Chapter 4.

4.

Maggie had suggested we arrive at twelve-thirty for lunch, but we didn’t cross into New Hampshire until eleven o’clock, so I knew I had to pick up the pace. We followed Interstate 93 through the lakes region and then exited onto a smaller, two-lane highway. The road passed through long beautiful stretches of forest—miles of white pines, red maples, and hemlock trees—interrupted every ten minutes or so by a town. Gas stations, sports bars, vape shops, bait shops, and roadside produce stands. Many of the residents kept stacks of firewood on their front lawns, available for purchase on the honor system at five dollars a bundle.

Soon, the GPS said we were forty-five minutes from our destination. I was tired of driving and ready to stretch my legs. But also nervous about reaching Osprey Cove and grateful for the long miles still ahead. We passed a broken-down minivan on the shoulder of the road; its hood was popped open, venting white smoke, but there was no evidence of a driver or passengers. As if the occupants had simply vanished into thin air. It reminded me of the woman I’d seen on the news that morning, the lady wrapped in the emergency blanket who’d lost everything in a fire.

Tammy put a hand on my arm. “Don’t be nervous.”

“I’m not nervous.”

“You’re picking at your nails, Frankie. You only do that when you’re nervous.”

Fine, maybe I was a little nervous. For the past couple of months, the idea of meeting Errol and Catherine and their three hundred friends was an abstract concept—but now it was really happening and I felt unprepared.

“There was a fire on the news this morning,” I told her. “This woman’s house burned down to the foundation. She was standing in this pile of rubble and saying all these awful things.”

This is the worst day of my life.

A horrible, horrible day.

From this day forward, nothing will ever be the same.

“And the way she looked at the camera, I felt like she was talking to me. Like a kind of omen.”

“It’s called the pre-wedding jitters,” Tammy said, “and they’re totally normal. I’ve got them, too, Frankie. I’ve never been to a summer camp before. I have no idea how the sleeping arrangements will work. And I’m sure my hair won’t do well with all this humidity. But we just gotta show up and be ourselves. What’s the worst that can happen?”

My biggest fear was doing or saying something that would embarrass Maggie—something that would tarnish her special weekend and ruin our chances of reconciliation. I worried about fitting in, about making a good impression on her new friends and family. I worried about bringing a foster kid with crooked yellow teeth and head lice.

But then I glanced in the rearview mirror and saw that Abigail was waiting for me to explain myself.

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

“You’re going to be fine,” Tammy said. “Everybody loves the father of the bride. You’re an automatic VIP and you don’t even have to do anything. Just smile at your daughter and get a little misty-eyed.”

Right before twelve-thirty, we crested a large hill with a view of the surrounding countryside. The White Mountains were on the horizon, and there was a bright blue lake speckled with sailboats and kayaks and canoes. Then an old wooden sign welcomed us to the historic village of Hopps Ferry, established 1903. We passed a post office, a barbershop, and several vacant storefronts with dirty windows. FOR LEASE. FOR RENT. AVAILABLE NOW. Unlike the previous towns, this one had seen better days.

Tammy lowered her window to look around. “Can we stop for a bathroom?”

“We’re ten minutes away.”

“That’s why I want to stop. I don’t want to show up at their house and run to the toilet. It’s embarrassing.”

But all the stores looked empty. We passed a fire station advertising a Wednesday Night Ham and Bean Supper ( FREE FOR VETERANS; ALL OTHERS $6 ) and a shop repairing outboard motors, and then at last we arrived at a roadside restaurant with a porch full of rocking chairs and checkerboards. Like a Cracker Barrel but for real. The name of the place was Mom and Dad’s and the sign promised cold beer and fresh sandwiches. I pulled into the crowded parking lot and turned off my engine.

“Be right back,” Tammy said, and Abigail sprang from the back seat to follow her. I watched the two of them cross the parking lot, then got out to stretch my legs. I started toward the covered porch but noticed a man in one of the rocking chairs, and I thought better of the idea. I was feeling more nervous than ever, ten minutes away from meeting my new in-laws, and didn’t feel like chatting with strangers.

So instead I veered toward a bulletin board at the edge of the parking lot; it was papered with flyers and labeled COMMUNITY ANNOUNCEMENTS. There were advertisements for yard sales and used cars and babysitting services, for cheap deals on ink cartridge refills and baby furniture and in-house massage therapy. And way at the bottom, a flyer for a missing woman named Dawn Taggart. Age twenty-three, five foot four, 105 pounds, brown hair, brown eyes. Last seen November 3. There was a hundred-dollar award for any information related to her disappearance. The bottom half of the flyer had torn loose and rippled in the breeze. I pressed it flat so I could get a better look at her photograph, a close-cropped image of Dawn’s face. She looked proud, pretty, and defiant. The sort of girl who wouldn’t be taken without a fight.

