The Missing Ones

Book 2: Hester Thursby Mystery

by Edwin Hill

Genres: Mystery

Synopsis

Hester Thursby has given up using her research skills to trace people who don't want to be found. A traumatic case a few months ago unearthed a string of violent crimes, and left Hester riddled with self-doubt and guilt. Caring for a four-year-old is responsibility enough in a world filled with terrors Hester never could have imagined before.

Finisterre Island, off the coast of Maine, is ruggedly beautiful and remote - the kind of place tourists love to visit, though rarely for long. But not everyone who comes to the island is welcome. A dilapidated Victorian house has become home to a group of squatters and junkies, and strangers have a habit of bringing trouble with them. A young boy disappeared during the summer, and though he was found safely, the incident stirred suspicion among locals. Now another child is missing. Summoned to the island by a cryptic text, Hester discovers a community cleaning up from a devastating storm - and uncovers a murder.

Soon, Hester begins to connect the crime and the missing children. And as she untangles the secrets at the center of the small community, she finds grudges and loyalties that run deep, poised to converge with a force that will once again shake her convictions about the very nature of right and wrong....

Release date: August 27, 2019

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 315

Sample

Hester Thursby stuffed a plastic bag filled with Goldfish crackers into her niece Kate’s princess backpack. Today will be different, Hester thought.

“Today will be different,” she said to her reflection in the mirror by the front door of the apartment in Somerville, Massachusetts. Then she said it nine more times, to make sure it was true.

Kate shoved her bowl of Cheerios off the placemat at the kitchen island and into the sink; then she jumped from the bar stool to the floor, a move that still had Hester convinced would crack open the girl’s skull. But Kate had turned four in August, learned to use pronouns (finally!), and now insisted on sitting in a big-girl chair. She’d also learned to count to a hundred; changed favorite colors, swapping pink for green; and lost her baby softness. She was wiry and taller now, in a way Hester wasn’t sure she liked, but time marched forward.

Somehow, today had to go well. It was Hester’s more-than-boyfriend-not-quite-husband Morgan’s thirty-seventh birthday, and Hester had invited a few friends over for dinner. If it was Morgan’s birthday, it was also his twin sister Daphne’s birthday. Daphne was Kate’s mother and Hester’s best friend. Exactly one year earlier, Hester and Morgan had come home from celebrating his thirty-sixth birthday to find that Daphne, who’d left the party early, had skipped town, leaving Kate behind with a Post-it taped to her pajamas that read Back in an hour. Tops! Since then, Daphne had sent a few e-mail updates, but besides that, hadn’t been seen or heard from, which had left Hester and Morgan—but mostly Hester—responsible for looking after Kate. A year into raising Kate, Hester had realized that she’d do anything for the girl and had begun to dread the day Daphne would return and upset the lives they’d settled into. Most of the time, Hester tried to convince herself that none of this was a big deal.

Even though it was.

She turned off the radio. All week, a storm that had devastated the western Caribbean had dominated the news. Now, the remnants of the hurricane were due to pass over New England sometime later this evening.

She surveyed the kitchen and living room for anything she might have missed. Breakfast dishes spilled from the sink. Toys, both dog and child, covered the floor. All of that could wait till later. Since Morgan had taken the truck that morning, Hester and Kate needed to catch the public bus from Union Square to Porter Square to get to Kate’s preschool. Then Hester would jump on the Red Line into Harvard Square where, if she was lucky, she’d be at her desk at Widener Library in exactly—she checked her phone again—twenty-one minutes. She swung her own bag over her shoulder and held the door open for Kate to duck out onto the landing.

“Where are we going?” the four-year-old asked.

“School,” Hester said, keeping her voice cheerful and mentally preparing herself for what was to come.

As if on cue, Kate crumpled, starting with her face, which turned raisin-like, followed quickly by her body, which collapsed to the floor. “No school,” she screamed, fingers locked on the banister.

