The Perfect Getaway, page 17
If we found them—either of them—I’d have to be honest about everything. I couldn’t keep lying.
Not when the lie might’ve caused either one of the women I cared about most to die.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Natasha
I was trying not to move, aware of the erratic breathing sounds coming from my chest. Nick had been moving in the chair beside the door—he hadn’t been to sleep at all. Jaren’s sleep had been restless, waking every few hours from fitful nightmares. The squeak from the window seat where Brad was reclined roared through the hut every few minutes as he tried to get comfortable.
None of us knew how to sleep because sleep required peace. Who could feel peace at such a time?
I wanted to find Laura. Knowing the police were coming soon brought me a strange sense of calm. Because I both wanted them to come—to save us, to get answers, to protect those of us who were left—and because I didn’t want them to come—because their arrival would most assuredly equal finding answers to what happened, and those answers would likely bring more pain than I was prepared for.
Jaren’s breathing quickened in my ear, and I knew he was awake again. It was going to be a long night.
I squeezed my eyes shut, forcing out the question, the truth I’d been struggling with since Emily died. It had been so hard to find Laura alone, though I desperately wanted to ask her about what happened. I didn’t want to seem like I was accusing her of anything, which made the conversation harder to have. Now, it was likely I’d never be able to have the conversation. Revealing the truth now, the truth I’d kept to myself all this time, would only make me look guilty.
If Laura was alive, it would make it look like we’d been hiding something together.
If Laura was dead, the blame for the lie would fall directly on me.
If I never told anyone, there was a chance it would never come out. Especially with all the witnesses now gone. There was also a huge chance it meant nothing anyway.
But with the police coming, I had to make a decision in just a few hours. What was I going to tell them?
Would I tell them that Laura left the spa with Emily that day, too? That I’d hidden that initially, to protect my friend? Would I tell them how they’d been gone for several minutes, and when they came back Laura was alone and strangely quiet? Emily eventually made her way back, of course, and I didn’t want to believe anything could’ve gone on between them, but with them both gone now, could I deny how worried it made me that I’d kept it to myself? Laura was my best friend. She didn’t hide things from me, but she’d hid whatever had been said between them. She’d been avoiding me purposely, I was sure of it. But the only witnesses to the conversation were gone, one dead. At least one.
What good would it do to bring it up now? If I told the truth, it would only further incriminate me. If I didn’t, it meant I was giving up on my friends. Counting on them to never return.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Nick
Like Manu promised, the next morning at breakfast, I heard the steady hum of a boat engine that warned us visitors were coming. Our meal was abandoned as we made our way toward the shore to watch the boat arrive. Boats, more accurately. Three identical, mid-sized boats pulled up to the shore. Their bottoms were bright blue, a solid red vertical stripe running down the center. There was an enclosed cockpit, each with two uniformed men inside, and two more standing near each bow. They were dressed all in thick, black uniforms, with heavy-duty bulletproof vests, black hats, and dark sunglasses.
They disembarked from their boats quickly as Manu and several of the island employees made their way down to the shore to greet them. The officers stood back, letting one—I was assuming their captain or chief, some sort of leader—make his way through first. He went straight toward Manu, as if he knew him. Had they been called out before?
“Why so many?” Natasha asked softly from beside me.
I shook my head, not daring to speak. The group of twelve armed men were doing little to calm my already frayed nerves as I watched them staring around the island, and then at us. Manu spoke to the officer in charge, nodding in our direction, and I watched as the man turned to his team, said something, and nodded. Immediately, four of the men headed inside, following two island employees toward the relaxation center.
Another four began walking across the sand—I wondered how hot they must be in such thick layers—guns at the ready as they moved past us, too, fanning out as they appeared to be searching.
Manu and the officer in charge made their way over to where we were standing. My heart plummeted. I should’ve felt safe, but I only felt scared.
Manu spoke first. “My friends, this is Officer Knowles. He will be leading the investigation into Ms. Emily’s death.”
The officer nodded at us but didn’t speak. The hard lines around his lips made me wonder how much time he spent grimacing. He had a faded tan line from his sunglasses as he lifted them up, glaring at us with eyes that left no room for comfort.
“He has asked to speak to each of you separately.” He nodded at Jaren and Natasha. “Including those of you who are married. Andy, we will ask you to stay in your hut. Brad, in yours. Jaren, in yours. Nick, in yours. Natasha, I will have you wait in the spa. And Ms. Megan can wait in the library.”
“Megan’s gone,” Andy said before I’d had the chance. “Like Laura.”
“She has gone missing, too?” Manu asked, his expression practically wilting. If he truly had nothing to do with what was happening, I couldn’t help but feel bad for him. The island had to have cost him millions, and our visit was ruining everything he’d built. With each person’s disappearance, I saw him deflate a bit more.
I nodded. “Since yesterday.”
The officer’s expression didn’t change. “Very well,” Manu said. “Just spread out like I said, then. I can have your breakfasts brought to you if you would like to finish what you were eating. Please just stay where you were assigned to be until Officer Knowles says otherwise.”
