Chapter 16
After Arnaud died, I made myself walk along the sidewalk where he was killed. Where you could still make out the dark stain from his blood, even after it rained.
I didn’t want to become one of those fearful people who let a single random incident shrink her world to nothing.
I didn’t want to live in terror because I had been unlucky.
Because Arnaud had been unlucky. For me or Punkin to die by violence as well as Arnaud—well, the odds against it were astronomical.
But your mind is not necessarily rational. Human beings evolved with their animal instincts intact because instincts save your life. Natural selection does not give a damn about your principles.
So even if I told myself, as I walked along this deserted sidewalk at midnight—having left Punkin at home with my mother for the evening—that nobody was going to stab me, I knew fear as soon as I turned the corner.
As soon as I saw a man moving toward me with his hands in his pockets, his shoulders hunched, his eyes darting.
The fear rose to choke me. My legs turned weightless, ready to fly. My body knew.
—
My body knows now.
When he sees I’ve spotted him, the man ducks behind the tree. But I don’t fly. No. I don’t run away. I pick up the nearest rock and run toward him.
Because Punkin.
I yell her name as I run. Punkin! Back to the house! Go!
I reach for my phone in my pocket and realize—horror—it’s not there. Did I drop it? Did I leave it behind at the house? I can’t remember.
I reach the top of the hill where the man stood. The copse of trees where he ducked. I whip around, brandishing the rock.
Come on out! I yell. Where the fuck are you? What are you doing on my land?
A noise from the road. The crunch of gravel. Engine.
“Punkin!” I yell. “Elise! Where are you?”
No reply.
I sprint across the grass toward the road. The old apple orchard. I reach the road in time to see a car zoom around the bend, toward the guardhouse and the public side of the island. The village. The marina. The ferry.
I can’t make it on foot. I need the car.
Back to the house. Adrenaline pumps through my veins, shorting out the terror to render me nimble, sharp.
The world moves a beat slower while my mind races ahead, making plans, forming strategy.
If I had my phone, I could ring the guardhouse and tell them to stop the car.
But I don’t have my phone, and I can’t spare a second to look for it.
Punkin. Oh God. Anything happening to her. Anyone hurting her.
A world without my daughter in it.
Car keys. On the hook just inside the kitchen doorway.
I left the front door unlocked. I leap up the front steps, burst through the door, swerve to the kitchen. Grab the keys. Race back out, down the stairs, to the car. Through my mind runs a current of speculation—questions, ideas, raised, discarded.
How did he get past the guard to begin with?
Unless he lives here.
But in winter? The offseason?
And how did he know we were still here?
The Volvo is an old car. You have to stick the key into the lock to open the door.
My fingers shake so badly, I can’t seem to make it fit.
Wait, it’s the trunk key. I fumble for the other one.
The key ring drops on the damp gravel. I bend over to pick it up.
Find the right key, wedge it into the keyhole. Can’t get it in.
I close my eyes and draw in breath. You can’t find her if you’re panicked. You need to clear the panic. You need to focus on the task.
Cold, perfect rage.
I open my eyes and slide the key into the keyhole. The car door squeaks when I open it.
“Mama?”
My breath stops in my lungs. I whirl around.
Punkin, standing before me. Whole. Alive. Puzzled expression.
I fall to my knees and gather her in my arms.
—
“Why did you run off like that?” she wants to know. “I called and called but you didn’t hear me.”
“Because I saw a man, sweetheart.”
“Your voice is all funny. Are you okay, Mama?”
My knees won’t hold me up. I sink onto my butt on the gravel, still holding Punkin in my arms, though she’s trying to wriggle free.
“I’ll be okay. I just need a minute.”
“What man, Mama? Was it Ben?”
“No, it wasn’t Ben. I don’t know who it was. Just someone who got lost, I guess.”
“So why are you so scared? Did you think he kidnapped me?” She’s a bit scornful, a bit insulted that I would think so little of her, that she couldn’t fend off a mere kidnapper.
“I didn’t know what to think. I didn’t see you. I guess I never heard you calling. The wind caught your words, honey.”
Strength returns in gentle currents. I want to throw up. Instead, I set Punkin on her feet and gather my core to do the same. “I’ll tell you what. Let’s drive down to the guardhouse and see if they know who he was. But first I need to figure out where I left my phone.”
—
My phone’s on the table near the coat rack. There are two calls from Ben, a text message.
Hey where are you? Just arrived Boston. Try again later.
It’s nearly three o’clock and already the sky is fading. I bundle Punkin in the car.
At the guardhouse, Gary looks at me like I’m crazy.
