by Joyce Lavene
He smiled. “I’m surprised you can bear to throw this stuff away even if it is broken!”
I didn’t comment on that. He understood how I felt, even if he didn’t share my sentiments. I loved him for it.
I ran through the dark streets, my feet complaining and my lungs burning. I’d never been much of a runner, but I had to reach Ann as soon as possible. The vision hadn’t revealed much additional detail about the place where they were holding Betsy, but even a sliver of information might make a difference.
And I’d kept the sapphire earring in my pocket, in case Ann could learn something else from it.
Kevin answered the door, looking wonderfully disheveled. His hair was sleep mussed, and his shirt was wrinkled. I almost forgot why I was there. The cramp in my side reminded me.
“I have to talk to Ann,” I told him, barely able to catch my breath. “It’s about Betsy.”
“Come on in.” He held the door open for me. “Did you run all the way here?”
“Yes. I wish I could’ve been here sooner. I’ve seen something else, Kevin. I’m hoping it’s enough that Ann and I together can put an end to this.”
“Midnight tryst?” Ann came down the long stairs.
I smiled, knowing Kevin’s bedroom was on the main floor. This wasn’t a good time to be petty. I couldn’t help it.
I explained to Ann and showed her the earring, holding it carefully with a tissue that was also in my pocket. “I need your help. Don’t ask me why—I think this may be it.”
Chapter 29
“Beautiful rocks,” she said, coming the rest of the way down the stairs. “Belong to anyone you know?”
“I found it in the shop after Jackie and Derek trashed it.”
“Of course you did.”
I had hoped she wouldn’t be difficult just this one time. I tried again. “I saw Betsy again, but this time from Jackie’s perspective. There was something a little different than before. I thought you might be able to take that and turn it into a sketch.”
She stared at me as though I were speaking a language she couldn’t understand. My heart sank. I was so sure this was going to do it. I wished I didn’t need her help, but I couldn’t seem to do it on my own. There had to be some way to reach her.
“I know you’ve been through a lot. I know I can’t really understand all of the terrible things you’ve seen. But if you could help me get through this, maybe we could both have a happy ending this time.”
She stopped staring at me and started back upstairs. “You don’t know anything.”
“Maybe not. But I know you’re scared. That’s why you gave up so soon. That’s why you won’t reach out. You’re afraid she’ll be dead and your heart can’t bear it. I may not know a lot, but I know that much.”
She turned back to me. I tried not to flinch. I really expected her to fly down the stairs at me. Picturing that wasn’t pleasant.
But instead, she came calmly back down. “I’ll see what I can do—so long as you lay off the psycho babble. I’ve had enough of that to last me the rest of my life.”
It was as if we all let out a collective sigh of relief.
“I’ll make some tea,” Kevin said. “I think there are still some lemon muffins left over from dinner too.”
“Better make it coffee,” Ann warned. “I need it straight, strong and hot. And don’t ever try to impress me with leftovers again.”
“You got it.”
When he’d gone into the kitchen, Ann and I sat at the round table in the bar area. It had just been polished and smelled like lemon oil.
Ann took the earring from me and played with it for a few minutes. “I’m not getting anything from this.”
“Maybe if we hold hands,” I suggested. “Let me find some paper for you.” I rummaged through a drawer where I knew Kevin kept crayons and coloring pages for kids who stayed at the inn.
“I’m leaving in the morning,” Ann said. “I thought you’d like to know.”
My heart beat a little faster. She’d said I. “I know you don’t like it here.”
She nodded and tucked her feet up under her on the chair. “It’s not just that. It’s a nice enough place. I just can’t learn to be who I am now, here. You understand?”
I stood, looking at the crayons I held. Inside, I was jumping up and down and dancing. I would have Kevin back. Ann would be out of the picture.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t just leave it at that. The images she’d shared with me—her and Kevin—I knew they’d loved each other. She’d come to find him because she still loved him. I was sure she couldn’t imagine the rest of her life without him.
