Rhonda was joined on stage by the entire cast, and, arms around each other, they took their final bow.
THE PROCESSION THROUGH the woods to Rhonda’s house was noisy and chaotic. The pirates and lost boys were sword fighting. Tock was snapping imaginary crocodile jaws at everyone. Laura Lee was telling a story about Sandy Duncan.
The two picnic tables in Rhonda’s yard were covered in dishes everyone had brought. There were four different pasta salads, a frightening-looking Jell-O mold, a cake shaped like a pirate ship complete with mast and sails, shish kebabs, burgers, and hotdogs, chips and dip, a tray of Swedish meatballs being kept warm by a can of Sterno, pigs in a blanket, coolers full of beer and soda, and two bowls of punch with fruit floating in it.
Daniel was sword fighting with Peter and Lizzy. Peter, still in character, looked very serious and fought hard against his father, like he was out for blood with his wooden sword.
Tinker Bell was riding high on her father’s shoulders. “I’ll make you a copy of the video,” her dad promised Justine, who smiled, said, “That would be lovely,” and heaped more Swedish meatballs on his plate.
As the evening progressed, the punch flowed freely. Daniel and Clem had dragged the stereo from the living room, then cranked up Van Morrison. People started dancing. Clem danced with Rhonda. Daniel and Laura Lee swung each other drunkenly through the crowd. Justine stood by the food table, tapping her foot in time with the music. Aggie danced by herself, going in circles around a tiki torch, eyes closed, arms stretched out toward the sky. At one point, when Rhonda passed in front of her on her way to get more cake, Aggie said, “Rhonda, you were marvelous! It’s such a sad ending, though, don’t you think?”
Rhonda shrugged.
“I mean, Peter and Wendy don’t get to be together. She grows old. He doesn’t. He gets to live out eternity in Neverland with that little fairy. And Wendy has nothing.”
“But it was what she wanted,” Rhonda said, her voice sounding squeaky and defensive. “To go home, I mean.”
Aggie looked up over Rhonda’s shoulders.
Peter was calling to Rhonda from across the table and Rhonda excused herself from Aggie, forgetting all about the cake she’d meant to get.
Peter passed out cups of rum punch to Rhonda, Tock, and Lizzy, urging them to drink up. Clem went and spoke to Aggie, who laughed, closed her eyes, and kept dancing, spilling punch but seeming not to notice or care. When Clem returned to the food table, Justine snapped at him, words Rhonda couldn’t hear, and he hung his head like a beaten dog. Justine turned and marched into the house, slamming the door. Clem, who rarely drank, poured himself a cup of punch and downed it in two gulps. Aggie opened her eyes again and beckoned him over with seductive waves of her fingers. Clem stood his ground and poured himself another cup of punch.
“Dance with me,” Aggie called.
He shook his head.
“Suit yourself,” she said, and began to dance alone, her arms circling slowly at first, then fast like a windmill. She came forward and bumped against the picnic table, losing her balance. She put down her arm to steady herself, and her hand went right into the tray of Swedish meatballs.
“Shit!” she screamed, waving her burned hand wildly through the air. The meatballs had fallen off their metal stand and knocked over the Sterno. The paper tablecloth caught fire. A pile of napkins and paper plates went up in flames.
Aggie laughed. “Someone call 911,” she cackled. Around her, people began batting at the fire with paper plates and dumping cups of punch on it. There was much staggering and laughter as pineapple and maraschino cherries flew through the air, landing on the flaming table like little meteorites. Clem dashed to get the hose at the side of the house, but it was in tangles and wouldn’t reach the table. He began the slow process of unknotting it, cursing the whole time, yelling, “Stay back!”
In the midst of the chaos, Rhonda watched Peter and Tock slip away into the woods. She looked for Lizzy, but Captain Hook was nowhere to be seen.
JUNE 17, 2006
PATCHES. THAT WAS the name of the border collie who found her. The farmer and Patches were just out for a walk when Patches began to whine, sniff, and dig at the dirt. The dirt moved away and the farmer saw the sheet of plywood. He pulled it back. When Ella Starkee looked up at him, the sun blinded her and she saw only his tall shadow. She thought he was God and waited for an elephant joke. When he didn’t tell her one, she thought maybe it was her turn.
