The Amateurs, Book 3

by Sara Shepard

  Officer Gregg rose to her feet. Her hand drifted to her waist; under her T-shirt was a holster holding a black handgun. “Threatening an officer is a crime, too, you know.”

  Seneca flinched but didn’t back down. “Just let us check out her house. Give us ten minutes.”

  The officer pointed to the door. “Get out. Now.”

  “But—”

  “Get out, or I’ll slap you with a fine. You want that? And if I hear you’re nosing around that place, I’ll have you arrested for trespassing.”

  Seneca stared her down. The phone on the desk started to ring. Officer Gregg let it go, still watching them, her hand still on her belt. A lump formed in Seneca’s throat. There was no winning with this woman. “Fine,” she muttered, swiveling on her heel.

  “Now what do we do?” Maddox muttered as he unlocked the Jeep.

  Seneca peered through the smeared glass window of the station. Gregg had answered that phone call, and now she was propping her feet up on her desk, laughing like she didn’t have a care in the world. As the woman switched the receiver to the other ear, Seneca thought of her own phone, tucked into her pocket. She pulled it out and checked it for the fiftieth time this morning. “Still no Viola,” she muttered bitterly. “Maybe she is Sadie.”

  “And still no RedBird?” Maddox asked.

  “I even sent her a second message through CNC, and nothing.” No leads, anywhere.

  They got in the Jeep and just sat there for a while. Maddox started to do arm stretches, and then waist twists, huffing through his nose as he pulled deeper into the stretch. “Will you stop that?” Seneca snapped finally.

  “Sorry.” Maddox let his arms fall to his side. “I have a lot of nervous energy.”

  “We could drive around, ask people if they know anything,” Madison suggested from the back. “And also, the house has to got to be around here somewhere. Maybe we’ll just run into it. Wouldn’t it be the one covered in police tape?”

  “It’s not like we have any other plans,” Maddox said, starting the engine.

  They drove down the highway and into the little town. As Sadie Sage theoretically had to get supplies from somewhere, they stopped in at a small grocery store called Wink’s and waved her picture to everyone from the cashiers to the guy running the deli counter to a derelict-looking preteen hanging out outside the shop. Everyone was sympathetic but standoffish—“Oh yes, that poor boy,” an older woman bagging groceries said. “I think I saw that Sadie woman once, but I don’t know much about her.”

  “You know, I don’t have a clue where she lived,” answered a man at the pharmacy—apparently Sadie stopped in to buy over-the-counter medications and sudoku puzzle books, but she never received any prescriptions that would have required her to give an address or phone number. “She didn’t talk much. Really kept to herself.”

  They found the building where Sadie taught piano, an office complex that also housed several dentist’s offices, a dry cleaner’s, and a large outdoor fountain whose tiled bottom was littered with pennies. But the door to the music classrooms was locked tight, and there was no one around to let them in. Seneca wished she could look through the classroom Freya had described—it seemed full of her personality and maybe rich with a clue. Then they heard a “Psst,” behind them. A lithe, hippie-ish woman was hanging out the door to a yoga studio, staring them up and down as though she knew exactly what they were doing.

  “We already went in there after-hours,” the woman whispered, looking shadily back and forth to make sure no one was listening. “There’s nothing left in that woman’s office. Nothing.” Her eyes widened. “And for three years, I said namaste to her in the parking lot. I had no idea….”

  Everyone trudged back to the Jeep, feeling aimless. Seneca checked her phone again. Surprise surprise, no RedBird, no Viola.

  “I’m really sorry, guys, but I’m starving,” Madison admitted later, as they passed a hot dog shack on the side of the road. “Can we stop?”

  Seneca wanted to keep going, but her stomach was growling, too. Maddox did a three-point turn and headed back. After they parked, Madison got in line for hot dogs, and Seneca sat on a bench and stared fixedly at the mountains. Maddox tentatively touched her shoulder, and she jumped.

  “That stuff you said to Freya about the police screwing up your mom’s case. I didn’t realize it was that bad.”

  Seneca felt flushed. “Oh. Yeah.”

  “You want to talk about it?”