“Nobody came through here,” he says. “Not on my watch.”
“Not even one of the residents?”
“It’s almost Christmas, Miss Cooper. You’re the only ones here except the Adamses, and they haven’t been through all day. I can call down to the ferry dock for you.”
“That would be great, thanks. And leave a note for the next shift, okay?”
Gary diligently writes in his logbook. Watch for intruders, he mutters to himself.
“See?” says Punkin cheerfully, as we drive back to the house. “Everything’s under control.”
—
Punkin makes hot chocolate while I debate ringing the police.
Owing to a dispute between the Winthrop Island town hall and the county police on Long Island, to which Winthrop technically belongs, there is no active police presence on the island.
Any help would have to come over on the ferry from Orient Point on Long Island to New London, and then the Winthrop Island ferry from New London.
At this hour, they wouldn’t have a cruiser out until tomorrow morning, Christmas Eve.
And I can just see the expression on the responding officer’s face as he writes up his notes on this all-day holiday morning callout, two ferry rides from home: So, you saw a man in the trees who might have been watching you. Then he got in his car and drove away.
Punkin sets the chocolate in front of me. “Here you go, Mama. You’ll feel better.”
The phone rings.
“There you are,” Ben says. “I was starting to worry.”
“Sorry about that. We went outside and I forgot to bring my phone.”
“Everything okay? You sound a little funny.”
“Do I?” I clear my throat. “Punkin had me running around a bit. We were hunting for the springhouse in the meadow.”
“No way,” he says. “Your dad would be so proud. Did you find anything?”
“Yeah, actually. I found a shovel.”
“What?” Punkin puts down her mug. “You didn’t tell me that.”
“A shovel?” says Ben. “I’ve been missing a shovel since last summer. I figured your dad borrowed it for one of his expeditions. I’ll pick it up from you when I get back.”
“I kind of just left it in the meadow? But I’ll show you the spot. So how are things in Boston?” I cleared my throat. “How’s Laura?”
“Laura,” he says slowly. “Laura is not here, actually. Couldn’t make the flights work or something.”
I’m almost too stunned to reply. “Wow. Seriously? I thought Christmas was pretty mandatory for the Peabodys.”
“Who knows. I’m sure she’ll be back for the wedding.”
“Oh, the wedding! Of course. Sedge and Audrey. Only six weeks away. Probably didn’t want to make the trip twice.”
Ben calls to someone. “Yeah, bro. On my way now. Sorry, Luce. Have to go. Already late for the carol thing.”
“Carol thing?”
“Some kind of Peabody tradition. Can’t sing for shit, so this should be good. Look, I miss you, all right? Can I say that? I do. Kinda wish you were here, to be honest. Give the kid a hug for me, okay?”
“I will.”
When I hang up, Punkin’s eyes are fixed on me over the top of her chocolate mug. A pair of suspicious eyebrows.
“Are you boyfriend and girlfriend?” she asks.
“Whaaat?” An octave high. I sip my chocolate. “Why do you ask that?”
“The way you talk to him.”
“I literally said nothing a girlfriend would say to a boyfriend.”
“It’s the way you said it.”
I set down the mug and wipe away a stain where the whipped cream overflowed the rim. “Would it be so terrible if we were?”
She shrugs. “As long as you don’t spend all your time kissing in front of me.”
“Yeah, that would be pretty awkward.”
“So if he’s your boyfriend, why didn’t you tell him about the man?”
“Punkin, honey. He’s not my boyfriend. Really. We’re just good friends.”
“Okay,” she says. “So why didn’t you tell him about the man?”
“Oh, you know Ben. He would freak out and get in his car and drive straight back here, and I think he needs to get off the island for a bit, don’t you? He needs to enjoy his Christmas break and not to worry about us.”
She nods. “Okay.”
“You know there’s nothing to worry about, right? This guy is not the kind of person who’ll try to hurt you. He’s just curious. Maybe a bit weird. But harmless.”
“I know that.”
“Anyway, Gary is on to him,” I tell her. “Gary is on the case.”
—
I make sure all four doors are locked that night—front door, back door, mudroom, cellar. All the windows. Then I get up at midnight and check them again, because I’m not sleeping, anyway.
Our house is not as old as the caretaker lodge at Summerly, but it’s old enough to have grown a few creaks and groans of its own. Each one makes my heart thunder.
The guys at the ferry dock said they hadn’t seen a car fitting that description aboard the last two boats off the island. I should have driven down to the village and scoped the streets and the few lots. The one at the marina. I should have looked in driveways.
But I couldn’t leave Punkin. And it was getting dark.
