The Deepest Secret (12 page)

“Amy loves the color pink.” Owen speaks clearly into the microphone. “She’d eat Brussels sprouts if they were pink.”

Amy’s bedroom is painted a throbbing bubblegum color, her bedspread and curtains deeper shades of rose. There’s a fat fuchsia beanbag chair, and neon pink shades on the lamps. She’d begged for a bright pink carpet, but Charlotte had drawn the line.

Eve stands with Albert in his driveway. Next door, Joan and Larry Farnham stand in their own driveway, holding hands, the way they always do. Nearby, a man says to his cameraman, “Make sure you’re focusing on the mother, get it if she breaks down. People love that.”

He glances at Eve, through her, and then back to Charlotte and Owen.

“A terrible business.” Albert’s white hair stands in tufts all over his head, and despite the warmth of the day, he’s wearing a long-sleeved button-down shirt and corduroys. He’s gotten so small since Rosemary’s death three months before, shrunken inside his clothes. He used to figure so large in Eve’s life, a reassuring ballast. He had helped David nail boards over Tyler’s bedroom windows. Rosemary had searched for cotton gloves in Tyler’s size; she had glued tiny pictures of salamanders and creepy-crawly bugs onto sunglass frames so that he begged to wear them. And now Rosemary’s gone, and it’s just Albert, shambling alone through the rooms of his house.

Neil Cipriano walks over. “Any news?” he asks, and Eve shakes her head.

Sophie Wu pushes her way through the crowd, young and slim, her long black hair gleaming, every strand in place. When Sophie moved in, Eve had gone over with her basket of light bulbs and an offer to replace any that burned out. Sophie had shaken her head.
No, no
, she’d said with sympathy.
Don’t even worry about it
.

“This is crazy,” Sophie says. “I had to park at the top of the street.”

“It’ll be over soon,” Albert says, and Eve looks at him. Does he know something? But no, he means the press conference.

Charlotte and Owen have stopped talking and now the FBI agent is saying something in response to a reporter’s questions.

“We’d have noticed a stranger hanging around,” Sophie says. “Wouldn’t we? I mean, this is a dead-end street. It’s not like people can just drive through. But I’m not home much. You’re home, Eve. Did you see anyone?”

“I’d have to think about it.” How can she be intentionally dangling the thread of suspicion? Keeping silent was one thing, but when did she decide to start lying? She doesn’t want to be this person. She wants this person to stop talking.

“You ask me, it had to be someone who knew Amy’s comings and goings.” Neil’s got his hands shoved into the pockets of his pressed khakis, his blue button-down shirt open at the collar and the cuffs neatly rolled up. His cheeks gleam, closely shaven.

He can’t mean it. He can’t know what he’s saying.

“The police warned me to be alert for people who’ve suddenly changed their appearance or their routine,” Albert says. “Maybe gone missing for a period of time.”

“Like who?” Sophie wants to know.

“Like one of us,” Neil replies baldly.

Eve had driven right past their houses at four in the morning, a time she never left her home. She’d been intent on getting to the carwash, and she’d been paralyzed with fear driving past the police cars parked in front of Charlotte’s house. She hadn’t looked to see if any of her neighbors was watching. Had one of them seen her return an hour later, tires splashing through the puddles, her bumper hanging low as rain clouds roiled overhead?

“Really,” Sophie says, but she’s not looking at Eve. She’s eyeing the Farnhams, standing just a few yards away. She lowers her voice. “Don’t you think it’s strange that no one’s ever seen inside their house? They never leave even their garage door open.”

It was true. Larry and Joan parked their cars in their driveway, and Larry wheeled his lawn mower out the side entrance. They kept their drapes closed and slipped in and out of their front door, barely opening it wide enough to let themselves inside. Eve couldn’t wait for the sun to go down so she could pull open the drapes. She kept the windows opened at night, whenever the weather allowed. She chafed at being closed up indoors, but the Farnhams seemed to welcome it. Sophie’s right: it is strange.

“The police searched their place,” Albert says mildly, and Sophie testily replies, “Not until today. They weren’t home last night. The police asked if I knew where Larry and Joan were, and I told them I didn’t know.”

“Well, it is the weekend,” Neil volunteers. “People do go out.”

“Not them,” Sophie says. “I don’t think they have any friends. It’s just the two of them.”

Albert looks thoughtful. “Amy
was
over there a lot.”