I heard footsteps approaching and turned around. The man from the porch was descending the stairs. He was my age, fifty or fifty-five, dressed in jeans and a black T-shirt emblazoned with the American flag. With his free hand, he carried an open Coors Light tall boy with an orange PAID sticker affixed to the side.

“You seen her?”

I shook my head. “I’m not from here.”

“I could tell from your license plate. But you looked like you recognized her.”

“No, I’ve never seen her before.” Which was the truth, technically, since I’d never actually seen Dawn Taggart in the flesh. “Did you know her?”

“She’s my niece.”

“I’m sorry. That’s awful.”

“It’s a miscarriage of justice, is what it is.” He seemed ready to elaborate, then stopped and offered his hand. “Brody Taggart.”

“Frank.”

“What brings you to Hopps Ferry?”

I said I was traveling to a family get-together. I had the uneasy sense that telling him the full truth might not be a good idea.

“With your wife and son?”

“Actually, that’s my sister. And her foster daughter.”

Brody paused to reflect on this information, like it didn’t quite add up. “I guess these days you see all kinds of females. But Dawn here, my niece? She wore her hair long. Classic all-American girly girl. Never missed a chance to dress up, even if it was just for Burger King.”

Brody set down his tall boy and began rearranging the notices on the bulletin board. He ripped away outdated advertisements for church picnics and charity car washes, and then with trembling hands he moved Dawn’s flyer to the center of the board, where no one could possibly overlook it, and he tacked all four corners into place. He was clearly intoxicated and it wasn’t quite twelve-thirty.

“Back when this country functioned properly,” he continued, “you could handle this thing in an afternoon. You’d gather your friends and knock on some doors and get to the truth pretty fast. But these days you can’t count on anyone. There’s too much money changing hands. Lawyers and cops and soldiers of fortune. Everybody gets a piece of the action. Do you hear what I’m saying? These days, if you have enough money, you can get away with anything. You can take a beautiful, innocent girl and—” He snapped his fingers and then revealed his empty palm, like a magician vanishing a coin. “Poof! She’s gone.”

With a tiny jingle, the door to the restaurant opened and out came my sister and Abigail. They didn’t notice me until they were down the stairs—and then Tammy veered in my direction, excitedly waving a newspaper. “Frankie, oh my gosh, you are never going to believe this! Look what I found inside. I told them who I was? And why we were here? And they let me have it for free!”

She showed me a small local tabloid, sixteen flimsy black-and-white pages. The Hopps Ferry Messenger . And right on the front page was an engagement photograph of Maggie with my future son-in-law. The headline read “Aidan Gardner to Wed Margaret Szatowski.”

“Our little girl,” Tammy said. “All written up like she’s Meghan Markle. Can you believe it? And your name’s here, too, Frankie, look!”

“I’ll read it later, Tammy. We should go.”

I tried directing her toward the Jeep but it was already too late. Brody stepped in front of me, moving so close I could see the dandruff in his hair and the squiggly red blood vessels in his bloodshot eyes. “Wait, hold up, you know the Gardners?”

“We’ve never met them.”

“Please, Frankie, don’t be modest!” Tammy said. “We’re practically family!” She held up the newspaper so Brody could see for himself and directed his attention to a line in the third paragraph. “Listen to this: ‘The bride is the daughter of Frank Szatowski, a United States Army veteran and a twenty-six-year employee of the United Parcel Service.’”

Brody turned to me in disbelief.

“You’re letting your daughter marry Aidan Gardner? Are you out of your fucking mind?”

Abigail drew in her breath sharply. It couldn’t have been her first time hearing the word; I think she was just frightened, because the man sounded unhinged. I put my hand on her shoulder, lightly gesturing for her to move behind me.

“Do you know anything about this family? Do you know how much evil shit they’ve gotten away with?”

Tammy was completely bewildered. “Would someone please tell me what the heck is going on? Who are you? And what gives you the right to say all these awful things?”

Brody yanked the missing persons flyer from the bulletin board and shoved it into her face. “This is my niece. She got pregnant with Aidan Gardner’s baby and he killed her.”

