A new intimacy had settled on the group now—aided by yet more champagne—and they told stories deep into the night. Their greatest fears were laid bare: on getting older, having children, getting married, staying married, resisting marriage. Though Hannah, Emma noticed, divulged little else.

  Beyond them, the green cliffs rolled down to the sparkling sea, glinting in the moonlight. The stars all shone. It was a clear night. But it wouldn’t stay that way.

  When Emma woke the next morning, after a fitful wine-drenched sleep, Hannah was not beside her. She’d always been an early riser, even when they were teenagers. Hannah also seemed never to get hungover, regardless of how much she’d had to drink.

  As the hot tub confessional replayed through Emma’s mind, she tried to decide how she felt about it. A little embarrassed? Maybe. Previously only her mother (firmly in the “stay” camp) and Hannah (in the “fuck him, but I’ll support you whatever you do” camp, both more and less helpful than her mother’s stance) had known about Spencer’s infidelity. Relief; she realized, through the haze of her hangover, she felt relieved that someone else knew. Four someone elses. She liked this strange assemblage of women. Things were going well.

  She peeled herself out of bed—dear god, had she been sweating alcohol in her sleep?—and walked to the window, or rather to the glass door that led to the narrow balcony outside the master bedroom. She opened the door, the day was windy and clouds a thousand shades of blue and gray were rolling in over the bay. So the weather would turn. Fine—if the rest of them felt like she did, it would be a day of bad movies and card games and that would be fine. Perhaps some hair of the dog as it was a bachelorette party. They could sober up when they got home.

  She padded down to the kitchen where Stephanie was making coffee. It was nearly nine, later than Emma ever slept in at home.

  “Good morning,” she said to Stephanie, who also did not appear to have slept well.

  “Good morning. Coffee?”

  “Please.”

  “How do you take it?” Stephanie asked as Emma sat gingerly down at the breakfast counter.

  “Uh, intravenously? No, black is fine.”

  “How’d you sleep?”

  “Not so hot,” Emma said sheepishly. “As it turns out I’m not twenty-two anymore! When did that happen?”

  “Right?” She paused as she poured coffee into a mug. “Listen, I’m sorry about last night.”

  “Why? About what?”

  “That stupid story about me on my honeymoon. I didn’t mean to diminish what you and Spencer went through. Or are going through. Not that I think what I did was okay, it wasn’t, obviously.”

  Emma waved her off. “It’s completely fine. I’m glad I’m not the only one with an imperfect marriage.”

  “What other kinds of marriages are there? I mean, there are those people who pretend their marriages are perfect. Those people are creepy. And you just know their marriages are actually the worst.”

  Emma nodded. “Do you think Hannah knows what she’s getting herself into?” They both smiled, and yet there was an undercurrent of truth. The suddenness of the choice, the reviving of a long-dead romance. Emma wondered if Stephanie also felt a bit suspicious.

  Before she’d gotten to know her, she’d taken Stephanie for one of those women who not only pretended her marriage was perfect, but that her everything was perfect. Her social media was full of artful pictures depicting a loving union, a tidy home, beautiful children, a photogenic border collie. But didn’t everyone make their lives look perfect on social media? Well, except for the people who took to it for long, melancholic rants about everything they were going through, trying to solicit sympathy from acquaintances they barely knew. Those people were the worst.

  Georgia stumbled into the kitchen. “Good morning.”

  “Good morning,” the two others said in stereo.

  “How’d you sleep?” Emma asked.

  “Ugh, not very well. Too much wine,” Georgia said. “Et cetera,” she added with a smile.

  Abby drifted in next. It was Georgia who first asked where Hannah was.

  “Not sure, but you know Hannah, she’s always up so early.”

  “She must have gone for a run. Sweat out the booze,” Abby said.

  “She’d better hustle back here,” Georgia said, glancing out the window at the darkening sky. “It looks like it’s about to open up and pour.”

