But tonight the darkness scares me, a creeping-up, closing-in sense of blindness, a blackening out of the world around me. I pull onto the gravel drive and park behind the police officer whose car is on, the engine idling with the window closed. In the side mirror, I just barely make out a reflection. The eyes, when they look back, are different than before. This is someone new, and though I can’t see his whole face, I can assume from the width of him and the height of his head in the front seat, just barely skimming the ceiling of the car, that it’s a man.
I look away. I gaze past the police cruiser and toward the trees, which are dense, dark silhouettes under the ink-stainedsky. The police have finished their investigation next door. There are no more police cars parked at cottage number eight and no more cops raking the area for evidence. Most, if not all, the guests have left the resort. It’s just us, as far as I know, though there is a light on in one of the cottages further down, and I wonder if someone is there or if someone forgot to turn the light off before they left.
Maybe we’re not alone after all.
Maybe someone else is here.
I kill the car engine. I don’t have to look to know that the police officer is still watching me in his mirror. I avoid his gaze, letting my eyes go to the cottage instead, where Elliott left a light on outside for me, a dusty iron sconce that sits to the right of the front door and gives off a dull light that moths and beetles fly circles around. But it’s light nonetheless, and I’m grateful not to have to step out of the car and into total darkness.
I open the door and step quietly out, the night air terrifying as it wraps its cool arms around me. Outside, crickets have begun to surface, their high-pitched chirps screaming out into the night, the temperatures dropping with the sun. I close the door and make my way to the deck steps, which I climb, my fear swelling, feeling the officer’s eyes on me from behind and not knowing who or what else is out here with me.
I walk faster toward the door. I reach out a hand to unlock it when, all of a sudden, the door swings sharply open and I gasp, dropping the keys, the sound of them hitting the deck brassy and loud.
Elliott stands in the open door, a dish towel in his hands. He looks out, his face softening when he sees me, quivering in the faint glow of the porch light. “Shit. Sorry. I thought I heard something and came to check. I didn’t know it was you. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Tears sting my eyes, rolling down my cheeks. Elliott pulls his eyebrows together, misreading my reaction, asking, “Did something happen, Court? Did you find her?” meaning Reese.
But I shake my head, wiping my eyes. “No,” I say, feeling like a child for crying. “We found nothing. She wasn’t there. I just... You scared me.”
Elliott runs a hand the length of my hair and says, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.” He pulls me into him, wrapping his arms around me, and I nod against his chest, feeling a slight chill as I imagine the police officer, watching us from the front seat of his car.
Elliott steps back, looking at me. I’m exhausted, my eyes heavy, swollen and red, though I know that even when I lie down, I won’t sleep. I can’t sleep. I’ll lie there thinking again about someone circling the cottage, looking for a way in.
“Come inside,” Elliott says, his voice tender as he takes me by the hand and tries pulling me in.
I pull back and say, “I’m coming. Just let me get my keys,” as I bend down, lowering myself to retrieve my keys from the deck, where they landed beside Elliott’s shoes. He took them off yesterday, leaving them outside because they were wet from fishing. Now the light from the wall sconce shines down on them, and in the pale yellow glow of the exterior light, I see something I hadn’t seen before: pinpricks of red dotting the toe and the side of the rubber sole.
Blood.
I blink away, feeling the rhythm of my heart change.
“You coming?” Elliott asks, and I glance up to see he’s gone further inside the cottage now, stopping to turn back and look for me. He stands there in a short-sleeved gray Henley and jeans, his hands in his pockets, his shoulders broad, days of stubble turning into a beard.
I try to be nonreactive, but my stomach roils, and I hate Detective Evans all over again for planting this small seed of doubt in my mind. Why would my first thought be that Elliott did something to Emily and Nolan instead of that he pierced himself with a fishhook or slipped and fell yesterday morning in the canoe?
I know my husband. I know he could never hurt someone. Never. He left our bed at five in the morning like he said to go fishing. Besides, Elliott loved Emily and Nolan as much as I did. He has no reason in the world to hurt them. None.
But in the same breath, some voice in the back of my mind askswhat if?
“Courtney?” he asks again, his head tilted, his eyes tired like mine with dark circles beneath them.
“Yeah,” I say. “I’m coming.”
I sweep the keys up off the deck and follow him inside, taking one last look over my shoulder at the police officer before closing the door, separating us from the outside world.
The girls scramble down from the loft when they see that I’m back. They stand before me, their eyes wide and hopeful as they look around the room, excitement turning to doubt and then defeat.
“Where’s Reese?” Cass asks, her voice crushed as, beside her, Mae lowers her chin to her chest and stares down at her hands when I say we didn’t find her, that she wasn’t there.
“I thought she was,” Cass says. “You said she was.”
I did say that. I told Detective Evans on the phone last night that I knew where Reese was, because I had seen her on the Snap Map.
“Well, she was, honey, at some point, we think. But she’s not there now. We’re not done,” I say, my voice elevating with a modicum of hope for their sake. “We’re still looking. The police are doing everything they can to find her.”
I watch as Mae rubs her eyes before they turn in unison and climb sluggishly back up into the loft, with none of the same enthusiasm as when they came down. They fall asleep up there, watching a movie. Elliott carries his pillow downstairs and back to our bed to sleep with me. I stand at the bedroom door after Wyatt has gotten settled in bed, wondering if I should close it, if I should lock the door. I’m afraid, for many reasons, and know I’d feel marginally better with the door locked, but if the kids need me in the middle of the night, I won’t be able to hear them.
Elliott lies on his side in bed, his head propped on the palm of his hand, watching me. “What are you doing?” he asks.