“Oh, come on,” Hester said. “Where did you think we were going? Please, please, please.”

The bus would be at the corner in three minutes, and the next one wouldn’t come for twenty more.

Hester’s niece had found her voice, and that voice meant that no matter how much pleading or cajoling Hester tried, when Kate got an idea stuck in her head, in the end Hester had to resort to brute force. She hauled the screaming, crying child from the floor, prying her fingers from the banister (on every step) while balancing her own bag and Kate’s princess bag on one shoulder. At the front door, Kate used all four limbs to keep them from getting through to the porch. Once on the sidewalk, Hester ran toward the bottom of the street, the bags slipping from one arm, her glasses sliding down her nose and her hair spilling from her ponytail. At the bus stop, she stood with the other commuters, staring straight ahead while Kate shrieked, and her neighbors tried not to look away from their phones. Most of these people Hester knew by sight, if not by name. After this, they’d probably call child services.

But when the bus finally turned the corner, and the bus driver said, “Hello, little missy,” Kate beamed at him as though the last five minutes had never happened and, despite it all, Hester’s heart swelled with love for the kid. “Perfect child,” the driver added, while Hester found her bus pass. “Wish mine had been like that.”

“Me too,” Hester said, making her way toward the back of the crowded bus, where the two of them stood and clung to a pole and Kate talked. And talked, her voice penetrating every cubic inch of the bus. She yammered about her favorite foods (“CHICKEN FINGERS AND ARUGULA”), her least favorite foods (“MEATBALLS AND ORANGE MARMALADE”), her stuffed animals, her plans to be a princess and a doctor and a teacher and a veterinarian and a gas station attendant (“GAS SMELLS GOOD”) and a police officer and a chef.

“How about a librarian?” Hester asked.

Kate shook her head. “Nope,” she said.

“Figures,” Hester said.

A moment later, the bus pulled into Porter Square and emptied out. Hester took Kate’s hand and hurried across the median, through a parking lot, past Porter Square Books, and down Mass Ave. With all the rush and drama at the apartment, Hester hadn’t had a spare second to think, or to dwell, but now, as they ran past a Dunkin’, she tried her best to push her thoughts down, to ignore what was happening, what had already begun: the thumping in her chest, the shortness of breath, the idea that had begun to germinate in her mind, tiny at first and then growing, swirling, till it roared through her imagination and swept away anything—any reason—in its path.

The storm.

It was coming.

Tonight.

And the forecast called for up to five inches of rain. Flooding on the coasts. High winds that would cut power. Stay at home, the newscasters said. Leave work early. Avoid driving. Don’t make trouble.

Storms could change track. They could veer off course. They could speed up. What if the storm came early? What if it flooded Cambridge and Somerville and Hester couldn’t get from the library to the preschool? She remembered coverage of Hurricane Harvey in Houston, the images of people trudging through the streets, children and animals piled in canoes. Desperate. She didn’t own a fucking canoe.

Stop!

She tried to shut off her brain.

How could this be happening? Again.

She slowed her pace. Ahead, the preschool announced itself with a daunting sign, brightly colored, letters built from wooden blocks. Other parents kissed their children goodbye before hurrying off to their own busy lives. Though, of course, Hester wasn’t a parent. She was an aunt. Not even an aunt, since she and Morgan weren’t married. An interloper. Would the police even speak to her if Kate went missing?

That was a new worry to obsess over.

Ahead, one of the teachers stood at the gate scanning the sidewalk for latecomers. She was the head of the school, middle aged, thick, competent, with a voice that had been scarred into a childlike pitch from years of teaching four-year-olds. What was her name again? Miss Michelle?

“Ms. Michaela!” Kate said, trying to run toward the woman, but Hester didn’t want to let her go.

She had to. She had to get to work.

Ms. Michaela crouched down, and it was all Hester could do not to grab Kate and flee. But she released the girl’s hand and watched as she ran, arms and legs pumping. Already, Hester couldn’t breathe.

