Boar Island Read online

  Instead of taking up the phone, she opened her laptop. A glance at the time told her Olivia would be in her crib. If she was lucky, Peter and Lily would have finished their bullshit cooing and baby-talking, and cleared out of the room. Seeing a baby, a new life, free of the crap that was dripped into every human’s veins over time until the whole person was a toxic waste dump, would settle her, calm her mind. Keep the poison thoughts from killing her. At least for a while.

  She tapped on the mouse pad, opening the live feed to the camera in Olivia’s nursery. Peter and lovely little Lily bent over the bassinette making faces they thought were amusing but, in truth, were scary and ugly. Then the world spun, the camera showed the wall, the ceiling, then …

  “Shit!” Denise screamed, throwing herself back against the couch cushions, covering her eyes. When she uncovered them, all was as it had been, Peter and Lily cooing, the world right way up, Olivia in her bed.

  For an instant Denise could have sworn she had seen a face. The face of a dead woman. Anna Pigeon’s face. The video wasn’t recorded; she couldn’t go back. Had she been able to, there would have been no point. She had seen Anna Pigeon’s body in a black plastic sack sinking beneath the waves of the Atlantic.

  The fear and paranoia burning like acid in her gut were from fatigue, not because of anything real. She’d not slept for over forty hours. Too tired and thoughts got crazy. Way too tired and one could even hallucinate.

  Anna Pigeon was dead.

  Paulette was her soul, her gentle self, her family.

  Obstacle removed; identical twin good and right and safe.

  There was no Anna.

  Paulette might have gone to meet somebody, but she wouldn’t break trust with her sister, her identical twin sister. The legacy was for them, for their family. Denise herself had told Paulette to pursue it. Paulette might even be meeting with a Realtor. Could be Denise was wrong about the meeting with the legacy person.

  But Denise wasn’t wrong. She could hear how right she was barking down among the chunks of disappointment and misery in her brain’s junkyard.

  “Doesn’t matter,” she said aloud.

  The day—and the night before—had been good, she told herself. Better than good. Denise took out the slip of paper she’d been carrying in her front pants pocket so long it was growing soft. From her bag she got a pen, one with red ink.

  Kill Kurt (Denise)

  “Check,” Denise said, and put a neat red check mark next to it.

  Sell Land (Paulette)

  “Better be soon,” she muttered as she passed that one over.

  Remove Obstacle (D&P)

  Denise paused. The dead pigeon’s upside-down face blinked like a strobe light, setting parts of her mind afire. “Check,” she hissed, and scribbled out the words with such force that the pen tore through the paper.

  “Stop it,” Denise said aloud. Her hand flicked. The pen flew from her fingers, fell to the white sofa, and rolled, leaving a thin red trail. Denise forced herself to look away from the bloody little snake-track on the perfect white of the fabric. “Calm. Slow and steady wins the race. Nerves. Fatigue. Finish and rest. That’s a girl,” she crooned to herself. When she felt the spate of rage diminish, she went back to the list, carefully avoiding glancing at the ink stain.

  Quit NPS (retirement pension) (D)

  “Check!” Denise said as she marked it.

  Find out about “Legacy” (if it exists) (P)

  Denise was sorely tempted to check that off, as a sign that she believed in her sister. That her sister believed in them. If she didn’t know for sure, though, she couldn’t do it. She never broke her own rules. Well, hardly ever.

  In a spirit of compromise, she set aside the pen, fished a pencil from her purse, and put a pencil mark next to that item on the list, a faint gray check mark. For now that would have to do.

  Car, shopping, etc.

  “Check!” and check.

  Give landlord notice

  “Check!” and check.

  Family—Mt. Desert Hospital (D&P)

  The injection into the four-ounce, hermetically sealed waxy box, the seventh of those in Lily’s cupboard, would be used by lovely little Lily late in the afternoon tomorrow. Lily used sixteen ounces each day.

  That wasn’t enough to check it off the list.