  “God, my head,” Abby said.

  Emma’s hair was coming loose from its bun and as she went to wind it back around itself, her aging hair elastic snapped.

  “Ow. Shit, I’ll be right back, you guys.”

  She found another hair tie at the bottom of her makeup bag, and was about to close the bathroom door behind her when something caught the corner of her eye: Hannah’s bright yellow running shoes.

  Emma felt a flush of worry. Okay, she thought, maybe she went into town for something. Before heading back downstairs, Emma peered out into the driveway. All of the cars were there. Now Emma’s heart fluttered with panic. She walked slowly back toward the kitchen, trying to process what she’d seen.

  “Bummer about the weather today,” Georgia was saying as she made her way back in.

  “Yeah, I was hoping for some beach time,” Stephanie said.

  “You guys,” Emma said, “where is Hannah?”

  “Didn’t she go for a run?” Abby asked.

  Emma shook her head. “I just spotted her running shoes in the bathroom.”

  “Let’s call her,” Stephanie said. She sounded on edge already.

  “My service sucks on this island,” Abby said.

  “Mine too,” Emma said. “Georgia, is yours still working?”

  Georgia pulled her phone from the pocket of her hoodie and looked into it fixedly. “Should be, let me try.” They watched as Georgia stared into the mysterious clunky phone, “Aha. Okay, calling . . .”

  No one moved, as though doing so might threaten her ability to reach Hannah.

  Georgia shook her head. “Straight to voicemail. Her phone is either off or dead.”

  “If she’s like the rest of us, maybe her phone doesn’t work out here, period,” Abby said.

  The panic level of the group ticked up a notch.

  “What do we do?” Stephanie turned to Emma, as though she were troupe leader.

  “Maybe she went for a walk, maybe into town? Let’s go look down there.”

  “Why would she go for a walk by herself without leaving a note?” Stephanie asked.

  “Well, you know how she is,” Abby said now. “Sometimes she just needs space or whatever. She seemed like she was in a weird mood yesterday.”

  “Was she? I guess maybe a little. I wonder what’s up,” Georgia said.

  “Why don’t we ask her when we find her,” Stephanie was already whirling around the kitchen searching for the car keys.

  They all piled into Stephanie’s BMW SUV and headed for town.

  “This is would be an awfully long walk,” Georgia said.

  “Yeah,” Emma said, keeping her voice even. Stephanie had already established herself as the hysterical one. “But remember that time when we went to Cabo for spring break and we couldn’t find her for hours?”

  “Right.” Georgia sounded relieved, the idea that Hannah had simply gone off for a think becoming more plausible. “She was just staring at the ocean, lost in thought.”

  “I had no idea she was such a space cadet!” Stephanie said. But then, she’d only known the composed, grown-up Hannah. Lawyer Hannah.

  “It’s not really that,” Georgia said. She’d known Hannah all her life, and was the only one who’d known her longer than Emma. “She just needs to disconnect sometimes. It’s almost like she’s meditating or something. She used to do it more.”

  They pulled into the small strip of the town. Most of the storefronts were dark.

  “What the hell?” Abby asked.

  “It’s Sunday, I guess nothing’s open?”

  “What sense does that make if there are tourists here?”

  “I don’t know,” Emma said. “Maybe everyone leaves on Sunday?”

  The Broken Bean, where they’d been the day before, was one of the few places that was open. They pulled up in front of it.

  “Jesus, thank you, I need a triple shot mocha—favorite hangover cure,” Abby said.

  “That would absolutely make me vomit right now,” Georgia said.

  “We’re here to find Hannah.” Stephanie seemed irritated that anyone could even think of coffee at a time like this.

  “I don’t think my ordering a mocha is going to impede our progress any,” she quipped. “And then I will be more alert for the search!”

  Stephanie fumed, in no mood for jokes. The night before, Stephanie and Abby had seemed to be developing an unlikely bond, but there was no evidence of it today.

