“That’s an interesting thing you did back there,” he says. “Swimming out to the canoe like that.”
“You would have preferred I let it float away?”
Flynn remains standing in the center of the room. Some kind of power play, I assume. Letting me know that he’s fully in charge here.
“I would have preferred for you to leave it alone and let the police retrieve it. It’s evidence. Now it’s been tainted by three additional people.”
“Sorry,” I say, only because it’s what he obviously wants to hear.
“Maybe you are, maybe you aren’t. Or maybe you did it on purpose. Covering up fingerprints or trace evidence you’d previously left behind.”
Flynn pauses, waiting for I don’t know what. A confession? A vehement denial? Instead, I say, “That’s ridiculous.”
“Is it? Then please explain this.”
He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a clear plastic bag. Inside is a curl of silver chain on which hang three pewter birds.
My charm bracelet.
“I know it’s yours,” Flynn says. “Three people confirmed they saw you wearing it.”
“Where did you find it?”
“In the canoe.”
I tighten my grip on Krystal’s teddy bear to stave off a sudden onslaught of nausea. The cabin spins. I feel like I’m going to throw up again. I tell myself for the fiftieth time today that this isn’t really happening.
But it is.
It has.
“Would you like to explain how it got there?” Flynn asks. “I know it wasn’t on your wrist when you swam out to that canoe.”
“I-I lost it.” Shock makes it a struggle to utter even the simplest words. “Yesterday.”
“Lost it,” Flynn says. “That’s convenient.”
“The clasp broke.” I pause, take a breath, try to think of a way to not sound insane. “I fixed it. With string. But it fell off at some point.”
“You don’t remember when?”
“I didn’t notice. Not until later.”
I stop talking. Nothing I say will make sense to him. It certainly doesn’t make sense to me. The bracelet was there. Until it wasn’t. I don’t know when or where it went from being on my wrist to being lost.
“So how do you think it got into the canoe?” Flynn says.
“Maybe one of the girls found it and picked it up, intending to return it to me later.”
It’s a stretch. Even I can see that. But it’s the most logical chain of events. Miranda saw me twisting the bracelet during yesterday’s painting lesson. I can easily picture her spotting it on the ground, scooping it up, dropping it into her pocket. The only other possible explanation is that it was found by the same person responsible for the girls’ disappearance.
“What if I’m being framed?”
It’s less a fully formed thought than a desperate attempt to get Flynn on my side. Yet the more I think about it, the more it starts to make sense.
“That bracelet fell off yesterday, before the girls vanished. And now it’s in the same canoe as Sasha’s broken glasses. Talk about convenient. What if whoever took the girls put it there on purpose to make me look guilty?”
“I think you’re doing a pretty good job of that all by yourself.”
“I didn’t touch those girls! How many times do I have to say it before you believe me?”
“I’d love to believe you,” Detective Flynn says. “But it turns out you’re a difficult woman to believe, Miss Davis. Not with all that talk about seeing people who weren’t really there. Or your conspiracy theories. This morning, you told me Francesca Harris-White had something to do with it. But less than an hour ago, you were certain it was the groundskeeper.”
“Maybe it was.”
Flynn shakes his head. “We talked to his wife. She confirmed he was in the kitchen at five a.m., right where he said he was. And then there’s all those things you said fifteen years ago about Theo Harris-White. Didn’t you accuse him of hurting your friends back then?”
A sharp heat burns my cheeks.
“Yes,” I say.
“I’m assuming you don’t believe it now.”
I look at the floor. “No.”
“It would be interesting to know when you stopped believing he was guilty and started thinking he was innocent,” Flynn says. “Because you never retracted that accusation. Officially, Mr. Harris-White is still a suspect in that disappearance. I guess you two now have something in common.”
My face gets hotter with anger. Some of it’s directed at Detective Flynn. The rest is reserved for me and how horribly I acted back then. Either way, I know I can’t listen to Flynn rehash my bad behavior for a minute longer.
“Are you going to charge with me something?”
“Not yet,” Flynn replies. “The girls haven’t been found, dead or alive. And a bracelet isn’t enough to charge you. At least not unless a lab analysis finds some of their DNA on it.”
“Then get the hell out of this cabin until you do.”
I don’t regret saying it, even though I know it makes me look even guiltier. It occurs to me that some cops would even take it as an admission of guilt. Flynn, however, merely raises his hands in a don’t-blame-me gesture and moves to the door.
“We’re done, for now,” he says. “But I’ll be watching you, Miss Davis.”
He won’t be the only one. Between the camera outside the cabin and Vivian at my window, I’ve gotten used to being watched.
When Detective Flynn leaves, his exit lets in the sound of police boats out on the lake. They arrived shortly after the discovery of the canoe. Meanwhile, the helicopter is still going, rattling the cabin with each pass.
I can’t remember if the helicopter fifteen years ago showed up the first day or the second. The boats and volunteer search party were the first. That I definitely remember. All those people wearing flimsy orange vests and grim expressions as they marched into the woods. All those boats crisscrossing the lake, giving up once Vivian’s sweatshirt was found in the forest. That’s when the dogs were brought in, on the second day. Each allowed to sniff a piece of clothing plucked from the girls’ trunks to absorb their scents. By then, Franny had already decided to close the camp. So as the dogs were barking their way around the lake, hysterical campers were hustled onto buses or pulled into SUVs with dazed parents behind the wheels.