I wouldn’t put it past him at age nineteen to have a thing for an almost-twelve-year-old, though it fills me with feelings of rage and disgust. It’s not that different than seventeen and twenty-four. It’s the exact same age difference, in fact. Seven years.
I come home empty-handed.
Elliott flings open the front door, and before I can put the car in Park, he’s outside, bounding down the steps to the drive. “You’ve been gone for almost two hours. Is everything okay? What took you so long?” he asks, pulling my car door open for me.
“I’m sorry,” I say, getting out.
Elliott doesn’t give me a chance to say more before he goes around to the back of the car to open the liftgate and help with the groceries, but there are none.
“Where’s the milk?” he asks, confused. “Where are thebags?” I stand there beside the car, struggling to come up with the words to explain to him how I lied, how I never had any intention of going to the grocery store. “Courtney?” he asks.
Behind us, the cottage door is open, flies and mosquitoes getting in. Mae stands just inside the open door, staring out at us, looking so sad my heart aches. Her hair is tangled and there are dark circles under her eyes. I wonder if, every time I leave, she secretly hopes that I’ll come back with Reese.
“I didn’t go to the store,” I say, bringing my gaze back to Elliott.
He stands incredulous before me, crossing his arms. “What do you mean you didn’t go to the store? You were gone for hours, Court. Where did you go?”
I step closer, keeping my voice low. “Please don’t be mad.”
“Mad about what? What did you do?”
“I met a couple yesterday while we were searching for Reese. Sam and Joanna Matthews. I went to see them.”
“You what?” he asks, upset and confused. “Why wouldn’t you have told me? Who are they?”
“Their daughter went missing five years ago when she was eleven years old. They never found her, Elliott,” I say, thinking again of Sam searching for five years, collecting his own evidence in a shoebox, doing anything he could to find Kylie and bring her home. I flash forward to five years from now, to a world in which we’ve never found Reese, thinking of the sad look on Mae’s face and it never going away.
“And what do you think, that the same person who has her daughter also took Reese?”
There is cynicism in his voice. Skepticism. He’s mad that I lied. He thinks it’s improbable that the same person who took Kylie also has Reese.
I shrug. “I don’t know. Yes. Maybe.”
“Five years is a long time, Courtney,” he says, stopping shortof telling me that it’s impossible these two things could be related, though I know that’s exactly what he’s thinking.
“Thousands of people go missing every single day, and that was years ago. This girl, Kylie, is probably dead, and whoever took her is most likely long gone. That same person didn’t take Reese.”
“How do you know? How can you be so certain?”
“It just seems unlikely. If you’re talking about some serial kidnapper, wouldn’t there be more than two missing girls over the course of five years?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. I went to Daniel Clarke’s house too,” I say, getting the words out before I can change my mind. “The boy, themanthat Reese was hanging out with here at the resort. I found his address online and I went to his house.”
Elliott is floored. His eyebrows lift, his jaw drops.
“You did what?” he asks in disbelief. “Fuck, Courtney.” He drags his hands through his hair.
“He wasn’t there,” I say quickly.
“That doesn’t matter. Dammit. What the fuck were you thinking? Do you have any idea how stupid that was? What if he’d been home? What were you going to say to him?” Elliott isn’t upset with me, I don’t think. He’s scared that something bad could have happened if Daniel came home when I was there. I got lucky.
Elliott’s attitude changes. He uncrosses his arms, reaching for and reeling me in. “Why didn’t you at least tell me where you were going? I would have gone with you,” he says, holding me so close that I can feel his heart beat through his shirt. “You and I are on the same side,” he says. “We want the same thing.”
“I know. But what would we have done with the kids? We can’t leave them alone, and if I had told you where I was going, you wouldn’t have wanted me to go.”
“From now on,” he says, “we tell each other everything.Promise?” he asks, and I wonder what Elliott means bywe. Does he meanmespecifically, because I’ve been keeping secrets from him? Or does he meanwe, because he’s been keeping secrets from me too?
It comes rushing back in that moment and I find myself thinking again about the blood on his shoes, about how Emily wanted to talk to him that night, how she had something to discuss with him in private, but how Elliott doesn’t remember. I shouldn’t doubt him. He had been drinking that night—we both had. Itispossible that he forgot about Emily leaning in, saying,Do you think I could talk to you tomorrow in private? I have something to ask you, except that, at the time, he said yes. And not only did he say yes, but he hesitated first, a flush of red on his neck that I told myself was from the alcohol.
