“What?” Ivy asked. Her eyes were jumping around frantically, taking stock of her surroundings.
Mattie leaned in, looked into her eyes, and said in a low voice, too quiet for anyone else to hear, “Why are we even here? What did we do to deserve this?”
He’d been thinking about it since Cade called him. He’d been pulled in. He hadn’t been the one to punch Stratford. Or trip him. Or the one to beg everyone not to tell. He hadn’t done anything. And Ivy had just wanted to save him. But according to Cade, Mattie looked the guiltiest of all. His phone was basically evidence. Well, not technically, but Cade was right—the call was made from the river on that night to Derrick, and chances are, Derrick had heard Mattie more clearly than he’d heard anyone else. It made him look guilty.
Ivy shook her head. Her eyes got glassy, and she let her bangs fall into them. “Maybe it’s punishment, Mattie. I didn’t used to be . . .” She trailed off for a second, like she was watching the past unfold. “I’m not a good person.”
Mattie’s phone buzzed with a message from Derrick.
He unlocked it, and the message took all the air out of him, like he’d been socked in the stomach.
I think I deserve an explanation. Fess up, Byrne.
He handed his phone to Ivy and covered his eyes, trying to slow his pulse.
Maybe Derrick didn’t know exactly what happened. But one thing was certain: he knew Mattie had done something wrong.
Maybe Cade was right.
Derrick wanted a confession. Maybe he knew what he’d heard that night.
If someone was going down for this, it was going to be Mattie.
Kinley
Wednesday, June 24
No.
NO. No, no, no, no, no.
Kinley’s mind repeated the word, over and over and over, an endless cycle of pain and denial. It ran through her blood and stuck in the lining over her stomach and worked its way into her throat.
Kinley bent over the toilet and vomited. Her mother held her hair back and knotted it with a hair tie. “Baby,” Mrs. Phillips whispered, rubbing her back. “Oh, sweetheart. Should we take you to the doctor?”
The idea of setting foot outside the house put her stomach in motion again and she heaved into the bowl, the vomit burning her throat and her mouth.
Her mother disappeared for a moment and returned with a box of Kleenex and a glass of water. “Here, sweetie. Wash out your mouth.” She helped Kinley take a drink, like she had when she was a little girl, and after Kinley had spit the water into the toilet she dabbed her mouth with a pink tissue.
Kinley’s mom flushed the toilet, sending her sickness into the plumbing. Kinley wished all her pain and guilt would go with it.
“Did you eat something funny?” Mrs. Phillips asked. Her dark brown eyes, almost black, were filled with concern, which Kinley rarely saw in her mother. Mrs. Phillips was a perfect politician’s wife. Everyone called her the second coming of Michelle Obama—with better dresses. Which was hard to do.
It also made her hard to be around. She was determined. She was intelligent and poised. And she had no idea that her daughter wasn’t equally intelligent. In other words, she didn’t know about Kinley’s little secret.
“I haven’t eaten much lately,” Kinley murmured. Her voice was scratchy from getting sick.
Mrs. Phillips put a hand to her daughter’s forehead. “You might be running a fever, sweetie. Are you worried about your professor? Is that making you sick?”
Kinley’s eyes filled with tears. Her mother had hit the nail on the head. She had no idea.
Just like Tyler had no idea.
Kinley had thought he’d just lifted one of her study recordings—probably the psychology one, or maybe even the Russian literature one she had been reviewing for a college course she had taken last summer—but no. He had taken one she thought she’d hidden away in her desk.
One that no one should hear unless the circumstances were incredibly, incredibly dire.
One flash drive that could ruin everyone and everything.
Kinley had tried to call him. But since she’d seen him last—since she had confessed—he had all but disappeared, save for a few one-word texts here and there.
He had disappeared with her deepest and darkest. And who knew what Tyler the Delinquent would do with it?
And to think she’d trusted him.
She started to cry, harder now. The kind of crying that made faces swollen and red.
