It’s an anticlimax: no one answers at Christie or Dickinson. When I go back to the lodge, adrenaline losing the battle to exhaustion, Edgar’s behind the desk with a whole line of panic buttons. “Are they supposed to light up or anything when they’re pushed?” he asks.
“Not there.” I come around the desk and wiggle the mouse to wake up the desktop and open an app. Each of the buttons is connected to a specific cabin, two to a cabin, and all twelve lights are lit up. 911 has been alerted, and hey, the power’s still on. When they try to call the desk to ask if it’s a real emergency or not, and get no answer, they’ll have to send someone out here to check. “Did you search the whole lodge?”
He nods. “Unless someone’s crammed into a tiny cupboard or something, there’s nobody here. Agatha and Emily?”
“No answer.” I want to relax. Dear God, I want to relax, but that could be the biggest mistake. No answer could actually be the worst outcome, because either they can’t answer, or they’re not there, and if they’re not there, and they’re not here, where are they?
“Okay, so.” Edgar gestures at the computer screen. “We wait here, right? Because if we’re found skulking around one of the cabins …”
He’s not white. Whatever cops show up will likely be white. “There’s nothing we can do about Dickinson or Christie,” I agree.
“Shelley?” Edgar shakes his head. “We’ve got no idea what’s going on with the two of them. Our luck, they’ve got booby traps strung up around the cabin.”
I blink, but they’re the last cabin. As far as I know, Percy’s been the only one in and out. Maybe Edgar’s living in one of his movies, or maybe he has a point. Honestly, the safer bet is staying here and waiting for … well. Waiting for some of the people who ended up botching the case about my little sister.
To be technical, it won’t be the exact same people. Dad doesn’t live up here. But the police showed up, and they made a mess of everything. I’ve heard arguments that the first forty-eight hours aren’t what we’ve been taught they are, but I’ve heard it both ways: that actually it’s the first twenty-four, or really things can be collected and connected after two days have passed.
I wasn’t there when it happened. It was my last semester, so I was in class, and by the time I got a phone call they’d found her and there was no reason for me to get in my car and rush home. But, by the time they found her, there’d also been a lot of people tromping through the house and yard and acting like she was a runaway or something.
Annabeth was allowed to do whatever she wanted and go where she pleased, so she could’ve covered up any evidence that wasn’t already trampled. Nobody made a note of whether the gate was closed or locked or what, so we don’t know for sure if Dani Jay could’ve gotten up there on her own or if someone must have helped her. When the police realized the hot tub cover was slightly off, they shoved it the rest of the way in a panic like they’d just seen her fall in, and not like she’d been missing for two hours. Were Annabeth’s fingerprints on the cover? If they weren’t, maybe she put on gloves, but we’ll never know. One of the officers even hopped in the tub, splashing water everywhere, and grabbed her out before any photos or anything could be taken—again, like it had just happened.
When you do the Red Cross babysitting course, you learn that a child can drown in as little as two inches of water, and it takes less than a minute. You don’t leave a kid splashing around in the bath even for a second, and Dani Jay was in the hot tub, sized for four adults.
She couldn’t have moved that cover on her own. If the gate was properly latched, she couldn’t have gotten up to the deck on her own. Dad’s not even sure she could’ve managed the stairs on her own but, given enough time, Dani Jay could’ve done it. She was stubborn. Dad and Dina and Annabeth all went on the record saying of course they latched the gate, because they always latched the gate, but I know it haunts Dad and Dina because they can’t know for sure. There’s no photographic evidence because the police didn’t take any and there aren’t cameras in their backyard. They worry that maybe it was them: that they didn’t pull the gate closed the last time they went through, and that they were distracted and accidentally bumped the hot tub cover while moving the deck furniture around or something.
If Annabeth was ever haunted, she hid it well.
She said she spoke to Dina and officially transferred Dani Jay to her custody. That Dina was on the laptop and didn’t look up, but said something like “Yeah, sure.” So she puts herself in the clear, off duty, and unresponsible. It’s clever, in a malicious way, because Dina can’t say she doesn’t recall that without making it look like she was simply distracted, and her distraction means Dani Jay died.
Edgar takes a step closer to me. “Hey.”
I look up, but it takes a moment for me to see his face instead of the thoughts in my head.
“I’m sorry about your sister,” he says softly.
Oh, is it that obvious? I swipe at my eyes again and clear my throat. “That’s my only interaction with the police, you know? After,”
He nods, but the door opens before he can say anything, and Edgar’s reaction time is astonishing. He turns, taking half a step to the side to place himself between me and the newcomer, arms spread to keep me back, all before either of us can focus and see that it’s Truman and none of that was necessary. Edgar drops his arms, but only a little, one hand gesturing for me to stay back. “Why didn’t you leave?”
“Jane and Henry left. They’ll make the call. We saw the van leaving. Jonathan driving, Percy in the passenger seat.” Truman shrugs and shifts to the side so he can see me. “I’ve got my keys. We can get out of here. However many we are.”
“Emily and Agatha didn’t answer. But Edgar reminded me of the emergency buttons, and he pushed all of them.” I gesture at the desk.
Truman blinks. “I didn’t even think of those buttons. God, that’ll panic them. All twelve going off at once?”
“Maybe they need to be panicked.” Edgar steps aside, and it’s taken me this long to realize he thought Truman might’ve been some sort of double agent. “If we hit those, and Jane’s calling, then is leaving our best course of action?”
Truman shakes his head, not to say no but to say he doesn’t know, and he shrugs a little apologetically as he leans over the desk to pick up the phone. “Huh.”
Wait, it works?
“How did he take the phones down but leave the computer?” He says it loud enough that he’s asking us, not just himself.
I am so not the IT person here.
Edgar steadies himself on the edge of the desk and crouches down to look underneath it. “But it’s all of them, isn’t it? So there has to be some sort of, what, main switchboard?”
I don’t think he’s ever played an IT person.
“I’ve never seen anything like that here,” Truman argues.
I close my eyes. “It’s got to be in their cabin. The Meyers’ cabin.”
Edgar looks up at me. “You think?”
“That’s the real base of operations.” Like we keep running into today. Jonathan never imagined that both he and Lydia would be gone. “This is just the hub for the residents.”
Truman groans and rubs both hands over his face. “Maybe Percy came here, but he probably also went there. That’s what we’re thinking?”
At this point I’m not sure what we’re thinking. Or even if we’re thinking. None of this makes sense, so maybe we’re trying to force some sort of explanation on the inexplicable. If he went from Henry’s to the lodge to the Meyers’, though, that is a bit roundabout and backtracking, especially for ending up in the parking lot taking the van. But it doesn’t make sense for him to grab Jonathan from the cabin and then force him to come to the lodge when Jonathan would have to know that Percy would just threaten Lydia, unless maybe Percy promised that Lydia would be fine as long as Jonathan obeyed. It doesn’t take the most observant person in the world to pinpoint Jonathan’s one weakness.
Truman starts to take a breath, then turns, head cocked. A moment later I hear it, too: sirens. More than one.
Here they come, but it’s not Dani Jay missing and in major trouble this time. It’s her mom, and probably Jonathan, and maybe Lydia and Emily, too. God, I hope they know what they’re doing.
Cold Comfort: Friday, July 12, 2024 – Henry (5), coming August 14
Rebecca Frost 