The Unwanted (38 page)

“Eric—” Laura tried to protest, but he only shook his head.

“He was trying to kill us, Mom. I don’t know why he was pissed at Lisa, but—” He fell silent as he realized the truth. “Oh, Jesus,” he whispered, his face turning ashen.

“Eric?” Laura breathed. “What is it?”

“It wasn’t Lisa at all. She was dressed like Cassie. That’s who he thought it was. He thought Lisa was Cassie. And he wanted to kill her so bad, he would have killed me too.”

Laura clamped her hands over her ears, trying to shut out what Eric was saying. “No,” she whimpered, rocking back and forth in her chair. “No, it isn’t true … none of it—”

“It is. Mom,” Eric said softly. “And it’s only going to get worse.” His voice hardened, and his eyes flashed dangerously. “But he won’t hurt us anymore, Mom. I won’t let him. I’ll kill him, Mom. If he tries to hurt me again, I swear to God I’ll kill him.”

Gene Templeton got out of his car and started out into the blackness over the beach and the marsh. He reached back into the car, switched the headlights on, and twin beams of light cut through the rain, casting an eerie glow over the sand and the surf beyond. As far as he could tell, there was no sign of the white pickup truck. He started to slam the car
door, then thought again and switched on the flashing lights on top. If Lisa Chambers was still out there somewhere, there was no use letting her think Ed Cavanaugh had come back again. Finally, flipping on the powerful flashlight he always carried in the car, he started through the rain toward the cabin where Miranda Sikes had lived. With any luck at all he would find Lisa Chambers there.

Twenty minutes later he was back.

The cabin had been empty, but the stove was still warm. So at least part of Eric Cavanaugh’s story had been true. But what about the rest of it?

His bones beginning to ache, he began his search of the beach. It was easy to find the tire tracks where the truck had left the parking lot and started across the sand, but the tracks quickly disappeared where the rising tide and the pounding surf had washed the beach clean. He began walking east toward Cranberry Point, playing the light on the sand just above the surf line. About a hundred yards up the beach he found what he was looking for.

More tire tracks, this time leading toward the marsh. He followed them across the beach and over the dunes, then traced them as they led back and forth along the edge of the wetlands. The truck seemed to have turned twice then found what it was looking for. Though the rain, increasing now, was quickly washing them away, there were still the remnants of two short tire tracks perpendicular to the tide line, where it appeared that the truck had been parked for a while.

Cautiously, Gene Templeton approached the marsh, searching with his light for a break in the reeds. Three times he called out Lisa’s name, but the rain muffled his voice, and he could hear no answer except for the flappings of a bird.

Finally he found a narrow path with two sets of footprints still faintly visible in the packed mud and sand. He followed them for a few yards and came to a place where it looked as though someone had either knelt or fallen. From there a single pair of footprints continued along the path.

But off to the left some of the reeds had been broken and the marsh grasses were bent.

Here, apparently, was where Lisa Chambers had left the path. Templeton played his light out into the marsh, wondering
vaguely whether he was hoping to get a glimpse of her or not. If she was still here and had neither seen him nor responded to his calls—

He abandoned the thought, knowing too well where it led.

The darkness was momentarily washed away by a sweep of headlights, then by another set of beams. Templeton turned and saw two cars turning off Cape Drive into the parking lot. A moment later they were joined by a third, then a fourth.

Great, he reflected sourly. Just what I need. A search party that thinks it can comb a fucking swamp in the middle of the fucking night. I’ll wind up with half the town caught in quicksand. He quickly retraced his steps and started down the beach. By the time he got back to the parking lot, Fred Chambers was busy giving orders to three of his friends, all of whom, the police chief noted silently, had kids about the same age as Lisa. As he stepped into the group, Chambers eyed him almost belligerently.

“Did you find her?” Lisa’s father demanded.

“I just got here, Fred,” Templeton replied. “How come you’re not home with Harriet?”

“You think I’m going to sit at home when my little girl’s missing? I’m not that kind of man, and you know it!”

“I also know there isn’t much any of us can do out here right now,” Templeton said. “I was just about to call a couple of my boys to give me a hand, and I could use some of the fire volunteers too.” He nodded toward Clyde Bennett, who was the unpaid assistant fire chief of the village. “You want to take care of that for me?” Bennett’s eyes flicked toward Fred Chambers, then he nodded and went to Templeton’s car. A few seconds later he spoke quickly but quietly into the microphone of the car’s radio. “As for the rest of you,” Templeton continued, “if you want to poke around, I can’t stop you. But I don’t want any of you going into the marsh. Not tonight. It’s too dangerous, and I can’t worry about you guys and Lisa too.”