And right there on the floor of the bathroom, Kinley’s mother gathered her up in her arms and held her, just like when she was little.
Kinley, who preferred proud and cold and perfect to weak and shallow and useless, let her mother hold her. She closed her eyes and was dozing off, when there was a knock at the bathroom door. It opened, just a crack.
Her father stuck his head in. “Kin, are you okay?”
She lifted her head. Her skull pounded.
“Great, Dad.”
“Okay, good. Do you think I can talk to you?” He cast a look at her mother. “Eleanor, she’s fine.”
Fitting that her mother was named for a great president’s wife.
Her mother helped her slowly to her feet, and Kinley smiled weakly at her. “Take it easy,” her mother warned, and Kinley collected the words and stored them as close to her heart as she could.
It wasn’t something her mother said often. In fact, Kinley couldn’t remember the last time she’d said something so soft and kind. She wanted to fall back into her mother’s arms and be a child again. But there was no room for that.
Her mother followed her into her bedroom with her father in tow. Mrs. Phillips tucked her tightly into her bed and left a fresh glass of water and a box of tissues on her nightstand, then moved the trash can close to the side of the bed before leaving.
“Are you really sick?” her father asked once they were alone. “Should I get a doctor?”
“I’ll be fine,” Kinley said, coughing. Her throat was raw, like she had swallowed a handful of nails. Part of her was angry at her father for the question, for dismissing her obvious pain, but the rest of her was grateful. Deeply grateful. She wanted to be normal again.
Her father sat stiffly at the foot of her bed. “Kinley, my dear girl, do you realize you have missed three SAT study sessions? Just because you’ve taken a break from your psych course doesn’t mean you can take a break from your life.” He paused and drew a package from his jeans. “Here. A little gift. Enjoy.” Mr. Phillips patted her on the head and rose from the bed. He paused at the door, for just a moment. “By the way, they’re getting a friend of mine from the college to finish the professor’s course. It will resume next week. Remember to prepare.”
And then he was gone, without any well wishes. He was just gone.
He just wanted his perfect daughter back.
So do I, Kinley thought bitterly. She tore open the little package and dumped the contents onto her bedcover.
It was a tiny, tiny earpiece. The smallest she’d ever seen. State-of-the-art, really.
And another flash drive.
As if anything could replace the information on the one she had lost to Tyler.
Tyler
Thursday, June 25
Jacob slammed his hand into the wall. “What do you mean?” He breathed heavily, his face turning a mottled red.
“Calm down,” Tyler whispered. He grabbed his brother and pulled him out of the kitchen and into the backyard, away from their parents, who were watching old reruns of America’s Next Top Model in the den.
“What do you mean you can’t get it?” Jacob was standing close, and obvious panic was lurking just beneath his skin.
“I tried, dude,” Tyler said. “There was a cop staked out.” He lowered his voice, glancing toward the neighbors’ house to make sure no one was outside. “He freaking walked up to my car and asked me what I was doing there. I barely got out.”
Jacob paced back and forth in the backyard, trampling a pair of their mot
her’s prized yellow tulips. “Shit. Shit, Tyler. What are we going to do? I have the St. Andrews meet coming up.” He clasped his hands together and blew into them, like it was cold instead of midsummer.
“There’s nothing to do,” Tyler said gently. “Jacob, we’re done. We can’t get it, okay? You need to stop.”
Jacob sat down on the grass and started rocking, and before Tyler realized what was happening, his older brother was crying quietly on the lawn, picking up little threads of grass.
Tyler squatted down. “It’s okay, Jake.”
Jacob glared at him through his tears. “It’s not okay. I can’t swim without them.”
“You’re not going to tell Mom and Dad, right?”
Jacob looked up at his older brother, and for a second, Tyler was reminded of when Jacob really was his brother. When they’d ride through the neighborhood together on matching bikes until their mother called them in for supper. When they played Crazy Eights on Jacob’s bed until Tyler was tired enough to fall asleep. When they would sleep on the floor of the den and watch scary movies after their parents had gone to bed.
