I’m several entries in before I spot Eli’s name again.
Daddy’s away on business, and Mommy went to see her doctor about a new face, so I snuck Eli in through the car lift. I haven’t seen him in so long. We don’t talk at school because it’s too dangerous. If the teachers say something to our parents, we’ll be in so much trouble. But today we hung out, and it was just like it always is. We went for a swim, and I wore my new purple bikini. Eli said I looked pretty. I liked hearing him say that.
Eli knows about the maintenance shed and car door. I don’t like that. I don’t like that at all.
I turn another page. Eli’s name jumps out from every sentence. The two of us sneaking out our windows at night to have ice cream on the boardwalk, getting detentions just so we could sit together and pass notes, creating fake social media accounts to chat with each other and deleting all our messages. Secret friends. Close friends. And judging from the way I spoke about him, we’d been that way for a long time.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I curl up on my ruined bed and pore over the entries. It’s filled with stories about Eli, years and years of them, starting from when I was eight and finishing the year the Malloys disappeared. I snuck him into Malloy Manor every chance I got, and we once told our parents we were going on a ski trip with the school and snuck out to his father’s cattle ranch for the weekend. I never say why we had to hide our friendship (because duh, I obviously knew and eight-year-old me couldn’t possibly predict my current situation), but I can tell from the way I’d pressed down hard on the pen that I was afraid of what would happen if we were caught.
And there’s something else, too. Noah. His name comes up again and again later in the diary, when I’m eleven and twelve years old. He went to the same school as me and Eli, and they’d been friends forever. It doesn’t sound like I hung out with Noah at all, but I talk about him constantly. How hot he is, how smart he is. Some entries are just Noah’s name written over and over again, surrounded by hearts. On my twelfth birthday, I’d written:
It’s my birthday. Eli’s taking me somewhere special to celebrate. I asked him if he can invite Noah along, too. He got all weird about it, said Noah was busy even though I know he’s not because his swim meets are on Thursdays. It sucks – Eli knows how much I like Noah. Why doesn’t he want us to hang out?
I read over the very last entry. It’s tough to make out the words because the page is torn and the ink is smudged from droplets I suspect are tears.
Today was horrible. It’s the worst day of my life. Daddy came home from his trip early and found Eli and me in the pool. He grabbed Eli by the throat and dragged him out of the water. I cried and begged Daddy to stop. He threw Eli into the garden wall, and he just crumpled to the ground and didn’t move. Daddy had his security team drag Eli away, and he made me scrub Eli’s blood out of the stucco. I thought he was dead. I thought Daddy killed him.
Daddy told me never to go near Eli or his family again. He called them criminals. He said he’d ruin them and that would put a stop to my ‘cavorting’.
I hate Daddy so much. I won’t let him get away with this.
Tears roll down my cheeks. I can see I’ve pressed the pen so hard that I tore the paper. I read my anguish in every word.
Eli risked everything to be my friend. He risked his life to go swimming with me and to be there for me when no one else would. All these years of silence, and he’s still willing to scale a wall to see me.
And I can’t even remember his face.
16
Eli
The guard leers at me as I drive the Porsche up to the gates. “Greetings, Your Highness.” His friend in the booth behind him laughs like it’s Saturday Night Live.
“You’re hilarious.” I toss my paperwork and ID at him as his buddy walks around my car with a sniffer dog.
“Just you today, Your Highness?”
“Obviously.” I am not in the mood for their shit. I hardly slept last night. I stared at the ceiling and thought about Mackenzie’s face as she hurled those bottles at me. She looks like my secret friend, the Mackenzie who never cared about anyone or anything except me, but inside she’s like a different person. What happened to her in the last four years to make her forget me so completely? What’s left her with nothing but broken, violent rage in her eyes? I have to find out. I have to help her.
I want to be at school, where I might be able to talk to her. But I can’t today. Duty calls.
