“Breathe, Red. Breathe.”
He was right. The latest trend in education was emotional intelligence, and here I was, a year out of teaching, nearing thirty, and totally incapable of controlling my own emotions.
I closed my eyes and exhaled, slowly.
“You need to take it easy,” Eldritch said. “I’m worried about you.”
“What if my own memories have changed over the years? Just like our stories?”
Eldritch said nothing.
I yanked off my apron and balled it up and stormed out of the kitchen, but Eldritch stood from the table and caught me by the arm and pulled me back and hugged me.
All the stress of the past few months welled up at once and I cried into his chest.
He patted me on the back. “I think you need a day off, Red. Close down tomorrow. Take a breather.”
My mouth was buried in his flannel shirt. “I can’t. There’s too much going on.”
“I’ll look after the place for you.”
I pulled away and wiped my eyes. I had left a big wet spot on his chest, one as big as the stain on his smock when I accused him of murder.
“Thank you. I’m okay. I can handle it. I just needed a moment.”
“Are you sure?”
I nodded and sniffled. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
He smiled and hugged me again. “Nor you.”
Around midnight, after I finished pre-slicing the bread for tomorrow’s breakfast, I went upstairs and lay in bed and looked at my phone.
Now that the lighthouse ran on electricity, it no longer flashed across the ceiling and cast creepy, demonic shadows on the walls. Instead, there was a fake pink glow outside my porthole window, as if I were sleeping in a sleazy motel in the French Quarter and a neon sign right outside my window advertised Girls! Girls! Girls!
As I did each night before trying to sleep, I studied the photo I had received when I was sitting on the witness stand at Peter Hardgrave’s trial.
In the photo, a young woman, about my age, was tied and bound to a chair, her head slumped over, her black hair covering her face. Immediately after the trial, I had shown the photo to Mettle. We had enlarged it and studied every single detail.
The chair in which the woman was sitting was an antique. It had iron feet in the shape of hooves. It was sitting on a floor with wide gaps between the aged and warping planks. There was no light in the room and the woman’s face was completely obscured by her hair. She was barefoot and her left pant leg was riding up high enough to expose her ankle. On close inspection, we could see the bottom of what appeared to be a tattoo sneaking out from under the bottom hem of her pant leg.
At the time of her disappearance, Chrissy didn’t have any tattoos, at least none that I was aware of.
I didn’t know who had sent the photo. My first instinct was Katelyn Kennedy. For years, she had sent me taunting texts. But the phone number was different.
Mettle had investigated the number as best he could, but without a warrant, we couldn’t get the records from the phone company. With no other leads, we had to try to ignore the photo. Given the tattoo, we could only conclude that the woman in the chair was not my sister.
Still, I couldn’t help but think it looked so much like her. She had the same hair, the same thin body, the same black clothing.
It felt like her.
I touched the screen, almost stroking the woman’s hair.
“Who are you?” I whispered.
In my weariness, I could almost see her come alive, as if it were one of those moving photos. She lifted her head and whispered, “It’s me, Rosie. Come and find me. Please. Before it’s too late.”
4
After serving breakfast the next morning, I left the guests and carried their luggage down to the dock. The sky was gray, the harbor grayer, and wispy ribbons of fog floated above the choppy water.
At the end of the dock, The Moaning Lisa was creaking and groaning as it bobbed against the pilings. I walked swiftly to keep warm, climbed aboard, and hoisted the suitcases over the gunwale. If my arms weren’t totally buff after a few more months of this, I was going to have to get my estrogen levels checked.
Captain Herrick hadn’t even made it into the cabin. He was passed out on the deck, a tarp draped over him, his mouth wide open, his jaw unhinged, a long string of drool running down his cheeks and pooling in his ears.
I kicked him in the thigh. “Wake up, you drool-hardy fool. We have to take the tourists back to town.”
He didn’t move.
Hoping the cold morning air would jolt him awake, I yanked the tarp off his body. He was clutching a half-empty bottle of Red Rum to his chest.
“Herrick, seriously. Their cars are parked on the street in front of the harbor. The town starts giving out tickets at nine o’clock. I can’t afford to pay their fines because we didn’t get them back in time.”
He didn’t move.
I kicked him again, harder. Still nothing. Then, I stooped beside him and shook his shoulder. He stunk like dead flowers.
“Wake up, you jackass!”
Still nothing.
I grabbed an empty bait bucket from the standing shelter, dunked it into the cold harbor, and dumped the water on his head.
Captain Herrick gasped, bolted upright, and shook out his hair like a wet dog, the bottle escaping his grip and rolling toward the stern.
“What? Where am I?”
“You’re in the same place you are every morning, you lousy sack of spit. Get your rear end up and pull anchor. The tourists are coming.”
I looked toward the dock. Indeed, there were six white heads, all descending the embankment.
Captain Herrick closed his eyes. “Gimme five more minutes, Mom.”
I threw more nasty water on his face. “Get up. NOW.”
He waved me off.
“After we drop them off,
