Ash
Francesca Giovanni is standing on my front porch wearing nothing but flip-flops, a towel, and her red bathing suit.
At first I think I must be dreaming. I was dreaming about this very sight until the noise of someone shouting and pounding on my front door startled me awake. I lay
in bed for a few seconds, blinking in confusion, until I heard it again, unmistakable this time.
I was up and at the door in less than a minute, but nothing could have prepared me for what I saw when I opened it: Francesca,
standing there with her long dark braid still wet from her morning swim, a white towel tied around her waist, and her breath
ragged from running.
“There’s a . . . girl,” she gasps, gesturing toward my back deck with one hand while using the other to steady herself against
the doorframe as she pants. “I need . . . phone.”
“Girl?” I repeat stupidly.
“Phone!” she cries, pounding the door again, but this time in frustration. “I don’t have mine on me!”
“Here.” I quickly hand her my phone, which I’d grabbed from the side of my bed. “Who—”
But she’s already dialed 911 and put the phone to her ear. “Hi, this is Dr. Frankie Giovanni. I need an ambulance at Twelve
Lakeview Drive for an unconscious young woman—”
Unconscious young woman?
That’s when it finally dawns on me. Emma. Emma has finally found me.
I jam my feet into the running shoes I left on the living room floor the night before, then sprint around to the back of the
house, where I see that there’s an unconscious young woman sprawled beneath my deck, all right.
But she isn’t Emma Bridle.
At least, I’m hoping she’s not. It’s a little hard to tell because she’s covered in so much grime—and has so many scrapes
and cuts and bruises. This girl is slight like Emma, but her hair is short and blonde—or at least it looks as if it would
be, if it wasn’t caked in mud . . . and is that blood?
I don’t wait around to find out.
“Hi, I’m Ash,” I say as I kneel beside the girl, my feet—and bare knees—sinking into the dirt where only the day before Francesca
and I had stood, gazing down at my broken basement window. Only now all that dirt has turned into mud thanks to yesterday’s
rain.
The girl’s eyes are closed, but it’s possible she can hear me. You never know. That’s why I say, “I’m going to help you,”
and scoop her up as gently as I can.
She’s so thin, she seems to weigh nothing at all. But my adrenaline is pumping, too. Maybe that’s why I get back to the house with her so quickly, before Frankie has even finished her call to emergency services.
“No, Twelve,” I overhear her saying to someone over the phone as I step back into the house, the girl limp in my arms. “The emergency
is at Twelve Lakeview Dri—”
That’s when she turns and sees me.
“What are you doing?” she demands, her eyes wide, while her hand—still holding the phone—falls limply to her side.
“What does it look like?” I head toward the couch with my fragile burden. “Was I supposed to just leave her out there?”
“No, of course not.” Francesca trots after me, the phone in her hand forgotten. “But you shouldn’t have moved her. She could
have a neck or spinal injury—”
I deposit the girl as gently as I can on the same couch cushions where, just last night, I’d sat and watched the ball game.
Guy’s wolfskin rug—made from real wolf, a gift from the Blackfeet Nation—is close by, so I carefully cover the girl with it,
because her skin feels as cold as ice.
“Her neck and spine seem fine to me,” I say, since, despite my caution, the girl has given a little moan and is rolling her
head around on the cushion behind it. “I think she’s waking—”
That’s when the girl’s eyes—blue as the sky—fly open, and she looks from me to Francesca, who hovers nearby.
“Who—” The girl tries to sit up, then moans and falls back against the cushions.
“Shhh,” Francesca says, reaching out to pull the wolfskin over the girl’s shoulders. “Don’t try to get up. I’m Frankie, and
this is Ash. Can you tell me your name?”
But the girl only thrashes her head against the cushion, moaning.
“She’s in shock.” Francesca kneels down beside the couch. “Can you make some coffee? She needs fluids . . . preferably something warm and sweet.”
“Okay.” I go obediently to my coffeemaker but keep an eye on the girl, who is staring nervously up at my neighbor. I’m definitely
not staring at Francesca, even though she’s wearing my favorite outfit. I haven’t allowed my gaze to stray once below her collarbone.
That would be inappropriate.
The girl is another story. I let myself stare at her full on. There are so many questions I want to ask her—first and foremost
is Have you seen Emma Bridle?
But I keep my mouth shut for the moment.
“Hi, honey.” Francesca is speaking to the girl in a kind, soothing voice—the kind you might use to lure a stray cat inside
your house. “We just want to help you. Can you tell us your name?”
To my surprise, the girl opens her mouth, but not to moan or scream. “Please,” she whimpers. Her voice is ragged, partly from
weeping, and partly because she’s still so cold—or possibly frightened—her teeth are chattering.
“Please don’t call the police,” the girl begs. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for what we did—”
“What you did?” Now Francesca’s voice is light and friendly, completely nonjudgmental. But her gaze is laser-focused on the
emaciated figure beneath Guy’s favorite fur. “What did you do?”
“N-nothing. I swear.”
But I know exactly what the girl did. I also know why she’s trying to cover it up. I recognize the Nikes she’s wearing—size
seven, an exact match for some of the footprints I’d seen in the photo Francesca showed me. They’re wet and coated in mud,
too, just like the rest of her. But the tread is unmistakable.
Francesca doesn’t get it, though. At least, not yet.
“Here.” I cross the living room with the cup of coffee I’ve doctored heavily with milk and sugar.
“Thanks.” Francesca takes the cup from me and hands it to the girl. “Drink this. It will help.”
