“Ma’am?” A security guard was at the door. Aversano must have pressed an alarm.
She couldn’t stop laughing. “I’m leaving,” she assured him between guffaws. He wouldn’t have been much of a match for her, but she had no beef with a hardworking guard. “And don’t worry,” she told Aversano. “I’m going to make sure you are never, ever burdened by another grade-school mom.”
Outside on the sidewalk, she pulled out her phone and called her financial advisor. “Liquidate my 401(k),” she ordered.
She’d never dared touch her savings before. It was very important that the money sit in an account where parasites like the man on the phone could feed on it.
“What?” He was horrified. “Completely?”
“Every dime,” she confirmed.
“There will be very serious tax penalties,” he warned her. “How much do you need in cash? You should really consider leaving the rest invested.”
“It will be well invested,” Jo said. The path ahead seemed clearer than ever before. It was amazing how far ahead she could see now that she’d burned everything down.
As soon as she hung up, she scrolled through her PTA emails until she found Matilda Aversano’s address.
I heard about your business idea today, she wrote the woman. I think it’s brilliant. I’d like to invest.
Whatever It Takes
Jo and Nessa met Josh at the dock, and the three of them walked out to the boat where Celeste and Harriett stood waiting. Celeste had traded her nautical attire for a black T-shirt and leggings. Harriett looked fabulous in a sleeveless shift that appeared to have once been a sack of some sort.
“Oh my God,” Josh muttered under his breath. “Who the hell is that?” The awe in his voice left little doubt that he was talking about Harriett.
“That’s our friend Harriett. She was with us when we found the girl,” Nessa said. “If you saw the news coverage of us, you must have seen her, too.”
“If that’s the woman who was with you guys, she’s changed since then,” Josh said.
“Has she?” Nessa squinted in the sunlight.
But Jo could see it now. The transformation had been so gradual that it had gone unnoticed, but the woman standing on the prow of the boat with one dirty bare foot propped up on the railing was not the same person who’d accompanied them to Danskammer Beach on that terrible day in May. Her skin was bronze and her hair had grown longer and wilder. Even from a distance, her eyes seemed golden. She was becoming something else, but the process hadn’t yet reached completion. What would Harriett be, Jo wondered, when all was said and done?
“Hello,” Harriett greeted their guest. “You must be Josh Gibbon. I’m Harriett Osborne, and this is my friend Celeste Howard. I’ve been listening to your podcast.”
“Thank you.” Josh’s smile was a study in faux humility. He seemed to wait for the praise he expected to follow. His smile dimmed as he realized there would be no kudos coming from Harriett.
After that, Jo noticed Josh never quite let his guard down or allowed his eye to wander away from Harriett for longer than a second or two. He seemed utterly captivated by her. She, on the other hand, appeared completely uninterested in him. While Celeste bustled about the boat like a woman embarking on a life-and-death mission, Harriett calmly watched the water. Jo got the sense that for Harriett, their plan was just one step toward a conclusion she’d long anticipated. How detailed was Harriett’s foresight, Jo wondered? Did she know what would happen at each step of the way? Or had she simply picked up on a familiar pattern?
When they reached the right spot, Nessa asked Celeste to bring the boat to a stop. The vessel rocked on the waves as Jo lowered her mask. She tied the end of a rope to her waist while Josh handed her a GoPro mounted on a floating hand grip. She had her flippers on and a knife in a scabbard hung from her weight belt. She saw Nessa’s mouth open to tell her she didn’t need to do this. Before her friend could get the words out, Jo rolled backward into the water.
Her dive suit couldn’t spare her the shock of the cold. She treaded water for a minute until she acclimated. Then she went under. Toward the surface, the water was a mossy green. It grew darker the deeper Jo dove, until she could see only what passed through the cone of light that issued from the tip of her flashlight. The water was filled with tiny specks that glowed like motes of dust in a sunlit room. She told herself not to imagine what might swim past. If the water was deep enough for a whale, there was no telling what could be lurking beneath her.
Jo descended farther into the depths, the only sound that of her own breathing. She checked her depth gauge and saw that she was already at forty feet. Even in Florida, she hadn’t gone deeper than eighty. Never before had she felt so alone or so terrified. But she couldn’t think of any other way to protect the child she loved more than anything else in the world. The little girl she’d put in danger. She remembered the look in Lucy’s eyes as she lay bound and gagged in her striped pajamas. Whatever it takes, Jo reminded herself. As tears of fear and frustration rolled down her cheeks, her mask started to fog. Within seconds, she was blind. Then she felt herself being pulled farther down, as if by an unseen hand. The condensation inside her mask began to clear, and there, in the light of her flashlight, stood a mountain of lobster traps.
There had to be thousands of traps in all, some made of wood and others of wire, and all were clogged with seaweed. Even though most had been abandoned two decades earlier, they continued to catch and kill. Jo freed a crab and a fish before she felt a tug on the rope. Back on the boat, her friends were watching the feed from the GoPro, and now they were sending her a message: Get moving. She knew they were right. There wasn’t enough time to liberate every trapped creature. She swam around the mountain of traps, aiming her flashlight beam into each one she passed. Then she spotted a trap lying on its side at the bottom, as though it had tumbled from the top of the pile. Only a few fronds of seaweed clung to its wires, but still she couldn’t see into it. As she swam down for a closer look, she realized there was a black bag crammed inside.