Come back to me.She wanted to shout the message on Rose’s heart-shaped rock to Bella from the top of the lighthouse.
But just as she decided to rejoin the others, she felt a tap-tap on her shoulder. And turned to see Abigail.
“Can we talk?” the girl asked. “Alone?”
Annie decided not to correct the “can” to “may.” She wondered if she’d ever learn to let go of her grammar hat.
“Sure,” she said. “Let’s go into the reading room.” She was becoming more familiar with that cozy place than with her own cottage. No matter where, however, she did not want to have to deal with Abigail right then. She did not want to have to deal with Abigail . . . well, truthfully, ever, the wedding dress notwithstanding. The girl was challenging enough for Annie on a good day, despite the fact she’d made a half-hearted effort in the search for Bella. Albeit at John’s insistence.
Annie walked ahead of the clomp-clomp of the heels of Abigail’s ankle boots. She wondered why the girl had no clue that Chappy wasn’t a place for fashion footwear.
Sitting at the table, Annie felt her muscles tense in preparation for whatever comment was going to be tossed her way. The only things Annie was sure of were that she didn’t know her future stepdaughter well enough to be able to assess her skills at manipulation, and that John would be devastated if he learned that Annie felt so defensive about her.
She sighed. Right now, Abigail should be at the bottom of the list of the least of Annie’s concerns.
“Have a seat,” she said, motioning to the chair across from her.
Abigail sat. Though her long blond hair was gathered into a ponytail, she’d apparently left her trademark makeup home in Edgartown, so she looked barely twelve instead of eighteen. She kept her hands in her lap, but Annie sensed that she’d started to fidget. Perhaps the girl was uncomfortable. Good.
She focused on the green-shaded lamp, not on Annie. “Lucy told me that you hate the wedding dress,” she said.
Of all the words Abigail could have said, Annie would not have predicted those. But because she was feeling edgy, she laughed. “I wouldn’t say I hate it. It’s just . . . well, let’s say it’s not a good look on me. I’m not sure the fit is right.” Of course, the “fit” was fine. It was the rest of the dress that was marginal.
Abigail hesitated. “I know something about sewing. And fashion. Would you like my help?”
Annie wanted to say that would depend on whether or not Abigail would confess to having slashed her tire or having goaded her boyfriend into doing the deed. But she decided she should act like the grown-up in the room. “That would be really nice.”
“Okay. Can we look at it tomorrow? I won’t be great at walking through snow trying to find the little girl. I hate snow.” Apparently, still the diva, she stood up then and turned to leave.
“Thanks, Abigail,” Annie said. “But maybe we should wait until Bella’s found, okay?”
With a quick glance over her shoulder, Abigail said, “Sure, whenever you want,” and strutted from the room, leaving Annie to wonder what the heck had happened. Maybe Claire had had a long talk with her granddaughter about family sticking together. It often amazed Annie how people could dispose of grudges over long-forgotten conflicts when someone they loved simply asked them to.
* * *
Somehow, the rest of the day passed without joy or incidence, enveloped in a haze of quiet conversation. Earl mentioned that he’d heard a long-range forecast of unsettled weather across the top of the nation for the next several days. Annie couldn’t imagine how he could have bothered to listen to a weather report at a time like this. But by now he, too, must know that John was away “on police business,” and that he’d gone by air. Maybe he was worried about how or when John would be able to return.
All Annie knew for certain was that John had made it off the Vineyard last night and hoped to make it to Minnesota later today. But he hadn’t called her, and he hadn’t texted, and it was now more than fifty-something hours since Bella had disappeared. And there hadn’t been any updates from Linc or any ransom call—not that she knew of, anyway.
Around ten o’clock, Taylor arrived with sleeping bags and said she and Kevin would camp out in the workshop. Annie sent Claire home with Earl and their granddaughters. Then, no longer caring about how things looked to the tenants, an hour later, she dragged a couple of blankets and a pillow from the linen closet and nested on one of the sofas in the great room as Claire had done the night before. She would have preferred to stay in Francine’s room, but Annie needed her phone nearby in case John called, and she didn’t want the ring to wake Francine.
But there was no call. And now it was morning.
Monday morning.
Day three since Bella had gone missing.
Traipsing through the snow, Annie made it down to her cottage, where she showered and dressed in fresh clothes, which helped her feel a little better. But that time, she made the mistake of looking in the mirror. Her eyelids were swollen, her cheeks sunken. In the past couple of days, she seemed to have developed more lines on her face. She wondered if the current situation was now etching itself on her skin.
“Every loss brings back every other loss,” she remembered reading somewhere. If that were true, Bella’s disappearance had heaped all of Annie’s losses smack onto her face.
“With or without a nice wedding dress, you’re going to be a very old-looking, odd-looking bride,” she said into the glass. But that was no longer a priority for her to waste time caring about.
Moving back through the bedroom, she bypassed the garment bag that held the dress and went into the living room, careful not to contaminate the scene of the mysterious note, even though the note had been outside, not in. What would Linc do if he caught her? Arrest her? And what would John do when he found out? Call off their wedding? She wondered why that thought wasn’t as unsettling as she might have expected.
She returned to the Inn around eight o’clock. Inside, it was so still again, she might have thought everyone was asleep. But that morning, an urn emitted the aroma of coffee, and what had been a stanchion of empty thermoses lined up on the kitchen counter had dwindled. The tenants—probably Harlin, the teachers, Greg the carpenter, and maybe Jenna the nurse—were gone. Maybe they were scouring Chappy, looking for Bella. Now that it had snowed, skimobiles would make their trek easier.
Then Annie realized that—wow!—the power had returned during the night; the loud racket of the generators had stopped and the central heat was humming.
