“Maine has over thirty-five hundred miles of coastland and close to five thousand islands, and off the coast near Rocklandthere are hundreds,” one of the forensics explained. “So anything else you give us would be helpful.”
Judy jumped in, impatience seeping from every pore. “Why, Cass, did you wait all night to get back here? Why didn’t you go straight to the police from the shore so they could find this island?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t think about it. I didn’t think it would be so hard to find it. The driver of that truck asked me where I wanted to go and I said the first thing I thought of which was here. Home.”
She started to cry again.
“I just wanted to come home.”
Abby heard footsteps bounding up the stairs; then the door opened. She was sitting in a chair by the bed when Owen Tanner burst in like a tornado. He didn’t greet her, though Abby doubted he’d forgotten who she was. He was simply overwrought. He ran to the bed, hugged his daughter. He was crying, moaning like he was in pain. He was thin and gaunt, as though he’d been slowly disappearing these past three years. She hadn’t noticed it during the investigation, because she had seen him frequently, even after they had concluded their interviews. He would come once a week or more to the field office in New Haven, demanding updates, requesting access to their reports and the list of calls to the hotline. She thought then that his pain had been a parasite, feeding on him all this time. And nothing could bring back the parts of him that had been eaten away. That was what she could hear in his cries as he held his child.
Owen pulled away, his face wet and contorted with despair. He began his own inquiry about Emma, to know where she was. He had a million questions and he shot them out as if no one else in the room had thought of them before he arrived and “MyGod!” Emma was at the end of one of them and why couldn’t Cass just tell them where to go and get her?
When he had finally exhausted his questions on that front and came to accept that finding Emma was not going to happen that moment, he sat down on the edge of the bed, almost on top of his daughter, blocking Judy from her sight. It was then he asked Cass the other question, which Abby knew had tortured him the most since the night he lost his daughters.
“Why? Why did you and Emma leave with these people?”
Owen had told Abby during the first investigation that she was wrong to look at the family history. He told her that he understood why teenagers left to join jihads and cults and got lured by perverts. He said in one of his interviews with her, “Those kids were not normal kids. I’ve seen them on the news. Maybe no one saw it before it happened, but after it was all perfectly clear why they’d left. Right? There’s nothing like that with my girls. I’m not sitting here thinking that this all makes perfect sense because of this thing or that thing. Do you understand? There is nothing to find here. Nothing at all!”
“Why did you leave with these strangers?” Owen asked again, looking for confirmation.
Cass finally answered him, a hint of anger in her voice that surprised Abby. But it was her answer that surprised them all.
“We left because Emma was pregnant.”
FIVE
Cass
My father squeezed the breath from my body when he first saw me again. He barreled past Dr. Winter, Special Agent Strauss and Mrs. Martin and fell into me, sobbing. I did not have a chance to even look at him, to absorb the deep lines that grief had carved into his forehead and the grayness that now covered his skin. That would come twelve seconds later. In that moment, those first twelve seconds, he needed to take from me all that was lost over those three years, and he was not deterred by the impossibility of this task. I indulged him because I love my father very much and feeling his arms around me again had me crying also and saying his name over and over.
Daddy… Daddy…
I cried for him many times on the island, even though I knew each time, in my heart, what I knew again on my mother’s bed as he held me that morning. No matter how many times I cried his name, the cries a plea for him to help me somehow even if only to give me the strength to help myself, my father had nothing like this to give me.
I let myself cry and I tried to give him the things he needed. I had expected him to need things from me when I returned home. Still, I was also shocked by the resentment I felt. I wanted to scream at him.I need things, too! I need to tell my story before it explodes right out of my chest!No one seemed to care about my things.
When I said the words, when I told them we left because Emma was pregnant, my father’s eyes grew wide and frantic, like he was lost in a storm. “I don’t understand! Did she have a baby? Is there a child? My God!”
I answered the second question first.
“She had a little girl. But they took her. Bill and Lucy took her from Emma and made her their own. It started out like they were just helping take care of her. They kept her in their room at night. They said it was just for a few days so Emma could rest. Emma didn’t want them to, but they did anyway. Then they just never stopped.”
“And they wouldn’t let you leave? They held you prisoner? I don’t understand, Cass!” My father demanded an answer.
“We asked to leave. And when they kept saying not yet, not now, things like that, we made a plan to leave, only we couldn’t see how to do it when they always had Emma’s baby with them. So we decided that I should leave and then bring back help. And I tried, but failed. I’ve been trying to tell you… and when I found another way years later, Emma said she couldn’t leave without her daughter. I tried to make her come with me. You have to believe me, that I tried!”
I felt a surge of panic like the shock you get when your finger brushes a light socket. The thought of baby feet and baby hair and baby smiles, and the pain when they would take her from my arms, and Emma—I suddenly missed her like I would miss myown heart if it were torn from my body—and all of this was just too strong to hold in.
“Find them!” I yelled into the room.
I wanted Emma. I wanted revenge. I wanted that sweet little girl. I wanted justice.
“Find them and make them pay for what they’ve done!”
My father covered his face with his hands. I think it was at this moment he started to understand the kind of place I was trying to tell him about, trying to tell all of them. There was just so much and I didn’t want to forget anything so I kept trying to go back to the beginning. Maybe I should have started with the first time I tried to escape and what they did when I got caught. Or the things I had to do to finally make it home. In so many ways, I still felt like a child, afraid I would be in trouble. Afraid no one would believe me.
My father stood up. “We need more agents! We need to do something! Right now! My daughter and granddaughter are being held prisoner by these people! My God!”
