The She (17 page)

It gave me some bizarre feeling of victory that Emmett would have messed up the facts. I read the entry over a couple of times, realizing he must have found me at the foot of the stairs when he came back down, and maybe I blathered in my blackout phase, and that's what sent him to the radio again. My feeling of victory had to do with his closing words. I could only think that if he had been wrong about where he found me, he might be wrong about this next thing.

When I came back down, Evan had left the handset dangling on the radio that he'd last been talking on. It was the ship-to-shore. Mom and Dad had sent the Mayday over the ship-to-shore. The Coast Guard couldn't hear the ship-to-shore, only the ship-to-ship. It's as if Mom and Dad wanted me alone to hear it. That way, I could describe our conversation to the Coast Guard, and, of course, I would say they had been panicking and confused
and had picked up the wrong handset by accident. And I would sound so convincing, and the Coast Guard would have no record of the actual Mayday to analyze for faked sound effects of screeching and metal snapping.

The problem was, they weren't smart enough. They didn't stop to think the DEA would laugh as they did. Nor did they realize the DEA would keep me for four hours, take meticulous notes, record everything I said, and show me six volumes on the disappearance of the Riley vessel.

I have never, ever seen so much paperwork in all my life.

I have been more hurt by their deception than words can describe. I can only think that they had a plan that was to keep me completely innocent to protect me, and, of course, I would forgive them once we all got together somewhere safe, down below the equator. I would have eventually forgiven all, though it would have been hard.

I pulled on my hair to try to dredge up more memories of my parents being decent and noble, to replace Emmett's thoughts. But I must have used up my predawn energy already, and my mind was an exhausted blank. All I could think of was falling back into bed sometime later this afternoon.

I yawned, reached for my cocoa cup, and realized the stuff was ice-cold. I'd sat there reading this stuff over and over trying to get used to the ideas. I looked at my watch. It was five to nine.

It's a half hour walk deeper into the island to get to The Docks, and I ran most of it. When I got there, I could see Grey's white Subaru parked outside, and I ran into the bait shop. Mrs. Shields was in there, carrying a baby on her hip, but she said Mr. Shields had already left to take some girl to Sassafras. I laid my credit card down to rent an outboard and didn't give a shit if Emmett saw the charge. He would understand this use.

It was a bitter cold trip to Sassafras Island, and all I could see was meadow grass at first. That's mostly what Sassafras is—a body of meadow grass and swamp that lay in the middle of Great Bay, which separates West Hook from the mainland. The bay pours into the Sassafras swamps at high tide, and leaves them soggy salt bottom at low tide. There was one-spot on Sassafras high enough to live on, but nobody had for centuries because of the biting greenhead flies—until Edwin Church came along. Someone told me once that when he bought the whole island from some private owner for like, thirteen thousand dollars, just after he signed the papers, the former owner said, "Sucker." That was before I was born.

When I hit the inner mudflats, I had to drive standing up to see his cabin over the meadow grass. I took one skinny trail after another keeping his cabin always in sight. I tried putting one knee on the seat for balance, and looked down, thinking how odd it felt. It was like I had taken this little boat out on the bay for a thousand days in a row—only on this day, I'd grown a foot and a half. I used to be able to stand straight up with my knee on the seat. Now, I had to stoop funny.

I shook off the memory and felt my anger returning as I reached the little beachhead beside Edwin Church's cabin. I pulled right up onto the beach like I'd just done that yesterday, too. I even remembered to turn off the outboard motor once I started to cruise. I had to stare backward—to try to remember how I'd done it so perfectly. I didn't have time to dwell on magic.

I grabbed the black book, opened Church's door without knocking, and saw Grey sitting at the table in the corner. It looked like she and Church were relaxing over hot cocoa or tea or something.

Mr. Church was standing in the middle of the room, but the two cups on the table left me thinking he had just stood up. He was a tall man, and although he had to be in his sixties, he still had the swaggering muscles of a seaman. His big arms dangled down under a blue work shirt, looking too young and built up to match his head full of thick white hair. He said nothing but raised his eyebrows at me.

