Ash
This can’t be happening. It can’t be.
But it is.
I’m stooped beneath the knotty pine planks of my back deck—it’s held up above the steep ravine leading down to the lake by
multiple thick steel pylons—where I can still see the shoe prints. They’re less prominent than they were in Francesca’s video,
but only because what limited rainwater makes it through the small openings between the planks of the deck has partially washed
them away.
But they’re still there.
As if that isn’t bad enough, the doctor herself has come up behind me.
“So, not dementia,” she says. She’s not even panting from running after me since she’s in such good shape from her daily laps.
“And not ghosts, either.”
“No,” I force myself to admit. This is so humiliating. “Definitely not dementia. And not ghosts, either, unless ghosts have started carrying utility tools to slice open window screens.”
“Is that what they used?” She squats down beside the window—the one the inspector warned me didn’t lock properly, but that
I figured was no big deal because there’s no crime in West Harbor—and peers at the severed screen. She’s wearing faded cutoffs,
the raggedy threads brushing the tops of her strong, tanned thighs, while the back pockets hug—and emphasize—her heart-shaped
ass.
Shit. How can this be happening to me?
“Who did you say you showed this to?” I ask, finally.
She tucks back a strand of dark hair that’s escaped from her braid and straightens up. Her sunglasses are still perched on
top of her head. It’s too dark beneath the deck to see anything with them on. “I sent a copy to Mr. and Mrs. Baumgarten, of
course, as well as Harbor Hideaways and Jackie—”
She breaks off, biting her lip. For some reason she doesn’t want to say anything more about whoever this Jackie person is.
Not that it matters.
“I don’t know what they’re going to do with it,” she goes on. “No one has ever shown up to ask me about it, partly because,
according to Jackie, the homeowner never made a report. You’re supposed to—”
“God dammit.” I drag my fingers through my hair. “I’m not the homeowner.”
She stares at me in surprise. “You’re not?” It’s plain from her astonished expression that Francesca—Frankie—never considered this possibility. And why would she? “But it’s in your name.”
“Yeah, I know. It’s complicated. The homeowner lives abroad and is a very private person, who—”
I break off nervously. I can see her staring at me, the gears of her brain shifting as she registers and then absorbs this information.
How can I explain any of this without telling her who I work for, since I know she’ll never believe me?
I already tried to tell her about my superpower and thought the stupid cat would come out and prove what I was saying.
But the cat had other ideas, because cats always have other ideas. I don’t have anything against cats in general, but I can
already tell this one is a little bit of an asshole.
“The owner’s my boss, Guy,” I say instead. “I suggested purchasing this place because it seemed like a good investment. I’m
the one who found it, and also the one who decided that renting it out would be a good source of income when Guy wasn’t ready
to move in—oh, hell.”
I give up. I can tell by her raised eyebrows I’m only making things worse.
Or maybe not, since the next words out of her mouth are, “Investing in real estate typically is a good wealth-management strategy. And investing in vacation rental properties has, historically, paid off. But it can have
its downsides, like this.” She points at the cut screen. “The owner, or at least the property manager, has to keep an eye
on the place.”
“I know.” It’s all I can do to keep from running to my truck, getting inside, and driving back to Manhattan, never to return.
“I try to. But it’s hard. I live in the city and work full-time. I can’t get here every week. That’s why I hired Harbor Hideaways.
I thought they could manage it.”
Frankie nods. “Normally they can. But during the busy season, when we have so many Summer People renting, they get overwhelmed. Things slip through the cracks. That’s why I thought you must not have changed the lockbox code. Until I saw that.” She points at the cut screen and shoe prints.
I follow the line of her finger, noting that the nail is just like the rest of her—strong and angular. No nail polish, not
even clear. Has Frankie Giovanni ever had a manicure in her life?
Doubtful. She doesn’t seem like the type to treat herself.
“You can see that there were probably four to five people,” she’s saying. “Most likely all female. I wear a size nine, and
these prints are smaller than mine.”
She places one of her own feet beside the prints, and I can see she’s right. Her foot, like her nails and the rest of her,
is long and lean—longer than any of the other prints.
“I’d say a mix of sixes and sevens, which is unusual,” she says thoughtfully. “The average shoe size for American women is
between an eight and a half and a nine.”
“So you’re saying it was kids?”
