“Val was rough with me. I really can’t believe this. I can’t believe Antoinette is alive. I thought… really, I don’t know what I thought.”

“Well, again, I’m sorry for what happened. I don’t like to see good people, good Nantucketers, take it on the chin like you and Raoul did. And your son.”

Kayla stuffed the paper into her purse. “Okay,” she said. She knew Paul Henry was looking for some sign of forgiveness, but she couldn’t give it to him. She had to get out of there. “Thanks.”

On the way home, Kayla stopped at Hatch’s and bought a six-pack of beer and a five-dollar scratch ticket. Antoinette was alive, on Martha’s Vineyard. Kayla laughed in the check-out line.

Later, she sat at the breakfast bar and drank two beers with her lunch. A cream cheese and grape jelly sandwich and eight Lay’s potato chips. Val had known the whole time. There wasn’t a doubt in Kayla’s mind. She scraped the silver film off her scratch ticket with her thumbnail. Nothing. She used to find old scratch tickets all over Theo’s room. He’d bought them at the Islander Liquor Store, back when he used to hang out with his friends. Back when he was a normal kid. The word that filled Kayla’s mind was outrageous, because at the center of that word was rage. Antoinette is fucking alive. On the fucking Vineyard. And Valerie knew. Now things started to make sense. Val pretended that Antoinette had drowned so no one would suspect otherwise. She threw Kayla to the police to keep the police from investigating any deeper, but she knew Kayla wouldn’t get into any serious trouble because a body would never be found. Kayla had left Great Point for at least half an hour when she went to call the police. There was plenty of time for Antoinette to crawl out of the water and escape. Maybe she’d left her bike somewhere along the way, maybe she rode to Val’s house and hid out there until morning when the ferry left for Martha’s Vineyard, which on Labor Day weekend would have been filled with tourists. Or Antoinette could have taken a motor boat; she knew how to operate one-Kayla remembered the trip to Tuck-ernuck with Theo years before. It mattered very little at this point how Antoinette got to the Vineyard. Once there, she was safe. The Vineyard was the perfect place to hide. It was too close, too obvious, and for these very reasons it was the last place anyone would have looked.

But why, Antoinette? Why run away?

Kayla had to go see for herself.

With the kids at school and Raoul at work on his huge new project, it was easy to slip away the next day. There was one ferry to the Vineyard in the morning, and one ferry home in the afternoon. Kayla was one of three people on the boat. She hunkered down in a window seat and inventoried the damage that Antoinette had caused-Theo’s heart, for starters; Kayla’s good reputation; Kayla and Raoul’s marriage; Kayla and Val’s friendship; Ting. If Kayla did find Antoinette on the Vineyard, what could she possibly say? Only this: You ruined everything. Outrageous.

Martha’s Vineyard was much bigger than Nantucket; it had seven towns to Nantucket’s one. The town of Vineyard Haven, though, had the same slow pace of Nantucket in winter. When Kayla arrived, there was a line of taxis, each with a Christmas wreath tied to the grille, and the drivers were clustered together, warming their hands around cups of coffee. Kayla stood by the passenger door of the first taxi in line until the driver, a man with long, deep lines in his face, tore himself away from the group. He wore jeans, a gray hooded sweatshirt.

“Where you headed?” he asked.

“I’m not sure,” she said. The paper said: 52 Painted Rock Road, between Chilmark and Aquinnah. When they climbed into the car, she handed it to the driver.

His face creased into more lines. “Well, I know where Chilmark and Aquinnah are, but I’ve never heard of Painted Rock Road. You sure that’s the right name?”

“No,” Kayla said. “This is just an address someone gave me. A… a friend of mine lives there.”

“I’ve lived here twenty-six years,” the driver said. “Been driving cab fourteen and I have never heard of any Painted Rock Road.”

That sounds like Antoinette, Kayla thought. She was forever stumping the taxi drivers on Nantucket. Even with the address they couldn’t find her house.

“Can you take me out that way?” Kayla asked. “You can drop me off, maybe, and I’ll look for it?”

The driver shrugged. Kayla saw on his license that his name was Eddie.

“Okay,” Eddie said. He shifted his car into gear. “We’ll give it a whirl.”

They drove out of Vineyard Haven and hopped on the state road. “I’m headed up-island,” Eddie said into his radio. “Don’t know when I’ll be back.” Kayla looked out the window at the acres of open land, farm land, pine forest. It was turning out to be a nice day; the sun came out for brief periods before disappearing behind white puffy clouds.

