by Dawn Edwards
I looked up when I heard two car doors closing and the sound of a car engine turn over. I walked towards the house. Breton hadn’t come out, and the closer I got, the louder the sounds of Colleen’s anguish pierced me.
I shook my head. No, it wasn’t real. Something else happened that had nothing to do with Jessa. I tried to tell myself it was Collen’s parents, her sibling, her friend. However, deep down I already knew. I was a glutton for punishment because I opened the front door and walked into the house. Colleen was sitting at the bottom of the stairs falling apart in Steve’s arms, as tears covered his own face. ‘No,’ he kept repeating.
Breton was facing a wall, his forehead resting against it, one hand on the wall as if needing it there for balance.
I stood in the entranceway of the house, hardly able to move. I’d been welcomed into the family. I wasn’t sure if I’d be welcomed to grieve with them, but if it was true what my heart felt, I’d never needed them more than I do at this moment.
‘She’s...’ Steve looked up to me, pausing to gather the strength before he continued, and by she, I knew he meant Jessa. With that, I started to feel dizzy. ‘Missing.’ I closed my eyes and fell to my knees.
Matt did it; he took her away from me, from all of us.
It was the age-old motive. If he couldn’t have her, no one could.
~
I don’t remember what happened next, but I woke up sometime later in one of the spare rooms upstairs. My work boots were off, and a glass of water with some pills was on the side table next to me. I immediately thought of Jessa, and the pit reformed in my stomach. I felt bile really rising at this point and knew I was going to be physically ill. I hurried to the bathroom I knew was just across the hall and emptied the contents of my stomach.
‘Andrew?’ I heard Steve’s voice from the hallway. I looked over my shoulder to see him standing in the doorway, dressed in a white button-down shirt and a pair of pressed beige dress pants and a casual blue blazer; he had changed from earlier I noticed. ‘Are you okay, son?’
I stood up and rinsed my mouth out with some water from the sink, opening the cabinet to find some mouthwash.
I shook my head because if I spoke, I would be done for.
Steve said quietly, ‘I have a team of people arriving at the house in a few minutes to put together a plan…’
‘Ok, I’ll get out of your way.’ I looked down to the sink.
I felt his hand on my shoulder. ‘No, that’s not what I meant.’ He steadied me, and I looked into his eyes and saw my own pain mirrored there.
‘I need you to go shower, gather your things and bring them into the house. Colleen and I don’t want you out there alone,’ he told me in a caring voice, and I swallowed hard. ‘Breton and Deb will be staying here for a while with us also, they’re just home packing some things.’
I nodded. ‘Ok, thanks.’ My voice cracked, and I knew I needed to get out of here before I completely lost it.
‘After you shower, I need you to join my staff and the family, there’s going to be a lot happening. The police will be back, you will need to give a statement.’ I looked up to him.
‘But…’
‘But nothing, you love her, do you not?’
His question caught me off guard. I didn’t know we had been so obvious, but I wasn't going to lie. Me loving his daughter was the least of his worries at the moment.
I nodded and my heart broke as my resolve completely crumbled. ‘So. Much,’ I sobbed, as he pulled me into his arms. ‘This can’t be happening.’ I was gasping for air, and I felt him hold on to me tighter.
‘I know, son,’ his voice was broken. ‘I know.’
I held on to him, as I wasn’t sure if anyone else had been there for him for however long I’d been passed out. He couldn’t bear the weight of the whole family alone. I needed to be there for him, just as he was there for me now, and had been behind me, supporting me this entire time.
‘It’s not fair,’ I huffed, trying to catch my breath. ‘How’s Colleen?’ I asked, pulling away, looking around.
He wiped his eyes, looking to the ceiling, as if for strength. ‘She’s taken a sedative,’ he sounded hopeless. ‘I didn’t know what else to do for her.’
‘Can I go check on her?’
