Little Secrets (ARC)

by Jennifer Hillier

  She’s not cold, but Marin shivers. Somewhere on this property is her son. Every inch of her body is tingling, and she’s certain he’s here. No matter how long it takes, they will find him. No matter what they discover, no matter what shape he’s in, Marin isn’t leaving here until she can bring Sebastian home. As if sensing her thoughts, Derek touches her arm. She moves away.

  Castro is back, and she stands in front of Marin and Derek. Without preamble, she says, “Sal has a gun. He shot his mother.”

  “Sal shot Lorna?” Marin can hardly believe it. Lorna wouldn’t hurt a fly, and she adored her son. Plus, she’s barely mobile, from what Sal’s told her. Why in the world would Sal hurt his mother? “That’s not possible.”

  “He shot her in the arm, and she told the police that it was an accident,” Castro says. “He was looking for his father’s gun, and when he realized she had it, he tried to take it from her. They wrestled, and the gun went off.”

  Marin looks over at Derek. If he’s heard all this, he hasn’t reacted. He’s standing there, motionless, lost in all the commotion. He’s gone numb. She doesn’t blame him. She will, too, once this is all over. Just a little longer.

  “Where are they now?” she asks Castro.

  “Lorna is at the hospital. They tried to ask her if she knew anything about Sebastian, but she couldn’t tell them. When she was struggling with Sal for the gun, she hit her head, and it exacerbated her previous head injury. She’s a mess. Barely coherent.”

  “If Lorna’s at the hospital, where’s Sal?”

  “He’s still in the house. He let the paramedics take his mother, but he’s refusing to come out. Marin . . .” Castro hesitates. “Sal says he’ll only talk to you.”

  “No way,” Derek says, sparking back to life. They’re the first words he’s spoken in the last hour. “Not happening.”

  “I want to talk to him,” Marin says. “I need to know where Sebastian is, and he’s the only one here who knows.”

  Derek grabs her arm, incredulous. “Marin, no. He’s dangerous. You can’t go in there—”

  “She doesn’t have to go anywhere.” Castro turns to an FBI agent and waves him over. “You can use the phone.”

  They position her where she can see him.

  Sal’s upstairs in his old bedroom, looking out through the window. Marin is near the tree swing, about fifty feet away, seated on the passenger side of a police car. She’s asked for privacy, and they’ve allowed her to sit in the car by herself, though two officers are standing guard right beside it. They wouldn’t let her use her own phone, because they want the call recorded, so she speaks into a phone the FBI agent handed her a moment ago.

  She can see Sal pacing on the other side of the window, the muzzle of the gun he’s holding pointed at his own head. With his free hand, he answers his phone on the first ring.

  “You alive?” she says.

  He stops moving, and looks out his window and into hers. She can barely see his face. His room is dim. But she can make out the shape of him, and she waves from inside the car. He waves back.

  “For now,” he says with a dark laugh.

  “Why, Sal?” she asks in a soft voice.

  “It was never supposed to be like this, Mar, I swear.” Sal’s voice is shaking. “I needed the money. The plan was to keep Sebastian for a day, maybe two, until Derek paid the ransom, but the cops and the FBI were crawling all over the fucking place, so I had no choice but to lay low. I brought him here so my mom could take care of him. I told her Derek was abusive, just like Dad, and that we needed to keep Sabastian safe. She believed me. We decided—”

  “‘We’? You and Julian?”

  “Yeah. We decided to wait until it all died down. Which it did, after a month. We sent Derek the ransom demand, after you got out of the hospital. But we were delayed in getting back to the meet-up spot. And when Julian talked to Derek, I heard him shouting. And Sebastian was crying. And I just . . . I got mad. Your husband has always been such a self-entitled prick and I guess I wanted to hurt him. So we hung up the phone, and a few minutes later, I told Derek his son was dead.”

  Marin can’t speak. Tears pour down her face. Sal laughs again, and it’s the most bitter sound in the world.

