Disappearance at Devil's Rock Read online

  “I’m sorry, Elizabeth. I really don’t know what to say. Can’t imagine. Um, you still there?”

  “Yeah, sorry, still here,” she says and then tells him about the police search expanding to other towns, malls, and the like. Dave asks if there is anything else. She tells him about going to some of those local towns herself and passing out fliers and how most people were friendly and helpful.

  He asks, “Is there anything else?” It’s the second time he said that.

  She asks if he saw that the sign at Split Rock had been vandalized to read Devils Rock. He hasn’t been out to the park yet because of his back, of course, but he heard the police were having a hard time keeping older kids from hanging out there and that they made a kind of shrine to Tommy.

  She says she heard a folk story about Eastman facing and then tricking the devil out at Split Rock.

  “Huh. Where’d you hear the story?”

  “From, um, Tommy?” She pauses and when Dave starts to fill in the gap for her, she talks over him. “Yeah, he, uh, he wrote a little about it in a diary of his.”

  “Lived here all my life but never heard anything about a Devil’s Rock. I’ll look into it. E-mail what he wrote about that story, okay? Anything else?”

  She can’t tell if his Anything else? is what a reporter is conditioned to ask and continue to ask until there’s nothing else to say. She’s worried that the expanded search and Devil’s Rock story isn’t enough for him. With the support group instructions still ringing in her ears, Elizabeth decides to tell Dave about Arnold.

  She says, “We just today found out that Tommy and his friends were hanging out at Borderland with an older boy earlier this summer.”

  “Older boy?”

  “Yeah. Or a guy, a man. A young man, in his early- to midtwenties, maybe. The boys don’t know his age for sure. They, uh, ran into him at the 7-Eleven in Five Corners and they—” she’s not sure how to describe what happened on that afternoon “—they hit it off, I guess.” She winces at the awkward-sounding phrase. “And then went to Borderland.” She stops there and isn’t going to tell him about the boys drinking beers with him. There is no way she will chance having Tommy painted as some early-teen alky and give the media and public a chance to conclude Oh, he’s just another troubled teen who should’ve known better, should’ve been taught better and turn up their rocks-in-glass-houses noses and give themselves permission to forget about Tommy forever. “We, um, don’t know who this guy is yet and we don’t know, obviously, if he has anything to do with, you know, the disappearance, but still, we—” she pauses again, aware that she’s making it sound like she’s Robin to the police’s Batman “—the police are looking into him. They’re looking into everything possible, you know.”

  “Okay. This is good.”

  Is it good? Seems like an oddly terrible thing to say. She hears him scribbling notes down. She can’t help but feel like she’s making a mistake or betraying a trust. Why shouldn’t that information get out there? It can only help. When his column hits, maybe other news outlets will come calling again with this new character added to the story.

  Dave says, “What else do you know about this guy? Can I have a name?”

  “I only know his first name and that’s it.”

  “Can I have it?”

  “No. I don’t think so. Not yet.”

  “You sure?”

  “I’m not sure about anything. I gotta go, Dave. Thank you for everything. Really.”

  “Hey, yeah, okay. Please. Least I can do. You call whenever, okay? I’m here and I don’t sleep.”

  “Me neither. Bye.”

  After she hangs up her phone rings almost instantaneously. It’s Allison. She says that according to Luis and Josh, Tommy may have communicated with Arnold via the Snapchat app. The detective admits she’s never contacted Snapchat before and isn’t sure how much they’ll be able to recover, given the app is famous for images and messages that disappear within ten seconds, but they are going to request any and all information they can get from Tommy’s account.