“No. These treads are from adult shoes. But the width suggests women, and chosen styles suggest young women. This one—” she
points at a particularly small print in the dirt beneath us “—is the most telling.”
I blink at the tiny footprint. “Why?”
“Because it’s a Silver Star.”
“A what?”
She smiles. A small smile. But it’s a smile, just the same. “Silver Stars are handmade Italian sneakers that are super popular
right now, particularly with teenagers.”
I can’t help it. I stare at her. It’s partly the smile and partly something else—a growing dread that I know exactly who these footprints belong to.
But I’m not about to share this information with Frankie Giovanni.
“How do you know so much about sneaker treads?” I ask her instead. “Were you in Girl Scouts or something?”
“No. My family owns a restaurant.”
I guess I must have looked confused, since she explains, “After my dad died, we were all expected to work in it after school
and on weekends, so I never had the time—or the luxury—as a kid for extracurriculars.”
“Oh,” I say. “Sorry about your dad. Mine’s gone, too. I guess that makes us both members of the Dead Dad Club.”
“The what?”
“The Dead Dad Club. Haven’t you heard of it? It’s not a club anyone wants to join, but we all end up becoming members eventually. I was eighteen when I joined. How about you?”
Now she’s the one looking confused. “Seventeen . . . but that was twenty years ago.”
“Sure, but do you ever get over something like that? Especially if you actually liked your dad.”
“Did you not like your father?”
“Uh.” She’s staring at me like I’ve said something concerning, and I guess I have. You’re not supposed to admit that your
dad was a bad guy, even when he was. It’s not socially acceptable. “He had his moments.”
“Right.” She gives a tentative smile like this answer makes sense and isn’t just a thing people say when their dad was an abusive asshole.
“Well, I suppose the death of a parent is harder for some people than others, depending on their relationship. But healing and grief aren’t linear .
. . they ebb and flow. Most people learn to tolerate the loss of a loved one over time.
Death is a natural part of life. I always advise my patients to remember this, and to try to appreciate the time they’re given with loved ones and live in the moment. ”
“Sure.” I smile at her to show her that I’m like most people. “Me, too.”
She doesn’t look particularly convinced, but this might be because she’s decided to get back to my question about the sneakers.
“The reason I know so much about those shoes,” she says, “is because my little sister, Cat, is a self-proclaimed sneakerhead.
Silver Stars retail for about a thousand bucks. She wants a pair very badly.”
Guy once paid almost two hundred grand for a pair of Nike SB Paris Dunk Lows, so a thousand bucks doesn’t shock me as much
as I think it shocks Francesca.
What shocks me instead is the realization that I know who this footprint belongs to.
A yellow romper and her brand-new sneakers, Stephanie Bridle said through her tears when I asked her—months ago—if she could tell me what Emma was wearing the last time
she saw her. A pair of Silver Stars. She bought them with her own money that she earned babysitting. She was so proud of them!
Emma Bridle probably isn’t the only missing girl in the world who wears size seven Silver Stars. She’s just the only one I’m
looking for. And, thanks to my “special gift,” I’ve found her.
Or rather, she found me. Too bad she didn’t stick around. Emma. Emma, where are you? What are you doing?
“So I guess the burning question,” Francesca goes on, her nose wrinkling quizzically—and adorably—“is what someone with thousand-dollar
sneakers is doing stealing groceries out of an old lady’s vacation rental?”
I shake my head. I can’t tell her. I already tried, and she didn’t believe it (and the cat was no help whatsoever, either).
But if she doesn’t believe ghosts are real (which should come as a surprise to all the many restless spirits I’ve encountered
over the years), what’s she going to say about my psychic ability, and the fact that I’m currently using it to track down
a wannabe witch?
It’s right then that I hear it: thunder rumbling off in the distance. There’d been no warning of rain today on my weather
app, and the sky had been a bright arc of cloudless blue when I was driving up from the city. But now a storm is coming?
I’m pretty used to things not going my way—that’s part of the fun of being alive, right? Sometimes things don’t go your way,
and you have to scramble to make them right. It’s tough, but it keeps things interesting.
But things really haven’t been going my way lately, and it’s getting kind of hard not to wonder if there might be a more nefarious reason behind
it all than the simple fact that sometimes things suck.
Suddenly I realize I can’t stand being under the deck anymore. The shade is nice and cool, and it smells good—like dirt and
the woods and the lake. Clean, earthy smells.