“No. I didn’t. I didn’t wake up until the girls woke me.”
“And what time was that?”
“Six thirty or seven maybe.”
“So your husband may have left before five o’clock?”
I’ve walked right into it. “He said he was leaving at five. I don’t know why he would leave any sooner than that to go fish.”In fact, last night, when we were still at Emily and Nolan’s place, Elliott checked the sunrise on his phone. It would rise at 5:18. If he left at five, it would have been mostly dark, the sky illuminated just enough for him to see where he was going as he made his way out through the trees and to the lake, as he put the canoe in the water and boarded it.
“But you don’t know for sure what time he left. Is that correct?”
“Yes,” I say, thinking carefully through my words, knowing what he’s getting at, the assumptions he’s making. “That’s correct.” He raises his eyebrows. “But it wouldn’t have been before five. He wanted to be on the lake at dawn because that’s the best time to fish,” I say, repeating the same thing Elliott said to me last night.
I try to remember waking up at three in the morning to check on the girls. I wonder again if I woke up all on my own or if something woke me. I remember that I came to all of a sudden, sitting up in bed, hearing voices and realizing only after a minute that they were coming from the TV. I tiptoed from the bedroom, seeing the soft, eerie glow of the screen from the upstairs loft. I pulled myself up the ladder, crawling on all fours to the TV to shut it off. The girls were sound asleep in bed with Elliott’s iPad tucked under Cass’s arm like a security blanket. They must have been playing games on it before bed. I slipped it out from under her arm and headed back downstairs with it, leaving it on the kitchen counter, making a mental note to talk to Cass in the morning to remind her that she’s supposed to ask before using Elliott’s iPad.
I remember coming into the bedroom. I pulled the door and got back into bed, feeling blinded by the light of the TV. My eyes struggled to adjust to the sudden lack of light now that the TV was off and the cottage had turned pitch-black.
What I can’t remember is if, when I spread out on the saggy mattress, pulling the covers over myself and giving in to sleep, Elliott was there, beside me in bed.
It takes effort to get the kids and me back to the cottage from the lodge. The police escort us, keeping us between them, their hands on their sidearms, their eyes sweeping the property as we walk while, in the distance, the sound of sirens rings out, additional units coming in to assist.
Along the way, people step out of their own cottages to see what’s happening, examining us from their decks like we’re something in a petri dish, leaned over railings, taking in Mae’s torn pants, the blood on her knees and hands, the vacant stares on all of our faces.
“Everything okay, Officers?” one man asks as we pass by him, standing on his deck with his coffee.
“Go inside and lock your door,” Detective Evans says, and the man straightens, calling for his kids, who play catch on the lawn.
My fear is acute. I look around us as we walk, my eyes skimming the trees, my muscles tense and ready to run. Even with the police right beside us, I feel exposed, like nowhere is safe, like there is nowhere the kids and I could run to or hide.
At the same time, the grief sits heavy on my chest like an elephant, making it hard to breathe, the pain dulled only by disbelief.
Maybe this isn’t real. Maybe it’s not happening. Maybe it’s just a dream.
Elliott is waiting for us at the cottage when we come back. He’s outside, pacing the small deck with his phone in hand, worried out of his mind about us. “Oh my God,” he says, taking the deck steps two at a time to come to me, wrapping his arms around my shoulders and pulling me into him. I sag againsthis chest, feeling my legs practically give. I press my face to his shirt, breathing in the ripe, damp smell of him. The relief is overwhelming. He’s here now. I’m safe. I don’t have to do this alone.
But at the same time, I feel pangs of anger and resentment at the sight of his fishing gear on the deck, the rod and tackle box he bought just for this trip, a cooler with his morning’s catch.
Elliott says, pulling away, his hands cradling my face as he looks me deep in the eye, “I was so worried about you. I tried going to Em and Nolan’s place, but the police wouldn’t let me in. I asked, but no one would tell me what’s happening. I saw your text. What’s going on, Court? Is everything alright? God,” he says then, answering for himself. “Of course not. Of course it’s not alright.”
Elliott is visibly stunned when I tell him they’re dead. His face contorts. He stumbles backward, blinking my words into focus. “Dead?” he asks, shaking his head, running his hands through his hair, grabbing for the back of his neck. “What do you mean, they’re dead? That’s not possible. We just saw them last night. No,” he decides, “there has to be some mistake. They can’t be dead.”
“They are,” I breathe, my voice barely a whisper. “It happened sometime last night after we left, or early this morning, I don’t know. They were killed, Elliott. Someone killed them. I found them in their cottage this morning.Mae,” I say, stepping closer to him, “found them in their cottage this morning. The blood. Oh God,” I say, fighting the image in my mind. Elliott reaches for me as I start to cry, pulling me into him by the shoulders, holding me.
“Do they know?” he says into my ear, letting his eyes run over the three of them standing like zombies behind me, quiet, unemotional, their shoulders drooped and their arms hanging limp at their sides.
“They know.”
“Where’s Reese?”
“She’s missing.”
He pulls away again, searching my face, my eyes. “What do you mean, she’smissing?”
“I don’t know. I think whoever killed Emily and Nolan took her.” I imagine Reese kicking, resisting, getting hoisted off the ground and carried out of the cottage by some faceless man, whose large hand is pressed to her mouth to keep her quiet.
“Youthink, Court? What do you mean youthink? Why do you think that?” he asks, his words incredulous because he’s frustrated that we don’t have all the answers, that we don’t know where she is. He’s not mad at me; he’s afraid for Reese. I’m afraid too. “Was there a note or something? Some kind of ransom demand?”
“No,” Detective Evans says, standing beside us. Elliott’s eyes dart to him, as if only now realizing that while we’ve been talking, someone else was there. For a long time, Elliott stares until Detective Evans says, “There was no note. No ransom demand.”
