“Good. Let them think you’re crazy! Let them fight about it and worry about it. My God, you and Emma did plenty of that when you were kids. Look—this is easy. You’ll pass the psychological examination tomorrow, and that will be the end of it.”
“And they can keep searching for Emma at all cost.”
“Yes. They will keep searching for Emma. And they will talk to the counselor at the school. And one way or another, Emma will be found.”
I asked him then what he thought when he heard my story and when he looked at me. Did he think I was crazy? Mrs. Martin had a way of making people forget what’s real. Maybe she had done that to me.
“No!” He said it emphatically.
Too emphatically. But I did not ask again.
He put his arms around me. “No, Cass, no! I promise you.”
I kept crying, right into his chest, my tears soaking into his shirt. I wanted to go back in time, even to the bad times, when Witt and Emma and I were together in this house. Maybe my father was right. Maybe it was dangerous to have things like that because when they’re gone, it breaks you into pieces.
Witt didn’t know what to make of me then. But I could see everything wash away except his love for me.
“Come home with me now. Right now! You’ve done everything you can do to find Emma. You’ve been through too much, Cass.”
Our father returned with ice cream then. I stopped crying and Witt stopped telling me to go home with him. We ate the ice cream with our father at the kitchen table.
I thought about what Witt said as I calmed myself down. I thought about getting in his car and never coming back. Relief washed over me and it felt like nothing I have ever felt before, like someone had just injected me with a powerful drug that takes away all your pain. I needed the pain to stop.
But I could not get in my brother’s car and drive away to a new life. Not now. Not yet.
I was not finished with Mrs. Martin.
FOURTEEN
Dr. Winter—Day Four of Cass Tanner’s Return
On day four of Cass Tanner’s return, they sat in the parking lot of Danbury High School talking about the boatman, who had just been identified as Richard Foley. The ID had come in that morning, and everything else was now on hold. It was their best lead. If they found the boatman, they would find the island, and—they all hoped—Emma and her baby.
“Are they sure?” Abby asked.
“How many gang rapes of government officials from the Department of Fish and Game do you think there are in Alaska?”
Field agents in Alaska had found an article in theKetchikan Daily Newsfrom seven years back about a fisherman’s account of the rape.
“They talked to the reporter. Foley refused to disclose the name of the woman, and without corroboration, the paper couldn’t print the names of the men involved.”
Abby considered this. Seven years was a long time. But small towns had long memories.
“So, listen to this. The reporter said Foley lived in Ketchikan for about three years. Cycled on and off the boats. He left afterthe incident, according to his own account, and returned seven years later to make amends for his silence.”
“Too late to prosecute?”
“The DA said they couldn’t do a damned thing without the woman’s cooperation. Everyone knew who she was. It’s a small town. But she wanted no part of the story after all that time. Said she’d moved on. The article was tucked away in the back pages, and nothing ever came of it.”
“And Foley?” Abby asked.
“Came and went in a day. Guess he wasn’t in the mood to catch up with his old fishing buddies.”
“Whereabouts?”
“They’re looking. Asking around town if anyone remembered him, remembered him talking about where he was from or where he was going. They got his social from the employer up there. Got his old local address, too. They’ll canvass the landlord if they can find her. She sold the building not long after he left.”
“But nothing from the social?”