“I don’t think we can stay,” she said.

Inside, the other students had taken their places at their little tables in their little chairs, with their little craft projects lined up in front of them. The corps of preschool teachers marched among them, keeping the peace, protecting. But Hester couldn’t trust anyone else to protect. Or to run, or to hide, or to fight. Too many dangers lurked. The world was a scary, frightening place, where terrible, terrible things happened. Anywhere. And everywhere. She reached for Kate, and she could already see the tears beginning to form in Kate’s eyes.

“She has a cold,” Hester said.

Kate grabbed at Ms. Michaela’s leg.

“It’s okay,” Ms. Michaela said. “Why don’t you come inside and stay for the day?”

Hester reached out for the girl, lifting her from the ground.

“You don’t have to keep doing this,” Ms. Michaela said.

“Don’t be silly,” Hester said. “We’ll be back tomorrow. After the storm.”

She hurried away as Kate sobbed into her shoulder. When she turned the corner, she found a bench and collapsed on it. She pulled out her phone and dialed Kevin at the library to tell him she couldn’t make it to work.

“Tomorrow?” Kevin asked.

“Absolutely,” Hester said.

Kevin sighed, and in the silence that followed, Hester almost hoped that he’d reached the end of his patience and would fire her. But Kevin had proven over the past weeks that his well of generosity was bottomless. “See you then,” he said.

She clicked off her phone and immediately felt a flood of shame wash over her as Kate sucked her thumb and cried quietly beside her, the silent tears that broke Hester’s heart. She could see herself from the outside, and what this, all of this, looked like to others. And of course Kate hadn’t wanted to go through this charade again. Of course she hadn’t wanted to get on that bus and come here, only to have to turn around and leave. Who would?

All of this—every bit of it—was irrational and had nothing to do with the storm and everything to do with last winter, the kidnapping, the cold, the sound of a trunk door slamming, the darkness, the tingling from frostbite in Hester’s pinky that wouldn’t go away. All of this had to do with the risks Hester had taken, and the danger she’d made Kate face.

“Want a Goldfish?” Hester asked.

“No!” Kate said.

“I’ll buy you an ice-cream cone if you stop crying.”

The tears shut off like a faucet. “For breakfast?”

“I could use one too. We’ll go to Christina’s.”

What Hester could really have used right then was a shot of whiskey.

“You have to promise me one thing,” Hester said.

“Don’t tell Uncle Morgan,” Kate said.

The kid was getting too smart for her own good, but she was right, Morgan had no idea what was happening. Somehow Hester had managed to hide that she hadn’t been to work since early August and that Kate hadn’t attended school either. She’d given him old reports from school, from when Kate was three years old, and passed them off as new. She’d made up stories about annoying Harvard students researching the history of Diff’rent Strokes. It surprised her how easy it was to deceive, to keep these tiny little lies going. And she knew that when it all came tumbling down, it would be spectacular and ugly and messy.

How on earth had she morphed into this complete lunatic?

“Tomorrow will be different,” she said to Kate. “I promise.”

“I want a sundae.”

“Sure.”

“With marshmallow?”

At least the kid was learning how to work a bad situation. “Anything you want.”

“Don’t run off!” Lydia shouted to Oliver, the sound of her voice cutting right through Rory.

The four-year-old boy dashed through the crowds of people waiting to catch the last ferry off Finisterre Island as the storm bore down on them. No matter what had happened, it was still Rory’s job to keep the calm.

And he could feel Lydia watching him.

