soon as I do—or at least that’s what it seems like. I imagine Luther inside, watching for me in his rearview mirror, smiling as he sees me take the bait.
On the island, Luther taught me how to fish. You have to stay completely still until you feel a bite, then reel her in smoothly and steadily. Don’t give her a chance to get away.
When I think back to how things began between me and Luther I see how he lured me into his orbit, bit by bit, dangling praise and acknowledgment—a word or two on a paper, a smile at the end of class, a concerned question, a brush against my arm, a private conference, chance meetings on woodland paths . . . I thought I was pursuing him. But he had been steadily reeling me in, like a fish caught on a hook.
As he is now. He goes slow enough for me to keep pace with him on the slick streets, stopping at stop signs but speeding through yellow lights so I won’t get too close. I follow as if pulled by a hook in my gut through increasingly seedier and emptier streets. Where is he leading me? What will he do when we get there? And why am I following despite the sick feeling in my stomach? If it really is Luther in that car, do I want to confront him at the end of some dark alley?
We’re near the waterfront now. I can smell the sea. The Saab turns and turns again, always threatening to vanish in the murky gray rain, leading me through a maze of tight, narrow streets. I only have time to glimpse the rear lights through the rain at each turn. Is he trying to lose me?
I make a turn and the Saab is no longer in front of me, but there’s only one way to go now. Down to the water. I open the windows to clear the fog from my head, and the smell of the ocean floods in with a gust of rain. I have the feeling that he’s leading me straight into the water. That he’s going to plunge into the bay and dare me to follow. The scary thing is I have the sick feeling that I will.
I come out onto a street facing the water. The Saab is across the street. As I watch, it begins to move away. For a second I have the feeling that it is floating on the water—and it is. It’s on the flatbed of a ferry leaving for one of the islands in the Casco Bay. As it vanishes into the fog I read the license plate.
IceVrgn33.
I DRIVE HOME feeling as frozen as if I had followed Luther into the bay. Luther must have been the one driving that car. He is alive. And he’s made contact with Rudy. It’s my worst nightmare—or at least it was my worst nightmare until Lila died only yards away from where Rudy last saw her. Did Luther get in touch with Lila first? Was he trying to contact Rudy through her? And did she tell Rudy that she’d met his father? Did she pass on something Luther said that so upset Rudy that he lashed out and she fell to the rocks below?
The scene plays out in my head as I drive through the drizzle and fog back to Rock Harbor. Lila met Luther online and he lured her down to the Rockwell House with the promise of the missing girls. Was it a coincidence that he’d reached out to Rudy’s girlfriend, or had he been lurking at the edge of our lives looking for a way in? He shows her the Cora Rockwell diary and uses it to broach the subject of who he really is: Rudy’s long-lost father. He’d spin a version of the tale in which I was the harridan who stole Rudy away from his father. Would Rudy believe it? Is that why he’s been so distant with me? The thought of Luther anywhere near Rudy makes me sick to my stomach.
When I get home I’m relieved to see my car in the driveway, but then I see a police car next to it and my heart jolts in my chest. I park crookedly next to the other Forester even though Harmon will be upset that I didn’t put his car in the garage.
When I enter through the front door I hear voices coming from the dining room. Rudy’s voice,