  Across the gravel lot, a kid was flying a dragon-shaped kite. Or trying to, anyway—there was little wind, so he was just running with the thing and most of it was dragging on the ground. Part of Seneca wanted to tell Maddox everything she’d gone through. Like how it was almost criminal that the cops came up with absolutely nothing from the crime scene, and how that made her feel so powerless and lost.

  But it also felt…well, hard. She’d built a wall in her brain between those soft, squishy, terrible feelings surrounding her mother and her semi-normal, semi-functioning self. Delving too deeply into the details would break down that wall, and what lay behind was pretty dark. Like how she’d ripped her mom’s necklace off her body in the morgue. Like how she’d lie in bed some nights, holding her breath for as long as she could, trying to feel what her mom must have felt before she died. And then there were all the complicated emotions she had when Helena Kelly’s story hit the news and took up all the available air space, pushing her mom’s death to the bottom of the pile. And what about her feelings of satisfaction—or maybe relief—when Helena’s case wasn’t solved? It wasn’t that she wanted Helena to have an unhappy ending. She’d just selfishly wanted someone else out there to feel as miserable as she was. Did other people who had tragedies in their lives think this way…or was it just her?

  The crunch of gravel interrupted her thoughts. Madison walked back balancing three hot dogs and sodas in a cardboard carrier. “I have news,” she singsonged. “Sadie’s house is at 101 Frontage Road. Only two miles away, but it’s through this road in the forest that isn’t marked.”

  Seneca blinked. “How’d you figure out that?”

  “I flirted with the guy who works the hot dog stand, and when I asked him about Sadie Sage, he said he knew her address. And get this—the guy heard that when the cops went into the place, there was absolutely no furniture. She must have cleaned it out before she left.”

  “Huh.” Seneca frowned.

  “Why would she do that?” Maddox asked, reaching for his hot dog.

  “Probably so the cops would have no leads on who she was,” Seneca murmured. “No fingerprints, either, and no DNA.”

  “Where did all the stuff go? Did she get a dumpster? A moving van? No one’s fessing up that they helped her?”

  “Maybe she paid someone off.” Madison plopped down on the bench next to them. “You never know.”

  “And no one saw her moving her stuff onto the lawn or into a van?” Seneca asked. “Not a single witness?”

  “We’d know that if we had the police records.” The bite Maddox took of his hot dog was so big that half the thing was already gone. “Maybe Thomas could pull some strings?”

  Seneca considered this, but then shook her head. “We shouldn’t bother Thomas unless we get really desperate.” Of course, Thomas would be pissed off if he knew she’d said that, but she would rather he focus on getting better.

  On the road, as if on cue, a huge moving truck rumbled past. Seneca stared at it for a while, its motor growling, its pure hulking size creating its own windstorm. Something shifted in her mind. “I bet Sadie dumped her stuff somewhere. It seems crazy that she’d carry her whole house on her back while on a kidnapping rampage.”

  “True,” Madison said, wiping mustard off her face.

  “Should we check out the house?” Maddox asked, standing.

  “Definitely,” Seneca said.

  Madison tossed her napkin in the trash, then waved flirtatiously at a pudgy man in a ball cap who was handling the next customer. �
�Thanks again!” she trilled. “Bye-ee!”

  The drive to Sadie’s old place took no more than five minutes before they spotted a black mailbox at the side of the road marked 101. A small, square, tidy brown house was nestled into the hillside. There wasn’t a car in the driveway, there weren’t any lights on inside, but shreds of yellow police tape were evident all over the property—snagged on tree branches, lying across the grass, even wound around a lightpost. This had to be it.

  They parked on the road and walked slowly to the property. Maddox peered through the front window. “Hot Dog Guy wasn’t lying. There’s just a bunch of spiderwebs inside.”

  Seneca tried the doorknob, but it was locked. She checked the porch’s floorboards for a hidden key, but there wasn’t one. She spun around and stared out at the view, a 360-degree vista of trees, mountains, and clouds. They hadn’t seen a single car as they’d driven up this road—so maybe there hadn’t been any witnesses seeing Sadie pack up her things. But who would live here in the first place? Someone who wanted no contact with other humans. Someone who was starting over. Though starting over from what, Seneca still didn’t know.

