“Did you notice that too?” the detective asks the kids, though Mae just turns away from him, burying her face into my arm.
“You’d have to be deaf not to,” Wyatt says.
“What did they fight about?”
“What didn’t they fight about?”
“Was it just words?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, did they ever get physical?” Detective Evans asks, and I wince, wanting to say no,never. But he’s not asking me and I don’t know what went on behind closed doors.
“You mean like hitting each other?” Wyatt asks.
“Yeah. Like hitting each other.” I hold my breath, wondering what Wyatt is going to say, if there was something going on in that house that I didn’t know about.
But, to my relief, Wyatt says no.
Detective Evans says, “Okay. What else can you remember about the last few days? Anything unusual? Any strange run-ins, threatening calls or texts? Did someone have an enemy?”
For the first time, Mae speaks, pulling her body away from mine, her eyes gazing up at me, not the detective, as she says, as if divulging a secret, “Reese met a boy,” and it sparks a memory.
It was a couple days ago. They were behind the little pool shed: Reese and some boy. I came around the corner to see her standing there in her flimsy red strappy bikini top with a towel tied loosely around her waist, her hair and tanned skin dripping wet as if she’d just come out of the water. She was barefoot, tossing her hair as she laughed a high-pitched laugh, her smile a mile wide. In the moment, there was no denying she was completely smitten with this boy. I stopped and backed quietly away, not wanting to embarrass her in front of her friend.
I nod. “You’re right, Mae, she did.” I look at the detective. “I saw them at the pool the other day. I don’t know if that means anything, if it’s relevant.”
“At this point, everything is relevant,” he says. “Do you know this boy’s name? Is he staying in one of the cottages?”
“No. He’s an employee, I think,” I say, because I saw him from time to time, in his t-shirt and low-slung jeans, doing things like cleaning the pool, yard and maintenance work, going into and out of other people’s cottages, carrying a toolbox, fixing things, letting himself in with some master key.
“Can you describe him?”
“Tall,” I say. “Brown hair, I think. I’m sorry. I didn’t get a good look.”
“What about you, Mae? Is there anything that stands out about this boy? Anything you can remember?” Detective Evans asks, and I see Mae blush when he speaks directly to her, calling her by name. I look at her, at the way her hands shake on her lap, dried tears clinging to her cheeks like the blood on her knee. I let my eyes go to the blood, realizing in that moment that poor Mae is still in the same clothes as before, the ones with urine on them too, because she wet herself earlier. I feel a sharp pain in my chest from guilt, because I didn’t remember, because I changed my own clothes but didn’t think how she needed to change hers, though I don’t want to call attention to it now and embarrass her.
“Mae?” I ask, bringing my eyes back to her face, gently nudging her. “Is there anything you can tell Detective Evans about the boy?”
She nods. “He had a snake tattoo on his arm.”
“A snake tattoo,” Detective Evans repeats, and Mae looks cautiously toward him and nods again. “Did you ever talk to him?” She shakes her head. “Did your sister ever mention anything about him to you? His name maybe?”
Again Mae shakes her head. She says, “But I saw them together. And I heard him one night.”
“You heard him? Where?”
Mae glances at me, as if nervous to go on, her tangled hair in her eyes. “It’s okay,” I say, sweeping her hair off her face. “You can tell him. Don’t be scared.”
Her lower lip trembles as she says, “I don’t want to get Reese in trouble. I don’t want her to be mad at me.”
“You won’t be getting her in trouble, Mae. I promise. Reese isn’t in any trouble. We’re trying to help her, that’s all. We’re trying to find her. She won’t be mad.”
Still, Mae hesitates. Her hair falls back in her face and it takes a minute for her to say, “He was in our cottage.”
“How do you know?”
“I got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. I heard him.”
