The Summer We Lost Her Page 20

  Sightings had begun to pour in to the police hotline and Elise decided she’d keep track herself. It gave her something to keep her busy.

  She divided the pins by color. Navy was a credible sighting. Purple was a “way-out-there” sighting. Pink was a psychic vision.

  A couple in a Savannah flea market had seen a girl with crutches with a swarthy man who didn’t speak English. She was overheard asking him when she could see “Mommy.” Into Savannah went a navy pin. On a bleak, windswept road outside of Wichita, a girl who “had to be Gracie” was spotted hanging her head out the window of a Hyundai while a nervous couple changed a tire. Another navy. At Disneyland in California, a freckled girl started to cry as she waited in line for Pirates of the Caribbean and the woman with her smacked her hand. This one had a photo, and the child looked nothing like Gracie. Purple pin. A spiritual counselor in Chicago had a vision of a canal, of Gracie on a long, low barge in what she swore was Hamburg. Pink.

  That there were so many sightings was good. Through social media, the story had already spread around the country, along with Cass’s photo of Gracie—freckle-faced and grinning, her scrunched nose giving her smile a mischievous look. Gracie in on her own secret joke.

  There was one bright green pin on the map. This one Elise put slightly to the right of Lake Ontario, south of Montreal. Partway up the east side of Lake Placid. On this spot, she’d written 217 Seldom Seen Road, Lake Placid, NY.

  Little Green, back in the cabin where she belonged.

  She looked around for her phone to take a picture of the pin. It should be the home screen on both her phone and Matt’s.

  Her search brought Elise through the kitchen, where fruit and food baskets and cards from well-wishers were beginning to pile up. She’d already opened a cheese and cracker box sent from the parents at Summerhill Prep, from Deborah, Melanie, and Jackie, who claimed “we just adore your little girl, Matt.” And a tin of store-bought cookies from Andy Kostick that his note boasted were homemade.

  Only Matt’s phone was around, so Elise grabbed it and walked back to the map, quickly typing in his password as she stood in front of the colored pins. The phone unlocked to a text exchange between Matt and Cass. It had started at 5:17 that morning.

  MATT: Hey, saw you’re up. I need to get out of here.

  CASS: Come over

  MATT: K120

  CASS: Seriously? Weather will suck up there

  MATT: I just need lift-off

  CASS: Meet out front in five. Dress warm

  Elise stared at the phone, stunned. That’s what Matt had done when he hung back, claiming to need food? He’d climbed the big ski jump all the way over by the horse show grounds—with his ex-girlfriend? When their daughter was missing, it was Cass he needed? She continued to scroll to a sunny photo of Matt and Cass as tweens, lying in the grass, heads touching, him plucking petals from a daisy.

  There was way more to this relationship than Matt was letting on.

  – CHAPTER 21 –

  In an act of cruelty, the rain and fog had lifted and now everything beyond the screened porch windows—the birch trees, the boathouse and shed, the rocks, and the calm water—was bathed in the softest, most honeyed light imaginable. The mountains beyond glowed red, and a robin warbled a tranquil evening song.

  Matt wanted to go outside and throttle it.

  “I know no one feels like eating. I’m sorry, but I’m going to force it,” said Cass, backing into the porch from outside with a foil-covered salad bowl and a bag of dinner rolls. Matt lurched forward to help her through, while Elise continued working on her map of the world by the fireplace.

  River came in behind his mother, so fully absorbed in his gaming device that he dropped down onto the rug without looking up. When he did, he seemed surprised to find he was no longer at home.

  To see him sitting there—with the drawings he and Gracie had been working on just two days ago—Matt didn’t think he could take it.

  Cass looked over to where Elise was stationed at her map. “What’s this?”

  “Sightings,” Elise said, her face drawn. “The navy ones are more reliable. Purple less likely.” She stuck a pink pin somewhere in the Greek islands.

  “What are pink?” asked Cass.

  “Psychic visions. Less credible.”

  “I don’t know about that.” Cass set her offerings on the long picnic table on the other side of the fireplace. “I think loads of cases have been solved that way.”

