my right hip. I was feeling a sense of excitement that bordered on hope. If David was still at the house on Plum Island, and if he agreed to help, I’d be one step closer to finding Jenn before Daggett could carry out his sick plan.
Shana was standing outside her house in a dark wool coat. She got in and directed me to the I-95; I realized I much preferred her voice to that of the GPS. I felt a twinge of regret that we hadn’t spent the night together. I certainly could have used the release. But it was the right decision and I shook my mind clear of it. “How far is this island?”
“About forty-five minutes to the causeway,” she said. “And another twenty or so from there.”
She fell into silence, looking out the window, twisting a strand of her hair around her fingers. I asked if she was okay.
“I’m just worried about what we’ll find,” she said. “Without heat, power and everything, it will have been hard on him these last two weeks. He’s not the hardiest of men.”
“You said he had plenty of supplies.”
“Still, it’s been cold at night. Colder up there, I imagine. But I suppose he’s also an ascetic kind of character. If anyone can get by on the bare minimum, it’s him.”
“From what I’ve heard of him, he’ll have written a new research paper on toilet paper by candlelight.”
We went past the exits to Lowell, Lawrence and Ipswich and got off on Scotland Road, which bent toward the sea and Newbury. The road went south and east around the wide mouth of the Merrimack River, then took us north on the Plum Island Turnpike, the river basin on our left, the ocean on our right. As the road became narrower. I cracked open my window and smelled salt and brine, only slightly tainted by diesel fumes.
“You should see it here in the spring,” she said. “Between the wildlife refuge and the tidal flats, more than three hundred bird species have been recorded. The spring migration here is one of the biggest in the world. Zillions of hawks, shorebirds, warblers. If you’re into that sort of thing.”
I wasn’t, not now. Not unless one of those birds could tell me where Jenn was, and that she was okay.
I guess Shana picked up on what I was thinking about, because she asked, “How long have you and Jenn been partners?”
“Just a few months. But we’ve known each other much longer-she’s my best friend too, like a sister.”
“You have any?”
“Sisters? No. Just an older brother.”
“That didn’t sound warm and fuzzy.”
“Our relationship has a lot of grit in it. Bit of a sandstorm sometimes.”
“What’s the age difference?”
“He’s three years older chronologically. And twenty more mature.”
“One of those,” she said.
We drove in silence until she said, “You see the house there on the right?”
It was an A-frame made of dark stained wood, with a lot of pine trees around it. “That’s not such a bad campsite. I don’t think I’d call it ascetic.”
“That’s not the Coopers’ house. That’s where their summer help lives.”
The road to the main house was gravel but had been graded so the ruts weren’t deep. The Coopers probably had an Escalade or Navigator anyway, in case a twig fell off a tree and blocked their path. At one point the road narrowed so the branches of laurels leaned in close as if they wanted to pull on our sleeves, whisper something useful, but they just scraped against the side of the car as we eased past at low speed.
“Okay, about a hundred yards ahead-do they use yards in Canada?”
“I watch football. I know what a hundred yards looks like.”
“It’s just past that big spruce. You’ll have to stop at the gate.”
Past the spruce, a towering blue one, I turned into a flagstone drive blocked by an iron gate set into stone posts on either side. Shana got out and used a key to unlock the gate and swung it open. After I passed through, she closed it behind us, locked it and got back in.
“I’m so nervous,” she said.
“About what we’ll find?”
“Yes.”
“We’ll know in a minute.”
The road rose steeply enough that I had to ease the little Dodge into second gear. Then it plateaued in front of a magnificent house with a stone foundation and wood-and-glass front. The wood was richly stained cedar. The windows promised expansive views of the ocean at the rear.
We parked in front of the house. Complete quiet except for the rush of the water. The surrounding homes weren’t close and all seemed unoccupied. I’d seen no cars in the driveways we’d passed. No wood smoke from chimneys, no mail or newspapers outside the houses.
No sounds at all from the Cooper house.
Shana let us in with another key. The foyer was so brightly flooded with natural light, I forgot for a moment that there was no electricity and found myself listening for music, a television or other sign of occupation. We walked over a flagstone floor into a great room that included a kitchen with an island that had four stools lined up, a dining area that looked out at the sea and a living room that faced a large stone fireplace. In front of it was a small mattress and a pillow and three grey wool blankets, neatly folded at one end. There were several candles in glass dishes. A daily prayer book and a coffee-table book on the castles of the Loire. I guess it was the one thing he’d found to challenge his mind in some way. Take him away from the frightening bleakness of the last two weeks.
We padded quietly over hardwood floors as if neither of us wanted to be the first to disturb his monastic silence.
On the kitchen island was a loaf of bread, with a few crumbs scattered near it. In the sink was a plate and one knife smeared with peanut butter, and another with jelly. I also saw some over-the-counter cold medication beside the sink and some crumpled tissues in the trash bin beneath it.
“David?” Shana called. “It’s me, Sandy. Are you here?”
Silence.
“David?”
Nothing.
I looked out the glass doors that opened onto a stone path that led out toward a wood-and-wire fence and beyond that the dunes and the water. Near some grassy scrub a white tissue shivered in the breeze.
“Out there,” I said.
Out there was a grey sea under a cloudy sky. The wind whipped the water into brisk whitecaps where gulls dove and smacked against the crests, cawing and slashing the water with their beaks. The roar of the surf was as loud as racketing trains, as the waves pounded in. In both directions the sand dunes sprawled, empty except for fences to keep people away from fragile growths of piney scrub.
I almost didn’t see him because the blanket around his shoulders was the same colour as the sky. He was facing the water, where the sea and sky met in similar shades of iron. I thought the first voice he heard should be Shana’s, to keep him from bolting, so I waited for her to catch up and gave her a hand signal to take over.
“David,” she called. “It’s Sandy.”
He didn’t stir. He kept staring out at the horizon.
“He can’t hear you,” I said, pointing at the waves.
She took five or six more steps and called his name again, and he turned and his face broke into a huge smile when he saw her. Since the case started, I’d pictured him as sober, serious, studious, when I wasn’t thinking of him as dead, dying, hurt or pleading for his life. I realized I’d never pictured him happy, grinning and filling with light from the inside.
Then he saw me. The smile went away. His brows lowered and met in the middle. He stood up, letting the blanket fall to the sand. He held a tissue in his hand and the area around and under his nostrils looked raw and red. He was wearing jeans that were too long and rolled up at the cuffs and a red sweatshirt also meant for a bigger man.
Shana ran across the sand and hugged him. He wasn’t sure what to do at first, just kept looking at me, but
