Disappearance at Devil's Rock (27 page)

“Kate. Listen to me. You have to tell me the truth. Did you hide these pages in that book?”

“No, Mom. No . . .” Kate keeps talking and Elizabeth isn't really listening. Elizabeth paws behind her for the book and flips through it again. Earlier this afternoon she lingered over the pages of how-to-draw-torsos that feature heroic poses of Spider-Man and the Silver Surfer, and the comically large-chested self-portrait Tommy drew in the margin. There is no doubt she searched this book today and the diary pages were not there.

“Mom?”

If Kate hid the pages here, when would she have had the time or ability to do so? She would've had to hide the pages in the art book
after
she and Allison searched the room. Kate didn't come home until after the big search, and she and Kate spent the rest of the afternoon and evening together, she was never by herself until Kate went to bed. And even then her door was closed and it stayed closed. There's no way Kate could've snuck out of her room and into Tommy's to hide those pages with Elizabeth just around the corner, awake, and on the computer. Never mind somehow setting up the book to fall out of the bookcase later.

Elizabeth looks up at Kate. She says, “Me and Allison must've missed these somehow. Must not have seen them hidden in this book.” She says it but doesn't believe it.

Kate doesn't say anything.

Elizabeth picks up the pages. The once-harsh folds and creases add shadows to the sprawl of text and crossouts. The pages bend and crinkle in her hand, as though the paper itself is attempting to speak to her directly.

The first page is full of Tommy's handwriting. The text at the very top of the page has a big, loose, wavy X crossed through it. She doesn't read anything yet. The next three pages after are walls of text, in handwriting that is small, clustered, desperate. The fifth page is a repeat of a couple of lonely sentences.

Kate stands behind Elizabeth in the nowhere space separating the kitchen and the living room. Kate's arms hang limply by her side and she leans into her mother, forehead resting between Mom's shoulder blades. Elizabeth awkwardly reaches behind her and rubs Kate's back. In her other hand is her cell phone. Her head tilts and her shoulder lifts to help cradle the phone against her ear as she talks to Allison. The diary pages are pinned tightly between her arm and her ribs.

Elizabeth hangs up and turns around. Kate stays rooted to her spot. She's stopped crying, at least. Elizabeth lifts Kate's chin and says, “Okay. Allison will be here in like five minutes.”

Kate asks a lightning round of questions to which there are currently no answers. “Why did they go with Arnold? How could they do what—what they did? To that poor old guy? Did they—why would they let Arnold make them do those things? Why didn't Tommy help? What was Tommy talking about at the end? I don't get it. Any of it. Why—” she stops before asking
Why didn't he try to tell anyone what was happening?
Kate looks at the crinkly pages under Mom's arm and knows that he did try.

Elizabeth: “I don't know, honey. There's a lot of things that I don't know.”

Kate: “Did Tommy tear out—”

Elizabeth stops her. “Look. I can't. Not right now. I, um, need to call Nana, too. Before Allison gets here. You okay for now?”

Kate says, “Yeah,” only because she is supposed to.

Elizabeth rests a hand on Kate's head. “Go wash your face and have a drink. Warm milk, maybe? I'll be right with you. And we'll talk to Detective Allison together when she gets here.”

Kate walks down the hall. She hears Elizabeth say, “Mom. It's me,” into the phone in a papier-mâché voice.

Kate wanders into her bedroom instead of the bathroom and
closes the door gently. Whatever was in the room and freaked her out earlier was gone. She isn't afraid anymore. She goes over to her bed and picks up her phone off the floor. She flips through her multiple pages of apps, tempted to turn on the surveillance camera again to watch and listen to Mom as she talks to Nana.

Kate navigates to her contacts list instead and calls Josh. He gave her his phone number earlier when she was over at his house. Their shooting hoops together didn't last long. Mrs. Griffin called Josh in to wash up for dinner after only like ten minutes out in the driveway, even though she'd never mentioned to Kate that they were close to eating dinner. Kate hopped on her bike, and before the garage door closed and Josh was swallowed up by the house, she asked for his phone number. More like she demanded it.

