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“I want to know what happened to Patrick!”

“Awful. So, so awful,” Jordan said.

“Stop saying that. Show me where he is!”

She put her hands over her face and started crying, her shoulders shaking as she tried to gasp air through the spaces between her hands.

I grabbed her, shaking her again. As if she’d lost all her strength, she fell against me. She wasn’t hugging me, she was simply collapsing. I tried holding her up, but the sudden force and her trembling back and shoulders made it impossible for me to control her. She collapsed onto the pavement, pulling me down with her.

I shoved myself away from her, then felt Emily’s hand around my arm. She helped me back to a standing position, but Jordan remained on the ground, still crying.

“What’s wrong with her?” Emily asked.

“I don’t know.” I felt my own tears rising up, spilling out of my eyes, the panic filling my body. “She’s scaring me. She did something to Patrick. Hurt him. I just—” My voice broke and I began sobbing. “You need to tell me what happened!” I grabbed Jordan’s arm, but she let it go limp, refusing to uncurl herself, refusing to look at me or speak to me.

“Jordan!” Emily’s voice was sharp. “Get a grip. You need to stand up and tell us where Patrick is.”

Jordan whimpered, curling her body more tightly into herself.

“Does he need help?” Emily asked.

Jordan shook her head, but she wobbled it around in a way that made it impossible to tell if she was responding with a yes or a no, or simply displaying her despair in her body.

I was choking on panic. I wanted to shake her again. Her hysterics shouted that Patrick was seriously hurt… or dead.

He couldn’t be dead. I refused to believe that. If he was, it was my fault. I’d brought Todd into our lives. I hadn’t known a lot about him—just his family story, and his desire for love and stability. Mostly love. I knew about his belief that he deserved a house in Lake Tahoe, although he’d been vague about why he believed that.

“Jordan!” Emily grabbed Jordan’s upper arms, forcing her into a sitting position. She looked up at Emily with an expression that said she’d experienced the worst thing imaginable.

I was grateful that Emily was forcing her to calm down, to talk to us. I was consumed by imagined horrors that had been done to the man I loved. I did love him! With all my heart. He wasn’t perfect. He made me feel alone and, honestly, unwanted sometimes, but I loved him so much. I’d been certain a better future was coming our way. But now, I didn’t know if we had a future.

Why wouldn’t she tell us what happened? Was it guilt? Maybe someone else was involved. Maybe she hadn’t killed Patrick, but she’d witnessed something horrifying. I just wanted to know where he was!

Emily was squatting at Jordan’s eye level. She held her shoulders firmly and put her face close to Jordan’s filthy one. “You need to get a grip and tell us what happened. Right now. We need to know where he is.”

Jordan stared, unseeing. Her lips were parted, her eyes still glazed, as if she wanted to speak but couldn’t remember how. Emily gave her a gentle shake. Her head wobbled, but her eyes were still unfocused. Emily leaned back slightly, studying Jordan’s dirt-streaked skin and that vacant stare. She glanced up at me, then back to Jordan. She raised her hand and slapped Jordan’s cheek. Not hard, but not gently either.

As if the slap had reverberated across the mountains, loud enough to be heard on the other side of the lake, Linda came rushing out of the house. “What are you doing? You have no right!”

“She’s in shock,” Emily said.

“Are you a doctor?” Linda knelt and put her arms around Jordan, pulling her close.

“No, but I’m an RN. Something’s wrong, and she needs to tell us what happened.”

“She doesn’t need to tell you anything,” Linda said.

“We need to know what happened to Patrick.”

“That’s your problem, not hers. She has nothing to do with him.”

“She might know where he is.”

“Why would you think that?”

“Look at her,” Emily said. “She’s beyond upset and she’s obviously been doing something that…” She swept her arm past Jordan, indicating the dirt clinging to various parts of her body.

“Please leave us alone,” Linda said.