Chapter 5 #2
“How dare you criticize my daughter? Your niece’s behavior isn’t any better,” Pam screeched.
“She might have you fooled into believing she’s a straight-A, straight-laced, goody-two-shoes prude, but obviously she’s not.
Otherwise, she wouldn’t have abandoned Nicole to go do who-knows-what with her boyfriend! ”
Tears sprang to Caitlin’s eyes and Lydia started to say something, but Bob stepped forward and touched his wife’s elbow. “That’s enough, Pam.”
She jerked her arm away so forcefully she nearly lost her balance, and as her husband steadied her, Albert came out of the house, dressed in pajamas and carrying a cordless phone. Donald must have called again and woken him from a deep slumber, because he was walking crooked.
Yet when he reached the group, instead of handing his niece the cordless phone, Albert grimly said, “Pam and Bob, I’m afraid we need to call the police.”
Pam clearly thought he meant because she was creating a disturbance, and she pointed a finger at him and drunkenly shrieked, “Don’t you dare threaten me! I have every right to express how upset I am when my daughter’s missing!”
“Of course you do, and I want to help you find her,” Albert quietly replied. Catching Bob’s eye, he explained, “There’s been a… an incident with a young swimmer near the marsh. I think we need to tell the police that Nicole’s missing. I can make the call, if you’d like.”
“The marsh? Nicole wouldn’t go within five hundred yards of that smelly marsh—she hates it there. Besides, it’s way past the cottages,” her mother scoffed, expressing exactly what Caitlin was thinking. “That’s not her. It couldn’t be Nicole.”
“No, probably not, but it’s still a good idea to let the police know she hasn’t come back yet, so they can keep an eye out for her,” her husband said, and Albert handed him the phone.
Marion, the neighbor next to the cottages, must have heard the commotion or seen the gathering, because as Bob placed the call, she came walking up the driveway. “Hello. Is everything okay?”
“No, it isn’t. My daughter’s missing,” sniffed Pam, her voice suddenly small. “My husband’s on the phone with the police.”
“Aww, that’s so upsetting,” Marion said sympathetically.
As Pam started to weep, Bob paced back and forth, describing his stepdaughter into the phone. “Fifteen years old. Long dark hair, very fair skin. Slim, but muscular, she’s a dancer…” He paused to ask his wife, “What was Nicole wearing when she went out tonight?”
“I don’t know. Jeans, I think? Maybe leggings. And a white T-shirt that said ‘LaRue Performing Arts High School’ on it.”
Caitlin swallowed hard; she had to tell them. “Nicole changed her clothes before we got to the party. She was wearing a black halter top and denim shorts.”
Mrs. McDougal narrowed her eyes at Caitlin. “Why would she be wearing something like that? Where else did you girls go?”
“Nowhere,” Caitlin insisted. “She just likes to dress… different sometimes for fun. She says it’s like a costume.”
Bob repeated her description of Nicole’s clothes into the phone.
Then he said, “Yep. Okay. That’s in Port Newcomb, right?
” He handed the phone to Albert and turned to his wife.
“Pam, we need to go. A teenager matching Nicole’s description fell into the water tonight. She’s been airlifted to the hospital.”
“Noo! No-oo!” Pam cried, sinking to her knees. “It’s not my daughter. It’s not Nicole. It can’t be.”
Bob crouched down and put his arm around her shoulder. “Honey, we need to get to the hospital quickly.”
“We’ll take you,” offered Albert, even though he was in no condition to drive.
“Yes, we will,” agreed Lydia. “Caitlin, run inside and get my purse and keys.”
“No!” barked Pam, waving her arm. “I don’t want you people anywhere near me.”
She allowed her husband and Marion to help her to her feet, and as they assisted her into the car, Marion volunteered to wait at their cottage, in case their daughter wasn’t the same girl who’d been taken to the hospital, and Nicole returned while they were gone.
Everything that happened after that seemed surreal, almost as if it were a dream and Caitlin and her aunt and uncle were sleepwalking.
“I’ll make tea,” Lydia told Albert when the trio went inside their little house, but he was too nauseated to drink anything and too weak to sit up.
