Cam looked cool and confident and a little mean. “We’re all walking around here like we’re suspects in a murder case and you seem to be the one the cops keep pulling in. Just like you were the last one both Chloe and Mateo talked to. So tell us what you know.”
My cheeks burned. “I don’t know anything. I didn’t do anything to Chloe. The only time I saw her was when she told me she knew about Mateo’s plan.”
Aiden stared at me from his spot next to Cam with a hard expression. It was his soldier-serious face. I wondered again about the Naval Academy. If his involvement in all of this compromised his chances. “Where’s Mateo?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Come on, Chloe,” Josh said, his voice softer and more of a plea. He looked more disheveled than I’d ever seen him. Not exactly wrinkled, but more a little unhinged, his hair spiking out and greasy like he’d forgotten to shower. “You were with him most of the night, right? Officer Kay said you were with him.”
I nodded. “Yeah. But I don’t know where he is. Honestly.” Mateo had saved me from lying to the police and my friends about that, and I was grateful.
“Do you know why he took off?” Josh again.
I didn’t know what to say. It was one thing being vague with one police officer, but pinned by the stares of four friends was a different thing. I slipped my hand into my hoodie pocket and clung to my phone. The I love you too text I’d read over and over this weekend gave me the strength I didn’t think I could otherwise muster.
Aiden leaned forward, his elbows on his knees and his face almost slack in defeat. “Chloe, come on. This girl, this game, it’s cost us a lot. All our futures are on the line here if they can’t find her. You think people are afraid of us now, just wait. We’ll all be implicated in this. There is no way out but the truth.”
It was something my parents had said more than once in my life—something Pops had said yesterday in front of the police station before telling me my parents were getting on a plane from Burkina Faso. Would they be able to take me back with them if I was implicated in a girl’s disappearance? How long would the police keep looking for her before the case went cold?
“I don’t think Mateo did it,” Josh said.
“He didn’t. He couldn’t have. I was with him almost the whole time.” I swallowed back my misgivings about this lie. I didn’t know where Mateo had been that first hour, and I hadn’t seen him for a while after he left Herrick. It was something I’d worried about over the past few days. But I couldn’t believe he’d done something to Chloe Donnelly, not after he had sex with me in Herrick Chapel, which was the only time he could have done anything to her. His involvement made no sense. I’d convinced myself over the weekend he’d spent that last half hour after I’d seen her waiting at Burling for the guys.
“The whole time? Really?” Cam asked, and goose bumps sprung up along my neck.
“Yes. And we don’t know if there even is something to worry about with Chloe Donnelly. She could be—”
“You stupid bitch,” Holly snapped. She’d been uncharacteristically silent this whole time so her harsh words made me flinch. “You think she’s okay? Seriously? Did you know they found her purple ring? All the way on the other side of campus. Traces of blood on that too. She disappeared three days ago. Tell me you’re not this stupid.”
I was a stretched rubber band finally sprung. “Shut up, Holly. Just shut up. You know all the secrets she was keeping. You didn’t hear her at the end. Completely nuts and unwilling to let any of us out of playing. Don’t you think it’s possible this is part of the game too?”
Holly looked at me in disgust. “No. I don’t. Not when there was all that blood on her scarf. Not when they found her ring too. Why would she fake a disappearance?”
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe you know more about her disappearance than you’re letting on. Maybe it does mean something that you were the last one to see her,” she said.
I felt like I had been slapped. I’d been waiting for the accusation, almost the whole weekend, but coming from Holly it was even worse. “Do you really think that? How could you? Why would I do anything to her? She was the one messing with everyone. I bet she’s responsible for all of this.”
Holly shook her head. “Maybe in your twisted mind that’s how it went, but for normal, nonstalkery people, most of the time what you see is what you get.”
Only that’s not how it was most of the time. I knew it wasn’t. Even as I saw the faces around me, expressions ranging from frustration to fear to fury, I knew that what you saw barely scratched the surface of what you got. Aiden and Josh’s secret relationship. Cam and his unexpectedly beautiful voice. Holly and her need to be loved as if she had something to prove to her incarcerated father. No one would see that on the surface.