  They could see from the moment they walked in that Hannah wasn’t there, but perhaps she had been at some point? Several other girls ordered coffees—to Stephanie’s chagrin—there’d been no chance to put on a second pot and they were all suffering from the late night.

  They asked the teenage girl working the counter if she’d seen Hannah.

  “What’s she look like?” she asked, sounding as though she couldn’t possibly be any less interested.

  “Petite,” Emma said. “Long, dark hair, but she usually wears it in a bun.”

  “Pretty. Asian,” Abby added.

  “Uh, try Japanese American.” Stephanie said under her breath. Abby rolled her eyes.

  The barista scrunched her nose in thought and then shook her head. “Haven’t seen anyone like that here this morning. It’s been slow, lots of people left because of the storm.”

  The four of them looked at her expectantly as she pulled the levers for their drinks, releasing periodic clouds of steam.

  “I thought it was just supposed to rain a little bit,” Emma said, though this was according to the weather report she’d looked at earlier in the week.

  The barista shook her head. “Winds up to fifty miles an hour. Thunder, lightning, the works. We’re closing in an hour. Where are you staying?”

  “Bay House,” several of them answered in unison.

  “Where’s that?”

  “Up on the cliffs above Broken Bay,” Emma said, “that big old Tudor up there.”

  “Huh, okay, well I’d hightail it if I were you. You don’t want to be on the roads; we always lose trees in a storm. Last fall one hit a tourist’s car.”

  “But our friend . . .” Emma said, trailing off.

  “Well, she’ll have to take cover somewhere too, might as well look for her after the storm.”

  The four girls were silent on the ride back. Ominous clouds were rolling over the island now, every trace of blue morning sky shrouded.

  “What are we going to do?” Abby finally asked.

  “Seems best to just go back to the house for now,” Emma said. “I’m sure she’ll come back from wherever she is soon.”

  “I hope so. These locals seem dumb as doornails,” Stephanie said.

  “No they don’t,” Abby said. “Just that barista chick. The bartender last night was great.”

  “Wish she’d been around this morning,” Georgia said.

  The storm was picking up steam and it seemed like the sooner they got off the road, the better. The trees that lined the winding path to the house no longer looked solid, as they bent and bowed in the wind.

  “What if she went home?” Abby offered from the backseat. “Like home to the city?”

  “Why would she do that?” Stephanie said, her voice high: some mix of panic and irritation that Emma couldn’t decipher.

  Abby shrugged. “Look, she went somewhere.”

  “It wasn’t home,” Georgia said finally. “There was a sign posted on the ferry schedule in the coffee shop. Everything is suspended because of the storm.”

  They were all quieted by this for a moment. Was it better or worse to know that Hannah was definitely still on the island somewhere? Hopefully safe, hopefully under cover.

  “What about those boys from last night?” Stephanie said.

  “What about them?” Abby asked, sounding a touch annoyed.

  “Could she be with them?”

  “Why would she be with them?” Georgia asked evenly.

  “I don’t know!” Stephanie sounded exasperated. “You two have known her the longest! It seems like she does weird things sometimes!”

  “I don’t think she’d be with them,” Emma said. “She didn’t seem especially enthused about the one that kept hitting on her last night.”

  Back at the house, the girls filed listlessly in. What had felt like a dream house suddenly felt like a tomb.

  “We should probably round up supplies in case the power goes out,” Emma said, trying to keep her voice from sounding nervous.

  For a moment, they stared at her blankly.

  “Flashlights, matches, candles. That kind of thing, come on.”

  The cupboards were sparse beyond the rudimentary items one could expect to find in a vacation house: a bare minimum of cooking utensils, mismatched mugs, plastic dishware.

  “Why don’t we check that attic room? Seems like the kind of place someone would keep stuff like that,” Emma suggested, after they’d only managed to unearth a handful of tea lights that wouldn’t last them an hour if the lights went out.

