Jo doubled over to catch her breath. “No,” she managed to say.
“I’ve been emailing with Dana Reid—the woman down in Jamaica. Dana said her niece, Faith, was living in Montego Bay when she disappeared. She has no idea how she got to the States. Faith didn’t even have a passport. But every time I start thinking that the name could be a coincidence, I go back and look at the picture she sent, and there’s no doubt it’s the girl in blue. She’s even wearing a gold necklace with a snake pendant. Ms. Reid says it was a family heirloom.”
“It actually makes perfect sense,” Jo said. “That’s why she was never identified. No one here knew her. She didn’t live in America.”
Nessa didn’t seem convinced. “You okay?” she asked. “You look like you’re about to have a stroke.”
Jo sat down and held up the cordless phone clenched in her fist. “I brought the wrong phone. Can I borrow yours for a sec?”
Nessa punched in her passcode and handed Jo her phone. Jo typed a query into a search box and began to scroll through the image results.
“What are you looking for?” Nessa asked.
Jo stopped suddenly on a group shot. She enlarged it, checking each face one by one. Then she gasped. Her face was bone white when she passed the phone back to Nessa. “Do you recognize anyone in this picture?”
Nessa scanned the picture on the screen. “I see Leonard Shaw,” she said. “Is this a photo from one of his charity events?”
“Yes,” Jo said. “In Jamaica. This is him with local volunteers. Look closer. Is there anyone else in the picture you recognize?”
Nessa scanned the faces again. This time, she stopped on a face in the second row. It belonged to a girl of sixteen or seventeen, with big black eyes, rosy cheeks, and dimples. Nessa recognized Faith.
“Claude wondered if Leonard might be involved. That’s why we were on our way to Rocca’s house that morning—to ask him about it. But so much happened, and it seemed so unlikely—” Jo stopped. “I should have taken her hunch more seriously.”
Nessa’s headache, previously a dull throbbing pain, had suddenly flared into a full-blown assault on her brain. “Harriett’s on her way out to the Pointe right now. We need to get her away from there. My head’s about to explode. You okay to drive?” she asked Jo.
“Yeah,” Jo said.
“Mama, where are you going?” Breanna called out from inside the house.
“Out to the Pointe. Your aunt Harriett might be in trouble.”
The Voices
Nessa’s skull felt like a room crowded with people, some demanding her attention, the rest screaming for it. Whenever she tried to focus on one voice, it would be drowned out by another. They kept growing louder, as though each had a frantic message to deliver.
“You sure you can do this?” Jo asked as she drove along Danskammer Beach. She could see the agony etched into Nessa’s face, and she knew her usually stoic friend was suffering horribly.
“I have to.” It was all Nessa could muster, but the message was clear. Harriett might already be at the Pointe. They couldn’t leave her there on her own. Jo scooped up Nessa’s hand and held it until she pulled up to the gate at Culling Pointe.
“That’s strange,” Jo muttered. The gate was locked, and there were no guards to be seen. She released Nessa’s hand and pulled out her phone to call Claude.
“Jo?” Claude answered.
“I’m trying to find Harriett. There’s an emergency. Is she with you?”
“No, not yet,” Claude said. “Leonard’s down at the dock whale watching. He’ll bring her to the house when she arrives. I hope everything’s all right. Is there anything I can do?”
“Yes. Ness and I are at the Culling Pointe gate. Can you come let us in?”
“Sure,” Claude said. “Just give me a sec.”
Jo parked her car along the shoulder of Danskammer Beach Road. She climbed out and met Nessa on the other side of the vehicle. The warm sun shone down on them and waves lazily lapped at the nearby shore as they walked to the gate.
Nessa stopped a few feet from it. “I don’t like this place,” she announced, staring down at the pavement ahead of her as though it were flaming brimstone.
“You look like you’re going to vomit,” Jo whispered back. “Why don’t you wait in the car?”
The screaming inside her head was so deafening that Nessa couldn’t hear herself think, and words she hadn’t been able to process rolled out of her mouth.
“They’ve been waiting for me,” she said. “I should have come a long time ago.”
Nessa heard an engine drawing closer. Then a golf cart appeared with Claude behind the wheel. The gate opened and Nessa stepped over the property line. The voices fell silent. They knew she’d arrived.
“What’s going on?” Claude asked. “Everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine. Harriett never carries a phone and we need to find her so she can deal with a family matter,” Jo said. “Why are there no guards at the gate?”
“The season is over. Everyone’s gone home,” Claude said. “Harriett didn’t want anyone around when she got to work on the plants, so we gave the staff a holiday. Jump in and we’ll drive down to the dock and see if she’s gotten here yet.”
Jo climbed into the front seat of the cart beside Claude, while Nessa took the back.
“Harriett wanted the Pointe to be empty today?” Jo asked.
“Yeah.” Claude stepped on the gas and steered the golf cart back the way she’d come. “She said her methods were proprietary, and she didn’t want anyone snooping around.”
They rounded a turn and the Pointe unfurled before them. What had once been a patchwork of perfectly landscaped lawns was now a sea of yellow. At least three bushes grew in every yard.
“Wow,” Jo said.
“The Scotch broom has taken over,” Claude said. “I have no idea how Harriett plans to get rid of it, but you can see why she wouldn’t want anyone around to get in the way.”
Nessa leaned forward over the front seat and clutched Jo’s arm. “Jesus, they’re everywhere,” she croaked.
“Yeah,” said Claude. “It’s a real invasion.”
Nessa fell back against her seat. “Stop the cart,” she ordered. “I’m going to be sick.”
“Right here?” While Claude glanced up at the rearview mirror, Jo laid a hand on the dashboard. A plume of black smoke rose up to the heavens, and the vehicle rolled to a stop.
“What the hell?” Claude stared at the steering wheel.
Nessa scrambled out of the golf cart and vomited on the nearest yard.