“That’s sweet. Thank you, but I think we’re fine.”
She turns her head, gazes up the hill and toward the cottage in the distance. “I also wanted to tell you the police finishedtheir investigation next door. They’ve released it. You can go in if you want and get your family’s things.”
I look toward the cottage. This should be good news, but still, my stomach sours at the thought of going back in again. “Have you been inside yet?” I ask, thinking of Emily’s, Nolan’s and the kids’ things inside the cottage and wanting them back, like the kids’ own clothes and Emily’s favorite go-to cardigan that she pulls on over everything when she’s cold, which is almost always. I want it. I want to slip my arms into the shirtsleeves and wrap myself up in it.
“No, not yet. But I thought you might want to.” She reaches out, holds out a flat metal key, which I take, curling it in my hand. Everything won’t be there. The police will have taken things from the cottage too, for evidence, like their cell phones for example, if they found them.
Ms. Dahl quiets, her eyes examining my face. “Are you sure there isn’t anything I can do for you?” she asks, her tone changing.
“I’m sure.”
“What’d you do to your face?”
I touch my cheek by instinct. “Last night,” I say, glancing away because I can’t look her in the eye as I lie. “I went to get water in the middle of the night. It was dark. I couldn’t see where I was going. I ran into the doorframe.”
She stares too long.
“I didn’t know doorframes had fingers.”
I don’t know what to say. I don’t know if I should let her think that Elliott did this to me—which is what she thinks—or if I should tell her it was Wyatt.
“Actually,” I say instead, my throat tightening, lowering my arm to my side. “I was going to stop by later this morning to let you know that we won’t be staying here much longer.”
“No?”
“No. I’m sure you can understand, but we can’t stay here, given what’s happened. My husband, Elliott, is going to see if there are any other accommodations in town with vacancy for us to stay.”
“Let me save him some time. He won’t have any luck,” she says, her words catching me off guard.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that most places around here book up months in advance. Some of them have been booked since last summer.”
I nod, say, “Well, he’s going to try. Maybe there was a cancellation,” my voice hopeful. I cross my arms against my chest, feeling the morning breeze blow through me. Ms. Dahl turns to leave, but before she ever reaches the steps, I ask, “Can I ask you a question? About an employee of yours?”
She turns back. “Daniel,” she says, before I can ask.
“Excuse me?”
“Daniel Clarke. Snake tattoo, right?”
“How did you know?”
“The police came around asking about him too.”
“What did you tell them?”
She shrugs. “That he’s a less-than-ideal employee. That if he was anyone else, I would have fired him by now. But I didn’t hire him because he was qualified for the job. I did it as a favor to his mom, who I was friends with before she died.”
I nod and say, “The police say he hasn’t shown up for work in a few days.”
“That’s nothing new, honey. Daniel comes and goes when he wants to. Doesn’t mean he had anything to do with all this. Daniel is mostly harmless.”
Mostly.
“Do you know where he is?”
“The police asked that too. Hell if I know. I haven’t heard from him. He’s like a cat you let outside to roam. It’s gone solong, you think it’s dead—that a car or a coyote got it—but then one day, he just reappears as if no one was ever looking for him.”
