Chapter 27
The search. It started at eight, but I imagined there was probably a lot to do beforehand. It made me feel hollow. I had slept like shit, tossing and turning with nightmares where Pullman was chasing me. I didn’t think I needed anyone to interpret that dream.
I started to get ready for the day. Eventually, I was going to have to tell my family about my book and what Hazel had been doing in the weeks before she went missing.
Especially if we didn’t find her later. The thought tightened the knots in my stomach.
I still had three chapters left of Hazel’s annotations to read, and I was avoiding them.
I didn’t want the book to end. It was the last connection I had to her.
But then again, I figured after today, when I publicly confronted Pullman, they’d all find out anyway.
When I entered the kitchen, almost everyone was already there, apart from Steve and my mother’s other kids.
My parents were standing at opposite ends of the island, not looking at each other as Tommy talked deliberately with my father.
I hadn’t spoken to Tommy since yesterday, when he’d snapped at me about Will.
I was still angry with him for it. My dad looked exhausted, and I couldn’t help but wonder what mystery piece of evidence Pullman and Newbury were keeping that had them looking at him as a suspect.
It had to be more than just Hazel’s bike, right?
Maybe it was nothing. Maybe Pullman was bullshitting to cover himself.
Suzannah was whispering to my mother. My usually pristine sister-in-law had dark circles under her eyes, and her hair sat in a greasy ponytail.
I felt bad for noticing. On top of the stress of this week, Suzannah had two kids.
She had been jumping back and forth from helping us look for Hazel to being a mom to her own children.
It had to be a lot. I realized I missed spending time with her.
I looked at Daisy and Felix, both sitting on barstools, entertained by an open box of Dunkin Donuts.
“Auntie Rose!” Daisy squealed in delight, her face a spitting image of Hazel’s. “I saved your special donut for you!” She pointed enthusiastically at a pink one in the box. “Gramma Lyla told me not to touch it. She said it’s for you.”
Everyone in the room looked up, noticing me for the first time.
My mother’s eyes lingered the longest, scanning me up and down.
We were wearing nearly identical outfits.
The same Lululemon leggings and tank tops, though she had thrown a tight long-sleeved workout jacket over her look.
Her eyes kept moving to the pink donut. My favorite.
The same one she had bought me every Saturday for years as a child.
I knew it was a small, fried, sprinkled peace offering.
An apology for yesterday. I decided to take it.
“Oh, did she, Daisy?” I asked, going over to plop a kiss on the top of my niece’s head. “That was nice of her.” My mother’s mouth twitched slightly, like she wanted to smile.
Daisy nodded enthusiastically, wrapping her arms around my waist. “I didn’t eat it, even though I like the pink ones.”
I reached into the box and broke the donut in half, handing part of it to her. “Here, we’ll split it. How about that?”
Daisy grabbed her half of the donut with one of her chubby hands, sticky with frosting.
I took a bite of the donut. It tasted like processed sugar and nothing else, and the familiarity of it overwhelmed my senses so much that I left most of it for Daisy.
My mother looked at us, her face unusually full of longing.
“Hey, Fee,” I said, kissing the top of Felix’s head as I passed. He was ripping a donut to shreds on the counter and didn’t look up from it. He was a quiet kid. Just like Tommy had been.
Suzannah walked over to me hesitantly. “Hey, Rose.” She lightly touched my shoulder. “Are you coming searching today?”
I nodded. I felt emotionally bereft. I didn’t know what to say to my family anymore.
“How’d you sleep?” Suzannah asked. “Your dad said you came home kind of late.”
I had stumbled into the house after ten, my face red and puffy from crying the whole way home. I hadn’t told any of them where I had been and still didn’t plan to.
“It was a crappy night,” I told her, and she looked at me sadly. She opened her mouth to ask something else but was interrupted.
“It’s time,” my father said. We all got ready to go, gathering stacks of missing-person posters, maps, cases of water. Tommy buried his face in his hands as he walked toward the door, and Suzannah reached for him. “How are you feeling?”
He blinked abruptly, giving her a nasty look. “How do you think I’m feeling, Suzannah?”
I faltered. It was a tone Tommy never used with his wife. In fact, it sounded more like me than it did him. Suzannah’s eyebrows shot up.
