Page 65 of Last Seen
“We should go,” Tammy urges. “Great work as always, Noah.”
“Merci beaucoup,” he says in a beautiful French accent. “Au revoir, Tammy, and friend of Tammy.” He has a nice smile, not the feigned happiness of the others she’s encountered, but warm and genuine. She can’t help but glance back as they leave the restaurant. And is surprised to see him watching her, a look of faint confusion on his face.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Halley and Tammy walk on the wide, gracious sidewalk past the other restaurants and enter a quiet, coffee-scented space. There is only one barista at this time of night, who smiles winningly. Are they all hopped up on coke or Adderall? Who has this much social energy? She’s had a summer job in the business, and she knows the toll it takes. No one here seems remotely affected by the need to smile smile smile.
Halley orders a large Americano and buys a decaf coffee for Boone. There is a display of granola bars—a brand she doesn’t recognize—but a quick glance at the label tells her they are homemade here in Brockville, so she takes one. A slice of that decadent lobster pizza would have been welcome, but this is better than nothing. Maybe she’ll stop at the pizza joint again after they talk.
Tammy sits heavily with a deep sigh, toying with her glazed ceramic mug. “Your sister,” she says, shaking her head. “What do you want to know?”
“I have to admit, ma’am, that I don’t know much about what happened here. But you clearly knew Cat.”
“I met her briefly. She was only at the retreat for two days before she ... left.”
“Left? She walked out?”
“I think so. I think ... Well, it’s not really my place to think anything. Have you talked to the sheriff yet?”
“No. I will. I want to. But I thought you would be a better resource.” Halley sips her coffee, composing her thoughts. “If I’m totally honest, I came looking for information about the writing retreat, because I know my sister was headed here and then went missing. Then the kids at the General Store sent me your way. I think I just got lucky.”
Boone snorts. “I’ll say. The universe gives you what you want, though, I suppose.” She no longer seems happily tipsy, but fidgety and uncomfortable.
“Can you tell me what you know about Cat’s disappearance? A detective from Nashville told me you filed a missing persons report.”
Tammy gazes into the depths of her pottery mug. “I really don’t know if I should talk to you, Halley. The sheriff—”
“Will be my next stop, I promise. You can call him right now and ask him to come over, if you want. I’m not trying to hide anything. I’m just trying to figure out what happened to my sister.”
Boone narrows her eyes. “It’s been fifteen years. No offense, but why now? Where have you been all this time?”
“Would you believe I just found out that she didn’t die when I was a kid like I’d been told?” Halley gives an unamused laugh. “Talk about a story. I grew up believing my mother and my sister were killed in a car accident when I was six. Turns out that wasn’t true. My mother was killed, but my sister wasn’t. I learned that earlier this week. I’m trying to find out what happened to her, so I can ... I don’t know. Reconnect?”
She holds back the whole truth. She gets the sense that in this state, Tammy Boone isn’t going to respond well to learning her former student was a murderer.
Her instincts are rewarded moments later when the woman bursts into tears. “I always knew something bad happened to her, but no one would listen. You have to understand, Brockville is a special place. It operates with its own rules. Cameron—Sheriff Brockton—he did some looking for her, but he was of the opinion she left on her own. Everyone was. But everything she brought with her, she left behind. She even had divorce papers in her bag, but they weren’t signed. Who goes offand leaves their divorce papers? Not to mention, we’re the Brockville Writers’ Retreat. I mean, not to sound snooty, but it’s hard to get in. The idea that someone would go through all of that and then walk out at the beginning is unprecedented.”
“I can imagine.”
“Your sister seemed like a great girl. You remind me of her a bit.”
“Oh. Thank you.” That is what she’s supposed to say, not what she’s actually thinking.I am nothing like her. She is cruel and cold and calculating. A monster. A great girl?Again, Cat has either snowed everyone around her or changed into a different person. Is that possible? Can you truly change? Turn your life around? Morph evil into good?
Tammy wipes her eyes. “I saw so much possibility in her writing. She had an edge to her writing that I absolutely loved. There was a sense of spectacle to her work. She hadit. The elusive something that allows a writer to break into the publishing world. I don’t see it often. Yes, a Brockville graduate almost always gets a book deal, but it doesn’t guarantee a career. I could have helped her, but she disappeared.”
“You looked for her?”
“Of course I did. Cat was assigned Adelaide Cottage, the closest to the woods, the farthest from the main writing cabin. Nothing in the retreat is more than a few hundred yards apart, but it manages to feel completely and totally isolated. It’s part of the mystique. I left after the morning session and hiked to her cabin. Her breakfast was undisturbed on the porch, the basket still full of treats, muffins and fruit. The door was unlocked. I knocked, scared to death of what I might find.
“It felt like she’d just gone for a walk. The bed was unmade, her suitcase was open. I never thought she’d bailed on the retreat. It can be hard, very hard, to have your work critiqued. Part of my job is to teach writers how to accept this criticism gracefully, to learn what is of worth, what serves the story, and how to execute those revisions, without the rest getting in their head.”
“Teach a writer to fish ...” Halley says, and Tammy hiccups a laugh.
“Exactly. In case she was overwhelmed and upset, I left her a note, encouraging her to return to the cabin, rejoin the workshop. But she didn’t. That’s when I called Cameron. We hardly need a sheriff, Brockville has no crime. Cameron rides around the village twice a day in his golf cart, waving to the people who live here, and that’s all the deterrence anyone needs. He has never drawn his weapon, the only reports he’s had to file are about hikers who every once in a while camp in the woods within the borders of their land. He chases them off quickly, and it’s done. People do not steal here. They do not break into each other’s homes. They might smoke a little weed, have some shrooms from the gardens, but that’s hardly a problem for Cameron to deal with. Autonomy means something here. I fought hard to get the sheriff to do more, but he wasn’t interested in my thoughts.”
“Why do you think that is? Why wouldn’t he want to investigate?”
“He was of the opinion that she was an adult. The divorce papers were also rather damning. Cameron felt like she bailed on everyone and went to start her life over somewhere.”