  The news droned softly from the small TV Matt had brought down from the bedroom. He couldn’t look at River, who’d stretched out now on the rug, bare feet bumping against each other, as if he hadn’t a care in the world. The memory of Gracie giggling with him at the picnic table was debilitating.

  Matt debated sending him up to play in Gracie’s room. But, no. Maybe that was worse.

  Cass pulled the foil from the food. “Here’s a big salad, and it’s better than my usual because you two need your energy. We’ve got arugula, sunflower seeds, beets . . . what else? A little goat cheese and cucumber. Be good and healthy for you. And I’ve ordered a party-size pizza just the way Matty likes it: slathered in meat.”

  He watched her move easily around the room, warming when she went into the kitchen to help herself to dinner plates and glasses. She knew what was what and what was where in this house. Somehow there was comfort to that. As she came back into the room to set it all out on the table, he caught her eye and mouthed, Thank you.

  Her fingertips grazed his forearm in reply.

  “Hey, all. Excuse the work attire.” Garth banged his way through the back door in khakis and a pink dress shirt, leather portfolio in hand. “I had my first appointment over on Saranac at seven thirty this morning. Insanity.” He dropped the portfolio onto a chair. “I brought over some comparables. Help you get a sense of what’s been happening out there.”

  “Garth!” Cass said, a hand on her hip. “Is this really the time?”

  “No, hey, sorry.” Garth’s embarrassment was genuine. He looked from Matt to Elise. “Guys. I’m only thinking the sale could help you financially during this, is all. You know, in case you need . . . whatever. To hire a private investigator. Anything.”

  Elise turned to Matt. “We should discuss that.”

  “The police are being amazing. Plus, the FBI’s getting involved.”

  “Yes, but we’re not in the city. We’re dealing with small-town cops.”

  From the floor, River started to make wet shooting sounds as his thumbs attacked his game device. Then the pings and pongs and electric explosions. Matt couldn’t take it and was pretty sure Elise was faring no better. But he couldn’t tell Cass to take her son away—the kid was certainly traumatized as well. She couldn’t leave him alone at home.

  Without taking his gaze from his screen, River rolled onto his back and stomped a foot. “When’s Gracie coming back?”

  Everything went silent, all conversation, all birds chittering in the trees, all lake water lapping against the dock. Cass’s embarrassment was evident as she looked at Matt and Elise. She knelt down next to her son, pushed the hair off his forehead, and pressed a kiss to his skin. Softly, she said, “That’s what we’re trying to figure out, toad. We are on it.”

  Elise flashed him a look of fury. Suddenly, Matt was ashamed of his irritation. And his wife’s.

  Cass got up again to arrange the plates around the table and the room came to life again. She began to hum, her sweater slipping off her shoulder. When she asked Matt for help locating salad tongs, he led her into the kitchen.

  “You were amazing with River just then.”

  “He’s unsettled, is all. Worried about his friend.”

  Cass jumped up to sit on the counter and watched Matt root through drawers filled with a lifetime’s worth of wooden spoons, stamps, potato mashers, rubber bands. Tangled spools of string. “You ever throw anything away?”

  Her teasing expression was so familiar. Pulled him back to the days when life wa
s beautifully ordinary up here. You had time to watch a wet dog shake out his fur in the sun. To clear a skating rink on the frozen lake. To take a girl to the movies and feel a thrill when you both reached into the popcorn at the same time.

  He handed her a pair of large forks.

  A knock at the front window. Matt opened the door to the Casa Italia delivery man, a wiry sixty or so, with the crooked nose of someone who’d entertained a few blows to the face. He held out a huge pizza box, looking like he’d rather be anyplace else. His car sat running in the driveway. “Hey there. That’ll be thirty-one ninety-eight.”

  Cass set the pizza on the hall table as Matt dug through his pocket for bills.

  “I couldn’t believe it when I heard.” The driver motioned toward the crest on the face of the house. “Nate Sorenson was the best. Gave my brother a loan back in the seventies when my sister-in-law was having a tough time, their kid needed surgery.”

