The Deepest Secret (8 page)

“Did you have to tell?” she says.

He glances at her. Her features are hidden by darkness, her hair drying into loose curls that hang about her face. “Of course I did. We have to make things right. Our clients count on us. They trust us. I’d be just as guilty as Preston if I didn’t say anything.”

“But what if he goes to prison? He has a family.”

“People with families go to prison all the time.”

“I didn’t realize you were so unforgiving.” Her voice is like a stranger’s.

“It’s not a matter of forgiveness, Eve. It’s a matter of right and wrong. I can’t believe you don’t understand that.”

In the wash of headlights, a distant figure is running along the sidewalk just ahead. Lightning flares, and he glimpses bare legs, short hair. What lunatic is out jogging in a storm? The figure turns
and raises a hand. Charlotte? He brakes and she runs over. She’s wearing Crocs, her pale ankles flashing, and her face is contorted with fear.

Eve opens her car door.

“I can’t find Amy,” Charlotte says, breathless. “I’ve looked everywhere—”

Eve’s out of the car, her arm around her friend, leading her through the rain to where Charlotte’s house waits in darkness.

LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD

T
he back door bangs open, and Tyler pushes himself up from the floor where he’s been gaming. It’s got to be Melissa, finally home. He hurries into the kitchen and stops at the sight of her. Her hair hangs in messy clumps; mascara smudges the tops of her cheeks. “What took you so long?”

She sways, staring at him with big eyes. It’s like she doesn’t even see him there. It’s freaky. “Melissa?” he says uncertainly.

She shoves past him to the kitchen sink. Grabbing the faucet, she leans over and throws up right into the sink. He stands back in horror as she heaves. What should he do? His mom always gets a damp washcloth, but he doesn’t want to get near Melissa. At last, she turns on the faucet, splashes handfuls of water in her face. He doesn’t dare look at what’s swirling around in the basin. She pats around the
counter, finds the dishtowel lying there, and presses it to her white face.

“Are you sick?” he asks. His mom would want to separate them. Taking him in to the doctor is a big deal.

She switches off the water and swipes a hand across her mouth. “What a crappy night.”

He eyes the dishtowel, now lying balled up on the counter. He’ll use tongs to carry it into the laundry room. “Maybe you should go lie down.”

“Coffee,” she says, which is weird. She never drinks it, except during exam week. She lurches to the pantry, her arms held out for balance, looking just like a zombie.

Wait a minute. He’s seen this kind of thing on TV shows. She’s not sick. “Are you
drunk
?”

They both hear it at the same time, the rumbling of the garage door. “Fuck,” she says. But before she can move, the back door opens and their dad comes in, wearing his long beige coat speckled with raindrops.

“Hey, you two.” His dad sweeps them into a damp hug. He smells of cold air and, very faintly, the cologne Tyler gave him for Father’s Day. It makes his dad seem both familiar and foreign at the same time.

Now Tyler smells the liquor rolling off Melissa, a thick sweet smell that makes his nose wrinkle. His dad has to smell it, too, but when he pulls back and looks at them both, ruffling Tyler’s hair and clasping Melissa’s shoulder, his face doesn’t show any reaction at all. His eyes look tired, the skin tight at the temples. “I’ve missed you guys.”

“Where’s Mom?” Tyler asks.

“Out looking for Amy. Charlotte can’t find her.”

Still?

“You guys hungry?”

“Yeah,” Tyler says, but Melissa shakes her head. “I have to take a shower,” she mumbles.

His dad glances at the raw pieces of chicken resting in the dish on the counter, then dumps it into the garbage. They can have ravioli instead, a loaf of French bread smeared with butter and garlic. His dad opens the drapes and pulls up the shades as if to release something trapped inside. Normally, Tyler likes the view of the night sky framed by the windowpanes, but tonight he feels exposed, skinned down to his nerve endings. They’re waiting for the phone to ring, to tell them the good news. But all they hear is the steady drumming of the rain on the roof. All they see is rain washing down the glass.

