with the effort, my fingers burning, probably blistered. For a moment, I stopped pulling the cord. I looked in the direction of our beach, trying to see the platform. Without the sound of my sputtering motor, the air was quiet, blowing lightly and steadily into
I stood up, nearly toppling overboard, spinning my arms to stay upright. “Isabel!” I called, but I felt the breeze steal the words from my mouth and carry them behind me.
One more scream cut through the air, this time forming a word:
I cupped my hands around my mouth. “Izzy!” I shouted. “Izzy!”
I dropped to my knees in the boat again, tugging with all my might at the cord to the motor. I was barely aware that I was sobbing—sobbing, shouting, calling for my sister—and all the while fighting with a boat that carried me deeper and deeper into Barnegat Bay.
CHAPTER 37
The moment I woke up in the attic, I knew I was alone. The reading light was on in Julie’s curtained bedroom, but the silhouette in her bed was a bulbous mountain that could not possibly have been her body unless she’d gained fifty pounds since the evening before. The windows were all open, the night sounds of crickets and lapping water sifting through the screens on a breeze. The curtains had not yet been pulled around Isabel’s bed and I could see that the white chenille spread was still tucked neatly beneath the pillows. I stiffened with the panicky feeling that was my companion when I found myself alone in the attic. I held my breath, trying to listen. Was someone behind the chimney that rose up through the middle of the attic? Or maybe in the bathroom, standing behind the curtain?
I tried not to lift my eyes to the ceiling, but I couldn’t seem to help myself. And there it was: the man’s head. I wouldn’t scream like I did that one embarrassing night. I was going to get out of there, but I wouldn’t scream like a baby while I was doing it.
I must have lain there for three or four minutes, my body paralyzed by fear, before I was able to sit up. I moved slowly and quietly, so as not to alert anyone who might be hiding behind the chimney or in the bathroom. I tiptoed to the door, but I nearly fell down the stairs in my race to get away from the attic. In the living room, I stood in the darkness, heart pounding. Where was everyone? The whole house was dark. What time was it? Julie was probably sleeping out on the porch, and Isabel must have stayed over at Mitzi’s or Pam’s house.
I walked down the hall and stood outside my parents’ room. Daddy was in Westfield, but I could hear the comforting sound of my mother’s even breathing. That was all I needed. I went back to the living room and lay down on the soft cushions of the sofa, inhaling the musty smell of the old upholstery as I drifted off to sleep.
I opened my eyes, confused for a moment, then sat up on the couch. “Uh-huh,” I nodded. “Isabel wasn’t home and Julie slept on the porch.”
“What are we going to do with you?” she asked, walking out to the porch. I watched her glance in the direction of the bed. “Where’s Julie now?” she called back to me as she set the plates on the table.
“I don’t know,” I said. “She must have gone upstairs.”
“Go get her and tell her it’s breakfast time,” Grandma said. “Are you sure she slept down here? The bed doesn’t look like it’s been touched.”
Still feeling groggy, I climbed the attic stairs. Julie wasn’t in her bed. Her night-table lamp was still on and I walked behind her curtained cubicle to turn it off. I could see where she’d sloppily piled her bedspread beneath her sheet to try to fool me. I was not in the least worried. She’d probably slept on the porch, gotten up early and made the bed—which I had to admit
I put on my bathing suit and pulled my shorts on over it, then went downstairs again. The morning smells of coffee and bacon were already strong in the air and I could see my mother taking her seat.
My grandfather carried a plate of bacon through the living room.
“Good morning, sunshine,” he said, tousling my hair with his free hand.
“’Morning, Grandpop,” I said, following him out to the porch.
“Where are Julie and Isabel?” My mother looked at me as I took my seat at the table.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I thought Isabel slept over at one of her friends’ houses.”
My mother frowned. “Whose house, do you know?” she asked. “I don’t remember giving her permission.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know,” I said.
“Is Julie upstairs?” my mother asked.
“Uh-uh. I thought she slept out here.”
My mother glanced at the bed, as my grandmother had twenty minutes earlier. I watched her frown deepen. “I made that bed the day before yesterday,” she said. “It looks untouched.”
Grandpop stood up so suddenly the table shivered as his thighs brushed against it. He was staring toward the dock. “The runabout’s gone,” he said. We all turned as he pushed open the screen door and walked into the yard. We watched him look right and then left when he reached the fence by the canal. From where I was sitting, I could see two small sailboats heading in the direction of the bay.
Grandpop walked briskly back to the house and onto the porch. “I don’t see her,” he said. I felt frightened by the worry in his voice, and I dropped my slice of bacon onto my plate, no longer hungry.
Mom stood up. “I’m going to call Mitzi’s house,” she said. “Although…” She looked puzzled, turning to Grandma. “Why would they both be missing? And the boat? It doesn’t make any sense.”
“Don’t get worked up,” Grandma said to her. “There’s a logical explanation, I’m sure.”
My mother called Mitzi’s house, then Pam’s. Isabel was not at either one, and the girls claimed not to have seen her since late the night before when she’d left Mitzi’s to come home. I watched as my mother hung up the phone after speaking with Pam. She was facing the Chapmans’ house, and although there were several walls between her and Ned Chapman, I knew that was who she was seeing in her mind.
