“We never talked about Luke,” Calvin tells him. “It was too hard to talk about Luke. He destroyed Rose.”
“And Lenora never told me his name,” Mrs. Calloway makes clear. “I learned it from Calvin, after Rose had passed away. I’m being honest, I didn’t even know Rose and Calvin had a son all these years. He’s right, they never mentioned him at all. I didn’t know they had a son, until Rose confirmed it when I called and told her about Bodhi, but even then, she wouldn’t say his name.”
“So many secrets,” Eva whispers. “Why does everyone keep so many goddamn secrets?” I kiss her forehead. “Once it was confirmed, did you tell Owen Edwards?” she asks her mom.
“I did,” she nods her head.
“And did he tell you how he knew of Luke?” Eva continues.
“He did not. I assumed it was through Lenora somehow, but she continued to deny knowing Owen,” she tells us. “I left it at that. I didn’t know Owen well, and Lenora had just gotten diagnosed at this point. I didn’t want to bring up Bodhi’s dad every single time we were together. It was very hard for her to talk about him, and when she did, it was always to make it clear that Bodhi needed to stay away from him. Which is also why I didn’t tell her about Calvin until—until a few weeks before she passed away.”
“Dad?” Eva questions again. “Were you worried now that Dad would find out about Lenora and you?”
Mrs. Calloway sighs. “No. Owen made it very well known at that point, that he knew Lenora somehow, and that he wouldn’t do anything that would hurt her, but …” she pauses for a moment.
“There’s the but,” I say. “But what, Mrs. Calloway?”
“But,” she continues, “something about Lenora. I could tell there was something about her he wasn’t telling me. I trusted him when it came to her. Trusted that he wouldn’t tell Brayden he saw us together. It was almost as if he was trying to protect Lenora from something.”
“Eva,” Calvin suddenly says. “You said Owen met Luke as an adult?”
She nods her head. She then looks over at me and raises her eyebrow.
“We found a picture,” I then say. “In Mr. Calloway’s office. The day someone broke in there, hidden behind another picture. It wasn’t just Owen that met Luke, but also Mr. Channing, and Mr. Calloway.”
Mrs. Calloway’s water glass slips right out of her hand, spilling all over the table. “My husband? My husband knew your dad? He knew Luke?”
I slowly nod my head, watching as the water drips off the table. Mrs. Calloway jumps as it hits her legs and she starts soaking it up with party napkins.
“Audrey,” Calvin is shaking his head. “Brayden … Audrey, this is—”
“Don’t,” she says to him. “Just don’t, not now.”
“Maybe knew isn’t the right word,” I then continue. “Maybe, met is the right one? Or maybe he did know him well. Who the hell knows?”
“Where?” Mrs. Calloway asks, throwing the wad of wet napkins onto a plate. “Where did they meet? When?”
I can tell she’s shocked and can’t seem to process this. “You said my mom told you that my dad was the captain of a deep-sea fishing boat in the Bahamas? I think they met him there.”
“Owen would have told me if he had found Luke,” Calvin says. “He would have told me that. We might not have been close anymore, but he wouldn’t have kept that from me. He knew what happened with Luke. He knew how we had no contact with him, how we didn’t even know where he was.”
“Unless he didn’t realize it was Luke,” I point out. “I spent years thinking my dad’s name was Sully. My mom said his name once. She called him Sully. Sully is what’s written on the back of the picture I have of the two of us. What if in the Bahamas, he doesn’t go by Luke Sullivan? What if he goes by Sully? What if Owen didn’t make the connection until right before he told Mrs. Calloway?”
“Mom, you said Owen mentioned an old friend?” Eva questions her. “An old friend led him to believe Calvin was Bodhi’s grandpa?”
She nods her head. “Calvin?” she glances over to him with a puzzled look. “Any idea? An old friend? Someone from the past maybe?”
Calvin leans back in his chair. “There were five of us. We all grew up here together. It’s possible. I don’t think … hell, it’s possible,” he repeats.