Josh doesn't pick up, and the call goes to voice mail. She calls again. He picks up on the third ring. He says, “Hello?” in a voice that doesn't sound very you-just-woke-me-up.

“It's me. Kate.”

“Oh, hey. What's going on? Did something happen?”

She says, “We found the rest of Tommy's diary pages.”

“You found it?”

“Yeah. In his room. Like he left them for us to find, you know.” She stops and waits for Josh to have to say something.

“Um, okay. Wow. What does he say?”

Kate gets right to the point. She doesn't think Mom will be on the phone long with Nana, so she'll have to hang up soon. “Tommy wrote about what happened with Arnold, about when you guys went to some old house or something and then all helped beat up and like, what,
stab
some old guy with pieces of glass. I mean, holy shit.” Kate couldn't believe that Tommy not only watched but took part in the violence and then never went to the police himself or told anyone about
what happened. That he would ever be part of such a horror show of events, and then make it worse by doing nothing, will forever mar how she feels about her big brother. She'll always wonder if there were other terrible secrets that he kept.

Josh whimpered, a sound a mouse might give after finally being stomped on by the petrified elephant. “Oh my God . . .”

“It was his uncle or something, right?”

“Yeah, I guess—”

“Josh, did you guys kill him?”

“No. My God, no. He was hurt bad but he was alive when we left, I swear.”

“Oh, so he was like totally okay then.”

“I don't know. I don't know. We don't know anything about him.”

“Why didn't you tell anyone about this? Why are you guys hiding—”

“We didn't know what to do! And we didn't know how it happened, we never meant to hurt anyone. We were drunk and we didn't know how any of it could've happened. We were pushed into it and didn't—”

“You should've stopped, said something! Done something, anything! Why didn't you do anything, Josh?”

“We were so scared. I swear, we weren't trying to protect him or nothing.”

“So, what, you guys were scared of getting in trouble? Didn't care about the guy at all?”

“No. It's not like that. I mean, yeah, we were scared about everything, and Arnold, when he drove us back, he threatened to hurt us, to kill us, I swear, and he said he'd hurt you guys too if we ever said anything to anyone.”

It's not as easy to tell if Josh is lying when he's on the phone. “How about now, then? Or a week ago? Tommy is missing, you know? Gone. And you don't tell anyone about this guy? I don't understand why
you didn't even say anything about Arnold that first night Tommy was gone.”

Josh is crying. “I know, I know, but you don't understand. Arnold, in the car right after, he was freaking out, going crazy driving like a hundred miles an hour, drove right at a tree saying he was gonna do it, he was gonna do it! and swerved away at the last second, saying he was gonna do it. And he was yelling that he'd tell the cops it was all us, our idea, we broke into his house, we'd all get it for what we did to his uncle. Juvie. He kept saying juvie, and we wouldn't last five minutes in juvie. And then he said he'd find us before that anyway and do the same thing we did to his uncle to us and our families, only he'd make it count. He said that a bunch of times, making it count, and like from now on he'd be watching, watching us all the time. He kept saying—”

“Josh—”

“Wait, listen. That same night he was outside my window, standing there, looking in at me, watching and I was so scared because he wasn't lying, and he's been there like every night after and oh, shit, Kate, you gotta understand, we didn't know—”

Kate: “I can't believe you wouldn't help us find Tommy. That you'd protect Arnold because you're scared.”

“No, it's not like that. We're not protecting him. We were trying to protect you guys, and protect Tommy, too. I swear. Not him—”

Kate is about to demand that Josh tell her why they snuck out to Borderland that night, but Mom knocks on the bedroom door lightly and then opens it.

She says, “Kate? Are you on the phone? Who are you talking to?”

Kate says, “It's Sam.” The lie surprises her with how quick it is, and how easy it still is to lie. She hates the easiness. She says into the phone, “I have to go. The detective is on her way here, and I have to talk to her.” Kate sounds robotic and knows it. “I'll talk to you later. Bye.”