He tried to smile at me. ‘Thanks, later, she’s out of it now. Now, I need you to go shower, people will be arriving soon. Zoe is going to be heartbroken; I’ve asked the team not to mention anything to her yet, not until she’s here.’
‘Can I be the one to tell her?’ I offered, trying to lessen his load.
‘I was hoping you would,’ he offered a half smile, clearly grateful for my offer.
‘It’s just…’ I run my hand through my hair. ‘What do they mean by missing? Is Matt missing also and where were they last seen?’
Steve took a deep breath and shook his head, clearly not able to answer.
‘Where can I go to look for her?’
Steve puts his hand on my shoulder to stop me from mentally spinning, ‘Andrew, we’re going to get through this.’
‘She’s not missing,’ I willed in a whisper. ‘She can’t be.’
I walked back into the room to gather my boots and took the pills, not knowing and not caring what they were. I had a wicked headache and hoped they would help.
When I returned to the house with a small bag of my essential things, Breton and Deb were already there. Breton was in Josh’s old room and Deb next to the Cahills’. I assumed she would be helping Steve with Colleen. It killed me that this was happening to them again.
I shook my head. It wasn’t real.
I was clearly still in denial, wasn’t that a stage of grief?
The doorbell rang, and I knew the first people from Steve’s team were here. It was a good thing I had an empty stomach, or I might have vomited again at having to tell Zoe. Why did I volunteer for this?
I saw Zoe enter the living room with a guy I’d seen at Cahill Global’s offices a few times. She looked around, finding me first and making a beeline towards me.
‘Drew, what’s going on?’ she asked me, sounding as worried as she looked. ‘Is everything ok?’
I couldn’t even fake a smile; I took her by the arm in a gentle gesture, ‘Let’s go upstairs for a second.’
‘Drew, you’re scaring me,’ she said.
I led her to the room I woke up earlier in, and the one I assumed I could stay in. ‘I don’t know much at this point. Steve’s going to fill us all in a bit, I think he’s on the phone now getting updates,’ I told her, leading her to sit down on the bed.
‘Updates about what?’
I took a deep breath and sat next to her. ‘Jessa’s missing.’
‘W-what?’ she asked, sounding confused. ‘What do you mean she’s missing, like, she’s not answering her phone, kidnapped, what?’
‘No, like, the police were here earlier to say she was missing; she went away with Matt and…’
‘Where’s that bastard at now?’ She stood up, fire blazing in her eyes as bright as her hair.
‘I don’t know, I think Steve’s going to give us an update as soon as everyone is here.’ I stood and offered her a hug, to which she fell into.
It was taking everything in me to keep it together, but I couldn’t help the tears from falling. She pulled away from me, wiping her eyes, and looked to me. ‘Are you ok?’ she asked me in a low voice.
I shook my head. ‘No, not at all,’ I confessed. ‘But the family needs us. As much as we’re hurting, Jessa is their daughter.’
She reached out and rubbed my arm. ‘She’s told me about the two of you.’ I smiled, flashes of Jessa exploding in my mind, thinking there had been an us, to tell about. ‘I think she was falling in love with you.’
‘She is falling in love with me,’ I corrected the tense. ‘And it makes two of us,’ I clarified. I wanted Zoe to know just how much Jessa meant to me.
‘Right, sorry,’ she apologized for her slip-up.
‘She can’t be gone
,’ I implored, clearly still in denial.
I needed more information, what exactly did missing mean?
All I knew was Colleen was sedated, and Jessa wasn’t with us.
CHAPTER 5
DREW
Four Months Later
In the days and weeks after Jessa’s disappearance, I was operating on autopilot. Wake up, force breakfast down, exhaust myself with work, check in with the Cahills during dinner, and drink myself to sleep.
Repeat.
However, that only lasted so long before denial eventually turned into bargaining, before anger and depression emerged.
I was passing through the stages, however unbalanced my approach was.
