The Deepest Secret (27 page)

He wanders past the Farnhams’ house and stops. There’s something new, a long triangle of light along one windowsill, where the blinds have been pushed against the glass and tilted up. Anyone could walk right over and look in. No one’s ever seen inside the Farnhams’ house, not even on Halloween, when Mrs. Farnham sits in her driveway with a big bowl of candy on her lap. Tyler stands there, thinking. He shrugs.
What the hell
.

There are a lot of things standing between him and the Farnhams’ house. He squints, planning his route. It’s like following that treasure map his mom made him, the one he’s stuck to his wall, crossing out the old neighbors’ name and printing in Holly’s instead. He takes an exaggerated step to the right, then to the left, then two steps ahead. He’s like fucking James Bond. He tries not to laugh, but it bubbles out of him anyway. He bumps into the wishing well, sending the wooden bucket spinning. He grabs at it, and the world teeters this way and that. He blinks, trying to remember what it was he was doing. Oh yeah.

A few steps later and he’s on the broad wood deck. Another couple of steps and he’s at the window. He curls his fingers around the windowsill and pulls himself up to stand on his tiptoes. Bricks catch at his clothes. He stares through the glass.
What the hell?

The room is packed with stuff. He’s never seen so much stuff in one place before: towering stacks of newspapers and books. Furniture filled with toys, dishes, vases. Dolls are
everywhere
, their hair curled and tied in big bows, their dresses in bright poufs of color. How do they keep from falling down? A crib’s been wedged into the corner, filled with blankets. A mannequin stands beside it, hand pointed up, her features smooth and pretty like she has no idea she’s not wearing any clothes. He grins.

“I told you when we got married.” It’s Mr. Farnham, coming into the room. Tyler ducks down, but he can still hear Mrs. Farnham say in a pleading voice, “I thought you’d change your mind.”

“You don’t change your mind about something like that.”

“Would it have been so bad? Would it really have been so bad? I would have done all the work.”

“Joan, honey. You know how I feel. I just didn’t want to share you with anyone.”

“Not even with our own child?” Mrs. Farnham’s crying, her words all choked.

The smack of a screen door. “Who’s there?” It’s Albert. “Come on out! Show yourself!”

“What’s going on?” Mr. Farnham’s standing right over him, inches away from where Tyler presses himself beneath the window.

“Someone’s sneaking around your house.”

“Where?”

Tyler shoves himself away from the wall. The sidewalk sails in front of him, leading him home. Panting, he lets himself in through the French doors. He feels in his pockets for his flashlight, but it’s gone.

EVE

I
t’s a horrifying errand. Felicia’s the one who insists that Amy not be buried in a dress she’d owned, and so Eve drives them all to Nordstrom, to roam the aisles in search of something sweet and pretty while the piano music from the lobby drifts upward; the cheerful salesclerks, the gleaming marble floors. They spin around Eve. She bumps into a rack of dresses, sending them swinging on their hangers.

Felicia brings dress after dress to Charlotte, who nods woodenly at every suggestion.
Yes
, the pale pink dress with cap sleeves and a big satin bow is darling.
Yes
, the lacy gown in tiered yellows would be just the thing.
Yes
, the sky blue dress with wisps of tulle peeping from beneath the full skirt is special. Charlotte’s been receiving emails at her business address, messages that run the gamut from accusation to outright death threats.
You should die you miserable bitch! Someone should KILL you
. The FBI’s looking into them all, and Charlotte’s been told to close her email account.
But what good’s a realtor without a way for clients to contact her?
Felicia’s argued. Charlotte herself doesn’t say anything.

Eve stares at the skirt of the dress she is clutching, the fabric cool and silky. She’s leaving damp fingerprints everywhere. “Why don’t we take a break and get something to eat?” Sit in a dark booth somewhere, no one looking at her with any particular interest, and she can hold a bracing glass of ice water to her forehead.

