Chapter 52
JOEL
Shay’s room was unlocked and empty, and her shirts and underwear were still in the bureau’s drawers.
After he left the room, Joel thundered up the stairs and down the hallways, looking for her in open doors, vaguely conscious of the sweaty spectacle he made in contrast to everyone else’s suits and dresses.
The other guests were readying themselves for a wedding, and this felt like its own threat, that everyone thought the ceremony was unfurling exactly as the invitation promised in its perfect script, but he could not dwell on that possibility.
All he could focus on was finding Shay before the man from Riverside did.
“Have you seen Shay?” he kept asking.
“No,” they said.
“The bride?” they asked.
“I’m sure she’s at the church,” they promised.
Everyone looked at him like he was lost and confused.
In his room, he stripped off his T-shirt and stuck his head beneath the faucet, rivulets running over his glasses. The cool rush of the water was a relief. In the room next door, someone yelled for more hairpins.
He had to keep moving. If Andrew was already at the church, Shay might be there as well—not to get married, he told himself, repeating no no no like a chant under his breath, but perhaps so she could speak to him.
If she was not there, he’d steal a golf cart and canvass the whole island, knock on doors and search the cabin of every boat.
Ken had not believed him before, but if Joel could not find Shay, he would make them understand.
He’d call the mayor. He’d call the mainland.
He had felt the threat of the man at Riverside, and how cold that house was, like one of the final circles of hell.
He plucked his white collared shirt from the bedpost, and buttoned it as he walked out the door.