Then, in one of them, the dress was at her waist and you could see her naked breasts. She looked like she was laughing in that picture.
My father asked Emma who had taken the pictures, and she said it was one of her friends and they were just fooling around. Because Emma was a minor, my father was able to get the police involved, and the people who ran the Web site gave them all the information they had. They traced the IP address. The pictures had been uploaded from a computer at Mrs. Martin’s house, and they were posted before Hunter left for school.
We all knew Hunter had done it and we all knew why. My father was out of his mind with rage and he said he was going to fight for custody again. My mother told him Good luck, asshole! but then she called her lawyer just in case. My parents called each other almost every day while this was going on, screaming and yelling, assigning blame for this and that. It was all just noise up in the clouds.
Emma’s new boyfriend dumped her. He said his mother made him do it. Emma cried for three days and refused to speak to Hunter. She said she would never forgive him and would hate him forever and blah blah blah. This, too, floated up to the clouds and joined my parents’ blah blah blah.
It was Witt who stayed on the ground. He waited for Hunter in the parking lot at the club one afternoon. He made a fist and he pounded Hunter’s face. He broke his nose and bruised his eye sockets. But mostly he bruised Hunter’s ego. Mr. Martin paid a visit to my father. I was not there, but I have heard two versions of the same story. In one version, my mother’s, Mr. Martin picked up my father by his jaw and hung him against the door. He told him he would kill him if Witt ever touched his son again. In the other version, my father’s, Mr. Martin came and threatened his life, and my father told him to Go to hell.
It did not end there. Hunter went to my father’s house late one night and slashed Witt’s tires. Witt reported it to the police, and the police showed up at our house to question Hunter.
Mr. Martin lied and said Hunter had been home all night. Mrs. Martin kept quiet about the fact that they had been out to dinner around the time it happened. The police wanted no part of this family feud anyway, so they closed the investigation before it ever really got started.
My father was, again, beside himself with rage but without any plan to seek revenge. Witt, on the other hand, just got himself some new tires. It didn’t matter that Hunter had not been punished. Even after his nose healed, and his skin returned to its normal color, the bruise to his ego would remain forever. And that was enough for my brother. My real brother.
After that incident, I was left with a clearer understanding about the depths of Hunter’s feelings for Emma. Love, obsession, whatever it was behind those feelings, they were so big that he would sooner destroy her than see her with someone else. And so when I returned from the island and was sitting in Mrs. Martin’s living room, and when Hunter was asking me about Emma and how she was, and how she had survived, and how we were going to find her and save her—and when I could see that his concern came without any emotion, that he really didn’t care about Emma anymore—I was shocked.
Then I looked at his girlfriend, at Brenda whatever. I watched how she moved and spoke and pouted. And I began to understand. She was the new Emma. It was hard then to zoom out the way Witt could. I wanted to stop everyone right there and yell, That’s it? All of it was for nothing? We went through all of that when there was a new Emma right around the corner? I didn’t know if I could stop myself. I took in air and then pushed it down into my lungs. I pushed it down until it hurt and my head started to get dizzy.
When we had exhausted the more difficult parts of my story, Hunter leaned into the sofa, his hands laced together, and pressed against the back of his head. “And you never found out who the father was? If it happened in June, I bet it was some prick she met in Paris. We should sue the camp. That’s what we should do. Get their insurance to pay out.”
He nodded in agreement with himself. Then he continued.
“Jesus Christ, Cass. I can’t believe this happened to you. I’m so sorry. I’ve thought so many times that maybe I could have helped prevent whatever it was that led to your disappearing. I guess I was wrong to think that.”
I shrugged. “You couldn’t have done anything.”
“I know. Now I know.”
Mr. Martin spoke then, for the first time since we’d sat down for tea. “No one could have done anything about this. Emma had a head of steel. She did what she wanted and no one stopped her. We all loved her for that. But it got her into trouble … right? And more than a few times.”
I wanted to break his face open with my teacup at that moment. He knew nothing about my sister except what he stole while he was spying on her in the basement with his degenerate son who was now so perfect with his fancy job and his pretty girlfriend. I wished in that moment Dr. Winter had stayed. She would have seen right through all of them!
I did not break his face with my teacup. Instead, I used my words … the way they taught us at our fancy school. “Why don’t we all just keep working to find her? Then we’ll know, won’t we? We’ll all know what could have been done to save her.”
Mrs. Martin looked at Mr. Martin. She seemed unnerved. She opened her eyes wide the way people do when they’re trying to send an unspoken message that someone in the room is out of line. I suppose that person was me, and it made me feel better. I wanted to be out of line. I wanted them to wonder what I would do and, for once, fear that it would be out of their control.
I excused myself and went upstairs to lie down. They were all whispering about me once I’d left the room. But I could hear the murmur.
When I cleared my head and calmed my anger, I thought about Hunter and the way he had held me and not wanted to let go. I considered the possibility that he had missed me. That he had cared for me more than I’d thought. But then the truth came rushing in and I smiled when I felt it. Knowing it felt good because it was true.
He had thought his past had vanished along with his sisters that night three years ago. And now one of us had returned. He was holding me not because he was happy I was home. He was holding me because somewhere inside his dark mind, he thought he could make me vanish all over again.
TEN
Dr. Winter
On the second day of Cass Tanner’s return, the Martin house was in a state of chaos. Or maybe that was just what it felt like to Abby.