Tyler watched the officer get back into his car. And then he drove back to his house, staying exactly at the speed limit the entire way.
He was done with Jer. And his brother could tell his parents. He didn’t give a shit.
He was just done.
Cade
Sunday, June 21
Dear Cade,
Everything is good here. I’m keeping busy, and I’m working at the restaurant now. Mom visits some. I think she worries, but she doesn’t need to. I’m fine.
I hope you’re having fun with school. I miss school sometimes!
It’s hard being so far away from you. Don’t let Dad get you down. I think he had a lot of do with how everything turned out.
Anyway. Write me back this time.
I love you, Cadey.
Jeni
Cade didn’t cry very often, but his sister could make it happen. Sometimes it just took her name and he felt weird and fogged over.
He folded the letter up and set it on the patio table.
He missed her.
There was no use lying about that.
They’d been best friends. They’d hated each other, in the way that only siblings do, but at the end of the day they’d told each other everything.
Cade would never admit it, but when he was little, his father had taken away his night-light. Jeni had let him sleep in her room so he wouldn’t be alone.
There were a lot of little things like that—like when Cade’s father took the training wheels off Jeni’s bike and told her to “figure it out,” Cade, who had learned early and easily, had helped her.
And they’d sort of bonded over hating their father together.
Cade slipped the letter into his pocket carefully. He didn’t hear from her often, and it was important when he did.
Maybe he’d write her back.
But maybe he wouldn’t.
One thing was certain: he wasn’t going to end up like her. Never. They might have been alike in every other way—something their father loathed—but he wasn’t going to follow in her footsteps. He was going to be okay.
No matter what.
Cade tucked the letter into his pocket, grabbed his phone from the cushion on the patio couch, and dialed a number he’d pulled off of Facebook. This wasn’t a call he could have while people were listening. While the phone rang, he let himself back into the house and jogged up the stairs, toward his room.
“Hello?”
It was Mattie’s voice on the other end.
Mattie. The weak link. The opportunity.
“Hey, Mattie. It’s Cade. I just wanted to chat with you, if you have a minute.” Cade shut the door to his room and locked it. He tried the knob, just to be sure.
His father wasn’t home. One of the maids was probably here, somewhere, but normally at this time they weren’t upstairs. He flipped on some low music to drown out the conversation, just in case someone walked by.
“What’s up?” Mattie asked. Cade could read the suspicion in his voice.
“I need to have a straight conversation with you, man.”
“Okay.”
Cade could hear the dread in Mattie’s voice. He could hear the rising panic.
“That night . . . what did your friend hear?”
Mattie was quiet on the other end of the line. “Nothing . . . I don’t think.”
“How well do you know this guy?” Cade asked. “Is he someone who would keep the secret with us?”
“I don’t know.” Mattie’s voice was quiet and tight. Seeping with bitterness.
Cade recognized the emotion. He knew it well.
“Well, you need to figure it out. I’ve been thinking, Mattie. I’ve been thinking a lot. Because if he figures it out, and he sees this stuff on the news, do you know what’s going to happen?”
“Listen, I don’t think he knows, but—”
“But you’re not sure.” Cade cut him off. “You’re not sure, and he’s going to go to the police. And the cops—know stuff, Mattie. They know how to trace the call. Trace your phone. Trace your exact location, and where you are at all times. Did you know that?”
Mattie stayed quiet.
“Have you talked to him since, Mattie?” Cade asked.
“Yeah.”
“You need to find out what he heard. I’m calling because you need to be careful.”
“What?” Mattie’s voice raised. “What are you talking about?”
“The call was made on your phone, Mattie. He heard your voice more clearly than any of ours, if he heard ours at all. And do you know what that means?”
“I’m not stupid.” Mattie’s voice was cold.
“It means it’s going to get traced back to you. You. Maybe us, but definitely, definitely you. Are you ready for that, Mattie?”
Mattie was silent again.
