Sisters of Misery (18 page)

THE MAN-JUDGEMENT

W
ith everything that was running through her head that night—the boat ride with Reed, the missing letters, the conversation with Kate—Maddie hardly slept. She woke just after daybreak. Craving her daily caffeine fix—one that Abigail firmly disapproved of—Maddie realized she had to get out of the house.

Maddie crept out of the house, careful not to wake anyone. Once down at the waterfront, she was thrilled to see that The Coffee Shack, which catered to all the sailors and fishermen who began their days long before most people reached over to shut off their alarm clock each morning, had already opened its doors and rolled out the tattered striped awning. After grabbing her coffee, Maddie walked outside along the harbor front, gazing out at the boats bobbing and swaying off the glinting waters, scanning the buoys for Reed’s boat. It was gone. He must have taken it up the coast to Portsmouth. Maddie recalled him saying that he preferred spending time in the laid-back, artsy community of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to the rigid social code of Hawthorne.

Maddie pictured him out on the ocean, his boyish face slightly grizzled by a few days of beard growth, the wind tangling his sandy hair. Even though he represented everything she hated about prep school boys—the trust-fund mentality, the irresponsibility, the Peter Pan syndrome—plus the fact that he was her former teacher, Maddie couldn’t prevent the return of her old schoolgirl crush on him.

She had turned those letters around in her mind every which way, trying to convince herself that even if they had been from Reed, they were harmless. Just a harmless flirtation. Nothing more. There was nothing sinister in those pages.

But where had the letters gone? Perhaps Tess had gone into her room and thrown away the letters, not realizing that they were of any importance. Tess had been doing more and more odd things lately—roaming the yard in her nightgown, talking to herself late at night, opening and closing the basement door for no reason—so throwing away a stack of letters wouldn’t be completely out of character.

Coffee in hand, Maddie made her way up the winding road to Fort Glover and the lookout point. The moss-covered walls were still firmly rooted in the ground and were in surprisingly good condition despite their age. The fort had been used in the Revolutionary War, and the stone walls were erected proudly high up on the rocks, overlooking the churning waters of the Atlantic Ocean. The path leading to the fort was usually filled with joggers and moms with strollers. But on this early morning, the path was deserted, the benches empty.

Maddie sat on one of the benches and took a sip of the steaming hot coffee, the aroma of freshly ground beans mixing pleasantly with the salty air. The fort overlooked the mouth of the harbor, so from this vantage point, Maddie could clearly see all of the boats moored there. She closed her eyes, getting lost in the sound of the waters lapping against the jagged rocks below.

“Beautiful morning, isn’t it?” A voice came from behind her.

Her heart hiccupped as Finnegan O’Malley appeared behind her, silent as a ghost. She hadn’t spoken to him since Christmas.

“Sorry,” Finn said earnestly. “I didn’t realize that I would scare you like that.”

Maddie relaxed, smiling. “Oh, that’s alright. I just didn’t think that anyone would be up here this early in the morning. It’s too early for the soccer moms and their strollers. So I figured that I’d be safe.”

Maddie took another sip of coffee, spilling part of it down her chin.
Smooth, Maddie, very smooth.

“Careful, or I might call the authorities,” he joked. “Park rules, reckless drinking not allowed.”

Embarrassed, Maddie smiled and wiped her chin with her sleeve. “I don’t like to discuss my drinking problems with strangers.”
Ouch, bad joke
.

Finn fought back a grin.

“So, what are you doing out here this morning besides scaring unsuspecting girls?” she asked.

His face grew serious, and he shook a large ring of old keys. “Well, Maddie, I’m here to lock you up.” He pointed to the rusted gate of the old fort prison.

Maddie hesitated, nervous fear twitching in the back of her throat. “Ha, ha,” she said, desperate to break the lengthy silence.

He raised an eyebrow and said without any hint of emotion. “This property is under my jurisdiction. I make the rules, Maddie.”

Furrowing her brow in confusion, Maddie waited for the punch line.

A wide grin broke across his face. “Scared you.”

“No, you didn’t.” She wasn’t quite sure what to make of Finn O’Malley and his weird sense of humor.

“Yeah, I did,” he said evenly, staring her down with his wide-set dark eyes. “You scare pretty easy. Not like Cordelia. Nothing scared her.”

