The problem was, Emma’s room was at the end of the second hallway. And all the windows faced east to the ocean. The window that faced the courtyard came from the hallway.
Cass could not have seen her sister from her bedroom window.
When Abby told this to Leo, he nodded silently and let her continue.
“There were other things, little things.” She explained about the counting, how Cass had not been in Emma’s car that night—if she had, she would have counted the time, she would have told them the minutes that passed while she waited. And the same was true of the birth. And the boat ride to meet the truck.
Then there was the affair between Jonathan Martin and the school counselor. She needed them to help rattle her mother. Because she knew what Abby had realized in that bar as she pictured the layout of the upstairs bedrooms.
Emma had never been on that island.
Cass
Hunter left for Hamilton College in the late summer. He left five weeks before Emma and I disappeared. He’d broken up with that pretty girl and apparently was enjoying his freedom, and the access he now had to women wanting sex. We heard all this through Mr. Martin, who spoke about his son with pride again. This made Mrs. Martin very angry.
Something had shifted in our mother after the incident in St. Barts with the suntan lotion that one spring over two years before. It wasn’t that she was suddenly attracted to Hunter, but rather that she became attached to the thought of him being attracted to her. This thought must have eased her mind when shefelt jealous of Emma for being so beautiful and for just being Emma, the girl every man hungered for. I think her need to think of Hunter this way grew into an unruly monster after Hunter confessed that Mr. Martin had taken those pictures of Emma.
It was very subtle, but I saw it. I saw everything. When Emma and I came back from Europe that July before we disappeared, me from England and Emma from Paris, Hunter and Mrs. Martin had become very close. They had inside jokes and they watched TV shows together. Mrs. Martin was always waiting on him, getting him food and doing his laundry, and he was thanking her politely and she was saying things likeOh, it’s no trouble!As annoying as this was to watch, and as angry as it made Emma, it was otherwise harmless. It felt like one of those movie relationships where an older grandma blushes when a young man notices her as a sexy woman. People usually think that’s cute, but if the grandmother were Mrs. Martin, they would also find it annoying. Emma talked to me about it one night in my room.
It’s pathetic, Cass. She can’t even see that he’s just being nice to her to make me angry and to piss off Jonathan. You know she says things to him like “Why can’t you be as nice to me as your own son!” Hunter is an asshole, but he’s a smart asshole. He’s making us hate her and he’s making his father hate her and she can’t even see it! When he leaves and doesn’t give her the time of day anymore, she’ll have nothing.
Hunter had started college that August, but he came home one weekend in late September. It was starting to get cold; the leaves were beginning to change. I remember it very well because it was the weekend before we disappeared.
My mother was beside herself to see him, but he was doing what Emma predicted and not giving her any attention. You could see the confusion and disappointment swirling around like a cyclone when it hits the plains and gathers power. Dishes wereslammed on the counter. Huffing and puffing came from her mouth. And she sat with her legs crossed and her arms folded so her chin could rest in one palm and she could look away with pouty lips and indifference as he told us all about college.
On Saturday night, Emma went out in her car to meet her friends at the teen center. Mrs. Martin made her take me with her, which Emma was not happy about. Mr. Martin had gone to play poker at the club. That left Hunter and Mrs. Martin alone downstairs.
He’d said he had plans to meet friends from high school around ten, so he could stay and help her with the dishes from dinner. Before we left, Hunter whispered to Emma,How many deli managers will you fuck tonight, whore?Emma whispered back,As many as I want, loser.Emma had stopped dating Gil months before, but she would never live it down, how she’d been with the deli manager.
The teen center was crowded. I found some friends and pretended to enjoy hanging out, talking about our teachers and movies and boys. But my mind was stuck on Hunter and Mrs. Martin. Hunter and Emma. I felt extremely irritated.
I walked up to Emma and pulled her away from a boy she was flirting with. I told her she needed to take me home or I would make our mother come, and then she would be in big trouble for causing such an inconvenience. She was furious, but I think she secretly wanted to go home to see Hunter, to see if he really went out to meet friends or if she could engage in more warfare with him, even if it was just pulling his attention further away from Mrs. Martin.
We did not go inside the house. We were done screaming at each other and we both needed to calm down. Emma said she was going to the basement from the back door because that waswhere we hid our vodka and cigarettes. Emma was hoping Hunter had also left some pot there. The light was on in the kitchen, so we stopped before we got to the window. Emma peeked her head around just enough to see. I did the same from beneath her. If Mrs. Martin was in there, we would crawl past the window.
Dr. Winter
They left the Martins in a state of disbelief. Judy had come to trust Abby, which had been Abby’s plan. She had been kind to her, flattering to her. It was not hard to earn her trust this way. Abby knew what to do and what to say. And so Judy believed her. She had no reason not to.
She had tried to feign elation that her daughter had been found, but she was not able to pull it off with conviction. They could hear the commotion from outside the house as they walked to Abby’s car. Judy yelling at her husband. A door slamming.
They stood by the car, looking up at the master bedroom. The shades were drawn.
“Here we go,” Leo said.
Abby was light-headed. Her breaths were quick and short. She leaned against the door and hung her head.
“Hey”—Leo’s voice was concerned now—“it’s going to be okay.”
Abby looked up again, exhaling slowly as the wave of panic subsided. “What if I’m wrong?” she asked.
Leo shrugged; then he smiled. “What if you’re not?”
Cass
Emma and I looked in that kitchen window at the same time. And we saw the things we saw at the same time. Mrs. Martinleaned over the counter, her pants around her ankles. Hunter having sex with her from behind, his hands on her bare hips. It was indescribable, the horror we both felt, and yet we could not stop watching. Our mother was holding on to the edge of the counter with both hands. Her mouth was making a narrow, closed smile like a Cheshire cat as her body thrust back and forth into Hunter. Her eyes were wide open and staring right at us, though seeing only the darkness of night reflected from the window. As for our stepbrother, his eyes were closed. His mouth was gaping wide. He looked satisfied with himself, and I understood why he’d come home. Why he’d been treating our mother with the one thing she couldn’t stand. Indifference. He knew she would do whatever was necessary to get back the attention she had become so addicted to over the summer.
And once she did what was necessary, he would have something that would kill my sister inside—he would have Emma’s kryptonite in his arsenal.
