OMG.
That has to be her.
Elliott’s Facebook post is dated the night before Reese went missing. That was days before I met Sam and Joanna Matthews. It was days before I told Elliott about their little girl, Kylie, who was missing, which means that he knew about her before I did.
Yet he acted so surprised when I told him.
How did Elliott know about Kylie Matthews?
I think back. I rack my brain, trying to make sense of it, going back to the beginning, to why we’re even here. Elliott was the one who suggested we come to this resort. He’s been here before. He came years ago with a bunch of college friends; it was a couple weeks before a buddy of his was to be married, his last hurrah as a bachelor. They were going to drink entirelytoo much and do guy things like fish, hunt and cook things they killed over a fire. They stayed at the same resort when they came, which is why we chose that one, at Elliott’s suggestion, because he said it was nice enough, rustic, clean, and that it had some charm.
Is it possible Elliott was here that same summer Kylie disappeared?
Is it possible he did something to hurt her, if not on purpose then by accident?
I’m so lost in thought that I never hear the shower water turn off.
Reese
After everyone leaves, I open the bedroom door. I come out of the room and stand at the top of the stairs, looking down on Emily in the kitchen. She stands with her back to me, hunched over and crying, her hands clinging to the edge of the sink before she lets go, putting her face in her hands.
Slowly, I come down the stairs. I step on a loose floorboard, which squeaks. Emily spins around, startled by the sound. One hand goes to her heart and the other to her eyes, wiping them to try to hide the fact that she’s crying. There’s an ache in my throat all of a sudden, because she’s so upset, because I don’t know that I’ve ever seen her cry like this before.
“Reese,” she says, short of breath, her face puffy and red. “You scared me. I didn’t hear you come downstairs. I didn’t know you were still awake.”
I swallow. “What’s wrong?” I ask, my voice weak.
“Nothing,” she says, turning away from me again, starting to scrub at the dirty dishes in the sink. “I think I just had a little too much to drink.”
She’s lying. She just doesn’t want to tell me what’s wrong, but I know that it’s because of me, because of what I said.
“I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s fine. I just... I didn’t hear you is all. I thoughtyou’d gone to bed,” she says, thinking the reason I’m apologizing is because I scared her.
“No,” I tell her, reaching the bottom of the stairs, coming closer. “I mean, I’m sorry about what I said before.”
She looks back, waves her hand like I didn’t say that I hated her and wanted her to die, like I said something else, something less savage. “It’s fine.”
“What did Wyatt want?” I ask, because he was just here, talking to her. I heard his voice. I couldn’t hear what he said, but it was probably about me, about how I’m a liar.
She turns back around toward the sink, reaching for a towel for her hands. “Medicine. For his allergies.”
“Oh.”
“You were right, by the way,” she tells me.
“About what?”
“About Wyatt. About what he’s been doing.” Her eyes fill with tears again. “I’m sorry I doubted you, Reese. I’m sorry I didn’t believe you.”
“How do you know?”
“I looked at his phone like you said. He really is a shithead,” she says, and I laugh, because in my whole life I never would have expected Emily to say something like that. She laughs too, a half laugh, half cry, and then we’re both laughing, and it feels like the first time in a long time that it’s happened.
I say, “Shhh. We should be quiet. He’ll hear us if we’re not.”
“Don’t worry,” she says, waving me off again, dropping the towel to the counter. “Your brother should be dead asleep by now. I didn’t have any Benadryl so I slipped him an Ambien instead to help him sleep. I had one left in my pill organizer. I figured he wouldn’t notice the difference. They’re both pink,” she says, shrugging, and I smile because it feels like a secret between us, something only she and I know.
