Never Ever (19 page)

“What did he say to you right before that photo was taken?” Wylie asked.

Tinka shrugged. “I don't remember.”

“Sure you do. What did he say to you?”

Tinka looked away. “He said that I was beyond—”

“—compare,” Wylie finished her sentence. “I guess he says that to all the girls.”

“Why did you come here? To break my heart all over again?”

“I came here because I didn't have anyone else to go to.” Wylie paused for a moment, then pointed at Micah's drawing.

“It's really beautiful, the way he sees you,” she said. “I know he doesn't see anyone else that same way.”

Tinka didn't respond. She wiped the corners of her eyes, grabbed the knife from under her pillow, sat up, and put on a pair of beat-up sneakers.

“Fine. You asked for it. You want to know the truth? Come with me.”

sketch artist

wylie
nearly had to jog to keep up with Tinka as they trekked through the
parvaz
field, moved around the perimeter of the island, then made a sharp right turn that led them to another trail. The ground was muddy and slippery from the recent rain and Wylie wished she'd brought her galoshes to the island.

“Why can't we take a
parvaz
?” Wylie asked. “We'll get there so much faster if we fly.”

“I can't touch that stuff anymore,” Tinka reminded her.

“Right, sorry.”

“And anyway, we can't risk anyone seeing us, so stop complaining. I'm armed and dangerous,” Tinka replied.

Tinka may have brought along the knife as a weapon, but the deeper they moved into the trail, the more she needed it to clear sharp branches and leaves out of their way. Wylie, winded, tried to catch her breath. She'd been wrong to think flying actually counted as a form of exercise. After
all this was over, she'd start a workout regimen that did not include mixing basketball with
parvaz
. She referred to her compass throughout the hike, but keeping track of every direction they moved in had quickly become out of the question.

“Are you just taking me to some quiet and secluded place so you can murder me?” Wylie asked, trying to lighten the mood.

“Nah. You're not worth getting exiled for.”

Wylie's shoe caught on a rock, which flung her forward and onto the ground. She landed with a thud and let out a small cry. She half expected Tinka to keep walking, but she actually turned around to check on her.

“You okay?” Tinka asked, offering a hand.

Wylie grabbed Tinka's hand and she pulled her up. Mud was caked in Wylie's hair and all over her clothes.

“I'm fine.”

They continued to hike to their mystery destination. As the minutes ticked by, Tinka started humming quietly to herself. Wylie had to listen closely to place the melody. It was the song “I Am a Rock” by Simon and Garfunkel. When she was growing up, her dad used to sing it to her and her brothers when they couldn't fall asleep.

“Did Micah teach you that song?” Wylie asked.

Tinka shook her head. “No.”

The trail finally came to a dead end, blocked off by trees and thick ivy. Wylie had lost all sense of direction and wasn't sure what part of the island they were even on. If Tinka abandoned her, Wylie would have no idea how to find her way home.

“Wait here for a minute,” Tinka directed. “I want to make sure no one else is around.”

She pushed her hands into the ivy and pulled it apart, peeking through the other side.

“We're good. Squeeze in.”

It was easier for Tinka to fit her compact body through the plants. She stood on the other side of the blockade and helped Wylie through, but the vines and branches still scratched at her face and skin. On the other side of the shrubbery, they found a lone bungalow. It was made of logs and looked far more secure than the rooms they bunked in. There were no windows or doors.

“Where are we?” Wylie asked.

“Phinn's man cave or secret lair. I prefer ‘secret lair.' It's way more badass,” Tinka said. “Don't worry. Only a few people know about it.”

“Has he brought you here before?”

Tinka let out a laugh. “Once. But you don't want to know what we did inside. He's never brought me back, though.”

“How on earth did you remember how to get here?”

“Being a borderline obsessive stalker comes with its advantages.”

Tinka walked up to the bungalow and felt around the logs. There was no discernible entrance. She leaned her body against a wall, but nothing budged.

“I've never tried to get in before,” she admitted.

“Then how do you know for sure there's anything secret in here?”

“It's in the middle of nowhere on an island that's already in the middle of nowhere. It has no windows or doors. I can
assure you, he doesn't store party supplies in here.”

“Why haven't you ever gone in to snoop before?”

Tinka fumbled over a loose log. She pushed it forward and a small door opened into a pitch-black room.

“If Phinn ever found out I was in here, he'd probably never forgive me. Are you coming?” she asked as she tiptoed inside.

Go in there,
Wylie told herself.
Do it for Lola. Do it for your brothers. Who cares if Phinn never forgives you?
She stepped inside and the door instantly shut behind them, leaving them in the dark. Tinka struck a match and used the flame to light a nearby kerosene lamp. The cavelike space was circular in shape with a small table at its center, surrounded by stools. A map of the island was on the wall, and curtains had been hung to block out any cracks between the logs. Wylie spied wooden file cabinets and a stack of newspapers from the mainland. The one on top was from February, the day she and Phinn had met.

Tinka pulled at a file cabinet, but it was locked.

“Typical Phinn. Always so paranoid.”

She tried to pick the lock with her knife, but it wouldn't budge.

“Are you going to help me find a key or what?” she asked Wylie.

“Forget it. Let's go,” Wylie said. “So he's got a place where he conducts business. I was stupid to think he was hiding anything. Sorry I made you drag me all the way out here.”

“I think you're just afraid,” Tinka said with a trace of kindness.

“Of what?”

“Of what you might find in here. And what it might mean.”

“I'm not afraid,” Wylie insisted. “We can snoop if you want, but it'll just be a waste of time.”

It only took a few minutes for them to locate the set of keys that opened all the locks. Tinka found them stuck under the table. Figuring out which key belonged to which lock was a much more excruciating process. When they finally unlocked the first file cabinet, they gave each other a spontaneous high five.

