All the Missing Girls(45)

Ten years later and he was running the company. Ten years later, two fewer degrees than I had, and he was twice as accomplished.

He followed me in, closed the door, and leaned back against it. “Sorry, I wasn’t expecting you.” He glanced out the window. “This really isn’t the best time.”

“I’m sorry. But something happened.” I tried to get a good look at his face, but the brim of his hat was pulled down low, and I couldn’t see his eyes. Just his mouth, a set line.

“What happened?” he asked, his back still pressed up against the door. The distance between us felt tangible, forced and awkward.

“Last night. After midnight. Someone was in Annaleise’s place.” A muscle at the side of his jaw twitched. I wanted to rip the hat off his head. I needed to see his eyes.

“And you know this because?”

“Because I saw them.”

“Nic, you’ve got to stay out of the f*cking woods. You’ve got to let this go.”

“Tyler . . .”

“What?” he asked.

“I have to ask you.” I paused, wishing he wouldn’t make me.

He readjusted the brim of his hat, turned to stare out the window. “What, exactly, do you need to ask me?”

How many ways could I say it? I stepped closer, but his face remained in shadow. “Was it you?”

He looked back to me, like the whole conversation had caught him off guard. “Was what me? What the hell are you talking about?”

I lowered my voice even though we were alone. “Were you in her place last night? After midnight?” I asked.

Tyler turned and fixed his eyes on mine—What are you saying, Nic?—until I had to look away.

“Do you have a key?” I asked.

“Are you f*cking kidding me right now?”

“You never told me,” I said. “You never told me whether you were serious or just screwing her.”

He took his hat off, ran his hand through his hair, pulled it back down. He shifted his lower jaw around. “Just screwing, Nic. Happy?”

“No, I’m not happy.” My voice wavered, and I took a slow breath to steady myself. “Someone was in there.”

“Probably the police. Since they were just here.”

Fuck. Fucking Jackson being f*cking right.

“What did they want? What did you say?”

He looked out the window again. “They want to find Annaleise. And they want to poke holes in my alibi. They want to catch me in a lie.”

I paused, thinking. “What is your alibi, Tyler?”

He grimaced. “That’s the problem. I don’t have a f*cking alibi. My alibi is just that I wasn’t there. Except I obviously was a few hours earlier. So my alibi is that I wasn’t there when she went missing. That we didn’t have a fight that got out of hand.”

“That’s what they think?”

He shrugged. “That’s the story they seem to want. That I called her. We fought. For some reason they haven’t quite worked out yet, we agreed to meet up in the woods. She accused me of being with you. I . . . did something.” He reached out in front of him, fingers curling in as if closing around her slender neck.

“It’s up to them to prove that,” I said.

“Is it? Is it really? If everyone already believes it and then you show up at my work in the middle of the day?”

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, heat rising to my face. “I’m sorry I came. I just needed to know.”

He nodded. “No, I’m sorry. I’m pissed. I’m pissed at them. Not at you. It was probably the police in her place, Nic.”

“No, not the police. There weren’t any cars. Someone on foot.” Someone who didn’t want to be seen. Someone who had a key. Someone who knew the woods by heart.

“Her family, then.”

“Through the woods, Tyler. Someone walked through the woods.”

Then he stared again, walked toward the door, readjusted the brim of his hat so it was perfectly centered. Nodded once. “It wasn’t me.” He looked me over once more. “Go home,” he said. “Get out of here before they come knocking on your door, too.”

I followed him out the trailer door into the sunlight, the work site too bright, like an overexposed photo.



* * *



MEALS STARTED BLENDING TOGETHER, along with the hours, losing structure, just as the days had been. Sleep was hard to come by, and I overcompensated with too much caffeine all day. It was after nine P.M. by the time I remembered to eat. There were too many possibilities. All those names and events tied together in that hypothetical box, weaving around, untangling in my mind. And more—the stories that never made it inside the box. The things we never asked each other slowly unraveling.

To solve a mystery, to solve a mystery here, you can’t come from the outside.

There were people here who knew more than they said, who chose to keep it silent, like Jackson seeing Corinne. Like me seeing them together. There must be more of us. I had to understand the silence. With Corinne comes Annaleise. With Annaleise comes Corinne.

Apply one filter to the next, watch it all slide into focus.



* * *



THERE WAS A LIGHT outside the window, in the woods. Someone near her place again. I didn’t bother grabbing my phone, just the flashlight that had been in the drawer beside the microwave as long as I could remember.