Night comes to the lake like a lover, tender and welcome. Cradled by mountains that have turned from violet to blue in the dusk, the water is still, only the warm August breeze stirring its surface like a brush across canvas. On the far side of the lake, a doe appears, her long form bending low to take a drink. There is a fire on the beach, and a pair of teenagers leaning into each other, pressing their bones together with the urgency of flames. Lights from the cottages that dot the edge of the water are flickering on and off as their occupants gather on porches or retire into dreams, and there is the soft sound of voices, of laughter, a woman singing about the nearness of you, her voice decades old. Crickets and frogs chirp at each other, a loon cries across the bay. The landscape sighs and settles into itself.
At the docks, the wiry figure of a child sits, her feet skimming the water. Her name is Ella Marie, but she is known by those who love her as Ellie. Her name comes from two women she has never met, Ella for a singer who sang about love, Marie for a scientist on the other side of the ocean. Ellie has a note folded in the front pocket of her overalls, and a backpack filled with her treasures: old bottlecaps, stones smoothed by water, a ring without its stone that she found on the beach. She loves the smell of the lake here, the dark outlines of the mountains that make her feel surrounded, safe. She pulls the crumpled piece of paper from her pocket, reads it one more time. She scans the shore behind her, shines a flashlight onto the path that leads from the cottages to the docks, down at the gurgling water that laps at the sides of resting boats.
Farther down the shore is the cottage she is staying at, the little white house with the green shutters and the sign above the door that says Home Is Where The Heart Is, an anatomically correct drawing of a human heart where the "heart" should be. She can see that there's one light still on in her parents' room, and she imagines them reading in bed, The New England Journal of Medicine on one pair of knees, and a Sports Illustrated on the other. Sometimes Ellie likes to crawl up between them while they read, feel the familiar comfort of their warmth on either side of her until she slips into dreams.
There's a sound in the woods behind her, a few snapping twigs. Ellie bites her lip, swings the flashlight at the trees, the worn path. Nothing. She tucks the note back into her front pocket, gets to her feet. She will be brave. She has always been brave. She's not afraid of heights, or the darkness. She's not afraid of the bigger kids in the neighborhood who won't let her play stickball, or the class tarantula, or bad guys. She's not afraid of anything.
Something splashes in the water beside her. She shines her light to see the leftover ripples forming, one after another. She peers down, tries to make out what fell in, but something has grabbed her shoulder.
The flashlight falls onto the dock, rolls into the water. The dock whines under weight, feet crash across the wood and into the forest, up the hill toward the parking lot. Tires roll over gravel and then disappear into the night.
The lake is quiet once more.
Ellie has vanished.
R&I R&I R&I
"Something's wrong."
Jane glances over at the woman in bed beside her who has suddenly sat upright, her magazine discarded in her lap. Any other time and Jane would raise an eyebrow, make a joke about being on vacation, but she sees the look in Maura's eyes and freezes.
"What is it?"
"I don't know." Maura's limbs are tense, all of her senses alert. She's had more than a few years to get used to the strange sensation that most would call maternal instinct. Maura realizes it's a simple firing of the synapses, a biological instinct that allows the mother to better protect her progeny, but she's still always caught off guard by the sudden rush of emotion and urgency, the need to react.
"Is it...?" Jane nods down at Maura's abdomen and its implied cargo. Two months ago, they'd conceived their second child. Ellie had been Jane's egg, fertilized through IVF and carried by Maura. A miracle of science, science that even Jane could appreciate the first time they'd seen her heartbeat in ultrasound, the first time Jane had held the sticky little form in her arms. This new baby they'd made the old fashioned way, with the help of a bottle of chardonnay and a turkey baster. Not that Jane had needed the wine. If anything, they needed help keeping their hands off each other, and not vice versa.
"No," Maura narrows her eyes, looks to her right at the open window overlooking the lake. "I think it's Ellie."
"I tucked her in an hour ago. That kid could sleep through a hurricane, I doubt she's still awake."
"I can't explain it, really. It's the strangest thing. I just have a...feeling."
"A feeling. You're serious?" At this, Jane cannot help but raise an eyebrow. Maura ignores her.
"Obviously it's not an exact science, Jane, but it iis/i science. Numerous studies have found that women who have given birth experience a heightened awareness of the bond between mother and child, not to mention that during pregnancy all kinds of hormonal releases are triggering deep emotional and psychological responses to stimuli."