“What’s big and gray and goes around and around in circles?” Ella asked.
“I see a ladder here,” the farmer said. Patches whined.
“An elephant stuck in a revolving door,” Ella said.
“You’re okay,” he told her as he lowered the ladder. “I’m going to get you out of here.”
WARREN’S CAR WASN’T in the driveway of Pat and Jim’s tiny modular home. Rhonda jumped out of the Honda and pounded on the door anyway. While she waited, she reached into the pocket of her jeans, found Lizzy’s abandoned button, and worked her fingers over it. Jim answered, looking more scruffy and disheveled than usual, like she’d just interrupted a nap on the couch.
“Warren’s not here?” Rhonda asked.
Jim shook his head. “Try the Mini Mart. He left for there a couple hours ago.”
“No. He’s not there, and he’s not answering his cell phone. I’ve really gotta find him.”
“Is there news?” Jim asked.
Rhonda told him about her discovery and the call she’d made to the police. “Crowley and his guys should be there by now. They might have found Ernie already. God, wouldn’t that be something?”
Jim nodded. “It sure would be good for all this to be over. Poor Pat’s been through the wringer. She doesn’t eat. Doesn’t sleep. She’s just been…consumed.”
“You know, I heard about her sister—the one who was killed when they were kids.”
Jim shifted in the doorway. Rubbed his eyes. “She doesn’t talk about it much. But it’s a hell of a thing for anyone to go through—to see your baby sister hit and dragged like that. And they were close. Real close. She and Birdie were inseparable.”
The name hit Rhonda in the solar plexus, knocking the air from her lungs, rendering her unable to speak for several seconds.
“Birdie?” she asked at last, a whispery gasp.
Hadn’t that been the name the rabbit called Ernie, the one on the hidden note Katy told them about?
One of the many clues that had never made any sense.
“Her sister Rebecca,” Jim explained. “That’s what Pat always called her. ’Cause when she was born she’d peck her little head just like a bird.”
AUGUST 10, 1993
RHONDA LEFT THE chaos of the burning picnic table, the laughing and screaming adults spilling punch, her father dousing the flames with the garden hose he’d finally managed to untangle with Rhonda’s help.
She slipped away quietly, down the path back toward the stage. It was dark, but the moon was out. It didn’t matter though; she knew the way by heart. She could make the five-minute walk along the narrow trail blindfolded and not bump into a single tree.
The path dipped. Her nightgown rippled in the breeze, making her feel more like a ghost than a girl.
Ahead of her, she heard crying. Behind her, the loud thump of Van Morrison.
She hurried into the clearing and there, in the moonlight, she saw the three of them on the stage. Peter with a hammer. Tock with her arms wrapped around Lizzy, who was collapsed on the floor beside the trapdoor, sobbing.
It looked, to Rhonda, like they were rehearsing a scene from a play Rhonda didn’t recognize.
“What’s going on?” she called out.
“You’re just in time, Rhonda,” Peter said.
“For what?” she asked.
“We’re going to tear the whole thing down,” he told her. “Now come up here and give me a hand.”
JUNE 17, 2006
IT WAS QUARTER of nine by the time Rhonda pulled into
the Mini Mart. The gas signs were off and the store and garage were dark, but Pat’s car was there in the lot.
Rhonda got to the front door and found it unlocked. Slowly, she opened it, hearing the little electronic ding-dong that went off at the registers as she entered.
She did a quick scan of the Mini Mart. No Pat. No Warren.
“Hello?” she called, her voice squeaky, hesitant.
She went back to the front door and looked out across the parking lot toward the road. No one. Nothing.
How could she never have considered Pat a suspect before? Pat knew Trudy and Ernie. But it still didn’t make sense. Pat had been so earnest in her search for Ernie. She so desperately wanted to find the little girl.
Had Pat and Peter been in on it together? Or was Rhonda wrong about Peter?