“Finally!” Tinka cheered.

“Okay, before we look inside,” Wylie said, “I think we should make a pact. If we don't find anything suspicious, then Phinn never has to know either one of us was in here. It stays between us. Agreed?”

“Agreed.”

“You weren't crossing your fingers, were you?” Wylie asked.

Tinka placed her palms out in front of her.

“Nope.”

Wylie opened the drawer and found it filled to the brim with cell phones. Her phone rested on top of the pile. Wylie wished the battery wasn't dead so she could turn it on. She wondered why Phinn didn't let them at least use the cameras on their phones. Maybe he would reconsider once they ran out of Polaroid film. Underneath the Daltons' phones, the cell phone technology quickly devolved into the past. Wylie spotted a few flip phones and one brick phone that looked larger than her head.

“This one's Micah's, isn't it?” Tinka asked, pulling out a more recent phone in a skull-and-crossbones case.

“Yup,” Wylie answered, a shiver going down her spine. She couldn't help thinking how often her parents had tried to call or text since they'd gone missing.

“I wish I could take it to him. He misses it so much,” Tinka said.

“We can't steal anything. It'll give us away.”

Tinka reluctantly tossed the phone back in the drawer.

Some of the other drawers were filled with more outdated gadgets from the mainland: a Game Boy, a Discman, even a bulky old laptop. Phinn had kept organized files on each of his recruits with the dates he'd brought them to the island, along with their medical records and other tidbits of information he'd kept track of. Wylie was surprised to see up-to-date notes on where all of their families currently lived. Phinn must have carved out time for research on his trips to the mainland.

“Wow,” Tinka said. She slid Bailey's folder over to Wylie. It included a printout of an obituary. Her mother had died of cancer ten years prior.

“Do you think she knows?” Wylie asked.

Tinka shook her head. “I don't think she'd want to know.”

They'd been poring over the files for at least an hour, and they still needed enough time to get back to the clinic for their daily birth control. Ever since Tinka had become a recluse, Patrick and Aldo had started making house calls to give her the Pill.

“It's not the first time I've refused to leave my bungalow for days at a time,” Tinka confessed.

Wylie took great care in putting the files back exactly as they had found them. Phinn was meticulous enough that if one piece of paper was out of place or if one file wasn't in alphabetical order, he'd know someone had been going through his drawers. Though Wylie was disappointed not to find any clues concerning Lola's disappearance, she also felt a sense of relief as they stuck the keys back under the table. Nothing they had found was all that shocking or unforgivable. Phinn was simply running a very tight ship.

But just as they pressed against the logs to find their way out, Wylie glimpsed a tiny scrap of paper peeking out from behind one of the curtains. She pulled the curtain open and discovered a bulletin board covered in article clippings about the Daltons. Most of them were about the accident they'd had in the Hamptons. Tinka stood next to her and examined the collage.

“Oh my God,” she blurted. “I know why Phinn brought you to the island.”

MAURA'S HAIR SMELLED DIFFERENT. SHE MUST HAVE changed her shampoo since Gregory had moved out. He tried not to inhale too deeply as they held on to each other. They hadn't touched one another in months, and he didn't want to do anything that would make her break the embrace. The closeness felt new and familiar all at the same time, and he didn't want to let go.

Gregory had fantasized about this moment, but he'd thought it would occur under happier circumstances. The
police would call and tell them they'd found their children safe and sound. Gregory would hang up the phone, announce the good news to Maura, and she would throw her arms around him. Instead, the call Gregory had received that morning was to inform them that the police were officially putting an end to their search. He had waited all day to tell Maura, but he couldn't put it off any longer.

“How could they do this to us?” Maura cried in his arms.

“It's going to be okay. This doesn't mean we have to stop looking. We'll hold another press conference.”

“We're never going to see them again, are we?” Maura asked him.

Neither of them had ever said it out loud, even though they'd both been tortured by the possibility.

“Don't think that way,” he whispered. “We're going to get our kids back, safe and sound. That is one promise I will never go back on.”

A knock on the door forced them out of the embrace. Maura reached for a box of tissues and wiped at her eyes as Gregory checked the peephole. He opened the door to a tearful Vanessa.

“Hi, Mr. Dalton,” she said.

Gregory let her in and Maura poured her a glass of water.

“I just heard the news. I'm so sorry,” Vanessa told them.

“We all are,” Maura replied gently.

“No.” Vanessa shook her head. “This is all my fault. I didn't tell the cops everything I knew. I thought I was protecting Wylie. . . . It's stupid, but I thought if she didn't want to be found, then I had to respect that. But I never expected her to be gone for so long. . . .”

Gregory froze. “What are you telling us?”

“I saw her leave the party with someone. A guy. Not anyone who went to our school. I'd never seen him before.”

Gregory and Maura looked at each other. It was the only piece of new information they'd received in weeks. Vanessa was clearly in a fragile state, and if they didn't tread lightly, she might fall to pieces and refuse to help them.

“Do you remember what he looked like?” Gregory asked.

Vanessa nodded.

“Would you be willing to describe him to the police?”

“Yes.”

Gregory praised Vanessa for her courage, but he wanted to scream at her for withholding information from them for so long. They took a taxi to the police station and this time, the wait to speak with an officer was much shorter than the day they'd reported the kids missing. Gregory and Maura held hands while Vanessa gave her description to the sketch artist. The sound of the pencil scratching the page made every hair on Gregory's arms stand upright as he listened to Vanessa describe the guy. Tan, sandy-colored skin. Auburn hair with hazel eyes. A scar above his eyebrow. An oval-shaped face. A strong chin with stubble on it. Slightly crooked teeth. A few freckles along his nose.
Gorgeous,
she emphasized
.
About five feet eleven inches. Lean but toned.