“And Mom,” Eva says. “I hope you realize this picture we found, it was taken a long time ago. Probably when I was little. Probably when you and I lived over here, the first time. It means dad knew Mr. Channing way before he first introduced you to him. Years before.”
Mrs. Calloway’s face turns bright red again.
“The boat,” Eva suddenly says. “Calvin, there’s a picture of you and Owen Edwards in Tackle Box, standing in front of a boat named Wanderlust. This same boat, is in the picture we have of my dad, Owen, and Mr. Channing with Luke. Whose boat is it?”
“It’s Owen’s,” he answers. “Or it was Owen’s. It was stolen a while ago.”
“How long ago?” Eva questions. “How long ago was it stolen?”
“Jesus, fourteen, fifteen years ago?” he replies. “Rose and I were in Flagler. You and your mom were living with us, the first time. I only remember so clearly because Owen was so pissed about it. Called me after it happened from the …” he trails off, looking alarmed as something obviously just clicked in his head.
I feel Eva squeeze my leg. “From where, Calvin?” she asks him.
He looks over at Mrs. Calloway. “From the Bahamas. He was there to pick up his yacht. It was stolen from the Bahamas.”
Eva looks over at me.
“What?” Mrs. Calloway asks. “What is it? Don’t keep things from Calvin and I. Not now. Not with Brayden missing and Luke possibly in Flagler.”
I nod my head in agreement and take a deep breath. “You said someone brought my mom and I back from the Bahamas when my dad tried to kidnap me? The picture we have of the four guys, we’re pretty sure that picture was taken during that exact time. The timeline, it adds up. The only picture I have of my dad and I, he looks exactly the same in both pictures.”
“He’s wearing the same clothes,” Eva makes known.
“We’re also pretty sure the boat Wanderlust, was the boat that brought my mom and I back to Flagler,” I continue. “My mom, she has always told me my dad left on a boat named Wanderlust. I’m not sure why she’d tell me that since it’s not true. Maybe so I knew the name of the boat?” I declare. “The boat that brought us back home? I think it’s safe to say whoever brought us back, stole the boat from Owen to do it, and I have to wonder if Mr. Channing or Mr. Calloway had something to do with all of this.”
Calvin and Mrs. Calloway both stare at each other in shock with what I just said. Neither one of them say anything. Their powerful silence and alarmed looks make me realize just how fucked up this all is.
“Do you want to knock on Mr. Channing’s door and ask him?” Eva questions her mom. “Or should I?”
“There will be no talking to Mr. Channing about any of this,” Mrs. Calloway makes clear. “And if that time comes, I will ask him.”
“One more thing,” I say to Mrs. Calloway. “You said my mom, she wrote a different name down on the log sheet to my dad’s boat? This name is obviously what he’s called her all these years. A name he might have mentioned to other people at one point or another? Any chance she told you what name she wrote?”
“Why is that important?” she asks me curiously.
“I don’t know yet,” I tell her, even though I have my suspicions. “But I’m tired of not knowing everything you and Calvin do, and I think it’s stupid that everyone can sit here with all these goddamn secrets, letting them ruin other people’s lives.”
She looks around the table at everyone staring at her.
“Mom?” Eva raises her eyebrows.
Mrs. Calloway shakes her head and sighs, but then she answers the exact name I knew she would say. “Phoebe. She wrote the name Phoebe Rialson down.”
The four of us manage
to not make a sound after she says this, but Calvin … he loudly gasps, then his water glass slips right out of his hand and shatters on the stone of his patio.
chapter thirty-two
Eva
S aturdays. Normally Saturdays are spent sleeping in, staying in your pajamas until noon, not doing anything interesting until the day is almost over with. But this Saturday, I’m up early. I have somewhere I need to be, someone I need to talk to, away from my house. I told Bodhi my plan last night, before he left with the guys after dinner. He sent them to the jeep and stood on my patio with me.
“Come home with me,” he whispered in my ear as his hands wrapped around my waist. “Just come home with me, Eva. I want you in my arms all night. I don’t trust anyone right now. I want you with me, I always want you with me.”
