Which wasn’t easy.
You’ll never find her body.
Somebody banged on the door and I almost hit the ceiling. Nikki?
Then a male voice.
‘Tom? Are you there?’
I rushed to the door and opened it. It was David.
‘Oh, hi man,’ he said. ‘Is Ryan in there?’
I shook my head.
‘Huh.’ He turned to look back at his cabin. I could see Connie on the porch, with someone else beside her. Neal Fredericks, I realised. A few people were walking along the path, heading home from the party. Most of them looked happy and drunk. I was finding it hard to remember what happiness felt like. I wanted to be able to rewind time to the point where I had left Frankie alone here.
‘Is he not in your cabin?’ I asked.
‘No. Can you ask Frankie if she’s seen him?’
‘She’s not here.’ I said it without thinking.
‘Oh.’ I could see the thoughts running through his head. Like he was trying to decide how worried he should be.
Really fucking worried, I wanted to tell him. Terrified.
Did the person who had Frankie have Ryan too? My first instinct was that they must be together, but had David and Connie not received a note like mine? Ryan hadn’t been in their cabin earlier, when I’d knocked.
‘Is he not there?’ Connie called.
‘No,’ David called back. He returned his attention to me.
‘What’s that?’ he asked.
‘Huh?’
‘In your hand.’
I realised I was still holding the note.
Do not talk to anyone. The last word had been underlined.
‘It’s nothing,’ I said. Could I act any more suspicious? ‘Just some notes for an article I’m writing.’
‘Ah. Okay. So . . . any idea where they might be?’
As he asked this, Connie came down the steps from their cabin and walked over to us. She was leaning heavily on her stick like she was in considerable pain. When she reached us, David said, ‘Tom hasn’t seen Ryan, and Frankie’s not here either.’
‘You think they’ve gone off together?’ Connie said, though I wasn’t sure if she was addressing me or her husband.
‘They must have,’ said David. He seemed to find this amusing. ‘That’s my boy.’
Did he not know that his son was gay? Didn’t Connie know either? It wasn’t my place, right now or ever, to tell them.
Connie checked her watch. ‘It’s just past eleven.’ She seemed far more worried than David. ‘He knows he should be back by now.’
‘I guess they lost track of time,’ David said.
Connie looked up at me. ‘What about Frankie? I assume she has a curfew?’
‘Yes . . .’ My mind was racing like I was playing a game of speed chess, trying to figure out my best moves. But there was something I badly needed to know. ‘Are you sure he didn’t leave you a note?’
They looked at each other. ‘I don’t think so,’ said Connie.
‘Why, did Frankie leave you a note?’ He looked directly at the piece of paper in my hand.
‘No,’ I said.
‘Maybe I should go check.’ Connie made her way back over to her cabin. If whoever had Frankie – and I only had one suspect – had left the Butlers a note too, it would make my life a little easier. We would be in this together. I was scared they might ignore the instructions and go straight to the police, but at least I’d be able to be open with them.
David and Connie headed back towards their cabin. I hesitated. What if the person who’d left the note was watching? I peered into the trees opposite.
‘Are you coming?’ David asked over his shoulder.
The note had told me to wait for instructions tomorrow, but hadn’t expressly told me to stay in the cabin until then. And I’d be able to see my cabin from the Butlers’， anyway. I could run back over if someone came with word for me earlier than promised. But what if I was being watched, and Greg – surely it was Greg – thought I had already told the Butlers what was happening? It was impossible to think straight but I needed to know if the Butlers had received a note too. I hurried across.
I had tucked the folded note in my front pocket, afraid David would ask me about it again. I nodded hello to Neal, who was sitting at the table on the front deck, a tumbler of what looked like whisky in front of him. There was an electrical charge coming off him, presumably the after-effect of being onstage, his system still awash with adrenaline, but when he spoke, his voice was bland, betraying none of the excitement his body radiated.