Jane massaged her scalp, overwhelmed by the questions. Once again, the mystery revolved around Charlotte. What she knew and when she learned about it. And with whom she shared it. She thought of the last photos ever taken of Charlotte, at the funeral of her mother and stepfather. She remembered how Charlotte had been flanked by her father and Mark. Surrounded by enemies and unable to escape.
Jane sat up straight, suddenly struck by the answer that should have been obvious from the beginning.
Maybe she did.
At noon, Jane crossed the New Hampshire border and drove north, into Maine. It was a soft May day, the trees leafed out in their spring flush, a golden haze hanging over fields and forest. But by the time she reached Moosehead Lake in the late afternoon, the air had turned chilly. She parked her car, wrapped a wool scarf around her neck, and walked to the landing, where a motorboat was moored.
A boy of about fifteen, his blond hair tousled in the wind, waved at her. “You Mrs. Rizzoli? I’m Will, from the Loon Point Lodge.” He took her overnight bag. “Is this all the luggage you brought?”
“I’m only staying for one night.” She glanced around the dock. “Where’s the skipper?”
Grinning, he waved his hand. “Right here. Been driving this boat since I was eight. In case you’re nervous, I’ve made this crossing, oh, a few thousand times.”
Still dubious about the kid’s skills as a skipper, she climbed aboard and buckled on the offered life jacket. As she settled onto the bench she noticed the boxes filled with groceries, and the bundle of newspapers with The Boston Globe on top. Obviously this boat trip had also been a shopping run for the boy.
As he started up the engine, she asked: “How long have you worked at the lodge?”
“All my life. My mom and dad own it.”
She took a closer look at the boy. Saw a strong jaw and sun-bleached hair. He was built like a lifeguard, slim but muscular, the kind of kid who’d look right at home on a California beach. He seemed utterly at ease as he guided the boat away from the pier. Before she could ask him any more questions, they were skimming across choppy water, the motor too noisy for conversation. She held on to the gunwale and stared at dense forest, at a lake so vast that it stretched ahead of them like a sea.
“It’s beautiful here,” she said, but he didn’t hear her; his attention was focused on their destination across the water.
By the time they reached the opposite shore, the sun was dropping toward the horizon, leafing the water with flame and gold. She saw rustic cabins ahead, and a cluster of canoes pulled up on the bank. On the pier, a towheaded girl stood waiting to catch the mooring line. As soon as Jane caught a closer look at the girl’s face, she knew that these two were brother and sister.
“This troublemaker here is Samantha,” Will said with a laugh and he affectionately mussed the girl’s hair. “She’s our general gofer around here. You need a toothbrush, extra towels, whatever, just give her a shout.”
As the girl went scampering up the pier with the guest’s bag, Jane said: “She looks like she’s about eight, nine? Don’t you both go to school?”
“We’re homeschooled. Too hard getting to town in the winter. My dad always tells us that we’re the luckiest kids in the world, to be living out here in paradise.” He led her up the path to one of the cabins. “Mom put you in this one. It’s got the most privacy.”
They climbed the steps to the screened porch, and the door squealed shut behind them. Samantha had brought Jane’s bag into the cabin and it sat on a rustic luggage rack at the foot of the bed. Jane looked up at open beams, at walls of knotty pine. A fire was already crackling in the stone hearth.
“Everything look okay?” asked Will.
“I wish I’d brought my husband here. He’d love this place.”
“Bring him back next time.” Will gave her a salute and turned to leave. “Once you get settled in, come over to the lodge for dinner. I think we’re having beef stew.”
After he left, she sank into a rocking chair on the screened porch and sat watching the sunset burn a fire in the lake. Insects hummed, and the sound of lapping water made her drowsy. She closed her eyes and did not see the visitor approach her cabin. Only when she heard the knock did she look out to see the blond woman standing outside the screen door.
“Detective Rizzoli?” the woman said.
“Come in.”
