"Did I bite -?"
"Nah." He shoved the hand into his pocket. "When you screamed. I tried to block it. Knew you wouldn't want..." He nodded in the direction of the lodge. "Anyone hearing."
"I-I saw the cabin. The one where he took us. Amy and me. I saw..." I stared at the spot where the sleeping bag had been, then shook it off. "Sorry. Sleepwalking, huh? I've never done that." A harsh laugh. "Something new to add to the repertoire. Oh, happy day."
I stepped away, but my gaze swung back to that spot under the life jackets.
"What'd you see?" Jack asked.
"Hmm?"
He gestured at the floor, that shadowy corner from my dream, now just a bare spot, brightly lit.
"Myself," I murmured. "Or me, as a girl. It just... threw me. I thought it was Amy. She was getting dressed. Trying to escape, I guess."
"You."
"No, not me. Amy."
"Thought you said - "
"It looked like me, but it was Amy or what I imagine, after..." I swallowed, rubbed my throat again. "I've had the dream before. I've never sleepwalked during it, thank God. I dream I'm in the cabin again and I see Amy. She's trying to get dressed after Drew Aldrich..." I shook my head. "It's what I picture, but I know it didn't happen like that. She didn't have time to do anything. The coroner figured he strangled her while he raped her, probably trying to subdue her when she fought back. The dream is my guilt talking, I guess."
"So it's Amy you see?"
"Yes, it's Amy." I heard the exasperation in my voice and tried to squelch it. It was like anytime you explain a dream to someone - it makes perfect sense to you, and zero to everyone else. "Usually when I dream it, I see Amy. This time, it was me. You know how dreams are. Last week, I dreamed I came downstairs, and instead of finding Emma serving breakfast to my guests, it was my mother. Now that was a nightmare."
I headed for the door. "Anyway, I apologize for waking you - yet again."
"You didn't. I was still up."
"So how did you find - " I stopped, hand on the door frame. "You followed me from the house. You knew I wasn't going to bed."
"Think I'm stupid?"
"Jack, you don't have to - "
"Wasn't sleeping anyway. Let's get you a drink. And shoes."
I tried, with increasing insistence, to persuade Jack that I didn't need him to sit up with me. At one point, I even threw up my hands and headed for the stairs, saying I was going to bed and he could suit himself. He only retrieved my sneakers from the back hall, handed them to me, and said he'd be waiting outside my window.
So I humored him.
We returned to the lake, this time in the gazebo with the heater blasting.
"I'm handing the case over to the police," I said.
"Huh."
He stirred his cocoa, submerging a mini marshmallow and watching it resurface. Not quite the response I'd expected. He probably thought it was stress and exhaustion talking, and come morning I'd be right back at it, bashing my head against the wall pursuing "justice."
"They've got a body now - the girl at the wreckers. Quinn can advise me on how to link that, anonymously, with Sammi's disappearance and nudge them to her body."
"Huh."
"It's time for me to admit I'm not the right person for the job. That I'm being selfish by claiming I'm doing it for Sammi."
"When did you say that?"