“I don’t trust anyone either,” I said into his chest. “And I want to leave with you, I do, but you need to stay with the guys, and I need to stay with my mom. For tonight. We need to lay low, but we’re close. Close to figuring this all out, I can feel it.”
“Calvin,” he mumbled. “Do you think Calvin knows something about Phoebe Rialson?”
I nod my head. “I do, Bodhi. Somehow.”
When my mom said her name and Calvin dropped his glass, it was so obvious that name meant something to him. He brushed it off as an accident though and quickly regained his composure.
“Can I come over in the morning?” Bodhi then asked, kissing me before I could even reply.
I pulled my lips from his. “Actually, can you pick me up around eight? Football conditioning starts at nine, and I think we need to talk to Porter again, away from the Halifax.”
So here I am, standing in my kitchen, sipping some coffee while I wait for Bodhi to get here. I’m trying to get some caffeine pumping throughout my blood. It was another long night of barely sleeping. My body missed the warmth of Bodhi being next to me, his arms hugging me while I sleep … and my mind refused to shut off.
My phone chirps to let me know that someone’s pulling down my driveway. I open the front door and wait for Bodhi to appear, just as my mom walks down the stairs in her pajamas. She looks half asleep still, until she sees me, that is.
“Where are you two going?” she yawns, looking between me and Bodhi who has just walked in.
“Coffee date at Kool Beenz,” I lie.
She looks over to Bodhi as if he’s going to say something different.
“We’ll bring you back some,” he tells her.
I know she’s not buying it.
“Keep your phone on you, and answer if I call, okay?”
“Got it,” I reply, and I pull Bodhi out the door with me.
He grabs my hand as soon as I sit down in his jeep, pulling me into his chest. “I didn’t sleep last night,” he sighs. “Not at all, I couldn’t. My mind’s in a hundred different places, and I missed you. I can’t sleep anymore without you next to me. We’re going to need to figure out a way to fix that.”
I give his cheek a kiss. “I didn’t sleep either. This shouldn’t take long. Then we come back here and take a nap, okay?”
We pull up to my school not too much later, park the jeep, and wait. The last time I was at my school was the day summer vacation started, which wasn’t that long ago. Porter and I were still dating, Bodhi and I hadn’t seen each other in over a year, I was miserable and depressed … it amazes me how much has changed since that day.
Bodhi rests his head against the window of his jeep door. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
“Absolutely. He should be here in a few minutes. He’s always very precise.”
“Do you think he’ll talk?” Bodhi yawns.
“I think I’ll make him.”
A few minutes later, a familiar Land Rover pulls into the parking lot. Bodhi turns the jeep back on and pulls up right next to it. When Porter sees me standing next to the jeep, next to him, his face turns white.
“Eva? What the hell are you doing here? I can’t be seen with you right now!” He starts looking around to see if anyone has noticed.
“What do you mean you can’t be seen with me? You’ve always been seen with me—”
“The police!” he mutters under his breath. “They came to my house and questioned my dad and I about your dad. My dad is pissed! He’s losing it! If he finds out I’m talking to you—”
“Get in the jeep,” I demand, rolling my eyes.
“What? Hell no!”
“Porter, I need your help. We, we need your help. This will only take a minute. Please.”
He looks at me, and then to Bodhi in the front seat. “Goddamnit, Eva!” he exclaims, but then he opens the back door to the jeep and climbs in. “This better be important.”
I quickly get in and sit down, turning to face him. “Your eye looks like shit, Porter,” I comment.
He frowns. “Is that all you wanted to tell me?”
I shake my head. “Everything is so crazy right now—”
“No shit,” Porter cuts me off. “I can barely go home because my dad’s blowing up every five seconds.”
“Blowing up about what?” Bodhi questions him.
“Everything,” is the only thing he’ll say. “I need to go.” He points out the window.
I nod my head. “Porter, the person in the Bahamas that my dad was supposed to meet, who was it? What was his name?”
