The Lullaby Girl (Angie Pallorino #2)
Loreth Anne White
FLOTSAM
MONDAY, JANUARY 1
“Ty, dammit! Get your butt away from there, will ya!” Betsy Champlain, all of eight months pregnant, stood on the verge of the road and yelled into the wind for her son to come back from the water’s edge. It was raining, clouds low, dusk rolling in fast with a fog from the sea. She could barely see him now, chasing their little family Maltese into the gloam along the strip of dark, pebbled beach. Panic licked through her stomach.
She spun around. Behind her, along the manmade causeway that jutted out into the water, ferry traffic was lined bumper-to-bumper for miles. Four sailing waits long and then some. Most of the earlier sailings between the mainland and the island had been canceled throughout the day because of the storms that had ridden into the polar jet stream on the coattails of Typhoon Shiori, blasting the Pacific Northwest with a roller coaster of foul weather. Plus, it was New Year’s Day—a holiday in this part of the world. Which meant tomorrow was the first day back at work in the new year, and everyone was trying to get home. She was never going to make it from the Vancouver mainland back to the island tonight. Frustration ate at her. She shouldn’t have come solo to visit her mom with the two kids and the dog. Ferry traffic was always insane over the holiday period.
They’d been cooped up in the car for hours, and Chloe, their little dog, had needed a bathroom break. Betsy had left the Subaru in the lineup with the window down and Emily, her three-year-old, inside, sleeping. She’d crossed over the road to where she could watch her eight-year-old take the dog down the riprap embankment to pee.
But Ty had been busting with frustrated energy after being imprisoned in the vehicle all day. He’d scuttled down the riprap, slipping and dropping Chloe’s leash. Chloe had hightailed it straight to the water. Ty chased after his pet.
“Ty! Get back here! Now!” Conflict stabbed through Betsy. She shot a look back at the Subaru, then glanced at Ty’s little ghost-shape vanishing into the mist. She spun around and waddled fast back to the car.
“Emily,” she said, shaking her baby girl. “Wake up. You have to come with me.”
Betsy grabbed her half-asleep child’s hand and dragged her at a run back over the road. They negotiated the wet, slippery riprap down to the beach. Emily began to fall and cry. On the beach Betsy scooped Emily up onto her hip and stumbled over the rocky strip to where Ty had vanished. She was breathing hard. She also needed to pee—her bladder felt like it was going to burst.
“Ty!” she yelled. She couldn’t see him. “Tyson Champlain, you get your butt over here right now, or—”
“But Ma—” He popped up from behind a rocky outcrop, holding a driftwood stick. Relief cut Betsy like a knife.
“Chloe’s found something—I’m just taking a look.” He disappeared again behind his rock knoll.
Heaving out a sigh of exasperation, Betsy readjusted Emily’s weight on her hip and negotiated her way across a carpet of small barnacle-encrusted rocks. She came around to the seaward side of the knoll. The tide was far out, revealing a wide expanse of silt covered in slime and scalloped with brown foam. Along the lacework of foam lay lengths of seaweed as fat as her arm along with other detritus that had been tossed up in the storm. A stench of rot and brine and dead fish filled her nostrils.
Ty was crouched over something, poking it with his stick. Chloe growled, trying to wrestle the object away from him. Unusual for the dog.
She frowned, a sense of foreboding creeping into her bones.
“What is it, Ty?”
“A shoe.”
Betsy set Emily down, took her hand, and came closer to see. The mist was thicker down here. Emily stopped crying and peered with interest.
“It’s got something inside,” Ty said, trying to shove Chloe away as he jabbed the contents of the shoe with his stick.
A memory chilled Betsy to the core—a news show she’d watched recently about severed feet in sneakers that had been washing up all over the BC coast and in Washington. Sixteen in all since 2007. No other body parts to match.
“Leave that alone!” She grabbed her son by his jacket and yanked him back. “Pick up Chloe’s leash—now! Get her away from that shoe.”
Ty’s eyes went round at her tone. For once in his life he obeyed quickly and silently. He grabbed the dog’s leash.
Together they stared at the shoe. It was pale lilac in color beneath the grime and seaweed that entangled it. Small. Stubby. A high-top sneaker with a fat, air-filled base for a sole.
Betsy turned back to look up at the rows of cars, now blurred behind a screen of rain. What should she do? Run up there and bash on windows to see if anyone could help her? Help her do what? Police. She needed to tell the police.
“Hold on to your sister, Ty,” she said, fumbling in her jacket for her cell phone. “And grab on to my jacket with your other hand. Don’t let go, either of you.”
He didn’t.
Betsy had never called 9-1-1 before. No need, thank God. But . . . did this constitute an emergency? Or would she look dumb? Her gaze shot to the little shoe lying in the silt. There was definitely something inside—like the photos she’d seen on the news.
She knew about the hoaxes, too. The running shoe that had been found with a partially skeletonized animal paw inside. Others stuffed with raw meat. But the cops would want to know, too, if this was a hoax. Right?
“Mom?”
“Quiet.”
Fingers shaking, she pressed 9-1-1.
“Nine-one-one, what is your emergency?”
“I . . . uh, I . . .” Betsy’s voice stuck suddenly on a ball of phlegm. She cleared her throat. “I found a shoe. I think there’s a foot inside. I think it washed up in the storm.”
“What is your location, ma’am? Where are you?”
“The causeway beach at the Tsawwassen Ferry Terminal. About . . . halfway up, I think.”
“What is the number you are calling from?”
“Cell phone.” She gave her number.
“And what is your name, ma’am?”
“Betsy. Betsy Champlain.” The pressure on her bladder was suddenly intense. She needed a washroom badly. For some reason she also needed to cry. She swiped the back of her hand across her nose, sniffed.
“Are you safe? Everything else all right?”
“Yes. Yes, I’m out here with my kids and my dog. In the rain. My dog found the shoe, and there seems to be a bit of old sock and something inside. I know there are hoaxes, but—”
Up on the causeway engines started growling to life, headlights going on. The line of cars began to move. Someone honked at her stationary Subaru.
“Oh God, I need to go move my car—the ferry lineup is moving.”
“Ms. Champlain, Betsy, could you please stay with the shoe? I’ve got RCMP on their way. There’s a police vehicle in your vicinity now. They’ll be there shortly.”
“My car is in the lineup. They’re honking—”