“I know I did.” He walked to the couch, slid to the floor, his back resting against the cushions, and placed two beers on the coffee table in front of him.
I sat beside him on the floor. “Not a fan of chairs, I see.”
“I’ve only been here six months. Chairs are next on my list,” he said, scooping fried rice into his mouth. “Nic,” he said, pointing his fork to the plate in front of me, “you really need to eat something.”
My stomach clenched as I stared at the pile of food. I took a sip of the beer, leaning back against the couch. “What kind of purse did Annaleise use?” I asked.
I felt Tyler tense beside me. “I don’t want to talk about Annaleise.”
“It’s important. I need to know.”
“Okay. It was . . .” He paused, thinking. “I don’t know, it was dark green.”
“But do you know the brand?”
“No, I definitely don’t know the brand. Are you going to tell me why you’re asking?”
“We found something in my group. A buckle. From a Michael Kors purse. Down by the river.” I took a deep breath. “I’m pretty sure it’s hers.”
He slid his plate onto the table, took a long pull from the beer bottle. “And where is this buckle now?”
I looked over at him, into his bloodshot eyes. “In the garbage can in the women’s restroom of CVS.”
He pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose. “Nic, you can’t do this. You can’t mess with the investigation or people will wonder why. I really think she’s fine.”
“I really think she’s not,” I said. “I think when people disappear, it’s because they’re not okay, Tyler.”
“Hey,” he said. “Don’t cry.”
“I’m not,” I said, resting my head on my arm, wiping away the evidence. “Sorry. God. I’ve barely slept in—what, almost three days?—and I’m losing it.”
“You’re not losing it,” he said. “You’re here with me, and you’re fine.”
I laughed. “That’s not the definition of fine. I feel like the whole world is off balance. Like I’m losing my shit. Like there’s this cliff and I don’t even realize I’m on the edge.”
“But you do realize it, and that’s the definition of holding your shit together.”
I shook my head but took a bite of the pork roll, forcing it down. “Are you okay?” I asked him.
“Not really.”
Our plates sat on the table beside half-empty bottles of beer.
“I don’t know what I’m doing here,” I said.
“We’re just friends having dinner after a really shitty day.”
“Are we? Friends, I mean?”
“We’re whatever you want us to be, Nic.”
“Don’t do that.”
“What?”
“Lie,” I said.
“Yeah,” he said. He rested his arm on the couch behind me, making space for me. I leaned in to his side, and he slid an arm around me, and we sat there, staring at the blank television across the room.
“If it was from her purse,” I said, “she’s not okay. I should be out there. I should be looking for her purse.”
“Nic, you need to relax.” I felt his slow exhale against my forehead.
We sat in silence, but the sounds of people leaving the bar drifted up from the window.
“I don’t know what to do about the house.” Taking a bite of the dinner had been a mistake. I took a deep breath, trying to hold my shit together. “I can’t sleep in that house,” I said.
“So don’t,” he said. “This couch pulls out. You can have my bed. You really need to get some rest.”
“People will—”
“Just for tonight. Nobody knows you’re here.”
I rested my head on his shoulder. Closed my eyes, felt his fingers absently near the bottom of my hair, which suddenly seemed too intimate, even though he was barely touching me.
But maybe there was nothing more intimate than someone knowing all your secrets, every one of them, and sitting beside you anyway, buying your favorite food, running his fingers absently through your hair so you can sleep.
“By the way,” he said, “I like your hair.”
I smiled, trying not to think of tomorrow. One day I could come back here and he could be gone. One day I could walk through the woods, fade to nothing, leaving behind nothing but the buckle from a purse. All of us eventually stacked up in boxes in the police station or under the earth, passed over, passed by, with nobody left to find us.
I lifted my head off his shoulder, shifting so I was on top of him, one leg on either side, my arms sliding behind his neck, my fingers working through his hair.
“Wait. Don’t think this is . . . That’s not why I—”
I pulled my shirt over my head, saw his gaze drift to the scar on my shoulder and then away, as it always did.
Tyler gripped my thighs, holding me still. Rested his forehead against my bare shoulder, his breathing shallow.
If there’s a feeling to coming home—something comforting and nostalgic: a mother’s cooking, a family pet sleeping at the foot of the bed, an old hammock strung between trees in the yard—for me, it’s this. It’s Tyler. Knowing that there’s someone who has seen all the different versions of me; watched as they stacked themselves away inside one another; knows all the choices I’ve made, the lies I’ve told, the things I’ve lost, and still.
“Are you going to make me say please?” I asked.
I felt his breath on the space between my shoulder and my neck, his lips moving as he spoke. “No,” he said, “never,” and he pulled my head down to his.
Because the thing about Tyler is he always gives me exactly what I’m asking for.
The Day Before
DAY 3
Annaleise was unofficially declared missing when the police station opened that morning, but the storms rolling through the mountains meant there would be no searching today. She was twenty-three years old and had been missing only a day, but it was the circumstances that got the police curious: Her brother said he saw her walk into the woods sometime after midnight. Her mother went to get her for their trip to visit a grad school around lunch, but she wasn’t there. Her cell went straight to voicemail. Her purse was gone.
And then there was the text message. The one she sent to Officer Mark Stewart, the one that asked if they could set up a time to discuss the Corinne Prescott case.
Tyler showed up at my place just after breakfast, dressed in khakis and a button-down. He was pacing the downstairs, leaving rainy footprints across the floor. “That message is going to make everyone uneasy around here.”
“Do the police have any idea why she sent it?”
“Not that I heard. Doesn’t matter, though. It’s one hell of a coincidence, don’t you think?” He opened his mouth to say more, but we heard tires crunching gravel under the rain.
“Someone’s here,” I said, walking to the window.
A red SUV I didn’t recognize had pulled into my driveway and parked behind Tyler’s truck. A woman about my dad’s age stepped out—hair gray like his, face round and soft—and pulled an umbrella over her head, keeping her eyes on the woods as she walked up the front porch steps. She was built thicker than Annaleise, but her eyes were as large and unsettling.
“Annaleise’s mom,” I said, heading for the door. I pressed my back to the door, watched him stare at the wall past me as if he could see through it. “Why are you here, Tyler? Why are you here?”
He blinked twice before responding. “I’m fixing the air-conditioning,” he said.
“Then go fix it,” I hissed before pulling open the front door.
Her mother was facing the driveway, her umbrella still up even though she was under the protection of the porch; the rain dripped off the spokes in slow motion. “Hi, Mrs. Carter.” I pushed open the screen door and stood on the threshold.
She turned her face slowly toward me, her eyes lingering a moment behind. She was looking at my driveway, at Tyler’s truck. “Good morning, Nic. It’s nice to see you home.” Manners first, always.