“All I can tell you is that we’re checking everything.”
She wondered if that included the ugly wedding dress, which, as far as she knew, was still hanging on the back of her bedroom door. If they impounded it, at least she’d have a good reason to wear something else.
“What about the Inn?” she asked, aware that she sounded irritated, but could not seem to do otherwise. “Bella was last seen in the great room.”
“There will be too many prints from too many people up there.” His answer was the same one John had given Earl. As if the cops had studied the same manual. Or were in cahoots.
Annie recognized that her thoughts had turned ridiculous. She shifted on one foot and discovered that her toes were cold, despite her fleece-lined boots. “I need to talk to John,” she said. “Do you know where he is?”
“He’s back out on the rescue boat. With a couple of up-island cops.”
Annie started to reach into her pocket when she discovered she’d left her purse and phone . . . somewhere. In the Jeep? At the Inn?Oh,she thought,who cares?“How far out are they?”
“Can’t say for sure.”
“Can you reach him?”
“Yup.”
“Will you? Please? It’s important, Linc.”
He shuffled his blue paper–clad feet back and forth. “If it’s about Bella, you can tell me, Annie. John asked me to take the lead. He’s too close to it, you know?”
Believe me, I know,she thought. But Linc was one of the good guys, so she didn’t want to get snarky with him. Still, she couldn’t bring herself to tell him about Francine’s aunt and uncle: she didn’t want him to question Francine and upset her more.
“It’s more of a personal matter,” she lied. “But an important one.”
Linc kind of smiled. “Did you call him? Text him?”
“No. I forgot my phone.” Which was true. After all, she hadn’t known she’d need it. Her only mission had been to find John, tell him what Jonas had told her, and let him do whatever he wanted with the information. She also knew she now needed to tell him Francine’s aunt’s opinion about the “limitations” of the Vineyard.
“Never mind,” Annie said. “I’ll go down to the beach and see if I can flag them down.” Hopefully, the rescue boat was cruising close to shore, looking for whatever they could see in the spotlights’ sweeping arcs.
“I’ll let him know you’re headed down,” Linc said. “So they can beach the boat if he’s in range.”
Without waiting for her reply, he fished through his garb and produced his phone. His thumbs skittered across the face of it, texting rapidly as if he were a teenager.
Five seconds later the phone rang.
Linc answered. “Hey, bud. Yeah. Annie’s here. She needs to talk to you.” He paused. “Nope. Something personal.” He paused again, that time longer. And longer. He wiped his brow. He turned sideways, as if trying to avoid her gaze. “Shit,” he said. “Seriously?”
And Annie felt as if someone had stabbed her in the heart.
She wanted to cry, “What?” and “Tell me!” But she was afraid of what he would say.
Linc kept listening. Then he said, “Yeah. Bag it. Tag it. Bring it up here.”
Annie pressed a hand against her stomach. Then she ran around the corner of the cottage and threw up on the grass.
And then Linc was behind her. “Sorry you had to hear that, Annie. They haven’t found her. But they found a doll. John said it has yarn for hair. Like the kind of dolls his mom has made for Bella.”
Chapter 27
Later, much later, between darkness and dawn, it occurred to Annie that she was slogging through the night in a heavy fog of fear, where sight and sound had become ethereal, as if she were in a netherworld, having an out-of-body experience. Murphy once told her those kinds of things were more common than most people knew, when God, or nature, or whatever one called it provided a full-body pillow to absorb the shock, when the real world stepped aside but allowed lungs to keep breathing and hearts to keep beating when the pain was so intense that the mere act to “go on” did not seem possible.
Annie wondered where Murphy was right now and why she had abandoned her in this time of anguish. Then again, Annie wasn’t sure she could handle hearingHang in there, Annie, orStay positive, my friendright then.
Lying in her bed, she stared up at, yet did not really see, the ceiling of the cottage. John had allowed her to come home last night and sleep in her own bed, but only with him next to her. And now Annie had just one thought:
