Chapter 7.

7.

When I left the trailer, Brody noticed I was limping—my lower back was still aching and messing up my entire gait—and he suggested I follow their access road out to the highway. “No offense,” he said, “but you don’t look like you’re in any shape to climb out the gorge.”

I took his suggestion. The route was long and quite a bit out of my way, and I didn’t make it back to Mom and Dad’s Restaurant until nearly two o’clock. I was backing out of my parking space when the door to the restaurant opened and my friend the bartender stepped outside. He recognized my Jeep, then squinted at me through the windshield and gave me a puzzled wave. I waved back, grateful to be in motion, so I wouldn’t have to stop and explain why I’d parked there.

Back at Osprey Cove, there were a half dozen cars waiting to enter the camp—a long line of new guests arriving for the wedding. The security team was stopping every vehicle to check IDs and collect signatures, so I settled in for a long wait. But then Hugo recognized me and came trotting over, insisting that I get out of my Jeep. “Margaret’s been asking for you. It’s her big weekend and you should be with your daughter. Not waiting for my team to do their job.”

He was already opening my door, so I couldn’t refuse him. “Thank you, Hugo. I appreciate it.”

“No problem, Mr. Szatowski. Did you find what you needed in town?”

I realized I was empty-handed, that I hadn’t brought back any kind of bag. And from the way Hugo smiled, I think he knew he’d caught me in a lie.

“I found more than I expected,” I told him. “Has there been any news on the girl?”

“What girl?”

I couldn’t believe he had to ask.

“The dead one. Gwendolyn.”

“Oh, no, sir, I don’t think we’ll hear anything until next week.” Then he lowered his voice. “But since you are family, I will share some confidential information. The police found xylazine in her suitcase. You’re probably not familiar with the name but it’s a deplorable drug. Much more dangerous than heroin or even fentanyl. Some kind of animal tranquilizer used by farmers. But for the girl’s sake, Mr. Gardner wants to keep that information private.”

I turned over my keys and followed Main Street back inside the camp. Now that the guests were arriving in force, Osprey Cove had taken on a whole new level of energy. The landscapers and housekeepers had moved out of sight, and all that remained were the fruits of their labors—trees and flower beds popping with color, well-swept walkways, and immaculately clean cottages. Guests were everywhere—unpacking their cars, swinging in hammocks, whipping Frisbees, and greeting friends with hugs and high fives. It seemed like cocktail hour was already underway because everyone was holding a wineglass or plastic cup. No one seemed to be acknowledging that a woman had died here, that a body was found with two curious bruises and an investigation was still pending.

I was passing a cottage nicknamed Woodpecker when a young woman came bounding down the steps, waving to me. “Mr. Szatowski! It’s Minh! From Babson College!” She threw her arms open wide, revealing a Babson College sweatshirt. “Do you remember me?”

Of course I remembered her. Minh and Maggie were roommates all four years of college. They’d been randomly matched by a computer but grew into close friends and joined the same sorority. She’d always struck me as a sweet girl and a loyal friend, and I was thrilled to finally reconnect with a person from Maggie’s past. She greeted me with a hug, and I thanked her for coming.

“Well, if you think I’d miss this wedding, you don’t remember me very well. I can’t believe the size of this place!”

She explained that she was recently married herself and waved over her new husband, Brian. If you told me he was still in high school, I would have believed you. He had bright eyes and an impish smile, and he seemed completely enamored of his new wife; I noticed that he reached for her hand in a gesture that seemed reflexive. They’d been married a little over a year but still looked and sounded like giddy lovebirds on their honeymoon.

“It’s a funny thing, Mr. Szatowski. I was just telling Brian about Babson College and all those lousy admins ready to throw Maggie under the bus. They were all so mean to her, do you remember? But I’m making a prediction. After this weekend, I bet all those same deans and provosts will be knocking on her door and asking for donations. And I hope Maggie tells them to go to hell!”

She laughed at her own joke, but I had trouble seeing the humor in the subject. I told her I didn’t really like to think about it.

“Well, I promise Babson has already forgotten. Their Annual Giving office has a very short memory. She’ll make the cover of their alumni magazine before she turns thirty, I guarantee it.”