  After nearly two days without rest, the pen that had so recently flown from her hand of its own accord became too heavy to lift. The list blurred. Denise leaned back on the couch cushion and rubbed her burning eyes, wishing she hadn’t sacrificed the last of her Valium to the obstacle issue. Tomorrow Family would get checked off, then, one by one, the rest of the list. She would do it tomorrow. After all, tomorrow was another day.

  Scarlett O’Hara had said that.

  But then, Scarlett O’Hara was one crazy bitch.

  FORTY-ONE

  Denise’s scalp stung, her eyes stung, her nose stung. In law enforcement training at FLETC, the students had been pepper-sprayed—“to know what it feels like.” Sadistic bastards; they just liked tormenting the new kids. Right now, right here in Paulette’s kitchen, she felt the same sensations. Besides that, her neck was going to snap.

  “What’s next? Waterboarding? Do you do this once a month?” she asked.

  “Every six weeks. You get used to it,” Paulette said as she finished rinsing the bleach from Denise’s hair. “Done. You can get your head out of the sink.”

  Lifting her head with the care she’d use lifting a bowling ball with a soda straw, Denise straightened in the chair while Paulette wrapped a towel around her head.

  “You’re going to be beautiful as a blonde,” she said, disappearing into the bedroom.

  Denise wasn’t sure about that. There were other reasons she’d decided to bleach her hair tonight, reasons she chose not to share with Paulette—at least not yet.

  Paulette reappeared brandishing a blow-dryer.

  “As beautiful as you?” Denise teased.

  “Just exactly as beautiful,” Paulette said with a laugh.

  “Identical,” Denise said with an answering smile. She was teasing her twin sister, in fun. If the painful process of stripping the color from her hair had no other use, Denise still would have done it. Playing beautician, Paulette was relaxed, smiled more, even laughed. For a while she seemed to have forgotten the dark web they were weaving, some strands already destroyed forever, some yet to be spun. Denise felt the glow of awe she had experienced that first night as they sat in front of the mirror in the bedroom looking at themselves, at each other, at theirself.

  This was what it would be like all the time. Once they had a place of their own, safe in a warm part of the world, every night they would laugh and tease, watch movies and eat popcorn. That wasn’t part of Denise’s childhood, yet she’d done that sort of thing with Peter. At the time it must have been nice, but that recollection had been rotted and discolored by the times between then and now. As a memory, it was a corpse, and that corpse stank like carrion.

  Paulette plugged the blow-dryer into an outlet on the counter. Hot air blew over Denise’s neck, breathed past her right cheek and ear. She closed her eyes. Her sister was fixing her hair. Right out of one of those books she used to vandalize at the library when she was a kid. The happy family bullshit that infuriated her. Maybe it wasn’t fiction after all. Maybe all those Dick-and-Jane children’s authors weren’t lying through their teeth.

  The new Volvo was parked behind the shack. The back porch light was off. Still, it was a risk for Denise and Paulette to be together. The closer they got to endgame, the more dangerous it was to be seen in one another’s proximity. People didn’t remember much about random days. They remembered where they were when Kennedy was shot, what they were wearing when the World Trade Center towers came down, what they had for dinner before they’d gone to see The Dark Knight Rises in a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado. Denise didn’t want anyone popping out of the woodwork and saying, “Yeah. I saw Denise Castle and Paulette Duffy toge
ther right before the shit hit the fan. You know, they were real chummy. They even kind of looked alike.”

  Denise wanted to leave Maine unremarked and unremembered. She wanted Paulette to drift out of the minds of the people who knew her the way perfume drifts out of a bottle. The best way to get away with murder is never to be suspected in the first place. Once law enforcement decides on a person of interest, they keep sticking their noses up that person’s ass if for no other reason than it makes it look like they’re doing something when they don’t know what the hell to do.

  Unfortunately, they had to be in the house; the bleach job required running water. That turned out to be a perk. Denise didn’t want Paulette going out past the Volvo and seeing all the things she had bought. Later, Paulette would be glad, grateful even, but it might be hard for her to understand at the moment. Besides, they were having fun! Good, clean family fun. Like a couple of Mormons, Denise thought, and was taken aback at her sourness.

  Having fun must be like a lot of things in life. To do it right required practice and training.