The woman stepped inside, careful to keep the door quiet as it swung shut. Even in the shadowy porch, Jane could see the woman’s resemblance to Will and Samantha, and she knew that this was their mother. She also knew, without a doubt, what her name was. It was Ingersoll’s oddly timed fishing trip that had made Jane focus on Loon Point, a trip on which he’d brought no tackle box. This was the real reason Ingersoll had come to Maine: to visit the woman who now stood on Jane’s cabin porch.
“Hello, Charlotte,” said Jane.
The woman glanced through the screen, scanning the area for anyone within earshot. Then she looked at Jane. “Please don’t ever use that name again. My name is Susan now.”
“Your family doesn’t know?”
“My husband does, but not the children. It’s just too hard to make them understand. And I never want them to know what kind of man their grandfather …” Her voice trailed off. With a sigh she sank into one of the rocking chairs. For a moment the only sound was the creak of her chair on the porch.
Jane stared at the woman’s profile. Charlotte—no, Susan—was only thirty-six, yet she looked much older. Years in the outdoors had freckled her skin, and her hair already had silvery streaks. But it was the pain in her eyes that aged her the most, pain that had left deep creases and a haunted gaze.
Leaning her head back against the rocker, Susan stared off at the darkening lake. “It started when I was nine years old,” she said. “One night, he came into my room while my mother was sleeping. He told me I was old enough. That it was time for me to learn what all daughters were supposed to do. We’re supposed to please our daddies.” She swallowed. “So I did.”
“Didn’t you tell your mother?”
“My mother?” Susan’s laugh was bitter. “My mother’s concerns never extended beyond her own selfish interests. After she started her affair with Arthur Mallory, it took her only two months to fly the coop. She never looked back. I’m not sure she even remembered that she had a daughter. So I was left behind with my father, who was only too happy to retain custody. Uncontested, of course. Oh, a few times a year, I was scheduled to spend weekends with Mom and Arthur, but she pretty much ignored me. Arthur was the only one who showed me any real kindness. I didn’t know him well, but he seemed like a decent man.”
“What about his son, Mark?”
There was a long silence. “I didn’t realize what Mark was,” she said softly. “He seemed perfectly harmless when our families first got together. Soon we were all seeing way too much of each other. Dinners at our house, then at Mark’s. We got along so swimmingly. The trouble was, my mom and Arthur were getting along better than I realized at the time.”
“It seems that your father and Mark were getting along rather well, too.”
Susan nodded. “Like best friends. It was as if my dad finally found the son he’d always wanted. Even after my parents divorced, Mark would come over to visit Dad. They’d go downstairs to Dad’s workshop and build birdhouses or picture frames. I had no idea what was really going on down there.”
A lot more than woodworking, thought Jane. “You didn’t think it was strange, the two of them spending so much time together?”
“I was mostly relieved to be left alone. It was around then, when I was thirteen, that my dad stopped coming to my room at night. At the time I didn’t know why. Now I realize that was when the first girl disappeared. When I was thirteen, and my dad found someone else to amuse him. With Mark’s help.” Susan ceased rocking and sat very still, her gaze fixed on the lake. “If I’d known, if I’d realized what Mark really was, my mother and Arthur would still be alive
.”
Jane frowned. “Why do you say that?”
“I’m the reason they went to the Red Phoenix restaurant that night. They were there because of something I told them.”
“You?”
Susan took a deep breath, as if collecting the strength to continue. “It was the scheduled weekend for my visit with Mom and Arthur. I’d just gotten my license, and I drove myself to their house for the very first time. I took my father’s car. That’s when I found the pendant. It had fallen between the seat and the console, where nobody noticed it for two years. It was gold, in the shape of a dragon, and it had a name engraved on the back. Laura Fang.”
“Did you recognize the name?”
“Yes. The story was in the newspapers when she disappeared. I remembered the name because she was my age, and she played the violin. At Bolton, some of the students talked about her because they knew her from the summer orchestra workshop.”