One of the biggest regrets of my life was sending Maggie out of state for college. You have to remember that I joined the US Army right out of high school, so when it came time to file Maggie’s applications, we were both flying blind. I wanted my daughter to go to Penn State, so she’d be close by in the event of an emergency. But Maggie argued that Nittany Lions were a dime a dozen. She said she needed to attend a more prestigious school to have a competitive advantage, and she quickly identified Babson as a “feeder school” to Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Bank of America, and other Fortune 500 companies. The tuition was ridiculous but I could afford it, and I wanted her to have every advantage that money could buy.

Her grades were fantastic, all straight As, and she rushed the college’s most popular sorority for business majors, which exposed her to a vast network of professional contacts. The problems started halfway through Maggie’s senior year, when a sister named Jessica Sweeney got in trouble for selling test answers. She was dragged in front of the Board of Academic Integrity, and instead of taking responsibility like a mature adult, she tried to pin all the blame on Maggie. Claiming that Maggie was the real mastermind of the operation and Jessica was merely an assistant. Most of the sisters united behind Maggie but two insisted that Jessica was telling the truth, and the rest of the semester was an all-out civil war, with accusations and threats flying back and forth. Maggie called me crying every night. I’d never heard her sound so frightened and hopeless and terrified—and I was three states away, unable to help. I begged her to talk to a therapist, and I hired her a lawyer to help sort everything out. In the end, my daughter was completely exonerated, and Jessica Sweeney left the school in disgrace. But the experience ruined college for Maggie, and she refused to walk at her own graduation ceremony.

“I’m sorry she had to go through all that,” Minh said, “but do you know something? I think the experience made her stronger. I bet no one messes with her anymore.”

I wasn’t so sure about this last part. In fact, after hearing Linda Taggart’s story, I was more certain than ever that Maggie was being played, and she was going to need my help to make things right. I told Minh and Brian that I would see them at dinner, and then I walked down to Osprey Lodge in search of my daughter.

The catering team was already hard at work on the main lawn, assembling twice as many tables and chairs as they’d brought the night before. And now the beach was full of sunbathers—beautiful young people with bronzed skin sprawled out on lounge chairs, scrolling through their phones and sipping on pi?a coladas. There were more of them out in the water, swimming and paddleboarding and kayaking in the cove. I moved just close enough to make sure none of them was Maggie, then followed the path around the lake until I was back at my cottage.

“There you are!” Tammy exclaimed. “Where the heck have you been?” She and Abigail were sipping iced tea on the porch. Their faces were slightly pink with sunburn, as if they’d spent the whole afternoon outdoors.

“I had to run to the drugstore.”

“Why?” Tammy asked.

“It doesn’t matter. What did I miss?”

According to my sister, they had been enjoying the most wonderful afternoon. First they all hiked to the top of Cormorant Point, where the views were “glorious” and the lunch was “exquisite” (“Best potato salad I’ve ever tasted,” Tammy said, before miming a chef’s kiss). Then Errol Gardner himself took them out on the lake in his speedboat so that Abigail could learn how to water-ski. “Maggie came, too, and we had a wonderful time.”

Abigail seemed a little less enthused. “I wanted to canoe,” she explained. “But Errol said water-skiing was funner, so that’s what we did.”

“And I haven’t even told you the best part,” Tammy continued. “After we came off the lake, Errol said he had something for me.” She lowered her voice. “Like a kind of wedding gift. Because I played such a big role in bringing up Maggie.” And only then did I realize my sister was holding a thick sheaf of papers in her lap. They were bound in a navy blue folder embossed with gold foil letters, like something you’d receive from a bank. “This is one thousand shares of Capaciti stock. In my own private brokerage account that Gerry set up for me. He’s going to wire the transfer on Monday, after we’re back in Stroudsburg. Isn’t that the most generous thing you’ve ever heard of?”

Last time I checked, Capaciti stock was trading for $262 per share. The gift was more money than my sister earned in the last five years combined.

“And don’t hold me to this,” Tammy continued in a low whisper, “but I’m pretty sure you’re getting some, too.”

There was no time to elaborate because Maggie was emerging from our cottage with a glass of lemonade. “Dad! Where have you been?”

“I’m glad you’re here. Can I talk to you?”

“What is it this time?”

“In private,” I said. “I’m sorry, Maggie. I hate to ask you again but it’s really important.”

She seemed exasperated by the request but followed me down a path to the lake, anyway. I wanted to walk even farther, just to make sure Tammy and Abigail couldn’t hear us, but Maggie insisted we’d gone far enough. “We’re already miles from civilization,” she said. “What is this very urgent super-private thing we need to discuss?”