I dropped the book on his coffee table, turned a finger toward Grey, and said, "Don't you touch her."

I was trying to be protective of her so it irritated the hell out of me when she started laughing. And she laughed so hard that she fell off the chair and landed on her butt on the floor.

I circled around Church to get to her If he knew what was so funny, he didn't let me in on it. He did glance down at the black book, then kept staring blankly as I got to Grey.

Grey had no manners, the usual. It was typical of her to sit there and laugh at a joke and not think she ought to let you in on it. I reached my hand down for her and kept from snapping her up, remembering she was supposed to be fragile right now.

Church's eyes were a complete blank as I watched him while telling her "Whatever it is that's funny, either share it or stifle it."

She grabbed for a tissue from a box that sat on the windowsill and wiped her eyes. "Well, he was sitting there with his back to the beach. He never looked. All he did was hear the rental boat, and he says,
'Hmmm.
That has to be Mr. Evan Barrett, and I would perceive that he is angry.'"

Mr. Church raised his eyebrows with this mock innocence that I totally hated. He looked too calm and amused. I glanced around for mirrors that would have shown me arriving but didn't see a single one. That didn't keep me from telling Grey what was up.

"However he did it, it was nothing supernatural, Grey. Don't let him trick you like he tricked me."

"No tricks," he said, very quietly, like maybe he thought his quietness would calm me down. "I just heard somebody beach an outboard without the least bit of clatter: Very few people can do that in these parts ... even fewer who could do it at the age of seven or eight."

I felt myself wanting to soften up over the compliment, but then I remembered that how well I drove a boat wasn't important to me or to anybody or anything.

"I guess there's no question about why I'm here," I snapped, figuring he would know I was onto his bullshit.

But he said, "I don't know why you're here. I'm not even sure yet why the young lady is here. But since you're here, would you like something hot?"

The room was a combo tiny kitchen and living room, and he moved over to the stove. Grey was staring at her fingers like they were of interest to her and I knocked her in the shoulder a little. "If he doesn't know why you're here, then don't tell him anything. He's a big faker!"

With that, Mr. Church turned slowly and stared at me with his eyebrows digging toward his nose.

"Faker? How? What did I fake?"

"You told me my parents' ship got hit by a giant wave!" I shouted. "And that is the most enormous bullshit story!"

He looked confused for a moment, then said, "No, actually, that is what
you
told me."

"After you did that ... that stupid thing with your hands! That, that power-of-suggestion ... pseudo-eastern mystical shit! How many other people have you impressed with that over the years? What did you do, like, push my hand up against that map on the wall?"

"Is that how you remember it?"

I didn't think he had touched me, but I couldn't be certain of anything right now. He was still staring at me, more alarmed than ashamed, it seemed to me. Maybe he had no shame.

His voice was too quiet and smug when he said, "I don't use that too often. People have to ask me. If I remember correctly, you
begged
me."

"Oh, shut up!" I flopped down in the chair beside Grey. She now had her hands folded between her knees, and her eyes stared blankly at the floor. I thought of asking her to go outside for a minute, so I could keep my family dirt between me and Mr. Church. But I remembered her dad and some fat old guy in the limo, and I almost laughed out loud at myself.

"You shouldn't be doling out false hopes like people's lives are something for you to play with," I snapped, and turned to her again. "Grey, I shouldn't have told you to come here. Don't let him—"

"What happened?" he asked.

I blinked, watching him search through my eyes, as if I wasn't completely taking him apart, or as if it didn't matter.

I pointed at the black book on the coffee table. I could feel myself getting ready to bawl again, and I was trying to stop it, but it was coming up fast, like a freight train. I blathered Emmett's whole story, only stopping to swipe the wet off my face. I told him about the search warrant the day before the disappearance, the stuff on Captain Riley, the map of Hurricane Marco, how Emmett and Aunt Mel had pieced it all together.