“Hello?” Cade asked. “Listen, I want to help—”
The line went dead.
Mattie didn’t want to hear it. Cade understood. He didn’t want to believe what Cade was saying. That Mattie could be blamed.
So he’d hung up.
Cade smiled and tossed his phone onto his bed.
It had gone perfectly.
He had watered the seed of doubt that was already there. And now it was taking root, deep and thick and irremovable.
Cade was not going to end up like his sister. Not ever.
Ivy
Monday, June 22
She was supposed to be in class. But she wasn’t.
She was supposed to be surrounded by friends. But most days she spent alone, trying to think of new ways to occupy her time that didn’t involve her friends or her minions.
And Garrett wasn’t supposed to be at her house, sitting next to her on a couch in the loft, drinking the weird espresso that he always had, smelling the way he did, like spicy deodorant and just a hint of patchouli.
But he was.
He was finally, finally, with Ivy, and her heart was beating a Crazy Hummingbird-Wing Rhythm, and she had a tiny tic of her eyelid that wouldn’t go away.
But he was here.
Ivy wasn’t sure who was happier: her, or her mother, who fluttered around them, offering them homemade toffee-chocolate balls and even alcohol before Ivy had finally shooed her into the backyard.
Mrs. McWhellen clearly thought she was getting her daughter back. Her real daughter, not the sullen homebody who’d shown up this summer.
“I’m glad you suggested this,” Ivy said. Garrett raised an eyebrow. “Coming to the house,” she amended. “It’s much more . . . personal than a coffee shop.” She sipped on the latte she’d made with her mother’s Keurig. It wasn’t as good as Starbucks, but she didn’t care.
“Well, I wanted it to be personal,” Garrett said slowly. His left foot was tapping on the hardwood floor super fast—tap, tap, tap, tap. It was a nervous habit, and Ivy was dying to know what Garrett had to be nervous about.
“You did?” Ivy asked, her breath catching. “Why?”
He took another sip out of the tiny cup of espresso. “Because I think I owe you an apology.”
“Do you?”
“Don’t I?”
Ivy’s hands felt sweaty, like they had the first time she and Garrett kissed.
“Why don’t you try it, and I’ll tell you how much I deserved it after?” Ivy asked sweetly.
Garrett laughed. He set his espresso on the side table and rubbed his hands over his jeans. “I’m sorry for what I did to you. I kind of ruined your life, didn’t I?”
Ivy tilted her head. She wanted to say yes, to agree, but she wasn’t sure. In some weird way she felt better now, like she wasn’t expending all her energy on nastiness and hate.
Instead, she was plotting all her energy on getting away with being part of a murder pact. Which was arguably worse and more stressful.
But nothing had made Ivy reevaluate her entire life like giving CPR to a dead man.
And stuffing his body in a trunk.
And proceeding to throw said body
in a river.
“I’m . . . okay,” Ivy managed. “Really. I am.”
It was a lie. But it needed to be.
Garrett took her hands in his. “It’s not okay, though. What I did wasn’t okay. You were the first girl who really took the time to look past my exterior and really like the real me, you know?”
Ivy nodded.
“I didn’t do the same for you, Ivy girl. I thought you were gorgeous, and you are. I thought you were perfect, and you are. But I realized . . . I realized that I never once tried to look past your exterior like you did mine. You looked past Garrett the hipster dork, and you liked him. But all I could ever see of you was a pretty, popular girl who I could never identify with.”
His words left tiny lacerations on her heart. Ivy stared at Garrett. She stared at his messy hair and his unshaven chin and the lips that had belonged to her. She stared at his band T-shirt and his un-ironic Converse sneakers.
“What are you saying?” she said finally. “Garrett, what are you trying to get across here?”
He took a deep breath, and squeezed her hands a little harder. “I’m going to try. I want to try. I want you to give me a chance to give you a chance.”
Ivy leaped into his arms, hugging him. She hugged him so tight she thought she might disappear into him. She held him like she’d never held anyone before.