“You’re not going to like what I have to say. But I need you to promise to listen and really hear me, okay?”

She exhaled and then smiled, to show she was still keeping an open mind. “Yes, Dad. You have my complete attention. What is it?”

“I drove into town this afternoon. I met Dawn’s family.”

She opened her mouth to reply and nothing came out. The news had left her speechless.

“I wanted to hear their side of the story. You told me they were crazy, but I don’t think they are. I think they’re telling the truth.”

She stepped closer to the lake, putting some extra distance between us. She seemed ready to jump in the water and start swimming. “Please tell me you’re joking, Dad. Please don’t say you went to meet them the day before my wedding ?”

“I think you should hear Linda’s story. She wasn’t drunk and she’s not crazy. Something bad happened here.”

All my language seemed to wound her. She was gesturing wildly with her hands, like she was trying to shield herself from my nonsense. “Dad, if I knew you were going to do this, I never would have invited you here. You’re making me wish I never called you. Why can’t we just have a nice weekend?”

I told Maggie the basics of what Linda Taggart had told me: how she’d traced her daughter’s journey to Osprey Cove using the GPS app on her smartphone—monitoring her activity at the camp until the blue dot disappeared. “How do you explain that, Maggie?”

“The explanation is: She’s lying! She’s making it up!”

“No, Maggie, I think you’re lying.” She gaped at me like she’d been slapped, but there was no turning back now. “I think you love Aidan very much, and you want to protect him, so you lied to the police and told them that he spent the weekend in your apartment. And maybe everyone here believes you, but I’m your father and I know how to read your cues. I have never believed this story. You’re hiding something.”

“That’s a great thing to hear, Dad. Thanks for sharing that with me. But now let me ask you: What secret do you think I’m hiding? Is Aidan a serial killer? Is he murdering women at Osprey Cove? Oh my God: Did he murder Gwendolyn, too? Is that what you think? Have I fallen in love with Jeffrey Dahmer?”

“I don’t know, Maggie. I don’t know what to believe.”

She screamed at me: “That was sarcasm! He’s not Jeffrey Dahmer! What the hell is wrong with you?”

I struggled to keep my voice from rising because I didn’t want to match her volume; I didn’t want to yell. “Maggie, you have to agree there is something very weird about this place. Just last night a woman died and now your coworkers are building sandcastles where her body washed up.”

“The police found drugs in her suitcase. Something called xylazine.”

“Yes, I heard that. But tell me something else: Have you seen Catherine Gardner yet? Has she come out of her locked room?”

“She’s sick! How many times do I have to say it?”

“And what about Aidan? Where is he? I haven’t seen him in twenty-four hours!”

“Here we go again—”

“I think you should take a pause, Maggie. Make sure you want to be on this train.”

“There are two hundred people at the camp right now. And another hundred coming tomorrow. The train’s already left the station.”

“No, it hasn’t. The train doesn’t leave until tomorrow. You still have time. Just look at all the question marks: Gwendolyn, his mother, the photo of Dawn Taggart—”

And then all of a sudden Maggie seemed to remember something, and all the tension drained from her body. She relaxed and started to laugh. And I was foolish enough to believe that maybe, maybe I had finally reached her.

“What’s so funny?”

“I just realized something,” Maggie said. “You were gone all afternoon, so you don’t know about the photo. The one you received in the mail. I wish I had it with me.”

As it turns out, I had a copy in my pocket. I’d asked Linda Taggart to print it before I left her house, and she’d run it off using the equipment in Dawn’s bedroom. I removed the sheet of paper from my back pocket and unfolded it.

“Gerry sent a scan to his office so his interns could analyze it. They have special software they can use to calculate the shadow length and whatnot. But turns out they didn’t need it. One of the interns spotted the flub right away.”

Maggie pointed to the photo of Aidan, looking fifteen pounds heavier and smiling with a lightness of spirit I’d never seen in person. I didn’t understand what I was supposed to be noticing.

“His hands,” Maggie said. “Look at his hands.”

His left arm seemed fine. It hung at his side and his left hand looked normal. His right arm was wrapped around Dawn’s waist, and he was resting his right hand on her hip. And I still didn’t see the problem so Maggie had to point me to it. “Look at his thumb,” she said. “Don’t you see it?”

And at last I realized what she meant.

His right thumb was on the wrong side.

In the photograph that Linda Taggart shared with me, Aidan Gardner was a man with two left hands.