Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
L illian Earnheart had never disappeared like this. As far as Margot knew, her mother had always been steadfast in her belief that being at home, locked away from the outside world, was the best course of action. It kept her safe. It kept her away from the ever-terrifying, ever-changing world of different ideas and horror stories, most of which involved Nantucket tourists (tourists she was always frightened of). Frequently in Avery’s childhood, Lillian had said, “There’s nothing more terrifying than other people.” Margot had grown up with a mix of equal fear and annoyance. She wondered what had happened to her mother that made her so frightened of everything.
Margot had been driving around all day, from six that morning to now, two thirty in the afternoon. It felt as though her stomach was eating itself. Now, she found herself returning to her childhood home, just in case her mother had somehow found her way back since she’d checked that morning. But again, there was no car in the garage and no sign that anyone had gone inside. Exhausted, she slumped over on the front porch and called Sam to report back.
“Nothing?” Sam asked when she answered.
“No.” Margot licked her lips, remembering Gabby and all the ChapStick she kept behind the flower shop counter. Oh, how she missed the warmth of her wonderfully smelling and brightly lit flower shop! “I’m at the house now. Have you heard from the cops?”
“No,” Sam admitted. They’d called them last night when Lillian hadn’t shown up, and they’d called them again that morning. Because Lillian had Alzheimer’s, they’d immediately gone on alert, looking all over for her. But even her car hadn’t been found.
Margot wanted to blame all of this on small-town cops and their inefficient resources, but she knew that was unfair.
“It’s like she knows I’m here,” Margot said now. “It’s like she wants to make everything that much harder on me.”
“Sounds like Lillian,” Sam agreed with a laugh. “I called Daniel, by the way.”
Margot groaned. “What did he say?”
“Nothing nice,” Sam admitted.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I’m the one who chose to marry him. You didn’t ask to be born as his sister,” Sam reminded her.
“He really isn’t coming?”
“He’s busy with work,” Sam said. “Whatever. We’re going to find her.”
Implied in her tone was the fact that they had to find her. Otherwise, something really bad would have happened to her. Otherwise—maybe—she was dead.
Margot thought she was going to throw up.
Suddenly, out of the corner of her eye, she spotted something. A flash of something. Movement. But what? Or who?
“I gotta go,” she told Sam.
“Me too. Love you. Good luck.”
Sam throwing out that she loved Margot caught Margot off guard. When was the last time anyone had said they loved her? She genuinely couldn’t remember. She certainly hadn’t said it in twenty years. She’d been careful to keep herself from ever saying it to a boyfriend, and she’d never had friends who demanded such generosity.
They’d known she liked her privacy.
Stuffing her phone back into her coat pocket, she charged from the porch out to where she’d seen movement—near the boathouse. The boathouse looked even worse than the main house, with salty wind and rain and sleet ripping at the paint and wood beneath. It looked sanded down and rickety, like a shack.
Now that she played the image over again in her mind, Margot was pretty sure she’d seen someone poking their head out of the boathouse door. Was it possible that Lillian was back there? Hiding? Was it possible she’d seen Margot at the front door yesterday and decided to hide until Margot left the island?
Maybe she didn’t recognize me , Margot thought.
Or maybe she recognized me and wanted me to go.
By the time Margot reached the boathouse, she’d worked herself into a terror. What if she was wrong? What if it wasn’t her mother in the boathouse but a robber or a murderer? What if the murderer had taken her mother back there?
Stop being so morbid, Margot!
But creepy things happened on tiny islands all the time. That was what all those crime thriller novels were about. That was what all those true crime podcasts covered. Why not here, too?
Margot tried her voice to find it was wobbly and strange. “Hello?”
Of course, nobody answered. Whether it was a murderer or her hiding mother, she was sure nobody would come running out to say hi!
She needed a better tactic. Slowly, she crept around the side of the boathouse and peeked into the entrance, where, once upon a time, her father Frank had stored his boats and fishing gear. There was still plenty of fishing gear back there, but it looked as though her mother had sold the boats. The wood was rotten, and everything smelled waterlogged and dead. Margot coughed and wrinkled her nose. If her mother was really hiding back there, it was no small miracle that she wasn’t choking to death.
And then Margot thought, What if she’s back there—dead?
Margot wasn’t sure she was ready for that.
For twenty years, Margot had fought to build another life for herself. She’d worked so hard, avoiding sleep and human relationships and love, all in pursuit of her vision.
Had she done all that, only to return to Nantucket to find her mother dead?
Margot’s voice was rattly and overly loud. “Mom? Are you back here?” When nobody answered, Margot’s hands were in fists. She was suddenly overwhelmed. “Mom, I swear, if you’re back there, if you’re hiding from me, I’ll never talk to you again. Ever. I’ll get back in my car and back on the ferry, and nobody, not even Samantha Coleman, will be able to drag me back here. Do you understand?”