  “What’s crazy is he didn’t tell you,” Sal says. “Out of all the ways I thought this could go, I never imagined he wouldn’t tell you, that he’d keep it all a secret. He didn’t say a fucking word. To you, or to anyone.”

  “He thought I’d try to kill myself again.” Marin braces herself for the next question. The hardest question. “Sal, where is my son?”

  “I want you to know that I love you,” he says, his voice cracking. “I’ve loved you from the minute we met—”

  “Sal, please. Where is my son?”

  “He’s in the wine cellar.”

  She takes a quick breath. “Is he alive or dead?”

  A pause. Five seconds, ten seconds, she doesn’t know, but it feels like an eternity. Then finally, two words, so quiet she almost doesn’t catch them.

  “He’s okay.”

  Marin opens the police car door and shouts, “Wine cellar!” at the top of her lungs, but they already know, because they already heard, and they’re already moving.

  “What’s sad, Sal, is I would have given you the money,” she says into the phone. “If you were in trouble, I would have helped you. I wouldn’t have thought twice about it. You’re my best friend. All you had to do was ask.”

  She looks up to the window, where Sal’s hand is raised once again, and it occurs to her then that goodbye waves look the same as hellos.

  “I love you, Marin,” he says, and the phone disconnects.

  She hears the pop and sees the spark from the muzzle, but can only imagine the sound of Sal’s body when it drops to the floor.

  They’re not allowed to go down into the wine cellar or even into the tasting room, so Marin and Derek wait outside. Seconds pass like minutes. Minutes pass like hours.

  The double doors are finally wrenched open, and McKenzie comes out first, led by a police officer. She’s not in handcuffs. Her face lights up when she sees Derek, just for a second, but then she seems to remember that they’re not together, and never really were, and never will be again. She doesn’t look at Marin at all. She passes them both without a word.

  A moment passes, and then the doors open again. And there, holding the hand of one of the FBI agents, is her son.

  They take their time walking out. He’s frightened by the lights and the commotion, and he’s clutching a giant teddy bear in his free arm, his eyes wide and scanning all the faces, stopping only once his gaze fixes on Marin. She tentatively raises a hand, terrified she’ll scare him, even more terrified that this isn’t real and that if she tries to move toward him he’ll disappear like vapor, like he always does in her dreams. His face—his perfect, beautiful, round, sweet face with eyes that mirror her own—is exactly as she remembers, though the length of him has changed, because he’s grown. From somewhere near her, Derek lets out a sob.

  Her little boy holds her gaze for a few seconds, uncertain, and then his face brightens as he understands who she is. She’s too far away to hear him say it, but she sees his mouth form the word. Mommy.

  Sebastian.

  She sprints to him as he drops the teddy bear and runs to her, his small arms outstretched, and it really is just like in her dreams, only this time they make contact, because he’s here, he’s real, he’s alive, he’s safe.

  And Marin’s heart—which was led away from her four hundred ninety-four days ago—comes back to her.

  Part Four

  one month later

  Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end

  —Semisonic

  Chapter 33

  The line at the Green Bean is long when Marin enters, but she’s not here for the coffee. She readjusts the black duffel bag on her shoulder and looks around. The bag is Derek’s; she pulled it out of the trunk of his car, but he does
n’t need what’s in it. Neither does Marin.

  It takes a moment to spot her. She’s not working behind the counter; she’s wiping down a table toward the back of the coffee shop, and she looks up when Marin approaches. The pink in her hair has faded to a brassy blond that makes her complexion look sallow. Funny how the first time Marin ever saw her, she’d seemed so vibrant, so beautiful, so intimidatingly young and full of life. Now she looks any other overworked grad student—exhausted, stressed, and nothing special.

  McKenzie’s face pales and she backs up a step. Marin raises a hand.

  “I’m not here to make a scene,” she says, and the younger woman visibly exhales. “Can we talk?”

  The table in the back corner is empty, and Marin remembers it as the table she sat in the day she came in to spy on McKenzie. Was that only five weeks ago? It feels like she’s lived a lifetime since then, between therapy appointments for Sebastian, therapy for herself, and the ongoing establishment of a structured routine that her now five-year-old son very much craves.