The two men he was speaking to said nothing. Both of them seemed to be waiting for Fred Chambers to contradict the police chief. But when he spoke, Chambers didn’t argue.

“What about Cavanaugh?” he asked instead. “Have you picked him up yet?”

Templeton shook his head. “Nope. Right now I’m a lot more interested in finding Lisa than I am in finding Ed.”

“But what if he’s got her?” Chambers began.

Templeton cut him off. “If he does, then we’re too late already. I’m betting he was so drunk he didn’t even know what he was doing. And if he was, Lisa probably got away from him, which means she might still be out there somewhere. But I can’t find her if I have to stand here with you all night. Go home, Fred. Go home and take care of Harriet, and as soon as I know what’s happening, I’ll let you know. Okay?”

For a moment Templeton thought the banker was going to argue with him, but then he saw Chambers’s shoulders sag in resignation.

“Okay,” Fred agreed, all the authority in his voice suddenly gone. “It’s just—Christ, Gene, I just feel so helpless. And you know how I am.…”

“I know,” Templeton agreed.
Got to try to run everything, whether you know what you’re doing or not
, he said silently to himself. Then, aloud: “It’ll be okay, Fred. We’ll find her.”

He led Chambers back to his car, still trying to reassure him, and as his deputies and the members of the fire department began to arrive, turned his attention to organizing a search party. “I want you to work in pairs,” he told them. “It’s dangerous out there. So be careful. But we’re going to search the marsh foot by foot. Let’s just hope she’s out there somewhere.” Finally, as the men began moving carefully over the treacherous paths of the marsh, he returned to his own car.

It was time to find Ed Cavanaugh.

The bottle of bourbon on the greasy dinette table was only one-fourth full, and the sink of the galley held half-a-dozen empty beer bottles. But for some reason the alcohol hadn’t made Ed feel any better. He reached down and fished in the little refrigerator under his seat for another beer, then cursed softly when he realized there wasn’t any more. Tipping the bottle of bourbon to his lips, he poured a long slug into his mouth, then slammed the bottle back onto the table as the fiery liquid burned its way down his throat to his
stomach. Vaguely, he heard the topside hatch open, and glanced up to see Gene Templeton standing at the top of the companionway. “Well, look who’s here,” he drawled, gesturing toward the empty seat opposite him. “Pull up a bunk and have a drink. I’m buyin’.”

Templeton’s eyes flicked over the cabin, and he found himself almost relieved that there was no sign of Lisa Chambers. “Thought you and I ought to have a little chat, Ed,” he said. He moved into the grubby interior of the fishing boat, and wondered how even Ed Cavanaugh could stand the mess. Everything in sight was covered with grease, and the sole of the cabin was strewn with a tangle of ropes, tools, floats, and odd bits of net. Trying to ignore it, he slid into the dinette opposite Cavanaugh and poured himself a shot of whiskey he had no intention of drinking.

“Saw your truck up on the street,” he said, doing his best to sound casual. Ed was so drunk, he might just be able to catch him completely off guard. “Just thought I’d drop in and say hello.”

Cavanaugh’s brows arched skeptically. “Well, ain’t you the sociable one,” he grunted. “And why shouldn’t my truck be up there? It against the law to park on the street now?”

“Just thought you might have let Eric have it tonight,” he offered. “It being Saturday night. Know what I mean?” he added, forcing the kind of lewd wink Cavanaugh was so good at.

Ed snickered drunkenly. “Little shit’ll be lucky if I even let ’im live, after tonight.” He laughed mirthlessly. “An’ I bet he’s so scared he never even says boo to me again.”

“Scared?” Templeton asked. It was working. Cavanaugh was going to admit to the whole thing. “How come he should be scared?”

“ ’cause of what I did,” Ed told him, a boozy cackle bubbling out of his throat. “Caught him down on the beach with Cassie Winslow and scared the piss out of both of them.”

Now it was Templeton who frowned with puzzlement. “What are you talking about, Ed? What did you do?”