“I don’t think . . . ,” I started.
“You know, Other Chloe,” Holly spit out, “Chloe Donnelly wasn’t the only person holding on to everyone’s secrets.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You know exactly what it means.”
Oh God. They really did think I was somehow involved. I couldn’t meet their gazes. I stared at my hands fisted in my lap. Please let this all be a nightmare.
Josh sighed and I looked at him. “I know you didn’t do anything, Chloe. You don’t have something like that in you. But you have to help us.”
“Where the hell is Mateo?” Cam said, each word punctuated with venom and desperation.
“I don’t know. He didn’t do anything to Chloe. He just couldn’t stay around, okay? It was too dangerous for him to be implicated in this,” I blurted.
The moment stretched out before us—a pause loaded with questions and speculation.
“Too dangerous? Why?” Josh said, his voice soft again. “Did he do something?”
I shook my head.
Josh leaned forward. “Chloe. It’s important. If he’s got a criminal record or something . . .”
I shook my head again. “He’s undocumented,” I whispered. “He had to leave or he could’ve been deported.”
My shoulders slumped. I was broken. There was no way one of them wouldn’t tell the police now. Mateo would never be able to come back. He’d be on a list, in an even more precarious situation. I’d never see him in Grinnell again.
The whole place grew silent, almost as if the other students at the front of the media center were listening in and speculating themselves. Aiden finally cracked the quiet between all of us. “You need to tell the cops. They’re looking for him because they think he’s hurt Chloe. They’re looking for the wrong guy, wasting time on nothing.”
“He’ll never be able to come back,” I said, lacing my gross, bitten fingers in my lap. I felt raw and damaged, all of me on display just like my chewed-up cuticles. “They’ll hunt him down. He’ll be deported.”
Josh reached out and squeezed my left wrist. “Maybe one day you could go to him. Even if he can’t come back here. But you have to tell the police. Mateo will be safer if they’re not looking for him as a crime suspect. If they realize why he left had nothing to do with Chloe Donnelly.”
I shut my eyes and considered his words. Oh God. Oh God. Oh God oh God oh God. Josh was right. My silence even now was putting Mateo in more danger. Why hadn’t I thought of that? I stumbled as I slid out of the booth. “I have to go.”
Josh nodded and I didn’t wait for anyone else’s approval or good-bye. The last thing I heard as I pushed my way out of the media center door was Cam saying, “If Mateo or Chloe didn’t do anything to her, then where the hell is Chloe Donnelly?”
29
Officer Kay wouldn’t talk to me without a guardian present, so I had to wait in the main area of the police station for my grandparents to arrive. The burnt-coffee smell didn’t hide the tinge of bleach permeating the station. My shoes stuck to the ground as I lifted my toes up and down over and over. My fingers hurt too much for me to bite my nails, and my stomach was a me
ss from the combination of anxiety and anticipation.
I pulled my phone out and looked at Mateo’s I love you too text again. There was no way he still had the same number, but I tried texting him again anyway.
I’m telling the police everything. It’s the only way for them to stop thinking you did something to Chloe Donnelly. To stop searching for you. I know you can’t come back, but I would come to you if you wanted. I know it’s dangerous, but I would go with you anywhere.
I didn’t receive a response and the hope inside me dimmed. I wasn’t being practical. Wanting too much like I always did. He’d said he was getting a new number. But why hadn’t he texted me from there? Was it because he suspected the police were monitoring my phone? Were they? Was that why they didn’t hang on to it after they’d gotten fingerprints from it?
The main door opened and I looked up, ready to see Nan’s disapproving face. But it wasn’t my grandparents. It was my parents—Mom’s worried face contrasting with Dad’s confident everything-will-be-all-right expression. They looked like they had no business being in the States, even their clothes seemed coated in the handmade otherworldliness of Burkina Faso. Mom’s hair was graying, more obvious now that I saw it in real life, and Dad was tanned in a way that was unintentional and a result of time outside in the direct sun. I stood and stumbled into them. Tears rushed down my cheeks as soon as I felt their arms around me.
