By now, Trammel’s friends were probably hearing about him on the news. I’d made preparations before I left town —printed a stack of private e-mails between Trammel and his business partners and sent them to an investigative reporter on Channel 8. With a little digging, the reporter would be able to uncover everything. No more of those young patients Trammel referred to as government charity cases would be subjected to unnecessary medical treatments or strapped down in a dental chair while healthy baby teeth were filed off and a mouthful of silver crowns were crammed into place, in rapid succession.
Considering all the things Trammel criticized about me, all the things he held over my head, you’d think he would have remembered that I’d been one of those childhood charity cases. I remembered what it was like to have people you barely knew take you into a medical clinic, distort a few truths, and walk out with prescriptions for drugs to keep you placid and easy to manage —as if it’s abnormal for a child to be emotional when home life is a roller-coaster ride with occasional holes in the track. I knew what those kids in Trammel’s medical and dental clinics were going through. They were more than numbers in a Medicaid file.
But here by the water, Trammel and all the rest of it seemed far away. There wasn’t a thing to worry about. There couldn’t be. The outside world didn’t exist here. With any luck, the story had broken and Trammel was in jail, where he belonged.
A tiny ghost crab scuttled a few feet from its hole, then rushed back in as I grabbed a pair of Ross’s spare sunglasses and waited for Gumby to bring his camera. Once everything was said and done, I had five cameras and five guys to tape, plus one guy’s surfer girlfriend.
The afternoon went by in a rush. As the sun slid low over the water, the wind quieted and the breakers flattened out. Some of the guys built a fire and hung a kettle over it. I helped dump in corn, potatoes, and a couple pouches of Old Bay crab boil spices before grabbing the camera to catch Ross on his last trip of the day. The wave was small but clean, and he stroked it like an artist, cutting smooth curls, teasing the frothy tip. I zoomed in and watched his face, studied his intensity. Ross was never just having fun. He was always perfecting his art.
The breaker collapsed, and he rode the momentum in, his body silhouetted against the blushing sky, a magazine cover image. For an instant, I wished Trammel could see me now, dating someone like Ross, surrounded by friends who actually liked me, just hanging out on the beach, enjoying everything this place had to offer. Trammel was wrong when he’d said that if I left him, I’d be sorry —that I was nothing without him and the pills. He’d used them to keep a thumb on me, told me I needed them to get past the leftover nerve damage from the accident and the emotional side effects of no longer being able to ride competitively. I’d trusted him in those confusing first months —he was a doctor, he should know. He had become the source of medications, money, security, everything I thought I needed to survive. But the truth was that I didn’t need any of it. This place was healing me, giving me a new life. Cleansing me, body and soul.
Ross paddled back out with a couple of buddies and they sat on their boards awhile, their hands once again speaking the silent language of breakers and tubes. Finally they rode in, and he jogged up the beach as a few of the guys pulled the boiling basket from the pot, dumped the vegetables on a pad of newspaper spread over a beach towel, then put shrimp, crab, and sausage in the basket before submerging it again. The water frothed over the edges of the pot, droplets hissing into the fire, gone in an instant.
Ross slid a damp hand over my shirt, leaned close, and kissed me, then shook out his short dark hair, the spray pelting both me and the fire. The flames complained, finding a voice again.
“Ross!” I squealed, shielding the video camera.
He laughed and wicked water off his wet suit, flicking it at me. “You get good video?” The wet suit made rubber noises as he unzipped it. He looked good in it. He looked good without it.
“I got good video,” I said.
Smiling, he reached for the camera, his dark eyes dancing in the light. “I knew you were good for somethin’.” He gave me a look that smoldered with hidden invitations.
“Funny,” I sneered playfully at him. The fight was over. Ross and I were good again.
Gumby trotted up with a small blue cooler. “Dude, you forgot these.” He opened the lid and dumped another pile of blue crab and sausage into the pot.
Watching the crab tumble in, I thought of Paul Chastain and wondered if he was all by himself somewhere, having his fresh-caught dinner. I felt bad about the way we’d just left him standing there in the parking lot at Bink’s.
