Teddy wished an angel would come and take him away from there. He’d seen it on television, a beautiful angel who came down from Heaven and took people away. He didn’t like this place anymore. He was cold and wet and alone.
There were things in the water, things he couldn’t see. Something like a snake had grabbed his foot as he’d tried to swim. But he’d gotten away and reached the trees. These trees grew right out of that brown water, without even having dirt to grow out of. He could walk on the branches that came out of the water like funny-looking legs. He could sit on some of the bigger ones, but it was hard to sleep on them.
The old woman had called him, but he kept climbing through the branches until he couldn’t hear or see her anymore. Only then did he feel safe. Except he’d left his buttons behind. He missed them.
The worst was the night. He could hear sounds, but he couldn’t see anything. Sometimes he heard a loud sound that made birds fly away. It scared him, so he’d crouch down and hide.
The birds made him feel better. The pink ones came back and watched him. He’d focus on them and not move a single muscle. They would forget about him after a while and go on looking for things in the water. They weren’t afraid of the water. He saw them put their faces into the water and sometimes they pulled out a wiggly little fish..
It reminded him of something. That hole feeling in his tummy, that’s what. But he didn’t know how to ask for things. Sometimes he tried, but no one seemed to understand him. So he got it himself. Mommy didn’t always like that. What he wouldn’t give for some Cocoa Puffs.
He wrapped his arms around himself and whispered, “Are you hungry?”
The birds flew away.
He watched the boat where the old woman was. He was going to wait until he hadn’t heard her in a while, until she took a nap. Maybe if he was really, really quiet, he could swim over and climb up on the engine and steal the box of cereal. And maybe his buttons, too.
Anne Dodson hated days like these. She knew she was supposed to be doing something — something important. But she couldn’t remember what. Dammit, why couldn’t she remember?
She wished she were back in her room at the home. The nurses there reminded her if she forgot to do something. Anne, have you brushed your teeth yet? Or Anne, it’s time for dinner. Come on, I’ll walk with you to the dining room.
Now there was no one. Wanda had done this, taken her from the safety of her home. Anne just couldn’t remember why. It seemed like a good reason at the time, but that reason remained elusive in her few remaining memory cells. It was so very frustrating.
She hated days like these.
She closed her eyes and tried to remember. Wanda had been a young child. She did remember that much, the child running away, falling overboard. Her eyes opened. My gosh, her child had fallen overboard!
She started calling Wanda’s name, but there wasn’t any response. And no one around to help look either. How had she ended up here, in the middle of nowhere on a boat? Maybe she could call someone. She searched for the phone, trying to remember who she could call. Tried to remember a phone number, any number. Used to be she could remember the phone number for every place she’d lived.
What was she looking for, anyway?
She couldn’t remember, but she knew she had to get out of there and get some help. There had to be keys somewhere. Maybe that’s what she’d been looking for. Yes, that made sense.
Stay focused, Annie. We have to find Wanda. Keys first, then Wanda. Keys, Wanda, keys, Wanda.
There was so much junk everywhere. Why had she kept all this stuff?
Keys. Keys.
She found them in an old bait bucket. They were on an orange and white float key ring. Remember how to drive, Annie. Key in the ignition, turn. We can do this.
It was almost dark when she put the boat into gear. It went backward, ramming into some mangroves, the propeller making a horrible sound as it hit the roots. Anne pushed the lever forward, and the boat jerked forward. Finally she got it turned around and headed … somewhere. Neither way looked right, but she had to choose. She couldn’t just sit there waiting anymore, waiting for something she couldn’t remember.
It was almost dark. She was usually in her bed by now watching television. One of the nurses always came to bring her to her room in the evenings. Anne often got involved in a game of Parcheesi and lost track of the time. Sometimes she lost track of the game too.
But she couldn’t lose track of her mission. Her mission. She held onto the steering wheel and tried to remember: what was her mission?
She hated days like these.