Mom was crying too. “Oh, Chloe, it’s going to be okay. We promise. It’ll be okay.”
It was, as Nan would say, a piecrust promise, but it still felt so good to have them there that I hung on to it anyway. I wasn’t alone. I. Was. Not. Alone.
“Mr. and Mrs. Sanders,” a voice said.
My mom released me. “Ms. Davis-Sanders,” she corrected, and I almost laughed. So very much my mom, even now. Even in this place where she so obviously didn’t belong.
“Er, yeah. Well, you and Chloe can follow me.”
Mom led the way, following the young officer back to the interview room, as Dad wrapped an arm around my shoulder and whispered more reassurances.
Officer Kay was sitting inside, his shirt buttoned tightly at his no-neck, but his face didn’t reveal anything. “Chloe, have a seat. I understand you have something to tell me.”
The interview took almost an hour, Kay repeating questions over and over, almost to test the strength of my answers. I couldn’t really blame him. I’d evaded him all weekend long. Now I told him everything I knew, everything I’d seen, even what had happened between me and Mateo in Herrick Chapel. I had to tell him that because a part of me thought maybe Mateo’s used condom could verify my truth and assure the police about his lack of involvement. My voice croaked when I suggested it.
“Yeah,” Kay said, itching the back of his neck, “we probably don’t need to go hunting for that.”
It was embarrassing and I kicked myself for every dumb crime show I’d ever watched. My parents stayed gratefully mute through most of the interview, only intervening to ask if I wanted some water or something to eat or to use the restroom.
It was a relief to say it all out loud. I was humiliated, but I also felt like I was “cleaning up the emotional house,” as my mom would say. Other than learning Mateo was undocumented, Officer Kay didn’t appear surprised by everyone’s secrets, and I suspected I was the only one who’d held out about them over the weekend. Mostly they were dumb high school secrets and not anything anyone could get in trouble for, except for maybe Cam and his side job of dealing Ritalin to Eve. But they probably wouldn’t even pursue that. It wasn’t like he was a real dealer, just selling his own prescription to a friend.
At the end of the interview, Officer Kay said, “We found a match for her fingerprints. A few of our guys are investigating her last known address and seeing what they can find. At this point, we’re not completely ruling out foul play, but we’re fairly certain this was some sort of catfishing scheme.”
My jaw dropped. “What?”
“A catfishing scheme. Do you know what that is?”
“Yes. I mean, I think I do. It’s sort of a made-up identity thing, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Why would she do that?”
“Hard to say,” he answered.
The shock of hearing this gave way to anger. I pursed my lips and took a slow breath through my nostrils, trying to calm myself down. “Why are you just telling me this now? Why did you let me go on and on?”
Officer Kay didn’t look the least bit repentant. “You had information. And it is still illegal to live in this country without paperwork, so we’ll need to contact the proper authorities to look into Mateo Vallera. Overall, it’s best to get as many facts as possible if we want to close a case.”
“Close a case?”
He nodded, then opened his file folder and pulled out a piece of paper. It was Chloe Donnelly’s mug shot. “I mentioned the catfishing scheme. We’ve already confirmed with the school that this was the girl posing as Chloe Donnelly. She’s nineteen. We had her prints in our system on a shoplifting charge from last year. The blood on the scarf was animal blood. We think she faked her disappearance.”
My hands shook as I held the mug shot. I almost didn’t recognize her. Her hair was longer in the picture, and she had acne across her forehead and cheeks. Her blue eyes looked duller in the picture too. I took a deep breath and read the words beneath the picture. Lauren Klein. Her name was Lauren Klein. Not a Chloe at all.
A strangled sound escaped from my throat, and my mom leaned forward and gripped my free hand, squeezing and murmuring that I should take deep breaths.
