Picture This (28 page)

Chapter 51

R
ocky, Isaiah, and two police officers from Portland stood on her small deck. They looked at the broken statue as if it were a body. “Has anyone touched this?” asked Officer Randy. Rocky had seen him many times on his cruise around Peaks.

“All of us, including Natalie, have touched it at one time or another. I don't think fingerprints are going to help,” said Rocky. Caleb's statue had been the one physical link between her old home and here. She understood Natalie's message perfectly.
I can hurt you.

Len and Tess were staying close to the landline at Tess's house in case Danielle tried to call.

Rocky's cell cawed.

“Excuse me. My phone generally rings if it's about animals. Don't worry. Natalie doesn't even have my cell number.” She stepped away from the Portland police and Isaiah. She stepped off the deck to her gravel drive.

“Rocky? Don't say anything, just nod. This is Natalie. There is a ferry leaving Peaks in fifteen minutes. I want you to be on it. I'll call you once you get to the pier in Portland. If you tell anyone that I've called you, it will go badly for Danielle and Cooper.”

Rocky nodded and then spoke loudly—not too loudly or dramatically, she hoped. “You've got a dog that I need to pick up? I understand, Sam. I can be there for the transport.”

Natalie continued. “So you're not alone. Has someone called the police? It must be exciting at your house.”

“That's correct,” said Rocky. “No worries, we can make this work out.” Rocky glanced over at Isaiah. Rocky stage-whispered to him, “Sam has a dog that needs to be transported back to the island today.” She shrugged and shook her head as though to say, with the slightest exasperation,
Good Lord, what's next?

Natalie said, “So deceptive and manipulative. Most of my therapists were exactly like you. I learned so much from them. Now finish up the call and make a convincing exit.”

“You're the boss,” said Rocky, feeling the ice of Natalie's pathos bounce off the cell towers. How did Natalie convince Cooper to leave with her? What would she do to him? She might hurt a dog before she'd hurt a child. Oh God, Danielle. Was Natalie re-creating the worst moment of her life?

Click.
Natalie was gone.

Isaiah walked toward her. With the early evening sun low in the sky, he was surrounded by light, and his silhouette was all she could see for a moment; his dark face was inscrutable. He was not the kind of man she could lie to.

Isaiah looked drawn, saddened by the turn of events, probably edging around the bad statistics of kidnapped children. Yet he said, “The police are headed over to Battery Steele to take a good look there. Tess told us that Natalie had a panic attack of sorts when she was on a tour with them. Afraid of the dark. Tess had a hunch we should check it out.”

Rocky looked at her watch. “I'll be back. Just a ferry ride over and back, thirty minutes. Who knows? I might run into Danielle on the way back. They could all be on their way home. What do you mean, afraid of the dark?” She patted her pockets for her keys. Her car was in long-term parking in Portland.

“What do you think I mean? The girl ran out of Battery Steele in a panic. She is just a child herself. We don't know if someone has abducted the two of them, or if they're delayed in Portland, or why they even went to Portland, or just what in the world is going on,” said Isaiah.

“Right, you're so right. I'll be back before they're done searching Battery Steele. Should I meet you here when I get back? The kids might try to call my house.”

“Yes. I'll stay here in case they try your landline. Whose dog are you bringing back?” he asked.

“What? Oh, it's an injured stray. Sam asked me if I could foster it while it recovered.”

She turned and started for the ferry, unable to look into his dark eyes one more minute.

“Wait a minute!” he shouted.

Shit. Lying to him had been useless.

“Take my truck. You'll miss the ferry if you walk.”

Rocky inhaled in a jagged breath. “Thanks,” she said. Rocky drove the orange Department of Public Works truck to the commuter lot and parked it. She examined Isaiah's key collection, searching for a spare to the little yellow truck in case Natalie had abandoned it. Isaiah's square lettering was unmistakable: he had written a large
R
on the fat part of the key. She twisted the key off the big ring and left the remaining keys under the seat. She had eight more minutes until the ferry arrived. The universe was tipping precariously, and she vibrated with terror.

Everyone has rules, including Natalie. She just had to figure out what Natalie's rules were.