“I was just checking on you,” she replied, her tone making it clear that she was irritated. “This is a very traumatic situation for everyone. It’s okay to talk about how you feel and be aware of any triggers.”
Tommy and I both hated when Suzannah got all woo-woo. She had been raised in the type of family who shared their feelings at every meal and journaled. We had not, and it made us uncomfortable.
“Now is really not the time for the weaponized therapy terms, all right?” Tommy said. “My sister is missing. We don’t need to workshop it.” He stalked out the door.
I’d never seen Tommy and Suzannah fight before, and the sight was jarring. Granted, I wasn’t ever home to see if they did, but it still felt wrong. This was really getting to all of us. We needed a resolution, one way or the other. We couldn’t go on like this.
“Sorry,” Suzannah said, turning to me. “We’re all a little stressed out.”
I squeezed her arm. “I get it. I’ve done and said way worse.” She gave me a sympathetic smile.
The park was only a few minutes away from our house, a five-minute drive into the depths of Loxahatchee.
Suzannah and I were silent in the back of the truck as Tommy and my father discussed strategies for our search from the front seats.
I stared out the window at the tiny Methodist church and the pond I’d seen so many times.
My chest constricted as we got out of the truck and I noticed the volume of people around.
There had to be close to two hundred. We headed toward a spot in the middle of the field that was densely populated with people, tables, and cops.
I was used to crowds—living in Manhattan made them a daily reality, but the crowds there had an anonymity to them.
No one knew me or recognized me, and everyone was free to do exactly what they wanted.
Here, everyone in this crowd knew me. Personally.
These were groups of people who had grown up with me and now made it part of their personality to dislike me.
People who hated Will and believed he was a coldhearted killer and I a mentally disturbed, money-hungry opportunist. But they were here now because of Hazel.
She was the best of us all. Beautiful. Kind.
Philanthropic. She loved animals and volunteered.
She always said please and thank you, and was polite to the people who loathed us.
I walked behind Tommy and Suzannah. My father was taking his time locking the truck and inexplicably fiddling with the key fob.
“Go ahead,” he called, rooting around in the glove compartment. “I’ll come find you.”
I wondered if he was hanging back to avoid the people looking at him. Was it common knowledge that he was a suspect?
“Come on, Rose,” Tommy said, nudging me forward across the grass.
It seemed like Hazel’s entire school was here.
Several of the girls were crying. They all had their phones out.
From the corner of my eye, I saw the familiar golden hair of Victoria Hopely.
She stood on the edge of the park, in a matching lavender workout set, talking to a man I didn’t recognize.
We made eye contact for the briefest second, her lips pursing.
She had to be here for Hazel, not for me.
Not that I blamed her. But I had a new respect for her after what Pullman had told me.
Pullman. Or should I say Nick. Just the thought of his name straightened my spine, and I started searching the crowd for him.
People were lining up to grab water bottles, fliers, maps, and colored strings from the cops seated at the table. It took me a few minutes to realize they were dividing everyone into groups to search different areas. I was distracted, looking past people’s faces for the detective.
“ … so, take this,” the cop nearest to me was saying.
“There’s a code on each piece of paper. It takes you to an app for group messaging.
Yup. Please text that number if you find anything.
We’ll be reconvening here at twelve for lunch.
Yes, that’s right. Publix is catering. Yup.
So take that purple string … Yup, you’ll be searching there in that purple quadrant. Yes, thank you so much.”
I didn’t see Detective Pullman, or Newbury for that matter, anywhere. Should I try to find another officer to talk to about what I knew? Suzannah interrupted my thoughts before I could decide, handing me a colored bracelet.
“Come on, you’re with Tommy and me,” she said. “Let’s go.”
I had a difficult time with the search. It was so hot that the air felt like it was both full of water and simultaneously on fire.
We scanned the ground as we walked and checked the bases of the trees, tapping into my true-crime intel.
Anytime I saw anything on the ground, I felt a sharp stab of excitement, quickly followed by fear and panic and disappointment when it ended up being nothing.
Just a clump of bushes or pinecones. Two hours in, we found an abandoned shoe.
I almost threw up before Tommy pointed out it was size eleven men’s.