To say I wasn’t functioning would be a great understatement. There had been no real closure for any of her family and friends who loved her.
But the facts were what they were. Jessa was proclaimed dead despite the fact that her body was never recovered. It was all the physical evidence found on the yacht, and the testimonies the detectives were able to pull together from witnesses that led them to ruling her case a homicide.
I had to give a statement. I didn’t tell them everything, I wasn’t going to betray Jessa like that. Nevertheless, when Steve asked me about it at dinner, I told him exactly what had been asked, and what my replies were. They were truths, mostly, some half-truths, but I didn’t think they needed to know everything.
~
‘Mr. Cameron, did you ever see Matt abuse Jessa?’ the young detective asked me. I forgot his name as soon as he mentioned it; I was too freaked out by being interviewed by the cops. It brought back a lot of bad memories from my childhood. At least these guys were detectives in plain clothing, and I had Abby next to me. I was told I didn’t need a lawyer, but she and Steve insisted, so here she was, sitting next to me in Steve’s study the day after the love of my life went missing.
I shook my head, ‘Not physically, but verbally and emotionally.’
‘Can you give us an example?’
I took a deep breath. ‘Just, like, making digs about her weight, that her family should offer him her trust fund when they unloaded her on him, things like that.’
‘Was there reason to think Jessa wanted to end the relationship with Matt?’ the young detective asked me.
‘She didn’t seem happy with him,’ I replied. ‘She was always on edge, not herself when he was around.’
‘Did you know of any blackmail?’
I looked over to Abby, and she nodded, indicating that she knew and that it was okay for me to tell.
‘She told me there was a sex tape,’ I told him.
‘Why did she tell you this?’
‘We’re friends.’
‘Just friends?’ the older detective asked, speaking for the first time.
I looked at him. ‘She’s engaged and my boss’s daughter.’ I avoided the question, and by the look he gave me, he knew it.
‘Was Jessa romantically involved with anyone else?’ he probed, taking another angle.
‘Not that I know of.’ It was my half-truth; we were physical but hadn’t had the opportunity to be romantic yet.
Based on their next question, they had to have known I was lying, but I specifically told Steve, Breton, and Zoe not to mention me being involved with her. That garnered a strange but knowing look from Steve when I had initially mentioned it.
‘What were your feelings for Jessa?’ It was pissing me off that they were speaking of her in the past tense.
‘I like her, but I’m not going to pursue her while she’s engaged.’
‘Did you tell her this?’ the young detective asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I wasn’t going to cause a scandal or give Matt a reason to release the tape of her.’
‘Do you think she would end her engagement with Matt for you?’ the young one asked me.
I took a deep breath and looked to the ceiling. ‘All summer I was hoping she would, but now…’ my voice started to crack, and I felt my whole body unraveling. ‘I... I hope it didn’t get her killed.’
And that’s when I broke down, and they let me go at last. Uttering the words out loud made the gnawing feeling that my involvement with her might have put her in danger, ache.
If Jessa had told Matt about us, he could have lost it and taken it out on her, by taking her from us permanently. If that was the case, Steve was wrong; loving her was a really bad thing.
~
Crews searched for almost a week, by air, by sea, and even along the shores, but there was no sign of her. I was still in denial and unprepared when the detective came out to the house to fill the Cahill’s in. Abby was there as the Cahills’ legal counsel, along with Zoe, there as both Jessa’s best friend and Cahill Global’s Public Relations representative, a promotion she had taken due to the increased requests for information. Breton, Deb and I were also asked to be there.
The detectives presented the evidence to us less than two weeks after her initial disappearance. I went from bargaining with higher powers to just downright angry. I had held on to the very thin chance there was still a possibility she was alive, but after everything was laid out, it really just didn't seem possible.