Again, nobody answered. But Margot was surprised at how eager and ready she was to talk. It felt delicious and freeing. For twenty years, she’d kept everything under wraps. She hadn’t even bothered with therapy although many boyfriends and friends had suggested she should give it a try. Now, with her voice echoing back at her from the wall of the rotting boathouse, she felt her soul opening up.
“Mom, I’ve always wanted to tell you this,” she continued, sounding half insane. “You’re the most selfish person I’ve ever known. Ever. And after everything that happened, there was no way I could stay in Nantucket, waiting for you to victimize me. I knew what you were planning. I knew you would make me pay for it. Every single bit of it.”
Tears trickled down Margot’s cheeks. Hunger and anger joined in her stomach and made it roil.
She was a woman alone, talking to an empty boathouse.
But suddenly, she spotted it again: movement, a flash of something. An arm?
“Mom?” Margot cried, stepping into the boathouse. The smell became overwhelming, and she covered her mouth and nose with the sleeve of her coat.
Next came a sound—like footsteps. The sound was too heavy to be a wild animal. A small part of Margot knew she should retreat, call the police, and figure this out in a more practical way. But the hungry part of Margot wanted to figure this out on her own. She needed a win.
When she leaped into the shadows and cornered the person hiding back there, she couldn’t let her own fear play out over her face. She had to stay strong.
“Who are you?” she demanded.
The person responded with only silence. Margot had the sense that whoever it was, they weren’t afraid of her. Blinking through the darkness, Margot was finally able to piece a few things together.
It was a teenage girl: blond, overly thin, with green eyes the size of chestnuts. She’d backed all the way into the corner and spread her fingers along the rotten wall. She was looking at Margot, her eyes glinting with curiosity as though she’d never seen someone like her before.
And then she asked, “Is your name Margot?”
Margot thought she was going to fall down.
“I’m sorry?”
How did this girl know her name? Why was she here? Was this whoever had kidnapped her mother and taken her away? Was this the criminal mastermind?
The teenager was not frightened of Margot. She took a soft step forward and raised her chin. “You’re Margot.” She said it like she was giving her the name herself.
Margot sniffed. “Why are you on my family property?”
The teenage girl blinked around ruefully as though seeing the boathouse for the first time. “It looks pretty condemned to me.”
Margot’s heartbeat slowed the slightest bit. The teenager was like all other teenagers she’d encountered who thought she was smarter than everyone else.
Margot didn’t have time for this.
“Listen, do you know where Lillian Earnheart is?” she asked.
The teenager raised her eyebrows. “Who is that?”
“She’s the owner of this property.”
“Has she heard of paint?” the teenager asked.
Margot rolled her eyes. She considered saying, My mother is very sick . But she guessed that wouldn’t carry weight with a teenager, so she said, “Why aren’t you in school?”
“School got out ten minutes ago.”
“And you were here ten minutes ago,” Margot said. “I saw you.”
“Are you going to call the principal on me?” the teenager mocked her.
Margot flared her nostrils and threw up her hands. “Whatever, okay? I’m looking for my mother. I need to find her as soon as possible.”
“Because she’s sick,” the teenager said.
Margot’s head spun. Had she told the teenager that? Or did the teenager know her mother somehow? Then again, the teenager had just said she didn’t know who Lillian Earnheart was.
What was going on?
“What’s your name?” Margot demanded.
The girl shrugged. “I haven’t seen your mother. I came here looking for you.”
Margot felt as though she’d entered a twisted fairy tale. She put her face in her hands and breathed out all the air from her lungs.
Finally, she managed, “Why do you know who I am? Who are you?”
The teenager smiled and beckoned. “Let’s go inside.”
Margot sighed. “I don’t have a key. I can’t.”
“I found a way in,” the teenager said. “Come on. Follow me.”
With that, the teenager was whisked out of the boathouse and back into the light. Margot picked her way back through the chaos of fishing line and detritus, reaching the lawn just as the teenager picked the side door lock and waved for Margot to follow her.
Am I helping a stranger rob my mother’s house? Margot wondered.
But there were too many questions at play. She had to follow her. She had to understand.
Right before she entered the house—the house where she’d grown up, the only house she’d ever lived in before her escape to Boston—she reached for her phone, hoping to hear from Sam about her mother. But nobody had written to her except for Pete.
Pete had said: I left my cooking supplies at your house. Let me know when it’s feasible for me to come by and get them.
But in another text message immediately afterward, he made sure to add: I haven’t changed my mind. I don’t think we should see each other anymore. You aren’t good to me.
Margot let out a strange and exhilarating laugh. Pete felt as though he existed in another lifetime, as though he’d cooked Valentine’s dinner for her on another planet entirely.
From within the house came a sweet voice, “Are you coming, Margot?”
Margot shoved her phone back in her pocket. What could she do but go in?