“It’s to the left and then a few hundred feet,” I tell the troopers. “She’s between the stream and an old bird blind.”
Thankfully, they instruct us to remain where we are before they start heading to the spot, followed not far behind by the paramedics, lugging their equipment.
“Come on, get the hell outta here,” one of the troopers shouts a few seconds later. Not to a person, I realize, but to the vultures. I feel bile in my throat again as I picture the birds pecking at the head wound. There are sounds of movement next, the troopers traipsing through the grass and then the murmur of instructions being given into a cell phone or radio.
“You doin’ okay, hon?” Bonnie whispers.
“Um, yeah. You?”
“Hanging in there. I mean, what choice do we have?”
Within a few minutes, two more troopers, a male and a female, come tramping through the meadow behind us, and we point them in the right direction, though the man returns a minute later, announcing that he’s going to escort me and Bonnie back to the house.
“Can you tell us if she’s definitely dead?” I ask.
“Yes,” he says grimly. “I’m sorry.”
We start the return journey. Part of me can’t wait to be in the house again, but then I remind myself that there’s no comfort waiting for me there.
The trooper leaves us at the back door, reminding us not to go anywhere until we’ve been interviewed. Inside the kitchen we find Jake folding napkins on the island, silent and bug-eyed, clearly a little rattled, but also revved up, I suspect. This might be the biggest excitement he’s had all summer.
Gabe and Henry are there, too, parked at the table. Henry’s riveted by something on his iPad, and Gabe assures him that he’ll be right back, then ushers me into the dining room, making sure the door swings closed behind us.
“Is it definitely her?” Gabe asks.
“They didn’t let us near the spot this time, but who else? What’s happening here?”
“You just missed the two detectives. They’re out front now, waiting for one of the troopers to escort them to the scene. And apparently a forensics team is arriving any minute.”
“I guess it’ll be a while then before anyone interviews Bonnie and me.”
“It turns out we all have to give statements, and not from the comfort of the living room. At the state police station, wherever that is.”
My stomach roils. I have no reason to feel guilty and yet I sense land mines ahead.
“Did your dad find a lawyer yet?”
“Yep, they’ve been on the phone. And Amanda’s coming. I called and asked her to pick up Henry today instead of tomorrow. I can’t have him around when there are police all over the place and people in hazmat suits.”
I nod, aware it’s the right thing to do. And yet it seems like a warning that the things we care about most in life are in danger of being wrenched away from us.
“I’m going to take Hen over to the cottage now,” Gabe adds. “All I’ve told him is that Dad’s assistant has been badly injured, and he needs to go back to the city. I’ll pack his bag and hang with him there for a while.”
“But aren’t we supposed to stay put?” I ask.
“We’re not leaving the property, Summer.”
“Okay, okay.”
After he departs, I stand there, uncertain of what to do next, my eyes on the oiled, wide-plank pine floor. Will I ever feel at ease in this house again? Will I ever be able to sit by the stream again, savoring the memory of Gabe’s proposal?
“Summer?”
I look up to see Keira a few feet from me, tucking a hair behind her ear.
“Hi.”
“Can I talk to you for a second?” she asks.
“Uh, sure.”
“Did you hear we all have to give statements . . . at the police station?”
“Yeah, Gabe just told me.”
She glances to the left, lips pressed.
“I know, it’s scary,” I say when she doesn’t go on. “But we’ll get through it.”
“What do you plan to do—you know, in regard to Jillian?” I guess Marcus filled her in.
“You mean, am I going to tell the police about seeing Ash embrace her? No.”
“Not about that. About Jillian’s thing with Marcus and Gabe this morning. You aren’t going to say anything to the police about that, are you?”
22
For the next two hours all of us except for Gabe mill around the first floor of the house. At one point, Blake, Nick, and Marcus press me to share more details about the crime scene, and I do, hating myself for the way I study Nick’s and Marcus’s reactions. But nothing about their demeanor seems suspicious. When the chance arises, I sidle up to Wendy, who’s sitting quietly at the end of a sofa, still dressed from her trip to the medical center and hugging her leather tote to her chest.
“Was the sonogram okay?” I whisper.
“Yes, thank god, everything’s fine,” she says, smiling wanly. “I’m just shell-shocked from all this.”
Ash spends much of that time sequestered in the study, talking on the phone, except when one of the detectives asks him to step outside to identify the body before it’s loaded into the ambulance. When he returns, he looks shaken.
For our trip to the state police station, we’ve been put into two groups, and I’m in the first, along with Blake, Marcus, Keira, and Bonnie. We say good-bye to Wendy—because of her condition, the police took her statement in the den—and Marcus quickly ushers Keira into their car. I jump into Blake’s black Mercedes, along with Bonnie, who insists I take the front seat.
“Would you mind cranking up the AC?” I ask Blake.
“Of course. You feel okay?”
“Uh, not great, no.”
“If you’re at all faint, put your head between your knees, okay? It really works.”
I thank him, but actually, I wish I could faint. I wish I could face-plant on the asphalt the second we arrive at the station, be hauled off on a stretcher, and then medevacked to a hospital in another state where, for some reason, they decide I need to be placed in isolation for a week.
Because I need time to concentrate, to decide what the hell I’m going to tell the police. Jillian’s been murdered, but I feel sure Claire was, too. I contemplate hinting at my suspicions in the interview and yet I know that if I do, I’ll probably sound utterly ridiculous to the police, and it’s possible I might complicate things even more for the Keatons. But then does that mean Hannah goes free?
The jumble of thoughts is causing a weird rushing sound in my head, like wind in a tunnel. And making it worse: my anxiety over the conversation I had with Keira in the dining room earlier.
“What do you mean?” I’d exclaimed, taken aback by her comment about Marcus, Gabe, and Jillian, which clearly implied something had happened that I shouldn’t bring up to the detectives.
“Oh, it’s nothing important,” she’d said. “They had some words with her about work stuff. In the driveway. I’m not going to bring it up, though. Marcus said we shouldn’t.”
I tried to get more out of her, but she scurried off. At least now I understand why Marcus and Gabe shot each other a look in the den and decided that the less said, the better.