“That’s true,” Maddie offered, forcing herself to look away from his steady gaze and out toward the ocean. “You sound like you knew Cordelia pretty well.”

Finn dropped down on the bench next to her. She could smell the sweet scent of fresh-cut grass mixed with wood smoke on him. The smell reminded her of autumn and pumpkin stands and apple cider. He said nothing in return, but nodded his head as he pulled out a worn pack of Marlboro Reds from his pocket. He jutted the open package in her direction after he’d taken one out for himself.

Maddie shook her head, and he shoved the package back into his jacket pocket.

Maddie asked, “So what are those keys for anyway?”

“Crockett Powder house, Fort Glover,” he said, pointing with his cigarette. He swiveled around the bench, looking behind them. Maddie could feel him expel his smoke on her neck. “Old Burial Hill, Ravenswood, Old Potter’s Tavern—what’s left of it. Pretty much every historical monument and town building in Hawthorne.”

“Even the fort prison?”

“Even the prison,” said Finn.

“How come?”

“I take care of the town monument grounds. Me and my old man were hired by the Historical Society.” He added sheepishly, “I’m actually a volunteer member of the society.”

Now Maddie was the one who raised an eyebrow. Town volunteer work seemed quite out of character for him.

“Yeah, I know. What is a guy like me doing in the Historical Society? My dad figured it was a good way to keep us in good standing with the town so the committee wouldn’t give the work away to different landscapers.”

“Isn’t that a little self-serving? There has to be a bylaw or two that you are breaking.”

“Yeah, well, if it bothers you that much, you can bring it up at one of the town meetings.”

“You go to town meetings, too?” Somehow, Maddie couldn’t get a mental image of this teenage guy in dirty jeans and a leather jacket sitting at the town meetings with Mr. Krantz, her old science teacher, and Mrs. Malone from the garden club.

His eyes widened, making him appear childlike. “I’m an upstanding citizen of Hawthorne. Of course I do.”

Maddie laughed.

“What? You don’t think that they let guys like me in, do you?”

“No, really, I’m—I’m sure you’re a very influential member of the committee,” she said through her laughter.

“Snob,” he said, smiling.

Maddie glanced down at the large brass circle of keys he held, thinking that it resembled a prop straight out of an old Western movie.

“Sorry, Sheriff. Hey, I’ve never seen the prison before. What’s it like?”

“I’ll have to take you on a tour sometime,” he said in an amused tone. “I took Cordelia there a couple of times. She called it
magical
.” He wrinkled his forehead and laughed, remembering. “I don’t know. She could be pretty out there, sometimes.” He slowly exhaled.

Maddie bit her lip thoughtfully. “I didn’t think you knew her that well.”

He stiffened. “I know that she didn’t deserve what happened to her. I know that she shouldn’t have disappeared the way she did.”

“Some people think that she ran away,” Maddie offered.

“Some people are fuckin’ idiots.”

“What do you think happened to her?”

Finn looked at her squarely, daring her. “You’re her cousin. You tell me.”

Maddie was slightly ruffled by his accusatory tone and intense stare. She tried to look casual and shrugged it off, saying, “I have no idea. I mean, my gut feeling tells me that she didn’t run away. She couldn’t have. She wouldn’t have done it to the people that cared about her. And I don’t think she was killed. I mean, I know it sounds weird, but if she were dead, I think I’d feel it. I think I’d know it was time to stop looking.”

Finn nodded solemnly as Maddie continued, “So that means that she was taken against her will. Who didn’t like her in town?” she asked rhetorically. “Well, just about everybody. You know how hard it is to be an outsider here. Well, at least you did before you started campaigning to be the town mayor.” Smiling, Maddie hoped that her teasing would lower his guard.

“Please, no comments from my campaign at this time,” he said stoically. Maddie choked back a laugh.

“But seriously, it was always hard for Cordelia. And people in this town didn’t make it any easier for her. I know that some of
my friends
,” Maddie paused, making air quotes with her fingers as she spoke of the Sisters of Misery, “were awful to her, but I didn’t think that anyone was capable of actually hurting her or making her disappear.”

He raised his eyebrows, cocked his head, and then quickly looked out at the water.

“Why?” Maddie said quickly. “What do you know?”