Chapter 52

Cooper

H
e had chosen badly, and the cost of it could mean the end of him. His first choice had not been a foolish one, nor had the one after, but it only took one bad choice to break up a pack. Guiding the dangerous girl away from Rocky's house was a good choice. It was always best to deflect danger or trick invaders by their own confusion, especially for a large dog with physical power as a backup.

He had no wish to harm the girl. Despite his strongest instincts to protect Rocky and her pack,
their pack,
Cooper had not been able to determine with absolute canine certainty where the girl belonged or her true nature. Was she a coyote, luring unsuspecting pups away to certain death? Or was she so damaged and beaten, as Cooper suspected, that her behavior was simply erratic, strumming to her shattered version of the world?

He had smelled the twist of the chemicals of fear and dread, long since bundled into a thick protective armor around the girl. She was far more wily than a chained-up junkyard dog who had been reduced in spirit to a single response set of bark and attack. He could not be sure how she would respond, so he had watched her carefully. He had felt the girl soften around Rocky, the old one, and the small pup of a girl. The softening had been followed by a quick retraction that had lasted into her sleeping, where she struggled throughout the night. He could have joined her in dreaming; he had done this before with humans to understand them. But it would have meant abandoning his post by Rocky, and he could not leave his companion.

He had been prepared to leave her at the dock, and when she left the island would be his again, with his people, his cat, the daily rhythm of his hard-earned heartbeats. He yearned to sleep with more ease, to relax his vigil, to go back to the way it had been before the dangerous girl arrived. She could not have forced him to leave. It would have been a simple thing to hop from the back of the truck and trot across the broad gangplank to the island and say good-bye to the whirl of trouble and hurt that curdled within Natalie.

How could he have guessed that, like a true coyote, she had calculated precisely to lure away the youngest human pup among them? The small girl-child was open-eyed, blind with love and fascination, as all pups are. What choice did he have except this bad choice to go with Natalie and the child, to travel across the water, to leave the most precious of island homes? He could not abandon the child—no worthy dog would.

One wrong step and then another. It is no small thing to unleash the full power of a dog. The contract with humans is clear: if a dog attacks, even to protect, humans are free to cut down the canine with a swift and fatal blow. The balance between future threat and canine attack to thwart the threat is precarious and filled with sorrow when the final decision has even one flaw.

Cooper had glanced around the landing on the mainland. Since the autumn, he had only been here with Rocky or Melissa. There had been the slightest chance that his people would suddenly appear and he could alert them to the danger. But they were not on the dock. He pointed his nose high and caught a scent of Rocky, who had passed through a few hours earlier. He longed to see her gangly shape, to bask in her comforting scent.

The truck pulled next to a man in a vehicle. When the man got out, Cooper's fur rose of its own accord. This would have been the moment to take down the man, as Cooper leapt out of the truck and onto the hot pavement. He could have easily taken the man. But the child—what then to do about the child so far from home? He had waited too long, a second too long. Before he fully understood what had happened, he was trapped in the back of an airless van, cut off from the front seat, and the child was stolen away on his watch.

The shame of it clamped around Cooper's massive neck, and he did the only thing left to him—he barked in desperate alarm, hoping that the bellow of his bark would find its way to someone.

Chapter 53

Natalie

“W
here have you been?” hissed Natalie. “You've been gone two hours! I told you to open the windows on the van, not drive to Boston.”

Franklin scanned the room for the child. “I took care of a problem. Where's Danielle?”

“I told her to sit in the bedroom. Maybe she'll go to sleep. All the better for her if she goes to sleep. What problem did you take care of?”

Franklin drew close to the bedroom door like a moth pushing at a screen door. “The dog. I took care of him,” he said. He put his hand on the door frame. “You never told me he was so big. That dog was getting ready to turn on me, I could feel it.”

Natalie froze. This was not part of the plan. Franklin was making choices of his own, and her plan did not allow for initiatives by the almost-albino. “What did you do with him?” She kept her voice even.

“I drove out to Sebago Lake. I rigged up a line with some string to the outside of the door so that I could pull it open without being right in front of that monster when he got out. Then I drove off. He's almost thirty miles out of town, and he'd have to cross several highways to get back here. I don't think we'll be seeing him again.”

