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“I heard you. We’re all going outside now.”
“No, you need to sit tight for now. But text me the minute the cops arrive.”
He disconnected without a goodbye. As I stumbled back toward the bedroom, I heard Rob talking to Jamie between clenched teeth. “The next time you want to throw a party while Mom and Dad are off traipsing around Europe, don’t includemein your little plan.”
“Fuck you, Rob. You can—”
Stepping into the room, I saw the three of them huddled in a circle by the bed, and their heads instantly swiveled in my direction. They looked alarmed, and possibly guilty. Were they actually hiding something or simply worried about what might rain down on them?
“Any news?” Jamie asked.
I shook my head. “Not about Chloe. But my stepfather said the Dover police are coming.”
“Cominghere?” Rob exclaimed. “We can’t let them trample all over the house without a warrant.”
“For god’s sake, Rob,” Jamie said. “Her sister ismissing. Can’t you think of anyone but yourself for a second?”
“And what are you afraid they’ll find, Rob?” I demanded, glaring at him. I felt a sudden urge to rip his eyes out of their sockets. “Drugs?What?”
“Look, I don’t mean to sound like a dick, and I’m sorry about your sister, but I also don’t want to start a shitstorm for my family.” He swept a hand nervously through his hair. “It’s not like there was a kilo of something lying around the other night, but people were smoking weed, and some of those dudes who came with my cousin brought coke. There could be stuff still around the house that Jamie and I didn’t notice during the cleanup.”
Instinctively I pressed both hands to my ears because I couldn’t bear hearing another word out of his mouth. “Just shut up, okay? It’s not the house that needs to be searched anymore, it’s the grounds.And we can’t wait for the police anyway. We all have to start looking out there, right this minute.”
Though David had insisted I sit tight, I knew I had to be in motion right now, or I would go out of my mind.
Jamie nodded in agreement, and Dan surprisingly stuck his feet into a pair of slip-on loafers and grabbed a jacket from the back of a chair. I spun around and hurried from the bedroom, hearing the others behind me. Jamie stopped in her room for her phone and a jacket but joined us only seconds later in the front hall.
“Actually, Rob, I think you should wait behind,” I said. I was ignoring David’s advice again, but it seemed crucial for a family member to greet the cops. And if I had only one search partner, I wanted it to be Jamie. “Let us know as soon as the police arrive.”
“Yeah, okay,” he said, but I saw him flash Jamie a look.
“You better call Dad,” she told him. “Let him know what’s going on.”
“Shouldn’t you—”
“Just do it, Rob.”
Turning her back on him, she led Dan and me to the family room and opened a French door to the patio, which ran across much of the back of the house. Beyond it lay a huge lawn, interrupted by the rectangular black-bottom pool. At the farther end of the pool was a small stone building I hadn’t noticed from the morning room but now recalled seeing the other night when I’d come outside to look for Chloe.
“What about there?” I said, jabbing my finger in that direction. I’d been stupid not to remember it until now.
“The pool house?” Jamie asked. “I think Rob checked yesterday to make sure there was nothing to clean up, but we can look.”
She sounded a little frayed around the edges now, but I didn’t care. I rushed toward the building with Jamie and Dan trailing behind me and twisted the handle of the door as soon as I reached it.
“It’s locked,” I said. “Do you have a key?”
Instead of answering, she squatted down by a heavy planter next to the door, tipped it to the side with one hand, and used the other hand to fish out a key from underneath. I held my breath as she unlocked the door and pushed it open to reveal a single room.
But I could immediately tell no one had recently been inside. The place smelled musty, and the cream-colored armchairs and matching couch looked untouched. I noticed two doors at the end of the room opposite the wooden bar, and just to be sure, I swung them open, one at a time. Inside the first was a toilet and sink, and in the second, a shower and wooden bench. Neither appeared to have been used since last summer.
“Is this everything?” I asked Jamie. “I mean, there’s no basement, is there?”
She shook her head. “This is it,” she said.
Dan had come in while I was opening the far doors, and when I turned to leave, I spotted the worry in his eyes. It should have made me feel worse, but it was actually comforting to know that he was on the same page as me, and not, like Jamie and Rob, concerned his ass might be on the line.
“You definitely think Chloe went outside Friday night?” I asked him, even though I knew the answer.