The guard can’t resist one final stunt, giving me a queen wave as he opens the gate and I drive to the visitor parking. At reception, I sign in and subject myself to the usual humiliating patdowns. Comedian Guard takes his time, makes sure to grab my ass as he searches me for contraband. Phone, keys, wallet, they all go in a tray to be collected when I leave – I surrender everything except the small leather pouch hanging off my belt. They all know what’s inside.
I’m led into the booths. It reeks of piss, and I resist the urge to pinch my nose. I did that the first time I came here, back when I was still a kid, and the guards never let me forget it. I settle into the hard plastic chair.
I wait.
A few minutes later, the door on the other side of the glass swings open, and two guards escort my dad inside.
I try to make eye contact with him, but I can’t do it. Even after four years, it hurts too much. I stare at a spot on the wall to the right of his ear. A dark stain, maybe blood? It was tough to tell in the dim light.
I’m made of glass. One word, one sound could shatter me.
He picks up the phone. “Son.”
I try to say something, but the words catch in my throat. He looks worse than last time. There’s a fresh cut across his hairline, and as he talks it opens, a dribble of blood running down his forehead. His eyes have sunken, and I think his nose has been broken again.
They don’t like rich guys in jail.
Especially not my father, Walter Hart, founder of Memories of the Hart, Emerald Beach’s celebrity funeral home. Anyone who was anyone wanted to be buried by my dad. For a while when I was seven or so, he even had his own reality TV show where cameras followed our family and filmed Dad creating these crazy themed funerals. Elvis and golf and Cinderella, complete with an enormous pumpkin-shaped hearse leading a procession down the boardwalk.
That was before the story broke. Before Walter Hart the affable Tennessee businessman who made grief fun was revealed to be giving people ground-up cement and animal remains instead of their cremated loved ones, and selling the bodies on the black market. Shortly after Noah’s mother killed herself, an FBI investigation blew Dad’s dirty laundry wide open, and it was my family’s turn in the spotlight.
Dad’s not having the best time in prison. Southern charm can only get you so far. Even murderers and rapists and drug dealers have grandmothers they cremated. Grandmothers whose body parts later showed up in laboratories and plastination exhibits when Memories of the Hart was investigated. The man sitting on the other side of the glass is the shell of my father – his skin doesn’t fit properly, like all the bluster and bombast has been sucked out through his eyeballs.
“Hi, Dad.” I force the words out. “I’m sorry it’s been so long.”
“That’s my boy, always got something going on, got a scheme brewing. Just like your old man. How’s that fancy school of yours?” He flashes me the white-toothed smile that used to grace billboards. Dad’s so proud he got me into Stonehurst, even though with all his civil suits I can now only afford to stay there because of a scholarship.
I suck in a breath. You can do this. Find the words. “It’s good, Dad. I’ve been made captain of the track team. We have our first state meet in a couple of weeks. And I’m beating Noah in History. He’s pissed, but he’s so distracted with Mackenzie that he—”
“Mackenzie?” My father’s eyes narrow.
“Yeah.” I swallow. I hadn’t intended to mention her at all, but this place… it has a way of drawing secrets from me. “Mackenzie Malloy.
She’s… um… she’s back at school.”
“Well, I’ll be damned. She’s alive?” The word sticks in his throat. “Mackenzie Malloy? God love her.”
“Yeah. It’s kind of a wild story, actually. Her parents are still missing, but she just showed up at school one day, and—”
SLAM.
My father’s fist pounds the glass. I leap back, my body reacting on instinct, even knowing he can’t hurt me.
What the hell?
Walter Hart never lashes out in violence. With his tongue, he’s inflicted wounds that will never heal. But even though he’s an ex-football player built like a tank, he’s never had to use his fists to get what he wanted when sheer force of personality was enough.
But Mackenzie’s name has stirred something in him – the caged animal lurking behind his genial facade. I stare through the glass at the man that raised me, and I don’t recognize him.
The guards leap forward and restrain him, but after a few stern words about behaving himself, they back off again. On my side, Comedian Guard cracks up laughing.
Dad picks up the phone again and glares at me through the glass. I think about the guard at the doorway, how easy it would be to turn around and leave without listening to what Dad’s about to say.