Thinking of Bink’s reminded me of the kids and the fact that it was getting dark. At home, Zoey would have everything under control, of course. She’d be fixing dinner, making sure J.T. got his homework done, eventually hollering across the house that if he didn’t get off Zago Wars and go to bed, she was going to come in there and rip the cord out of the stupid thing . . .
They’d both be psyched about all the food I’d brought over from Iola’s this morning, especially the microwave popcorn and the tinful of Belgian waffle cookies. They’d probably have a snackfest all evening.
Still, I should borrow Ross’s phone and call to be sure everything was okay.
A good mother would have thought of that before night started to settle in.
CHAPTER 8
I KNEW SOMETHING was wrong the minute we turned into the driveway. The cottage was dark, no TVs on, no signs of activity. Iola’s house loomed large and silent in the background, the only light a faint glow from a lamp downstairs.
“They’re not here. Where could they be?” The past rushed through me, wild and unbridled, and I saw my mother staggering out of some guy’s truck, yelling down the road as a CPS caseworker drove away with us in the backseat of his car.
The idea of that nightmare repeating itself crowded my mind now. Had Trammel found us, maybe tipped off the police here? Or had he come here himself and taken my kids, to prove that we would never be free of him?
If you ever tried to leave, I’d find you, Tandi. He’d always promised that.
Nightmare scenarios spun in my mind, one right after another. What if something else had happened? What if J.T. had walked over to the marina and gotten in some kind of trouble? What if he’d fallen off the dock, hit his head, sunk beneath the water without a soul around to notice? What if he’d been lured into a car with a stranger? He was still so little. . . .
Could Zoey be out looking for him, trying to find him?
“Chill out, Tandi.” Ross was somewhere between supportive and irritated that we’d had to leave the beach boil. “The kids’re probably with that punk football player Zoey’s so hot about.” For whatever reason, Ross didn’t like Zoey’s boyfriend. I could never quite tell whether he was looking out for her or just jealous because Zoey liked Rowdy a lot better than she liked Ross.
“They never turn the lights off when they leave.” Unhooking my seat belt, I reached for the door handle before we were completely stopped. “They haven’t been here since school got out, Ross. Something’s wrong. Zoey wouldn’t take off until almost nine o’clock at night without letting me know. She has your cell number, and Rowdy has a phone.” I’d been trying to call Rowdy’s phone for thirty minutes now. No answer.
Ross scoffed, a suggestive chuckle rolling under his breath. “You even watch her with that Rowdy kid, ever? I can pretty much tell you where she’s at. She probably dropped her little brother off at the arcade or someplace, and she and Romeo are out in the backseat of the Jeep right —”
“Stop it!” Halfway out the car door, I wheeled on him. “Don’t talk about her like that.”
Ross blinked slowly, his head cocking to one side. “Well, don’t go all Jerry Springer on me. I told you that you oughta get her away from the kid, though, didn’t I? You don’t look out, Tandi, you’re gonna be a grandma, and I’m not interested in raisin’ a baby. . . .”
I slid out of the truck and slammed the door hard behind me. The cottage was deathly quiet when we stepped inside. Calling the kids’ names, I checked the rooms. No one there. No sign that anyone had been. No note. They were just gone.
“Well, they’ve gotta be someplace.” Ross was standing in the living room, and even he looked a little concerned. “When that girl gets home, you need to bust her chops, I’m tellin’ you. You better get her under control before she ends up in real trouble. I’ve got a little sister, and she —”
“Ross, please!” My hands were shaking, my entire body a rush of blood and fear. My voice echoed against the close-set walls of the cottage, high and shrill.
“Geez, calm down.” He reached for me, pulled me against his chest, and I pressed my hands over my face. His voice rumbled near my ear. “Here. I’ll call a buddy at the sheriff’s department if that’ll make you feel better.”
Nodding, I took in his salty scent, the comfort of his arms, the muscles circling tight, encasing me in the assurance that I had someone to rely on, someone who cared. He reached into his jeans pocket, pulled out his cell. “You know, we need to get you a cell phone.”