Chapter 4.

4.

“I think we can all agree she looked like trouble.”

News of Gwendolyn’s death must have traveled quickly because by the time I caught up with Tammy, she’d already formed strong opinions on the subject.

“I saw her last night in the buffet line and my first thought was, This kid’s an addict . She had that glassy-eyed malnourished look they all get. Plus she barely took any food. Just green beans and corn and a little rice. What does that tell you?”

“She was vegetarian?”

“She was trouble, Frankie. With a capital T that rhymes with D and that stands for drugs .”

I’d found Tammy and Abigail in the shade of Big Ben, the largest and oldest tree on the property, first planted (if you believed the plaque) by Union Army war hero Benjamin Butler in 1853. There were two wooden swings hanging from the lowest bough, but Abigail had ignored them and climbed up into the tree. Now she was high off the ground and reaching blindly into a knothole. I warned her that some animal living inside the tree was probably on the verge of biting her fingers, but she just ignored me and reached even deeper.

“I don’t think Gwendolyn was an addict,” I said. “I talked to her last night. She seemed perfectly sober.”

“These people do a good job of hiding it, Frankie. Trust me. A lot of my birth parents are addicts and they’re pretty good fakers. But if you know the warning signs, you can spot them.” She sighed. “I just hope this doesn’t impact the wedding. Do you think they’ll postpone it?”

“They have to. The police are here. They’re going to interview everyone at the camp. It’ll cast a shadow over the entire weekend.”

Something struck the back of my neck and I turned to see Abigail’s sneaker swinging past my face. She had returned to the lowest limb and now she was stuck. “Mister Frank, I need help.”

Even with both of my arms fully extended, I couldn’t reach higher than her knees. “You have to jump.”

She shook her head. “I can’t.”

“I’ll catch you.”

“No, no, no—”

“Just scooch your butt off the branch. Don’t worry, Abigail. I promise I’ll grab you. I will not let you fall.”

Her lower lip was trembling, like she was going to cry. It was like her freak-out with the spiders all over again.

“I think we should ask for a ladder,” Tammy said. “I can dial zero on the house phone.”

I turned to look at her. “We don’t need a ladder, Tammy. I can fix this. All she has to do is jump.”

My sister’s eyes widened in alarm and then seventy pounds of Abigail came crashing onto my shoulders. I fell to my knees, my palms slammed into the dirt, and something awful popped in my lower vertebrae. Like a muscle snapped in half.

“Abigail!” Tammy said.

I closed my eyes, gritted my teeth, and whispered a string of profanities. Abigail rolled off me and stood up and showed Tammy a thin red scratch on her wrist. “It burns,” she whispered.

Tammy swept her up off the ground. “You’re going to be okay, potato bug. I’ve got cortisone in my purse. Let’s go back to the cottage and we’ll get you fixed up.” At last she noticed I wasn’t moving. “Are you okay, Frankie?”

I said, “I’m fine,” because I just wanted them to leave. Rolling onto my side made the pain slightly more bearable, but standing up was impossible.

In my line of work, there is nothing more dangerous than a back injury. You can lose an eye and still get behind the wheel, and I know drivers who have powered through arthritis, knee pain, and carpal tunnel syndrome. But there is no way you’re hauling flat-screen TVs with a busted back. I was terrified that Abigail had left me unemployable, that I’d be forced to go out on disability, which was the worst thing I could imagine.

But after a short rest in the grass I managed to sit up, and then I slowly coaxed myself into a standing position. If it had been any other weekend, I would have gone straight to bed with two Tylenol and an ice pack. Instead I limped back to Osprey Lodge to find my daughter and see how her fiancé was coping with the news.