  They went up the long, narrow staircase that led to the attic room. Emma went first, with Abby behind her.

  “It’s locked,” Emma said, turning around in defeat.

  Abby smiled. “Here, let me.”

  Emma shrugged and carefully switched places with her, letting Abby take over the narrow landing. Abby jiggled the lock and then crouched to peer into the keyhole. “Ah,” she said, “no problem.” She pulled a hairpin from her voluminous topknot and carefully glided it into the keyhole. From behind her Emma could hear Stephanie murmur, “What is she, an ex-con?”

  They filed into the small room and for a moment they all froze. It looked markedly different from the rest of the house: it was large enough to have once been a bedroom, perhaps even the master before renovations. There was tile in the corner where an en suite bathroom might have once been. Unlike the rest of the house—refurbished into gleaming newness—this room felt like a time capsule.

  “Dude, it smells like my grandmother in here,” Abby said.

  “Shalimar,” Georgia said, sniffing, “It’s that perfume old ladies wear.”

  “Let’s just look for stuff and get out of here. This room gives me the creeps and it’s freezing up here,” Stephanie said.

  She was right: despite the humidity of the summer storm that was beginning to howl and rage outside, the air in the room was still, bitter and frigid.

  Abby stumbled upon a bin that looked promising. “Jackpot,” she said. “Matches, big fatty candles, a Maglite, extra batteries. The works.”

  The discovery couldn’t come soon enough. The lights in the house were beginning to flicker, and the distant thunder seemed to be drawing ever closer.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Georgia said, “and Abby, Jesus, lock that door behind you.”

  Abby laughed as they filed back down the stairs. “Don’t want any ghosts getting out?”

  “Stop it!” Stephanie squealed. “Gahhh, this whole place is freaking me out now.”

  The four of them changed into comfortable clothes and congregated back in the great room.

  “What now? Should we call Steven?” Georgia asked.

  “What can he do from Vegas, though?” Abby said.

  “I don’t know. Maybe he’d have some insight into why she would take off? I mean he spends the most time with her these days,” Georgia said.

  “I’d want to know if my fiancé was missing,” Stephanie said. “Wouldn’t you?”

  “If there was nothing I could do? I don’t know. What do you think Emma?” Abby said.

  They all turned to her, clearly expecting her to make the final call.

  She sighed and considered it. On the one hand, what could Steven do all the way from Vegas? It seemed as likely as not that they would worry him and disrupt his bachelor party for no reason. And yet, she would want to know if Spencer had gone missing. And truthfully, she wanted to know how Steven would react to the news. Would he stay in Vegas as planned, waiting for more info, or book the first flight home? Would he be annoyed at the interruption or just blind with worry?

  “Might as well try him,” she said, looking up his number on her own useless phone and reciting it to Georgia, who dialed it on her satellite phone.

  They waited anxiously for him to answer, but instead: voicemail. Steven’s bright and chipper tone on his outgoing message—which they could all faintly hear—felt almost blasphemous.

  “Should I leave a message?” Georgia asked.

  They all shook their heads at her.

  “We’ll try him again in a little while,” Emma said.

  “What now?” Stephanie said.

  “Should we call Charlie?” Emma asked Georgia, knowing how close she was with her aunt.

  “I don’t know. I feel like she will freak out. You know how she is.” They used to tease Hannah mercilessly in college about Charlie, the way she would go down a veritable phone tree of Hannah’s friends if she didn’t answer her phone on the first ring. Of course, Hannah had given her parents plenty of reason to worry in her teenage years, between the bad boyfriends and the dark moods. But that was long ago. “And there’s nothing she could do from there at the moment.”

  “What about the police?” Stephanie chimed in. “We can’t just sit there.”

  Emma looked at the clock. “Let’s give it until two. If she’s not back by then, we start calling people.”

  And then there was nothing to do but wait, while the winds howled and rattled the sturdy windows.

 

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