They were splitting us up. It hit me then, and outright fear began to settle in my bones once more. How could we let them split us up when we’d all agreed we were safer together? Then again, what choice did we have? My eyes flicked down to where the gun rested on the officer’s hip. We had no choice. We had to do what we were told.
We’d be fine. Andy had stayed alone all night, and he was fine, I reminded myself. This was just routine. Whether or not I believed it, I had to accept it.
I closed my eyes, moving away from the group with apprehension as sweat began to bead at my temples. My palms were slick with perspiration, and I wiped them on my shirt, shoving them into my pockets.
Whatever was coming, we had to face it alone.
Like it or not, we were all alone in whatever was to come. As we separated, spreading out like corners in a square, that was more obvious than ever before.
Please don’t let this be the last time I see them.
After an excruciating amount of waiting, I watched Officer Knowles and one of his men approach my hut. My palms were drenched with sweat, matching my back and the bends of my knees. I stood, then worried that it was confrontational and sat again, bouncing my foot against the floor in a jarring fashion.
I was increasingly aware of my scent in the room. Of Megan’s scent. Of the fact that I hadn’t cleaned up. Of the fact that I was about to be questioned by police. Weren’t they supposed to ask if I wanted to talk to a lawyer? Maybe only guilty people did that. Why didn’t I clean up? Did I have food on my face from breakfast? Don’t touch your face. That was a sign of a lie. I’d watched too many police shows.
“Officers.” I stood again, unbelievably aware of the sweat pooling above my upper lip as they pulled open the door and stepped inside.
“Sit,” Knowles said, waving his hand at me. The officer behind him held a notepad. He was muscled and tan, bigger than his commander, but kept a few feet back, as if he knew his place.
“What can you tell us about the night Emily Bennett died?”
I took a breath. This was it. This was the moment I revealed the very truth that would ruin my life.
“At dinner, Emily kept talking about secrets. She was acting strange, and she left dinner early.”
“What do you mean strange?” he asked, cutting me off before I’d even gotten started.
Was I first or last in his questioning lineup? I’d waited so long, I couldn’t have been first, could I? Had he heard this story before? What did I remember? I wanted to be sure I was getting it right, but so much had happened since then.
“It just seemed like she was upset over something. Like she wanted to fight with Andy. She was quieter than usual…and, like I said, she left before she’d eaten anything.”
“To your knowledge, had anything happened to upset her?”
“No. She was fine when she left that morning. Chipper, even. But I didn’t see her again until dinner. Something had changed.”
He glanced at the man behind him, who was scribbling notes on his pad of paper, then back at me. “How long had you known Miss Bennett?”
I scratched my head. Touching my face. Pulling it away too quickly, I felt my skin burn with embarrassment. “Um, Andy brought her to our group dinner…like, two months ago? And then again around a month ago? So, I’d met her twice before we came here. But I wouldn’t say I really knew her at all. She kept to herself, even when she was with us. I mean, not to say that she wasn’t friendly. She seemed nice, I just…you know how it is, we’ve all been friends for most of our lives. It’s hard to get in a word edgewise between us all.”
The officer’s lips hardened. “Was there anyone in particular that didn’t seem excited to have Emily joining your group?”
Natasha. The name was there on the tip of my tongue. Always the last to warm up to anyone or anything new. She kept her walls ten feet high, and it was only because I’d known her so long that I knew it was a defense mechanism. I shook my head. “No. Not really. We were all glad Andy had met someone to make him happy.”
“And did he seem happy?”
“The happiest I’d ever seen him,” I answered. “Andy wasn’t really the type to date the same woman for very long, so the fact that he kept seeing Emily said a lot. I really think he was falling for her.” My words surprised me, but they were the truth. His reaction to Emily’s death had been that of a man in love.
Officer Knowles obviously had no use for love. He grimaced, releasing an almost-growl as he continued his line of questioning. “Okay, so back to the night she died… Miss Bennett left dinner early. Did you see her after that?”
“No. Megan, my fiancée, had a headache after dinner, so we came back to the hut for her to meditate. We went to bed shortly after.”
“Megan, your fiancée, is one of the others who’s missing?”
I nodded. “Yes. Now. As of yesterday.”
“Okay, so that night, neither you or Megan were up again until the next morning?”
“Well, Megan fell asleep after her meditation, but it took me awhile to fall asleep. The storm kept me awake.” I looked up at the ceiling of the hut. “These things aren’t the most sturdy or soundproof. And then, Laura came to visit me.”
“Laura?” The writing officer was really scribbling then, the sound of the scratching of ink on paper reaching me across the room.
“Laura Walker. Brad’s wife. She’s my best friend. Has been all my life. We own a dental practice together.”
“And she’s also missing now, correct?”
Again, I nodded. “She went for a jog the morning Megan disappeared and never came back.”
“And why did Mrs. Walker come to see you that night?”