  Janice leaves late that afternoon, soon after Elizabeth gets off the phone with Allison. She says she has to go home, take care of a few errands, check in on her cats. Janice uses the phrase has to go as though there is no other choice. Yes, her neighbor Charles is watching the house, but her cat, Bear, will get mad and stop using the litter box if Janice is gone for too long and the other one, Moose, will refuse to eat or show her black-and-white face for days after Janice’s return. Mom is under no obligation to relocate to Ames for the duration of Tommy’s disappearance, and Elizabeth assures her that she has already been a huge, life-saving help. Janice promises to be back within a day or two, if not sooner, especially if there is news. Still, her leaving feels like an admission of defeat. Their little three-person vigil is as ineffectual as everything else that has been done in the ongoing search for Tommy.

  Elizabeth considers going out to a restaurant for dinner with Kate, but the idea of cleaning herself up and rousing Kate into doing the same, and then leaving the house and facing the public as their incomplete two instead of three is a Sisyphean task. Rousing Kate especially. Her earbuds are always in now, including when she sleeps. Short of video camera tech help, Kate doesn’t speak unless spoken to. Elizabeth has even resorted to communicating by text. Kate won’t eat, drink, or change her clothes without being harassed into doing so.

  Elizabeth defrosts a vegetarian lasagna that one of her coworkers made. With the meal prepared and the ceramic dish set in the middle of the table, Elizabeth regrets not going out. She could’ve driven down to Providence, which is only thirty minutes away. They could’ve had a nice meal on Federal Hill or maybe surround themselves with Brown University students and hipsters on Thayer Street. No one would’ve known who they are down there. Could she have really crossed state lines and be that far, both physically and metaphorically from wherever Tommy might be? Probably not, but it would’ve done both her and Kate some good. Their house is closing in on them.

  Elizabeth’s square of lasagna is cold in the middle. She stands up, taps Kate’s hand, and pantomimes taking out imaginary earbuds.

  Kate pulls out the earbuds and leaves her phone in a tangle of white wires next to her plate.

  Elizabeth: “Want your piece heated up a little more? Mine’s kinda cold.”

  Kate nods.

  She microwaves both pieces for too long. The cheese melts into scorching lava pools. A flash of irrational anger fills her, and she visualizes throwing the plates against the wall and seeing if the lasagna would stick.

  Elizabeth sighs, tells herself to get a grip, and grabs a damp dish towel from the top of the oven to use as a makeshift oven mitt. She slides Kate’s now-steaming plate back to her and says, “Um, if it’s still too cold, you let me know. Could still be frozen. Hard to tell.” Elizabeth smiles and tilts her head to peek under the curtain of Kate’s purple-streaked hair.

  Kate bites the inside of her cheeks like she did when she was really little and playing the you-can’t-make-me-laugh game. She sticks a fork in the bubbly cheese and says, “Looks frosty.”

  Elizabeth: “So. How are you doing? Dumb question, I know.”

  “Terrible.”

  “Me too.”

  “I know.”

  “You keeping in touch with Sam or any other friends?”

  “Yeah. Mostly Sam.”

  “Good.”

  “Can I ride my bike to her house tomorrow?”

  “Yeah, sure. I think that’s a great idea. Make sure you ask if it’s okay first, and not just show up.”

  “I will.”

  Elizabeth imagines a never-ending tomorrow with everyone gone and her wandering through the house like a ghost who doesn’t know she’s a ghost. She’ll need a plan. Stay busy. Make phone calls. Set up more Google alerts. Keep chatter going on the Facebook page and her support message board. She will not go into Tommy’s room. Maybe she’ll set aside an hour, run a bath, and let herself cry loudly.


  Elizabeth: “Been talking with anyone else?”

  Kate shrugs. “People.” She plucks a hair elastic from around her wrist and puts her hair into a ponytail. “Can I put, like, an ice cube on my lasagna?”

  “If you want. Sounds kind of gross.”

  Kate cuts a still-steaming wedge from her piece and takes a bite with her lips curled as far away from her teeth as they can go. “Ow!”

  “I know, I’m sorry. Here, cut it up and wait a minute or two.” Elizabeth slides Kate’s plate over and follows her own instructions, which have instead become a narration.

  “Mom.”

  “Almost done.”

  “I could’ve done that.”

  “I know.”

