The officer’s lips hardened. “Was there anyone in particular that didn’t seem excited to have Emily joining your group?”
Natasha. The name was there on the tip of my tongue. Always the last to warm up to anyone or anything new. She kept her walls ten feet high, and it was only because I’d known her so long that I knew it was a defense mechanism. I shook my head. “No. Not really. We were all glad Andy had met someone to make him happy.”
“And did he seem happy?”
“The happiest I’d ever seen him,” I answered. “Andy wasn’t really the type to date the same woman for very long, so the fact that he kept seeing Emily said a lot. I really think he was falling for her.” My words surprised me, but they were the truth. His reaction to Emily’s death had been that of a man in love.
Officer Knowles obviously had no use for love. He grimaced, releasing an almost-growl as he continued his line of questioning. “Okay, so back to the night she died… Miss Bennett left dinner early. Did you see her after that?”
“No. Megan, my fiancée, had a headache after dinner, so we came back to the hut for her to meditate. We went to bed shortly after.”
“Megan, your fiancée, is one of the others who’s missing?”
I nodded. “Yes. Now. As of yesterday.”
“Okay, so that night, neither you or Megan were up again until the next morning?”
“Well, Megan fell asleep after her meditation, but it took me awhile to fall asleep. The storm kept me awake.” I looked up at the ceiling of the hut. “These things aren’t the most sturdy or soundproof. And then, Laura came to visit me.”
“Laura?” The writing officer was really scribbling then, the sound of the scratching of ink on paper reaching me across the room.
“Laura Walker. Brad’s wife. She’s my best friend. Has been all my life. We own a dental practice together.”
“And she’s also missing now, correct?”
Again, I nodded. “She went for a jog the morning Megan disappeared and never came back.”
“And why did Mrs. Walker come to see you that night?”
My forehead wrinkled. “I don’t know…” I thought back to that night, the whipping wind, the rocks tapping on my window. Why had she come? It didn’t make sense. “She wanted to talk about, er, about Emily, actually.” But why? I was asking myself the questions I should’ve been asking already, but so much had happened I didn’t have the chance. Why had she been asking about Emily? Initially, I’d worried she had something to do with her death, but now she was gone, too. So either she was innocent or someone found out what she’d done. She wasn’t a murderer. I knew Laura. Had known her my entire life. She wouldn’t have hurt Emily. She wouldn’t hurt anyone.
Except me.
But not intentionally.
The officer watched as I argued internally, before shaking the thoughts from my head and meeting his eyes. “She said that she thought Emily might be dangerous.”
That seemed to surprise him. “And why did she say that?” He folded his beefy arms across his chest.
“She said that Emily was talking about secrets at the spa, same as she was at dinner. Laura thought she may know something about one of us. Something she was going to use to exploit us. She thought we may be in danger.”
“What could she have known? Did Mrs. Walker say?”
I pressed my lips together, trying to think. So much of that night was a blur. Except the kiss. And the sex. The rough scraping of our skin against the bark of the palm trees. The sand around my ankles. The wind. The screams.
“I don’t know. Laura didn’t say.”
The man stared at me, neither nodding nor speaking. He waited for me to say more. Now was my chance. I should’ve spoken up, but I didn’t. I hesitated, and the moment was gone.
“Did Mrs. Walker return to her hut? Or were the two of you together when Miss Bennett’s body was discovered?”
“She’d gone back to her hut. I was inside, too. Trying to get back to sleep.”
“Did anyone join you two when you were talking?”
“No,” I said quickly. “Apparently Andy was walking around looking for Emily, but we never saw anyone that night. We went down there,” I pointed out the window, in the direction that we’d been, “to talk so we didn’t wake anyone up.”
“And how long after that was it before Miss Bennett’s body was found?”
“About an hour, I guess. I was dozing in and out when I heard screams. Megan and I hurried out to see what was wrong, and that was when we learned what had happened.”
“Did anyone know about you meeting Mrs. Walker that night? Her husband? Megan?”
“No,” I said. “Not them. No one at the time, but Jaren and Natasha do now. I told them because…” And we’d arrived back at my chance again. “Laura and I used to have a thing back when we were in college. It ended years ago, but Megan was always a little worried I still had feelings for her.” I ran a palm over my face. “When Laura first went missing, I was worried Megan had seen us together and done something.”
The officer walked to the window. “Where did you and Mrs. Walker meet, exactly?”
“Way down,” I said. “We couldn’t see the huts, and she couldn’t have seen us unless she’d followed me. It was a stupid thought, I was just worried about Laura.”
“And when you came back, was Megan awake?”
I shook my head. “She hadn’t moved in all the time I’d been gone. The headache she’d had knocked her out.”
“Okay.” The officer turned away from the window. “Is there anything else you can tell us about the night Miss Bennett died?”
“I don’t think so. By the time I got down there, Andy already had her out of the water. I’d gone to get Manu for help, and they took her body to the infirmary. No one really knew what
