Lisa Jennings. Abby heard the name inside her head. She could picture her notes from the original investigation. Lisa Jennings had not mentioned any meetings with Emma Tanner.
“We’ll need to track her down,” Abby said to Leo when they were finally alone in the Martins’ living room. The photos had been chosen and given to the sketch artist, and now everyone was taking a break. “She’s not at the school anymore.”
“Okay. And what about this incident with the hair? How did we not know about this?” he asked.
Abby shrugged and told him what Cass had just told her before her mother insisted she have a rest. “She doesn’t know. She assumed we’d seen the pictures and asked about it.”
The truth was, this was textbook behavior for a narcissist mother—finding a way to divide the alliance that was rising up against her, using violence and terror to bring her subjects back in line.
“All right,” Leo said. “I don’t like it, but let’s move on to the boatman, right?”
“Sure.” They had so many questions, so much ground to cover now. They were on the third day of the investigation. Abby was getting worried.
“I’ll go round up Cass. Maybe we can keep Mom away a little longer.”
Abby smiled. “Good luck with that. Cass doesn’t want to be more than a yard away from her.”
Leo left to find Cass. And Abby was left with the harrowing image of Judy Martin attacking her daughter while she slept, cutting off her hair with a pair of scissors.
Vivid images from her own childhood had already begun flashing before her, like they’d been stored in a secret box that Cass had just opened. Little Meg, hiding under a table as their mother searched for her with a belt in one hand and a bottle of vodka in the other. Their mother wearing a see-through top to their school to watch them in a play. Their mother flirting with a young landscaper out on the lawn. There were so many. Too many. But they were nothing close to the image of Judy Martin with those scissors.
Abby’s father had left when she was five. It’s not easy to live with a narcissist. The constant pushing and pulling to reconfirm your love and commitment grows very tiresome very quickly. For all her manipulative skills, Abby’s mother had misread their father. He had been drawn to her beauty, her charm, which was undeniable, but he wanted a normal life and he found a new woman who could give that to him.
The divorce came as a shock to her mother. Losing her husband dismantled the fragile alter ego that had been protecting her, the delusions of her elevated place in the world. The delusions of her power and control over people. She reacted violently, first by contesting every step of the divorce—not showing up for court, refusing to follow orders that the judge issued—anything to pre vent it from ending. But it did end eventually, and when it did, she drowned herself in alcohol. She died one rainy night driving back from a bar, high on cocaine and a blood alcohol level of .22. Abby and Meg had gone to live with their father and his new wife. Both had passed in recent years.
Something had shifted today. Abby could feel it. She was beginning to see the forces at play, to see the patterns in Cass’s behavior and demeanor. Cass had resisted their ongoing efforts to speak with her alone. She wanted her mother there, but it was not for comfort. She wanted her mother to hear the stories about the island and the horrible things that were done to her daughters and her granddaughter. She became desperate and tearful when her mother reacted with surprise or outrage or disbelief. Yes, Abby had concluded. It was the disbelief that caused the greatest shift in Cass’s demeanor, like she was panicked.
And then there were moments when she tensed up and grew quiet. When her eyes searched furiously among the audience, gauging their reactions, their emotions, to what was being said by Judy Martin. She did not like that Abby was being kind to Judy. She was starting to see Abby as an ally—but in what war? Finding the Pratts? Finding Emma? Or something else? There was no doubt Cass Tanner had a plan that she was not revealing.
But Abby had her own plan for Judy Martin. She had studied these people. She knew them inside and out. Judy Martin had to trust her; she had to believe that Abby was under her spell. And then it might come—in the things she didn’t say and the ways she didn’t react. Judy had to trust. And Abby had to be patient.
She’d gone home last night, after the second day, after hearing the horrible story about the dock and the retaliation for Cass’s first attempt to escape. She’d stared at the sketches of Bill and Lucy Pratt, of the boatman Rick, and the truck driver. She had written a preliminary analysis of their psychology, the possible traumas that were at play, and she had spoken to the field teams about her theories. The boatman was easy. Childhood dysfunction had led him to the brutal life on that fishing boat at such a young age. And the rape of that woman on the boat had debilitated him with self-hatred.
As for the Pratts, they had also suffered some kind of trauma. And it had to do with a child. Their desperation to have a baby, but also the lack of compassion for Emma’s daughter as she screamed in terror over the cold, black water—they had grown immune to that kind of attachment. Now the baby was no more than a psychological object. It was not real. Something had numbed them to genuine love.
It was just a working theory, but they had to start somewhere.
When Leo returned with Cass, Judy was right beside her. He gave Abby a look that said he had tried but failed to get Cass alone.
“If you’re ready to start again, we want to hear more about the boatman, Rick. Everything you can tell us about him will be helpful,” Abby said. “You told us he helped you escape. And that the first time you tried, he turned you away.”
“Yes,” Cass said.
“And you said that something changed after that incident on the dock, when they tried to make you leave without the baby.”
“Yes.”
“He had a look on his face, like the Pratts may have crossed the line,” Abby said. “We want you to finish the story, fill in the gap between your first escape attempt and your final escape that brought you home.”
Cass looked at her hands again, concentration pulling across her face. “Do you think you’ll find him soon? Now that you have the sketch?”
Leo answered her. “The problem is that he has no incentive to come forward. He participated in kidnapping. And he already has a guilty conscience from the incident with that woman on the fishing boat in Alaska. Then there’s the loyalty to the Pratts, whatever might be left of it. It may come down to finding his family. Seeing if they know anything. Did he ever mention that? His own family?”
Cass shook her head. “No. He never did.”