Apollo kicked at the mesh wall between his cage and William’s. “But why? Why do all that? I was just living my life, and you’re in your house looking through some stranger’s personal business?”
William walked closer to Apollo and patted the mesh wall gently. “Gretta had just left me. They were gone, and my home was empty. I was in a free fall. I wasn’t thinking straight. I read about the stuff on the A train, and I just had so much time all of a sudden. And as good as I was at finding information, I couldn’t find a damn thing out about Gretta. It was like she’d disappeared. And she had. She’d come here to be with Cal. I didn’t know it then, though. So I had all this time, and I read your A-train story, and a mix of boredom and curiosity and just plain going nuts sent me down this path.
“I found Emma’s name, but I also found out yours. I learned about your business. I found you on Facebook. And there’s all these pictures of your son. Ten pictures in a post! Twelve. Half of them are too blurry to see straight, but it didn’t matter. You were so happy. You were so proud. And I understood that. I felt like…this is a guy who knows how good it can be! Loving someone so damn much. Me and this guy, we’re the same. He gets why family is important. But really all this came about because Gretta ran off with my daughter and destroyed my family. If that hadn’t happened, we never would’ve met.”
“Daughters,” Apollo said. “You told me you had two. Was that a lie too?”
“No,” William said. For the first time, his voice softened. “I had two.”
Because of the moonlight, Apollo could see his face. William wept.
Apollo stood in place. His brain felt as if it had short-circuited. He had the instinct to console this man, yet he’d lied about so much. Still, he felt one thing to be completely true: this man had lost his family, and it had driven him a little insane. Apollo could identify with that much.
William slapped the mesh wall, and Apollo jumped back.
“I called in the cavalry,” William said. “I’m sorry I couldn’t try to help you, but that’s what I was doing while they had you.”
“What does that mean?” Apollo asked. “The police? The FBI?”
William ignored the question, offering something more relevant instead. “Now I’m going to pull back the very last veil, Apollo. I’m going to put every card I have face up on the table. Emma is alive. We know this. You want to find her. Cal—all these women here—they are not going to help you find her. No matter what they say, they only protect their own. But I could help you find Emma. I would travel to the ends of the earth with you.”
“But…” Apollo said.
“But you have to help me get Gretta and Grace back first. You help me, and then I will help you, and I can be very resourceful, as you’ve learned.”
Apollo walked closer to the window and looked out at the night sky, up at the nearly full moon as if preparing to make a wish. “What are you asking me to do?”
“Just talk to Gretta for me,” William said. “They’re not going to let me see her. Not while I’m still in a state to talk. But she doesn’t know you. You could explain how far I’ve come. You could tell her I know it wasn’t her fault. That she and I both lost our minds after Agnes died. That was our baby. I haven’t said her name out loud in almost a year. Agnes. My sweet girl.
“I understand now that it wasn’t Gretta’s fault though. I want to beg for her forgiveness for all the ways I was short-tempered and quick to accuse. I want to offer her my forgiveness, if she wants it. I want her and Grace to come back home. I want my family, what’s left of my family, to be whole again. I’m asking you to tell her all that.”
“How do you know I’ll even see her? They might come in and just shoot us both.”
“You heard her. She’ll call Gretta. If Gretta knows I’m here, she’ll come. Maybe she really does want to see me dead, but I don’t think it’s that simple. It never is between people. If they take you elsewhere and you see Gretta, you tell her what I said. If Gretta forgave me, then maybe they’d let me go. I don’t know, but it’s the only chance I have left. You are the only chance I have left. I don’t want to die without trying.”
Apollo turned from the moon to look at William in the other cage. “What if I say no?”
William coughed until he choked. Eventually he recovered. “Man to man, if you don’t help me, everyone is going to die on this island. Even me.”
“Who’s coming here?” Apollo asked.
“I won’t call it off,” William said. “I won’t even try.”
With that William walked into the far corner of his cage, where the moonlight didn’t reach. He lay on the ground in darkness, rolled his coat into a pillow, and bedded down for the night.
Apollo never fell asleep.
CAL ARRIVED JUST after dawn with her twin guards. The twins looked as tired as Apollo felt—their eyes red as cinnamon hearts—but their posture remained rigid as a pair of hunting rifles. Cal opened the door of Apollo’s seclusion room, and William sat up to watch. He slipped on his glasses as if, without them, he’d be underdressed.
Cal stepped into Apollo’s cage. She wore the same clothes as the night before. Her gray sweater looked as if she’d slept in it. The hem of it showed traces of dirt and leaves.
“Good morning, Pearl,” William said.
For the first time since Apollo met her, she looked startled.
“Pearl Walker,” he said. “Raised off the coast of Maine. In trouble with the law for habitual shoplifting. A heavy drinker. Mother of one. Do you remember the name of your high school? Because I could tell you.”
Cal pulled her gray sweater tighter to herself and looked down at the floor and breathed deeply. When she lifted her head, her cool had returned.
“I wanted to douse you in gasoline and light you on fire last night.” Cal walked toward William. “But then I thought Gretta might want to do it. I sent someone in a boat to fetch her last night, right after we put you here.”
William tapped the mesh wall gently, as if Cal was the animal caught inside and not him. “What about my daughter?”
“You mean the one you killed?” Cal asked. “You won’t even see her in the afterlife.”
William’s face set into a mask of true hate. “Sorceress. Enchantress. Every word you speak is a lie.”
Cal gestured for Apollo to walk out of his cage, but Apollo couldn’t do anything but stare at William.
“You’re saying he killed his daughter?”
“She’s lying to you, you nitwit. She’s casting a spell. That’s what witches do.”
“I’ve decided to give you one more chance,” Cal said to Apollo, ignoring William.
Cal had something tucked under one arm, hidden in the folds of her sweater, but Apollo could see the way she kept one arm tight against her side. Maybe it was a gun. Maybe William told the truth and this was nothing more than a ruse to take him outside and put a few bullets into his skull. And if so, what could he do about it?