Time had moved on without her while she’d been locked away. It was unfair. I wanted to cry for her loss even though it meant my gain.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“I am. But you’re brave asking me. What if I reconsidered? You and Kevin would have no future together while I’m here. He’d do the honorable thing and marry me. That’s the way he is.”
“I’m guessing since you know that, it’s not what you want.”
“No. I want my life back the way it was before—before I lost it and Kevin found you. If I had a fairy godmother, that’s what I’d ask for and the hell with you, Dae O’Donnell. I wouldn’t feel sorry for you, believe me.”
She drew a deep breath and almost smiled. “But don’t worry. I’ve always had a habit of landing on my feet. Kevin’s changed, you know. He’s lost his edge. I guess that’s what comes of cooking for people and cleaning up their messes. He’s not the man I loved. I’m sure I’m not the woman he loved either. It’s better for both of us if we start over apart.”
Kevin came into that awkward silence that follows when the person you’ve just been talking about enters the room. He had dressed and combed his hair. He glanced at both of us, then set the tray of cups and goodies on the table. “I can leave again, if that will help.”
Ann smiled at him. “Not unless I run out of coffee. Do you want Kevin to leave, Dae?”
It was a double-edged question. I answered it as evasively as I could. “I’m comfortable with him staying if you are.”
“Then let’s get going on this.”
I sat beside Ann after she finished her coffee. She ignored the lemon muffins, as she’d promised. I wondered if she’d told Kevin she was leaving. I wasn’t brave enough to ask either of them that question. Still, I had to chase the thought from my mind so I could concentrate on what I’d seen from Jackie’s earring.
Touching Ann was electrifying. It sent bolts of energy—like prolonged, powerful static shock—through me. We both closed our eyes.
I saw so much of her. She had to open up to me in order to see those details about Betsy. I saw her as a child with her father who was in the military. I saw her growing up, daydreaming at the beach, in love for the first time when she was barely sixteen.
I saw her again with Kevin, the two of them working together, in love with one another. I saw what she saw during the good cases where they found children still alive. And the nightmares of the children they’d found dead.
Far worse was taking in her breakdown and the horrible years she’d spent locked away from the world. Thinking of Kevin was what had kept her going, what had eventually healed her and brought her back to reality, to the here and now.
I knew she saw everything about me too. It was the only way this would work. My life was like a fairy tale compared to hers. I could only guess what she would make of it.
Suddenly, the connection between us was broken. Ann gave a little screech and grabbed for the paper and crayons. “I see it! I see what you mean, but I don’t know what it is.”
Her nimble fingers flew across the paper, sketching what she saw almost faster than my eyes could keep pace. On the back of a coloring page illustrated with a teddy bear carrying flowers, she drew a vague shape, but quickly the lines began to look familiar. In seconds, I knew what it was, though when I’d seen it in my own mind it had been obscured some
how.
“It’s a boat! I think it’s the old wrecked boat that’s been out in the woods near the Sailor’s Dream for as long as I can remember. The town council tried to make the owner clean it up last year. Nothing ever came of it. Let’s go!”
I waited impatiently with Kevin as Ann went to get sandals—she was already dressed in shorts and a T-shirt—and then the three of us ran out into the rain. None of us had noticed the hard rain that had begun falling after I’d arrived. The drops were enormous on the truck windshield as we crammed in.
“Drive fast,” Ann urged Kevin. “None of that old-lady driving you usually do.”
“Shut up. I’ve got it,” he said with a careless familiarity.
I didn’t say anything. I was glad I was on the outside with Ann in the middle. For once I wasn’t jealous. I was too caught up by the notion that we might have found Betsy.
Kevin didn’t drive like an old lady. I never knew his old pickup could go that fast. It was enough to catch the attention of the Duck police officer pulling traffic duty. I wasn’t sure which officer it was, but when the police cruiser’s blue light flickered on and its siren cried out, I took out my cell phone and called Chief Michaels. If we were wrong about Betsy being held in the abandoned boat—then we’d be wrong.
