“I’d love to be done with him,” Jo said. “But he’s still the only person in the media who’s likely to return our calls.”
“I’ll reach out to him,” Nessa said. “You two go have fun.”
“Thanks, babe.” Jo gave Nessa a hug and hurried outside to meet her army. “You ladies ready to kick some butt?” she shouted out at the crowd, and a cheer went up from the girls and their mothers. “Then let’s go take over the town!”
As Jo led her army to the park, cars slowed and drivers stared. Jo hoped they all got a good look. Consider yourselves warned, motherfuckers, she thought.
Nessa called Josh Gibbon right away, but he didn’t answer the phone and his voice mail was full. She made five more attempts that evening from Franklin’s house. Josh wasn’t responding to Nessa’s urgent texts or emails, either. Please! her last text to him read. I have news!
The next morning, Nessa sipped coffee while she watched the sunrise from Franklin’s deck. With her hopes in check, she opened her messages. There were six from Jo, two from her daughters, and one from Josh Gibbon.
I’m in town. I have news too. Are you at home?
Nessa’s squeal of excitement brought Franklin out to the deck in his boxers. “Lemme guess. You heard from Gibbon?”
“Mmmhmm.” Nessa was already typing. When can we meet?
“It’s six fifteen in the morning,” Franklin noted, settling into a chair beside her with a cup of coffee in his hand. “Gibbon strikes me as the kind of guy who doesn’t get up before noon.”
Nessa had just set the phone aside when a chime proved Franklin wrong.
About to head back to Brooklyn. Stop by your house before I go?
Just give me fifteen. Nessa wrote back.
“I gotta get dressed and get home!” Nessa launched herself out of the lounge chair and toward the sliding glass doors. “Josh is coming over before he heads back to the city.”
“He’s here in town?” Franklin asked. “I thought he didn’t want anything to do with Mattauk anymore.”
“I don’t know what he’s doing here, but he says he’s got news.”
Franklin started to rise from his seat. “I’ll come with you.”
“No, stay here and enjoy your coffee,” Nessa told him. “The kid’s skittish enough as it is. I show up with a posse, he might not talk at all.”
“I still don’t understand. Why’s he want to see you? Why not Jo?”
It was a fair question, but Nessa felt annoyed by the unspoken assumption that seemed to accompany it. “’Cause I’m the one who’s been texting him—and Jo is scary.” Nessa scrunched up her face. “You think I can’t handle this on my own?”
“I think you can handle just about anything,” Franklin assured her. “But I’m trained to be cautious. You’ll let me know what he tells you?”
She bent over his chair and planted a kiss on his forehead. “You kidding? As soon as I’m finished with Josh, I’m coming right back here. You’re going to have a very tough time getting rid of me again.”
Nessa made it out of the house in record time, but paused once her key was in the ignition and fished her phone out of her pocketbook. Was it strange that Josh wanted to come by first thing in the morning? She scrolled through the messages she’d exchanged with him until she reached her first. She’d sent it to Josh, along with the second, third, and fourth. There was no doubt the responses had come from him.
She turned over the engine, then sat for a few seconds more, staring out at the dunes. Something was off. Franklin had sensed it, and now she felt it, too. Back in her hospital days, Nessa had learned to rely on her intuition. It always seemed to know when a tale wasn’t true. It informed her if a black eye came from a fist, not a fall. It whispered a warning if a visitor wished a patient harm. From time to time, it would insist that she double-check a prescribed medication—even if the doctor who’d ordered it was standing beside her. Nessa’s intuition may have injured a few egos among the medical staff, but it had also saved lives.
Now it was telling her to proceed with caution. But it wasn’t telling her to go back and get Franklin—or to stop by Jo’s house on the way. Whatever it was, Nessa was sure she could handle it. She put the car in reverse and backed out onto the street.
When she reached her pretty white house, Nessa stopped across the street and left the engine idling. There were no cars in the drive. Her visitor had yet to arrive. The windows were dark and everything looked just as she’d left it. But something told her the house wasn’t empty. There was someone waiting for her inside. The text was a trap, her gut warned her. Josh hadn’t sent it. Whoever was inside had lured her here.
Then a silhouette appeared in the dim living room. As it moved toward the window, it acquired color and dimension. A familiar face took form—pasty white skin, bushy beard, and unkempt hair. Purple bags drooped beneath the eyes. Nessa sat back with her hand over her pounding heart, relieved to see she’d been wrong. It was Josh after all.
Nessa almost raised a hand to wave. Then she remembered. There was no one at home to let Josh in. Her foot slammed on the gas and she sped away. When she reached a safe distance, she dialed Franklin.
“There’s someone in my house,” she told him. “The text was a trick.”
“I’ll be right over.”
“I won’t be there,” she said. “There’s a key hidden behind a loose brick on the first step.”
“I don’t understand,” Franklin said. “Where are you going?”
“Brooklyn,” she said. “I’ll call you as soon as I get there.”
She looked up the address of Josh’s studio and plugged it into her GPS. The hour-long drive into the city was agony. When she finally reached the address in Greenpoint, Nessa saw nothing but a dingy industrial building. She parked the car and approached the entrance slowly, giving her gut time to warn her if necessary. But nothing seemed out of the ordinary, and now that it was almost eight o’clock, the sidewalks and streets were busy. Nessa looked for a bell, but found only an old red button.
She pushed it, expecting nothing, but a kid in his early twenties appeared almost instantly. Behind him, Nessa could see a sun-washed loft space filled with modern furniture. And thanks to Harriett, she was able to quickly identify the stench wafting through the doorway. A few months earlier, she would have sworn it was a skunk.
“I’m sorry, is this Josh Gibbon’s studio?” she asked.
“Oh my God, it’s you!” the kid squealed with excitement.
Nessa took a nervous step back. “You know me?”
“Of course I know you!” he said, looking like he might give her a hug. “I’m Chet. I help Josh with the show’s website. I posted all the pictures you took at Danskammer Beach and the footage that was shot after you found the first body. Nessa James, am I right?”
“Yes,” Nessa said. “So this is his studio?”