Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
S carlet and Nathan didn’t speak the entire drive back to the apartment. Nathan clutched the video camera with starkly white fingers, and Scarlet had to focus extra hard on the road lest she run a red light or miss a stop sign. She knew Nantucket like the back of her hand these days. But she was also frantic and out of her mind. She had to make it home. Breathe, Scarlet, she told herself.
Back in the living room, Scarlet opened all the windows to take in the cool night air and played a vinyl in the record player to calm her mind. Nathan took a shower and then stretched himself out on the floor. It was clear they were both too frightened to make sense of what had just happened.
It was eleven forty-five before Nathan sat up and said, “I think we should go back.”
Scarlet gaped at him. She wanted to ask, are you out of your mind?
“It would allow us the element of surprise. I don’t think they’d expect us,” he said. “Maybe we could even creep closer and see if my sister is there. Maybe we can hear what they’re saying.”
Scarlet’s heart pounded too quickly. She sat on the floor and touched Nathan’s hand. She saw worry for his sister swimming through his eyes.
“I didn’t know how big this was,” Scarlet said tentatively. “I’m beginning to think we should go to the police.”
Nathan bowed his head.
“That guy scared me,” Scarlet breathed. “It was like he saw all the way through me. It made me think that he recruited these young women. He has that kind of personality.”
“Sociopathic,” Nathan said, repeating what she’d already thought.
“Yes.” Scarlet closed her eyes and placed her head next to Nathan’s on the rug.
They lay and stared at the crack in the ceiling. Scarlet thought, Maybe I don’t have what it takes to make a documentary after all. Perhaps I don’t have my mother’s keen intuition.
Nathan touched her hair. The act was so tender that Scarlet burrowed closer to him and wrapped her arm around his chest. She listened to the thud of his heart.
“I don’t know about going to the police yet,” Nathan said after a time. “As far as we know, they haven’t actually done anything against the law yet. And if they think the police are after them, they’ll go somewhere else. They’ll escape to another island or another city. We’ll lose them.”
Scarlet understood. She closed her eyes as tightly as she could as her ears rang.
Nathan’s voice was very quiet. “We have good footage from today, though. If you still want to try to make this documentary.”
Scarlet propped her head up with her elbow and studied Nathan’s face. It was hard to fathom that this was the same fourteen-year-old boy she’d first kissed.
“It’s hard to make a documentary when I don’t know what’s at stake,” she breathed. “I don’t know how dangerous it is. For us or for the girls.”
Nathan nodded. “Let’s get a little bit closer. Let’s keep filming. Let’s push it. Perhaps we’ll catch them doing something. Maybe we can call the police immediately and have them all arrested like that.” He snapped his fingers.
“The element of surprise,” Scarlet repeated.
“Exactly.”
Scarlet was exhausted. She limped through her nightly ritual of washing her face and brushing her teeth. She’d already put fresh sheets on Nathan’s bed. She stood in the doorway of his bedroom and peered inside, where he sat up against the pillows and read a few pages in a book. It felt bizarre. They were playing house, but they also weren’t.
For whatever reason, she really wanted him to come to her bedroom. But she also knew that was impossible.
“Good night,” Scarlet said.
“Sleep well, Scarlet.” Nathan closed his book on his thumb and raised his chin to look at her.
Scarlet’s heart thumped.
“Thank you for bringing me here,” Nathan said. “Now that I’ve seen what kind of people they are, it’s like I have a fire under me. I have to bring my sister home.”
Scarlet set her jaw. She knew he wasn’t doing it for his parents’ sake, nor for his parents’ love. He was doing it because it was the right thing.
It was rare to meet people like Nathan in this world.
“I have a terrible feeling we’re in over our heads,” Scarlet whispered.
“We have each other,” Nathan reminded her. “It’ll be all right.”
Scarlet prayed that was true.