The Deepest Secret (24 page)

Charlotte’s face is drained of color. She is two-dimensional. Only her green shirt gives her any substance.

Charlotte goes into the room to make the official confirmation that
yes
, this body recovered from the river is her daughter. Eve waits in the corridor. She feels the weight of every stranger’s gaze on her. There will be an autopsy and they’ll see that Amy fell. An accident. Just a terrible accident. The police will stop treating Charlotte as a suspect, and everything will begin the slow slide to normal.

Owen arrives. He’s come from the store, his collar unbuttoned. He’s raked his hands through his black hair and it stands up in stiff peaks. He looks around, past Eve. “Where is she?”

Does he mean his wife or his daughter? Eve points, and he goes through the door. Something’s buzzing, an irritating sound in this echoing hallway. It’s her cell phone. She pulls it free. It’s Tyler, wanting
to know where she is. She leans against the wall, the firm coolness against her shoulder, and texts back.
Be home soon
.

It feels as though she’s been gone for days. The longest she’s ever been away from Tyler without any fear had been the four or so hours when she and David had driven to the Amish furniture store to pick up Tyler’s big-boy bed. If she’d known it would be their last date together, she would have ordered a bed online and taken David out for dinner instead, somewhere candlelit, with linen tablecloths and real butter in small dishes.

The door opens, and Charlotte steps into the hall. Owen comes after. Charlotte looks around for Eve. Her face crumples when she sees her, and Eve holds out her arms.

“I’ll find an officer to drive you home,” Detective Watkins says, and Charlotte rests her head against Eve’s shoulder.

They wait outside. Clouds have rolled over the sun, erasing all shadow. The world feels free-floating.

“You let this happen,” Owen says. “This is your fault.”

Charlotte sobs and nods, her head moving against Eve’s shoulder. “I know. I know.”

“You are the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.”

“Owen,” Eve says, but he steps around her and goes right up to Charlotte. She cringes.

“You’re a shitty mother.” His lip is curled. He doesn’t look like himself. “You’ve always been a shitty mother.”

He wheels away.

It’s a long ride home, to where everyone is waiting to hear. How will she tell Melissa and Tyler? They’d loved Amy, too.

DAVID

T
yler had been born on a sultry evening like this. The heat had clung to David’s skin as he walked with Eve into the emergency room, the sun casting long shadows into every corner. The woman across the hall had shrieked for hours, but Eve had remained grimly silent during delivery, focused, her hair damp at her temples. Then they’d held their infant son, marveling at his perfection. They didn’t notice how ruddy his cheeks were. No one had.

He ties his laces and stands, stretches. Sometimes he feels that the only time he’s truly himself is when he’s pounding the pavement. He sees things clearer, finds patience, a keener understanding. Eve hadn’t wanted to begrudge him this time to himself, he knows, but it had been a source of irritation between them. She’d be waiting for him to come home to hand over the baby or to watch the children so she could run errands.
Can’t you run during your lunch hours?
she’d complain, which of course had been out of the question. Moving to DC had had its costs, but the freedom to run had been an unexpected benefit.

“Ready?” he says to Renée, and she nods.

The C&O Canal is peopled with shoppers and lovers, bikers, and other runners. He and Renée dodge strollers and laughing groups of teenagers. They don’t talk until it’s all fallen behind them and they’re alone. It’s a narrow canal, and shallow. Dying sunlight filters in through the branches that arch overhead.

“Guess where we’re going for our honeymoon?” she says.

“The Caribbean.” She’s told him that she loves the idea of motoring from island to island.

“Vegas. Ugh.”

“Vegas is nice.”

“No, it’s not. You know it’s not.”

“Tell Jeffery.”

“I
have
. He got a deal.”

“Doesn’t really matter where you go.” He says this jokingly. He wishes they’d stop talking about it, though.

“Doesn’t what I want matter?”

Yes, it does. He and Eve hadn’t had much of a honeymoon, just a long weekend on Lake Erie. He’d been in graduate school, and she’d been working small jobs. They planned to do it right, after he graduated, but then Melissa had come along. Still, he hadn’t given up. He wanted to take Eve to Greece, to crystal white sand and crisp blue skies. Even after Tyler came along, they’d made their plans, gotten as far as booking the flights when they’d received Tyler’s diagnosis. Eve never mentioned Greece again, and he’d quietly contacted the airlines and canceled their trip.