And Garrett held her back, his arms encircling her, and he turned to kiss the side of her face.
That’s when she heard it. A rough, rumbling sound, like a chain saw drawn across concrete.
She knew that sound.
Ivy pulled out of her ex-boyfriend (current boyfriend’s?) arms, and rushed to the window that looked out over the street, where the sound was coming from.
It was the rusted car from the school.
The one that had entered the lot as they left in Kinley’s car.
The one that had stopped Ivy and Mattie outside the school.
“Who’s the old lady?” Garrett asked from behind her. He put his chin on her shoulder and peered out.
It was Mrs. Stratford. Her window was down, and her elbow rested on the door.
And now she was sitting outside. Watching. She put a hand above her brow and peered up toward the window, like she knew Ivy was there.
“I don’t know,” Ivy lied.
Another car pulled up. An older black Explorer, boxy and too big to be good for the environment.
Daniel.
“Shit!” Ivy said.
“What?” Garrett asked. He grabbed her arm and leaned over her from behind. He felt too close, and Ivy wanted to shake him off.
Daniel got out of his truck and frowned at the car parked at the curb.
Did he recognize her? Ivy’s mind whirled. He had to, didn’t he? This was his case. Of course he would know who Mrs. Stratford was.
She watched as his head moved, as he followed Mrs. Stratford’s line of vision to their house.
“Your brother will take care of it,” Garrett said, squeezing Ivy’s shoulder. “Good thing he’s a cop.”
Ivy shrugged out of his hands and watched while Daniel leaned over the car and addressed Mrs. Stratford. She opened the window, just a crack, but their voices were far away and muffled.
“Ivy—”
“Give me a minute, Garrett, okay?” she said. She felt, rather than saw, Garrett step back. But it didn’t matter. Daniel was already waving as Mrs. Stratford drove away. Shit. Shit, shit, shit. Ivy put her hands on her forehead. What the hell was she even doing here?
She turned her back to the window.
“Do you even want me here?” Garrett’s voice was small and hurt.
Ivy put his hands on the back of his neck and pulled his mouth to her lips. She kissed him hard and deep and with all the passion she could muster. She drew all of the pain and hurt she’d experienced since they’d broken up, and all the love she had for him, and every emotion she thought she’d forfeited since she lost him, and she kissed him, and he kissed her and his hands were on her small of her back and in her hair and everywhere.
“I love you,” Garrett whispered in her ear. “Let’s try again. Please.”
Ivy clung to him, feeling his body against hers and trying to remember the way it used to warm her.
But even Garrett, who she thought she had wanted more than anything in the world, could not push all of the horror out of her mind. It could not remove the rusted car. The way Dr. Stratford looked in the trunk. His half-open eye that watched them as they moved his body.
Garrett was a complication.
An unnecessary one, no matter how much she had loved him.
She buried her face in his shoulder. It took all of her strength to stay there, for just another minute.
But she pulled away. And she felt like she was peeling off her mask, the one distant shadow of her Former Self that she had been clinging to.
She touched his shoulders, her fingers barely brushing his shirt. “I think I need more time, Gar,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”
When she saw the hurt in his eyes, she added it to her Chest of Horrible Memories. The ones that weighed on her, that made her feel like she was dragging the whole world behind her with every step she took.
Horrible memories, she had learned, always outlast the good ones.
Mattie
Tuesday, June 23
“Iced soy chai, please. Extra large.”
Ivy stared at him. “Um, you already told her that.”
Mattie jerked out of his reverie. The barista (a pretty girl with a big hoop in the middle of her nose) stared at him, her hand out.
“Oh, yeah.” Mattie dug in his pocket and produced a couple of bills before handing them over. She tossed them in the cash register and gave them a little card that featured a dog named Murdoch. “We advertise for the local shelter,” she told them. “Our cards save over two hundred dogs a year.”
