The Lost Sister (23 page)

A
fter hearing about Cordelia and Maddie’s adventure at the Endicotts’, Finn decided to head out to Misery Island. He knew there had to be a clue, something that connected Darcy’s and Bronwyn’s murders. And he knew that if he didn’t discover the connection, then the next people on the list would be Cordelia or Maddie. It was his responsibility to figure it out in time. He didn’t tell the girls where he was headed, because he knew they would want to tag along. He needed to do this alone under the cover of darkness. They’d already done enough to help him clear his name. Now he needed to do something for them—to possibly save them from their intended fate.

He dragged his boat up onto the shore of Cat Cove and wandered over to the site of the Winter Gala. The ruins of the old casino looked monstrous in the moonlit night. He headed over to where the tent was erected the night Darcy was murdered. He knew his way around the island pretty well from working for Hawthorne’s grounds department. He walked over and looked down at the jagged outcropping of rocks where Darcy’s body was found. If someone had pushed her off the rocks where he was standing, she would have been able to crawl back up and save herself.

“Unless she was unconscious when she was pushed off,” he said to himself. The police reports said that she had several blunt traumas to her head, neck, torso, and legs, and that they believed these were consistent with her body being bashed against the rocks repeatedly by the waves. But what if she had been struck prior to being pushed into the water? Finn decided to look around in the overgrown sections of the island for any evidence that would point to it. It was then that he found it. A tent stake with dried blood. Darcy’s blood. It had been thrown deep into the bracken behind the old casino. But what shocked him even more was what he found lying next to it. When he shone his flashlight around the tent stake, resisting the temptation to move anything so as not to disturb any useful fingerprints, something caught his eye. Something familiar. Something that could connect the assailant to the crime. It was just so unbelievable.

Finn had grabbed the evidence and was running back to his boat, eager to get back to the mainland and notify the police, when he realized that he wasn’t alone on the island.

“Hey there, lawn boy,” Trevor said with disgust in his voice. He and his friends had pulled up onto the shore and Trevor had a baseball bat in his hands. “Taking a moonlight stroll on Misery Island, are we?”

Finn knew that he was outnumbered, so he chose to walk past them and get into his boat. He pushed the boat along the sand into the water while Trevor continued to taunt him.

“Yeah, I come out here sometimes to think about last year out on Misery Island. That was going to be an awesome party until someone had to come out here and ruin all the fun,” Trevor continued when Finn refused to respond. Finn knew Trevor was referring to the night when Cordelia was tortured and almost gang-raped by Trevor and his friends. It might have happened if Finn hadn’t heard about it ahead of time and showed up with his gun.

“If I recall, you and your friends needed a change of underpants after I showed up with my gun,” Finn muttered.

“Yeah, well, you don’t have a gun now. Guess you’re not so tough after all,” Trevor taunted while the others laughed.

“Guess so, Trevor. I’m the wimp. You got me.” He continued shoving the boat toward the water. The sooner he was out to sea, the better off he’d feel.

“Going out on a late night boat trip, Finn? You should have brought Cordelia with you. I remember one night out on my brother’s boat with your little slut girlfriend. Boy, did she make the boat rock that night! She’s a firecracker, that one is. Hoo-eeyy!” He yelped with glee and high-fived his friends.

Finn couldn’t take it anymore. He could handle the taunts about himself, but hearing Trevor gloat about the night that he violently raped Cordelia, possibly impregnating her, was too much for him to bear. He lunged at Trevor, who was waiting for him. All Finn remembered was the sound of a crack of the bat as it connected with his skull.

Finn woke up when a shock of cold hit his body.

“Self-righteous prick,” Trevor said as he looked down at Finn flailing helplessly in the freezing water. Finn felt like the world was moving in slow motion. The words and the sounds were garbled like a worn-out tape recorder and the freezing water sapped his energy, making him feel like he was paralyzed. His body hurt to even move, let alone tread water to keep his head above the waves.

He was going to drown.

Out in the middle of the harbor, Finn began calling out for help. It was starting to come back to him as he gulped mouthfuls of salt water. They had beaten him severely and then taken him out onto the boat. Once they were out on the water, they dumped his body on their way back to the mainland. He started floundering and then seemed to be pulled under. The guys on the boat were yipping and hollering. Finn had a flash that this was how his life was going to end. Battered and bruised and being taunted by Trevor and his crew while he slowly slipped under the surface. As he went underwater for what felt like the hundredth time, he felt the sharp pang of irony that he was going to die—something he prayed for every day that he was away from Cordelia to ease the pain. And now that she was back, he was finally going to get his wish.

