Page 68 of The Gallagher Place
“Thanks. This won’t take long. We just want to make sure there are no discrepancies. Marlowe, that night, it was you and Nate who ran out of the house first to look for Nora, right?” Ben asked. “Everyone else stayed inside?”
Marlowe nodded. “Yes, that’s right.”
“And Henry, you followed?” Ariel asked.
“Yes, they went outside first, but I was right behind them. We thought it was just one of her jokes.” Henry linked his fingers together on the table and leaned over his forearms. “But when I heard them yelling her name with no response, I ran outside too.”
“So, to confirm, there continued to be no answer, and then what happened?” Ariel’s finger tapped a page of her notebook.
“We started to get scared,” Henry said. “Our parents woke up, and we were looking for flashlights and pulling on our shoes to go look for her.”
“And you went down to get Enzo, correct?”
There was a pause, nearly imperceptible, before Henry nodded. “Yes.”
“Did Nate send you down there, or did you go on your own?”
“I don’t—I don’t remember.” Henry stared into his hands, as if he was really trying to recall.
“Marlowe, do you?”
Marlowe shook her head. “I remember Henry going to the stairs, but I don’t know who told him to.”
“You didn’t go down alone, right, Henry?” Ariel asked.
When Henry delayed his response again, Ariel tipped her hand. “We know you went down there with your friend,” she said. “We spoke with Liam.”
“Yeah,” Henry relented. “Liam went down with me.”
“And what happened once Enzo came upstairs?”
“We called the Millers and then started looking.” Henry exhaled; his eyes glazed as he recalled the witching hours spent out inthe fields. “We took the flashlights and spread out. Nate and Marlowe and my parents crossed the street and checked the barn, Liam and the others checked the garden and around the house, and me and Enzo headed back into the orchard to see if she was out there. It was so dark, we couldn’t see anything.”
“That’s part of the core issue, isn’t it?” Ariel nodded in sympathy. Marlowe had a sudden urge to grab her younger brother’s arm and tell him to be careful. Ariel wasn’t nice. She was pretending. Drizzling honey over the table and enticing him to drop his guard before she struck. “I’m sure you’ve both thought it: She could have been out there, unconscious, in the hayfield, hidden in the tall grass or under some leaves or sticks, tucked away in the barn. Isn’t it possible that she was there and you didn’t see her?”
“Yes,” Henry whispered. “Or whoever took her could have driven away before we realized she was gone.”
The kettle started to whistle, startling Marlowe. She’d been caught up in a state of déjà vu—Henry and her at the table, being asked to relive that night again, as if twenty years hadn’t passed. In some sense, maybe they’d been stuck here all along. Ariel leaned back, unphased by the piercing sound. Marlowe stood and went to remove the kettle from the stove but neglected to offer anyone tea.
“Do you think you missed something that night, Henry?” Ariel asked.
An edge crept into Henry’s voice—he’d returned to the present too. “Not that night. We thought—I thought—there was just some misunderstanding. She had fallen or maybe was hiding. Or something. I truly believed we would find her.”
Ariel spoke again. “What was Enzo wearing when you went to get him in the basement?”
Marlowe froze.
“His pajamas,” Henry said. “He was sleeping.”
“So you opened the door, and he was in bed, and he got out of bed?” Ariel asked. “In pajamas and slippers? Something like that?”
“I’m not sure exactly what it was like.” Henry was a lawyer again. He knew to never agree with a detailed question. “We knocked, and I think he opened the door.”
“But he was in his pajamas?” Ariel asked.
“Yes,” Henry said. “He had just gotten out of bed. He had just woken up.”
“Do you remember the color of his pajamas?” Ariel was on a trail, and Marlowe had no idea where it was going.
