Instead, I fought to contain myself. I felt the blood rush from my head as my heart pounded like thunder against my ribs. It pounded so hard, it hurt. I waited for the blood to return and then I whispered to my mother.
“Shhhhh.”
“Cass! Tell me!” she sobbed.
“Shhhh, Mrs. Martin. It’s all right now.”
I stroked her silky hair as I spoke.
Her body was writhing with agony.
Memories rushed in. Me in the corner. Emma in this bed, holding our mother.
“Shhhh, Mrs. Martin,” I whispered. And then I said what Emma would always say. “You’re the most wonderful mother. There’s no better mother in the entire world.”
I stayed with her until she calmed down. I got her a drink from downstairs and she took a white pill and drank her drink and fell asleep in my arms.
And while she slept, I prayed that this had been enough. I prayed that Mr. Martin would not use his charm and undo the work I had done. This was all I had—the affair with Lisa Jennings that I had discovered before I disappeared. Mr. Martin was very careless and he left his phone unattended almost every night. I used to fantasize about telling her. I used to lie in my bed, sometimes when Emma was there with me, and I would think about how and when I would give this gift to my sister—this weapon that would surely destroy our nemesis. But then we were gone.
The second thing that happened that night after Mr. Martin left was that they found the location of the boatman, Richard Foley. And when they found the boatman’s location, they found the island.
They went there that same night. Eight FBI agents, including Agent Strauss and Dr. Winter. They stayed overnight in a small hotel and did surveillance. They got satellite imagery and land records and building permits and everything else they needed to put together a plan of attack for the morning.
I didn’t sleep that night. We were not told anything about the surveillance or the satellite pictures or the details of the plan. But I knew that everything was going to happen very fast. And Iknew that it was going to be dangerous because they asked me questions about guns and weapons and things the Pratts might use to make weapons. And then I became consumed with thoughts of people I loved dying.
So I lay awake that whole night wondering about death. No one who has died can tell us what it feels like. I don’t think there is any kind of death that is painless, even if it is just a split second. Even if someone just cut off your head or shot you in the heart. Life feels too strong to go away without some kind of agony.
Our father was very paranoid about life leaving us, me and Emma and Witt. He got so angry when we didn’t do the things he’d told us to do to stay alive. Bike helmets and seat belts were the worst. I don’t know what it was like for Witt and Emma, inside their heads, when they didn’t wear a helmet or put on a seat belt. Maybe they did it on purpose, because they wanted to be free of those restraints. But for me, it was just about forgetting. Our father would lecture us when it happened, about how kids feel invincible, how they don’t understand that they can die. That they will actually die one day. That they are destructible. Emma would giggle and I could see that his words went through her like a ghost. She didn’t care that this feeling would leave her one day. It was like being beautiful. She was going to enjoy it while she could—otherwise, what’s the point?
I want to go out in a big, enormous ball of flames the minute I feel the way Daddy does. I would rather live half as long feeling alive than twice as long feeling dead already.
Emma whispered this in my ear one night as she lay in my bed. She was sixteen, and by then she didn’t ride a bike and she always wore her seat belt because she was driving and she didn’t want to get a ticket from the police. Still, there were so manyother things like those things, rules and restraints. When she said these words to me, I could tell that she felt very grown-up. That she felt as though she had come up with something no one had thought of before. But now I know that she was just finding a way to understand what was going on inside her.
When a scream wants to come out, nothing can stop it. Not rules. Not restraints. Not even the common sense to want to stay alive.
I was more like my father. From as early as I have memories of my own thoughts and feelings, I know that I feared death and that I felt that death was going to come for me as a punishment. Every time I smoked a cigarette, I told myself I would be punished with cancer. Every time I drank alcohol, I imagined lying in the hospital with yellow skin because my liver was failing. And when I drove Emma in her car without a license or even a permit, I would resign myself to a bloody death on the side of the road.
What I have come to know about death is that it is not like that. It is not fair. It does not add up your cigarettes and drinks and irresponsible behavior and come for you when you’ve reached your quota. People die all the time who were very good, very responsible. And people stay alive to the bitter end of their natural lives who were very bad and who did very bad things. Mrs. Martin will probably live to be one hundred. Mr. Martin will be right beside her.
When I was young, I was undeserving of death. Even after I started drinking and smoking and thinking bad thoughts and doing bad things, I had never done anything so bad that I deserved to die. Still, I feared death as though I deserved it just because I was me, and I think I will never stop feeling that way until it finally does come.
When I chased death from my thoughts, they turned instantly to the island and what would happen in the morning when they went there. I did not sleep. Not for one minute.
How I missed Emma that night as I lay in bed—wondering what they would find on the island. And knowing what they wouldn’t.
EIGHTEEN
Dr. Winter—Day Five of Cass Tanner’s Return
Five miles off the coast of South Bristol, Maine, was the island of Freya. It was renamed by the current owner, a corporation named Freya Investments, LLC. The name was Scandinavian, meaning the Nordic goddess of love and fertility.
Freya Investments, LLC, was registered in the State of Delaware and owned by a man named Carl Peterson.
They found the island of Freya five days after Cass Tanner returned home. It started with a boat found drifting miles away, near Rockland. The boat belonged to the owner of a dock and small marina in South Bristol. The owner had leased the boat to Richard Conroy, who was, in fact, Richard Foley. The owner’s wife eventually recognized Foley from a news broadcast showing his picture, and they alerted the authorities.
Abby, Leo and a Critical Incident Response Group, or CIRG, were moved to the closest mainland point on Christmas Cove, which adjoined South Bristol by means of a swing bridge. Satellite imagery of every island that sat at the mouth of the bay was analyzed. Cass had described three structures and one dock. The main house was on the easternmost point, facing the Atlantic.The dock stood to the south, facing a larger island. And the two smaller structures, a greenhouse and a generator shed, were to the north of the house. On the western side were the treacherous rocks.
Only one island matched the description.