  He’s doing well, though. The child psychologist reassures her often that kids are resilient, and Dr. Chen has said the same thing. It turns out Lorna was quite good to Marin’s son, as far as the circumstances went. Sal had lied to his mother at first, telling her she needed to help him keep Marin’s son’s safe from Derek, the supposedly abusive husband, and of course Lorna had complied. She’d believed everything Sal told her . . . until, finally, she didn’t.

  Over the sixteen months she had Sebastian, Lorna had taken good care of him. She fed him. Bathed him. Read books to him. Brought him toys. Took him outside every day that she was able to, letting him run around in the fresh air and sunshine. She talked to him about Marin every day, about how much his mommy loved him, and missed him, and would come for him as soon as she could. Nothing much was said about Derek, as Lorna believed Sebastian’s father to be the villain, but neither did she badmouth him.

  Lorna’s hip, by the way, was fine. She’d recovered well from her hip replacement surgery the year before, and it turned out that all her additional ailments were more lies Sal had made up to justify going home to Prosser so often to check on Sebastian. The gunshot wound to her arm was more of a nick, but the head injury she sustained wrestling her son for the gun was pretty bad. She’d had another surgery, and she was still in the hospital under close observation.

  Marin takes a seat at the table, placing the duffel bag down on the floor beside her. It’s not that heavy, but it’s awkward, and she’s glad not to have to carry it anymore. McKenzie takes the seat across from her, placing the wet rag she was cleaning with on the table between them like a microfiber barrier.

  “You look terrible,” Marin says.

  “Uh, thanks?” McKenzie answers, but then she shrugs. “I guess I deserve that. I’ve been couch-surfing since I got kicked out of my apartment. The person I stayed with last night has a dog who hates my cat, so none of us got much sleep.” She looks down, picks a cat hair off her shirt. “How’s your son?”

  “He’s wonderful,” Marin says. “He’s actually the reason I’m here.”

  The other woman tenses. “I don’t understand.”

  “You might have heard from Sal—sorry, J.R.—that I hired someone to kill you.” Marin keeps her voice low. Spoken out loud, the words are both ridiculous and horrific. “Obviously, I know now that he was never going to go through with it. I was conned by a con man. But between you and me, and I feel like I can trust you with this, I really did want you dead. I had already lost my son, and it felt like you were trying to take away the only family I had left. I was, to put it mildly, not in a good place.”

  McKenzie nods. It’s almost imperceptible, but Marin catches it.

  “Have you heard from Julian?” Marin asks.

  McKenzie shakes her head. “Not since the day he took the ransom photo. J.R. suspected that he was going to screw him out of the money you paid him and disappear, and it seems that’s exactly what he did.” She offers a tiny smile. “Good thing you didn’t get hosed for another two hundred and fifty thousand.”

  Marin uses her foot to push the duffel bag forward until it touches the other woman’s leg. “Yeah, good thing. Or else I wouldn’t be here to give it to you.”

  McKenzie frowns. She glances down at the bag, then back up at Marin. “What are you talking about?” She looks around. “Is this some kind of trick?”

  “No trick,” Marin says. “I paid someone to kill you, and whether it was real or not, I’ve been living with the knowledge that I sincerely wished you dead. I did change my mind, and I did call it off. But still, it was wrong, and I can’t live with that. Especially now that I have my son back.”

  McKenzie opens her mouth to speak, but no words come out. She shuts it again.

  Marin stands up. “So this is me, making amends. We could have had you charged with extortion, but Derek told the police he believed you were a victim in all this, too. I don’t personally believe that; I think that’s his guilt talking. I think you’re a smart young woman, and that you know exactly what you’re doing to the rich men you shake down. In a lot of ways, it feels like I’m rewarding you for being a shitty person who tried to ruin my life. But I need to sleep at night with a clear conscience, knowing that I at least tried to make up for the things I did. I paid someone a quarter of a million dollars to take your life, and now I’m paying you a quarter of a million dollars to make up for it. Keep it, donate it, burn it, I don’t give a shit.”

