Courtney Chapter
Courtney
In the morning, I find Mae crying for Emily when I get up. She’s disconsolate, curled into a ball on the sofa, folded over
and weeping into the arm of it. I sit down beside her and rub her back, and then later, once I’ve managed to calm her down,
I show Elliott the key to the cottage next door. “Ms. Dahl said the police have finished their investigation and that we can
go in and take what we need. The kids might like some of their and Emily’s and Nolan’s things,” I say, thinking it might help
Mae if she had something of Emily’s to hold.
Elliott agrees, though we haven’t been on the best terms since our argument yesterday afternoon. Instead, we’ve avoided one
another, giving each other a wide berth, which is hard to do in a cottage this size.
Still, he comes with me. We don’t tell the kids where we’re going, only that they should stay inside, lock the door, and that
we’ll be back in a couple minutes. Elliott and I are quiet as we climb the hill to the cottage, the tension in the air palpable.
I didn’t sleep again last night, lying awake beside him all night. He never reached for me. He didn’t whisper an apology in
the darkness. He didn’t tell me good-night or say that he loved me. I didn’t say anything either. Instead, I lay there, thinking
through things, trying to remember every moment of the last few days, the details I might have forgotten.
There was one.
It came to me in the middle of the night. I remembered that the night before Reese disappeared, she and Elliott were in the
small kitchen together in Emily and Nolan’s cottage. They were talking, which I remember only because Nolan, Emily and I were
waiting for Elliott for so long that eventually I took his turn at rummy so the rest of us could play.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Elliott asks now as we arrive at the cottage. He turns to me, standing before the front
door with the key in his hand.
I don’t answer. Instead, I search his face, his eyes. Elliott’s chin juts out, his jawline hard. As I watch, he reaches up
to rub his temples as if feeling a headache coming on.
I say, “I thought about something last night.”
“What?” he asks, frowning, and already, I can hear the impatience in his tone.
I take a breath, steeling myself. “That last night that we were here, in this cottage, we were playing cards.” Elliott nods.
“You and Reese were in the kitchen together for a while. I only remember because it took so long for you to come back that
I took your turn for you.”
“So?” he asks. “Is there a question there, Court, or is it just an observation?”
I swallow with effort, my throat so tight it hurts. “I guess I was just wondering what you two were talking about in the kitchen
for so long.”
Elliott harrumphs. “Fuck, Courtney. This again?” Though he doesn’t exactly mean this because I haven’t asked about this before; he means, in general, more questions.
“I don’t know,” he says, flinging his hands up in the air, exasperated.
“Who’s better, Taylor Swift or Billie Eilish?
If cats are better than dogs, global fucking warming .
. . That was days ago. How would I remember what we were talking about?
Did Reese ever have any conversations of substance anyway?
She had no respect for anyone and didn’t care about anything but herself. ”
I flinch, feeling the color drain from my face. It’s not just the fact that he’s speaking of her in the past tense like she’s
dead. It’s the cruelty in his words. Is he only misplacing his anger at me, or did something happen between them that night
that I don’t know?
I take a step back, my eyes wide.
Elliott asks roughly, “Are we going in or not?”
I nod, unable to find the words to speak. I watch as he forces the flat metal key into the groove, turns the knob and throws
open the door to the cottage.
I’m not prepared for what we find. I don’t know what I was expecting, but this isn’t it.
Nolan and Emily’s cottage hasn’t been cleaned. It’s exactly as it was the last time I was here, except for the bodies, which
are gone.
The blood is not gone. It’s still there. Standing just inside the open door, I see all the way onto the screened-in porch
where the bloodstain remains on the walls, dried-up beads of it like teardrops. The bed on the porch has been moved. Even
from the front door, I can see that it’s been pushed roughly out of the way, I imagine to make room for the coroner’s gurney
to fit, so that Emily’s body could be lifted from the floor. There’s blood on the stairs too, dripping down the wall.
The smell is not gone. It’s something pungent and metallic, like rust. The windows are closed, trapping it in the cottage
with Elliott and me.
Elliott gags on the smell, pressing a hand to his mouth and nose to keep it at bay.
I don’t ask him if he’s okay. I take one look at the inside of the place, and I leave.