Suddenly Cavanaugh’s expression took on a look of cunning. “Oh, no,” he said. “I know what you’re trying to do. You’re trying to pin it on me, ain’t you? But I didn’t do
nothin’. All I did was chase ’em around, till they ran into the marsh. An’ I tried to save her. I really did.”

“Tried to save her?” Templeton echoed, a tight knot of fear forming in his stomach. “Tried to save who?”

Ed eyed him blearily. “Cassie,” he mumbled. “Ain’t you listenin’, Templeton? Goddamn bitch went off the trail and got caught in the quicksand. Tried to get to her, but jus’ couldn’t do it. Jus’ couldn’t do it …” His voice faded away. He reached for the bourbon bottle, but before he could grasp it, Gene Templeton’s hand closed on his wrist.

“You’ve had enough, Ed,” he said quietly. “In fact you’ve had a lot more than enough. I’m taking you in.”

Ed’s eyes opened in drunken surprise. “Me? What for? What did I do?”

Templeton regarded the other man with a mixture of pity and contempt. “You don’t know, do you?” he asked quietly. “You really don’t know.”

It’s not real. None of it is really happening at all. It’s all a bad dream, and I’m going to wake up, and everything’s going to be fine
. Even as the thoughts flitted through her mind, Rosemary knew it wasn’t a dream and that she wasn’t going to wake up. A numbness had settled over her, and when her eyes wandered to the clock above the sink, she could barely believe it was only a little after two
A.M
. The weariness that suffused her mind and body insisted that it must be close to dawn.

And at dawn, she was now certain, she would still be numbly awake, still be dressed, still be sitting up somewhere in the house, waiting.

Waiting for what?

For word that Lisa Chambers had been found? But all of them knew, though no one had yet said it, that when Lisa was found she was going to be—

She couldn’t say it, couldn’t deal with it.

Tiredly, she faced Gene Templeton, knowing that whatever had to be said, had to be said by her. Laura Cavanaugh seemed to have retreated into some secret place inside herself, and Eric and Cassie had sat listening impassively as Templeton repeated what Ed Cavanaugh had told him. Once or twice Eric shook his head as if to deny his father’s version of what had happened on the beach. Cassie had revealed no reaction whatsoever, but merely listened in silence, her expression completely impassive. As Rosemary had watched the
girl, she had the strange feeling that Cassie already knew what Ed had told the police chief.

“Then what are you going to do?” Rosemary asked. “What is it you want us to do?”

Templeton shrugged, betraying his helplessness. “I can keep Ed locked up for the rest of the night, but tomorrow, I don’t know. If Laura won’t charge him—”

“But I’ll bring charges,” Rosemary insisted. “For God’s sake, Gene, he tried to rape me!”

“Did he?” Templeton replied, reluctantly assuming the role of devil’s advocate. “We went through this earlier, Rosemary. There isn’t a mark on you, and there are no witnesses—”

“Jennifer saw—”

“We already know what Jennifer saw,” Templeton repeated for the third time. “She saw you on the telephone, and Ed standing next to you. That’s all. If you had a bruise, a scratch, anything!—I might have something to go on. As it is, though, if you bring charges against him he’ll just counter-sue. And when I strip-searched him an hour ago, I found the bruise he needs to back himself up, which you’ve already admitted you gave him.” His lips twisted into a rueful grin. “The odds are, though, that he was too drunk to remember exactly what happened. So there we are—he swears he didn’t see Lisa on the beach at all, and right now he’s absolutely certain that Cassie is dead. He insists he saw her go into the quicksand but couldn’t get to her in time to save her. Not that I can put much credence in anything Ed says, given his condition.”

“He didn’t even try. He hates me, you know.” The words had come from Cassie.

Templeton studied Cassie carefully for a moment. She was holding something back, he was almost certain of it. But what? And why would Ed Cavanaugh hate her? But her eyes had taken on a veiled look that told him she’d said all she was going to.

Appalled by the realization of what she had said, Cassie sat silently, hands tightly clasped in front of her. She wanted to tell them she knew exactly what had happened to Lisa, tell them that Mr. Cavanaugh could have saved her, but instead he’d stood there and watched her die. But what could she say that would make them believe her? If she told them the
truth—that she’d seen the whole thing through Sumi’s eyes—they’d only think she was crazy. “He—he wouldn’t have tried,” she stammered as her stepmother and the police chief continued to stare at her. “If he thought Lisa was me, he wouldn’t have done anything. He—he hates me. He didn’t even want Eric to talk to me anymore!”