“I wonder if it even matters who he’s marrying,” Renée says.

They’re going up a hill. He tries not to show how breathless he’s getting. His calves are beginning to ache, a welcome feeling.

“We can’t agree on where to live,” she says. “He wants a new
build, out in Fairfax.” She’s getting breathless, too, but she’s matching him stride for stride. “You ask me, they all look alike.”

“Adams Morgan’s nice.”

“Exactly. Or Old Town.”

They’re leveling off now. Old Town Alexandria’s right on the river. But Eve wouldn’t be happy there. She’d want someplace hidden from streetlights and traffic. Someplace like Fairfax. They haven’t spoken since he’d gotten back to DC. He should call her when he gets home this evening, check in with her and the kids, but he has to admit he’s welcomed the distraction of work. It’s kept him from thinking too deeply about what he knows he has to do. “You could walk for coffee.”

“The restaurants. Museums.”

A flock of swallows sails past, small black shapes against the orange sky.

“Maybe I’m making a mistake,” she says. “Maybe I should’ve waited.”

I want a family
, she’s told David.

“How did you know Eve was the one?” she asks.

Suddenly, and with great certainty, Halloween their senior year in college. Eve had worn a pink flannel bunny suit, and he’d dressed as a dirty old man. When he went to pick her up, his cheeks peppered with black marker and his bathrobe hanging open, she’d started laughing. She laughed so hard she couldn’t stand up. Every time she tried to stop, drawing in her breath and straightening, she’d look at him and collapse into laughter all over again. He began to laugh, too. They finally ended up on the floor, sitting side by side. She wouldn’t look at him as she giggled and giggled. He looked at her, those silly floppy pink bunny ears perched on her gleaming black hair, the tip of her nose pink from laughing, and he’d been overcome with a wave of love and desire that left him shaking. All he could think was,
Will she have me?
“I guess I just knew.”

“I do love Jeffery. But it’s hard.”

Love isn’t always enough. “Ready to turn around?”

They reverse direction on the gravel path and head back toward Georgetown.

Their footsteps sound on the stones. The path winds beneath stone bridges. Ahead, the brightly lit brick buildings of Georgetown cluster on the banks. Leafy tree branches are black lace against the dark sky. They slow to a walk. He can tell she’s still upset. “You’ll work it out,” he says.

“It’d be easier if he were more like you.” She laughs. “Could you tell him that?”

He feels something bloom inside him. It’s been a long time since he hadn’t felt that everything he did was wrong somehow.

“Have time for a drink?”

He’s in no rush to get back to his quiet apartment. “Sure, as long as I’m buying.”

“Deal.”

They’re being seated at a table by the water when his cell phone buzzes. He glances at the caller ID. It’s Eve. He accepts the menu the waiter’s handing him and sets down his phone. He’ll call her back later.

STAR LIGHT, STAR BRIGHT

Z
ach texts him in the middle of fifth period. Then Tyler gets a bunch of texts, all scrambled. Tyler holds his phone below the computer monitor so the teacher can’t see. Every time she turns to face the board, he texts back, trying to sound as surprised as everyone else. What he really wants to know is, do the police know who made the call?

Tyler’s seen
CSI
. He knows he left evidence behind. But the police don’t have a record of his fingerprints or DNA. They won’t ask for a sample, will they?

His mom’s been gone all afternoon. She must be with Charlotte. She must know about Amy. She’s probably with the police right now, hearing about the kid who phoned it in, who left behind bicycle tracks and curly black hair. He texts her and she texts him back.
Be home soon
. He doesn’t even check into his sixth-period class. He
keeps his computer turned off, opens his desk drawer, and pulls out his photographs from their hiding spot. This one of Albert stirring something in a pot on the stove, this one of Nikki climbing into her boyfriend’s car. Why doesn’t he feel sad? He should feel sad, but what he really feels is sick. Then there’s Melissa’s footsteps on the stairs and she pounds on the door. “Ty? Let me in.”

