything that had happened so far. Trey wouldn’t choose her. Not now. Not over Lydia. Not even to replace Lydia. It was as easy as that. But why, she wondered, had he chosen her at all? She remembered that first time. The way he’d lurked in the trees. “You’ve been watching me,” he said, drawing her in.
And she followed. She’d have gone anywhere he wanted.
“You,” he breathed into her ear, “you’ll be a good one to get to know. I bet you can do things for me.”
And for the first time, Annie asked herself what he’d meant.
CHAPTER 9
“You must be freezing,” Rory said to Annie. “Get in the Jeep and I’ll give you a ride. Detective Kelley wants me to pick up your roommate for questioning.”
Annie hadn’t had a “roommate” in years, and Frankie hadn’t begun to earn the intimacy that the term implied, but she let Rory lead her to the Jeep. Even with his help, it took every ounce of her energy to get into the vehicle.
“Listen,” Rory said, after they’d driven a few moments. “You were a rock star back there. Can you and I call a truce? At least till we find Ethan?”
This was a tactic, Annie was sure of it, something Rory had read in a textbook as he prepped to fail his state trooper exam, but she didn’t have the strength—emotional or physical—to combat him. Not tonight. “My dad was a cop,” she said, the truth bursting from her in a single gasp of relief. “I know you’re not all bad.”
Rory glanced at her. The Jeep’s console lit up his angular face, his hair buzzed nearly to the scalp, pockmarks from teenage acne dotting his skin. He could have been handsome had his features not tipped from strong to ratlike. “Where?” he asked.
“In Boston,” Annie said, tempting fate. Adding pieces to the puzzle. Though Rory would be hard-pressed to do much with that simple fact. Besides, Annie’s crimes were of the heart and head, nothing that made it onto a permanent record. Nothing he could find by searching on a name. Most of the people she’d grown up with had moved away anyway, including her own mother. The last time she’d gone to L Street in South Boston, she’d barely recognized the neighborhood, with its condos and coffee shops and traffic. She’d expected to find kids playing stickball and instead found only boys with beards and strollers.
“I should have guessed! Irish, right?” Rory said. “But you don’t have an accent.”
“Some of us have it. Some of us don’t. Like here.”
“Do I have one?”
“Not like Vaughn does,” Annie lied. “He tries to hide it. You sound more sophisticated.”
Rory swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his stringy neck. “I’d love to live in Boston,” he said. “I’d love to live anywhere but here.”
“Why don’t you, then?”
“Because things happen, that’s why. Have you seen The Town?”
“Seen ’em all,” Annie said. “Gone Baby Gone. The Departed. But those movies aren’t my story. Have you been to Boston? Most of the city is nothing like that. Most people aren’t gangsters.”
“I’ve been to Portland,” Rory said, a touch of pride in his voice, pride that he’d taken a ferry off this rock and driven a few miles to the big, bad city.
Annie kept herself from laughing but then gave into it. “Have you left Maine? Ever?”
“Shut up,” Rory said, surprising her with a smile. She hadn’t meant to draw him in. But he was in on his own joke. “I’ve been to New Hampshire,” he said. “We go hunting there sometimes. And I did go to college. Best two years of my life. I may not have a rich ex-wife like Vaughn, but I’m not a total redneck.”
Ahead, a wave crashed across the path.
“Eyes forward,” Annie said.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You’re better looking when you smile.”
“I could say the same of you, but that would be sexist,” Rory said. “Besides, I’ve never seen it happen.”
Annie punched him in the arm. “I laughed,” she said. “Right now. Here. With you in the car. We laughed together.”
“Yeah, you laughed at me. But that’s not smiling. That’s being you.”
The Jeep jolted as it hit a rut. Rory turned the steering wheel with the skid and managed to keep them from spinning out. When they glided to a stop, Annie was surprised to find that she held Rory’s arm.
“No one should be out in this,” Rory said, staring into the dark. “Least of all a four-year-old.”
