“Now!” Nessa roared.
Jordan glowered but kept her lips sealed. Then she climbed into the driver’s side of Nessa’s car and slammed the door. Jo put an arm around Nessa as they watched the girls drive away.
“Something very bad is about to happen,” Nessa said. “I can feel it.”
Jo squeezed her friend’s shoulder. “I know,” she replied. “You ready?”
“Let’s go,” Nessa said.
They found the cop car with a number one on its hood parked beneath a massive house that sat atop stilts and hovered over the dunes. There was no way to reach the front door. A locked gate blocked the stairs that led up to the porch. The place was a fortress.
“Follow me.” Jo stomped around the house and climbed atop a grass-covered dune that faced the house’s deck. The sliding doors that led into the house were standing open, and their curtains fluttered in the wind. Rocca was sitting at a table with a cup of coffee in front of him.
“Morning, motherfucker!” Jo bellowed with her hands cupped around her mouth. “You ready for us to tell everyone in Mattauk what you really do for a living?”
Nessa climbed up on the dune beside Jo. Down on the beach, two joggers paused to see what would come next. The next-door neighbor appeared on his porch wearing nothing but boxer shorts.
“Chief Rocca sure has a very nice house, doesn’t he? You ever wonder how he can afford to live this way on a small-town cop’s salary?” Jo called out to their audience. “I can tell you! He pays the bills by pulling little girls into his cop car and selling them to perverts like Spencer Harding.”
“It’s the truth!” Nessa shouted. “And ten minutes ago, he tried to kidnap my girl. He went and messed with the wrong mama this time.”
Rocca yawned in response. “What are you talking about? And why are you bothering me on my day off? Get the hell off my property before I have you both arrested.”
“Go ahead and have us arrested,” Jo told him. “It’ll give us a chance to show your colleagues the security footage from the Pointe. It’s pretty clear from the videos that you were with Spencer Harding for three hours before he fled the Pointe in his helicopter.”
“Honey?” A petite woman appeared on the deck with a plate, which she set down in front of Rocca. She’d been pretty once—and might be again if she got help for her sickly complexion and thinning hair. “What’s going on out here?”
“A couple of crazy women are claiming to have something that doesn’t exist, and they’re about to get their butts thrown in jail.” Rocca picked up the piece of coffee cake his wife had just brought him and took a large, leisurely bite.
“They have the security footage from the Pointe. I gave it to them.” Claude stepped into view and Rocca’s face instantly fell.
“What the hell are you doing here?” he demanded.
“They know what you, Dunn, and Harding were doing at the Pointe. Kidnapping girls and killing them. Was Leonard involved, too? That’s what I want to know.” The force of Claude’s fury took even Jo by surprise. She was out for blood.
“Is this some kind of joke?” Rocca snarled.
“John,” Rocca’s wife broke in. “What is she talking about?”
He coughed and cleared his throat. “Go back inside, Juliet,” he ordered. “None of this concerns you.”
“Does it have anything to do with the fifteen-year-old girl you assaulted on your boat?”
“What—” Rocca looked up at his wife, but he couldn’t seem to finish the thought. His hand rose to his throat and his mouth stretched open as he desperately struggled to breathe.
“Have some more coffee cake, sweetheart,” the woman said, cramming the remainder of Rocca’s breakfast into his wide, gaping mouth. “I made it from scratch just for you.”
Juliet Rocca’s Last Dish
Juliet Rocca began baking every day when her three boys were little. Even back then, their father worked long hours and late nights, and the sun often rose before he strolled through the door. While they were dating, John had informed Juliet that he intended to become Mattauk’s chief of police. At the time, becoming engaged to a future pillar of the community felt like a glorious destiny. Juliet had developed mood boards for every room of her future house back in fifth grade. She already knew the names of her unborn children. She was thrilled to discover that John was a planner, too. It just never occurred to her that he would work toward his goal with such single-minded persistence.
When John wasn’t out on patrol, he donated his time to the local high school’s softball team. Appearances were everything, he told her. The town needed to see their future chief giving back. Saturday was game day. Sunday after church, John took his boat out on the sound to decompress. Juliet despised softball, but she and the boys attended every game. John said it was important for the community to know the whole family was watching. But that wasn’t why Juliet sacrificed her Saturdays. Outside of church, softball games were the only way her boys could see their father for three consecutive hours each week.
To compensate for John’s absence, Juliet poured her love for her boys into every pie, cake, and cookie she baked. Only she could detect the bitter aftertaste of her guilt. She watched over them as they grew, relieved that none of the boys seemed scarred by their father’s neglect. They may have inherited John’s height, heft, and good looks. But on the inside, they were her children, stuffed plump by their mother and filled with sweetness and affection.
The baking became more than a hobby the year after the boat burned. The girl who’d set it on fire was in jail. Her accusations had been completely discredited—John’s fellow officers had seen to that. Once, Juliet had asked John if there might be any truth to it all. He’d glared at her with utter contempt and told her he couldn’t be married to anyone whose head was filled with such ugly thoughts. Ashamed, Juliet begged for forgiveness. Divorce had never featured in any of her daydreams. She had no idea what might happen to her and the boys if their family ever broke up.