“Pregnant?” Tammy asked.

The door to the restaurant opened and a large bearded man in a greasy white apron stepped onto the porch. “Leave those people alone, Brody. Let them be on their way.”

“It’s a free country,” Brody told him. “I can say whatever the hell I want.”

The man descended the stairs and began untying his apron. “Not in my parking lot you can’t. I want you off and I’m not going to ask you a second time, do you understand?”

Brody backed across the gravel while holding up both hands: Hey, take it easy, calm down . He was walking away but he refused to shut up. “You people have no idea what you’re getting yourselves into. You all think Aidan’s Mr. Wonderful. Everyone acts like he’s Prince Charming. But you’ve got to believe me: he’s the Prince of Fucking Darkness.”

“Enough, Brody—”

“Look at the flyer,” he told Tammy. “Look at my niece’s face. She went to the camp asking Aidan for help, for a little financial support, and that’s the last time any of us seen her. He killed her—”

“No—” Tammy said.

“—and buried her body at the camp. She’s somewhere on that property, I guarantee it.”

“Shut up, Brody. Stop talking.”

“Trust your instincts,” Brody said. “Deep down in your gut, you know something’s off with this kid. Something’s wrong. You can see the guilt in his eyes—”

A screech of brakes cut off the rest, and Brody turned in time to see the grille of a police cruiser bearing down on him. In his haste to walk away, he had inadvertently backed into the road. Amid clouds of gray smoke, the front bumper stopped within inches of Brody’s knees. He laughed like a maniac, like some kind of freakish miracle had just occurred. “You see, Frank? You see how fast they came? Less than a minute? When have you ever seen the police get anywhere in less than a minute?”

A uniformed officer opened his door and stepped out of the car. “What’s the problem here? Why are you walking into traffic?”

Brody kept backing up until he reached the far side of the highway and a long, wide grove of pine trees. “I’m warning you people. You have no idea what you’re getting yourselves into.”

The policeman advanced toward him and Brody finally turned his back on us, limping into the forest and then descending into a kind of valley until he vanished from sight. By this point, there were a handful of cars lined up behind the police cruiser, waiting to pass. The officer gave us a quick wave of apology before returning to his car and driving away.

Tammy was still staring into the woods, like she expected Brody to reemerge and continue his tirade. “What was that all about?”

“I’m sorry you had to hear all that,” the man in the apron said. “Brody’s kind of like our village idiot.”

“Where’s he going?”

“He lives down in the valley. With his sister. She’s got a trailer on Alpine Creek.”

Tammy was still holding the missing person flyer. I hadn’t told her about the photograph I’d received in the mail or my conversation with Maggie.

“Who’s Dawn Taggart?” she asked.

“Brody’s niece. I knew her a little bit. Nice girl. Very sweet. Last November she went hiking and never came back. They found her car twenty miles south of here, in a state forest. Terrible thing for the family. Absolute tragedy. I feel bad for them, I really do. But blaming Aidan for their misfortune is just plain wrong. No rational person thinks he had anything to do with it.”

“Well, of course he didn’t!” Tammy said.

“I’ll tell you the problem, ma’am. We got a couple bad apples in this town who like to blame the Gardners for everything. Too much traffic? Blame the Gardners. Too much rain? Not enough rain? Losing your hair? Raccoons in your trash cans? It’s all the Gardners’ fault. They have money, they must be responsible, right?” The man shook his head, as if human nature left him exhausted. “Meanwhile, they get zero credit for all the good things they’ve brought to our community. Like the new senior center. And the ice-skating rink. They built a new library at the elementary school. I could give you a whole list of places and people they’ve helped, myself included. If you ask me, Osprey Cove is the best thing that ever happened to this town.”

“Well, we completely agree,” Tammy said, and then she noticed Abigail leaning into her side and clutching her arm. Clearly the girl was shaken by everything she’d just witnessed. “Sweetie, listen to me. I want you to forget everything that bad man just said, okay?”

“Why?”

“Because he’s crazy. He’s not thinking straight. Aidan is a very, very sweet person and he would never hurt anyone.”

Abigail seemed unconvinced. She looked to the flyer in Tammy’s hand, to the photo of Dawn Taggart. “Then what happened to her? The girl who went missing?”

Tammy looked at the flyer in surprise, like she’d forgotten she was holding it. Then she crumpled it into a ball, suggesting that it wasn’t worth thinking about.

“They don’t know, sweetie. All we know for sure is that Aidan had nothing to do with it.”