She walked through the thick, unseasonably warm air with trays of iced coffee and doughnuts, her dark hair in a messy knot, an apron tied around her waist. The two of them had existed in an uncomfortable silence these past two and a half months, ever since the Fourth of July, ever since Rory had pulled a sleeping Oliver from the hull of a yacht in the marina and ended the desperate, hours-long search for the missing boy. Rory should have been a hero. He should have been her hero. But rumors had started within hours of finding Oliver, that Rory had taken the boy because he wanted to impress Trey and join the state police, or because he worshipped Lydia—anyone who’d ever seen them together knew—or simply because Rory, like his brother, Pete, who’d nearly killed half the town by crashing the ferry while high on Oxy, was pathetic. And the people of the island, the people he’d known his whole life, had taken those rumors and turned them into truth.

Rory hadn’t spoken to Lydia since that day. He didn’t know what she believed, and as much as he’d tried to ferret out the source of the rumors, they’d persisted all summer long.

He kept his gaze forward as he walked within two feet of her. She gave him a half-hearted wave, which he ignored. Why offer up that power? There was nothing there, and as much as he’d yearned for her these many years, maybe there never had been.

He glanced at his watch. The ferry would dock in forty-five minutes. He still had time to do one last loop around the island and be in place to meet the boat. Besides, he should check to see if anyone was running late. As he went to leave, Lydia stopped him. “I’ve hardly seen you all summer,” she said.

“Summer’s busy,” Rory said, shifting from one foot to the other, feeling like he had when he was a kid, when he and Lydia spent summer days exploring every inch of the island. “Busy for both of us,” he added.

“Season’s over,” Lydia said. “And the crowds are leaving. Maybe we can slow down and fix a few things around here. Maybe you can help me out.”

“If you need help fixing something, ask your husband,” Rory said.

He slammed the door to the Jeep and sped off, passing small groups of people pushing wheelbarrows and pulling suitcases toward the pier as he drove through “town.” Finisterre’s town consisted of a dirt road lined with a few shops and a handful of hotels and restaurants, all of which, except for the General Store, would close after Columbus Day. Finisterre Island fell under the jurisdiction of the Boothbay Harbor Police but had its own island-based police force, which employed Rory. Rory worked twenty-four hours on, twenty-four off, twenty-four on, and then he had five days off. Most of the other deputies on the island force traveled in for their shifts, but Rory had grown up on the island and had left only for the two years he’d attended community college. Today, four hours into this shift, he’d spent most of his time on station chores and responding to two calls—one about a free-ranging dog, Bosco, who spent more time off leash than on, and the other about an unattended bonfire, which had been doused by the time he arrived. If the storm hadn’t been on its way, this would have been a typical day.

Now he pulled out of town, stepping on the gas as he sped by Lydia’s B and B, with its perennial garden and tiny bakery, Doughnuts and Pie. He drove up a hill to where the Atlantic opened in front of him and down the hill, past the brewery, to the swing bridge, which connected Big Finisterre (Big Ef) to Little Finisterre (Little Ef). The bridge opened and closed using a manual crank. Open meant it swung parallel to the ravine to allow boats to pass through, and it was open now, meaning anyone stuck on Little Ef wouldn’t be able to cross to get to the ferry. Rory slammed on the brakes and leaped from the Jeep. “Gus!” he shouted, searching for the gnarled old man who operated the bridge.

When he didn’t appear, Rory jogged to a tiny red hut, where he found Gus listening to the weather forecast on an ancient boom box.

“Come on, Gus,” Rory said. “People are trying to leave before the storm.”

“Ain’t no storm coming,” Gus said.

“I wouldn’t bet on it,” Rory said. “And the ferry’ll be here in a half hour.”

“I can feel it when a storm’s coming. In the knee.” The knee. Like every prehistoric former lobsterman roaming this island, Gus had a joint that he claimed forecast the weather, but Rory couldn’t count on a feeling to overrule a national weather alert.

“They’re already lining up at the pier.”

“Mainlanders,” Gus said. “Can’t live with ’em. And I’d be fine without ’em.”

“Close the bridge! And keep it closed.”

“Close it yourself,” Gus grunted as he turned up the radio. “And you should talk to Lydia, anyway,” he added. “She doesn’t believe what people say about Oliver. Or about you.”

