The Safest Lies (27 page)

This was the thing I kept rewinding, and replaying, that Jan had time-marked in her notes:

Jan’s voice. “Let’s go back to the day you were taken. Start over again.”

And my mother’s broken voice. “The house was dark. I was asleep. I heard glass breaking, and I screamed.”

“And what did you see next?”

“I saw a shadow.”

“What did you do? Did you try to run?”

“Yes, I tried to run. We fought. Things broke.”

“But nobody came.”

“Nobody came.”

“Then what?”

“Then he hit me harder, and I fell, and then I don’t remember.”

“Okay, Mandy, okay. You’re okay. Take a deep breath.” A pause. “Ready?”

“Sorry. Ready.”

“Let’s start again. What woke you up?”

“The sound of glass breaking.”

“And then you screamed?”

“Yes, when I saw the shadow.”

I rewound it three times, heard the discrepancy. The first thing Jan must’ve noticed. The first time, she screamed at the sound of glass breaking. The second time, not until she saw the shadow.

Another note in the journal, three question marks, another timestamp.

I found the corresponding section of the recording. Jan’s voice: “Let’s talk about your home life before you were taken.”

“No. I’m not talking about that.”

“The newspaper reports about your father, the abuse. The medical report from when you escaped showed old rib fractures, long since healed.”

“I said I’m not talking about that.”

“Were you scared before you were taken? Of your father?”

“Was I scared? No. Scared isn’t the right word. It’s the only thing I’d ever known. But it has nothing to do with anything, and he’s dead, so we’re not going to talk about it.”

“Well, we’re going to have to. You understand why, don’t you? We need to be sure of your daughter’s safety.”

“She’s perfectly safe. It’s the only thing I can do. Everything I’ve done is for her.”

I rewound it, over and over, hearing the slip.
Everything I’ve done. Everything I’ve done. Everything I’ve done.

If she could lie then, so readily, for so long—then surely she could lie now.

They came back for something,
Jan had said.

But this was what I was starting to think: what if the thing they came back for was
us
?

I found her that night, in the files. The thing she was most scared of, more than anything, was not of being taken, but of being found.

J
an asked me to drive Cole and Emma to school. This appeared to be the last straw for Emma, who grimaced and waited for Cole to put up a fight, but Cole just said, “Sure.”

My head shot from Cole to Jan.

“I can’t go to school,” I said.

“Kelsey, you have to get back to normal. We have to try. You sitting around here won’t do you any good. We’re both going to work. You’d be here all alone, and for what?”

And that, right there, was enough to get me out of there.

—

I parked in my normal spot in the lot, tried to help Cole into school, but Emma said, “I got it,” and hitched his bag onto her other shoulder.

Cole could walk fine, but he wasn’t supposed to put any added weight on his side.

I was aware of the silence that followed in my wake, the way people stopped and watched. I started to feel sick.

Math class, I had to get to math. This was my routine.

I could see the empty classroom, the door open, and I started moving faster. I rounded the corner, a hand to my neck, trying to stop the inevitable. Ryan was in his seat already, his gaze drifting to the door as I walked in.

“Hi,” he said, and then his face shifted. “Oh.”

You are safe inside the classroom, and Ryan Baker is here, and you’re fine. You’re
fine. I dropped my bag beside the desk, slid into my seat beside his.

“Are we okay?” he asked.

I nodded, unable to speak.

“Okay,” he said. His voice sounded far, far away, even as he leaned closer, so close his lips brushed my cheek as he spoke in words I didn’t process. He placed his fingers gently under my chin. “Hey, come back,” he said.

“Sorry, I’m here.” I gave him a smile, but he tipped his head to the side, like he knew.

I felt safer with the door closed, with the people pressing closer, with the witnesses surrounding me. With the people looking and talking and making up stories. I couldn’t disappear—not with them all watching. I couldn’t slip through any cracks without them catching on. I felt, for the first time, completely grounded outside our gates.

And I was sick that I only felt that way after my mother was gone.

By lunchtime, the story had grown, and the rumors were swirling. Cole had allegedly taken a bullet for me. But what were they both doing at my house? Was I playing them both? Had they fought over me, gotten caught up in a home invasion? The story had taken on a life of its own.

The whispers followed from class to class, a lie that I almost wanted to believe. It was a simpler story. It was a story that did not change the fabric of my entire existence.

—

I sat with Ryan at lunch, which turned out to be momentarily terrifying. Leo, AJ, Mark, and Mark’s girlfriend Clara all paused to look when I dropped my tray at their table.

“About time,” Leo said, and then he went back to his conversation.

Ryan grabbed a leg of my chair and pulled it toward him, until we were almost touching. Then he ran his hand down my arm, laced his fingers together with mine, and leaned back in his seat, laughing at something Leo was saying.

I closed my eyes, counted the exits: the double doors behind me, the emergency exit side doors, the windows up high, and I figured there also must’ve been something behind the food preparation area. I felt Ryan squeeze my hand, opened my eyes to find him looking at me.

He leaned in close. “What are you thinking about, Kelsey Thomas?”

“Exit strategies,” I said, which made him laugh.

He tipped his head toward the wall, and his hair fell across his forehead. “My car is right out those doors, if you want to take me up on it.”

My face broke into a smile, and I tried to view the room from his perspective: friends, people he knew, a safe routine. My eyes locked for a second with a guy sitting at the corner table, not eating. He had a phone—no, a
camera
—pointed in this direction. As soon as our eyes met, he looked down, stood quickly, made his way for the exit. My entire body went on high alert as all the voices faded away.

In his profile, I saw a hooked nose, deep-set eyes, a bunch of mismatched parts that somehow worked….I had seen him before. Seen his picture, at least. On Annika’s phone.

