Page 50 of The Change
Jo stared at the mirror. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d worn anything that wasn’t at least 70 percent spandex—or let her hair down from its perma-ponytail. The black halter sundress Harriett had pulled from her closet showcased Jo’s toned arms and complemented the wavy red hair that cascaded over her shoulders.
“I look hot,” Jo told the mirror.
“I’d fuck you,” Harriett agreed.
“You fuck everyone,” Jo said.
“Not true,” Harriett corrected her. “I’m actually quite discerning.”
“You got anything that would make me look that good?” Nessa asked.
“Yes,” Harriett said, calling Nessa’s bluff. “Have you decided to come?”
Nessa snorted miserably. Even if she’d been curious to see Culling Pointe, she couldn’t bear to be close to Danskammer Beach. While the girl in blue sat on the sofa in Nessa’s living room, the other two girls were still out there, drifting beneath the waves. Every day, Nessa’s guilt grew heavier, and the proof of her incompetence had become too hard to ignore. Weeks had gone by since they found the girl in the scrub, and yet little progress had been made in the case. The portrait Nessa had drawn had been picked up by websites and newspapers around the state, and she’d posted it on every missing persons site she could find. Still, no one hadcome forward to claim the body. Meanwhile, the medical examiner had officially ruled the girl’s death an accidental overdose. It was starting to seem as though the cops’ theory was right—and Nessa’s instincts were wrong. The gift should have passed to one of her cousins. She didn’t know how to use it.
Jo told her she had to be patient. Harriett remained unperturbed, but Nessa suspected that had less to do with her confidence in Nessa than with the copious amounts of marijuana she smoked. It was Franklin whose faith she feared losing most. He’d taken a risk on Nessa, and she hadn’t delivered. A couple of days after Nessa had shared her secret, the two of them had gone out on the water. As promised, Franklin had wrangled a local fisherman with a sonar-equipped boat to help them search for evidence of the two missing girls. Nessa had guided them to the spot off Danskammer Beach where she’d seen the girls staring up at her from the water, their long hair fanned out around them.
“There’s something down there. Could that be fish?” Franklin had kept his eyes on the sonar screen while Nessa watched the water.
“Nope, it’s not fish,” the fisherman told them. “That’s debris on the floor.”
Her heart thumping, Nessa had hurried to Franklin’s side. Far below them on the ocean floor, hundreds of strange shapes lay scattered about.
“Are those—” Nessa stopped herself.
“I don’t know what you’re looking for, but I can tell you what you’ve found,” the fisherman said. He tapped one of the shapes with his index finger. “See the straight sides and ninety-degree corners? Those are lobster traps.”
“There aren’t any lobsters out here,” Nessa had argued.
“Not anymore there aren’t,” the man agreed. “They all died in ninety-nine. Pesticides killed them. That’s why there are so manyabandoned traps down there. It’s a junkyard. They call it ghost fishing. Those traps never stop killing.”
Nessa stared at the screen. She was still sure the girls were down there.
“I’m guessing you weren’t looking for lobster traps. You’re looking for somebody, aren’t you?” the fisherman asked.
Their silence seemed to be answer enough.
“Body wouldn’t hold together long in the water,” he said. “You might find a bone or two. The rest would be fish food pretty quickly.” It was the same thing Franklin had said.
“Even if it were in a trash bag?” Nessa asked.
“A dead body releases gases. They’d turn a trash bag into a giant balloon. A body in a trash bag would have washed ashore.”
She should have known that the bodies might no longer be where they were originally dumped. That revelation was followed the next day by the news that what was left of Amber Welsh’s trailer had been located in a town in New Hampshire. Someone had donated it to the local fire department for a controlled-burn exercise. The name of the donor turned out to be an alias, and whatever clues might have been inside the trailer had been destroyed in the fire. Franklin had paid a personal visit to Amber’s husband, who was doing time at Sing Sing. Not only had he not arranged for the trailer to be carted away, he seemed to have no idea his wife and children were missing. He hadn’t heard from any of them in over a year.
That was three days ago. Nessa had been sleeping on Harriett’s sofa since then. The experience, she’d discovered to her discomfort, shared a great deal in common with camping. The squirrels in the fireplace chittered away in the evenings and fireflies turned the nighttime ceiling into a starry sky. Nessa despised camping. But as much as she longed for her own bed, she couldn’t face the guest on her couch, and she knew the girl in blue would never follow her to Harriett’s house.
Jo plopped down on the sofa next to Nessa. “Come with us to the Pointe,” she pleaded. Jo couldn’t hear the voices. All she could see was that her friend desperately needed to get out of the house. “Free food, free booze, and we can rank all the plastic surgery. Why won’t you join us?”
“Because for people like me, there are two hells,” Nessa said. “One where there’s fire and brimstone and another filled with rich white people. And I don’t want you beating up the first person who asks me to get them a drink.”
“Now I might have to beat up all the fancy fuckers just because,” Jo told her.
“That’s my job. I’m the punisher,” Harriett reminded her. “And while I’m out there, I plan to settle a score of my own.” She patted the pockets of her olive-green flight suit, which Jo now noticed were bulging.
“What the hell do you have in there?” Jo asked as the doorbell rang. She wondered just how far Harriett was willing to go.
“It’s a surprise.” Harriett wiggled her eyebrows. “Are you ready?”
