“I’m fine,” I mumble, but I’m not. I can’t keep the truth compartmentalized any longer: Zoe messaged me in December. She gave me her number. Told me things about her life. On New Year’s Eve, she disappeared. On New Year’s Eve, I blacked out. …
“I’ll take Paisley in to Mrs. Bellamy and explain you’re not feeling well. You need to get some sleep.”
I nod weakly. Paisley squeezes my hand and says she hopes I feel better soon. We keep walking until we get to Clovelly Cottage, and Martina sends me around back to the pool house while she and Paisley go up to the front.
Somehow, I get inside. When I’m alone, I pull out my phone with trembling hands.
“You need to tell me the truth about New Year’s,” I say when Kaylee picks up.
There’s a long pause on the other end of the line.
“I’m starting to remember,” I press. “Something bad …” I lean all my weight against the back of the pool house door. My legs are liquid beneath me.
“Anna,” she says finally. “We should talk about New Year’s. But not on the phone.”
“You need to tell me,” I say again. “We came out to Herron Mills, you and me. What happened to Zoe?”
“Look.” She sounds like a mother reasoning with a disobedient toddler. “I looked up that Zoe Spanos girl. We didn’t know her.”
Kaylee’s voice is insistent. But Kaylee is lying.
“I can handle it, Kay. We were together, you and me. She died that night.”
On the other end of the line, Kaylee lets out a deep, jagged breath. She’s protecting me, but I know. Contained in that sound are all the things she doesn’t want to tell me. “Come home, Anna. So we can really talk.”
I end the call without saying goodbye. The dark thoughts that have been haunting me all summer dance across the pool house walls in one violent vignette after the next.
Paisley floating facedown in the ocean, blond hair framing her small head like a halo.
Ravens on the Windermere balcony rail. Everything tilting. Falling.
Paisley’s broken body slumped across the backseat of the car. Dark water rushing in.
A girl, falling, body twisting in a long white party dress with a pale yellow sash. Her face frozen in terror. My face. Zoe’s.
Falling again. The balcony rail disintegrating beneath me. Beneath us.
Shapes in the dark water. Nighttime seeping over the surf. Bodies made faceless in the near-dark.
Kaylee’s scream shrill in my ears, her hands grasping at my arms, dragging me back.
Zoe’s body in the water. Sinking down, down.
And then I know. This isn’t my mind playing tricks on me. This is guilt beating against my skull, forcing itself out. My brain trying to show me the truth about Zoe. About what I did.
In Brooklyn, I was able to keep it at bay for a while. Drown the truth in booze, pot, pills. But not here. Not anymore.
I collapse on the bed, on top of the covers, and press my face into the cool white pillow, willing sleep to come.
PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT OF MISSING ZOE EPISODE SEVEN: MAX FACTOR
[MISSING ZOE INSTRUMENTAL THEME]
MARTINA GREEN: In our second segment, we’ll hear from another acquaintance of Max Adler’s. Mr. Adler was brought in by the Herron Mills PD this past Sunday, September twenty-seventh, for questioning. This follows my own observation that Anna Cicconi’s former employers, the Bellamys, spoke with Herron Mills detectives on Saturday the twenty-sixth, however the Bellamy family could not be reached for confirmation or comment.
Getting back to what we know for sure, Mr. Adler is not under arrest at this time, but police are calling him a new person of interest in the Zoe Spanos investigation. While charges against Anna Cicconi have not been dropped, Judge Castera is considering a pretrial motion filed by the defense to dismiss both the charges of second-degree manslaughter and concealment of a corpse brought against Miss Cicconi. If that happens, this case could be reopened as a homicide investigation.
To get the inside scoop on Max Adler, I spoke yesterday with Michelle Heath, a third-year student in the marine biology program at Brown University.
MICHELLE HEATH: Sure, I know Max. He graduated last year, but he was a pretty big presence in the bio department when he was here.
MARTINA GREEN: Can you tell us what you mean by “a pretty big presence”?
MICHELLE HEATH: Max has a big personality. He wasn’t the top student in the ecology and evolutionary bio program, but he probably could have been if he scaled the partying back