Island of Lost Girls - Jennifer McMahon [81]
My retainer! she said at last.
Crowley nodded. We found it down in the hole with the body.
Rhonda was quiet a moment while she considered this, remembering the day she and Peter had sat in the hole together and he asked her to take it out. She shivered as she imagined it there beside little Ernie Florucci.
I used to change costumes down there, Rhonda explained. I probably left it in the hole the night of the play. I wouldnt have worn it on stage. I probably left it down there for safekeeping. God, I thought it was gone forever.
Thank you for your time. He snapped the book closed.
Youve been quite helpful.
But I dont understand, Rhonda said. What does any of this have to do with Ernie Florucci?
Ernie?
Yeah, with the body you found in the woods? Crowley looked perplexed, and Rhonda went on, a bit irritated. It was Ernie, right? You found her.
We didnt find Ernestines body in the woods. Not yet anyway, were still looking. Theres a lot of woods around the lake to cover and, unfortunately, Warren hasnt given us many details to go on.
So, whats this about?
Rhonda thought again of that old bogeyman, stuffed full of rags and pillows. Of their fears scribbled on slips of paper, folded again and again and dropped into the hole like ruined paper cranes. What had she written on her paper? What did Lizzy and Peter write?
The body we found has been identified as Daniel Shale. Initial findings are consistent with his being killed around the time he disappeared. Possibly the night of the play. The remnants of his clothes match those shown in the photographs from that day.
Rhonda felt a peculiar rushing sensation around her head, as though all the air had been suddenly sucked off the porch.
Killed? How?
Yes, Crowley said. The preliminary reports say blunt trauma to the head.
SEPTEMBER 4, 1993
PETER HAD TOCKSgun out and was practicing his aim, shooting cans off the stone wall at the edge of the yard. Clem gave him pointers, set up the targets, and even let Peter fire his Civil War replica musket a few times.
Rhonda didnt know how to talk to Peter about what had happened to his parents. It didnt seem right to bring it up, nor did it seem right not to. She carried her homework out to the picnic table and glanced up often to see Peter shooting cans, Clem patting him on the back, saying,Good shot, son .
Rhonda thought of things to say, how to comfort him, to tell him that everything would be all rightAggie would get well, Daniel would come home. But every time she opened her mouth to speak, to say the words she practiced in her head, the weight of their inadequacy, their sheer stupidity, kept them in the back of her throat. Her words got stuck there like some vile frog, thick and useless, and when she finally gathered the courage to walk up to him and say something, the only thing that came out was, Want a Coke?to which he just shook his head.
That night, Lizzy didnt wet the bed, but she didnt stay silent either. She moaned, howled, spoke in gibberish. She called out for something or someonethe word a blur that sounded, to Rhonda, an awful lot likePeter .
Rhonda shook Lizzy awake.
Hes outside, Rhonda told her, trying to comfort Lizzy, whose eyes were wide with panic. Lizzy grabbed hold of Rhonda, dug her nails into Rhondas arm. Peters just outside in the tent, Rhonda told her. Lizzy put her head back down on the pillow and drifted off to sleep.
Rhonda got up and looked out her window to see Peter standing with Tocks gun. She watched him walk the perimeter of the yard, then return to his tent. From her bedroom window, she studied him, positioned in front of his tent like he was standing guardholding the gun tight in his hands, gazing off into the distance, looking not brave but somehow resigned, as he stood waiting for some imagined enemy.
JUNE 25, 2006
WHEN RHONDA PULLEDinto Peter and Tocks driveway, the first thing she noticed was the two girls playing in the yard. There was Suzy, her heavy silverEPILEPTIC bracelet glinting