Not Albert, too. “Only because Larry was building a goldfish pond,” Eve says.

“Wow, Eve,” Sophie says. “I never imagined you’d be sticking up for him.”

“I’m not,” Eve protests, but no one’s listening. Charlotte’s talking into the microphones and cameras again, and everyone has turned to watch her. Eve risks a glance down the street toward her garage. The door’s closed, hiding her car. She’d pulled the car in so far that the fender had bumped the wall. She imagines she can hear it ticking.

HOLLY

“M
y mom’s freaking out,” Zach says. “She says there’s a predator loose. I can’t even bike to work. She has to drive me.”

Tyler leans back in his desk chair. He’s been going through his photographs, the ones he keeps in his bottom drawer—Sophie tipping a bottle over a glass; Charlotte sitting in her armchair with her zebra-print reading glasses perched on her nose; Amy crouched by her old dollhouse, reaching in; Dr. Cipriano holding up a measuring tape to his basement wall. Tyler taps them together and slides them back into their hiding place behind the box of printer paper. “Sucks,” he says with feeling. He can’t remember the last time Zach called him on the phone. They usually text or message each other on Facebook.

“She’s calling people to form a watch group. She call your mom yet?”

“I don’t know.”

“She will.”

Zach’s mom and Tyler’s mom weren’t friends, though. They pretended to get along, but Tyler and Zach both know it’s not real. Their moms smile and say polite things, but they don’t hang out, not like Tyler’s mom and Charlotte always do. But when Zach’s family moved to a bigger house a few miles away, Tyler’s mom had seemed sad.

“You see anything?” Zach says. “You were right there, man. Like
CSI
.”

But Tyler hadn’t been looking out the windows the whole time. He’d been gaming; he’d gone into the kitchen for a snack. If only he’d been paying attention. He could have saved Amy. “Want to come over?”

“No way my mom will let me. You come over here.”

“I’ll ask.”

They hang up. In sixteen minutes, Tyler can leave his room. Though it won’t really be sixteen minutes. It’ll be seventeen minutes, maybe even eighteen, before his mom knocks. She always makes him wait an extra minute or two, just to be sure. Clocks have a way of slowing down or speeding up, she says. He used to fight with her about it when he was little. It wasn’t just about that minute; it was everything else, too. He wanted to go to McDonald’s, ride a roller coaster, visit the ocean. He blamed his mom for making him stay inside, but she never budged. She only shook her head and looked sadly at him.
I’m sorry
, she’d say, and he’d retorted,
If you were really sorry, you’d say yes
.

Then one night Melissa came into his room and stood there, arms crossed, glaring at him as he lay sprawled in his bed.
You don’t remember what it was like
, she’d said.
But I do. So cut it out
.

He puts his head back against the wall. The poster across from him reads
Play the Lottery. Win
.

Amy was always crawling into places she didn’t belong: in Tyler’s
fort, up that tall tree in the Farnhams’ backyard. Once, she’d climbed into the backseat of Dr. Cipriano’s sweet Chevy Impala and lain down where she’d been completely hidden. Tyler had searched everywhere and had been about to give up when Dr. Cipriano came out and found her there. Tyler had been humiliated being caught playing hide-and-seek with a little kid. Amy had begged and begged after that, but that was the last time they ever played together.

He hadn’t told Detective Watkins any of that. He didn’t like the way she’d looked at him, as if she didn’t want him to see how curious she was about him. Sometimes people had a hard time being around him. Melissa’s friends were usually nervous the first time they met him. Tyler’s teachers could be extra smiley on Skype or have faces as flat as stone. Not all the kids Tyler hung out with could deal with it. Once, when he was five, a kid in his Cub Scout den jerked away when Tyler accidentally bumped into him. His mom had invited him to Tyler’s birthday party that year. But of all the kids, he was the only one who didn’t come.

Pizza’s a welcome treat, but Tyler’s the only one eating. His dad hasn’t touched his food, and his mom’s just pleating a paper napkin between her fingers. Even Melissa isn’t fighting him for the last slice. She’s picking off circles of pepperoni to stand in a greasy stack on the side of her plate.

“I saw Owen today, out with the search teams.” His dad’s red across his forehead and nose and down his arms. Normally, this is the kind of thing his mom would be all over, but she hasn’t said a word about it. It’s Amy. Her disappearance has shocked the normal right out of his mom. She just sits there, looking at him, looking at all of them, but not like she’s really seeing them. “I would’ve expected Scott to be there, too, but I must have missed him.”