  As Matt handed over four tens, he felt Cass’s hand slide up his shoulder. “Those stories are wonderful to hear,” she said. “So heartwarming.”

  The man started to count out change and Matt waved it away. “Keep it.”

  “We’re praying for you with your daughter. My whole street, we did a little candle thing last night. A vigil.” He nodded his respects. “Best advice I can give you is don’t listen when folks talk trash. People just like to knock anyone who’s better off than themselves. You gotta just keep your head down and focused. ’Nite, Mr. Sorenson, Mrs. Sorenson.”

  Cass held up a hand to wave.

  “Good night.” Elise’s reply was crisp behind them. She gave her husband a long, level look and carried the pizza into the back porch.

  * * *

  THE AIR HELD a chill and Garth was bent over the hearth, trying to get a fire going. He was using the old-fashioned tent technique and Matt couldn’t stand watching it. He crossed the room and nudged Garth out of the way. To busy himself with something—anything—helped. Matt stacked five thick logs across the fireplace grille, four slightly smaller split logs atop those, on the perpendicular, another layer of kindling, then a layer of crumpled newspaper and broken twigs.

  “Upside-down fires,” Cass said to no one in particular. “Nate swore by them.” She opened the pizza box Elise had left on the table, and started slapping square slices on plates. “Every layer burns and then ignites the one below. So the heat builds until the lower logs finally ignite. Burns longer, hotter. Very low maintenance. You don’t have to stoke it.”

  “You’ve never built one for me,” said Garth.

  “I forgot about them till now,” said Cass. “Come. Everybody eats. This Mama Bear doesn’t take no for an answer. Elise, that includes you.”

  Matt’s cell started to ring on the coffee table. Elise looked at the screen. “Barrans.”

  He reached for the phone, only to turn off the ringer and set it down again. “Just wants to say he’s heard.” Matt sat himself at the table and eventually the buzzing on the coffee table was replaced by the sound of silverware scraping against china.

  “You could’ve taken it,” Cass said.

  Matt’s ability to shoulder anyone else’s horror over his daughter’s disappearance was nonexistent. “He’ll call back.”

  “You’re eating two slices, Elise,” said Cass, putting salad on everyone’s plates. “It’s not going to do anyone any good to have you wasting away. You need your strength. Matty, did I tell you that preorders of the book have already begun? Kind of crazy.”

  “Cass,” said Garth. “No one can think about book orders right now.”

  “I’m just trying to keep up the chatter.”

  “It’s okay,” said Matt.

  River, who hadn’t joined them at the table, turned the TV volume up. CNN broke the silence with a story on a plane crash in a farmer’s field on the west coast of Scotland. Two hundred and twenty-eight dead, including the crew. Fourteen survivors, one of them a dog.

  Garth said, “Poor thing.”

  They all watched in silence as the owner of the dog—who hadn’t been on the flight—talked about the dog’s state of mind. Scared of any loud noise, but otherwise okay. The screen showed the remains of the travel crate. It was charred beyond recognition, but Lucky was found wandering the side of a motorway.

  “He’s going to be completely traumatized,” Elise said, staring at the screen, mesmerized. “He’ll need someone who knows what they’re doing.”

  The screen filled with Gracie’s face. The photo on the dock that Cass took—Gracie beaming with that sunburst of a smile. They all froze as Gracie was replaced with a shot of a journalist with perfectly layered blond hair standing on their driveway back home in New Jersey. Cass jumped forward to turn it off.

  The room was silent but for bleeps and pings coming from River’s electronic game.

  Matt couldn’t fill his lungs. He pushed back his chair with a scrape. Stood. “Got to get some air.” He stuffed his feet into sandals, strode through the kitchen, and opened the front door to find Dorsey about to knock, the two officers behind him shadowed by the dusk sky.

  “We’ve had a sighting here in town. Wanted to show you this before we go.” He handed Matt a blurred photograph of a child on a rusted swing. The girl’s face wasn’t visible through leafy branches, but the messy ponytail—the hair was the right length, streaky blond.

  “Oh my god.” Elise appeared at Matt’s shoulder to stare at the photo. She grabbed her small purse and struggled to stay balanced while pulling on sneakers. To Dorsey, she said, “Do we come in your car or drive ourselves?”

