A motorboat buzzed in the distance. The water rolled to the shore; a breeze rustled the branches and stirred up the scent of pine. I looked down at the monitor in my hand and switched it off. I’d taken well over forty readings. Not a single one of them was positive.
If there was something out there, it was well-hidden.
TWENTY-SIX
[PEYTON]
THE VIPERFISH HAS NEEDLESHARP TEETH THAT JUT out of its distended lower jaw and curve all the way up to its forehead. All he has to do is bite down and his prey is pierced through and through, unable to wriggle away. The viperfish can’t really close its mouth but that’s all right. He’s willing to sacrifice that convenience for the ability to easily snare a meal in the deep cold water where food is hard to find.
But he has to be really careful when he bites down. If he misjudges, he can get stuck with jaws cranked wide open, with no way to dislodge the fish and no way to consume it. Then, locked together, eye to eye, he and his captive wait for death to find them both.
Who’s the real winner then?
“Mr. G wants to get you started on the line.” Fern glanced at her watch and strode down the hallway, Peyton trailing in her wake. “Though I don’t know how much we can get done in an hour.”
Not her fault, though Fern made it sound that way. Peyton had come straight from school. Maybe Fern didn’t approve of teenagers working in Manufacturing, either. Maybe Peyton had taken the job from one of Fern’s friends.
She shuffled along in her bootie-covered shoes, hair encased in a net, lab coat flapping at the knees with the cuffs of the sleeves folded up to keep from drooping down to her fingertips. No fashion statement there.
Fern stopped by the door and punched in the code. “We change the code regularly.”
Yeah, everyone knew you had to watch out for moms wanting to steal vats of baby lotion.
The big room hummed with movement and noise as people moved around making sure all the machines were doing their thing.
“Here’s the rundown.” Fern stopped by two small metal containers screwed to the wall and tugged a set of latex gloves from one and a paper face mask from another. She handed both to Peyton, then removed a set for herself. Sliding the mask over her mouth and nose, she pulled the elastic around the back of her head, and her voice grew muffled. “I don’t expect you to memorize it, but it’ll at least give you a general idea of how things work.”
Peyton fitted the mask over her own face and tugged on her gloves.
Fern set off briskly down the center of the room. “Ingredients are stored in a large storeroom next door. We work with fiftypound bags of materials, and you’re not expected to cart those around. The guys in the storeroom do that, and they use dollies. I don’t know where you’ll be assigned yet . . .”
“Sunscreen.”
“Oh?” Fern arched an eyebrow.
Peyton shrugged. “Mr. G told me he needed me working on the third line.”
“Well then, let’s head over there. That makes sense, I suppose. It’s one of our least complicated formulations.” Meaning a dumb kid like Peyton could be trusted not to screw it up. Fern stopped and fixed Peyton with a stern look. “You do understand our formulas are proprietary. That means you have to keep them secret.”
Peyton knew what that meant. “I signed the form.”
“Mr. G has lawyers. They’ll sue.”
“My dad works here. I’m not going to do anything stupid.”
“Right.” Her expression softened. It was that same sorrowful look Peyton had endured on the faces of her teachers all day. That’s right, she was saying to herself, poor little motherless girl.
Peyton was glad the mask covered her face.
People stood at various stations along the catwalk, studying gauges, jotting notes on clipboards, watching as big paddles churned gray glop. Some of them looked familiar, but it was hard to tell with just their eyes peeping over the bridges of their masks. Three of them stood close together studying a caliper-looking instrument, murmuring and shaking their heads. Another passed by and stopped to contribute a comment that made them nod in agreement. She watched, transfixed. What was she doing up here, pretending she knew anything? Working in Shipping was a much better alternative. Nothing could go wrong there except for getting a paper cut or running out of packing tape.
Fern patted the funnel suspended above the first vat. “This is how we add ingredients. We do it sequentially, to ensure uniform mixing and consistent texture. Everything’s on a timer. Larry, this is Peyton Kelleher. Frank’s daughter.”
“Hello, Peyton, Frank’s daughter.”
“Hello.”
“I’m just about to add the Z4.”
“If you’ve already got it measured, could Peyton do it?” Fern asked. “Mr. G wants her to get up to speed quickly.”
“Well . . . it’s his company. Go ahead. You got three minutes.”
Three minutes wasn’t much time. Her palms felt sweaty. “What do I do?”
“It’s all been loaded into the system. All you have to do is push this button and guide the funnel.”
Well, sure. She could do that.
Fern made a motion, and Larry stepped back behind Peyton.
“Did you hear what happened?” Fern whispered.
“Hear it? I saw it.”
“Do you think he asked her?”
“The way I heard it, Dana asked him.”
Peyton stilled, listening. Fern must have caught it, because now she turned away and dropped her voice to a murmur.
Big metal paddles churned white muck that very definitely already looked like lotion. What would adding Z4 do? Larry had said she had three minutes. Did that mean the timer had already gone off, or it was going to go off in three minutes? She didn’t see a timer anywhere. She glanced behind her to ask and saw Fern and Larry with their heads close together, still gossiping about Dana. Well, what was three minutes? Might as well push it now. She turned back and her shoulder brushed the funnel, sending it swinging. A cascade of white powder spilled into the vat, then swung back to dump a stream onto her. She leaped back, smacking at herself.