That was Eli.

Ryan looked up at me as I pushed back my chair, standing. “I’m…”

I let the thought trail, and I slipped away from Ryan, pushing my way between cafeteria chairs as I made my way to the exit.

“Hey,” I called, but Eli didn’t stop. He was lost to the crowd, weaving through the halls. I was moving fast, but he was moving faster—as if he didn’t want me to catch up.

I didn’t realize Ryan had followed until he was beside me in the empty hall. “What is it?” he asked, looking both ways down the corridor.

“I saw someone,” I said, my breath coming in quick bursts. “I saw someone from that night.”

His forehead creased, and he grabbed my arm. “Who? Where?”

“His name is Eli. A boy I’ve never seen here before. He was out on a date with Annika that night.”

“Does he go here?”

“No, he doesn’t go here. I don’t think.” Did he? What did Annika say? She met him…he worked doing landscaping…right? Or maybe he worked while attending school, like Ryan did. Was I panicking over nothing?

“Okay, it’s just some kid,” Ryan said. “He probably goes here. Call Annika to check. Okay?”

I shook my head. Not okay. “Annika hasn’t answered her phone since that night.” Not my calls, not my texts, not my emails.

Ryan frowned. “Let’s go, then,” he said.

“Go where?”

“To Annika’s.”

“Okay. Yes, let’s go.” I needed to see her anyway. I needed to be sure she was okay. This was probably nothing. But he had moved so fast, avoiding me…and I needed to be sure. Because otherwise, the fears started circling, and I wouldn’t be able to let go of the thought.

This was the thought: Someone was watching. Someone was still
here.

Something was coming for me. I felt it, gathering force and taking shape.

But the thing coming for me was also coming from within. An ache in my bones, the marrow simmering. Something slowly fighting its way to the surface.

—

I worried as we stood in the parking lot before third period that someone would notice. That the GPS on my phone would show I was not where I was supposed to be, and someone would stop me. Before remembering that nobody was there to keep tabs on me anymore. That I had finally gotten what I wanted—freedom—and it had come at the steepest price.

Once inside Sterling Cross, we drove past my place, where there was still a cop car blocking off the driveway entrance. The news vans, at least, were no longer lingering along the roadside. The disaster had moved on.
They
had moved on. But not us.

I directed Ryan down the next driveway. Annika’s car was there, and so was her mother’s. I tried calling her again, but she still didn’t pick up.

After my car accident, when Annika couldn’t get ahold of me, she had come to the wall—waiting for me. Why hadn’t I done the same yet?

Annika’s house was twice the size of my own, even though only three people lived there. The front yard was landscaped to perfection, a bright patch of wildflowers beside the white porch. I rang the bell and heard footsteps approaching. Whoever was behind the door paused at the entrance. A shadow peered through the sheer curtains at the side window before opening the front door.

Annika’s mom always acted business-friendly toward me—and the house reflected her demeanor. Everything inviting, but formal and orderly. When I first used to come over, I was never sure which furniture was okay to actually use and which was purely for decoration. And her mom looked like she could blend right in.

But now Annika’s mom looked exhausted, like Jan had looked, and she had a phone resting on her shoulder. “Hi, Kelsey,” she whispered, dark circles under her eyes, hair like Annika’s thrown back in a low ponytail. “Sorry about that, the press keep showing up.”

I shifted foot to foot. “This is Ryan,” I said. “We came to see if Annika’s okay?”

She nodded, smiled tightly. “She will be. She’s resilient. Are
you
okay? Has there been any word about your mother?” She lowered her voice at the last question, as if Ryan wouldn’t be able to hear us then.

“No news,” I said, the words scratching my throat. “But I’m okay. Can I see her?”

She swung the door open wider. “She’s in the back TV room. I’m glad you came.”

Annika’s house was open and airy. The common areas had big floor-to-ceiling windows, with no curtains because the only thing out there was mountains and wildlife. When I’d come over, I used to stare at them in wonder. Now Annika was in the one room with no windows. The perfect dark for movie nights, no glare on the screen. But she was sitting cross-legged on the couch, a bottle of green nail polish balanced on the armrest beside her, television off.

“Hi,” she said as I rounded the corner. She held the brush over her thumb, like nothing had changed. Then she noticed Ryan behind me, and nodded once.

I could see, right away, that everything had changed. From the way she greeted me and Ryan together, to her location in the most sheltered room in the house, to her appearance. Her hair was braided down her back, small curls escaping around her makeup-free face. She was in black yoga pants, and her eyes were red, and she said nothing else.

I had done something to her, taken some of her Annika-ness. Welcomed her into my life.

“Hey,” I said, sitting beside her. “I’ve been calling. And writing.”

She nodded, concentrating on her next finger. “I know, I know, I’m sorry. It’s just—” She paused again, cut her eyes to me. “I don’t know what to say.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, my throat tightening.

She shook her head. “I don’t…I don’t even really remember, it all went so fast. The police keep asking, and the more they ask, the less I’m sure of.” She blinked slowly at me. “Is that happening for you, too?”

I thought of my mother’s voice on the recordings. The police and Jan, filling the gaps with new stories, new ideas. The story taking on a life of its own. “Yeah,” I said. “It is.”

She looked at Ryan, who was leaning against the wall behind us. I wanted her to say something stereotypically Annika, something about me and him, teasing but affectionate, but she continued as if he wasn’t even there.

“Cole’s okay, right? In the paper, it said he’s okay, but…he was so
pale.
” She lowered her voice. “At least, I think he was. I can’t really remember anymore. Maybe that’s just the way he looks in my nightmares.”

I shuddered. “He’s okay. Went to school today, even.”

“Good,” she said. She blew on her nails, and her fingers trembled faintly.