“Did you think about going to the police and turning him in?”
“No,” she says. “Never. Daniel had it rough. Whatever happened between him and the girl, he didn’t mean for it to happen.”
“What did you do when you saw the way he’d left things,not very tidy, as you say?”
“I helped smooth out the dirt and I came back the next day and threw some grass seed down.”
Detective Evans says, “You understand, Ms. Dahl, that you’re also culpable for her death?”
“Failure to report is not a crime.”
“But you’re an accessory after the fact. Like you’ve just said, you helped hide the body. You helped cover up the gravesite.”
She turns away from the camera, looks back at him, says, “So arrest me then.”
Detective Evans offers to drive us back to the resort to pack up the rest of our things so we can go home. The investigation is through. Sam Matthews confessed. He killed Emily and Nolan and he took Reese. He and Joanna then kept her in a basement crawl space, which makes me wonder if the first time I stopped by their home unannounced, they weren’t doing laundry, but keeping a close watch on Reese, who says she couldn’t hear anything from down there, not when the hatch was closed. My guess is he never expected me to take him up on his offer of stopping by their house; he only said it to draw my attention away from him as a suspect.
They’ll both go to jail, Sam for longer because not only is he charged with kidnapping, but with murder.
The necklace that Reese was wearing, the one I recognized in the Matthewses’ family portrait on their fireplace mantel, the same one she had on in the photo Cass and Mae took of her that day by the pool on Elliott’s iPad, was made of beads to create the dots and dashes of Morse code. It spelled outdaughter. Sam and Joanna had given it to Kylie for her eleventh birthday. How it came to be in Daniel’s possession, no one knows, but we can assume that at some point, he stole it. What we do know for certain is that that, coupled with Cass and Mae’s Facebook post, is the reason Sam believed Reese was Kylie. It makes me feel sad for him, sad for all of us.
“I would appreciate that,” I say to Detective Evans, about the ride, “if it’s not an inconvenience.” The kids and I don’t have a car here. Elliott has it. He’s at the hospital with Reese because I didn’t want to leave her alone. When I asked Elliott if he minded keeping her company, he said he didn’t, but that he wasn’t sure Reese would want him there. I asked why. Hewas quiet at first; he didn’t want to tell me. I kept pushing and eventually he told me how a couple nights ago, he took a walk when he couldn’t sleep and came across Reese and Daniel in the woods, which set off a chain reaction of events that caused hard feelings between them, but nothing that had to do with what happened to Nolan and Emily.
I’m not sure if we’ve made amends yet, he said, and I told him it might be a good opportunity for him and Reese to work through things, because right now, what she needed more than anything was a friend.
While we were talking, I asked why he searched for the depth of Pearl Lake, and he told me it was for when he went fishing, because he thought he’d have better luck where the water was deeper. Then he pulled his eyebrows together and asked back,Why did you think I wanted to know the depth of the lake?
I couldn’t bring myself to say that it was because I thought he killed Reese. Because I thought he killed all of them.
Now Detective Evans shakes his head, looking as tired and defeated as I feel. “It’s not an inconvenience.”
He’s been solemn since he came out of the interrogation room, since he listened to Ms. Dahl confess to watching Daniel dig a grave that night to bury eleven-year-old Kylie inside.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” he says, but it’s so sparing, I don’t believe it.
“Kylie was a little girl. She didn’t deserve what happened to her. It’s understandable to be upset.”
He nods, his eyes not meeting mine.
“You ready?” he asks, reaching for his keys.
“Yes,” I say, and then to the kids, “Let’s go. Detective Evans is going to drive us back to the resort so we can get our things and go home.”
“Home?” Cass squeals, suddenly looking up from her chair, her eyes wide. “Likehomehome?”
“Yes,” I say, though it lacks Cass’s same enthusiasm. “Like home home.”
We can go home now, back to our lives in Chicago, though I don’t know what that looks like anymore. It’s not the same. It’s changed. Reese, Wyatt and Mae won’t be going to their own home. They’ll be coming to live with Elliott, Cass and me, the six of us under one roof, all of us different than we were before we stepped foot inside these cottages. Not only will they have to leave their home, but they’ll have to leave their friends and school too. Mae will have Cass, but Reese and Wyatt will go to a school where no one knows them and where they know no one. Wyatt will be fine—he’ll make friends through baseball—but I worry about Reese starting her senior year somewhere new, though maybe she will be happy for a fresh start.
Detective Evans leaves the police station first. He holds the door open for us, and we follow him out of the building and onto the street, where the wind has picked up, blowing trash and trapping it against the curb. In the distance, the sky darkens; a summer storm slowly moves in.
We stop by the motel first. The kids and I run inside to grab what’s there, which isn’t much, just a couple bags that we never fully unpacked. We drive to the resort next to get Emily’s, Nolan’s and the kids’ things from inside their cottage.
“Stay here,” I say to the kids, as Detective Evans and I step out, leaving them in the car with the windows cracked for air. “We’ll only be gone for a couple minutes.”
We make our way to the cottage. After we get what we need, Detective Evans will drive us to the hospital, and there, we’ll wait for Reese to be discharged. Then we’ll go home.