  She stepped off the porch and padded around the side of the house, shining the flashlight into each window. An ancient clothesline drooped between two poles. A sectioned-off area that might have once been a garden was now overrun with weeds. Suddenly, Seneca’s foot caught on something in the ground a few inches from the side of the house. She stumbled forward. After getting her balance, she turned around and looked at what she’d tripped over. At first glance, there was nothing special about the ground—no roots poking up, no piles of rocks. The spot did slope a little, though, almost as though the grass made a small shelf. And when she cautiously pressed the grass with her toe, the ground felt hollow and unsupported. Seneca dropped to her knees and pulled up hanks of grass. Just an inch down was…wood. She scraped away at more grass until she revealed part of what had to be a storm cellar door.

  “Whoa.” Maddox knelt down beside her.

  Seneca brushed dirt of her hands. “I think this is some sort of storm shed. It probably leads to a basement. My grandma had a trapdoor like this.”

  After more digging, she found a partially rotted handle. The door creaked a little, huge roots ripping as they were torn from the earth, but finally the door budged open a few feet, revealing a set of small, dark steps.

  “Hold this open for me,” she told Maddox, then angled her body to squeeze through the crack and head down the stairs.

  “Are you sure?” Maddox held the door obligingly, but he looked horrified. “You don’t know what’s down there….”

  Seneca stared into the abyss again. She had a feeling the cops didn’t know this was here. This could be her answer.

  “Whatever’s down there had better watch out,” she said. “I’m going in.”

  MADDOX WAS COOL with horror movies. He could man up and watch chain-saw-wielding maniacs chase teenagers, or a flickering ghost girl traumatize people through the telephone lines. But when he saw his girlfriend do the classic horror movie thing—go down into a dark, musty, abandoned storm shed—he felt guilty for all the times he sat back, binged on popcorn, and watched the ax murderer chop the leading lady to pieces.

  He scrambled after Seneca, clicking on his flashlight to light the way.

  “Maddox!” Madison hissed above his head. “Don’t leave me up here alone!”

  “I’ll only be a sec,” he promised his sister. “Just keep a lookout, okay?”

  “I’d rather not!” Madison screeched, but she made no move to follow them down.

  The flashlight’s beam bounced across spiderwebs, crumbling bricks, and motes of dust. An ancient hot water heater sat in the corner. And as the light danced across the wall, he saw dark slashes of…something.

  “Is that blood?” he cried, holding the light there.

  Seneca crept closer, pointing her flashlight along the wall. “Just dirt, dude. Chill.”

  Maddox shuddered. It smelled nasty down here, sort of like a sewer line gone wrong. The air was close and claustrophobic. When he walked through a silky spiderweb, he let out a yelp and started pawing at the air. He glanced over his shoulder nervously at the small sliver of light shining from the stairs. What if Sadie Sage was still on the property and locked them in? What if this was a trap and Brett was here?

  “Okay,” he whispered. “There’s nothing here.”

  “Wait. Look.”

  The flashlight shone on a door. Seneca twisted the knob, and the door swung open to another set of rickety stairs—it must lead to the house proper. She started to climb, and Maddox scrambled after her. He had to admit he felt a little better about going aboveground again, even if it was into a building they’d been strictly forbidden to visit.

  The first floor smelled like the mustiest, dingiest shower stall at his old summer camp. Light from the outside filtered in, but the layer of dust and grime on every surface was both impressive and disgusting. Not a stitch of furniture remained. Not a single item had been left behind in any of the kitchen drawers. Seneca shone her flashlight along the baseboards, searching for any kind of clue, but Maddox was pretty sure this was a dead end.

  Seneca leaned against the counter and looked at him. “Let’s think this through. Sadie Sage wants Damien for some reason. She puts together a plan to kidnap him. She has a place to take him. It’s got to be a secure place, right? Somewhere private. She finds a window of time in which to take him. Shortly before she pulls the trigger, she packs up all her stuff, and maybe moves it, but probably dumps it.” Her gaze did another sweep of the room. “I don’t know what this place looked like before she left, but if it was anything like the way Freya described the room where she gave lessons—filled with weird clutter—I find it hard to believe she was able to methodically but hastily pack. I picture her throwing things into boxes quickly, getting everything out as fast as possible.”