My forehead wrinkled. “I don’t know…” I thought back to that night, the whipping wind, the rocks tapping on my window. Why had she come? It didn’t make sense. “She wanted to talk about, er, about Emily, actually.” But why? I was asking myself the questions I should’ve been asking already, but so much had happened I didn’t have the chance. Why had she been asking about Emily? Initially, I’d worried she had something to do with her death, but now she was gone, too. So either she was innocent or someone found out what she’d done. She wasn’t a murderer. I knew Laura. Had known her my entire life. She wouldn’t have hurt Emily. She wouldn’t hurt anyone.
Except me.
But not intentionally.
The officer watched as I argued internally, before shaking the thoughts from my head and meeting his eyes. “She said that she thought Emily might be dangerous.”
That seemed to surprise him. “And why did she say that?” He folded his beefy arms across his chest.
“She said that Emily was talking about secrets at the spa, same as she was at dinner. Laura thought she may know something about one of us. Something she was going to use to exploit us. She thought we may be in danger.”
“What could she have known? Did Mrs. Walker say?”
I pressed my lips together, trying to think. So much of that night was a blur. Except the kiss. And the sex. The rough scraping of our skin against the bark of the palm trees. The sand around my ankles. The wind. The screams.
“I don’t know. Laura didn’t say.”
The man stared at me, neither nodding nor speaking. He waited for me to say more. Now was my chance. I should’ve spoken up, but I didn’t. I hesitated, and the moment was gone.
“Did Mrs. Walker return to her hut? Or were the two of you together when Miss Bennett’s body was discovered?”
“She’d gone back to her hut. I was inside, too. Trying to get back to sleep.”
“Did anyone join you two when you were talking?”
“No,” I said quickly. “Apparently Andy was walking around looking for Emily, but we never saw anyone that night. We went down there,” I pointed out the window, in the direction that we’d been, “to talk so we didn’t wake anyone up.”
“And how long after that was it before Miss Bennett’s body was found?”
“About an hour, I guess. I was dozing in and out when I heard screams. Megan and I hurried out to see what was wrong, and that was when we learned what had happened.”
“Did anyone know about you meeting Mrs. Walker that night? Her husband? Megan?”
“No,” I said. “Not them. No one at the time, but Jaren and Natasha do now. I told them because…” And we’d arrived back at my chance again. “Laura and I used to have a thing back when we were in college. It ended years ago, but Megan was always a little worried I still had feelings for her.” I ran a palm over my face. “When Laura first went missing, I was worried Megan had seen us together and done something.”
The officer walked to the window. “Where did you and Mrs. Walker meet, exactly?”
“Way down,” I said. “We couldn’t see the huts, and she couldn’t have seen us unless she’d followed me. It was a stupid thought, I was just worried about Laura.”
“And when you came back, was Megan awake?”
I shook my head. “She hadn’t moved in all the time I’d been gone. The headache she’d had knocked her out.”
“Okay.” The officer turned away from the window. “Is there anything else you can tell us about the night Miss Bennett died?”
“I don’t think so. By the time I got down there, Andy already had her out of the water. I’d gone to get Manu for help, and they took her body to the infirmary. No one really knew what to do. Andy was a mess…we all were.”
“You were a mess? You stated a moment ago that you hardly knew her.”
“She was still our friend, and Andy is our best friend. It just felt wrong.” I shivered despite the heat.
“What happened the next day?”
“Nothing. We were all supposed to be trying to enjoy ourselves, but we basically just tried to keep Andy calm. Keep ourselves calm.” I gave a nervous laugh. Why had I done that?
“And the next day was when Mrs. Walker and Megan disappeared, correct? Yesterday?” He paced across the floor.
“Yes.”
“What’s Megan’s last name?”
“Graham.”
The officer wrote it down. “We’ll need a piece of her clothing for the dogs to do their search.”
“Of course.” I grabbed a shirt from her suitcase on the floor and handed it to him. He passed it to the officer behind him, who placed it in a bag right away and tucked the bag under his arm.
“Now, how did you know they were missing? Who discovered they were gone first?”
“Laura went for a jog in the morning, around sunrise, I think. By breakfast, she hadn’t returned. Brad pointed it out to me, and we planned to go look for her. While we were getting ready to go into the woods, I left Megan in the hut to go talk to Jaren and Natasha…it was when I had the theories about Megan being involved in Laura’s disappearance, and when we came back to talk to her, she was gone. We haven’t heard from either of them since.”
“Does everyone in your group get along with Mrs. Walker?”
“Everyone loves Laura. She is practically the glue holding us all together. She brought me into the group, Natasha, Brad. Brad brought Andy. Without Laura, I’m not sure if we have a group left.”
“So there weren’t any disagreements?”
“Well, of course, there were disagreements here and there. Which restaurant we should eat at. How much we should spend on the Christmas gift exchange. Who was hosting game night. But it was never anything serious.”
“Did Mr. Walker know about your involvement with Mrs. Walker?”
“I’m not sure,” I said, swallowing the excess spit that had filled my mouth without warning. Why did I seem unable to function normally? “Like I said, it was years ago. She is just my best friend now.”
“Was that her choice or yours?”
“She is…happily married. I’m happy for her.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“It was her choice, I guess. She chose to break off our relationship because she’d started feeling really serious about Brad. It was…God, it was more than twenty years ago. I’m over it. We’re both over it.”