So Lydia went to help him into bed as Caitlin filled a kettle for her aunt and put it on the stove.
She could hear her aunt and uncle talking softly on the other side of the wall, but she couldn’t make out what they were saying.
When Lydia came into the kitchen, her niece asked, “How did Uncle Albert know about the swimmer near the marsh?”
“Donald told him the second time he called,” answered Lydia.
“Apparently, he’d heard a rumor at the ranger station about someone calling 9-1-1 because a teenager got swept up in the current.
So he’d called you to check whether Nicole had gotten back to the cottages yet.
By the way, he told your uncle that he couldn’t call again this evening, but he’ll talk to you in the morning. ”
“Did he say anything else about the girl? Like if she’s going to be okay?” asked Caitlin.
“No, all he knew was that she was airlifted to the hospital.”
“That could just be a precaution though. They could be giving her an X-ray or something, to be sure she didn’t get water in her lungs, or whatever, right?”
“Yes, I suppose,” said Lydia, but her tone lacked conviction, so Caitlin repeated what Pam had said about her daughter hating the marsh.
“I feel really bad for whoever it is who fell into the current and I hope she’s going to be all right, but Nicole doesn’t even like to wade through the tidal pools in the daytime, because she’s afraid of the little critters.
So I don’t think she’d go near the marsh at night, when she can’t even see what’s in the water,” she reasoned.
“Besides, the inlet is, like, a quarter mile past the stairs to the cottages. Why would she have kept walking down the beach? That doesn’t make any sense. ”
“No, it doesn’t,” Lydia agreed, frowning.
“She probably turned off at one of the beaches closer to the party and went into town or something, and that’s why it’s taking her so long to get back.”
“Maybe…”
In the quiet spell that followed, Caitlin was struck by another possibility.
Even though she felt disloyal, she confided, “I think I know what else may have happened, Aunt Lydia. See, Nicole does this thing where she makes up a scene and then she acts it out to see how convincing she can be. She says it helps her grow as an actor. I bet that’s what she’s doing now—she’s playing the role of a girl who goes missing and falls into the water. She can be very dramatic like that.”
“Hmm,” her aunt murmured. “I suppose it’s possible that’s what’s going on.
But if it really was Nicole who fell into the current and she’s getting checked out at the ER, it’ll probably take several hours before she gets the all-clear.
So you should go to bed. I’ll wake you up if I hear anything from Pam or Bob. ”
“No, I want to stay up and wait with you,” insisted Caitlin. “I’ll be right back—I’m just going to check at Nicole’s cottage to see if she came home yet.”
But Marion was still holding vigil for the teen. She promised she’d let Caitlin and her aunt and uncle know if Nicole returned.
This is probably just an act that went too far, but I’m sure Nicole’s fine , Caitlin told herself as she came home again and took a seat beside her aunt, who’d moved to the sofa in the living room to work on the merino wool cardigan she was knitting.
Usually, Caitlin found the clicking of her needles to be a comforting background noise, but this evening, the disquieting sound reminded her of a ticking clock; it reminded her that time was passing.
And with each minute that went by without any word from Pam or Bob, Caitlin became more anxious.
She tried to console herself with the thought, If she’s in the hospital, it means she’s not missing. And Aunt Lydia always says Hope Haven Hospital has an excellent reputation, so Nicole must be getting very good care.
But she was riddled with worry and guilt, and finally she burst out, “If it was Nicole who fell into the current, and if she did get hurt, then it’s all my fault! And even if she isn’t the same girl as the one who’s at the hospital, it’s still my fault she’s missing!”
“Nonsense!” Lydia hissed and stopped knitting. “Put that idea out of your head this instant, do you hear me?”
“But I-I-I warned her that I wasn’t going to leave the party early to take her home or to meet up with her parents. She said she was okay with that, and it seemed like she really meant it. But then Donald and I went for a walk and when we got back, she was gone.”
Lydia furrowed her brow, as if she couldn’t understand Caitlin’s logic. “So how is that your fault?”
“Don’t you see? If I hadn’t been so mean about saying I didn’t want to leave the party early, she wouldn’t have felt like she had to walk back by herself and she wouldn’t have fallen into the water.”