With the noise and shouts echoing off the harbor, Reed Campbell came out of his boat. He’d been there almost every night since Bronwyn’s disappearance, drinking himself into a stupor, not caring if he fell overboard and drowned. He deserved it. If he had only paid more attention to her—if he had only given her the affection that she so desperately wanted from him, then maybe he could have prevented all of this from happening. And now that she was dead—he knew it was only a matter of time before he was brought in again as a suspect. They always look closest to home when crimes of this nature occur. He had finished a bottle of Jim Beam and was ready to crack open a bottle of Stoli when he heard the shouting and splashing.

In the bright moonlit night, Reed could see his brother and his friends laughing at someone desperately trying to keep his head above the freezing ocean water. He heard them yelling:

“Swim, Finn, swim!”

“Run, Forrest, run!”

“Come on, Finn, use your fins to swim back to shore!”

Reed dove into the oily blackness of the waves to save him. He came up sputtering and coughing; the icy water took the wind right out of him. Finn resurfaced behind him, screaming and gasping for air. Before Reed could make it over to him, Finn had sunk beneath the glassy shoal once more. Reed started yelling to the guys on the boat for help.

“Jesus Christ!” he screamed. “Pull him up, you assholes. Trevor, do something! He’s gonna drown!”

A few of them seemed to want to help Finn, but Trevor wanted to wait it out a little longer. Just to see what would happen.

Reed quickly realized that if anyone was going to save Finn, it was going to have to be him, despite his own inebriated condition. Just as Reed was about to dive under again, Finn came up a good ten to twenty feet in front of him, heading toward the shore. Before any of them could figure out how Finn had made it all that way, Reed began swimming furiously toward the dark figure.

By the time Reed reached him, Finn seemed to be at the brink of death. Reed used his lifeguard training and was able to float on his back and keep Finn’s head abovewater all the way back to shore. The other boys watched from the boat, still enjoying the show. When they got up to shore, Reed dragged Finn onto the beach and started screaming at Finn to wake up; then he yelled to the others that he was unconscious. The boys quickly pulled their boat up to shore and jumped out to assess the situation.

“We have to call an ambulance,” Reed cried. “He’s going to die.”

“No way,” Trevor snapped. “If you call an ambulance, the cops will come and we’ll get busted for kicking his ass.”

“He needs help! Don’t you fucking understand that?”

“Just relax, Reed. He’ll be fine. He just needed to be taken down a notch. He needed to learn to stop poking his nose into places where it doesn’t belong.” Trevor tried to calm his brother down.

Standing there dripping and looking from face to face, seeing them dark and grotesque in the pale glow of the streetlights above, Reed became enraged. “You guys did this to him?” He looked down at Finn’s beaten and bruised body. The lumps on his face were the size of lemons, his eyes were swollen shut, and his mouth was gushing blood. “He could have died! Would that have been a cool enough show for you guys if he had drowned out there?”

Kate made her way to the edge of the shore out from the shadows, her eyes lit up ecstatically. She’d been watching the whole time.

“Definitely,” she said enthusiastically, her breath turning the cold air into smoke. “Now, that’s what I call a fun night.”

Reed looked over at Kate angrily. “You knew about this? You knew what they were going to do to Finn?”

“Why do you care anyway? Did you guys become soul mates while you were cell mates?” Kate asked as she laughed.

“Kate, he could have died.”

“Just like your girlfriend! Or did Bronwyn stop making your heart go pitterpat when your little girlfriends came back to town? Don’t you think it’s a little gross to be going after underage girls who also happen to be related!”

“I’m not going after anyone,” he said angrily. He refused to let Kate get under his skin. She was like one of those tapeworms that once you let get into your system, you can never get it out.

Reed grabbed a sweater and a flannel shirt out of his backpack. Even though his entire body was shaking uncontrollably from the frigid harbor water, he knew that Finn’s life was at stake. He covered Finn up, trying to get some warmth back into the boy whose lips were blue and trembling.

Kate went over to her car and grabbed a big flannel blanket and handed it to Reed. “Here,” she said offhandedly. “A prize for the hero of the day.”

Reed pulled the blanket around his shivering body and ordered Kate to call 9–1–1. He then turned to yell at his brother and his friends, who were still laughing like hyenas. “Laugh it up, but you’re going to have to explain this to the police when they get here.”

“Boys will be boys, won’t they, Reed?” Kate purred. “Now, if I were you I’d stay away from your new best friend, Finn, as well as your little girlfriends Maddie and Cordelia. Because that would put you in a very awkward situation, considering what happened to Bronwyn and with all those people that frown upon old, lecherous men and underage girls.” She turned and looked at Trevor, who was now rolling on the ground in a drunken stupor.

