by Jen Blood
“You should be more careful,” the boy says.
His voice is cool; Rebecca feels a combination of awe and undeniable fear at his confidence. Adam merely nods, but she sees that he is also afraid—of both of them, now. He takes another step away from the edge as mother and son return to their path, hand in hand.
Chapter Twenty-Six
After my conversation with the Reverend, I went straight to the paper to catch Diggs up on everything I’d learned. It was only seven-thirty in the morning, but gray skies and lack of sleep had my internal clock running backward. It could have been noon, it could have been midnight. Hell, it could have been Cleveland for all I knew.
The rain had been heavy enough overnight to cause flash flooding along the coast. Before I could stop him, Einstein swam a couple of laps in an Olympic-sized puddle outside the Trib. I did my best to dry him off with a discarded towel in my backseat, and we went inside.
The newsroom was empty when I got there—a sure sign that things had run late the night before. The TV was tuned to the weather channel, and the usual BBC news had been swapped out in favor of the weather radio. Both reports promised winds gusting to thirty knots and seas up to five feet. Not a good day to be on the water.
I was just about to knock on Diggs’ door when Juarez called. I thought of the discoveries I’d made since our early-morning rendezvous—the angel in with his things, the photos I’d seen. Reverend Diggins’ words about Rebecca’s son rattled around in my head: Unbalanced. Delusional. The image of Juarez’s body flashed through my mind, the taste of his skin. The hammer of my heart when he’d pinned me to the mattress, his dark eyes hard as coal.
I felt no fear with Juarez—but then, I’d never been afraid of Isaac Payson, either. What if that wasn’t because Juarez and Payson posed no threat, but simply because I had a spectacularly crappy psychopath-radar? I thought again of Zion Ashmont: an unstable boy who vanished in a fiery blaze of glory, the sole survivor of a congregation he was being groomed to lead…
Who would that boy become, twenty years later?
I answered my phone just before it went to voicemail.
“Any luck?” My voice sounded tight. Jack had been dead on when he’d read me last night; I wondered what he heard now. I turned from Diggs’ door and headed for my office.
“None so far.” There was a motor running in the background; he had to raise his voice to be heard. “I didn’t wake you, did I?”
“No—I had some work to do, decided to get an early start. What’s up?”
“I just wanted to find out if you ever got in touch with Sheriff Finnegan?”
Shit. In between rummaging through Juarez’s stuff and interrogating the local clergy, I’d totally forgotten I was supposed to be helping save Matt Perkins.
“I didn’t, actually—I thought it would be better to wait till morning, since you didn’t know exactly where he was.” A lie, but at least it was a logical one. “Do you want me to call now?”
“No,” he answered, too fast. “I’m still looking—I’ll just call him myself once I get a better sense of things.”
The call faded in and out, static heavy on the line. “Where are you?” I asked.
“Sorry, the connection’s bad—I’m in the car. I’ll call back later if I get a few minutes. I just wanted to know if you’d talked to Finnegan. And to let you know I’m sorry—you know, about the interruption last night.”
There was no way in hell the motor in the background was a car engine. “Don’t worry about it, I understand. Are you in a car or a boat? It sounds like you’re on the water.”
There was a pause. If my people-reading skills had failed me before, they were working overtime now.
“You’re right, sorry—I’m on a boat now. Headed for the car. I’m a little tired, my head’s not quite working right. I just took a quick ride around the harbor to see if I could catch up with Joe. I thought he might know where Matt is.”
I started to press for more details, but Juarez cut me off.
“I should go, Erin. But stay off the water today, okay? Don’t go near the island. Just promise me you’ll stay away until the storm clears—at least for the next day or so.”
“Jack, what the hell’s going on?”
The pause that followed lasted so long I thought we’d been disconnected. When Juarez continued, there was no mistaking the exhaustion in his voice. And something else—something close enough to despair to chill me to the bone. “Just promise me, all right? It’s bad out here today.”
We lost our connection before I could think of a response.
I sat there with the phone still in my hand, going over his words. Don’t go near the island. Had he been out there? And if so, what had he found? He was obviously warning me about more than just the weather.
Diggs knocked on my door before I could develop any half-baked theories. He wore a long-sleeved t-shirt with Curtis Mayfield on the front and the words “Got Soul?” across the bottom. There was a coffee stain on his chest and black ink on the left leg of his blue jeans.
“I thought I heard you in here.” He came in and sat down without waiting for an invitation. “Sorry we missed each other last night. Did you make any progress on the case?”
I felt a twinge of guilt. “Not really—though I’d love to run a couple of things by you when you have a second.”
“Any word from Juarez since yesterday?”
It was clear from his tone that he already knew the answer to that. “What time did you come home?” I asked, horrified.
“Around two,” he admitted. “I figured when Einstein was alone by the fire and your room was empty…” he attempted a laugh, though something in his eyes told me he hadn’t been so amused by the situation last night. “I didn’t want to interrupt—I figured I’d just come back here and sleep on the couch.”
“It’s your house, Diggs—that’s ridiculous. You could have stayed.”
He frowned. “No. I really don’t think I could have.”