“Could have fooled me.”

No matter what people said, Rory knew the truth. He remembered that night clearly. He’d clambered onto that yacht after the sun had gone down and found a loose tarp covering the hull. He pulled at the fabric, the remaining snaps releasing, and saw Oliver’s feet. The worst case possible flashed through Rory’s imagination as he clawed his way into the hull and lifted Oliver to his chest and listened. Was he even alive? The boy’s gentle breathing filled his ears. “I got you, kid,” Rory whispered, knowing that he’d done good. “You’re safe.”

He called Lydia right away so that he could be the one to deliver the news. He heard her cell phone clatter to the ground and her feet pounding the earth as she ran. Toward him. Then he radioed to headquarters, listening as people in the background cheered at the news. He waited, the boat rising and falling on gentle waves. He held Oliver. Hoping for the rewards of being a hero, for Lydia to see him the way he saw her.

She ran along the pier, emerging from the dark, taking Oliver, kissing Rory, hugging him close, tears of joy streaming down her face. He kissed her back, holding her tight, not ever wanting to let go. And the words came out, before Rory knew he’d even said them. I love you. More than anyone I’ve ever known. I love you so much. Those words you can’t take back.

Her face collapsed. “Not now,” she said, as other people began to arrive, and the celebrating began. They lit off the fireworks, the same fireworks that had been cancelled for the search. The jazz band played. People danced all along the pier.

Even Trey had congratulated Rory that night, into a bullhorn, no less. “Let’s give a round of applause to the deputy,” he’d said, Lydia on his arm, Oliver asleep against his shoulder, “our local hero!”

The crowd had cheered, but Lydia, at least in Rory’s memory, hadn’t even been able to look at him. And the next day, the whispering began. Quiet at first. Rory, they said, had given Oliver a sleeping pill. He’d used the distraction from the near ferry accident to sneak the boy onto the yacht. He’d purposefully searched the boat on his own so that people would call him a hero. By the time the rumors got to Rory, they were whole and indisputable even though Rory had been on the pier waving people to safety. He’d been doing his job, for all the world to see. Trey had been there with him. But time lines warped, and memories changed. Someone saw him scurrying away, Oliver’s hand in his.

“That didn’t happen,” Rory said, the first time he heard the rumors.

But the denial had only made him sound guiltier.

“Mind your own business, Gus,” Rory said. “And don’t open that bridge again.”

Back up on the road, Rory turned the crank till the green metal bridge slammed into place. The bridge, which was barely wide enough for the Jeep, connected two steep cliffs that ran down to a fast-moving channel below. Rory almost flipped off Gus as he sped across the bridge.

About a square mile in area, half the size of Big Ef, Little Ef was nearly a perfect circle of wooded granite with nothing on it but trails, cottages, and coastline. “Town” hadn’t yet extended here. Since Finisterre didn’t allow cars besides a handful of service vehicles, the little road that did exist on this island rarely saw anything larger than a wheelbarrow. Rory drove with caution as he wove along the shoreline, into the trees, and back out to the water. Most visitors to the island, especially this late in the season, understood how things worked, so Rory waved to the people he passed as they cheerfully headed to the ferry on their own.

About halfway around, on the leeward side of the island, the trees opened to a coastline dotted with seaweed and tidal pools. A red and white lighthouse perched on a circle of stone about a quarter of a mile from the path, and the low tide had exposed a sandy spit connecting the lighthouse to the shore that would soon be swallowed by the sea. The lighthouse had been built at the turn of the eighteenth century and almost immediately had become a popular subject for landscape painters, appearing in hundreds if not thousands of paintings, from masterpieces to decidedly amateurish renderings. Like nearly all lighthouses, this one had been automated decades ago, and the structure, along with the keeper’s house attached to it, had been unoccupied ever since.