“Let’s hope he found his way into someone’s house. We’ll find him tomorrow, right?”
“Yeah, maybe.”
In the path in front of them, the headlights caught a group of people trudging toward them. Rory rolled down the window. “Any luck?” he asked.
“Nothing,” one of the men said. “Just got that call that the search is off.”
“Yep,” Rory said, and as he continued the conversation, Annie turned away, an image of Trey flashing through her mind.
What had he seen in her?
She turned the rearview mirror her way. Recently, she’d avoided her reflection, whether in the mirror or when it surprised her in a window or on the water. When she had caught it, she dismissed what she saw. Annie thought of herself as healthy, a few pounds past slim, athletic. She’d played field hockey in high school and used that to get herself to college. Men looked at her, took her in, and she liked that their desire gave her power. So it hadn’t surprised her when Trey saw her too. That’s what she was used to.
But Rory’s mirror reflected something different, something she’d been too afraid to admit. She saw greasy hair hanging around a wan face, yellowing teeth from too many nights without a toothbrush, hollow eyes. How much weight had she lost since she’d come here? She held her hand to her mouth and breathed in the breath of someone unhealthy.
She was homeless. A vagrant. Worthless. She was someone Rory wished would move along and become someone else’s problem. She wasn’t someone Trey Pelletier should seek out. Rory signed off with the search party and pulled back onto the road. Annie stared out the window, her breath fogging up the glass. Men like Trey didn’t sleep with women like her. Not without a reason. How had it taken her so long to see this?
“Hey,” Rory said. “I asked you something.”
Annie turned to him. “Would you have sex with me?” she asked, and the look on his face gave her the answer. “Just curious,” she said. “Sorry, I was off somewhere. What did you ask?”
After a pause, Rory said, “What can you tell me about Ethan and Frankie?”
“I barely know them,” Annie said, shaking the thoughts of Trey away.
“Is she into drugs?”
“She seems like a good mother,” Annie said.
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one I have,” Annie said, even as she remembered a day not a week earlier when she’d come home to find Ethan sitting in a mud puddle digging with a stick. It had been a cool day, the first that felt like autumn. Annie had known instinctively that Frankie had left the boy on his own.
Ethan slapped a ball of mud onto the grass, and Annie pretended to eat it. “Delicious,” she said.
“That
are mud,” Ethan said.
Above them, wind rustled the changing leaves.
“Thomas here,” Ethan said.
“Thomas?” Annie said, glancing into the trees.
“The Tank Engine,” Ethan said.
“That Thomas! Let’s find him. I think he’s inside.”
She lifted Ethan from the puddle, surprised when he curled into her and rested his head on her shoulder. His hair was thick and dark, like Oliver’s. She ran her fingers through it, burying her nose in his shirt and breathing in the scents of childhood. Inside, she wrapped him in a blanket while she filled a lobster pot with water from the well and put it on the stove to warm—she knew what was warm enough for a four-year-old. She turned the burner off and lifted the boy into the water.
“You cook me?” Ethan said.
“I’ll cook you,” Annie said, squeezing his nose.
He was small for his age. Small enough to sit in the pot while Annie ran a bar of soap over him. She used dish soap to wash his hair and told him to close his eyes tight while she rinsed suds away with water from a mug. She didn’t hear the front door open, or the footsteps in the foyer, or the bag hitting the floor till Frankie shoved her away. “You’re sick,” Frankie said.
Annie pressed her back into the wall. She’d done terrible things in her life. Shameful things. Who was she to judge?
Frankie lifted the boy from the pot and wrapped him in a towel. “You crazy bitch,” she shouted.
“I’m taking care of your kid,” Annie said.
Softly.
Or maybe she’d only thought it to herself, like she did with Trey.
By then, Frankie, hugging Ethan to her body, had already retreated up the back stairs to her room.
* * *
“Frankie keeps to herself,” Annie said to Rory. “We all do. She said that Ethan was probably hiding somewhere, like this had all happened before. She said he could be an asshole.”