I explained the situation in the barest of terms, but it was enough to still the siren, though the car with the blue lights continued to follow us down Duck Road.
Kevin spun the truck around on the Sailor’s Dream driveway, gravel flying up around us. He had barely stopped when Ann and I jumped out. There was a streetlight near the Sailor’s Dream itself, but the wooded area around it was pitch black.
“All I have is a flashlight on my cell phone,” Kevin said, the rain pushing his hair into his face. “We have to have a light or we won’t be able to find the boat.”
“I know about where it is,” I told him. But I wasn’t sure I could find it. In the daytime, it was clearly visible through the underbrush, but at night, it wouldn’t be so easy to see.
I knew from my childhood explorations of the small sailboat that it had once been painted pale blue. It was already dilapidated back when I was a kid. No one had touched it in years. Most of the paint had flaked off and the sides were caving in. I remembered that its sail was missing, probably stolen years before, but the broken mast was still attached.
“I have a spotlight, Mayor,” announced Officer Scott Randall as he approached us, a large flashlight in hand; it was his cruiser that had tailed us to the bar. “What are we looking for?”
“That old boat that’s been falling apart out here for years,” I explained, starting into the dark woods. Ann was already wading into the blackness ahead of me. “You know the one I mean, Scott.”
“I know what you mean,” he agreed. “Let me get in front. We can see better with the light guiding the way. I’ve seen that old boat plenty of times. But I couldn’t tell you right now exactly where it is. I’ll call for more help.”
I stepped back behind him. Kevin was next to me. We couldn’t even see Ann anymore. I hoped she didn’t hurt herself on the fallen trees and other debris. The town hadn’t always offered waste removal service back in the days before incorporation. People often dumped large, expensive-to-dispose-of trash like old refrigerators in places where they thought no one would notice.
I wanted to run into the dark with Ann, but I knew we were better off being a little cautious. After being in Ann’s mind, I knew how desperately she wanted to find Betsy alive. In some ways, it was even more important to her than it was to me.
“Ann?” Kevin yelled out when we heard a yelp from the darkness.
“It’s okay,” she yelled back. “I think I just stepped on a nail. Keep going. I can see your light.”
“Why don’t you come back with us?” I asked loudly.
“I’m better alone. I’m heading left from where you are. You go right. Doesn’t Duck have any construction lights or something more powerful than a big flashlight?”
“We do, ma’am,” Scott said. “We just don’t bring them out in the middle of the night on two minutes’ notice. Sorry.”
Ann didn’t respond. We all continued shuffling through the woods, wary of what lay beneath our feet. It seemed stupidly impossible that we hadn’t located the boat by now. I knew it was half buried in sand and covered with undergrowth, but surely we could find it.
“This is ridiculous. We could be at it all night.” Kevin stopped walking and looked at me. “You’re the best at finding lost things, Dae. Let’s take a minute and have you find this boat.”
My mind was whirling with hundreds of images—of Betsy, the boat, Jackie and Derek, Ann and Kevin. My heart was pounding. The one thing I couldn’t do was concentrate.
“I would’ve found it already if I could,” I fired back at him. “Don’t you think I want this to be over?”
“I know you do.” Kevin put his hands on my arms. “You want it too much. You have to clear your mind. Forget everything else but finding that boat. You can do this, Dae. Take us to it. Let’s save the girl.”
I took a deep breath, ready to yell back at him. What he said made sense; I just wasn’t as confident in myself, in my gift, as he was.
Finally, I nodded, swallowed my angry words and closed my eyes.
How many times had I explored that old boat on the way home from school or the museum? It had always looked like a child’s toy—not more than ten feet long. Much smaller than the Eleanore, Gramps’s boat. I dreamed of fixing it up and sailing away to foreign lands where there were bright and beautiful things.