"So what you're saying is that you're the perfect package for superpowers."
Maura rolls her eyes, smacks her wife's arm with the medical journal. "Just go check on her so you can prove me wrong."
"Whatever you say, Supermommy." Jane winks and climbs out of bed, heads down the hall to the little bedroom that Ellie had picked out the first year they'd rented the cottage, a room with sunny walls and a view towards the mountains. Ellie had perched in the window seat every night since, counting the peaks before getting into bed. Maura has been helping her with this ritual, and they count first in English, and then in French.
As a detective, Jane notices details. She notices things that most people would overlook, or never manage to remember, and the first thing Jane notices is that Ellie's door is open. Jane knows with absolute certainty that it was closed when she left, and that Ellie wouldn't have fallen asleep otherwise.
It wouldn't take a trained eye to see that the bed is empty, the sheets overturned. Jane takes a deep breath, tries to overcome the panic that is rising like bile in her throat. Any number of situations could explain Ellie's absence. Ellie could have gone downstairs for a drink, or to play with her flashlight on the porch as she is wont to do when her Rizzoli tendency to disobey authority kicks in. Jane notes that the pink flashlight they'd gotten Ellie for her birthday is not on the nightstand, a sign that she might be on the right track.
Jane is quiet on the stairs, trying to surprise Ellie if she is on the porch or in the kitchen. She jumps around corners, lifts up the tablecloth. But there is no curly-haired girl sitting on the counter, or trying to hide under the couch. Jane turns all the lights on, surveys every corner, feels the panic returning, the hairs on the back of her neck standing.
Out of the corner of her eye, a sudden movement sets her off. Jane turns on her heels, finds Maura standing in the entrance to the screened porch. Her hair is down, the longest it's been since Jane has known her. Her arms are wrapped around herself as if she is freezing, and in nothing but her silk chemise, Jane imagines she must be chilled. Maura's face reveals the panic that Jane has been trying to hide so well, though, and this is what breaks her.
"Jane?"
"I..." Jane shakes her head, her mind racing with explanations. "Her flashlight is gone. She's probably out exploring with that kid from two cottages down. I wouldn't worry yet, okay? You know Ellie, she's got a little too much Rizzoli in her."
Maura's expression has not changed. When she speaks, something in her voice makes Jane's heart seize. "We need to find her now, Jane."
"I'm on it."
Jane grabs the flashlight next to the door, sprints down the front steps like her life depends on it. And really, it does. Ellie has been her mothers' entire world since her birth, and Jane cannot begin to comprehend what she would do if anything ever happened to Ellie. She very consciously chooses not to think about this, though. Ellie must be here. She has to be. Jane will not accept anything else.
"Ellie! Baby girl, you need to go to bed! Game's over, princess, let's go!"
There's no sign of her on either side of the house, or down by the lake. Jane takes a deep breath, once again forcing herself to ignore the anxiety, and does the only thing left to do. She follows a hunch.
She keeps calling Ellie's name all the way to the docks, swinging her flashlight through the woods until she comes to the water. Ellie has spent every afternoon on the dock since they arrived at the cottage two weeks ago, skipping stones and scooping up minnows. Jane walks to the end of the dock, calls Ellie's name one more time. A chorus of "Ellie"s follows, and Maura appears on the shore, a sweater wrapped over her shoulders.
"Did you see anything?"
Jane shakes her head. Her hands are shaking, so she makes fists, pushes them into her hipbones.
"What's that?" Maura walks toward her, a finger pointed towards the water. "See it?"
Jane looks down, and sees a light cast on the dock supports, maybe a foot below the surface. Not thinking, she jumps into the water, reaches for the light.
"Oh God, no," Maura has a hand over her mouth, suppressing a gasp. Jane looks at the object in her hand, recognizes the bright pink flashlight with the two princess stickers on the handle.
She turns the flashlight over in her hand, casting light on the boat beside them. Jane silently reads the message scrawled in black along its side.
You're cold.
Jane feels her stomach drop, her hands turning to ice. "It's him," she says. "That bastard has got Ellie."
A/N: I am so excited for this story, hope you guys are equally on board. The little girl in the cover is named Mary Elizabeth Bell, who I think looks exactly like a mini-Rizzoli and is who I imagine as Ellie. Comments are love!