“Mark attended that workshop.”
Susan nodded. “He knew her. But I couldn’t understand the connection with my father. How did Laura’s pendant end up in my father’s car? Then I started thinking about all the nights that he’d come into my bedroom, and what he’d done to me. If he’d abused me, maybe he’d done it to other girls. Maybe that’s what happened to Laura. Why she disappeared.”
“And then you told your mother?”
“That weekend, when I visited her, it all came out. I told her and Arthur everything. What my dad had done to me years earlier. What I’d found in his car. At first, Mom couldn’t believe it. Then, in her usual self-centered way, she started worrying about the bad publicity and how her name would get dragged into the newspapers. That she’d be known as the clueless wife who had no idea what was going on in her own house. But Arthur—Arthur took it seriously. He believed me. And I’ll always respect him for that.”
“Why didn’t they go straight to the police?”
“My mom wanted to be certain of the facts first. She didn’t want to attract any attention until they knew this wasn’t some weird coincidence. Maybe there was another Laura Fang, she said. So they were going to show the pendant to Laura’s family. Confirm that it belonged to the same Laura who’d disappeared two years earlier.” Susan’s head drooped, and her next words were almost inaudible. “That’s the last time I saw them alive. When they left to meet with Laura’s father, at the restaurant.”
This was the final piece of the puzzle: the reason why Arthur and Dina had gone to Chinatown that night. Not to eat a meal, but to speak with James Fang about his missing daughter. Gunfire ended the conversation, a bloody massacre that was blamed on a hapless immigrant.
“The police insisted it was a murder-suicide,” said Susan. “They said my mom and Arthur were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. The pendant was never found, so I had no evidence. I had no one else to turn to. I kept wondering if it was connected. Laura and the shooting. And then there was Mark. He was home with us that weekend, so he knew what was going on.”
“He called Patrick. Told him your mother and Arthur were going to Chinatown.”
“I’m sure he did. But it was only at the funeral that I finally put it all together. My father and Mark, working together. Without the pendant, I couldn’t prove anything. My dad held all the power, and I knew how easy it would be for him to make me disappear.”
“So you made yourself disappear.”
“I didn’t plan it ahead of time. But there I was with my class, walking Boston’s Freedom Trail.” She gave a sad laugh. “And suddenly I thought, I want to be free, too! And now is the time to do it. So I slipped away from the teachers. A few blocks later, I started thinking about how to throw everyone off track. I dropped my backpack and ID in an alley. I had enough cash to buy a bus ticket north. I wasn’t sure where I was going, I just knew I had to get away from my father. When I got to Maine, and I stepped off the bus, I suddenly felt like …” She sighed. “Like I’d arrived home.”
“And you stayed.”
“I got a job cleaning cabins for tourists. I met my husband, Joe. And that was the biggest gift of my life, finding a man who loves me. Who stands by me, no matter what.” She breathed in deeply and lifted her head. Sat up straight. “Here, I remade my life. Had my children. Together, Joe and I built these cabins. Built the business. I thought I’d be happy, just hiding away here forever.”
The sound of laughter drifted from the lake where Will and his sister, now dressed in bathing suits, were racing down the pier. They leaped off and their laughter turned to squeals as they plunged into the cold water. Susan rose from her chair and stared at her children, happily splashing in the lake.
“Samantha’s nine years old. The same age I was when it started. When my father first came into my bedroom.” Susan kept her back turned to Jane, as if she could not bear to let her see her face. “You think you can put the abuse behind you, but you never can. The past is always there, waiting to meet you in your nightmares. It pops up when you least expect it. When you smell gin and cigars. Or hear your bedroom door creak open at night. Even after all these years, he’s still tormenting me. And when Samantha turned nine, the nightmares got worse, because I saw myself at her age. So innocent, still untouched. I thought of what he did to me, and what he might have done to Laura. And I wondered if there were other girls, other victims I didn’t even know about. But I didn’t know how to bring him down, not all by myself. I didn’t have the courage.”
