Mike saw the disappointment in his mother’s eyes when he clicked End on the call. “She didn’t pick up,” he said.
“She left for the police station almost two hours ago. I knew we should have gone with her.”
Melissa had been convinced that the police would be more likely to take the evidence about Charlie seriously if she could present it to them in person. “She’s a lawyer, Mom. And a good one. She has more credibility with them if she’s not bringing her mom and brother around in tow.”
“Except now she’s gone without a single update. For all we know, they arrested her.” She was swiping at her phone frantically. “We need to go to the police station and see what is happening there. I cannot believe they took your sister’s car.”
“Mom, what are you trying to do with your phone?”
“Get one of those Uber rides. Or I’ll call for a regular taxi. They must still have those here, right? Not every problem has to be solved with an iPhone.”
On any other day, he would have had a grand time ribbing his mother about this, and she would pretend to be insulted by his teasing while she laughed at every word. Instead, her rant about the cell phone triggered a memory of the conversation he and Melissa had as they were leaving the Cape.
He tapped his own phone screen.
“Are you getting a car?” his mother asked.
“I’m checking something. Melissa set our phones to share locations while we were driving here, but it might have expired by now.” A round circle with his sister’s photograph popped up on a road map. “No, it worked. I can see her, right here. She’s between us and the police station. She must be on her way home.”
“Oh, what a relief. The idea of her being arrested. I don’t think I could handle it. Can you show me how that works? I want to see for myself where she is.”
He explained that Melissa had insisted that the two of them share locations in case they got separated on the drive to the cottage. “With everything that’s been going on, neither one of us thought to turn off the tracking.”
“Thank goodness for that,” she said, squinting at the screen. “Okay, I see her. And where are we?”
He zoomed the map out until she was able to pinpoint the location of the cottage. “Oh, yes, she is quite close, isn’t she?”
They both watched the screen together, entranced by the real-time movement of the little circle containing Melissa’s photograph. The welcomed moment of mental calm was broken as the dot continued south past the expected turn toward the cottage.
“Is that working right?” his mother asked. “She’s driving too far. Where is she going now?”
He forced himself to stop watching the screen to call Melissa. There was no answer. When he pulled up the map again, she had made her way all the way down to the beach and was heading west again. According to the map, she was on the sole road that ran through a narrow strip of land with ocean beaches to the south and Shinnecock Bay to the north. The road dead-ended at a park that fronted an inlet. He could not imagine any reason why his sister would be going there.
“I need to go find her,” he said. It was too far to try to run after her on foot. His mother was making a phone call. “A cab’s going to take forever out here in the summer.”
His mother held up a finger as she waited for an answer. “Patrick, it’s Nancy Eldredge. Where are you?”