Porter is shaking his head. “No. Fuck no. We’re not getting involved! I told you not to do anything stupid! Stay out of it!”
“We can’t,” Bodhi tells him. “We can’t stay out of it. We’re already involved.”
“You two are idiots,” he declares. “And I’m not getting involved.” He grabs for the door handle.
“Porter!” I shout, reaching over the seat to keep him from leaving. “One day you’re going to realize you already are involved. You and me, we’ve always been in the middle of whatever the hell is going on right now between our dads. And one day you’re going to have to do something insanely stupid in order to do the right thing. I need your help. I need a name. I know you’ve heard it, please, just tell us.”
Porter is silent.
“Please, Porter. You owe me this.”
His face looks wounded with what I just said. He hits the back of my seat with his fist. “Sully. Your dad was supposed to go meet someone named Sully.” Then he opens the door and storms away.
I knew it.
Bodhi’s head goes right to the steering wheel of his jeep. I bring my hand up to the back of his hair, gently pulling on his curls. He doesn’t even look up at me as he asks, “You going to tell me my dad’s a hitman now too? That he was going to get rid of your dad?”
“No, not at all. I’m not jumping to any conclusions here.”
Bodhi looks over at me. His head is still resting on the steering wheel. “My family. My mom, my dad … they’re fucked up.”
I lean forward and kiss him, leaving my face right by his as I say, “Me, I’m your family Bodhi. I am your family. Don’t let a minute ever go by, where you don’t remember that, okay?”
A relieved smile appears on his face as he nods his head and sits up, wrapping his hands around the back of my head. “I know this. I love this,” he exhales. “Back to your house? Nap?”
I laugh. “Yes, but first, coffee.”
Bodhi and I stop at Kool Beenz on the way home just so we don’t blow the lie we told my mom. Kool Beenz has the best coffee in Flagler hands down, but even coffee isn’t helping with everything running through my head right now.
My mom greets us in the kitchen when we walk in, buttering toast for my brothers. “Back so soon?”
“Just went out for coffee,” I remind her as Bodhi hands her the one we brought back.
“Thank you,” she says to him. “You guys want some breakfast?”
“Eat with us, Bodhi!” Rowan exclaims, pulling an empty barstool closer to him.
I hear Bodhi sigh. I know he’s exhausted but doesn’t want to disappoint my broth
er. I love how much he cares about Rowan, but he looks like he’s going to collapse right here in my kitchen. He needs sleep, and he needs it now.
“We already ate,” I tell Rowan, patting him on the head. “But plan on eating lunch with us later. Okay?”
Rowan nods his head as he starts eating his toast. I then grab Bodhi’s hand and lead him upstairs to my room, where I fling myself down on my bed.
Bodhi throws himself down right next to me. “Thanks for saving me down there.” He pulls me over to his chest and wraps his arms around my waist, holding on as tight as he can. He’s asleep before I can even say anything back.
I WAKE UP A couple hours later to Bodhi kissing my forehead and running his fingers behind my ear. I smile as I nuzzle myself further under his neck. I don’t want to get up yet. I’m too cozy, and he smells so good. I just want to stay like this, for as long as possible, and pretend nothing crazy is going on outside of my room.
Bodhi’s fingers run up and down my back as he whispers, “I sleep so much better with you next to me.”
I give his neck a kiss and leave my lips there. “Same here.”
“So, my dad,” he brings up. “I don’t think we’re going to figure out anything else until we talk to him. Or until Calvin talks to him.”
I nod my head in agreement, keeping my eyes closed.
“Unless your dad …” he stops talking.
I pop my eyes open. “You can say it.”
“Unless your dad gets back home,” he finishes.
I nod my head in agreement again, resting my cheek back on his neck. “So, we lay low like they told us to? Wait for your dad to find us? Do we pretend everything is normal until then?”
“I think that’s the only thing we can do. Plus, if I recall correctly, you promised me a date with pizza and a couch tonight,” he reminds me, kissing my entire face. “And I am not about to back out on that.”
Confession Page 35