Outside, Will and Samantha climbed back onto the pier and stood drying off, laughing. Susan pressed her hand to the screen, as if drawing courage from her children.
“Then on March thirtieth,” said Susan, “I opened The Boston Globe.”
“You saw Iris Fang’s ad. About the Red Phoenix massacre.”
“The truth has never been told,” Susan whispered. “That’s what the ad said. And suddenly I knew I wasn’t alone. That someone else was searching for answers. For justice.” She turned to face Jane. “That’s when I finally got the nerve to call Detective Ingersoll. I knew him because he’d investigated the Red Phoenix massacre. I told him about Laura’s pendant. About my dad and Mark. I told him there might be other missing girls.”
“So that’s why he started asking questions about the girls,” said Jane. Questions that had put him in danger, because word got back to Patrick that Ingersoll was gathering evidence, linking him not only to vanished girls but also to the Red Phoenix. He would have assumed that Iris Fang was behind it, because she’d placed the ad in the Globe. She’d lost both a daughter and a husband. Killing Iris and Ingersoll would eradicate the problem, so Patrick had hired professionals. But the killers had underestimated what they were up against.
“I was terrified that my father might find me,” said Susan. “I told Detective Ingersoll not to say anything that could be traced back to me. He promised that even his own daughter wouldn’t know what he was working on.”
“He kept his word. We had no inkling that you were the one who hired him. We assumed it was Mrs. Fang.”
“A few weeks later, he called me. He said we had to meet, and he drove up here. Told me he’d found a pattern. He’d come up with the names of three girls who might have met me before they vanished. Girls who’d attended the same tennis meet or the same music camp. It turned out I was the link. I was the reason they were chosen.” Her voice broke and she sank into the chair again. “Here I’ve been living with my little girl, safe and secure in Maine. I never knew there were other victims. If only I’d been braver, I could have stopped this a long time ago.”
“It has been stopped, Susan. And you did have a role in it.”
She looked at Jane, her eyes glistening. “Only a minor role. Detective Ingersoll died for it. And you’re the one who finished it.”
But not alone, thought Jane. I had help.
“Mom?” The girl’s voice drifted in from the shadows outside. Samantha stood beyond the screen, her slim figure silhouetted against the reflected light from the lake behind her
. “Dad said to come get you. He’s not sure if it’s time to take the pie out of the oven.”
“I’m coming, sweetheart.” Susan rose to her feet. As she swung open the screen door, she glanced back and smiled at Jane. “Dinner’s ready. Come when you get hungry,” she said, and she stepped out, letting the door squeal shut behind her.
From the porch, Jane watched Susan take Samantha’s hand. Together, mother and daughter walked away along the water’s edge and faded into the twilight. They held hands the whole way.
THREE MONTHS LATER
FUJIAN PROVINCE, CHINA
The sweet scent of incense wafts across the courtyard where Bella and I stand before the tomb of her father’s ancestors. It is an ancient cemetery. For at least a thousand years, generations of the Wu family have been interred here, and now Wu Weimin’s ashes lie joined with his forefathers. No longer does his tormented soul wander the spirit world, crying out for justice. Here he will finally lie, for an eternity, in peace.
As the shadows deepen to night, Bella and I light candles and bow to her father’s memory. Suddenly I sense the presence of someone else, and I turn to see a figure step through the courtyard gate. Although I cannot see his face in the gloom, I know by his silent approach, by the easy grace with which he moves, that it is Wu Weimin’s son by his first wife, the son who has never forgotten him and has continued to honor him. As the man moves into the glow of candlelight, Bella nods to her half brother and he returns the greeting with a sad smile. They are so alike, these two, both as unyielding as the stone that entombs their father’s ashes. Now that their duty has been fulfilled, I wonder what will become of them. When you have devoted half your young life to a single goal, and you finally reach it, what is left to be accomplished?
The Rizzoli & Isles Series 10-Book Bundle Page 275