She wrapped her arms around Reed’s neck and continued. “Luckily I’m all for those kinds of relationships.” Before he could stop her, she started French-kissing him and pushed her tongue so far back into his throat he started gagging. He pushed her away in disgust.

She narrowed her eyes and pulled his arm back around her, only to yell out, “Get off me, you pig. Trevor!”

Trevor lifted his head up and saw Kate struggling to get away from his brother and before he knew what was happening, did a running tackle and took his brother down.

Kate sat back watching the brothers beat the crap out of each other and said, “Boys, boys, I hate to see you fight over little old me.” Her grin grew wider as the other guys circled the brothers, cheering them on. Reed definitely was a better kisser than Trevor, she’d give him that much.

The police sirens and ambulance lights broke up the fight between Trevor and Reed. The paramedics started loading Finn into the back of the ambulance, placing an oxygen mask over his face, starting an IV, and putting heated blankets over his shivering body.

Kate turned and started to head back to her car, pleased with what she’d accomplished. It wasn’t until she passed by where the ambulance had been parked that she saw something on the ground. It must have fallen off Finn when they were getting him into the ambulance. She glanced around to make sure no one was looking before picking it up and slipping it into her pocket. Very lucky that it was in her possession.

“If anyone found this, then there would be a real problem,” she said to herself. Then she wondered just how much Finn knew and if he would be able to make anything of this puzzle piece. Because if he could, then the rest of the puzzle would fall quickly and easily into place. And that would be a very, very bad thing.

B
ronwyn Maxwell’s and Darcy Willett’s funerals were set one week apart. The news media were crawling all over Hawthorne. The Darcy incident evoked some suspicion, but many believed that she had simply had too much to drink at the Winter Gala on Misery Island and ended up drowning. There was no evidence of foul play.

Bronwyn’s discovery was something altogether different.

Someone wanted her dead and did everything they could, even arson, to cover it up. And the people of Hawthorne wanted answers. No one more than the Endicotts and their investors who’d poured millions into the development.

“You know, now that you’re back in town, you might want to keep a better watch on your boyfriend,” Kate snapped at Cordelia when she ran into them at the Christmas Holiday Walk. Despite the frigid weather, Maddie could feel the collective heat of anger emanating from Maddie and Cordelia. The girls entered one of the stores on the walk.

Cordelia went immediately to the back of the store, obviously too upset about Finn’s hypothermia and hospitalization to get into an argument with Kate. “How’s the ice diver doing anyway?” Kate called over Maddie’s shoulder.

Maddie shoved Kate backward. “Leave her alone.”

“Wow, Maddie. Look at you,” she said, smiling. “It’s the new and improved fighter Maddie doll. Where can I get one?”

“Why in the world would Finn do that to Bronwyn? He didn’t even know her,” Maddie hissed. “And burn down Ravenswood? He’s been fighting to keep that place around for years through the historical society. Why would he throw that all away?”

“Exactly,” Kate said, inspecting the jewelry in the glass case in front of her. She stared at the shopgirl until she felt so uncomfortable, she turned away, red-faced. “He wanted to preserve the original Ravenswood. Not the new structures that were part of the new hotel. And, wow, what a coincidence, the only part of that monstrous place to survive the fire was the original building—the place that Finn so desperately wanted to save. Isn’t that ironic?”

Maddie shook her head, and turned to see if Cordelia was in the proximity, listening to Kate’s madness.

“So, Miss Detective, if you’re right—that in addition to being a landscaper, student, and member of the historical society, Finn is also a brilliant arsonist—why would he leave Bronwyn in the one place where the evidence wouldn’t be destroyed?”

“Maybe he wanted her to be found. Maybe it was a message to us to back off of the construction. Or maybe he’s just a sick twisted bastard. Now I see why he fits in so well with your family,” she said with a light tinkling laugh.

Suddenly Kate fell forward against the case, causing a Waterford crystal bowl to fall to the floor, shattering into millions of shards of glass.

“Oh my, I’m so sorry about that, Kate. I must have tripped,” Cordelia said lightly. “Come on, Maddie, let’s go.” And then she turned to the shopgirl. “You can just put that on the Endicott tab; I’m sure they can afford it. Happy holidays.”

Maddie followed Cordelia out the door only to hear Kate shouting after them, “This isn’t over!” The shopgirl raced around to start cleaning up the shards of glass and Maddie watched as Kate angrily ground them into the floor with her boots.

“You’re going to get us in so much trouble,” Maddie said, giggling.

“Trouble doesn’t even begin to describe what’s going to happen when I get done with Kate,” Cordelia said dryly.

Maddie knew that this was no laughing matter.

This was revenge.

“You really shouldn’t be out of the hospital so soon,” Cordelia said as she helped Finn out to her car.