After a moment, I pick up the receiver from where it clattered to the ground and press it to my ear.
“I apologize for my outburst, son.” There’s the old Dad again – friendly and agreeable and utterly in control. “You surprised me, is all. I never expected to hear that name again. I thought we severed your connection to that family a long time ago.”
I don’t like the way he says severed, with an almost gleeful relish. “It’s just Mackenzie, Dad. Not her family. I don’t think—”
“Listen to me, boy. I know what’s best for you, and I can tell you that you don’t want to be mixed up with anyone who has the surname Malloy, no matter how pretty their mouth looks around your cock.”
That was so typical Dad. As much as he tries to smooth away the edge of his working-class upbringing, he always reveals himself in the end. It’s why we moved to Emerald Beach – Dad’s always been too big for his boots in Tennessee, and the flashy, wealth-obsessed culture of California called to him.
“Sure, Dad. I understand.” I don’t, but I remind myself he can’t do shit outside these walls.
“How are your college applications?”
“Fine. I have interviews for early entrance to Stanford and Harvard starting in a couple of weeks.” At the mention of the prestigious schools, a smile tugs at the corner of Dad’s mouth. He’s all about giving me the opportunities he never had. A real family man, except it’s a crock of shit.
“That’s my boy. You show them what the Harts are made of.” There’s that smile again – the megawatt grin he turned on whenever he was closing a sale. “I’m relying on you.”
Don’t fucking remind me.
“How’s the appeal coming?” I dread the answer to that question.
“Sanderson’s working on it.” Sanderson is my parents’ shady lawyer. His hourly rate is more than a downpayment on an apartment, and we’ve got nothing to show for it except a hefty mortgage on the house. Dad was caught red-handed, so we don’t have a pot to piss in. “If he calls you, give him anything he asks for. Otherwise, I want you to focus on college. And stay away from the Malloy girl. I doubt she’ll be around long.”
“Sure, Dad. I—”
“Times up,” the guard snaps. I glance at my watch. He’s lying his ass off – I still have twenty minutes. But this is what the guards did – they were as much prisoners of this hellhole as the inmates, and they took their fun wherever they could get it. And they love to take out their frustration on the rich douchebag who got caught selling body parts and his asshole son who thinks he’s above them.
“Wait, Elias—” but I slam the phone down and stand up to leave. Dad presses his hand against the glass. Even through the bulletproof glass I can just make out his muttered words.
Don’t disappoint me.
On the way out, I stop by the warden’s office. He doesn’t look up from his paperwork as I step inside and shut the door behind me. “I thought I could smell that fancy cologne stinking up the place.”
I stand in front of his desk, feet apart, arms folded, looking down my nose at the little weasel while he takes in my rich-boy haircut, my clothes that cost more than a month’s salary, my smooth hands that have never done a hard day’s work. I hate doing this shit, throwing my weight and my money around, acting like the cocksucking entitled prats Dad’s always railed against. “Someone’s hurt my father again. I want him moved to a private cell.”
“No can do, little man.” His insult falls flat, and he knows it. His Adam’s apple bobs up and down as he swallows. “I’m bursting at the seams here, and private cells are for inmates who are a danger to the prison community, not second-rate crooks like your old man.”
I open the leather pouch and dump the contents on his desk. Two rolls of bills fall out. The warden cups his hand over them and slides them into his lap, cool as a cucumber.
“I’ll see what I can do.”
I wait until I’m back in my car before the weight of what I’d done falls on me. I crank the stereo loud, so loud it drowns out the screaming in my head.
I punch the steering wheel until my fingers bleed.
17
Mackenzie
“Bastard,” I mutter into the phone.
“You like this guy,” Antony chuckles.
“Cocksucker.”
“I bet he has a motorcycle. And dark, brooding eyes. You’re so predictable.”
“Wanker.”
Antony laughs. “That’s a new one.”
“I learned it from Gabriel. The British have such eloquent insults.”