Danielle came to the doorway and edged around Franklin. She clutched her backpack to her chest. “I heard you,” she said, glaring at Franklin. Her chin was even with his belt buckle. “I want Cooper. Natalie, he doesn't know how to cross the big roads. Come
on,
Natalie.” The child's voice thinned at the end, veering toward a sob. Danielle's face began to collapse bit by bit.

Franklin put his hand on the child's head. “Don't cry. Where'd you get your pretty red hair?”

Natalie's ribs contracted, sucking inward and up. She'd known Franklin since the dark hard months of winter. Never once had she heard this voice from him, slippery and artificially sweetened. She'd been able to handle him easily, leading him effortlessly from behind, letting him think that he was in charge. She needed to pull his attention back to the prize.

“What did you want to tell me about the computer stuff, babe? I know you've been hard at work while I was on Peaks,” she said. Natalie touched her hair, wrapping one thin strand of her blond hair around her pointer finger. She took off her outer shirt, leaving just her tank top, and ran her hand along the inner soft flesh of her arm, near the old razor scars.

Franklin's lip twitched with the faintest sign of disgust. Natalie was too late to stop the tide of his change. He ran his hand over his mouth, his eyes slipped to the side. “The computer stuff? More of the same. It's not important,” he said.

He had found something else. Why did people think they could lie to her?

“Is everything set with our travel documents?”

“We've got more travel docs than we'll ever use,” he said. Now irritation worked into his voice. “We don't have any food in this place. Why don't you run out and get us something?” said Franklin. “I can stay with the kid.”

She couldn't leave Franklin with Danielle. And she couldn't take Franklin with her and leave Danielle alone. Who knew that he'd be the one to completely fuck up this plan? She needed to call Rocky again, and she didn't want Franklin around for the call.

“I'm the recognizable one, and by now they'll be looking for me. No one knows anything about you. I'm sorry, babe, but you'll have to go for food this time. Once we get out of the area, things will change. One more time, okay?” said Natalie.

If he said no, she wasn't sure what she'd do. She had been solidly convinced by Franklin's nerdiness, his fascination with her. “Danielle needs some food too. Pick up a couple of yogurts. She eats them like candy. And a pizza,” she said.

Danielle was oddly silent, eerily watching, edging close to Natalie.

“Yeah. I'll make the food run. Anything for our little guest here.”

Franklin smiled at Danielle as he left, skipping Natalie as if she were a piece of furniture. She would need every minute that he was gone. She prayed for a long line at the pizza place.

S
he had thirty minutes before Franklin returned. Probably fifty, but she didn't want to be surprised. Rocky was going to have to wait for a phone call. Waiting would be good for her. Natalie pulled a thumb drive out of her canvas bag, inserted it in the first laptop, and downloaded the folder “Travel Docs.” As a security measure, she forwarded it to her Gmail account, the one Franklin didn't know about; after deleting the file, she deleted it again on several additional levels. Natalie did the same thing with the other two laptops. She had been practicing everything she needed to know about hacking at the city library. Franklin had been an unsuspecting teacher.

“What are you doing?” asked Danielle. The girl followed Natalie, even now, watching her.

Had Natalie ever asked such a straightforward question at age seven? What if she had simply asked,
What are you doing?

“This is just between us girls. I'm borrowing some things from Franklin's computers. He's not going to come with us after all.”

Chapter 54

Melissa

M
elissa saw Rocky get on the ferry. She had been on her way to Tess's house with the photo of the van and the earlier photos of Natalie in shoplifting mode. She was sure that, given the situation, Tess would listen, especially now. Melissa would tell her everything about Natalie, every twitch and gut reaction and shudder that she had felt since Natalie arrived, because telling Rocky would be pointless. Rocky had gone as stupid as a stone.

Case in point: why was Rocky going to Portland when everyone here was in a panic because Cooper had gone missing, little Danielle was last seen with Natalie, and even the rattletrap yellow truck was gone?

