Media trucks lined the street. Patrol cars blocked the driveway. Two field agents sat at the dining room table with equipment that could trace a call from the landline if Emma called—or the Pratts, for that matter. There was always the possibility of a ransom. Unlikely—but what if they did call and nothing had been done to prepare? Just like the disappearance three years before, there was no protocol that fit this case, and to Abby, it all seemed cobbled together. Chaos inside and out.
Leo was waiting for her in the living room. He was alone. “Hey,” he said. Abby could see the concern on his face.
She’d woken up on her kitchen floor, sitting upright, the dog still in her lap, not more than two hours gone by. She’d gotten up and gone through her files, but it was not good, not sleeping. And now it was starting to show on her face.
“Come and sit down, kiddo.” He handed her coffee in a paper cup poured from a paper box someone had picked up at a doughnut shop.
Abby took the coffee and inhaled deeply near the rim. “So nothing from the physical exam? Is she on any meds?” she asked.
Leo nodded. “Small doses of Xanax. We just got the sketches done. We’ll have copies in an hour. Soil analysis from Cass’s shoes turned up shale and limestone. Consistent with coastal Maine.”
“Where is she?”
“Upstairs with her babysitter,” he answered sarcastically.
Abby smiled. “And the husband? Owen? They’re not here?”
“Jonathan Martin went to the store. Owen went to see his son. Delivering the story in person, I suspect. Not the kind of thing you do on the phone.”
Abby felt irritated, impatient. “Are we doing this?”
“She’ll be down. I told her you were on the way,” Leo said calmly.
“We need the rest of the story, Leo. Start to finish. I don’t have a handle on these people yet. Or Emma, for that matter.”
“Okay. I hear you.”
Abby took a sip of the coffee and closed her eyes. The adrenaline was subsiding, and in its place came bone-deep exhaustion.
“What did you find in your notes?” Leo asked.
Abby sighed. Shook her head. “I don’t know. I read them all again this morning, with an eye to the pregnancy and the person who might have helped her. Emma’s friends her senior year. The director at the program in France where she may have met the father. The timing’s right. Six weeks to discover the pregnancy and two or three more to find the Pratts and make her plan to leave—that would put her right around the time of the disappearance.”
“Yup. And the birth in March.”
“Do you remember the school counselor? She had a lot to say about Emma, about her observations of her—how she exhibited signs of arrogance but it was really insecurity.”
Leo let out a soft chuckle. “Ah, yes. The pretty blonde. I believe you had some strong opinions about her. Amateur hour—right? Didn’t she get her degree from some community college?”
“It was an MSW from an online university.”
“Right,” Leo said, leaning back into the sofa with a smile. “So, what? You think she knew Emma better than we thought? Maybe Emma was seeing her about her problems? About the pregnancy?”
Abby shook her head. “No. I don’t know. She seemed very pleased with herself and how much she had observed. But no one said Emma was seeing her beyond casual passings in the hallway.”
It was strange how Abby remembered all these interviews and the image of the girls that had formed from them. Yet now the details that were drawing her attention were entirely different. She was no longer seeing the information through the same lens—what had driven the girls to leave or fall victim to a predator or engage in reckless behavior? They knew where the girls had gone and the circumstances of their disappearance. The new lens had turned on the people left behind. Who would have helped her? And who would have lied about it?
“What about the half brother, Witt Tanner?”
Abby started to tell him about that interview all over again, but he had been there, in the room. He had asked the questions and listened to the same answers Abby had heard and written down meticulously.
The interview of Witt Tanner from three years ago had been the hardest to revisit. He had told them things that even his father, Owen, had not offered. Things about Judy Martin like the story of the necklace and stories about life in the Martin home—including some naked photos of Emma that Hunter had posted on a Web site. That was just the beginning. Witt’s affection for his half sisters was undeniable. Their disappearance had torn him up. And he had been sincere and forthcoming about the childhood he had witnessed from a distance. As she read her notes of that interview, Abby had stared at three words, words Witt had spoken and that Abby had written down on a piece of lined yellow paper.
She is evil.
Abby had dwelled on those words and on the stories he’d told her. Before the divorce, when Witt stayed at the house every other weekend, there would be fights between Judy and Owen—fights Witt and his sisters could hear without even trying. “Take care of your fucking children!” Owen would yell. And she would yell back, “You take care of them, asshole! You’re the one who wanted them!” And then Owen, “Really? I’m not the one who lied about taking the pill!” Cass would fold into herself like she was trying to disappear. Emma would stare into space with a look of concentrated defiance, like perhaps she was plotting revenge against both of them for not wanting to take care of their own children, and for making them feel so unworthy.
When they got older and Witt no longer came to the old house, Witt said that his sisters would tell him about the fights between Emma and her mother, unthinkable words flying from their mouths. Bitch! Whore! Cunt! Emma would laugh about borrowing her mother’s clothes—something that made her crazy. Cass would usually finish the story in a way that killed the laughter, like the time Judy forced Emma to take off a dress that belonged to her right in the kitchen, in front of Cass. Emma ran upstairs crying, dressed only in her bra and underpants. Judy then took the dress and put it into the garbage can.
Witt had tried to explain it.
“Emma always made light of things, like nothing Judy did could touch her. But Cass, she told the stories like they were warnings about the future—like they were lessons about who Judy Martin was and what she was capable of doing.”
The stories went on and on—some of them witnessed firsthand. Others that had been recounted by the girls when they saw Witt at their father’s house. When Leo had heard all this during the original investigation, he had reminded her of other things. “Witt hated Hunter for slashing his tires. Witt hated Judy Martin for stealing his father and ruining his home. He was angry and violent, full of rage with a thirst for revenge.”
Any story could be told to tip the scale in one direction or another. Maybe Witt had exaggerated. Maybe the facts seemed more ominous when they were filtered through Witt’s dark lens, and his angry voice, and his watery eyes.
Leo’s question still hung in the air. What about Witt Tanner?
“Abby?” he said when she didn’t answer.
Abby shook her head and shrugged. “Nothing, really. But no way he was the one who helped Emma leave. That kid was wrecked when the girls disappeared.”