After a while, they passed a hand-painted sign that said CHILMARK CHOCOLATES.

“So we’re in Chilmark, then?” Kayla asked.

“Yep,” Eddie said.

“We should start looking for signs,” Kayla said.

“If there’s a sign for this Painted Rock Road, I’ve never seen it before.”

“Oh,” Kayla said.

Eddie picked up his radio. “Hey, anybody out there ever heard of Painted Rock Road?”

Static.

“Hey, Norm, you out there? Carrie, doll?”

A woman’s voice. “I’m here, Eddie. Can’t help ya.”

More static.

Kayla watched mailboxes sail by. Eddie was driving pretty fast. “Maybe we should slow down,” she said. “So we can look?”

A man’s voice broke the static. “Painted Rock’s off the left hand side of State, Eddie. Two turns before the Kaiser place.”

“You’re kidding,” Eddie said. “There’s no houses down that turn, though, Norm. There’s no sign.”

“Nope, no sign. Just a rock there at the turn with blue paint. You’ve probably never seen it,” Norm said. “And there is one house back there, Eddie. I know because I dropped off the woman who lives there a week or so ago.”

The woman who lives there.

Eddie nuzzled his radio. “Thanks for the tip, Norm.” He looked back at Kayla and shrugged. “Learn something new, et cetera, et cetera.”

Kayla was suddenly too petrified to speak.

With this information from Norm, Eddie found the road almost instantly.

“No shit,” he said. “A rock with blue paint. There it is.”

Kayla fumbled through her purse for money. “You can just leave me off here,” she said. “I’ll walk to the house. Truth is, I’d like to smoke a cigarette before I get there.”

Eddie pulled over to the side of the road just past the blue rock. “No problem,” he said. “Fifteen bucks.”

Kayla gave him a twenty and told him to keep the change. He smiled. “Have a nice visit with your friend,” he said. “And Merry Christmas.”

It was sunny but cold. Kayla wore jeans, a turtleneck, and a black corduroy jacket. She put on her gloves and began to walk. Painted Rock Road was a dirt road surrounded on both sides by thick trees. It felt eerily familiar. Same setting, different island. Kayla saw other footprints in the dirt. Antoinette’s footprints? Or the footprints of some other woman? Kayla followed the footprints to a clearing, a small yard, a house. The house was long and narrow, a bunch of rooms lined up like boxcars on a train. Cedar shingles, forest green shutters, empty window boxes. A stucco chimney gurgled smoke.

Someone was home, enjoying a fire.

Kayla crunched up the gravel driveway. Fairy tales played through her head: “Hansel and Gretel,” “Goldilocks and the Three Bears.” An evil-looking crow cawed from the roof. Kayla knocked on the front door three times. A friendly knock.

No answer.

Kayla knocked again, this time a little more aggressively. She wondered if someone was watching her from behind the curtains.

Still no answer.

Kayla rounded the side of the house with the chimney and stepped into the back yard. She was alarmed to discover the back of the house had huge windows and glass doors. Kayla could see right in- the beautiful cherry cabinets in the kitchen, the bar stools, one with a paperback copy of The Bluest Eye splayed on top. A small Christmas tree glittered with white lights on the kitchen counter. Behind the kitchen was a living room with a huge stone fireplace-and lying on the sofa in front of the fire, Kayla saw Antoinette, fast asleep.

Pregnant.

Kayla gasped. She should leave. Right now, leave. Give the detective his positive ID-Yes, that was Antoinette. Case closed. But Kayla couldn’t help herself. She walked closer to the glass doors; she pressed her face against the glass because she had to be sure.

Antoinette lay on her side, her hands resting on her swollen belly. She wore a pleated white blouse. Antoinette in white-it seemed odd. Her hair was loose, frizzed out on the sofa cushion, her eyes were closed, and her mouth hung open slightly. Kayla stared unabashedly. She remembered the incredible exhaustion of pregnancy, how it had weighed her down. And now here was Antoinette pregnant-tired with Kayla’s grandchild. Kayla reached for the handle of the sliding glass door. It was open. Kayla walked right in and tiptoed over to Antoinette; she stood so close she could hear Antoinette’s breathing. So close she could touch Antoinette’s forehead, which was shiny and dotted with small pimples. After all this time, months of speculation, here she was.You ran away from us, Kayla thought. And in so doing, you ruined everything. But staring at the roundness of Antoinette’s body, Kayla softened. Antoinette had kept the baby, after all.

And then, without warning, Antoinette’s eyes opened, and she looked at Kayla.

Kayla smiled at her. “Hello, old friend.”