Other passengers walked on, couples leaned into each other, and a young man carried on a red and white cooler. A dark-skinned family embarked—Middle Eastern, Melissa immediately thought, or Indian. She wasn't sure. They were small and compact—two parents with three children—and they all studied their smartphones. Melissa walked closer, curious, angry, drawn along in a tide she couldn't name, clutching the rolled-up photos fresh from her printer. She stopped before the metal ramp. She looked up to the second level of the ferry, and there was Rocky, only a few steps from the stairway. Her hair was sprung from a hair tie, the bottom third of her dark hair loose and thick, while the remainder of it formed a two-inch stub of a ponytail. Rocky dropped suddenly to her knees, and the family of five nearly plowed into her, all looking up dazed from their phones. They simply walked around her. Rocky sank back on her heels, head down, and even from the lower deck Melissa could see the shudder run through her.

Melissa stepped onto the ferry. The captain announced, “There will be a short loud blast.” The sound from the ferry was as familiar to Melissa as breathing. The ferry marked time, speeding up in the summer, slowing in frequency in the winter to match the semi-hibernation rate of the islanders. The sounds of the metal-on-metal closure of the gate, the acceleration of the huge engine as it powered out of the dock, the gulls loudly demanding food, the
splat
of plastic shoes on the metal floor—all these sounds blurred into the background as Melissa ascended the stairs.

Rocky stood up, leaned one hip into the railing, and wiped her eyes. She turned just as Melissa reached the top step.

“Before you say anything, you need to look at these photos, and you need to listen to me,” said Melissa.

Rocky started to mold her face into a macabre smile, her bottom lip still trembling. Melissa held up a hand. “I mean it. You've got to listen to me. Natalie is not who you think she is. You think that I'm jealous of her, and I am, but I'm more freaked out because you've gone so nuts about her. She's been shoplifting in Portland. You can't quite see it in this picture, but you can see her boyfriend. This is right after she stole jewelry. She gives the stuff to him. Here's his van.” Melissa gave Rocky the photos of Natalie with her hand in the van window, giving something to the driver.

Rocky's hands shook as she took the photo. “When was this?”

“A few days after she came to stay with you. I wasn't following her, I swear. I was just in Portland after going to the Y. She didn't see me. Here, I just printed this picture. I was over in Chester Hill this week taking pictures of the street people outside the homeless shelter. I haven't told anyone that I'm going there. Well, I told Mr. Clarke, but I told him that my parents are okay with me being there and they don't actually know. And now you know. Anyhow, do you see that van in the background? It's the same van. I think her boyfriend lives right in Chester Hill. That's where Natalie might be with Danielle and Cooper.”

Melissa took a breath. There was so much more she had to tell Rocky about Natalie, what high school girls know about each other that no one else knows—how Natalie didn't let Cooper outside to pee when she should have, the way Natalie wormed her way into everything that had been Melissa's.

“Where is Chester Hill? You're hanging out with street people?” Rocky looked puzzled, like Melissa was speaking French and Rocky needed a translator.

Rocky still didn't get it. Melissa had never, even as a little kid, stomped her feet in frustration, but if she was ever going to do it, this would be the time. “You don't get it! Everything about Natalie is wrong. Would you please wake up?”

A man and a woman who had been nuzzling now looked over at them. Rocky grabbed Melissa's arm and led her to the other side of the ferry. “Keep your voice down. Just give me a minute to think,” said Rocky.

Melissa heard something familiar in Rocky's voice, the smarter, kick-ass part of Rocky, and she breathed in a sliver of relief. She had nearly given up, had been ready to abandon all hope for Rocky as an intelligent life form. Did she dare trust her again?

“I shouldn't do this, I shouldn't involve you . . . ,” said Rocky.

With that, a door opened, and Melissa wedged her foot in before Rocky could change her mind.

“You know something! I am already involved, and I swear to you that I'll do whatever you say, but you've got to let me help you.”

They were going through the middle passage where the water was deep and cold; the chill rose through the vessel and wrapped around Melissa. She closed her eyes and whispered, “We've got to get them back. Don't let them end up on the news shows in the disaster section. We could never go back to the way it was before, none of us.”

Rocky put her arm around Melissa's shoulders in an awkward squeeze. “Okay, this is what we're going to do. We'll get them back. First, tell me everything you know about Natalie. I'm listening.”