How had everything gotten so screwed up?
Jacob wiped his nose on the sleeve of his T-shirt. “You have to figure out a way, Tyler. I won’t tell Mom and Dad, though.”
Tyler nodded. “Thanks, bro.” He reached out and clasped his brother’s shoulder.
“I’ll tell your probation officer.”
Tyler’s whole body felt like he’d just been covered in hot, wet cement. He let his hand fall.
Jacob would tell . . . Jacob would do . . . what? He’d send his own brother to juvie? Into the military? For a drug? Because he was pissed off ?
Tyler felt sick.
“You’d do that?”
Jacob returned his gaze steadily. “Well, you’d ruin my life like that. My whole career. My chance to transition out of community and into a Division One school. So yeah. I guess I would.”
Tyler’s blood went hot-cold and then hot again. “You know, they drug test a little more hardcore in D-One.”
Jacob jumped up. “What are you saying?” He lurched closer, his breath warm on Tyler’s face.
“I’m saying that it’s a lot harder to be an addict when everyone’s watching. No one cares when you’re the big fish at a stupid community college. But when you’re competing at a high level? It’s just a matter of time.”
Jacob smiled. “Then you better get me the good stuff, little brother. Because when I go down, you’re going to go down right along with me.”
“Why wait?” Tyler asked, raising his voice. He felt strange and reckless. “Let’s just do this now. Let’s tell everybody.” He laughed, and it hurt in his stomach. “My dickhead brother’s a cheat, everyone! And I help him do it!”
“Shut up,” Jacob said.
“What? Why?”
“Shut up or I’ll kill you.”
Tyler stopped. He stared at his brother. Into his eyes, which were cold and hard and unfamiliar.
A lot of killing going around these days. Some deep, sick part of Tyler wanted to laugh again, but he couldn’t.
“You’re going to do this for me, Tyler,” Jacob said. “You’re going to call your little friends and you’re going to figure this out. Don’t test me again.”
“Fine.”
The word hurt to say.
Because he couldn’t. He wouldn’t.
Jer was being staked out by the cops, the number-one people he wanted to avoid on account of being involved with Stratford.
But if he didn’t return, and his brother actually told, then he’d end up in the exact same position.
Unless he could get the drugs, he was screwed. He was done. But Jacob wasn’t his brother right now. He was someone else.
But Tyler knew what to do.
He left Jacob in the backyard and went up to his room, where he locked the door.
His mother had gotten him a bookshelf back when she was trying to influence his tastes. It was filled, mostly, with a set of encyclopedias she’d insisted on buying, even though Tyler’s father had sworn up and down that nobody ever used encyclopedias anymore.
No one knew, but Tyler did use those encyclopedias. Some nights, when he couldn’t sleep—which was most of them—he’d choose one and look up faraway things until his eyes got tired.
Tyler reached under the top of the shelf, just above the D and E tomes, and unpeeled a tiny Ziploc bag.
Inside, there was an earpiece and a flash drive. It was what Kinley used to record her answers. He’d erase her psych notes, and then use it to record his brother, threatening him. He was going to get to his probation officer first.
He doubled-checked the door, then plugged the flash drive into the computer. His media player popped up, and Kinley’s voice began in his speakers.
Her voice was rich and deep and full. Just like her. He hadn’t talked to her much in the past couple of days, and suddenly he was filled with a strong yearning. She was so damn gorgeous.
He wanted to see her.
He wanted to kiss her.
He wanted to see her naked. To touch the soft velvet that was her skin.
Tyler wished he’d answered her calls. Her texts. He hadn’t wanted her involved in the shit with his brother. He hadn’t wanted anyone involved.
And he hadn’t wanted anyone to know. His brother was supposed to be perfect. Tyler had wanted to keep him that way. He’d wanted to give his parents one child they could really believe in.
