I called after him. “Reeve?”
He paused, his expression encouraging me to go on.
Did she know? That was the question pressing most at my thoughts. Had she realized what I’d done? That I’d spent the night with Reeve? Had she run away as punishment?
But I couldn’t ask his thoughts because then he’d wonder why it mattered if she and I had sorted everything out. And I’d have to explain the agreement we’d come to, and maybe I’d have to explain it eventually anyway, but, at the moment, I didn’t know how.
His face softened, and he closed the distance between us with two long strides. “We’re going to find her,” he said, kissing my forehead. “She’s fine. Trust me.”
And since I did trust him, I said, “Okay.”
I called Joe first, from her room – from the room that had been Reeve’s. The conversation was brief. I apprised him of the situation and told him how I’d meant to leave the island that day without sharing much of the details. “I don’t know when she disappeared or if she made the arrangements for me to leave or not. If she did, that might at least give us a time frame.”
“And you haven’t told this to Sallis because he didn’t know you were going? Are you planning to tell him?”
“I’m sure I will eventually. Right now, though…” I was too tired to explain anything, not just because I’d barely gotten any sleep but because my reasons were so fuzzy now I could barely explain them to myself let alone to someone else.
“Keep it to yourself,” Joe said. “I’ll see what I can find out. Hang in there.”
After I hung up, I looked through her belongings. All that she owned had been purchased for the trip and even though her perfume was the same brand she’d worn for years and her lipstick, the same burnt red color she’d loved since she was a teen, everything felt impersonal. I told myself I was searching for clues like a grown-up Nancy Drew, but what I was really looking for was her. I wanted to find her in her clothes, in the vanity drawers, in the items strewn across the floor – a swimsuit, her eyeliner, a manicure set, a bottle of aspirin.
None of it felt like her or smelled like her or vibrated of her except the near empty pack of cigarettes I found tucked in the back of her dresser and a half empty container of methadone. Those items I clutched to my chest and curled up on her bed where I could smell the faint scent of her shampoo on the pillow, and I prayed – to God, maybe. Or her. Or to the universe. To whoever or whatever might be out there listening to the prayers of desperate and despondent souls like me. “Please, let her be found. Please, please, please, let her be found.”
“You weren’t slated to be on that flight,” Joe said when he called back later. “I talked to the manager at the resort – discreetly, don’t worry – and he said he hadn’t heard from her.”
I let out a long, heavy breath. “So either she changed her mind or she didn’t get a chance.”
“What is your gut telling you, Emily?” Joe was like my conscience, saying out loud the questions I was asking myself silently.
“She didn’t change her mind.” When I’d last seen her, she’d been firmly decided. There had been no swaying her.
“Then you think something happened with Vilanakis?”
“Yes.” I paced out into the courtyard, smiling at Filip, who’d stayed behind to watch after me along with the housekeeper and cook. “Unless it was someone else.”
“Like who? Like Reeve?”
“I don’t know. I’m being paranoid.” I spun around, retracing my steps back inside.
“Be paranoid. It’s a good investigative technique.”
“It’s silly. Just.” There was a boulder of worry on my shoulders. A boulder so weighted that I couldn’t be in my right mind, and, really, it couldn’t be expected that I would be.
So I spit out the idea that had tossed around inside my head all day. “He told me last night that he’d… well, he said he wouldn’t let anything come between us. He said he’d handle anything or anyone who did. Amber wanted me to go home and that was going to come between us.”
Again, he asked, “What’s your gut telling you, Em?”
“My gut says that something fucking happened to her. I’m scared out of my goddamn mind.”
“About Reeve. Do you trust him?”
I rubbed my fingers across my forehead, remembering that he’d been dressed when I’d come to him that morning, remembering how he’d dismissed me when I’d asked about it.
Remembering the night I’d spent with him and the things he’d said and the things I’d felt.
I’d been in this quandary once before – torn between loving him and the things Reeve was capable of. I didn’t need to examine the conclusions I’d come to again.
“I do trust him,” I admitted honestly. “But that doesn’t mean he didn’t do something to her.”
I didn’t eat or sleep all day. Filip was on and off the phone speaking in Greek so I was only able to catch bits of information. I gathered he was talking to Anatolios most of the time, and that Anatolios was attempting to reach the Vilanakis clan, but Filip didn’t share anything with me voluntarily.
“Well?” I asked after the third phone call.
He frowned, his eyes darting as he seemed to debate whether he should confide in me.
“Don’t keep me in the dark on this,” I said bitterly. “Please.”