Chapter Forty-Seven Maya

Chapter Forty-Seven

Maya

February 2012, Bretton Woods, New Hampshire

When I woke up, I was lying in the guest room I shared with Daisy with a splitting headache. The sunlight streaming through the window told me it was at least late morning, and Daisy wasn’t in her bed. Last night, a storm had rolled in, and the trees had all but disappeared under a thick blanket of snow.

I reached up to touch my head, feeling the swollen bruise from where I must have hit it when I passed out last night. Oh my god, how many drinks had I had? Five? And the altitude… I would have laughed, except I was afraid I might throw up. I could really use some coffee.

I dragged myself out of bed and ran my hand along the wall for support as I made my way out to the kitchen. But as I passed the living room, the air felt thick. I could feel the tension even before I saw them.

Cecily, Daisy, and Kai were gathered close together, whispering. When they saw me, they looked up. The expression on their faces told me something was very wrong. Anxiety tightened around my chest.

“What is it?” I asked, not sure I wanted to know the answer.

Daisy stepped forward, eyes wide with fear. “We can’t find Lila.” I had never seen her so pale.

Cecily looked at me. “We’ve looked everywhere.” A bead of water dripped down her parka and onto the floor. That was when I realized they were all wearing their jackets and gloves, their faces pink with cold.

“What happened?” I asked, looking from face to face. Each looked as worried as the next, and the dread dug deeper.

“No one’s seen her since last night.” Daisy shook her head. “The back door was open this morning. And her jacket was on the floor, and her phone. We thought maybe she’d gone out for a bit, but it’s been hours.” Her voice cracked.

I stared at them, wondering why they seemed so hopeless. “Maybe she’s lost, or hurt. She couldn’t have made it far in this snow. Come on, we have to keep looking. We’re running out of time.”

—

Outside the cabin, everything was white and still, the ground covered in several feet of snow. An awful feeling rose in the pit of my stomach. Would Lila really have gone out without her coat?

We spread out in all directions from the cabin, yelling her name. My hands and feet were numb from the cold, but I was so wired with adrenaline I didn’t care. I yelled Lila’s name until my voice was hoarse.

After an hour of searching, Kai stopped suddenly. “I’m going back. Someone needs to call the police.” The rest of us kept searching, filled with a new kind of terror.

The first police car showed up a half hour later. “The K9 unit is on their way,” the officer said.

I overheard him turn and mutter something to a fellow officer. “Let’s get a search team out five miles in every direction. But we’re going to need the dogs to find a body in all this snow.”

A body. The officer’s words hung in the air. My stomach turned as I realized—he didn’t expect to find her alive.

Daisy and I pushed through the snow, sweat dripping under our jackets, exposed skin on our faces burning with cold. I scanned the ground in front of us, straining for any color among the fallen branches and pine needles, scared to miss a lock of red hair, the corner of her sweater.

As we ventured deeper into the wilderness, searching for any sign of Lila in all this snow, time seemed to stretch. The snowfall, the cracking sounds of ice, the officers’ words, all floated in the distance. The snow was so thick, it seemed to have covered up any prints. Even the dogs struggled to find her scent.

It took until dusk before a member of the search and rescue team found her—five miles from the cabin, covered by snow in a ravine. By then the sun had long gone, and a cruel bitter wind circled the cabin. We waited for what seemed like an eternity…and then we saw them: a group of EMTs exiting the woods with a stretcher.

I stood very still, watching through the window as a horrible fear seized my chest and snaked down my limbs, but I couldn’t look away.

Daisy was the first to run out, and I followed close behind.

What happened next had a muted, slow-motion quality, as if it were happening in a dream.

I would remember her hair first: frozen solid and dark red with blood, matted with twigs and dirt. A bloody gash split her head, and yet her expression was calm and serene…as if she were asleep, her pale skin glittering unnaturally as sunlight reflected off the tiny flakes of ice, like a shattered porcelain doll.

I stared. Captivated. Anchored to the snowy spot where I stood.

But then I blinked and the panic rushed in. She was closer now—her skin ashen, bruised, lips a jaundice yellow and purple the color of mold—and then they pulled the sheet over her.

My vision swam, and for a moment I was confused.

What were they doing? The EMTs were taking their time hauling her into the ambulance. They weren’t giving her oxygen. They weren’t trying to save her.

Someone grabbed my hand, and I began to hyperventilate as they shut the ambulance doors. She was gone. She was really gone.

Cold sweat coated my armpits, the back of my neck, as someone brought me inside and handed me a glass of water. I stared at it in my hand. In the living room, Daisy sank into a chair, head dropping to her hands, and sobbed.

Fear and guilt twisted my insides. Lila was dead. And it was my fault. My stomach lurched, and I heaved in the hallway. The glass slipped from my grasp and shattered on the floor.

—

“Maya Mason.” the detective’s voice cut through my skull. I looked down at where the glass I’d been holding had shattered moments ago. But it was already gone. Someone had cleaned it up.

I swallowed. “Yes?”

“I’ll need you to come with me next. We need to ask you a few questions.”

I nodded as the blood drained from my face.

Cecily, Kai, and Daisy stood behind him, cheeks flushed from the cold, jackets dripping onto the floor—like I’d found them this morning. They stared at me, each one as pale as the snow outside.

—

No one said a word as we packed our bags the next morning.

I was still in shock, disoriented from lack of sleep and a throbbing headache. The past twenty-four hours felt like a nightmare. One from which we couldn’t wake up. We drove down the same snowy road on which we came, but this time we rode in bone-chilling silence.

It wasn’t until Daisy touched my arm that I realized I was crying. No one had said it, but I knew Lila must have gotten the shot intended for Professor DuPont. That was the only logical explanation. And that meant…it was my fault she was dead.

But something about it bothered me. How had she made it five miles into the snow? I’d put enough GHB in that drink to knock out a horse—how could someone as thin as Lila have made it more than a few steps with that much in her system?

I shuddered, imagining her lost in the storm, panicking as she tried to retrace her steps.

All of a sudden, my rib cage locked in on itself, my bones digging into my lungs. I couldn’t breathe. Hyperventilating, I took off my seatbelt, rolled down the window.

“Woah, what are you doing?” Daisy said.

I’m going to be sick. Pushing myself up, I leaned out the window, gasping at the cold air. This is my fault. It’s my fault she’s dead. The thoughts pulsed again and again through my mind as my airway constricted. Drugging someone is a felony. I could be charged with manslaughter, maybe even murder.

The car was too hot. I couldn’t draw in enough air.

“Sit back down, Maya,” Cecily said from the front seat.

“Can someone get her back inside?” Kai yelled. The car jerked back and forth as she looked in the rearview mirror.

Her erratic driving was too much. I vomited out the window.

“Oh my god, are you okay?” Cecily turned around.

Wiping my mouth, I slouched back into the seat. Daisy handed me her bottle of water, which I gulped down eagerly. The cool liquid settled my stomach, but the bile still lingered on my tongue.

“Shit,” Kai said, out of nowhere. “Did one of you pack the video camera?”

A long silence. Everyone shook their head.

Kai’s eyes met mine in the rearview mirror and the fear in them sent a chill straight to my bones.