I saw spots. The entire house of cards tumbled before me. Oh God. Everything Chloe Donnelly had said was a lie.
* * *
I walked on numb legs out of the interview room. I was completely spent and still reeling from the fact that we’d been catfished.
Mom squeezed my shoulders and said, “I guess we have a lot to discuss.”
“Yeah.” I released a breath.
“Gestapo, Chloe? Really?”
“I know,” I whispered. “It was stupid. I just . . .”
Mom waved a hand. “Wanted to fit in. Yes, I was a teenager too once. But don’t you see? That’s how it all starts. You’re forced to get in line and be someone you’re not, or you’re forced to leave. Look at Mateo.”
“I know, Mom.”
“Do you, Chloe? Really?”
I blinked back tears. “I lost him. Because of this game and this girl. I could have said no to playing and I didn’t until it was too late. And now my heart is broken. So could you ease up for a minute here? I know more than you can imagine.”
Her eyes softened. “I’m sorry, Chloe.”
I met her gaze and then my dad’s. “I don’t want to go to Burkina Faso. I want to stay here.”
“Chloe, we can’t live without you for another year. And Nan and Pops can’t—” Mom said, but I held up a hand.
“I don’t want you to extend. I want you to come home in a few months like you planned. Like you promised.”
“Chloe,” Mom said, but Dad touched her shoulder. The soft look she gave him almost gutted me. They were closer now, closer than they’d even been before. As if sharing all that they had over the past few years had solidified their connection forever. Not that I ever doubted them as a couple, but now I wondered how I’d fit in to that. I knew they missed me, but was I enough for them to stay?
“Maybe she’s right, Charley,” Dad said. “Maybe we should reconsider extending. The village will be okay, I think. We’ll do the best we can to set them up. There’ll be other Corps volunteers. We’re needed here. You told me you couldn’t stand being without Chloe much longer. If she wants to stay . . .”
I could see the argument forming in Mom’s mind—all about responsibility and what we could do for the world and how I should make my mark alongside them—but I shook my head.
“Mom, please. Please. I’m your daughter. Your only child.” It was the firs
t time I’d pleaded with her like this since I’d asked to come home. I remembered what Nan had said about Mom forcing a square peg into a round hole until someone told her to stop. I let out a long breath. “I don’t want to go to Burkina Faso with you. It’s not for me.”
Her shoulders slumped a little, but she nodded. “We’ll figure it out. We’ll talk and figure out a plan that we’re all happy with. Let’s go. Nan and Pops are waiting for us.”
Melissa was sitting on the bench outside the police station when we came out. She was wearing a National Guard shirt and leggings, her hair in a messy ponytail. I blinked in surprise.
“What are you doing here?”
“You could’ve called me this weekend, you know,” she said by way of hello.
I should have. I was so worried about Mateo and lying to the police, I’d never considered reaching out for a friend.
I nodded. “I’m sorry.”
“Are you in trouble?” she asked.
I released a long breath. “No. I don’t think so.”
Dad stepped forward and squeezed my arm. “We’ll meet you at the car.” Then he turned to Melissa. “It’s good to see you again, Missy.”
“No one calls me Missy anymore, Mr. Sanders.”
He laughed. “Okay. I guess I have a lot to catch up on.”
Then he and Mom walked toward the car, heads together like always. They were a good couple, always had been. I didn’t know how to find my way back to them. Especially now. But maybe if they stayed, maybe if they started to listen to me more, we could figure out a way back to one another.
“I like Seth,” I said to Melissa when I turned back to face her.
She laughed. “Oh, Chloe. Of all the stuff to say.”
“What? He’s cute and he’s really into you.”
She patted the bench next to her and I sat. “So, do you want to give me the thirty-second version of everything?”
I shook my head. “No. You deserve more than that. Come over later, okay? Dinner’s at six thirty.”
She nodded. “Yeah. I remember. Your grandparents used to invite me over after church when we were in elementary and they had those big family dinners.”
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