The girls had received the message once they got home that Finn was signing himself out of the hospital. Cordelia jumped into her VW Bug the moment she heard that Finn was going to be released.

The girls walked on either side of him, Cordelia with her arm around his waist.

“I’m not going to break. You guys can take off the kid gloves,” Finn said, attempting to be lighthearted. His voice was still raspy from the hypothermia and the treatment he’d received in the hospital. His memories were so clouded from that night. He knew that there was something important he found on Misery Island, but during all of the craziness, he had forgotten what it was and how it related to Darcy and Bronwyn. It may have been nothing at all. But, still, it nagged at him. The only reason it bothered him was that he feared that whatever happened to Darcy and Bronwyn could just as easily happen to Cordelia and Maddie. That’s why he wasn’t going to let either girl out of his sight.

When they got back to Mariner’s Way, Maddie busied herself in the kitchen making hot chocolate for everyone. Cordelia bundled Finn in blankets, despite his good-natured protesting that he was fine. They lit a fire in the fireplace and all huddled around the warmth, bracing themselves against the cool icy winds coming off the ocean that still seemed to find their way through the cracks and slats of the old Victorian.

“Do you remember why you went out there that night?” Cordelia asked.

Finn shook his head. “There wasn’t a real reason. I just had a hunch that I’d find something out there.”

“Great, just what we need, more psychics in this house.” They heard the stern voice come from the hallway. Abigail had just returned from visiting Rebecca and didn’t seem pleased to see the gathering in her living room.

Cordelia let Abigail’s snide comment slide and quickly asked, “Are they letting my mom out soon? What did the doctors say?”

“They want to make sure that Rebecca is coming to a safe, calm, and normal home. No craziness, no antics, no stress.”

Finn said under his breath, “That counts out Hawthorne.”

Abigail continued, ignoring Finn’s remark. “We need to make sure that she doesn’t have another episode, so that means that everyone has to agree to make this place as stress free as possible. No running off on a whim, no disappearing acts, no night swims on the islands, none of that.”

Maddie knew that Abigail had conveniently pardoned herself of any blame as to what had happened to Rebecca. It was a convenient, self-preservation technique. In her mind, she was blameless. And the rest of the world should be held responsible. It was something that Maddie had become accustomed to when dealing with Abigail Crane.

“Don’t worry, Mrs. Crane. I’m going to watch out for these girls,” Finn said staunchly.

Abigail gave him a sharp look. “And who is going to look out for you, Finn?” She smiled for the briefest moment and then headed upstairs, leaving the three of them to return to their discussion.

“You don’t really think we’re at risk, do you, Finn?” Maddie asked. All of it seemed surreal. Darcy’s death and then Bronwyn’s kidnapping and murder. The fire at Ravenswood. There had to be a connection to it all. Who was doing this and why?

“Well, you all realize that I’m the main suspect,” Cordelia said dryly. “I’m the one who disappeared for a year. I’m the one that people think is crazy. I’m the one that drove my mom into a nuthouse. And all of this insanity started right when I got back to town.”

“Plus, the tarot cards,” Finn said to no one in particular.

“What did you just say?” Cordelia asked, her voice suddenly shaky. “Who said anything about tarot cards?”

Finn looked back and forth between Maddie and Cordelia. They both were staring at him strangely. This was the first time that tarot cards had ever been mentioned among the three of them.

“I—uh—I thought you guys knew,” Finn stammered. “When Reed and I were being held as suspects, he told me that Darcy and the rest of the Sisters of Misery got some weird tarot cards. And then he mentioned that Bronwyn got one, too. And you,” he said to Maddie. “He said you got one up at school. I found one with my name on it shoved into the stone wall with faces of the Pickering sisters.”

Cordelia’s eyes glazed over. “I got one up in Maine. I didn’t know how anyone found me. I’d been hiding for a year and all of a sudden, the same day I read the paper about the mess I’d left behind here—all of the craziness that happened at Ravenswood, Tess’s passing…” She stopped talking, her eyes welling up with tears. “Someone knew where I was. I got a tarot card. The Death card. I thought it was some kind of message from the Sisters of Misery. That they found me or something. That they’d been watching me the whole time. That’s when I knew I had to come back here. Not only to clear Finn and Reed as suspects, but also to find out who had been keeping tabs on me for all that time.”

“Who do you think they’re from?” Maddie asked quickly.

Finn answered solemnly, “Whoever sent those cards is probably the same person responsible for all the recent tragedies.” He paused and looked at the girls with a mixture of fear and anger. “And that person is giving us a warning.”

“What kind of warning?” Maddie asked, afraid that she already knew the answer.

“That one of us is next.”