Later in the afternoon Chloe ventured into town. Although the temperature was in the eighties that day, the social temperature had cooled considerably. She’d hurt one of Lilithdale’s own, and never had she felt so out of place before. Margo made a snide comment to her friend about keeping secrets. Gerri gave her a sympathetic look, but ducked into the hotel office without saying anything. That huge hole inside her grew larger.
“Hey, hon,” Nita said. “How you doing?”
Chloe could only shrug. At least Nita had smiled at her. Just that seed of kindness had tears nearly bursting out of Chloe’s eyes. She handed Nita the stack of balanced accounting books and started to leave.
“I just want you to know that I’m not taking sides. I know you didn’t mean to hurt Lena. This’ll all die down and everything will go back to normal again.”
“I hope so,” Chloe managed to say in a thick voice. Would it be normal again? Would she ever feel even marginally part of Lilithdale?
She stopped by Tabitha’s Goods and picked up some milk and eggs. And, curiously enough, a box of Cocoa Puffs. For reasons she couldn’t begin to fathom, she had a sudden taste for the chocolate cereal. Afterward she found herself outside the Total Balance Women’s Center. Marilee was talking to some outsider. Another outsider, Chloe thought miserably.
“She ain’t interested in talking to anybody,” Marilee was saying. “Go make up some story about someone else, would you?”
“I’m the one you want to talk to. I’m Chloe Samms.”
The woman glanced down at her notepad. “You’re the one who actually found the boy, right?”
“Yes. We were looking for another boy. Teddy McKain’s been missing since–”
“That story’s already been covered. What I’m after is Lena Stone’s story. Why she disappeared years ago, if she’s had any other visions over the years. I’m after the human-interest angle. I’ll bet you can help me, though.”
Chloe glanced over at Marilee, who was waiting to see what she’d say. “Teddy McKain’s three years old, with brown, curly hair. He has autism —”
“No, no, I’m here to get Lena’s story.”
“Teddy is the story.”
The reporter slipped her recorder into her pocket and walked away. Marilee gave her an approving nod before disappearing inside the Center. Chloe looked at the stained-glass doors and for the first time didn’t feel welcome to go inside as the sign implied.
She returned to her refuge, had a bowl of Cocoa Puffs, and headed out in her canoe with Shakespeare. She paddled in the other direction this time, but found nothing. Why did the nagging feeling that Teddy was nearby persist?
Seeing the occasional coconut floating like a head in the water gave her heart a jump. So did the sweater. She fished it out, hoping it might be a little boy’s. It was too big, though. It had someone’s name written on the tag, but it was too faded to read. There weren’t any buttons on it, so it was probably a discarded piece of clothing. She tossed it on the floor of her canoe.
It felt as though she’d searched the entire area. Were the dreams and feelings that he was nearby only her imagination? Heck, maybe the whole near-death experience had been in her head.
That kind of thing seemed to run in the family.
Just before dark she spotted the old houseboat heading to a new location. It was covered with junk the owner obviously considered personal treasures. He moved around occasionally to keep the marine police from hassling him. She figured he was harmless, though he gave her the creeps anyway. Still, she waved her paddles and hollered, “Yoo hoo!” Maybe he’d seen something suspicious. Most likely he hadn’t even heard about Teddy’s disappearance.
The boat was only putzing along with its small engine. She put all her energy into paddling as fast as she could to catch up to him. The windows in the back part of the cabin were covered with old newspapers for privacy. From the side she could barely make out the old man at the wheel. He didn’t even glance her way, and finally even his little motor outpaced her.
Still drifting with her momentum, she leaned back and yelled, “Teddy! Please come home!”
Dylan spent the rest of the morning distributing fliers. Doing it alone wasn’t as productive as it had been when he and Chloe had been a team. He couldn’t help smiling at the memory of her asking if they were a team. Like it meant something.
His smile faded. It had meant something to her.
A lot of things meant something to her. She was passionate, involved. She always took a moment to savor things, like a sunset or a great blue heron stalking prey. Even when they’d been focused on finding Teddy, she’d taken a moment to appreciate things.