Mattie took the photo of Murdoch and followed Ivy to a table near the back of the little shop. Ivy had just sort of shown up again while he was vegging on the patio, thinking all sorts of grisly things, and told him to follow her. So he had, and they’d ended up in this odd coffee shop with oscillating fans running everywhere and music that was just a little too fast for relaxation.
It was better, Mattie guessed, than sitting in his bedroom, watching the ceiling fan turn. Or sitting on the back porch, listening to the reluctant lapping of the pool whenever the breeze kicked in.
It was better than all the waiting.
He couldn’t turn his brain off. He couldn’t stop thinking about Stratford and the police and Kip thinking he had seen Stratford and the little line of black-red blood under Stratford’s nose and how his dead skin had been slick in the rain.
Ivy and Mattie sat there for a moment, looking at each other. Gone was the easy back-and-forth from when they’d first met. They both knew what was between them, impenetrable and dark, like toxic smoke—too thick to breathe through.
She was beautiful, Mattie thought. The kind of girl he might go for if he were single and good enough for her. But he wasn’t.
“Have you heard from your boyfriend at all?” Ivy’s voice, a little strange, jerked him out of his thoughts.
They both knew what she was asking.
“Um, a little. I guess . . . nothing seems new. But I’m not sure.”
Mattie watched Ivy’s face, and for a second it looked like she was going to say something—something real—but the barista brought over their drinks, Mattie’s iced soy chai, and a green tea frappe with extra whipped cream for Ivy.
Mattie frowned. Ivy was not the kind of girl who asked for added whipped cream. She was the kind of girl who asked for foam, just foam, and then scooped it out with a plastic spoon while watching happy full-figured girls gulp down chocolate-chip lattes. (It was how Nicole Kidman did it, he’d heard.)
“So let’s talk about you and Derrick,” Ivy said. “Tell me about your relationship.”
(Translation: tell me if we can trust
him.)
“He’s the best,” Mattie said. “We spent, like, every minute together. We told each other everything.”
“Past tense?” Ivy asked. “So things haven’t gotten better?”
Mattie shook his head. “Worse.” He swallowed hard and looked across the table at Ivy. She was so beautiful and miserable. He knew what she was asking. She wanted to know if Derrick knew anything dangerous. “Can I just say it?”
Ivy nodded. Her lips clasped onto the straw and she took a long drink of her frappe. “Just give it to me straight.” She looked left and right. There were people everywhere. “Are orange jumpsuits going to be a good look this season?”
Mattie laughed even though there was nothing funny at the heart of it. “I don’t know, Ivy. I wish I did, but Derrick and I haven’t been good since I moved here. Since maybe a little before I moved here. And we haven’t broken up, but”—he paused, finally voicing a deep, silent fear—“I don’t know if we’re still together.”
Ivy reached across and clasped his hands in hers. His hands shook slightly, and she squeezed them hard, trying to still them, but he realized that she was shaking too.
“Look, Mattie. I’m sorry if this is insensitive, but I have to know. Do you think he heard anything, or not?”
Mattie paused. “I think he did, Ivy. I just think he doesn’t know what that was right now. I don’t think he’s going to say anything. At least not immediately. Because I know what we had—have, whatever—was real, and we both still value that. He just doesn’t completely trust me right now, and I don’t want him to realize . . . I can’t let him figure out exactly what he heard.” He dropped his voice, his eyes searching the people around him. No one was listening. It’s like he wants me to confess. He knows something is off.”
“But he doesn’t know exactly what?”
Mattie shook his head. “I mean, I don’t think so. Really, if he knew, wouldn’t he have said something? Wouldn’t you have, if you were Derrick?”
Ivy’s hands tightened around her frappe. “I don’t know.”
Mattie looked down at his own drink. He had barely touched it.
“You know,” he said, his heart strange and thumpy and calm all at once, “I don’t know why we’re involved.”
Secrets, Lies, and Scandals Page 14