My veins hum with rage, and I long to wrap my fingers around Eli’s neck and squeeze, or pull him to me and crush my lips against his. I can’t decide which. All I know is that every word in that diary has been burned into my skull. My house, my refuge, my ticket from hell is tainted now, the walls dripping with blood. It’s a gilded prison, a coffin lid nailed down tight over my parents’ abuse. And if it wasn’t for Eli, I would still be blissfully unaware of the horror in my past.
Eli wasn’t in school today, so I couldn’t talk to him about what I read in the diary. Which means Antony gets the brunt of my annoyance. Once he stops laughing, he says goodbye. He’s got a big fight this weekend, so he needs to focus on training. Even though I’m desperate to talk to him, I let him go – he’s done me a solid and sent one of his thugs to scare away the reporters at the gate, so for now, tonight at least, Malloy Manor is safe again.
I shove my phone into the pocket of my hoodie as I move through the kitchen, tearing the lid off a can of cat food and tipping it onto a gold-rimmed saucer for Queen Boudica. Queens deserve the best. She jumps up on the table and buries her face in the bowl.
When I first found Queen Boudica two years ago, she was a skinny, scrawny bag of bones living in the trash cans behind the diner. My boss, Lenny, said someone dumped a bag of kittens in the alley, and he called the animal shelter, but they didn’t seem to care. When I went out to dump some empty bottles, her fierce yellow eyes surveyed me from the shadows. She was scrappy. A survivor.
Like me.
At the end of my shift, I crawled behind the dumpster, scraping up my bare arms on the bricks. I managed to cradle her in my apron. I expected her to fight me, but as soon as I held her in my arms she curled up and went to sleep. The bus driver gave me a dirty look as I hopped on with her, but he let me sit down. I stared down at the tiny body in my arms and swore I’d look after her.
When I got home I set her down on the marble floor of the foyer and she sat as regally as an Egyptian statue, peering down her nose at me as if she expected me to wait on her. I named her for the Queen of the Celts, who stood up against the might of the Roman Empire. Ever since, she’s ruled this house and my heart. She’s pro
bably the only thing that’s kept me sane.
I pull out a container of leftovers from the school dining hall and dig in. Across from me, Boudica abandons her bowl to sniff mine. I push her away. “Just remember, until you can master the opposable thumbs thing, you need me as much as I need you. So don’t piss me off.”
When we finish our dinner, I cradle Queen Boudica in my arms like a baby, carrying her into the study to choose a book and a bottle of wine. I carry the cat, wine, and book to the ballroom and curl up in the pile of cushions by the window while Queen Boudica climbs all over the cat jungle gym.
I try to focus on the story, but my mind swims with everything that’s happened since that cop appeared on my doorstep. Noah and his coal eyes filled with hate. Gabriel’s relentless flirting and cocky smile, Eli’s intensity and unrelenting kindness.
Insect legs prickle the skin on the back of my neck. I’m being watched.
I look outside, my fingers reaching for my knife. I start as I notice a figure sitting on top of the wall.
Eli.
I should be freaking out that this guy’s watching me like a creepy stalker, but now I’ve read the diary, I can’t see Eli as a serial killer. He’s a man out of time, a knight-in-shining-armor come to save the maiden in the castle. Too bad he doesn’t realize the maiden transformed into a fire-breathing dragon.
Eli sees me looking at him through the window and waves. His smile makes my heart flip.
The words in the diary rush back to me. Eli, my secret friend, who would keep watching over me even when I was a bitch to him.
But we all have secrets. Even my house has secrets that I now wish I’d never uncovered. Which reminds me, I need ammunition. I need to not feel as though I’m the only vulnerable one. I drop my book and pull up my phone, searching for Eli’s name. It doesn’t take me long to find news reports covering his dad’s trial – Walter Hart, self-made man, owner of a funeral empire, going down for selling corpses on the medical black market. Apparently, civil suits were still ongoing as relatives of his victims sought damages for being given bags of cement instead of their loved ones.
My Stolen Life: a high school bully romance (Stonehurst Prep Book 1) Page 9