  McKenzie is staring at her, stunned, waiting for a punchline that isn’t coming.

  “Also,” Marin says, “you were kind to my son. Bash told me you stayed with him in the wine cellar. You held his hand, you hugged him when he got scared, you told him everything was going to be okay. Bash liked you. He calls you the pink-haired lady. He says you were his friend. So I threw in a little something extra.”

  McKenzie swallows. “He’s a really sweet boy,” she says, finally finding her voice. “And . . . thank you. For this. My mom is sick. This will . . . this will help.”

  “You’re welcome. By the way, you should go back to the pink. It suited you.”

  Marin leaves the bag on the floor and walks out, imagining the look on the younger woman’s face when she unzips it and sees the Christian Louboutins she’d admired when she broke into Marin’s house sitting on top of the pile of cash.

  All right, karma. We’re square.

  Chapter 34

  It’s the first Tuesday of the month.

  Marin pulls into the parking lot of Big Holes. She can’t remember the last time she was nervous attending a group meeting—probably not since the first time she came, but back then it was tempered by grief, and shock. She can see from the cars in the lot that Simon is already here, as is Lila. Frances, too, of course. And also Jamie, the newbie, whose car Marin parks next to.

  She’s been in touch with them all individually since the news broke a month earlier. She and Derek refused all interviews, but they did issue a statement expressing their gratitude for the safe return of their son. She really doesn’t know if the group is okay with seeing her today. It was Frances’s idea to do this, but Frances is in a different emotional space than the others.

  And now, so is Marin.

  She looks at Sebastian in the rearview mirror; he’s sitting in the back in his booster seat. He grins at her reflection, and she grins back. “You ready, honey bear?”

  “I want the rainbow sprinkle donut,” he says. “Will there be toys inside?”

  “Ooh, I don’t know.” Marin unbuckles her seat belt and gets out. “Maybe not toys. But definitely donuts. All kinds of donuts. We won’t stay too long, okay? Just a quick hello. Usually this meeting is for grown-ups, but Frances wants to meet you.”

  “Who’s Frances?”

  “She’s my friend. She’s the really nice lady who owns the donut shop.” Marin releases his booster seat belt and hoists him out. Their hands automatically link as they walk across the parking lot. It’s am
azing how after sixteen months of being away from him, their hands still know to do that, how to find each other.

  “Does she have kids?” he asks hopefully.

  “She did,” Marin says, and Sebastian doesn’t press it further.

  She opens the door to Big Holes. Nobody is behind the counter and, as is usual at this time of the afternoon, there are only a few customers at the front, all regulars. Heads turn as she passes through with Sebastian, and she returns their smiles with a warm one of her own. When she gets to the back room, she takes a deep breath before pushing the door open.

  She hopes this is a good thing. She hopes this doesn’t hurt anyone.

  “Surprise!” they shout, and Sebastian jumps, his hand slipping out of hers.

  She looks down at him, concerned, but she doesn’t need to be. Her son is absolutely thrilled, clapping his hands and laughing at the sight of a dozen helium-filled balloons bumping up against the ceiling, dangling curly streamers all the way down to the floor. In the middle of the room sits a pile of assorted donuts, and a Paw Patrol cake with blue and white icing. A large sign hanging above it reads, simply, Sebastian.

  Frances gets to them first, smothering them both with hugs and kisses. And then it’s Simon, with tears, followed by Jamie and her shy smile, and then finally Lila, who’s brought her two younger children. There’s music and presents—So many presents, Mommy!—and Sebastian makes a beeline for the sprinkle donut at the top of the pile, which he promptly offers to one of Lila’s kids.

  Marin was worried that it would be hard for them to see her son, alive and well and thriving, even though they’d all reassured her on the phone beforehand that it would be fine. She can see now that it is. They’re all parents. Whether their kids are with them or not, they’re genuinely delighted to be in the presence of a child they’ve talked about so often, a child they’ve wished for, and prayed for.