she might not have answered you. She’s really weird. Maybe she’ll answer if it’s me. Dad, you just keep looking around. I’ll be right back.”
“All right. I’ll give you two minutes. Then we’re going back to the motel to get help.”
“Right. Two minutes!” Broken seashells crunched underfoot as Jack made his way to the pier. Tall enough for larger boats to load and unload, the pier had a row of rickety stairs that descended from the far end to the water’s surface. At the halfway point, a metal chain had been strung across to prevent access, with the No Trespassing sign hanging from the links and a smaller sign reading “Enter at your own risk” beneath that. But no signs would keep Bindy out. She did what she wanted to do and went where she wanted to go.
Moving along the creaking, splintery slats, Jack called out her name into the night sky. Only the sound of waves and the groan of the wooden pier echoed back. As he squinted into the darkness, he saw what he thought was a dark shape, a deep patch of black turned toward the sea. “Hey, are you there?” Jack cried. The shape seemed to move farther away, hovering at the pier’s end, then disappearing.
Glancing around quickly to see if his dad was watching, Jack easily climbed over the chain. A sudden wind whipped his face, ballooning out his shirt as though it were a shroud and rocking the pier like a trapeze. For a moment Jack wondered whether there might be any missing boards underfoot that he couldn’t see in the dark. He didn’t want to fall through onto the rocky beach beneath, where waves could grab him and soak him to the skin. With every motion the sun-bleached boards creaked under his feet, as the cold and insistent wind tried to push him backward. But someone was down there. It had to be Bindy.
He cupped his hands again against the wind and called out, “Is that you?” After waiting a beat, he shouted again. The boardwalk stretched into darkness. Jack could hear, rather than see, the water beneath him, rushing against the timbers before receding back to the sea.
The inky night at the pier’s end seemed denser now. As the shape blocked his view of whitecaps on the dark waves, Jack noticed a pale, orange glow. It illuminated the shadowy figure’s head. The shape was bigger than Bindy, taller, broader in the shoulders—or was Jack being deceived by the darkness? He took another step. “Bindy?”
When the shape turned, Jack’s breath sucked into his throat. This wasn’t Bindy. It was a man, dressed in black, with a black wool coat that skimmed the tops of his boots. A rectangular metal box—a suitcase?—rested inches from his feet.
“What do you want?” the man growled. His knit cap had been pulled down onto his thickly featured face. A cigarette hung from his lips, the lit end dancing in the night. The light from the cigarette let Jack see the man’s expression, and the look made his mouth go dry.
“I asked you a question. Are you going to answer me?” The man took a drag from the cigarette, then flicked it into water.
“I want—nothing,” Jack stammered. “I’m looking for a girl. Have you seen her?”
“I dunno. What’s she look like?”
“She’s 14, she has light brown hair, and she’s…uh….” Jack made a half-hearted gesture.
“Kind of chunky?” the man finished.
“Yes! So you saw her?”
“No, I didn’t see anyone like that. I came down here for a private smoke,” he answered, lighting up another cigarette. “No one indulges anymore, so I have to find places where I won’t bother anyone, and no one will bother me. OK?”
“It’s just that she—the girl—is missing. Have you been up here long?”
“No.” Taking another drag, the man blew it between his teeth and asked, “Why?”
“I’m asking just in case maybe you saw her walking along the beach. We’re really worried about her.” Smoke curled toward Jack, and the smell hit him, acrid and pungent. How could anyone suck that stuff into their lungs? It was gross.
Suddenly, the heel of the man’s boot struck hard on the boardwalk as he took a step forward. “Where are you staying?”
The question caught Jack off guard. “At the Seaside Motel. Up there.” He gestured.
“Yeah? What’s your name?”
“I—I don’t think you need to know my name. Anyway, I’d better go.” There was something wrong here, something Jack couldn’t quite put his finger on. The man had only taken a single step toward him, and yet Jack felt his muscles tense in a “flight or fight” reaction.
He was relieved when he saw his father halfway down the beach. Steven spotted him and waved his arms in the air. “Jack!” he yelled. “I told you not to go past the chain. Come back here right now!”
The man snorted. “So it’s Jack, is it? Well, Jack, I guess it’s time for you to go. To answer your question, I didn’t see anything, I didn’t hear anything. And Jack—it’d be smart if you did the same.”
What did that mean? Spinning on the toes of his sneakers, Jack began to climb the stairs. With his back toward the man, he felt exposed, as if something might hit him between the shoulder blades at any moment. Don’t be stupid, he chided himself. The man’s just weird. With Bindy gone, the Landons had bigger problems. Swinging himself over the chain, he hurried along the pier to join Steven, who had a look of panic on his face.
“Dad—there’s this guy up on the pier—”
“Did he see Bindy?”
“No.”
“I can’t find her anywhere. Let’s move it. We need to look around the motel.”
The four Landons checked all the halls, which were strangely empty. “What if she’s gone into someone’s room?” Steven worried.
Olivia groaned, “I can’t even deal with that possibility. I’m calling the police right now!”
CHAPTER THREE
Jack could hear only one side of the conversation as his mother stated, “Her name is Bindy Callister. B-I-N-D-Y. Short for Belinda. Fourteen, blondish hair, a bit overweight.” With her hand over the mouthpiece, she asked Ashley, “Do you know what she had on?”
Ashley shrugged. “The last time I saw her, she was wearing a sleep shirt. She was reading in bed with the light on. Then I fell asleep.”
Olivia had turned all her attention to the phone again, concentrating so hard it looked like she might shoot through the phone lines, like Trinity in The Matrix. “Yes,” she was saying. “Yes, that’s right. Fourteen. She is? You do? Oh thank—We’ll be right there. Uh…where is the police station? We just arrived this afternoon, and we don’t know anything about Bar Harbor.” Grabbing a ballpoint pen from the desk drawer, Olivia began to scribble directions. Then, slowly, she returned the phone to its cradle.
“Good news or bad news?” Steven asked.
“Both. The police have her. But they picked her up in a bar.”
Had Jack heard that right? “Did you say they picked her up in Bar Harbor?” he asked.