Kinley’s voice went on in his ear about psychosexual stages and Freud and pain, and it reached some strange, latent part of him. He lay back on his bed and shut his eyes, and he wished that she was there with him. Beside him. In his arms.
And then she stopped, midsentence. There was scuffling. Mumbling.
He sat, bolt upright, his body cold.
He could hear rain.
There was rain on the speaker. Like rain falling against a building.
He knew that rain.
It went on for a minute, maybe two, before fading into the silence. Thick, heavy silence, the kind broken only by uncomfortable shifts and pain.
And then—
“Are you cold?”
It was Tyler’s voice.
“I know I shouldn’t be, but I am. I hate that he’s in there.”
Kinley.
And then Tyler, again. “I know.” There was some shuffling of straw. “We’re okay, though. And we’re going to be okay, you know. They’ll be back.”
Tyler listened. He listened as the whole horrific scene was played out again. Some parts he couldn’t hear, but he could hear enough.
More than anyone really needed.
And yet . . . Kinley had been quiet that night. She didn’t come off innocent, exactly, but good enough that if she ever decided to turn in the tape, she didn’t look as bad as the rest of them.
A cold rivulet of sweat ran down Tyler’s face.
The whole time they had been worried about a fuzzy phone call that had been made from Mattie’s pocket.
And the thing that could doom them all had been sitting on Kinley’s desk like so much homework.
He ripped the earpiece out. He had to get rid of this. He had to ruin it before anyone else could hear it. It couldn’t go back on his bookshelf, where it had been, hiding next to a bag of good weed and a stolen cell phone.
He unlocked his door and walked, very quietly and calmly, down the stairs. His parents were still in the den, and Jacob wasn’t anywhere to be seen.
He would call Kinley, and he would talk to her, and, somehow, he would find out if she had made any copies.
Tyler rested his hands on both sides of the sink and tried to keep his head from spinning. He clenched his teeth until his jaw hurt and the dizziness subsided.
Then he dropped the flash drive in the drain, and flipped the garbage disposal on.
Cade
Thursday, June 25
Cade always thought that a shrink’s waiting room should
be interesting, but he’d been coming here for years and nothing ever happened.
The towering green houseplant in the corner always smelled like stale water and rotting roots. The receptionist popped bubble gum and made long, drawn-out calls to her boyfriend, Harry, usually about his mother interfering in their relationship (“Your mother shouldn’t still be dressing you, Harry. Those sweaters aren’t meant for men in their thirties.”). And the other patients weren’t any of the freaks Cade always hoped to see.
In fact, they always seemed pretty normal. So normal that since Cade had been little he’d made up stories about them that he’d whisper back and forth with Jeni. There was Annabella Axeworth, a beautiful teenager who had killed her parents with nothing but a pair of chopsticks. There was Nigel Knickerpants, who suffered from a fear of mosquito wings. And then there was their favorite, Gerbil Hamburger, who had recently developed superpowers and was just having a lot of issues dealing with the responsibility of it all.
Cade’s sister had been great.
Had been.
Without her, the place was pointless. But he was here because of his father, the esteemed Mr. Sano, who kept peering at Cade over his iPad and measuring his mental wellness with just his eyes. According to Mr. Sano, Cade was failing. Cade seemed “unbalanced” and was “hiding something,” and needed professional help of some sort.
His father wanted him tested. He wanted to make sure that both of his children didn’t suffer from the same horrible affliction.
The idea scared Cade.
Sometimes, it was like his father could see through him. Or see into him.
So, now, Cade was back with his shrink, Virgil Ainsworth. He loved Virgil’s name. It was almost as ridiculous as the ones he’d made up with his sister. They were great names, but, Cade reflected as he glanced around the room, they were probably for boring people who were only seeing a psychologist to whine about how they made too much money in their otherwise empty, successful lives.
“Cade Sano?” A guy who barely looked older than Cade had appeared in the doorway that led to Dr. Ainsworth’s office. His name tag said TED. “The doctor is ready for you.”
Secrets, Lies, and Scandals Page 15