Fern yelped. “What are you doing?”
“I got it, I got it.” Larry shouldered Peyton aside and punched a series of buttons.
Peyton’s cheeks flamed. Stupid stupid.
The assembly ground to a halt. People were looking over.
“It’s my fault,” Fern said. Larry nodded without looking up. He was levering up the paddles and examining the dripping liquid.
“Let’s go,” Fern said.
Feeling very much like a student being hauled to the principal’s office, Peyton climbed down the stairs and followed Fern across the floor. She looked down at herself helplessly. She hoped it wasn’t expensive powder.
“It was my fault.” Peyton sat in the passenger seat of her dad’s truck, lab coat bundled in her lap.
“Of course it wasn’t,” her dad answered. “Did someone tell you it was?”
“They didn’t have to.” She fingered a button on the lab coat, wiping the powder away from the slick surface with the side of her thumb.
“Fern should’ve known better than to let you run the machinery without any training.”
“They just told me to push a button. I’m the one who screwed it up.”
“What were they doing while you were pushing this button?”
“Talking.”
“What about?”
For some reason, she didn’t want to say. “Nothing.”
He glanced at her. “Well, it had to be something for them to have left a kid alone with a million-dollar piece of equipment.”
A million dollars? She sat back. Things could have been worse, far worse. What if she had broken the machine? The enormity of it made her physically sick. “I’m moving back to Shipping.”
“Don’t say that. Brian thinks you can handle this. I do, too.”
She looked out the window. There was the sign for Black Bear. Her dad flipped on the t
urn signal and they swept onto the road leading to town. “They were talking about Dana.”
“Fern and Larry were?”
She nodded.
They drove for a little while. At last, he spoke. “Dana thinks something made your mom sick.”
“I know.”
“You do?” He sounded surprised, and something else. Annoyed?
“She told me.”
“Well, it’s not true. You know that, right? We talked to the doctors. Doc Lindstrom ran every test he could think of. There was nothing we could have done.”
She remembered. She and Eric had researched it themselves, hunched over his laptop and searching medical sites, scrolling through page after page after page. None of it had made any sense to Peyton. “So why was Dana at the plant?”
“She was testing the air.”
“The air?” Like, the air they breathed all the time they were there? Hours and hours of breathing that air?
“Hey,” he said, looking at her. “It’s okay. She didn’t find anything.”
His voice was even and she believed him. So why was her stomach twisted into knots? “I’m going out with Eric tonight.” Giving him fair warning. You’ll be alone.
“Sure.”
They were on their street. A group of kids were walking down the sidewalk, headed toward the lake. Their laughter came in through the opened truck windows.
Dana’s car wasn’t at the curb, which meant that maybe she wouldn’t be home for supper. Again. Peyton could tell her dad had noticed. His face had relaxed a fraction. So he was relieved, too.
She gathered the dirty lab coat together; she’d have to wash it before she went back to work.
TWENTY-SEVEN
[DANA]
PUBERTY HAD NOT BEEN KIND TO ME. AT THIRTEEN, I grew six inches and curves, seemingly both at the same time. Julie hadn’t known what to do with me. She’d slipped through her teen years like the swan she’d always been, but not me. I was ungainly and emotional. I was a giraffe and an elephant slapped together in disharmony, and miserable. At last Julie had said in despair, Try running.
The path around the lake used to end abruptly in gorse and dirt, as though whoever had installed it had given up. But now that old stopping point was gone, the new gray asphalt continuing on as though it had always been there, extending far into the distance and curving out of sight.
It had to be Gerkey’s but it wasn’t. Was Peyton at risk or not? My shoes thudded; my breath pounded in my throat. Had Julie been happy with Frank in the end or not?
My cellphone was ringing. I stopped and retrieved it from my pocket.
“Dana.”
“Halim.” Panting, I walked in circles, cooling down. “How nice of you to return my call.”
“I’m sorry I’ve been difficult to reach.” His voice was cool. He hated it when I was sarcastic. “But I understand you spoke with Ahmed.”
“Oh yes. He gave me an earful.”
A slight hesitation. Good. I’d caught him off guard.
“I was hoping to have something to tell you, Dana. I didn’t want to trouble you, given your personal concerns. Nothing’s official yet. We’re still waiting for the autopsy report.”
Not a word about my not returning when I’d said I would. Was he worried about my absence or relieved? “What’s taking so long? It’s been six days.”
“They are doing a toxicology screen. Apparently, these results take time.”
“I guess that’s good,” I said slowly.
“It’s very good. If she was high on something, that would explain why she didn’t know where she was.”
It wouldn’t explain how she’d sneaked past the guard. It wouldn’t explain how we’d missed her. The breeze freshened, flattening the long grasses and sending a sandy spray across my ankles. “I’ve been calling White, but he’s not picking up. You need to go over and talk to him. Don’t let him weasel out of paying us.” My mortgage was coming due, my cellphone bill. I’d been buying groceries and gas all week, and every time I swiped my credit card, I held my breath, waiting to see that it had been rejected.