First, the boat was well out to sea by the time the chef and the steward had retired for the evening, leaving Jessa and Matt arguing out on the deck where they had eaten. The lifeboat had not been touched, no fingerprints were found around it, nor had any of the lifejackets been used. Jessa’s passport was still in her bedroom here, from her recent trip to Spain. Her laptop was in her bedroom, clothing, shoes, and jewelry were all accounted for, aside from the few items she had with her on the boat, which were found still onboard. Her bank accounts, for the past weeks, hadn’t been touched. The last transaction was her deposit for her registration for her fall semester, which she paid just a few days before she went missing.
There were no unusual purchases on her credit cards or that of the family in the weeks leading up to her disappearance. I was asked, as was Breton, and other friends and family members to provide bank statements—which we all did willingly. There had been nothing out of the ordinary to show someone was assisting her to disappear.
Her father’s bookings at his company were traced, as were video from the airports, both private and commercial in the days after her disappearance, but there was nothing. Nor had any car rental company in the area rented to her.
On the boat, her wallet, with all her identification cards were still there, her cellphone, and her tablet were recovered, along with all her clothing, toiletries, shoes and her bag the marina footage showed her carrying on the boat from the parking lot.
The police also recovered her engagement ring in a sock, stuffed in Matt’s messenger bag. But then there were the small drops of blood that were on the ceiling of the master cabin, uncleaned, which they assumed was an oversight on Matt’s part during his half-assed cleanup job. There was blood residue found in the hallways and going up the stairs, through the main room and onto the back of the boat. The wooden parts had been bleached, and it looked as if Matt also tried to wipe down the stairs and the inside wall of the boat, but the police were able to pick up traces. The DNA of the blood from the ceiling confirmed it was Jessa’s.
The testimony from the crew confirmed that they had been fighting, that the sex tape and the prenup were the topics of argument—two things that came up during my interview with the police also.
The only thing that was good news was that they hadn’t slept in the same room the night before, and that the room Jessa had slept in Saturday night hadn’t been used Sunday, as the bed was still made.
‘I am sorry, Mr. Cahill,’ the older detective said in his authoritative voice. ‘But at this time, we have to go by the evidence and rule this a homicide. Matthew Wilson is still being held as he has not been able to make bail; he will be arraigned tomorrow on first-degree murder charges.’
Mr. Cahill nodded but wasn’t able to speak.
Abby composed herself and stood, leading the detectives out while the rest of us sat in silence, listening to the detective tell her that they would be in touch with any further information.
We were all quiet, and one by one left the room. I had been staying in the guest room since the day we had found out about Jessa’s disappearance. To be honest, I was happy for it, I wouldn't have been able to be alone out there; the memories of Jessa and I there would have just been too much.
Colleen was still not fully functioning, and Steve counted on me a lot to help with her, something I was happy to do. Breton had moved back to the city a week after the disappearance but made a point to drive out as much as possible, as he was finally trying to finish his Masters this semester.
It was unusual for Steve and Colleen to remain on the Cape past Labor Day, but she wasn’t ready for the change yet, and I was here to watch over her for periods when Steve had to be present in the city for meetings. It had been better for her to be here, as in the city she’d be alone most of the day.
Towards the end of September, the neighboring property they had purchased for Jessa was officially signed over to the Cahills. None of us were there for the closing or a final walkthrough; the Cahills’ real estate lawyers took care of everything and dropped off the envelope with the keys to me one afternoon.
As much as I was keeping it together for the Cahills during the day, at night I was a complete disaster. I was drinking too much, not sleeping enough, and when my anger took over, I needed an outlet for it.
During a particularly bad episode, when I couldn’t sleep, I made my way downstairs, took the keys to the neighboring property that were still in the envelope on the counter being ignored by everyone in the house. Grabbing my hammer and safety glasses from the garage, I went to the reno house to release all that pent-up negative energy on everything in my path; doors, walls, counters, railings. I did this a few times that week, and it proved to be somewhat of a help until I realized that I was supposed to renovate this place for her—and that just made me sad all over again.