The last time I’d visited the boat, I noticed there was an elder tree right next to it. It had grown up through the side of the boat and blossomed over the top of it. There were white flowers everywhere. It looked like it had snowed on the deck.
“I’ve got it!” I opened my eyes and started walking in the same direction that Ann had gone. “I haven’t been out here for so long—but I know exactly where it is.”
Scott scratched his head but kept up with me. Branches and other debris cracked under my feet. I heard more cars arrive in the parking lot behind us. Someone had brought dogs too. They began barking and baying as they let them out of the vehicles.
“Ann?” I called out into the darkness. “Can you feel her?”
“No. I wish I could. Can you?”
“No. But I think I know where the boat is.”
“Let me see.”
I felt her presence in my mind and tried to form the image of the old boat and the area around it. “That’s where she is. Can you see it?”
“Not yet. I see your light coming my way. Are you sure it’s this direction?”
“Yes. Absolutely.”
We kept going. Scott answered a call on his radio and explained what was going on, where we were. He had the new searchers spread out in the direction we hadn’t taken. “Sorry, Mayor. Just making sure. Not that I doubt you.”
“That’s okay. Let’s just find her.”
We pushed through an area littered with an old stove and what was left of someone’s living room furniture. Kevin stumbled but regained his footing without falling. Scott’s light wavered as he stepped into a hole in the sand.
For just a minute, it was like I was a girl again. It was late spring, just before school let out for the summer. The weather was warm, and I was walking home, goofing around like usual. I stopped to look at the old boat. The sunlight was golden on it, slanting through the trees that had grown up around it.
And when I opened my eyes, there it was.
“I found it!” I yelled. “Let’s get her out!”
Kevin and Scott came up beside me. Ann ran through the brush as though angels guided her feet.
The boat was small. There was no reason to climb on it and risk collapsing the structure further. We located the hatch where Derek had dropped food to her. I leaned over and opened it. “Betsy?” I called into that damp, dark place.
“Hello?” she cal
led back. “Please help me. Please get me out of here.”
The rain started falling even harder. Scott held the light steady. My heart was pounding, breath coming faster as I prepared to lift her out of her prison.
Before I could move, Ann made a calculated leap into the hole in the boat. Like a snake, she slipped inside and disappeared—emerging a minute later with Betsy in her arms.
Scott shone the light on them. Everyone was crying. Or maybe it was just the rain.
Kevin took Betsy from Ann so she could get out. Scott and I helped Ann make the more difficult leap out of what was left of the boat, then Scott called for an ambulance. Betsy clung so tightly to Kevin that there was no way to separate them. He walked back to the parking lot with her in his arms.
Still in the dark area of the woods, Ann and I trailed behind Scott and Kevin. Just as we reached the clearing and light of the parking lot, we fell against each other and sobbed.
“She’s alive,” Ann gulped and tried to talk. “You were right. She’s alive.”
“She is.”
“You don’t know. No one will ever know how much I needed her to be alive.”
We stared into each other’s eyes, having shared an intimate bond most people would never understand. “I know,” I sobbed. “I know.”
We all rode to the hospital, Kevin, Ann and I in the ambulance with Betsy, and the rest following behind. We had a full police escort all the way, lights flashing and sirens blaring. People who saw us pass must have thought the president or some other dignitary was on their way out of town.
When we arrived at the emergency room, hospital officials were waiting for us. So was Melinda. They all ran out to the ambulance. Ann and I stepped out before they moved Betsy.
Melinda took one look at her daughter’s face and collapsed on the pavement. The hospital staff were so focused on the little girl, they didn’t notice. Ann and I helped Melinda up and held her between us as we walked into the hospital. Melinda was sobbing so hard she could hardly breathe. “Oh my God!” she cried out. “Betsy! My baby is still alive!”
We sat her down on the bench near the door. There was nothing more we could do but wait as the medical team began examining Betsy. But no one wanted to go home. We were exhausted, drained—and jubilant.