“What does that mean?” Kayla asked.
Paul tucked his hands into his armpits so that his arms made an X across his chest. “It’s been almost four hours already, Kayla. The general consensus is that if she entered the water at the time and place you said she did, they would have found her by now. Since the coast guard hasn’t located her yet, it means something very unusual has happened.”
“She’s dead,” Val said, emerging from the car, her face eerily blank and zombielike. “What they’re telling us, Kayla, is that they think she’s dead and they’re not going to spend any more time and money trying to rescue her. She’s a woman, and a black woman at that. Now, if it were a white male out there, if it were a policeman or a fireman out there, you can bet things would be different.” She pointed her finger at Paul, and in doing so, she teetered like a drunk. “You, buddy, are looking at a lawsuit.”
“What if it were your wife?” Kayla asked Paul. “Would you call off the rescue? What if it were your daughter?”
“Calm down, ladies. The pilot just asked me if it’s possible this woman’s not out there at all. It’s highly unlikely that if she entered the water at the time you said she did, that our men wouldn’t have picked her up on the radar. The coast guard uses mathematics, Kayla. They know where to look. They also know how long a person can survive in waters like these. I promise you, if they thought Ms. Riley were alive out there, it would still be a rescue mission.”
“She’s dead,” Val said.
“Is there any chance your friend swam down the beach instead of out?” Paul asked. “You said she lives in Polpis. Is there any chance she headed home?”
“Why would she do that?” Val asked. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“You ladies have had a lot to drink,” Paul said. “And this thing about her dancing, well, it sounds odd to me, like she was kidding around or something. Maybe she swam down shore and climbed out, and you never even saw her.”
“Ridiculous,” Val said.
“Where does she live?” Paul asked. “We’ll check her house.”
Kayla told him the address; then she said, “Can we come with you?”
“This is turning into police business,” Paul said.
“Paul,” Kayla said. “Please. She’s our best friend. We’ve known her for twenty years.”
“Okay,” he said.
Kayla climbed into the Trooper, but Val stood in the sand with a strange look on her face.
“I’m going to ride with Raoul,” Val said. “I want to talk to him about something. Is that okay with you, Raoul?”
Raoul tossed his keys in the air and caught them. “Sure thing. Hop in. We’ll see you at the house, sweetie,” he said to Kayla. “Think positive.”
“I’ll try,” Kayla said. A pesky jealousy gnawed at her heart. Why should Val ride with Raoul? Kayla thought about the warm cab of Raoul’s truck, Raoul fresh from bed, and Val sitting next to him with just a towel wrapped around her waist. Val’s linen pants were in the back of the Trooper, along with her ridiculously expensive Italian sandals. She was riding next to Kayla’s husband half naked. Val wasn’t afraid to cheat on her husband; she was fucking Jacob Anderson. Anger, jealousy, and fear surged through Kayla, and she almost slammed into Raoul’s back bumper.
Why did Val want to talk to him? Was she going to tell him what Kayla said before Antoinette entered the water? Here were other things that money couldn’t buy: loyalty from your best friend or your husband or your wife.
Their caravan pulled down Antoinette’s long dirt driveway: Raoul and Val in the truck, Kayla in the Trooper, Paul and his partner in a police Suburban. When Kayla saw the cottage, her heart soared. Every light in the place was on, the front door was wide open. Antoinette was home! Kayla jumped out of the Trooper and ran to Raoul, reclaimed him.
“Oh, thank God,” she said. She tugged on Raoul’s arm like one of the kids: Love me, love me best. Forget what Val has told you and love me. I’m not a murderer after all. “Thank God.”
“Let Paul go in first,” Raoul said quietly.
Val pulled Kayla toward the open front door. “I can’t believe this,” she said. “She left us on Great Point thinking she was dead. Now I am going to kill her. Antoinette!”
Paul Henry and his partner brushed by them; the partner had his hand on his gun. Kayla didn’t even know Nantucket policemen carried guns, but this guy carried surgical gloves and a gun.
“Stand back, ladies,” he said. He peered inside the open door. “Oh, baby.”
Paul Henry looked in over his shoulder. “Uh-oh. Whoa.” He knocked on the door frame. “Ms. Riley? Ms. Riley, it’s Paul Henry with the Nantucket Police Department. Are you in there?”
“What’s going on?” Val said. Her bottom half was still swathed in just a beach towel, and Kayla had an urge to tell her to put on her pants.
Raoul stayed in the driveway, studying the outside of the house. At first Kayla thought he was admiring his handiwork in the moonlight The house had only four rooms, but it was one of his favorite designs. Huge living area, huge kitchen, huge bathroom, huge bedroom. High ceilings, big windows, lots of custom touches. He once told her he could stare at his houses for hours, the same way she had watched enthralled as the children slept when they were babies.
“She’s not in there,” he said.
“Raoul?”
He shook his head. “She’s not in there, Kayla. What does Paul say?”
Paul and his partner had just taken their first steps through the front door into the living room. Val was close behind them, and Kayla was a few steps behind Val. When Val poked her head in the door, she screamed.
Antoinette, hanging from the exposed beams?
Antoinette, lying in a pool of blood?
“What is it?” Kayla asked, afraid to move.
“Ms. Riley?” Paul Henry called out.
Kayla looked through the front door.
The place had been torn apart. Antoinette’s things were everywhere. The floppy beige cushions of her sofa were strewn about, her books had been swept off her built-in shelves, the hand-dipped candles that she ordered from Woodstock, New York, had been snapped in half. Her Norfolk pine lay on its side. Bottles of Stag’s Leap chardonnay were scattered across the floor like bowling pins.
“Oh, dear God.” Kayla took a step inside, but Paul Henry raised his hand.
“Don’t move,” he said. “This really is police business now, Kayla. Is it safe to assume this place didn’t look this way when Ms. Riley left this evening?”
“We didn’t come inside,” Kayla said. She turned to Val, who was back to wearing her wide-eyed, doped-up expression. “Did we, Val?”
Val shook her head.
“So it could have looked like this,” Paul Henry’s partner said. He put his surgical gloves on before he started picking things up. “For all we know, Ms. Riley could have made this mess herself. Meaning she was in a certain frame of mind when she headed to the beach.” Every light in the house was on-the in-ceiling track lighting, the Tiffany lamps, the lights in the kitchen and the bathroom. Antoinette hated lightbulbs. She preferred sunlight, candlelight
“These lights weren’t on when we picked Antoinette up,” Kayla said. “Someone else has been here.”
“Is anything missing?” Val said. “Was she robbed? You might as well let us look around because we’re the only ones who will be able to tell you.”
“The TV is missing,” Paul Henry said. He nodded at the big square blank spot in Antoinette’s built-in shelves.
“Antoinette doesn’t own a TV,” Kayla said. “Val’s right. You should let us in.”
The partner glowered at them. “Don’t touch anything,” he said. “And you,” he nodded at Val. “Put on shoes.”