  Denise’s hair was dried. Paulette had set the electric rollers next to the sink and plugged them in. She insisted Denise wasn’t to look in a mirror until the process—she called it a “transformation”—was complete. After the transformation would be the “reveal.”

  Though she’d lost the thread of why they were happy, while the curlers heated, Denise went on pretending she was. Paulette rolled her hair as the television played a reality show where people made assholes of themselves and a laugh track, like Denise, pretended it was funny.

  Paulette combed out her hair and insisted on putting makeup on her. Feeling like a clown, Denise went on pretending. Maybe fun was like faith for alcoholics, fake it till you make it.

  Eyes closed, promising not to peek, she let Paulette lead her through the bedroom and into the bathroom.

  “The mirror’s smaller than the one on the bureau, but the light’s better,” Paulette said, excitement bubbling in her voice. “You can look now.”

  Denise opened her eyes, expecting to see hair like Paulette had, broken and dried out like an overused broom. Regardless of her decaying attitude, Denise was impressed by the reveal. In the mirror was a beautiful woman. Smooth, blond, gleaming hair waved down past her chin. Soft rose colored her cheeks. A darker hue made her lips look fuller, younger. Mascara rimmed her eyes, turning the muddy hazel to dark green.

  For a long, long moment Denise didn’t know who she was looking at. She knew she was in the body of the person reflected in the mirror, but that face, that hair, those lips had no connection whatsoever with Denise Castle, dour and green and gray to the shattered remnants of her soul.

  “Do you like it?” Paulette asked anxiously.

  Denise nodded. The beautiful blonde in the mirror nodded.

  If she’d had Paulette five years ago, if she’d gone blond, curled her hair, worn makeup, would Peter have needed space? Would he have chucked her out? Fallen in love with Lily?

  “Doesn’t matter,” Denise snarled, and the plump pink lips in the mirror snarled with her.

  “You hate it!” Paulette cried. Over her shoulder, reflected in the glass, Denise saw her sister’s eyes fill with tears, her open happy-face curl into a pained wad.

  “No. I love it. I was thinking of something else.” Denise tried to undo the damage, but the moment had gone.

  Though she primped and complimented her own reflection over and over, Paulette wouldn’t cheer up. Denise was never so glad to see the back of anyone as she was to see the last of the pink scrubs disappear out the front door when Paulette left for work at seven forty-five.

  “I’ll lock up,” Denise promised from where she sat on the sagging dirty couch. “I just want to finish this episode of…” Denise had no idea which show was on. Assholes. That was what was on. Fortunately, Paulette was more intent on leaving the dudgeon than she was on what Denise was saying.

  The moment Denise could no longer hear the burr of the Duffys’ pickup truck on the asphalt, she leapt to her feet.

  She worked quickly, not because she was afraid Paulette might come back for some reason but because she wanted to get out of that house, out of the room where she’d killed Kurt, and away from the ammonia fumes of her new persona.

  Under the bed, she found a suitcase. Rummaging through drawers with the insensitivity of a hardened burglar, she grabbed what she thought Paulette would need. One suitcase would have to be enough. What Paulette had was cheap and tired. They would both buy new wardrobes once they were settled. Cosmetics, shampoo—all the gooey stuff—they could pick up on the road.

  Suitcase slammed shut and zipped, Denise snatched a set of scrubs and a pair of Crocs out of the closet. Stopping, she looked around the room. This was the last time she would see it. If things went as planned, Paulette would never see it again.

  On the back porch, suitcase in hand, scrubs over her shoulder, Denise stopped again. Turning back, she stared at the weathered wood on the side of the house, the torn screen door, the peeling paint of the trim. Too bad a fire would call attention to the place. But for that, she might have thrown a match into the tinderbox.

  Given her mood, if she could have, she might have burned down the world.

  FORTY-TWO

  Cybercreep had mandated a night meeting. Because it was the height of the season, bars, cafés, and many shops were open until eight or later. Cecelia’s Coffee Shop was open until nine thirty. The cybercreep said they needed to be there at nine.

  Everything about the time bothered Heath.