He shrugged, grabbing his pack of cigarettes again from his pocket. He hunched over to light one and then said, exhaling, “Like I said before, I know about a lot of things that go on in this town. For instance, I know why you are out here this morning.”

“Oh, really. Why then, oh knower of all things in Hawthorne, am I out here?”

“Checking to see when your favorite teacher pulls back into the harbor, perhaps?” Finn said with sarcasm, cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth.

“How did you…? I mean, I wasn’t…Jesus, I hate how small a town this is,” Maddie stammered. “Seriously, doesn’t anyone have anything better to do than to check up on each other and get into each other’s business?”

“Well, I’m the last person to care about other people’s business,” Finn said defensively. “If you want to get involved with an asshole like Reed Campbell, then by all means, go for it. I just thought that you should be warned.”

“Warned? Warned about what?” Maddie demanded.

“You can’t see what’s going on here, can’t see past the little bubble that you live in. You’re too caught up in your own life, your own problems. Cordelia could see it, though. She knew what was going on. She needed you, and you couldn’t even be there for her. I was the only one who watched out for her.”

Growing more furious with every word, Maddie thought,
Who the hell does he think he is?
“How dare you talk to me about Cordelia! She was—is
my
cousin.
My
family.
My
best friend. If you were so incredibly important to her, why didn’t she say a goddamned word about you? She never said one word. And she told me everything. As far as she was concerned, you didn’t exist!”

Maddie stood up. Despite how cute he was and how thoughtful he’d been to her family over the holidays, she had quickly lost any desire to continue this conversation with Finn O’Malley.

“Well, now she doesn’t exist, so I guess we’re even.” Maddie must have visibly winced at that comment because his voice softened, “Hey, I’m sorry Maddie. That was a really horrible thing for me to say. I—I don’t even know why I said it.”

“I do,” she said, backing away from him. How much did Maddie even know about him anyway? And why did he just
happen
to show up—practically out of thin air—the minute she came out here by herself?

“You’re a self-pitying prick, and you’re jealous of people in this town—people who have more, people who want to be more. Well, Finn, that’s not someone I need in my life right now. So, I’d appreciate it if we didn’t cross paths again.”

Hoping that her firm tone masked the sudden fear tightening around her spine, Maddie turned and briskly walked down the hill, away from Finn, away from the feeling that he knew more than he let on.

“It’s too small a town for that, my dear,” Finn said in a mocking tone. “We’ll be seeing each other again real soon. You can count on it.”

Once Maddie reached a safe distance from Finn, she turned to catch him taking another long drag from his Marlboro Red, still watching her, still smirking. He gave a two-fingered salute with the hand that held the cigarette and turned to walk in the opposite direction.

Maddie didn’t know what angered her more, his callousness about Cordelia’s disappearance or that her heart was pounding just as fast as it had when she thought about Reed.

A few days later, Kate left a message for Maddie, instructing her to meet the girls on the expansive deck of the exclusive Crestwood Yacht Club.

The five members of the Sisters of Misery were coming back together again, if only for a few hours. Like five points of a star, one that had shone in a black October sky that fateful night months before, bearing witness to unspeakable, vengeful acts.

Maddie hadn’t been to the club since she had attended the Freshman Formal. Despite having grown up swimming at the pool, taking sailing lessons, playing on the tennis courts, and eating dinner with her friends’ families in the grand dining room, Maddie always felt like an outsider, like she was masquerading as another young, wealthy child of Hawthorne. Her friends never knew that the amount of money their parents spent on expensive dinners at Crestwood was more money than Maddie’s family spent on groceries in a month. But Maddie was a born chameleon, her mother saw to that. She slipped easily into the role that the other girls expected of her and never questioned it. Not until Cordelia and Rebecca came into her life did Maddie begin to see the people she associated with in a different light.

Maddie climbed the wide plank stairs that led up to the main building of the yacht club, suddenly feeling very out of place in the loose-fitting, floral dress that had seemed so appropriate during her days working at Rebecca’s store. She felt like she was being appraised by the well-dressed women of the club as she walked through the main room. Moving across the salt-worn, wooden floors, she trailed her fingers along the dark mahogany bookshelves, observing the tall, brass trophies that gleamed in their custom-made cases, the banners and flags that hung limp from the rafters above. The briny smell of salt and sand permeated every object in the building.