  “My tongue hurts.” Kate drops her head and sticks her tongue into her drink.

  “Classy.”

  “Is Nana coming back tomorrow?” She talks with her tongue still stuck out and dripping.

  “Ew, put that away, you’re making a mess.”

  Kate giggles.

  Elizabeth says, “I don’t know. Probably in a few days.”

  “Tell her she can bring Bear and Moose here. They can sleep in my room.”

  “I did. She’s afraid Bear would spray all over the place.”

  “Nah, he’d be fine.”

  “Nana said he sprayed like a hose the last time he was at someone else’s house.”

  “Bear likes me. He wouldn’t do that to our house.”

  “Yes he would.”

  “Nah.”

  “I know you love him, but he’s kind of an asshole.”

  “Mom!” Kate fakes shock and covers her ears. She leans to the side of her plate and plants her elbow on the table, holds up her suddenly moon-sized face with her fist and says with a smirk and without blinking, “All cats are assholes. It’s what makes them so cool.”

  “True. Watch your language, Miss Kate.”

  “You said it first.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “You like it when I swear.”

  “What? No I don’t.” She’s right, though. Elizabeth loves this smart-ass version of her daughter so much it breaks her heart, because it’s impossible that she can love equally all the versions of Kate to come.

  “You do. I can tell. Ass bum piss!” Kate giggles, covers her mouth with both hands, and her eyes go wide, daring Elizabeth to be mad at her.

  “What the bleep fuck is ass bleep piss?”

  That Elizabeth high-pitched bleeps out nonswears and leaves the actual swears uncensored sends them roaring into laughing fits. The two of them whistle and wheeze, faces go red, mouths open, hands on their stomachs, eyes squeezing out tears. Elizabeth is on the verge of losing total control, and the laughter is dangerous. It feels like anything can happen, that she is capable of doing anything, including flipping the kitchen table and their chairs and then screaming and never stopping.

  They both settle down eventually. There are aftershocks of giggles, deep sighs, and quick rehashes of the exchange and impersonations of each other’s reactions and expressions. And then they eat. Kate finishes her lasagna first, though she surgically removes the bits of broccoli.

  Elizabeth: “Wow. Someone was hungry.”

  “Yeah. Now I might puke. So full.”

  “Well, you needed it.” Two weeks ago this kind of exchange about food would’ve launched Elizabeth into flights of worry about Kate’s eating habits and her body image and extrapolate it to how Kate or any girl could possibly make it through puberty and middle school and high school unscathed, unscarred. That worry is still there, but Elizabeth has filed it away into the deal-with-it-later folder.

  Elizabeth: “Drink some water. Or I can make some tea. I have the Black Raspberry that you like. Yesterday Cheryl brought over some honey from her bees, too. It’s so good.”

  Kate takes a small sip of water. “Nah, I’m good.” Then she looks down at her smartphone and the tangle of wires with something like regret and resignation. She will put the earbuds back in and go back to hiding inside herself, because that is the new normal.

  “Should we watch a movie or something? I can make some popcorn.”

  Kate shrugs big, shoulders going almost past the top of her head. “Dunno. Not feeling a movie. I’m kind of tired.” She reaches for her phone.

  Elizabeth says, “Kate, can I ask you something?”

  Kate unties her hair and it falls over her face as she looks down. She transforms into the girl behind the curtain again. “Sure, I guess.”

  “What do you think is happening with the diary pages? How are they getting there?”

  Kate shrugs. “I don’t know. I guess I believe like you do. That Tommy’s somehow leaving them for us. Sharing them with us.”

  “You’re not leaving them out, right?” Elizabeth has to ask it, to try it on.

  Kate rolls her eyes and says, “Nope.”

  “This guy Arnold. Tommy never talked to you about him?”

  “Like I already said. Never heard of him until this morning. Anything else?”

  “No. Yes. I don’t know. Tell me something. Talk to me. Anything. Please.”