Melissa looks up at the mention of Scott’s name. She used to have a major thing for Amy’s brother, back when everyone called
him Scotty. Melissa used to sit on the front porch and watch Amy’s house, waiting for a Scotty sighting.

“The police went all over the area,” his dad tells them. “Searching yards, knocking on doors. They’re going to bring out sniffer dogs and search helicopters.”

Wait until he tells Zach. “What kind?”

“AW139s.”

Monster aircraft, the newest breed. They don’t bring those out for nothing. If they couldn’t find Amy, nothing could. “Can anybody help search? Can I?” He’d like that. He’d look places no one else would think of.

“Oh, honey,” his mom says, and he knows there’s no point in asking again.

“Can we talk about something
else
?” Melissa says.

Why shouldn’t they talk about it? Doesn’t Melissa want to know where Amy is? Then he gets it: the way Melissa’s picking at her food, her face so white. She’s hungover. Her Facebook status has changed. She’s no longer in a relationship. Tyler’s never really liked Adrian, who always stared when he didn’t think Tyler would notice. Melissa’s called him on it more than once.
Dude
, she’d said.
Cut that out
. He remembers how worried Melissa had been about getting a boyfriend, about how she asked their mom why boys didn’t like her. He’d have thought that finally having a boyfriend would make Melissa happier and less worried, but in fact, the exact opposite has happened.

“Can I go to Zach’s?” Tyler asks.

“Why don’t you see if he can come over here?” his mom answers.

“He always comes over here. Why can’t I go over there for once?”

“Are you sure Mrs. McHugh doesn’t mind?”

“No.” Zach’s mom never makes a big deal about having to turn off certain lamps, but his mom always insists on coming in and making sure before she lets him go inside.
People change light bulbs when they burn out
, she told him when he protested, embarrassed at
the big production she was making.
They don’t think about it, so we have to
.

“Let’s give it a break, buddy,” his dad says, reaching for his beer. “This is a bad time for everybody. You boys can hang out later this weekend, okay?”

Later, his parents come and sit with him in the living room as he watches TV. His mom’s got a package wrapped in striped paper. Her face is puffy like she’s been crying. “Your dad tell you about your birthday present?” she asks, and when he nods, she hands him the package. “This was supposed to go with it.”

It’s flexible, and light. He shakes it, just to make her smile. His dad says, “What do you think it is?” and he answers, “A football.” This is from when he was little and thought every present was a football. His mom’s smile deepens to her eyes, and now it looks a little more real.

He tears the paper and pulls out a folded piece of dark fabric, with zippers and long sleeves. “A shirt?” he guesses, but it’s not. It’s shaped like a sausage. He turns it all around in his hands, then looks at his parents.

“It’s a film-loading bag,” his dad explains.

His mom leans over. “See, you put the canister of film in here and zip it closed, to keep out the light. You stick your arms through these sleeves so you can unwind the film onto a reel. What do you think? You won’t have to send in your film to your teacher. You can develop it at home.”

“That’s cool.” He’d never seen anything like this online. But that’s the way his mom is. She’s always coming up with ideas.

His dad stands. “Guess I’ll turn in. Been a long day. Happy belated birthday, Tyler.”

“Thanks.”

His dad goes down the hall.

Charlotte’s on TV, and so is Owen. Their house is behind them, with its black front door and that wicker rocker on the porch that
Charlotte and his mom sanded one year and painted red flowers all over. The television camera pans over the crowd of reporters shouting questions. Detective Watkins is there, her mouth in a line.

Charlotte wears her hair short and red like fire. Tyler remembers when it was a plain yellow caught back in a barrette. Her mouth tilts up on one side when she smiles, though she’s not smiling now; her brown eyes have a downward slant. Her nose is narrow and long. If Tyler looks at each feature separately, they look ordinary, plain. But put together on Charlotte’s face, they all work together. She wears lots of gold jewelry, black mascara, and has her toenails painted purple even during the winter when most people wear socks. There are lots of ways in which Charlotte and his mom are different, but that doesn’t seem to matter to them. This version of Charlotte doesn’t have on any jewelry. Her lashes are pale and her eyes wide, and it’s weird how much she looks like Amy.