  Poor little creep probably was hoping for darkness, she thought. Too bad the sun wouldn’t set until nearly ten o’clock. That failed to comfort her. Dusk was probably worse. Often it was harder to see at dusk than it was in the middle of the night. Dusk was like a gray fog; normal shapes fooled the eye, strange shapes appeared familiar.

  Of course, Bar Harbor would be lit up for the tourists.

  Light was probably worse than dusk. Light meant shadows. Black shadows under docks, between boats floating in black water.

  Everything about the place bothered Heath.

  Why not midnight in a haunted house, or in the deep dark of the forests? Anna said the lonelier the place, the easier it was to spot the bad guy coming, to see where he parked, to hide in place until the appointed hour. In towns there were crowds; plenty of people that wouldn’t be him, and only one son of a bitch who would. Hard to tell the good guys from the bad guy.

  Meeting in town probably meant that he wasn’t planning on kidnapping E. That, too, bothered Heath. Since it was almost a guarantee he meant Elizabeth no good, if he didn’t intend to take her, then he must intend to harm her. An attack in town would be sudden, like a lightning bolt from a cloud of tourists, all but one of whom were innocent. A gunshot? A head shot? Heath shuddered at the image and gasped.

  “You okay, Mom?” E asked. They were just rounding Bald Porcupine Island. E was seated beside Heath in the stern of John’s boat as it turned toward the dock at Bar Harbor. They were holding each other’s hands, leaning close to be heard over the noise of the engine. Gwen was at the console with John.

  “Never better,” Heath muttered. “Never better.”

  “Would it cheer you up if I told you that you look like a whale that got spray-painted at a ‘Back to the Sixties’ party?” “Elizabeth asked.

  Heath stared down at her lap. She was wearing Dem Bones beneath a riotously colored maxiskirt. Over that was a long fuchsia tunic with turquoise embroidery down the front that Anna had picked up at the thrift store where she bought the skirt. Heath’s punishment for insisting on being part of the festivities. Sunglasses were out since Cybercreep had opted for night ops, but she wore a moderately battered purple sun hat with a wide brim. All in all she was, if not a perfect picture, at least a pretty good likeness of an overweight tourist with a good heart and bad taste.

  If the pervert did recognize her, she would never forgive him.

  He won’t,
she told herself, as she had insisted to Anna. For the past seven years—all of her life with Elizabeth—anyone who knew her knew her in a wheelchair. Many never saw past the wheelchair. Upright, walking, even with canes, was the ultimate disguise. Heath Jarrod was “the lady in the wheelchair,” not “the fat lady hobbling down the sidewalk.”

  “And you look like a fourteen-year-old boy,” Heath teased her daughter.

  Elizabeth smoothed her palm down the flat front of her shirt, her breasts squashed beneath the Kevlar. “This thing is more uncomfortable than a bra. I’m surprised Anna wears one.”

  “I don’t think Anna’s worn a bra since she burned her last one in 1971,” Heath said.

  “The bulletproof vest,” E said with exaggerated patience. Heath had known what she meant; she’d just wanted to make herself think things were a joking matter when they weren’t.

  “Regulations,” Heath said. “Otherwise, I expect she wouldn’t.”

  “Will she have somebody else’s tonight?” E asked. “I hadn’t thought about that. If I have hers, will she be, like, vulnerable and stuff?”

  “Anna can take care of herself,” Heath said. As the words came out of her mouth she remembered Anna tied to the lift, naked, unconscious, and covered in blood.

  As if her mind were running along the same channels, Elizabeth said, “Anna isn’t getting any younger.”

  “Older is tougher, like beef and redwoods,” Heath said.

  “Do you know where she’ll be?”

  “No. Not exactly. She’s sort of wandering the general area. But she’ll be close.”

  Cybercreep had insisted Elizabeth come alone. Unless he was a total idiot, he had to know that there would be watchers, that this was a trap as much for him as for E. He must be gambling that no one would dare be too close, that he would have space to do whatever it was he wanted to do, then get away before they could catch him.

  “Maybe he just wants to talk,” Elizabeth said.