Drake pulled out his phone and read me the number.
I punched it in, then waited. Unfortunately, Ben didn't pick up, and the call went to voicemail. I left a message. "Ben. This is Willow. I got into a dicey situation tonight. I'm okay, but I need to talk to you about it. I also have some other information I need to discuss with you. Call me back as soon as you can."
As I was about to set down my phone, a text came in. I gave Drake a dry smile. "You just sent me your number."
"You may need to call me sometime, and I'm sure I was one of the names you deleted."
"First one," I admitted. "I'm surprised you kept my number."
"I have everyone's number. I just can't seem to get anyone to answer."
"You've never called me."
"I was thinking about it recently," he admitted.
"What stopped you?"
He let out a sigh. "A lot of things. Would you have taken my call?"
"I don't know." I sat back in my chair, propping my feet on the coffee table. "I never thought I'd have to live through this kind of situation ever again, but here I am. I had a bad feeling about the wedding being rescheduled here, but I never thought anything like this would happen. When I arrived, I thought my biggest problem might be you standing up in the ceremony and making some dramatic proclamation."
"Not my style."
"Maybe not. But I don't know you anymore."
"Fair enough. I have to say that you've changed, Willow. You're not the shy girl. You're much more direct. You don’t look away. You don't chew on the end of your braid."
"I haven't worn a braid in a very long time."
"It was cute."
I sighed. "Just what I wanted to be around my best friend's sexy older brother—cute."
He laughed. "It's not a bad word."
"I didn't want to be cute or the shy girl, but I couldn't find the courage to be more than that, except when I was with Melanie. She brought me out of my shell. She gave me confidence. Sometimes I think our relationship was very one-sided. She pushed me to be better, but she was already great, so I didn't add to her life."
"That's not true. Every night at dinner, she'd talk about some adventure the two of you had had. It was weird. She grew up on the island, but when she was with you, she saw it with fresh eyes. You made her look at the details. She was always amazed at the pictures you'd take, the tiny drops of dew on a flower that you would notice, that you would immortalize in a photograph."
I was touched by his words. "Really? She used to get impatient when I took too long to get a shot."
"Well, she was impressed with the end result."
"I'm glad. Thanks for telling me that."
"Now I have a question for you. What did Melanie think about me?"
His question surprised me. "What do you mean?"
"Melanie and I got into a fight a couple of days before she vanished. She'd been irritated with me most of that summer. Everything I did annoyed her. I'm not sure why we weren't getting along. We always had in the past, but not those last few weeks."
It was impossible not to hear the pain in his voice. I didn't know what to think about Drake, but I knew that his love for his sister had been very real.
"Did she say anything to you?" he continued.
"She loved you, Drake."
"That's not what I asked."
"Whatever she said to me reflected what she was feeling about herself, not about you."
"And you're being very careful in your choice of words. Just tell me what she said."
"It changed often. Sometimes, she thought you were amazing. Other times, she thought your parents favored you. She was happy to have you home but also frustrated that you were treated like a god by your mother—her words, not mine. She was jealous that you were living a life away from the island. She wanted to be in your shoes. She wanted to be the one coming home and talking about her adventures. She just wanted to be an adult, like you."
A mix of emotions ran through his gaze. "I knew she was feeling restless. I should have invited her to visit me at college. I should have taken her on vacation. Instead of coming back here that summer, I could have taken her to Europe, Hawaii, one of the places she wanted to go. But I just wanted to come home and see my friends and hang out."
"You weren't wrong to want that, Drake. Like I said, it wasn't about you. It was just Melanie, feeling frustrated that she wasn't old enough to do what she wanted. Your dad was hard on her, too. The older she got, the more he seemed to treat her like a child. He even followed us once when we went to a party to make sure we weren't lying about where we were going."
"Are you serious?"
"Yes. He made up a story when Melanie confronted him. He said he thought she'd forgotten her wallet, but it was her mom's wallet in his hand, and I'm pretty sure he knew that. It's so tragically ironic that he wasn't watching her the one time he needed to be."
"And that thought has been slowly destroying him."
"How is he doing now? Melanie told me he heard voices in his head, and noises could trigger flashbacks to his military experience. She said he rarely slept well, and sometimes he'd pace the perimeter of the property late at night as if he was waiting for a foreign army to attack. As time went on, it didn't feel like he was protecting her from the outside world. It felt like he was her jailer."
"I didn't think it was that bad."
"Would you know if it was? You were gone most of the year."
"That's true," he said with a frown. "But we talked."
"Did you ever find her diary?"
"No. We looked everywhere for it."
"She said she didn't like the diary at first. It felt weird to write about her feelings, but then she started loving it. She took the diary everywhere we went. Sometimes when I was setting up a shot, she was writing in the diary. I never asked her what she wrote. I felt like we were so close. I knew what was going on with her. But later…after…I wondered if I did know what was going on. But that's because I'm looking for a reason for Melanie to vanish, and maybe the only reason is a terrible, tragic crime of opportunity."
A darkness entered his gaze. "It could have been that, but my gut tells me it was more personal. I think somewhere in your head you know that. I need your help, Willow."
"I told you I can't remember anything."
"Maybe you will if you try."
Anger ran through me. "You don't think I've tried, Drake?"
"I think you ran away and stopped thinking about Melanie because it was too painful. But I need you to think about her now. I need you to help me find out what happened to her because Melanie and Kelsey are connected."
"These are two completely different situations."
"They're not, Willow. All the same people are involved. Whoever took Melanie probably took Kelsey."
"Why? Why?" I practically shouted.
"That's what we have to figure out. The best way, maybe the only way, to save your sister is to find out what happened to Melanie."