He stood there frozen, and as I was finishing, I gestured at the book again, like he could pick it up and look for himself. He glanced at it and back at me, like it was nothing.

"But you don't really believe that's what happened, do you?" he asked.

I landed both elbows on the table, thinking I wanted to smash it to the floor but I screeched, instead: "
No!
"

Grey was still taking in the floor like my bawling wasn't upsetting her in the least. Finally, she reached over to the tissue box, and with the same sarcasm as I'd laid on her two days earlier she passed me off a tissue with two fingers and raised an amused eyebrow.

I snatched it and sat there gazing out at the marshlands, wiping off my face, and feeling like a pot half-full after it had boiled oven I actually felt calmen I was calm enough that I let the sound of Mr. Church's work boots clomp closer on the wood floor without spinning around on him distrustfully.

He was right over the top of my head when he repeated himself. "You don't feel that your brother is correct?"

I could feel sympathy rolling off him, and I wasn't sure I wanted it. "What the hell difference does it matter what
I feel?
"

"I would say it matters a great deal. Your intuition is very important. It'll even tell you where the line is—whether your feelings are out of love, or whether they're because you honestly don't believe something that's been told to you. If you keep your intuition strong, that is."

Well, I didn't want to feel squat. I shoved out of the chair and wandered around, casting a glance at that map, and then looking at all the things I'd stopped to look at last time I was in here. A year ago the papers taped to the mantel over his fireplace had intrigued me. This time they made me suspicious. The first was a diploma from the University of South Florida, for a degree in marine science. That one was only faded, but there was another a master's in social work from the University of Delaware, which was full of tiny holes, like in his younger days he might have had it on a dartboard. Same with the third one, a master's in philosophy, University of Mi—something; it had a big hole in it, as if it had been the bull's-eye of a dart game.

"You really couldn't make up your mind, could you?" I yelled, liking the sound of my loudness. The last time I'd seen all this, I'd reckoned it differently. I'd thought he was a very educated man.

"It's a person's prerogative to change his life's course," he muttered, and I detected more amusement in his voice than I would have liked to have heard.

I could feel Grey coming up beside me. Actually, I smelled her. She smelled scrubbed, like some combo of body wash and shampoo and fabric softener that whizzed through the snot in my head, and when I glanced at her I decided she must have taken the hour-long shower from hell earlier this morning. She looked a little pale, but other than that, close to her great athletic self.

She pointed to a letter he'd taped up there, too.

It read, "Dear Mc Church: We would kindly ask that you direct your questions to the pastor in his private study and not attend Bible study any longer; The attendees are finding it difficult to understand the matters in question when you feel the need to..."

I was about to mutter something about not being able to get along with anybody, but the note cracked Grey up, and I cast her a glance. I thought it was odd she wasn't mad that I'd sent her all the way out here for nothing. It made me wonder if her whole life at home wasn't such a psychodrama that she no longer felt surprised when one barged in on her.

I turned on my heel and crossed back to look out the far window to the meadows. Mr. Church had picked up Emmett's black notebook, and when I passed he was just leafing through it, too quickly to read anything.

"Miss Shailey told me she came here based on your recommendation, and that you were down here for the holiday. I had a feeling the family theories would start to pop at this year's feast—being that they hadn't when you came to see me last year: The day was coming. You're a young man. They couldn't hold out on you for much longer"

I spun on him. "You
knew
about all of this? When I came here last year?"

He was looking down at the weather map of the hurricane and nodded. "In fact, I've seen this volume before. Your brother kept it in your old house in West Hook. Your grandfather took it for a while after you boys moved to Philly. He left it with me once." He snapped it shut, tossed it onto his little couch.

"Why didn't you tell me?" I demanded.

"You didn't ask."

"
I didn't ask?
" I shouted, five times louden "I came here looking for the goddamn truth! How could you know a thing like that and play dumb to it? And decide instead to do some stupid thing with dreams and visions—"