Today, despite the storm, no fewer than six painters stood at easels as they captured the darkening sky and boiling sea. Rory stepped from the Jeep and watched for a moment. Then he spoke into the handheld on his dash, his voice booming from a speaker as he announced that the ferry would leave in exactly twenty-five minutes. “It’s the last one before the storm,” he added, watching as the painters packed up and scurried off to their homes.

Some people never learned. It was the same thing every day, even without the storm. The ferry came, the ferry left. Most people made it, a few didn’t. And no matter what, Rory had to clean up their mess. He watched the sea for a moment, trying to push away thoughts of Lydia. He and Lydia had grown up next door to each other, roaming the woods and the rocky shores and attending the one-room schoolhouse through eighth grade with the few other children on the island. Afterward, they’d taken the ferry to the mainland every Monday to attend high school during the week, where they’d been “islanders.” Weird and inbred and outcast.

Inseparable.

There had never been a time in Rory’s life that he didn’t remember yearning for Lydia, but it wasn’t as though he hadn’t tried to escape her pull. He’d gone to college in Portland, sharing an apartment with four other guys, living the big-city life, and dreaming of making it work far away from this place. But circumstances had pulled him back in. His parents had died, and Pete, still a teenager, had needed him. Then Lydia, who’d gone to Orono to college, had moved home one day, surprising everyone with a new husband. An off-islander. Trey.

Someone tapped on the window of the Jeep. Pounded really, and Rory came out of his reverie half expecting to see one of the painters on the road demanding a ride to the ferry. Indeed, a woman danced from foot to foot, a suitcase beside her, its contents sprawled across the path. She was frantic.

Everything on this island ran on ferry time.

“You have twenty minutes,” Rory said, rolling down the window and summoning a smile from somewhere. “Plenty of time to make it.”

The woman gasped. She pointed up the path and finally found her words. “There’s a man,” she said.

“Yep,” Rory said. “Does he need a ride?”

“In the road. Around the bend. He has a knife.”

Rory’s training kicked in. Call for backup (scrap that, what backup?), clear the area, isolate the problem. “Run,” he said, his voice a whisper of a growl. “To the bridge. Tell anyone you see to clear out. And keep moving, whatever you do.”

The woman stared at him, frozen.

“Now!”

She stumbled over her own suitcase and fled. Rory radioed into dispatch on the mainland as he swerved around the corner on the path, and nearly collided with a man swinging a cleaver over his head at something only he could see. He was bleary-eyed, stumbling, naked as the day he was born. Rory slammed on the brakes and jumped from the Jeep.

“Dammit, Pete,” he shouted. “Put that knife down.”

Rory’s younger brother had once been muscular and handsome, but now he barely had an extra ounce to him, and his body—on full display—was covered with track marks and scars. “Faggot, faggot, faggot, queer, faggot,” Pete said, swinging the knife as he spoke.

“Jesus Christ, what are you on this time?” Rory said, which focused Pete’s rage.

He lunged, knife slashing, his wiry frame flailing in every direction. But Rory had spent a lifetime tussling with his younger brother, a lifetime making the kid feel small. He regretted that now. He stepped aside, avoiding the cleaver, and Pete sprawled onto the ground into a puddle, his naked ass shining toward the sky.

Rory tossed the cleaver into the bushes, dug his knee into his brother’s back, and slapped a set of cuffs on his wrists. “Sorry, guy,” he said.

Pete was six years younger. Unlike Rory, Pete had barely made it through high school and had only been a kid when first their mother and then their father died. While Rory had left for college and joined the police force, Pete had taken a job running the ferry to the mainland, a job their father used to have. Pete had liked the job. He liked being in charge and feeling the comfort of the familiar. He liked the girls and the beer that crossed on the ferry every day. And most days, especially during the summer, the job was easy. But drugs had crept onto the island and into Rory’s family, taking each person he loved one by one. It had started with his mother, who’d taken Oxy as cancer had spread throug. . .