Charlotte doesn’t answer, her attention focused on turning over a dress tag to find the size. Over and over, she tries to grasp the small rectangle. Eve takes the tag and holds it so Charlotte can see. Charlotte blinks, looks up. Eve looks into Charlotte’s stunned eyes and realizes that there’s no chance of taking her friend someplace safer.

Detective Watkins is waiting at the house when they return. Gloria greets them at the door and takes the dress bag from Felicia. “Nikki’s upstairs, taking a nap,” Gloria says, and Charlotte nods.

They sit in the living room. Eve has no choice but to stay. Charlotte wants her. She’s holding onto Eve’s arm, so Eve sits beside her on the couch, Gloria on Charlotte’s other side. Felicia stands, her arms folded.

“We’ve gotten the autopsy results,” Detective Watkins begins, and Charlotte’s fingers dig into Eve’s skin. “There were multiple injuries down one side of her body.”

“I don’t understand,” Charlotte says.

“The pattern of her injuries makes it pretty clear she didn’t just fall.”

“Was she pushed?” Felicia says.

“No. The medical examiner believes her injuries are consistent with her being struck by a car.”

Eve’s sweating, in her armpits, down her spine. Her skin is covered
with goose bumps. Detective Watkins isn’t paying her the least bit of attention. She’s entirely focused on Charlotte. Still, Eve’s clammy, trembling. She feels as though she might be sick.
Shh, quiet
. She remembers cradling Tyler as a newborn, rocking him to sleep in the dim glow of his nightlight. She thinks of his round head, his even breathing, the barely perceptible puffs of air against her skin.

“A car?” Gloria repeats. “Someone hit her with a car. Who?”

It had been dark, rain splashing hard all around. No one could have seen anything. But they had video surveillance at gas stations, didn’t they? Had a camera caught her on tape stopping at the exit before turning right? They’d have her license plate number. They’d know she had headed in the opposite direction. Maybe she hadn’t escaped the camera at the carwash. What about when she’d driven to the auto body shop?

“So now you know.” Felicia’s furious, jabbing her finger in the air. “You made Charlotte take that polygraph. You made everyone think she was guilty. You didn’t have to put her through any of it.”

“She was just doing her job,” Charlotte says quietly.

“So you think someone ran her over by mistake?” Felicia demands. “Do you think they knew what they’d done and just left her there?”

“We think it’s likely, yes,” Detective Watkins says.

So calm, so even, these words of condemnation.
It wasn’t like that
, Eve wants to insist.

“I don’t understand,” Charlotte says. “They hit my child and just left her?”

“How did she end up in the river?” Gloria asks.

“Do you think she was alive?” Charlotte asks. “My God, do you think she could have been saved?”

No!
Amy had been gone by the time Eve found her. No one could have saved her. Detective Watkins keeps talking, words landing with terrible accuracy all around her. Amy hadn’t drowned. She’d fallen to her death after being struck by a car. Everyone’s listening,
Gloria with her fingers against her mouth, Charlotte’s face drained of color. A word pierces the fog.
Bruises
. Eve sits up. Amy had bruises on her upper arms.

“Maybe the fall—?” Gloria says, but Detective Watkins shakes her head. Amy had sustained those bruises separately.

Eve had grabbed Amy to her. She’d held her tight.

“Detective Irwin will be taking over the case,” Detective Watkins tells them. “He’ll be in touch with you shortly. You can talk to him about all of this.”

“Who’s he?” Felicia says.

“He’s from Homicide. This isn’t a case for Family Services anymore.”

Homicide
. The word is a knife. It presses against Eve’s skin, drawing a precise line of blood. She welcomes the pain.

DAVID

R
enée had offered to work through the weekend for him.
Your family needs you
. He’d liked her for that. She’s in the conference room when he opens the door to say good-bye. He’s leaving early, wanting to be home. She looks at him, and it’s clear she’s been crying. “You okay?” he asks with surprise. Just thirty minutes before, she’d been intent on her work, her head bent.

“Hold on. I’ll walk you out.”

