Tears sprang to Caitlin’s eyes and Lydia started to say something, but Bob stepped forward and touched his wife’s elbow. “That’s enough, Pam.”
She jerked her arm away so forcefully she nearly lost her balance, and as her husband steadied her, Albert came out of the house, dressed in pajamas and carrying a cordless phone. Donald must have called again and woken him from a deep slumber, because he was walking crooked.
Yet when he reached the group, instead of handing his niece the cordless phone, Albert grimly said, “Pam and Bob, I’m afraid we need to call the police.”
Pam clearly thought he meant because she was creating a disturbance, and she pointed a finger at him and drunkenly shrieked, “Don’t you dare threaten me! I have every right to express how upset I am when my daughter’s missing!”
“Of course you do, and I want to help you find her,” Albert quietly replied. Catching Bob’s eye, he explained, “There’s been a… an incident with a young swimmer near the marsh. I think we need to tell the police that Nicole’s missing. I can make the call, if you’d like.”
“The marsh? Nicole wouldn’t go within five hundred yards of that smelly marsh—she hates it there. Besides, it’s way past the cottages,” her mother scoffed, expressing exactly what Caitlin was thinking. “That’s not her. It couldn’t be Nicole.”
“No, probably not, but it’s still a good idea to let the police know she hasn’t come back yet, so they can keep an eye out for her,” her husband said, and Albert handed him the phone.
Marion, the neighbor next to the cottages, must have heard the commotion or seen the gathering, because as Bob placed the call, she came walking up the driveway. “Hello. Is everything okay?”
“No, it isn’t. My daughter’s missing,” sniffed Pam, her voice suddenly small. “My husband’s on the phone with the police.”
“Aww, that’s so upsetting,” Marion said sympathetically.
As Pam started to weep, Bob paced back and forth, describing his stepdaughter into the phone. “Fifteen years old. Long dark hair, very fair skin. Slim, but muscular, she’s a dancer…” He paused to ask his wife, “What was Nicole wearing when she went out tonight?”
“I don’t know. Jeans, I think? Maybe leggings. And a white T-shirt that said ‘LaRue Performing Arts High School’ on it.”
Caitlin swallowed hard; she had to tell them. “Nicole changed her clothes before we got to the party. She was wearing a black halter top and denim shorts.”
Mrs. McDougal narrowed her eyes at Caitlin. “Why would she be wearing something like that? Where else did you girls go?”
“Nowhere,” Caitlin insisted. “She just likes to dress…differentsometimes for fun. She says it’s like a costume.”
Bob repeated her description of Nicole’s clothes into the phone. Then he said, “Yep. Okay. That’s in Port Newcomb, right?” He handed the phone to Albert and turned to his wife. “Pam, we need to go. A teenager matching Nicole’s description fell into the water tonight. She’s been airlifted to the hospital.”
“Noo! No-oo!” Pam cried, sinking to her knees. “It’s not my daughter. It’s not Nicole. It can’t be.”
Bob crouched down and put his arm around her shoulder. “Honey, we need to get to the hospital quickly.”
“We’ll take you,” offered Albert, even though he was in no condition to drive.
“Yes, we will,” agreed Lydia. “Caitlin, run inside and get my purse and keys.”
“No!” barked Pam, waving her arm. “I don’t want you people anywhere near me.”
She allowed her husband and Marion to help her to her feet, and as they assisted her into the car, Marion volunteered to waitat their cottage, in case their daughter wasn’t the same girl who’d been taken to the hospital, and Nicole returned while they were gone.
Everything that happened after that seemed surreal, almost as if it were a dream and Caitlin and her aunt and uncle were sleepwalking.
“I’ll make tea,” Lydia told Albert when the trio went inside their little house, but he was too nauseated to drink anything and too weak to sit up. So Lydia went to help him into bed as Caitlin filled a kettle for her aunt and put it on the stove. She could hear her aunt and uncle talking softly on the other side of the wall, but she couldn’t make out what they were saying.
When Lydia came into the kitchen, her niece asked, “How did Uncle Albert know about the swimmer near the marsh?”
“Donald told him the second time he called,” answered Lydia. “Apparently, he’d heard a rumor at the ranger station about someone calling 9-1-1 because a teenager got swept up in the current. So he’d called you to check whether Nicole had gotten back to the cottages yet. By the way, he told your uncle that he couldn’t call again this evening, but he’ll talk to you in the morning.”
“Did he say anything else about the girl? Like if she’s going to be okay?” asked Caitlin.
“No, all he knew was that she was airlifted to the hospital.”
“That could just be a precaution though. They could be giving her an X-ray or something, to be sure she didn’t get water in her lungs, or whatever, right?”
“Yes, I suppose,” said Lydia, but her tone lacked conviction, so Caitlin repeated what Pam had said about her daughter hating the marsh.