Rhonda had never been alone in the Mini Mart before. She’d never noticed the low droning hum of the coolers and air conditioning. The place was full of barely audible clicks and whirs. At each new noise, she turned to look over her shoulder.
She was sure she could hear breathing.
“Pat?”
Rhonda walked through the store, around the racks of snack cakes and chips, finally stepping behind the register, where she flipped the wall switches, making the store blaze with light. She looked up at the rows of cigarettes, the warnings about selling tobacco and alcohol to underage kids, which included a visual guide to acceptable photo IDs. The counter was covered in scratched Plexiglas and, under it, was a list of prices for beer, soda, coffee, and dairy products. She heard a low rumble in the back corner—just the soda fountain machine making ice.
She made her way to the abandoned volunteer table. Notepads, telephones, and the laptop were scattered across the surface. And there was a Styrofoam cup nearly full of hot chocolate. Rhonda picked it up—still warm.
“Rhonda.”
The voice behind her made Rhonda jump, spilling the warm cocoa on the leg of her jeans. “Jesus!” she yelped, spinning around to face Pat.
“I didn’t mean to startle you,” Pat said. “I was doing some work in my office and thought I heard a noise.”
“I…” Rhonda stammered. “I just wondered if there was any word yet.”
Pat shook her head. “Not yet.” She eyed the cup of hot chocolate in Rhonda’s hand.
“Looks like maybe Warren showed up?” Rhonda asked.
Pat gave a slow nod. “He’s in my office, actually. I think he’s got some things to explain to you.”
Rhonda set the Styrofoam cup down, wiped her hands on her jeans, and looked across the store and down the hall that led to the office.
“It’s time he told you the truth,” Pat said.
“Truth?” Rhonda murmured. Pat gestured toward the back hall, reminding Rhonda of the way the white rabbit had guided her through the woods that Easter long ago.
Now Warren was the basket of candy.
Hesitantly, with Pat half a step behind her, Rhonda made her way to the office. She opened the door and stepped inside.
“Where is—” Rhonda said.
Pat slipped in and closed the door behind them, standing with her back against it. Next to the door, a large crowbar leaned against the wall. Pat bent and picked it up in one quick move.
AUGUST 10, 1993
WHY?” RHONDA SAID. “Why would you want to wreck our stage?”
“Because it’s over,” Peter said.
“What is?” Rhonda hoped he meant things with him and Tock. Maybe Tock and Lizzy were secretly in love. Right then, up on stage, Tock spooned against Lizzy, whispering in her ear, they looked like two people in love. Rhonda was almost embarrassed for them. But jealous at the same time. Whatever this big thing was that was happening between them, Rhonda wasn’t a part of it and she had been a part of everything in Lizzy’s life up till then.
“Do you trust me, Ronnie?” Peter asked.
She nodded.
“Then help me do this.” He held out his hand and Rhonda joined him on stage. Together, they grabbed the sheet with the painted scene of the Darling children’s nursery and ripped it down. Behind it were the blue water and palm trees of Neverland.
“But Peter—” Rhonda began.
“We need more tools,” Peter said, jumping off the stage, running behind it to the box where they kept a few basics. He returned with a crowbar and saw.
“It’s time,” Tock whispered, pulling Lizzy up. Lizzy picked up the hammer Peter had been holding and started hitting the floorboards, cautiously at first, then using all of her force. Tock picked up the crowbar and began ripping floorboards up, the rusty nails screeching.
Peter was sawing at the two-by-four frame of the wall that held the backdrops. “It’s over,” he said, more to himself than anyone in particular. Lizzy dropped the hammer and started to cry.
“Lizzy?” Rhonda said, walking over to her friend, putting a hand on her shoulder. “What happened, Lizzy?”
“Let her be,” Tock warned, coming toward them with the crowbar in her hand. Rhonda backed away.
“Ronnie, I need you over here,” Peter called. He was pushing on the left side of the backdrop frame, making it sway. “Grab the other end.”
Rhonda went over and wrapped her hands around the two-by-four, imagining it was Tock’s neck.
