Nolan and Emily must not have known. They would have been out of their minds if they knew Reese had a boy over in the middle of the night.
“What did you hear, Mae?” Detective Evans leans in to ask. “Can you tell me?”
Mae doesn’t say at first. She’s apprehensive. She looks away from the detective, her eyes coming to mine. “It’s alright,” I assure her, tucking her stubborn hair gently behind an ear so that it stays put this time. “You can say. Help us help Reese.”
She nods. “I heard her scream,” she says. “And then she was crying.”
My heart rate changes. It’s been years since I’ve seen Reese cry. “Your parents didn’t hear?” She shakes her head. “Why was Reese crying? Do you know?”
She shakes her head again.
“Did you hear anything else?”
Mae nods.
“What did you hear?”
She says, “Reese said he was hurting her. That he was scaring her.”
My chest feels heavy again. There is a pain in the back of my throat, and I want to shake Mae and ask her why she didn’t wake Emily and Nolan and tell them about the boy in the cottage and that he was doing something to hurt Reese.
But it’s not Mae’s fault. She didn’t know any better, but I did. I start to shake, regretting that I didn’t ask Reese about this boy when I first saw them together, that I didn’t ask who he was or how they met or what he was like. I should have expressed interest at least, let her know I saw them together, because maybe she would have opened up to me about him. Maybe she would have told me if he was coming on too strong, if he was making her uncomfortable or if she thought she was in danger. Maybe she would have told me things she couldn’t tell Emily because Emily was her mom and, God love her, a bit controlling and inflexible sometimes. Not because she didn’t love Reese, but because she did.
“Did you hear anything else that night, Mae?” She shakes her head. “Did he come again, maybe another night?”
“I don’t know.”
“Anything else you can remember about the last few days? Anything unusual?”
I think back. “One of the cottages was broken into,” I say, remembering then, recalling how uneasy it made me feel at the time. Until it happened, Elliott and I had been a little too lax about leaving the front door unlocked when we were home or when we ran to Emily and Nolan’s cottage for something. It didn’t cross our minds that we had to worry or even think about someone coming in and taking our things.
“How do you know?” Detective Evans asks.
“I overheard some women talking about it one day at the pool.”
“When was this?”
“A couple days ago.”
“Did they file a police report?”
“I don’t know. I just know that one of the women’s wedding bands was missing and she thought it had been stolen from the cottage. I heard her say that she took it off to swim, left it on top of a dresser and that, when she came back, it was gone. They reported it to the resort.”
The detective nods and then he asks me more about Reese. Any drug or alcohol abuse, history of depression, is she suicidal. He doesn’t lower his voice for Wyatt’s and Mae’s sake. He just asks. I say no, but then I think of the text Emily saw on her phone, the one in which Reese told some friendI wanna KMS. Kill myself. Did she mean it? I don’t have time to tell Detective Evans about it before he asks for Reese’s height and weight—which I can only guess—her hair and eye color, if she has any identifying features like a tattoo or birthmark. I say no, not that I know of.
“What was she wearing last night?” Detective Evans asks and I draw a blank, seeing Reese stomp up the stairs with her chin held high and nostrils flaring. Her face was red and she practically spit her words at Emily,I hate you, I wish you’d die, before slamming the bedroom door so roughly it didn’t latch and it bounced back, and she slammed it even harder the next time, her anger escalating because of her frustration with the door. Emily froze with shame, paling; after Reese was gone, she had a hard time looking me in the eye.
All that said, what she had on escapes me.
“I... I don’t know. I can’t remember. I’m sorry.” He asks Wyatt and Mae, but none of us can.
“That’s fine.” He asks that I AirDrop the picture of Reese to him and then, once I’ve done that, he stands up. He thanks Wyatt and Mae for their help before shifting his attention to me. “It’s best if you stay here and wait for Reese to come back,” he says, and I nod, finding it impossible to believe that Reese will come walking in the door on her own.
“Are we safe?” I ask, knowing we’re not, because how could we possibly be safe when there is a killer out there somewhere?
“We’re going to have an officer outside, keeping watch, for as long as it takes. You’ll be safe here,” he assures me.
I don’t believe it. He can’t guarantee our safety.