When Melissa comes back in, she sets the table. Is she still drunk? His dad doesn’t seem to notice how slowly she’s moving, how she’s gripping the backs of chairs. They all sit and his dad holds out the container of Parmesan, but Melissa shakes her head and pushes away her plate. She puts her elbows on the table and rests her head in her hands. She’s not even pretending to eat. If their mom was home, she’d ask Melissa what the matter was, but she’s not, and so it’s just him and his dad, chewing and swallowing.

“Hey, listen, buddy,” his dad says. “Your mom and I got you that camera you wanted for your birthday.”

“A 35 mm SLR?” He’d been studying them for months online. This explains why his mom had been vague about going to school and borrowing one from his photography teacher. She’d known all along that they were getting one for him.

“I meant to bring it home with me, but wouldn’t you know it? It’s sitting in my office. I’ll bring it with me next time, okay?”

“Okay.”

His dad’s watching him. “So how did your party go? You have a nice time?”

What’s he supposed to say, that he invited seven guys and only four showed? That his mom filled in the empty places with grownups?
That other kids have parties at laser tag galleries and amusement parks, and the best he can do is a trampoline and balloons in his backyard? No wonder his dad hadn’t wanted to come. “Okay, I guess.”

“Anything new with Zach?”

Zach’s got a girlfriend. He’s on the football team. His mom’s offered to videotape the games so that Tyler could watch them later, but he’d said no. What was the point of watching them on a little screen? “He got a job.”

“No kidding. Doing what?”

“Bagging groceries.” Tyler’s Googled
bagging groceries
. A whole bunch of videos had popped up, and he’d paged to the images of ordinary people wearing uniform vests. That was what Zach was being paid nine bucks an hour to do. It didn’t look hard. He couldn’t understand why a store would pay Zach to do something people could do for themselves.

“Good for him,” his dad says.

Zach’s saving up to buy a car. He’s only nine weeks older than Tyler. When he gets his license, what will Tyler be doing?

After dinner, Melissa goes into her room. His dad works in the living room, his laptop balanced on his knees. He glances up as Tyler passes. “You okay, buddy?”

“I’m going to watch the storm,” he says.

“Just make sure you stay on the porch. And keep your sweatshirt on.”

He should have guessed his mom would have told his dad. They’d probably argued about it, too. The air is fresh and cool, salty with the smell of earthworms, and fragrant with flowers.
This is lavender
, his mom said, holding a big bunch under his nose, playfully tickling him.
Doesn’t it smell great?
It feels weird being in the house without her.

The windows of Amy’s house glow yellow through the rain, light touching the police cars parked all around. Lightning veins the sky,
and he steps back. Amy hates thunderstorms. He can’t believe she’d be out in one. What made her leave her house, warm and dry?

He tugs his cell phone from the pocket of his jeans, peers at the screen, but it’s impossible to make out anything through his sunglasses, so he pushes them up to sit on his forehead. He thumbs through his texts, finds Amy’s avatar, Little Red Riding Hood.
Why her?
he had asked.
Because she wasn’t afraid of the wolf
, she had replied.

There are three texts from her, all in a row.
my mom sux. i hate robbie. can i come over?

He’d ignored them all.

He looks up and sees a policeman walking through the rain and down the sidewalk toward him.

EVE

W
hat’s wrong with her? Why isn’t she talking? She should say something, anything, but Charlotte’s holding her hand so tightly between hers; she’s clinging to Eve and it’s all Eve can do to stand beside her best friend as the police thunder up and down the stairs, tromp through all the rooms. The words are there, bundled up on her tongue, pressing against the roof of her mouth and demanding to be released, but she’s clenching her teeth and clamping her lips together. She’s trembling with the struggle to keep them inside.
I know where she is. I know what happened
. And then the sharpest ones of all:
I did it
.

“Does your daughter have any emotional problems?”

“No.”

“Has she talked about hurting herself?”

Charlotte’s fingers crush Eve’s hand. “No!”

“Is she on any medication?”

“None.”

“Does she use drugs?”

“She’s
eleven
.”

“Do you think someone took her from her room?”

“No, I heard her go out. We had a stupid fight and she was supposed to be in her room, but I heard the front door close and when I went to call her for dinner, she wasn’t there.”

Eve’s already waited too long. She’ll be charged with hit and run, with leaving the scene. They’ll know she was texting. How many years will she get? What would Tyler do without her? She can’t think about Amy. She can’t. She can’t look at Charlotte, whose fear is filling up this room.