It wasn’t something he’d been good at, taking time to notice and enjoy things. Now, as he drove around town, he found himself doing just that. If he hadn’t been looking, he probably wouldn’t have noticed the eagle soaring just above a busy intersection. He sat at the light and watched it gracefully dip and soar, tilting from side to side. Until some idiot behind him slammed on the horn.
Camilla called on the cell phone. “How did the lie detector test go?”
“Fine.” Well, almost fine. Dylan had swallowed what felt like a cotton ball and waited for Yochem to elaborate on what lie the machine thought it had picked up.
“You told the operator you weren’t romantically involved with Chloe Samms. It looks like you’re more involved than you want to admit. Maybe even to yourself.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” Camilla said, bringing him out of his thoughts. “I knew the test would be okay, of course, but you never can tell with those things. Jackie Gardener from your mother-in-law’s nursing home just called.”
Dylan took the number. “Thanks. I’m not far from there so I’ll stop by.”
“I thought you might be interested in this,” Jackie said fifteen minutes later. “Anne doesn’t get mail, ever, which is why I thought it strange that she received this out of the blue.”
The envelope was postmarked from Vermont. Dylan ripped it open, figuring it was probably from one of her girlhood pals. It wasn’t. It was the title for a 1980 houseboat, along with a letter from a Margie Grace apologizing for taking so long to send the title for her father’s boat.
“Does it mean anything?” she asked.
“Patients aren’t allowed to make large purchases, are they? Such as a boat?”
“No, sir. Not that they couldn’t, if they did it on an outing. But most don’t have access to money.”
But Wanda did. He gripped the grimy title that was signed over to Anne. And then, to his surprise, he touched her arm. “Thanks for calling me about this.”
He ran out to his car and nearly fishtailed out of the parking lot in his hurry to leave. Anne might not have a reason to buy a boat. But Wanda had a reason to buy one and put it in her mother’s name. She’d taken Teddy and Anne somewhere on that boat. To an island maybe. Perhaps one of those vacation cottages that dotted Keewayden Island. Maybe Wanda had broken into one and stashed Anne and Teddy there.
When he had Margie Grace on the phone, he asked if she’d sold her boat to his wife.
“Let’s see. I think her name was Wanda, yes. But we made the sale to a … what was it? Oh, Anne Dodson.”
Dylan felt his heart fall right out of his chest.
“I never personally met either woman. You see, my father had been living on his ramshackle houseboat for God-knows how long. He’s always been a bit … eccentric, shall we say? I haven’t talked to him in years, so I didn’t realize he’d actually been living on that old boat. When he got ill, I went down. He told me where the boat was and that I could have it. Whoopie-do, a piece of junk. He died a few days later. I cleared out his personal effects, found a place that would let me dock it until someone bought it, and advertised it in the paper. I guess your wife saw something in it, because she bought it. She sent me cash, and once I found the title in all of his junk, I sent it to her. Is there a problem with the boat? I did sell it to her as is.”
“Where was the boat docked?”
“An empty lot near Bayshore Drive. They’d built a dock and never did build the house, I guess.” She gave him the East Naples address.
“Can you describe the boat?”
“It’s old and junky, that’s all I can remember. And blue. My father said he’d been living around the backwater ways for years, moving around every once in a while so no one hassled him. Sad way to live, don’t you think? Hey, you there?”
Old and junky … he knew that boat! “That’s great. Thanks.”
He’d seen it around. Most everyone had over the years. No one probably even knew the guy was dead. Dylan called his friend Joe at London Helicopters and secured the use of his services.
And then he called Chloe. He didn’t even think about it, just dialed her number. Her answering machine picked up. “Hello, you know the drill. Leave your name and number, and puh-leeze speak clearly. Have a nice day!”
“Chloe, it’s me … Dylan. I know where they are. And you were right, he probably has been nearby all this time. I’ll let you know when I find him. I’m bringing Teddy home.”