“I . . .” The girl is blinking rapidly, but she accepts the cup and takes a tiny sip. “Th-thank you. It’s good.”
“I know.” Francesca’s tone is still calm and friendly. “What’s your name?”
It’s hard for the girl to drink, let alone talk, because she’s shaking so much. But she lowers the coffee mug and tries. “M-M-Meg.”
I knew it. She looks nothing like the photos on the Missing Person flyers her parents made and posted all around West Harbor—and
not much like the photos Emma posted of her in the past online, either. Wherever this girl has been, it has not been kind
to her.
“Meg Boucher?” Francesca surprises me by asking.
The girl looks stunned. “H-how did you know?”
“A lot of people are looking for you. I’m sure they’re going to be very happy to know you’re all right.”
Meg’s eyes get even wider over the rim of the coffee cup. Her shaking seems to be slowing down, either because of Francesca’s
unflappable demeanor, or because the coffee and the wolfskin are warming her up.
“Who?” Meg looks genuinely astonished . . . and even more frightened than before. “Who’s looking for me?”
“Your family.”
The cops, I add mentally. Most of the Eastern Seaboard, maybe even the entire country.
“Your parents reported you missing four months ago,” Francesca says. “They thought you’d been kidnapped.”
“I’m not,” Meg cries. “I mean, I wasn’t. You have to understand—I’m really sorry. I didn’t want to do it. It’s just that we haven’t had anything to eat all week except for nettles, and when we saw all that food, we just couldn’t help ourselves—”
“What food?” Francesca looks even more confused. “What are you—”
I appreciate Francesca’s help, but she’s asking all the wrong questions. It’s not her fault. She just doesn’t do this for
a living.
“Who was making you eat nettles?” I cross the room to stand at the end of the couch.
Meg looks panicky, and I don’t think it’s because I’m a big, scary-looking (at least when I haven’t had my morning shave)
male. I think she’s more scared of someone else—someone who isn’t in the room.
“She doesn’t make us, exactly,” she insists. “She just wants us to eat clean, live off the land, and minimize waste—”
“Who does?” Francesca asks.
But Meg doesn’t answer. She’s still too busy trying to apologize. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to cause anyone any worry. I just . . .
I just . . .” She begins to tremble all over again as new tears spill down her dirty cheeks. “I just want to go home!”
“All right,” Francesca says in a soothing voice, and it doesn’t surprise me when she wraps her arms comfortingly around the
girl, or when the girl responds by immediately collapsing against her, sobbing. “Don’t worry. You don’t have to talk about
it right now if you don’t want to.”
“Uh.” I take a step forward. I don’t want to ruin Francesca’s little therapy session, but I definitely need more information
from this girl. “It would be better if we talked about it now. Right now.”
Francesca shoots me a disapproving look over the weeping girl’s shoulder, but that doesn’t shut me up.
“Look, I don’t want to be the bad guy, but I need to know, Meg. Was there someone named Emma Bridle with you?”
Francesca tightens her arms around the girl. “You don’t have to answer now, Meg,” she says, but her reproachful gaze is still
on me. “You just take all the time you need.”
But Meg is already wiping her eyes (with the corner of Guy’s wolfskin) and sniffling. “Yeah. I mean, yes, there was a girl
named Emma there. I don’t know her last name—”
Before she can even finish her sentence, I’m grabbing my cell phone from where Francesca left it on a side table and showing
Emma’s photo to Meg. “This her?”
“Yeah,” Meg says, peering down at the photo. “That’s Emma. Or I mean, that’s what she used to look like.”
I feel my heart rate speed up with both excitement—finally, a lead!—and alarm. “What do you mean used to look like? What happened to her?”
“Oh, nothing.” Meg has sunk back against the sofa cushions as if exhausted from all the talking, the fur throw pulled to her
chin. “Her hair is shorter now is all. Which is probably better for her, because you wouldn’t believe the number of ticks
out there—”
“Out where, Meg? Where can I find Emma?”
Her eyes immediately fill with tears—and fear. “I can’t—I’m not supposed to tell—”
“You have to tell, Meg.” I take a seat on the edge of the coffee table directly in front of her. In order to do this, I have to step
past Francesca, still kneeling beside the couch in her wet suit and towel. I keep my gaze on Meg, though.
“Emma’s family asked me to find her,” I tell the girl. I don’t miss the way the look of annoyance on Francesca’s face turns to one of surprise when she hears this. But I don’t acknowledge it, either. I keep my focus on the girl. “Is she all right?”
“Y-yes.” Meg looks uncertain, however. “At least, she was when I left—”
“Left where? Where did you last see her?”
“I—I can’t say. She told us what would happen if we tell.”
“Who told you? What did she say would happen?”
“I—I can’t!” The frantic girl, her eyes streaming with tears, turns back toward Francesca. “I love my family! I don’t want
them to die!”
“Shhh.” Francesca puts her arms back around the girl and pats her matted hair, which for some reason is cut like a medieval
monk’s. It’s not a great look. Fortunately Meg Boucher is so pretty and young, she can carry it off. “It’s okay. You’re safe
now. No one is going to hurt you.”
I’m not entirely sure about that. Which is why I don’t let up, despite the disapproving looks Francesca keeps throwing me.
“Who is she, Meg? Who told you not to tell?”
I already know the answer. Haley. Who else?
But the girl won’t say it. She’s too frightened.
“I . . . I c-can’t,” she stammers instead. Then she dissolves into hysterical sobs.