Page 19 of Swan Song

But Rondo’s account is Coco’s only window into Isla’s world. Isla and Rondo went to Leo’s with the Dunnes the night before; afterward, they probably hit the bar at Wayfare for a cocktail. Isla’s texts sound lonely but she’s been double-dating with Dr. and “Totally Tami” Dunne. Kacy wants to hurl her phone across the room. She types, Sorry, I’ve been busy. Then she attaches two pictures: Coco trying on the white sundress and Coco and Kacy at the pharmacy lunch counter, their faces squished together, cheesing. She presses Send.

There’s no immediate response and Kacy chides herself for sending the photos. She’s using the pictures of Coco as a weapon without Coco knowing it, and she’s using them out of context. Her friendship with Coco is brand-new and already she’s compromised it.

A minute or two later, a text comes in: Wow, you work fast.

Just friends, Kacy says, but her spirit is buoyed. Isla is jealous.

As if reading Kacy’s mind, Isla texts, I’m sick with jealousy. Now I won’t sleep. Thanks.

Mission accomplished, Kacy thinks. She turns off her phone and closes her eyes.

8. Thursday, August 22, 8:45 P.M.

On the way from Ventuno to the ashes of the house on 888 Pocomo Road, Ed throws on the lights and sirens; his heart is beating twice as fast as it should, and his thoughts spin out. He needs to calm down—what did Dr. Head Honcho say about stress? He doesn’t want to alarm Kacy with the news that Coco is missing, but Kacy, in the passenger seat, keeps calling Coco over and over again.

“It just goes straight to voice mail,” she says. “What do you think that means?”

Ed thinks, but does not say: If Coco went overboard, her phone probably did too.

Andrea wanted to come to the scene, but Ed asked her to go home with Eric and Avalon. Andrea had been drinking, and unlike him, she’d had a lot more than half a glass of red wine. He needs to breathe—what are his meditation cues? He can’t recall a single one. Why did he succumb to temptation and order the Fiorentina, then eat a cannoli? He has only one hundred hours left on the job… and now this.

His phone rings. It’s Lucy Shields, the Nantucket harbormaster. Thank god. He puts on his headset; he would prefer that Kacy not overhear any of this.

“Lucy.”

“Ed,” she says. “What a mess. A doubleheader like this in your final week.”

“Who have you talked to?”

“Only the captain, Lamont Oakley. He called it in about twenty minutes ago: Guest on Hedonism no longer on the boat. Twenty-seven-year-old female named Colleen Coyle; five foot four inches tall; approximately one hundred and five pounds; dark, chin-length hair; worked for the owners of the boat.”

The Chief clears his throat. “Yes, we know her. She’s friends with our daughter, Kacy.”

“Oh god, Ed, I’m sorry,” Lucy says. “Was Kacy on the boat as well?”

“No, no, she’s here in the car with me.”

“Can she hear us?” Lucy asks.

“Negative,” Ed says, and he hopes this is true.

“That’s probably best,” Lucy says. Lucy Shields has been the harbormaster for a long time. She was Kacy’s boss back when Kacy worked as a town lifeguard in high school. It’s a small island, the Chief thinks.

Lucy says, “It’s unclear if Ms. Coyle had been drinking or what her mental state was during the party. Lamont told me the last time he saw her was as they were passing Eel Point heading east-northeast, so we’ll go with that unless you and your officers find out anything different. Lamont was sailing solo—the Valladares brothers were at their abuela’s birthday—so Lamont would have had his hands full with that boat and all those guests. He seems confident that Ms. Coyle can swim, which is good. The Coast Guard boarded the boat to do a search and they’re bringing everyone ashore for questioning, but they’ll keep them away from the house fire.”

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Ed asks.

“That she was disgruntled? Somehow arranged for the house to catch fire while they were out sailing, then ditched?”

Ed considers what he knows about Coco, which admittedly isn’t much, though he’s seen her a fair amount this summer, both at his own home and whenever the Chief and Andrea went to the Richardsons’. His first impression of Coco when she climbed into the back of his car was that she was a loner, a wayward soul. But she would have made Charles Darwin proud, the way she adapted to Nantucket life. She befriended Kacy; she seemed at home at Triple Eight Pocomo Road. She became as confident and as at ease as any other young woman ordering a mudslide at the Gazebo. Nantucket has a way of getting in your blood; Ed knows this firsthand. He and Andrea and all their friends arrived from elsewhere and now they’re as embedded on the island as the bollards of Old South Wharf.

What do they know for sure? The Richardsons’ house has burned to the ground, and on the same evening, an employee of theirs has gone missing. This feels like more than a coincidence, but if all these years of policing have taught Ed anything, it’s that one should never jump to conclusions.

“Let’s just worry about finding her for now,” Ed says. “You’ve launched a search?”

“I sent one boat from Nantucket Harbor and one from Madaket Harbor,” Lucy says. “I’m waiting on word from the Coast Guard in Woods Hole. If we don’t find her in the next thirty minutes, they’ll send a helicopter from the air station. We’ve authorized a track-line search from Dionis to Smith’s Point, winds are fifteen to seventeen, seas two to four feet, which is good for sailing, bad if you’re trying to swim—and the tide is going out, unfortunately. It would help if you could identify the last person who saw her.”

“I’m almost to the scene,” the Chief says. “I’ll let you know what I find out.”

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