  Maddox narrowed his eyes. He could tell where Seneca was going with this. “You think she accidentally left something behind?” He gestured around the empty room. “I don’t know. She looks like a master packer to me. A poster woman for U-Haul. And wouldn’t the police have found it?”

  Seneca rolled her jaw. “Let’s not give up quite yet.” She started walking around the rooms again, opening closet doors, bending down to look into heating grates, feeling behind cabinets. “Years of living somewhere means a lot to accumulate and a lot that’s forgotten. For a long time after my mom was killed, my dad didn’t clean out her closet. When he finally did, he just shoved things in boxes to get it over with as soon as possible. A few days later, I went in there.” She paused to peer behind the unplugged refrigerator. “The closet seemed empty, but there was this drawer in one of the built-in shelves that he’d missed. It was kind of stuck shut, which is probably why he thought it was empty, but I managed to get it open.”

  Maddox felt goose bumps. “W-was something inside?” he asked cautiously.

  “Some old pictures. Stuff we’d totally forgotten about.” She was down on her hands and knees now, feeling around behind a little door in the wall that led to a crawl space. Then she drew in a breath. When she backed up, she was holding an envelope. Maddox gawked. It was like she’d just performed a magic trick.

  “See?” Seneca said softly, like she couldn’t quite believe it herself. “It was stuck back there. I told you: People always forget things.”

  Maddox stepped closer. The plain envelope was yellowed from age and covered in dirt and cobwebs. Seneca moved to rip it open, but Maddox caught her hand. “Let’s look at it in the light.”

  It was a bluff—mostly, he just wanted to get out of this place. Thankfully, Seneca agreed. The two of them left through the front door and found Madison running toward them with a look of relief. “Bingo,” Seneca said, waving the envelope over her head.

  They set the envelope on a nearby tree stump, and Seneca slowly undid the backing. A snap broke Maddox’s concentration. He stood straight an
d alert, searching the sun-dappled woods. Was someone watching? He remembered Officer Gregg’s threat that she’d arrest them if she caught them lurking around this place. That lady seemed like just the type who’d make good on her promise.

  “Huh,” Seneca said, staring at the contents of the envelope.

  Two items lay on the stump. One was a book of tickets for a boat called the Tallyho Island Ferry; half the tickets had been ripped off. Then there was a photograph of a boy and girl about nine and twelve, respectively. They both had dark brown hair, big smiles, and they were holding ice cream cones. The color was fading. The sides of the photo curled from age.

  “Damien?” Madison asked, pointing at the boy.

  Seneca twisted her mouth. “It kind of looks like him…but also not really. And this envelope is so grimy, stuck down there for years—this picture has got to be pretty old.”

  Maddox peered closer. The two kids had similar noses and chins. Brother and sister? Cousins? They stood on a suburbanesque sidewalk, though it was impossible to tell where they were. They weren’t near any identifiable landmarks, street signs, or mailboxes. They were wearing shorts and T-shirts, so it was probably summer. Or maybe they just lived in a warm climate.

  Madison tapped the ferry tickets. “Anyone hear of Tallyho Island?”

  “Nope,” Seneca said. She typed in Tallyho Island into Google, then read aloud what she’d found on Wikipedia. “Tallyho Island is a remote community accessible only by a ferry from New York City’s outer borough of Staten Island. It has four hundred residents year-round, though it offers attractive dunes and parks for tourists on day trips.”

  Madison riffled the edges of the remaining ferry tickets. “This has to be Sadie’s stuff, guys—no one else ever lived in this place. And look: only a few tickets are ripped off. Meaning she used some of them to go to this Tallyho Island.” She looked excited. “Maybe this was where she took Damien?”

  “Meaning the reason no one could track Sadie and Damien after New York City is because they got on a ferry,” Seneca said thoughtfully. “A lot of ferries still aren’t very strict about people showing ID.”