She closes the door quickly behind her. “Did you hear?” She’s breathless, her eyes red and her face puffy. “They found Amy. She’s
dead
.” She looks all around his room like she’s never seen it before. “This is so messed up.” She slumps down on his bed and puts her face against her folded arms. Only when her shoulders heave does he realize she’s crying. He sits down beside her awkwardly, not knowing what to do. “It’s okay,” he says.

“You don’t know
anything
.”

Then their mom’s there. She comes into the room and he moves so she can sit between him and Melissa. She puts her arms around their shoulders and holds them both close. She murmurs things, soft and steady, that fall like snowflakes all around them.

First, Albert shuffles through the front door, holding onto Sophie’s elbow. “How’s Charlotte doing?” Albert asks.

He could walk right across the street and see for himself. It’s not as if he doesn’t like Charlotte, or vice versa, but they’re always using his mom to convey a message.
Tell him to help himself to my tomatoes while I’m gone
, Charlotte will say. Or Albert will say,
Give this to Charlotte, will you? The mailman put it in my box by accident
.

“Oh,” his mom answers. “You can imagine.”

Tyler looks up the street to Amy’s house, where all the lights are on. Not Amy’s house anymore. Charlotte’s house, now.

Then some ladies from Charlotte’s church, then one of Robbie’s bartenders. Tyler doesn’t understand why everyone’s here, but they all want to talk to his mom. Zach shows up with his mom, who
throws her arms around Tyler’s mom and cries in her hair. “I remember when she was born,” she says. He’s never seen Zach’s mom cry. He’s never seen her hug his mom, either.

“We had to park on the ravine road,” Zach says. “Your street’s a mess. That dude from Channel Seven wanted to talk to us, but my mom said no.”

Tyler wants to tell Zach how it felt realizing that Amy was lying in the water beneath his feet, how he’d raced through the woods and almost crashed his bike. How scared he is right now, jumping every time there’s another knock on the door. But Zach will tell his brother, who will tell his friends, and sooner or later, Tyler’s mom will hear about it. And that will be the end of Holly.

A girl with long brown hair and bangs stands close to Zach. Savannah. She looks taller in her Facebook photos. And skinnier. Then Dr. Cipriano, who wanders from room to room. There are strangers, too, people who know his mom and ask,
Is Charlotte all right? What can I do?
Tyler’s never seen so many people packed into his house at one time. It looks like a party, but it’s not. Everyone’s talking in low voices, saying the same things over and over.
I can’t believe … It’s so sad
.

All the kids are in the backyard. Melissa’s huddled with her friends on the trampoline.

Some kids look over. Is he supposed to recognize them? Maybe they’re waiting for him to wave and say
Hi
. But what if they’re not? “They canceled football practice,” Zach says, like this is a big deal, like this says everything. “They have the road roped off.”

The police are searching the woods. They’ll follow his bike tracks back to his house. Any minute, there’ll be the
whoop whoop
of the police cars outside and the banging on the door.

“I bet she was shot,” Zach says. “Or maybe she was knifed. I bet there was blood.”

All Tyler had seen was those floating strands of pale hair.

“She’d be pretty gross, all bloated and stuff.”

Tyler imagines Amy swollen up like a big fat balloon, her body pressing against the floor of the boathouse while he stood on top of it, and something roils in his stomach.

“You think she drowned, or did someone put her there, like Refrigerator Guy?” Zach says.

Their name for that old guy who died and left behind a refrigerator filled with the parts of a person. The dude’s son had come to clean up and found a head, arms, and legs all wrapped up in aluminum foil and sitting in the freezer. The newspaper said it was probably his ex-girlfriend who’d gone missing thirty years before. The old guy had to have done it. It wasn’t like she cut herself up and crawled into the freezer on her own.

“Stop it,” Savannah says. “Don’t talk like that.”

“Sorry,” Zach says, sounding like he means it.

After everyone leaves, it’s just Tyler and Melissa on the patio. Melissa’s quiet, her chin on her bent knees. From here, Tyler can see the sharp corner of Holly’s house cutting into the night sky. Clouds move across the stars, blurring them and making them unimportant, but they’re still there. Everyone knows that. They can see them for themselves. But no one’s seen Heaven.

Their mom comes out and sits with them. She looks tired.