“No one ever has to know,” Tock whispered to Lizzy.
Know what? Rhonda screamed inside her head. What did you do to my best friend?
“Pull!” Peter shouted.
The back wall didn’t budge. Rhonda jumped up, grabbed hold of the board that ran across the top of the frame, and swung there, the Neverland landscape behind her: blue water, even bluer sky, the shoreline of their island.
I sometimes wonder if I ever did really fly…
She thought of Lizzy hanging from the closet, trying to stretch herself, to grow taller. She could just hear the music pumping out of the speakers back in the bright chaos of her yard: “Brown-eyed Girl.” Van Morrison crooned, Do you remember when we used to sing…
There was a cracking sound and the wall broke free, tipping, sending Peter and Rhonda down, a pile of boards and the tangled sheet with the painted island on top of them, a searing pain in Rhonda’s forehead, like everything in there—all her memories of Lizzy and Peter, and all the random things she’d learned, like lines from their plays and the shape of buttons on the uniform of a Confederate soldier—was trying to find a way back out. She closed her eyes. Let the shoreline of Neverland cover her, hold her, threaten to never let her go.
JUNE 17, 2006
PAT HEFTED THE crowbar and rested it on her shoulder casually. “He was just supposed to take her to the woods. Leave her there. She would’ve stayed put and we would’ve found her in a few hours.”
Rhonda nodded, took a step back, bumping up against the large metal desk. “Who?” she asked.
“Little Ernie, of course. I was going to find her. It was all arranged.”
It made sense in a horrible sort of way. Pat’s guilt over what happened to her sister. An opportunity, years later, to redeem herself. To be the hero. Even if it meant staging a kidnapping. She’d have her fifteen minutes of fame. Be redeemed. The whole town would benefit, really. It would be Ella Starkee all over again.
But if it wasn’t Pat in the rabbit suit that day, who was it? Had she talked Peter into taking the little girl? Blackmailed him somehow?
“It was you who visited Ernie all along, right? You wanted to be the one to develop the relationship. To build trust.”
Pat stared, stone-faced.
“You picked her up in Laura Lee’s car. I bet she liked it. It must have made her so happy, to see the rabbit waiting for her, ready to take her to the cemetery.”
Pat gave a wistful little smile. “Rabbit Island,” she whispered, relaxing her grip on the crowbar.
“Right, Rabbit Island. I saw one of Ernie’s drawings,” Rhonda said. “She made it look like paradise.”
“Yes. She loved it there. She loved me.”
&
nbsp; Rhonda nodded. “Who did you get to wear the suit that last day, Pat? Who took her? Where is she now?”
“You’re a smart girl.” Pat’s eyes blazed now as she spoke. “I thought you’d have it figured out by now.”
Rhonda shook her head. She put her hand back on the desk and felt around. Her desperate fingers found only papers. Magazines. A pen.
“Warren,” Pat said, the name an angry hum through her clenched teeth. “It was Warren. Warren killed her.”
“No,” Rhonda almost laughed. “He wasn’t even here. He was in Pennsylvania.”
“I offered him money. Five hundred dollars. An easy job for a college kid. Just pick her up, drive a few miles, and drop her off. I drew him a goddamn map.”
“You’re lying!” Rhonda said. “Where is he? What did you do to him?”
Pat continued: “Then he’d lie low and tell everyone he’d come up to help out the next day. Driven all night, that was the story. He heard about the kidnapping and wanted to help. Such a good boy.”
Rhonda reached back, stretched her arm across the desk until her fingers found the cool, smooth edge of the granite stone, felt the indentations of engraved letters: PAT HEBERT, STATION OWNER AND MANAGER. She grabbed it. Heavy. Seven or eight pounds maybe.
“Good boy, my ass!” Pat hissed. She clenched the crowbar.
“He killed her. He took my little Birdie and he…”
“No!” Rhonda raised the stone and aimed for Pat’s temple. She made contact, and the force of it vibrated through her arm and into her chest. The crowbar slipped from Pat’s hands, clanking on the ground. Then Pat herself went down.
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