She keeps close as they go down the hall. She walks a little unsteadily, but he thinks it’s not her ankle that’s bothering her. “What’s the matter?” he asks as they step into the corridor, and the door wheezes shut behind them.

“That was Jeffery.” Her eyes are green, startlingly so. “The wedding’s off.” She steps forward and his arms go up, automatically,
around her. She weeps against his shoulder. He feels her warm breath against his collar, smells the fragrance of her shampoo.

“Everyone gets cold feet.”

She shakes her head, rubbing her cheek against his shirt. “He says he doesn’t love me. He says he doesn’t think he ever loved me.”

He pats her shoulder. She’d never forget Jeffery saying that. Even if they reconciled. The words would lie between them and fester. “His loss.”

“I’m sorry.” She steps back and puts her hands to her face. “I know you have a plane to catch. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“No, it’s okay.”

“My whole life. What am I going to do?”

“Do you have anyone you can stay with tonight?”

“All my friends are Jeffery’s. Where am I going to go? I don’t have anywhere to go.”

“Stay at my place.”

“Oh.” She sniffs. “Yeah, that could be good.”

“He won’t have any idea where you are.”

“Yeah. Fuck him.”

“I can’t promise the bathroom will be clean, but you can run on the trail.” He fishes in his pocket for his keys, presses them into her palm.

“Yeah. Yeah.”

When he steps outside the terminal in Columbus, the air is humid and warm. He can feel the afternoon seep into his clothes, his skin. He walks to the taxi stand at the curb. He’s texted Eve to let her know he’ll make his own way home. He’s glad he doesn’t have a talkative cabdriver. He watches the familiar skyline in the distance as they drive down the highway, all the tall buildings poking the sky, beige and brown and black.

“The house with the gray roof.” He points, and the cabbie pulls the taxi into the driveway. The man’s got a radio program on, but David hasn’t been listening. Then Charlotte’s voice rings out over
the speakers. “That was nothing,” she’s saying, and he leans forward. “Could you turn that up?” he asks the driver, who obliges, just in time for him to hear, “Charlotte, did you harm your daughter?”

“That woman should be locked up,” the driver says.

The garage is cool and dark. Eve’s car’s there, but she’s nowhere to be found. He washes his hands in the small hall bathroom. Melissa’s things are all over the counter, her scrunching gel, her pinkhandled razor. He remembers when there used to be hair elastics everywhere, on the counter, underfoot, looped over a doorknob, twisted around Melissa’s wrist. In the kitchen, he pours himself a glass of water, glances at Eve’s color-coded calendar in the kitchen—black marker for Tyler’s dental appointments, purple for dermatology, and green for ophthalmology—and there in red,
driver’s test!
Tomorrow he takes Melissa in for her driver’s test. She’s already driving. He can remember her pedaling that little plastic car down the sidewalk with her bare feet. Her Flintstonemobile, Eve called it.

He’s pulling the mail out of the box, bill after bill after bill, when music thumps down the street and he turns to see a small white car headed his way. Brittany and Melissa sit turned toward each other, arguing. Brittany should have her eyes on the road, but she’s letting the car drive itself. She refocuses just in time to bump the car into the driveway and finally sees him standing there.

She straightens and reaches to turn down the radio, as Melissa climbs out. Brittany’s smile is absolutely false, and it disappoints him to realize this. She’s always seemed to be a transparent creature, and good-humored. “Hi, Mr. Lattimore.”

“Hi, Brittany. How’s school going?”

“Fine.” Another fake smile and she backs out of the driveway with a squeal, turns around, and heads for the corner. Whatever they’d been talking about hadn’t been about something banal like musical groups or smoothie flavors.

“What was that about?” he asks his daughter. She has Eve’s shining black hair, her slanted eyes. She’s wearing a green T-shirt of some
thin silky material and jeans with the denim distressed to white threads. Her fingernails are chewed to the quick and painted metallic blue; long jangling gold wire earrings swing as she trudges up the driveway. He loves her with an intensity that astonishes him.