“I haven’t just been sitting here, Dana.” His voice was sharp. “I’ve been working on it.”
“Tell him we’re going to start charging late fees. Contact the people in New Orleans and send them an invoice for our out-of-pocket expenses.”
“That’s not how we usually do it.”
“We don’t usually have clients cancel on us, either.”
“It’s insane. The woman had been living on the streets for years. Her family never saw her unless she needed money or a place to sleep. She was addicted to methamphetamine and she fished other people’s food out of the garbage. For this, they’ve hired a lawyer.”
I couldn’t blame the Hamiltons; this was their daughter and sister. She’d mattered. “We need a lawyer.”
“Lawyers are expensive.”
He was going to quibble about money now? “Then tell your brother to repay those loans you’ve made him.”
“He’ll pay me as soon as he can.” Halim’s voice was smooth, coated with lies. That money was gone. His brother would never repay us, and we both knew it.
I’d made a mistake, one I kept repeating. I’d been so grateful that Halim had asked me to share his business dream that I’d given him free rein. I’d been so relieved to have Halim handle the police investigation that I’d willingly left town. I was still acting like the kid sister, the one who kept taking the easier path, no matter that it wandered around aimlessly. The sun beat down hard across my shoulders. I looked at my feet, the laces untied on one sneaker, the mosquito bites ringing my ankles.
“What about the guard?” I asked. “Have you found him?”
“No, and I doubt we will. Which is too bad. It would have been helpful to know if he saw anything Monday night.”
“This is all my fault.”
“Dana.” His voice was low with warning.
“When we were doing our walk-through, I found a beer bottle. It was new, no dust on it. It wasn’t there Monday night.”
“You can’t be certain of that. Besides, the bottle could have just as easily been left by the guard.”
“If you hadn’t been on the phone with your brother, we wouldn’t have rushed the walk-through. We could have verified where that bottle came from. We could have found her.”
“Are you saying this is my fault?”
Was I? “Even if the family doesn’t sue—”
“We won’t let that happen. You can’t be talking that way. I know it is your way to take on everyone’s burden, but this is not yours to bear.”
“I don’t take on people’s burdens. That makes me sound pathetic.”
“But you do. The crew, Ahmed’s sister-in-law. You’re always putting emotion over business.”
“I can’t believe you’d say that. I’m the one who gets people to pay up. I’m the one who negotiates hard.”
“In this business, Dana, there are few people who listen to women.”
Wait, wait. “What are you saying?”
A family was picnicking on the shore, the parents laughing as the kids splashed in the water. The children were tossing pieces of bread to the seagulls, shrieking as they swooped in.
“Nothing you don’t already know yourself. You may do the talking, but I’m the one our clients listen to.”
“That’s insulting.”
“It is the truth.”
I’d been gone a week and no one had bothered to contact me: not suppliers, customers, even our own office staff. Did I really want to hear the truth? Yes, I decided. I did. “Tell me, Halim. Why did you bring me into your business?”
“You know why. I needed someone like you, someone smart and capable, someone to take over when I retired—”
“No. Let’s stick with the truth. You never had any intention of my taking over the business. You only brought me in because I’m American, because that was the only way you could order explosives and get permits. What you needed
was someone like me who would believe your lies.”
A cold pause. When Halim spoke again, his voice was firm. “Let us allow this current business to settle itself.”
“And then what?”
“And then we’ll talk.”
“I’m done talking.” I closed my phone.
Try running, Julie had said, and in a way, I’d been doing that ever since.
TWENTY-EIGHT
[PEYTON]
CHIMAERAS ARE THE DARK SHEEP IN THE SHARKS and rays family. They’re weird: long-bodied, smooth-skinned, ribbon-tailed creatures that resemble land animals with their oddly shaped heads and faces. Rabbitfish, ratfish, elephant-fish, ghost shark. There are more than forty in all.
They live mostly in the deep and we don’t know much about them. They keep to themselves. They’re the only fish in the entire ocean that breathe through their noses as well as through their gills; they have small mouths with stubby teeth that they use to grind their food. They wind through the water like dancers, moving their large fins up and down and all around. But their most distinguishing feature is their eyes, which are huge and emerald green, and infinitely sad, as though they know they don’t belong anywhere.
The Dairy Queen was bright and noisy, voices clattering against the tiled floors and Formica-topped tables. The afternoon matinee had just ended and people jostled in line in front of the cash registers. Peyton scraped her spoon around the rim of her plastic cup. “I think my dad’s going to give me my mom’s old car.”
“Tight.”
She wasn’t sure how she felt about it. Even if she Windexed it from top to bottom, it would be loaded with impressions of her mom, her perfume lingering in the seat cushions, the grooves where the heels of her shoes had dug into the floormat, the little silver charm dangling from the rearview mirror: Life is a journey. It might be comforting; it might be too painful to bear.