“Have you notified the father?”

“We’re divorced.”

“Was it amicable?”

“No, but Owen wouldn’t take Amy, not without letting me know.”

“Where does he live?”

“Grandview.”

“How can we get ahold of him?”

“I’ll give you his phone number.”

Now she’s in the kitchen, turning on the water and making coffee. The cups rattle in her hands. Charlotte’s other daughter, Nikki, bursts through the back door and throws her arms around Charlotte. She comes over to hug Eve, too. The room feels hot and cramped, distorted by lamplight. Eve’s wearing Melissa’s old clothes, pulled from the bag in the trunk, stuff that she’d been intending to take to Goodwill. She’d grabbed the first things at hand and gone into the bathroom at the airport to change. She’d rubbed the mud from her face and hands, balled up the clothes she’d been wearing and pushed them deep into the trash receptacle hanging on the tiled
wall. She’d covered them with handfuls of paper towels. She’d refused to look at herself in the mirror.

“I don’t want to be here,” Charlotte pleads. “I need to be out looking.”

“Let us do that. The best thing you can do for your daughter is to tell me about her.”

“I’ve
told
you about her.”

“Do you mind telling me again?”

It won’t be long now. Police are everywhere, stomping around in their boots, flashing the beams of their heavy-duty flashlights into every corner. They’ll comb the ravine and spot her, bring her home to Charlotte. This will all be over soon.

Eve opens her mouth and a few words slip out, but they’re the safe ones. “Sugar? Milk?” She closes her mouth again and feels the bile clawing at the back of her throat.

Owen’s here. He’s yelling, pacing. He turns to the police officer. “What about an Amber Alert?” he demands.

“We only issue one if your daughter was seen getting into a car.”

Owen stops. He shakes his head. “She must have! Where the hell else would she be?”

A policeman strides into the room, holding something in a large plastic zippered bag. It’s Amy’s backpack, a pink camouflage print. Charlotte had bought it just the day before, when she’d taken Amy shopping for Tyler’s present. Amy had pleaded for this particular backpack and Charlotte had finally acquiesced. A teddy bear keychain dangles from the zipper, its black eyes staring sightlessly. Is it Charlotte who reaches again for Eve’s hand, or the other way around?

Everything’s quiet when Eve lets herself into her own house. She longs for a shower, hot water and steam. Her leg throbs from a long scrape and she needs to soap it clean. God knows what other bruises
are hidden beneath her clothes. She had plunged through those trees, heedless. David’s asleep on the couch. She stands there and looks down at him. All the words have left her. Still, she scrapes up a few and finds a piece of paper to write them down:

Gone to the store. Home soon
.

She folds the note and props it up where David can see it when he wakes.

In the garage, she goes around the front of her car and shines the beam of her flashlight along the fender. The yellow circle of light plays along smooth metal and then stops on the dented right corner. So she hasn’t imagined this. She forces herself to her knees to study the damage. The dent is deep, maybe a foot long. She doesn’t see any blood. Thank God, there’s no blood. She presses the flat of her hand against the metal, as if she can feel Amy’s heartbeat. She squeezes her eyes shut, then opens them and pushes herself up. She climbs behind the steering wheel. She’s shivering again.

The streets are empty, just a few cars passing her in the rain that falls quietly now. The pavement shines with reflected light from the grocery store on the right, the drugstore on the corner, the Italian restaurant closed for the night, its neon still glowing red and green. Every wink of light makes her wince. A car shoots past and she turns her head away. Did the driver see her?

At last, the gas station appears up ahead. No one waits at the pump. She doesn’t know where the camera’s posted and she drives slowly, scanning the roof of the convenience store. Yes, there it is. She’s too far away for the camera to pick out her face or her license plate.

She makes a wide circle, far from its blank eye, and pulls up to the air pump, a metal box standing at the back of the building, the long black air hose curled and hooked into place. Eve stops five yards away and eyes the distance. Then she presses the accelerator. The car lurches forward, into the sharp corner of the pump, scraping the metal hard. The car shudders at the impact. She looks around, heart thudding. No one’s there. No one’s walking over to investigate.