Dangerous Girls

DEKKER: I’m just trying to get all the facts. You said music was on. Was it loud?

ANNA: Not really, no.

DEKKER: Were you and Mr. Dempsey making much noise?

ANNA: I don’t . . . I don’t understand.

DEKKER: You are a couple, no? You were alone in his room for almost an hour. Were you engaged in intercourse?

ANNA: I . . . You can’t ask me that.

DEKKER: I can ask anything I like. Answer the question, please.

CARLSSON: Sir, I don’t know—

DEKKER: The question, Miss Chavalier.

(pause)

ANNA: No. No, I’m not talking to you anymore.

DEKKER: I’m just trying to ascertain the level of noise in the house, and—

ANNA: No! I won’t say anything else without a lawyer. You can’t talk to me like that!

(pause)

(pause)

CARLSSON: Interview terminated, 6:20 a.m.

THE NEXT DAY

It’s morning by the time we check into one of the high-rise hotels along the beach. Tate’s family chartered a jet for our parents; they’ll be landing by noon, but for now, I can think of nothing but sleep. The adrenaline is gone from my system; I’m more tired than I’ve ever been in my life.

“Don’t wake me until my dad’s here,” I tell the others, in the gray carpeted hallway. Even swiping my key card takes almost more energy than I can bear. They must feel the same, because I get nothing but dull nods in reply before they stumble into their rooms.

Inside, I take five steps and fall face-first on the lurid aqua bedspread. I can’t move. I can barely even breathe.

There’s a knock on my door. I groan. It taps again, urgently.

Heaving myself up, I go to the door and pull it open. Tate pushes past me, inside. “What did you tell them?” he says anxiously. “What did they ask?”

I close the door behind him. “I . . .”

“That guy, Dekker, when he brought you back in? He asked what we did all day; what did you say?”

“Nothing! I mean, just what happened.” I stare at him, confused. He was there when I got out of questioning, right beside me in the cab ride to the hotel. He didn’t ask me anything about my interview then; nobody did. By then, we just wanted to be done with it.

Tate grips my arms. “Tell me, what did you say to him?”

I shrug, trying to remember. “You know, we went to the beach, we took a shower, went to dinner. . . .”

Tate frowns. “He didn’t push you?”

“Yes.” I shudder at the memory. “He kept asking what we were doing.”

“But did you tell him? About me going back to the house?” Tate’s expression is panicked, and suddenly I realize why: We weren’t together all day.

He went back to the house. He was gone for a whole half hour.

“No, I didn’t say . . .” I take two steps back. “I forgot. I just said we went to the beach. I didn’t remember you went back.”

“Oh thank god.” The words run together in a rush. Tate sinks down so he’s sitting on the edge of the bed. “I was freaking out the whole time you were in there. I didn’t know if you’d told them, if they’d catch me in the lie. Thank you. Thank you!” He takes my hand, kissing it. It’s a familiar gesture, something he must have done a hundred times, but this time I want to pull away.

He forgot his shades. I’d just set up camp on the sand: towel in the perfect tanning position, magazine out to browse. Go ahead, I told him. Bring me back a bag of chips.

“You went back to the house.” I repeat it slowly. “But, I don’t understand. Why didn’t you just tell them? Why did you lie?”

Tate blinks. “Don’t you get it? We’re each other’s alibis.”

“Alibis? For what?” I pause, looking down at him. Tate doesn’t reply, just stares back at me with a nervous expression. “You mean Elise?” I exclaim, my voice rising. “They think we killed her?”

“Shh!” Tate hushes me. “I don’t know what they think.” He leaps up again, pacing to the door and back. “But that guy, Dekker, he wouldn’t let up: Where were we? What did we do? How long were we at the house? He didn’t ask me anything about Elise, or who else could have broken in.”

“Me either,” I say with a sudden chill. “I meant to tell him about that guy, the one who hassled us at the market, remember? But he just kept asking about me, and you, and if we were apart at all.”

“That’s it,” Tate says. “We don’t even know when she died. If one of us was alone, they could say we did it, that we killed her.”

“But that’s crazy.” I reach for him, to try to calm him from this paranoia, but Tate shakes me off.

“Is it?” He insists, “Think, Anna: We’re stuck in some foreign country, and Elise is dead, and they’re asking us about our sex lives instead of out there looking for the killer! The others were off on the dive trip; it’s just you and me.”

I take a couple of breaths, trying to think through the haze of exhaustion. Was it true? Did Dekker suspect us?

“Then we’re fine,” I tell him at last. “We said we were together all day, and we’ll stick to it. You didn’t go back to the house, and we didn’t leave each other’s side, not for a minute. We’ll be okay.”

Tate exhales a ragged breath. “You’d do that for me?” He pulls me into a hug.

“Always,” I say, muffled by the soft cotton of his sweatshirt. I pull back a little, so I can see his face. “You didn’t see her though, did you? When you went back?”

Tate shakes his head. “I promise. I just went in, picked up our stuff, and headed out again.”

“But . . .” I pause, “You were gone for kind of a while.”

“Like, five minutes.”

“It was longer,” I say. “Remember? I was waiting for you, to put lotion on me, and I was already burning by the time you got back.”

Tate smiles, “That’s ’cause you burn in, like, five seconds flat.” He tugs my hair, and bends his head to kiss me. I relax into his arms, savoring the feel of his lips on mine. After everything that’s happened, this feels like the safest place in the world.

“We just have to stick together,” Tate whispers, stroking my cheek. “You and me, like always.”

“Like always,” I repeat.

• • •

We sleep with our clothes on, curled around each other on top of the sheets. When I wake, it’s all over the news: “American teen murdered on spring break.” “Possible sexual attack.” “Police are pursuing all leads.”