Page 22 of High Season
Nina expects everyone to still be in bed. Evelyn and Blake are late sleepers, and even Ryan, who is up at the crack of dawn to work out and take his endless supplements back in London, often sleeps until midmorning whenever they leave the city, his body seeming to demand a break.
Nina unlocks the side door quietly, prepared to tiptoe upstairs. To shower, and then perhaps to coil back into bed beside her boyfriend, to wake him slowly with her touch.
She stops dead when she hears voices drifting in from the kitchen.
“She’ll be in a good mood when she gets back. It’s later that we’ll have to keep an eye on her.”
Nina doesn’t move. It’s Ryan, his back to her, his hands resting on the kitchen island. Seated on the chaise longue closest to the window, she can make out the top of her mother’s head.
“I’m worried, you know,” Evelyn says. “We tried so hard to protect her at the time. I knew this degree of hers could only lead to trouble.Childpsychology, of all things! Such a ridiculous idea. Most people would want to move on. To forget about it. Not be confronting what happened to them, over and over again.”
“She’s good at what she does,” Ryan says, and Nina feels a stir of gratitude toward him. “And she cares about her work. She genuinely wants to help people.”
She should go in now. Evelyn would never know that she’d heard.
“But I’ve often wondered how much of it isreallyabout helping people, and how much of it is a way of dealing with the guilt,” Ryan says. “A way of figuring out what happened to her, I suppose. I think that’s why she did her dissertation on child memory formation and trauma. Like, if she can figure out what she doesn’t remember, and if she can figure outwhyshe doesn’t remember it, she might be able to convince herself that she told the truth.”
Nina’s skin turns to ice.
“But shedoesremember,” Evelyn’s voice is knife-sharp. “It’s hardly the kind of thing that you forget.”
“Not everything,” Ryan says. “She doesn’t remember everything.”
There’s a quiet then. A stillness. Nina has to force her breath to slow. She is almost scared that, if she doesn’t, they might be able to hear the beating of her heart.
“I hate to ask you this,” Ryan says, “but did you ever wonder if it was the truth? If Josie Jackson really did do it? Did you believe Nina, right from the start?”
A silence. Evelyn is taking much too long to answer.
“I had to,” she says at last. “What other option was there?”
Nina’s stomach drops. She takes a step back. There is an ache in her temples, her throat. The threat of tears.
She cannot listen to this. She cannot hear her own mother and boyfriend doubting her. Sounding just like the people online, so quick to tear her down.
She goes upstairs, treading slowly on the stone steps, careful not to make any sound. She goes to the farthest bathroom and switches on the shower, so hot that she has to stifle a squeal when the water hits her skin. She washes away the sweat and the sand, scrubs as if she could buffer away the terrible, awful feeling that nobody believes her.
When her skin is scarlet with heat, she emerges and stands naked, dripping on the bathroom floor. She lifts her phone up from the sink. She had left it there this morning, when she was changing for her run. Another lifetime now, it feels. When she presses the unlock button, the still image of truecrimefangirl_2002 flushes the screen. Smiling. Gleeful. Goading Nina on.
Nina clicks into her emails and pulls up the message that started this entire thing. She taps against the small reply icon. Begins to type.
Hi, she writes.I think I’m ready to talk.
PART TWO
@TRUECRIMEFANGIRL_2002
POSTED SIX WEEKS AGO
Oh hey, my little true crime freaks, thanks for coming back.
OK, so first of all, let me just say that this whole thing isblowing up. Like, for real, I have not been able to keep up with all of your comments and messages. But please keep them coming, I am loving the support and I am loving all of the tea you guys have been spilling. And trust me, you guys are going to want to keep watching, because the DMs are coming inhot.
So, guys, I thought today I’d talk a little bit about the facts of the case. Because, as ever with this kind of case, context is everything. So, let’s get into it.
Tamara Drayton was discovered unconscious in the pool of the family home on the Côte d’Azur at approximately 10:25P.M.on the twentieth of August, 2004—the night of her mother’s forty-second birthday party. Up until then, it had been a pretty normal summer. People said that Tamara had been maybe a little withdrawn, a little moody, but also, like, that wouldn’t be unusual for a seventeen-year-old who probably didn’t want to spend all summer with her family? Believe me, I’ve been there.
Tamara was reportedly last seen at the party by her twin brother, Blake, at around ten o’clock. Blake reported that he saw Tamara talking to Josie Jackson in the entrance hall of the house, and several other sightings confirmed that Tamara was seen leaving the house through the back door, although police were not able to verify what time these sightings took place. Some witnesses said that she wasalone, and others say that she may have been with a young woman, although because most of the guests did not know Josie Jackson, police also weren’t able to positively confirm these sightings. And it’s 2004, so it’s not like everyone has CCTV or, like, Ring doorbells or whatever.