At two o’clock, the grandfather clock chimes softly downstairs. Punkin considers it her personal mission to keep that sucker wound.
Three o’clock.
Sometime after three, I must have passed out at last, because I woke at a few minutes before seven to a noise on the porch.
Punkin comes into my room. “Mama,” she says sleepily—Punkin is not an early riser, thank God—“there’s someone at the door.”
I fall out of bed and shove my feet into my slippers. We turn the heat off at night, because the furnace burns enough oil to fuel the Allied advance into Germany, and the air bites through the sleeves of my pajamas. I grab my glasses and my father’s old flannel robe and stumble to the back stairs.
About halfway down the staircase, yesterday tumbles through the fog in my brain.
I stop so short, I clutch the handrail to save myself from falling.
“Punkin,” I call softly. “Could you stay in your room? I’m just going to look through the window and see who it is.”
Punkin’s right behind me. “I already looked,” she says. “But they’re on the porch so you can’t see them.”
“Did you see a car out front?”
“I don’t know.”
I steal back up the stairs and peek through the part in the curtains from Punkin’s room, which faces front.
In the early gray light it’s hard to make out the shapes in the driveway.
But I can tell there’s another vehicle parked next to the Volvo.
A full-size black SUV. The plates might be Massachusetts.
Or might be any other plate with a white background.
Punkin comes up behind me. “Here’s your phone,” she whispers.
“Thanks, honey. Stay here in your room, like I said. Just until I can see who it is.”
I creep back down the stairs, avoiding the center of the ninth step and its haunted creak. Someone lets the knocker fall twice. Hard.
A male voice calls out, Open up! In the name of the law!
My shoulders relax. I turn and call up the stairs. “Punkin! You can come out now.”
From atop the mantel in the parlor I lift the antique squirrel gun from its mounting. It’s not loaded and the trigger mechanism is missing, but who’s going to notice?
Gun in hand, I make my way to the front door. Unlock it and throw the deadbolt. Ease the door open and shove the barrel through the crack.
“Get off my front porch or I’ll shoot!”
Someone gasps.
Then—“Oh, for God’s sake, darling. Put that thing away and make me some coffee.”
Punkin flies past me and throws herself into my mother’s arms.
Matthias steps over the barrel of the gun and takes me into a suffocating embrace. “The Menagerie has arrived, Yank. Happy Christmas.”
—
Everyone’s here except the twins, who have had their passports revoked (all a big misunderstanding, Maman assures me; Sadiq is sorting it out with the Home Office) and Pandora, who’s in rehab.
Amélie, our handyman, unpacks the espresso machine from one of the suitcases and gets it up and running. “Voilà! Your Christmas present,” she says. “The twins send you the beans. You cannot get the proper beans here in America, it’s a disgrace.”
Once there’s coffee, there’s life. Maman had the presence of mind to stop at a Whole Foods in Dedham and fills the fridge with delicacies. “But of course we missed the last ferry as a result,” she says.
“So we took rooms in Groton for the night,” says Amélie. “The sign said it is the world’s capital for submarines. Is that true?”
“True,” I say.
“Well, the hotel was terrible. There was a Keurig in the room. I couldn’t sleep.”
“I can’t believe Gary’s still in his booth after all these years,” Maman says. “We had such a nice chat. He told me you had an intruder?”
“More like a trespasser,” I say.
“What’s this?” says Matthias. “Who is trespassing?”
Punkin pipes up from the espresso machine, where she’s taken up barista duties. “A ghost,” she calls, over the noise of the milk frother. “The Dread Pirate Ned Ramsay.”
Matthias looks at me. “I don’t understand.”
“She’s joking. The man was watching us while we were walking around the meadow. Looking for the old springhouse.”
Maman shudders. “And I thought I’d heard the last of the Dread Ned. Your father was obsessed with him. I wonder if this fellow was one of Dad’s acolytes.”
“Acolytes?” I ask.
“Oh, he used to correspond with all sorts of pirate enthusiasts. The way they egged each other on, like boys. I assume that’s all online now.”
“That’s what Ben said,” I tell her. “Online pirate forums. He thinks—”
“Ben again,” says my mother.
“Ben is Mama’s boyfriend,” Punkin announces.
The kitchen falls silent. At the stove, where Edouard is turning out omelets as fast as Tatiana can plate them with a sprinkling of snipped chives, there is a faint buttery sizzling.
“She’s joking again,” I say. “He’s just a friend.”
Matthias lifts his cappuccino. “To Ben.”
“To Ben!” everyone replies.
A voice calls from the doorway.
“Hey. Lucy’s family. I’m Ben.”