I didn’t know what to say. We stood there for a second or two, silent, and then an instant later it was like a mask had fallen. He shrugged, working hard to appear callous. I wasn’t fooled.
“I had work, it was just as well. No big deal, Sol. And I still have work, actually—I’m gonna head back to the house and grab a shower and some breakfast, and then I’ve got a full day here. I just wanted you to know I’ll probably be here around the clock for another couple of days with the storm. I’ll be keeping a low profile for a while.”
“Look, Diggs, it was just one of those things—I don’t even know how it happened. And we didn’t actually do anything. I mean, we might have, if Matt hadn’t called, but…” I was babbling. In an effort to stop myself, I took a sharp right turn back to the investigation. “He had to leave. And then, this morning, I found something that made me think—”
Diggs’ face darkened. “I’m too tired for a play-by-play, Solomon. I should get going.”
Before I could launch into my theory on Juarez and his connection with the Payson Church, Diggs was out the door.
It was clear that I’d be on my own while Juarez was lost at sea and Diggs nursed his bruised ego, so I did my best to come up with a plan of action that involved neither of them. I might not have the scrapbooks I’d taken from Hammond, but I still had the Washington phone number I’d found. This time, I didn’t have to wait for fifteen rings before someone picked up. It rang twice before I got a recording.
The number had been disconnected.
Despite everything, I wasn’t surprised—if the voice I’d heard had indeed belonged to my father, he’d gone through a hell of a lot to disappear. Disconnecting his telephone seemed pretty minor by comparison.
I regrouped and kept my head in the game. By noon, I’d organized my notes and drafted a new chapter for the Payson book. Kat still hadn’t returned any of my calls, and so far all roads tended to lead back to Hammond’s investigation and the research my mother had taken from my room.
I had just made the decision to go ahead and drive to Portland to get Hammond’s notes back, possibly extracting them from Kat’s cold dead hands, when my phone rang. According to caller ID, the number belonged to a Dr. Maya Pearce. When I answered, the voice was one I didn’t recognize.
“Erin? I’m a colleague of your mother’s—I’m calling to find out if you’ve spoken with her recently?”
“She left here last night. Why? She’s not at work?”
“She never came home last night, and she was a no-show this morning. No call-in, nothing.”
Alarm bells went off and sirens sounded in my head. It didn’t matter how pissed off she might have been over our argument, there was no way in hell Kat would miss work.
“Have you called the police?”
There was a pause on the line. “I was hoping things had worked out with you two, and she just needed a little extra time.”
Her words from the beginning of the conversation clicked. “You said she never came home—I’m sorry, who are you, exactly?”
Another pause. “Maya—I’m a… friend, of your mother’s.”
Alrighty then. I stored that tidbit to deal with later and focused on the issue at hand.
“You should call highway patrol—find out if there were any accidents.” My mouth went dry just saying the words. “I’ll get in touch with the police here and see what I can find out. I’ll call you as soon as I know anything.”
All I could think of was Hammond’s burning house. He died for what he’d known—for the research he’d done. Research Kat had taken from me before I had a chance to make sense of it myself. And now, she was missing.
I called Juarez first, thinking again of his warning to stay off the island. Of his connection with the Paysons. What had he said when he was on the phone with Matt? You don’t need to protect anyone anymore. Who was Matt Perkins protecting? And what had he done to keep them safe?
Juarez didn’t answer his phone. I left a rambling, panic-stricken message on his voicemail, then called back a few minutes later when I didn’t hear from him right away. I disconnected without leaving a second message.
My next call was to Sheriff Finnegan. He hadn’t heard of any accidents involving a red VW Beetle in the area. It was too early to file a missing persons report, but given Hammond’s murder and the link between my mother and the dead man, he agreed to put out an APB on her car. When I mentioned Marine Patrol, Finnegan hesitated.
“In this weather, we can’t just send a boat out on a hunch. It seems like you and your mom had a few issues—maybe she’s just taking a little time.”
“My mother doesn’t take time—not away from work. She could ignore my calls till the cows came home and I wouldn’t think anything of it, but she wouldn’t just ditch the hospital.”
“The winds are supposed to die down overnight—how about if I arrange to have Patrol take a ride out to the island first thing tomorrow morning? We’ll keep checking the mainland for her, I’ll have my guys look for her car, and you can contact the local hospitals. But I promise you, I see this kind of thing all the time. I’m sure it’s just a miscommunication. Chances are, she’ll turn up fine in no time.”
I wished I had half his confidence.
I went to the newsroom next, already on the fence as to the wisdom of bothering Diggs with my mother’s disappearing act. One of the reporters whose name escaped me—a smallish man with glasses and a stained tie—intercepted me just before I reached Diggs’ door.
“Unless you have a copy of Freewheelin’ Dylan on vinyl or Scarlet Johansen’s phone number in your back pocket, you might want to wait on that,” he said. The way he looked at me made it clear he was protecting Diggs from more than just another work-related annoyance.
“He’s that pissed at me, huh?” I said.
“He’s tired,” he said, not unkindly. “Just give him a little space. I’m sure he’ll be fine.”
