“I suppose they have to ask questions like that,” I say, meaning questions in general to rule him out as a suspect. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t be doing their jobs.
“I suppose. What did they ask you?”
I tell Elliott what we talked about. The arguing, the Benadryl, how Wyatt said he saw Emily in the kitchen crying last night. “Mae remembered too, that Reese had been hanging out with some boy around the resort. She heard him in their cottage. She said Reese was scared of him. What if he did this, Elliott?” I ask, thinking of this boy creeping into the cottage late at night. I picture his face, his eyes, and the way he looked that day by the pool at Reese, his gaze smoldering and intense.Young love, I thought at the time, envying Reese for it, wanting to be seventeen all over again and have some boy look at me like that. But what if I misread the situation? What if something different was going on?
Elliott shrugs. “I don’t know.”
“I remembered something too.”
“What?”
“Last night as we were leaving the cottage, Emily said she wanted to talk to you today. She had something to ask you.”
But Elliott’s face goes blank. He pulls his eyebrows together and shakes his head, asking, “She did?”
“Yes. You don’t remember?”
“No, but I’d been drinking,” he reminds me, and I nod, wondering just exactly how much Elliott had to drink. I only had a glass or two of wine and sobered up quickly when Reese and Emily started arguing. But maybe he had more to drink than I think.
“You don’t know what she wanted to talk to you about?”
“No. I have no idea, Court. If I did, I’d tell you.”
I feel numb. Physically and emotionally drained. I replay the day’s events in my mind. It’s just after eleven in the morning now. All that’s transpired has taken place in less than four hours. Waking up. Making pancakes. Finding Emily. Finding Nolan. The girls and me running for our lives to the lodge, waiting for the police to come, being questioned by them. It feels like it’s been four days, even four years. I step away from Elliott, lowering myself to a chair, my legs weary, thinking how it’s not possible that this is the same day Cass woke me up to make pancakes for her and Mae, and that it’s not possible Emily and Nolan are dead.
“Courtney?” Elliott asks.
“I just need a minute.”
Elliott watches me for a while, and then he goes back to the window, looking out at the police, who continue their investigation, going from door to door, speaking to people in neighboring cottages, and I wonder what they’re asking and if they’re asking things about us.
What are they like?
Did everyone get along?
Did you ever hear them fight?
I look away. I let my eyes go back to the kids. Wyatt sits in the chair with his posture slumped, staring at his phone. Mae’s body still lies flaccid over the arm of the sofa while, at the other end of it, Cass sits there, picking absentmindedly at her skin. They’re all quiet, but Mae in particular has barely spoken since we found Emily and Nolan next door. I go and sit beside her, between both girls, putting my arm around her shoulder, my hand on Cass’s knee. I don’t know what to say to the kids, and so I say nothing of value, only things like,Can I get anyone anything to eat?andDoes anyone need something?I put a movie on theTV to try to distract them—as if some slapstick comedy might be enough to shift their attention away from what’s happened—though we’re all grateful for the noise because the silence in the cottage is more than any of us can stand.
The day crawls by. All day I try to be strong, to be stoic, to not let myself fall apart, though that’s exactly what I want to do: to cry, to throw and break things, to scream, to hide. Instead, I spend the next few hours in a delirious daze of disbelief, taking care of the kids, trying to get everyone but myself to eat because I can’t eat. I try, but it comes back up and I find myself in the bathroom again, on my knees, vomiting into the toilet until my stomach is empty and there’s nothing left to throw up.
I have phone calls to make: to Emily’s mom and to Nolan and my parents, but for the longest time, I can’t bring myself to call them. It hangs over me all day like a dark cloud that I keep putting off because I don’t physically think that I can do it.
“Do you want me to call?” Elliott asks, his tone solicitous, and I know he’s trying to help, but I say no.
“They need to hear it from me.”
By the time I’m ready to make the calls, there is no cell reception in the cottage. I step out on the deck with my phone, knowing that I’ll have to climb the hill to get a signal that lasts long enough to make the calls—either that or go to the lodge for the Wi-Fi, which I don’t want to do either. Detective Evans told us to stay inside, but I can’t keep postponing this.
Cautiously, I move down the wooden stairs. I leave the alleged safety of the deck. I look around as I step onto the thin, patchy grass, feeling only slightly less vulnerable because of the police on the property, still collecting evidence in cottage number eight.
Would the killer be so bold as to come back when the police are here?
What if the killer is still here?
What if the killer never left?
I cross the yard. I slip past other cottages for the hill, climbing it. A cool breeze blows, and I watch the leaves in the trees tremble like I do. I hold my phone in my hand, staring down at it, waiting for a bar to appear. As I reach the top, it does.