  Kate says, “Do you still believe Tommy’s ghost or whatever is leaving the pages out, Mom?”

  “I—” She pauses. It sounds so crazy when it is said out loud like that, but she does believe it, even if she can’t come right out and say it. “I—I’m still not sure.”

  “Still not sure.” Kate wraps the earbud wires around the fingers of her left hand, tight enough that her flesh bulges out red in between. “I wasn’t gonna say anything about it because I’m not sure if it, like, was anything real, okay? Just like you. And I was like half asleep or all asleep when it happened.”

  “When what happened?”

  “I think maybe I saw someone outside. Last night. Looking in my window.”

  “Wait. What? Who did you see?”

  “I dunno. I woke up, middle of the night. I didn’t have to pee or anything, I just woke up. Nana didn’t wake up, I don’t think, she was lying on her side, facing away from me, and I sat up, looked over my shoulder and out my window. I thought there was someone standing there and, I don’t know, standing there and looking in.”

  Is she telling the truth? Elizabeth can’t tell. She is speaking carefully, fumbling around for the right words. That isn’t Kate, normally. When she talks, she does so without breathing and impulsively, without thought of consequence. Is Kate making this up or detailing a dream in an attempt to distract and obfuscate? Is it possible that there was someone standing outside her window? Was it the someone who’s been leaving the diary pages in their house? A deranged news junkie? A drunk high school kid on a dare? Or, as Tommy described it in his diary, a devil creeping the woods? Did Kate see what other people in Ames have been claiming to see at night? Did she see what Elizabeth had seen? Did she see Tommy?

  Elizabeth: “Jesus, did you see a face?”

  Kate: “Not really. I remember seeing something there in the window when I wasn’t looking at it but kinda looking at it? I mean, I sat up, turned to my left, like I was gonna get out of bed, and I wasn’t like head-on facing the window but I could see something, like, sort of over my shoulder, over there.” Kate pretends to be looking across the kitchen and motioned toward the wall on her periphery with her left hand. Kate then sags, blowing air out through her lips, “I don’t know, it’s like—”

  “I get what you’re saying. You saw something out of the corner of your eye.”

  “Yeah, that’s it! But I can’t remember exactly what I saw. It was like a shadow there, but not exactly. It was less about seeing, okay, and like, I felt someone there looking in. I could feel it. Like a sense something was taking up the space outside my window. I jumped up out of bed and looked and looked and there was nothing there. Then I stood on the bed and put my face against the window and couldn’t see anything.” After her initial hesitancy, Kate gets more excited and animated as she speaks, almost manic, as though excited to ha
ve this story to tell. “I remember looking at my clock and it was like four something and—”

  “Four something?”

  “Like maybe 4:30. Ish. I think?”

  “That was when I got the second notification from the camera. Last night. The notification that came with the little video clip.”

  Kate: “Right. Huh. Okay. I was gonna wake up Nana but she was sleeping hard. I wasn’t really afraid. Definitely weird, yeah. I was so sure someone was there. Eventually I went to sleep and when I woke up, things got crazy in the morning with us and all that window stuff felt more like a dream, didn’t seem as important, you know.”

  “You should’ve told me this morning. We could’ve told Detective Allison.”

  “I guess. Sorry.”

  “Did you hear anything?” Elizabeth stopped herself from asking if she smelled anything.

  “No, like what?”

  “Someone walking around outside or inside. Knocking on windows. People talking.” There’s a waver in her voice she can’t control. Elizabeth is in her head watching the surveillance video clip from last night, and the shadow she saw next to the front door. “Or, I don’t know, trying to get in our front door. Anything. Did you hear anything?”

  “No, nothing like that. I was awake for a little while, I think. Didn’t hear anything. Maybe I was dreaming. It didn’t feel like I was.”

  “You were probably dreaming.”

  Kate furrows her brow and scrunches up her face like she can’t believe what Elizabeth said. “Seemed really real to me. You don’t think I saw what you saw in your bedroom?”