I wasn’t so sure about that. Lately, it seemed that all Diggs and I did was argue, while he tried to keep me safe and I fought him every step of the way. It would probably be kinder to just leave the poor guy alone. I walked away without leaving a note, determined to find Kat without his help.
◊◊◊◊◊
Outside, the storm of the century was just gaining steam. Einstein’s least favorite thing on the planet was rain, so he wasn’t pleased when I forced him out for another quick pee break before we returned to the car. He shook all over the backseat and whimpered indignantly, but—unlike everyone else in my life—at least he was still speaking to me.
I drove through Littlehope going over everything Kat and I had said to each other before she left. I wished it had been the only conversation I’d ever wanted to take back, but the truth was, my mother and I had never really known anything but harsh words and hard feelings. We had nine years together when I was growing up, most of that time colored by a venom I’d never felt for anyone but her. Maybe she drank too much and cared too little in those days, maybe her temper had gotten the best of her more than once where I was concerned, but did that really excuse the way I’d treated her all this time? The fact was, my mother had torn my world apart once when I was nine years old, and I’d been making her pay ever since.
And now, it turned out that I’d had her motives all wrong when it came to that single, defining event.
Your father didn’t want you.
And neither had she. But, whether out of guilt or duty or some twisted form of motherly love, she’d stepped up to the plate.
I turned down another of Littlehope’s multitude of backwoods roads, scanning driveways and ditches for any sign of a red Volkswagen Beetle.
There were none.
By the time I reached Edie Woolrich’s place, it was just after one o’clock—lunchtime. Several residents were gathered around the same dining room table where Noel Hammond, Edie, and I had met just a few days before. Sandwiches were piled high on a plate at the center of the table, tortilla chips in two plastic green bowls on either end. Everyone looked up when I came in. I did my best to appear moderately professional—or at least not on the verge of a mental breakdown.
Apparently I failed, because Edie clearly sensed trouble afoot. She excused herself, shut the French doors behind her, and nodded to the sitting room sofa.
“Why don’t you have a seat, hon? Can I get you something hot to drink? You look chilled to the bone.”
“I’m okay. I just had a couple of questions. Since you were so helpful the other day, I thought you might be able to tell me a few things now.”
“I’ll do what I can.”
“When Matt first brought Jack Juarez here, did you hear any talk around town? People must have said something… I mean, a confirmed bachelor shows up with a good-looking teenager to live with him, claiming it was his nephew?”
She got the implication. “Well, you’re right about that—people did talk. I think they would’ve said more about it if Matt hadn’t been trying to find him for so long, though.”
“Do you remember when he started looking? Was it before or after the Payson fire?”
“After,” she said immediately. “Not long after, as a matter of fact. I remember, because your mum and me were working at the clinic one weekend when Teddy Harjula and a couple of his cronies came in, and—” she pulled up short. “But I guess that doesn’t really matter, does it?
“Anyway, it wasn’t long after the Payson fire that Matt started traveling whenever he had a few days. He’d always come back a little quieter, a little sadder, than when he left. He never was the sanest fish in the barrel, if you know what I mean—I think folks ‘round here just figured before he found Jack, that we’d let it alone and nothing would come of all his talk about this long-lost nephew of his.”
“Do you remember what Matt said when he talked about him? Before he found Jack, I mean?”
“I don’t remember much—just how there was somebody out there, and he had to find him. I only really talked to him about it once. Me and
Fred were up at the Grange one night, and Matt came along and tied one on pretty good. He didn’t say much—I do remember how he kept saying that he knew the boy was out there, and he owed it to her to find him.”
My attention had been waning, but this pulled me back. “Her? Did he say who he meant by that?”
“He didn’t. We just figured maybe he had some long-lost sister out there somewhere—whoever was the boy’s mum, I imagine.”
I tried to piece that in with my hypothetical scenario of what happened on Payson Isle. If Zion had been saved while the rest of the church burned, and then the boy was taken off the island by some third party… Could that have been my father? And if that was the case, then… What? Matt Perkins found out, and went on a quest far and wide to find Rebecca’s son and bring back the boy he now claimed as his own blood?
I noticed Edie looking through the doors to the next room. I’d come at a bad time, I knew, and she was just too polite to say anything. “I appreciate you talking to me. I just have one last, quick question.”
“Anything I can do to help. What else can I tell you?”
I hesitated. “Do you think Matt’s a dangerous man? You’ve worked with him here for a while now, right? Could he be a danger to others?”
A shadow crossed her usually cheerful face. I thought for a second that she was about to brush me off, insist everything was fine. She didn’t.
“Didn’t Agent Juarez tell you?” she asked.
I shook my head.
“About three months back, Matt went after Joe Ashmont with one of those big survival knifes you see in the back of Soldier of Fortune magazines—Fred subscribes, that’s how I know about them. Anyway, he stuck him in the thigh, probably would’ve killed him if Joe hadn’t been quicker. That’s why we called Agent Juarez out here from his job in D.C.—we didn’t know what else to do. It was so unlike him… I know Matt’s always been a little off, but nobody’d ever seen him like this. Joe wouldn’t press charges, but Matt was still in the Togus psych ward for a good month before they’d let him out.”