  Matt answered first. “I’m sure the parents don’t get to come along.”

  “Actually, I prefer if you do,” Dorsey said. “If this is your daughter, she’s young and she’ll feel a whole lot safer if at least one of you is waiting in the vehicle. Then there’s an issue with liability if we’re driving your child around in an agitated state.” He started for his cruiser, waving for them to follow.

  * * *

  ELISE STARED OUT the window in the back of Dorsey’s car as they traveled from the southernmost point of the village up Old Military Road, where density gave way to larger rural lots, the airport. The ski jump Matt and Cass had climbed.

  The police debated over the radio whether to turn on John Brown Road or Old John Brown Road—both of which ran west and converged about a half mile in. Didn’t seem to matter: both were heavily clogged with traffic. The car slowed to a crawl as they neared the bronze statue of Brown himself walking with a young slave boy. Tiny bugs swarmed in what little remained of the daylight.

  “Sorry about this.” Dorsey swerved around traffic, his forearm bumping the heavy-duty laptop mounted on the center console. “Not the best timing. Big award ceremony here tonight.” Elise watched families walking by with older children, toddlers in pajamas, and infants in strollers. One mother carried her young daughter on her hip. Elise looked away fast. “We’re better off passing all this and doubling back on Old John Brown Road up at the wishbone. The trees on the property we’re approaching are nice and dense if we approach that way. Don’t want to tip anybody off before we’re ready.”

  When Rosamunde made turkey, she’d always save the wishbone. Let it dry overnight so that, the next day, they could hold opposite ends and pull. Whoever got the Y of the bone could make a wish. That Dorsey had chosen this route, where they would traverse the Y, had to be a good sign, thought Elise. They had the big piece of bone. Their wish would come true.

  Two other state police officers were in the car ahead of them, and as they drew nearer to the gates of the historical farmhouse, they swirled their lights to signal any cars or pedestrians blocking the road to move aside. Elise did a double take as they passed a sign—was it Lyman the roofer’s picture on it?

  “I hope all this activity doesn’t scare them off,” Matt said.

  “It’s not a bad thing for us that the area’s a bit congested. Three police cars creeping up an otherwise quiet street would wave a pre
tty big flag.”

  Elise leaned forward. “How long ago was she seen?”

  “Reports came in from several neighbors earlier this evening. Older woman’s lived here forever. All of a sudden she has a little blond girl with her who no one’s ever seen before.”

  “Using crutches?” Elise asked.

  “No one thought to look. We’re not going to get ahead of ourselves. Could mean nothing.”

  Elise sat back in her seat. Could mean everything.

  Dorsey held up a finger. He turned onto Old John Brown Road, where the woods grew tighter to the road. The homes here were sprawling chalets made of stone and timber, boasting Range Rovers and Jaguars and a perfect blend of manicured grounds and untamed shrubs and copses of trees.

  Nonsensically, the affluence gave Elise hope. As if finer china and Amex Centurion cards would spell Gracie having been misguidedly “borrowed” by entitled but good-hearted weekenders for the sole purpose of pampering her, feeding her good food, and putting her up in a bedroom filled with expensive toys. She was their treasured guest, to be cosseted and revered until her hosts grew bored and decided to drop her back at the upended canoe.

  Elise allowed herself the vision of Gracie, freshly bathed and dressed in fluffy pajamas, surrounded by oversize versions of her tiny animals, all of them lined up and hopeful for hugs. Gracie staring at them, arms crossed, patiently explaining, “There is a rule.”

  She glanced at Matt to see if he shared her vision. But this area was nothing special to him. This wealth was normal.

  The car stopped at a screen of ragged spruce trees that only partially hid them from a dilapidated house. Torn blinds lined the upper windows. The garage roof—corrugated metal fuzzy with rust—sagged in the middle, and the faded yellow siding was filthy. In no way did this cottage fit in with the multimillion-dollar homes nearby. Beneath an exposed electrical meter, a tired Big Wheel. Everything about it felt tragic.