Two Can Keep a Secret (24 page)

“You’re better at this than I thought,” Ellery says under her breath.

Officer Rodriguez frowns. “What?”

She raises her voice. “I said, okay.”

He juts his chin toward me, and I nod. “Yeah, all right.”

“And please keep this between us.” Officer Rodriguez levels his gaze at Ellery. “I know you’re close to your brother, but I’d prefer you not share what we’ve discussed outside this room.”

I doubt she’s planning to honor that request, but she nods. “Okay.”

Officer Rodriguez glances at the clock on his microwave. It’s almost six-thirty. “Does your grandmother know you’re here?”

“No,” Ellery says. “She doesn’t know
anything.
” Officer Rodriguez’s eyes flick toward me at the emphasis, and I keep my face carefully blank. It’s a little surprising, maybe, that nobody in Echo Ridge made the connection between his father and the twins before now. But Mr. Rodriguez was one of those private family guys that nobody saw much of. Even when you did, he didn’t resemble the photo Ellery showed me on her phone. He’d been wearing thick glasses as long as I could remember, and had gotten a lot heavier. And balder. Ezra better enjoy his hair while he can.

“You should get home, then. She’ll worry if she wakes up and you’re not there. You too, Malcolm.”

“Okay,” Ellery says, but she doesn’t move. She jiggles her foot again and adds, “I was wondering something. About you and Lacey.”

Officer Rodriguez cocks his head. “What about me and Lacey?”

“I asked you once if you were friends, and you wouldn’t answer me.”

“I wouldn’t?” His mouth twists in a wry smile. “Probably because it’s none of your business.”

“Did you …” She pauses. “Did you ever want to, you know, ask her out or anything?”

He huffs out a small laugh. “Sure. Me and most of the guys in our class. Lacey was beautiful, but … she wasn’t just that. She cared about people. Even if you were nobody at school, she made you feel like you mattered.” His expression darkens. “It still tears me up, what happened to her. I think that’s half the reason I became a cop.”

Ellery’s eyes search his, and whatever she sees there relaxes the tense set of her shoulders. “Are you still looking into her murder?”

Officer Rodriguez shoots her an amused glance as his phone buzzes. “Give it a rest, Ellery. And go home.” He glances at the screen, and all the color drains from his face. He pushes his chair back with a loud scrape and gets to his feet.

“What?” Ellery and I ask at the same time.

He reaches for a set of keys on the counter. “Go home,” he says again, but this time not like it’s a joke. “And stay there.”

Ellery

Monday, October 7

I’m sitting on Nana’s front steps, phone in hand. Malcolm left a few minutes ago, and Officer Rodriguez is long gone. Or maybe I should start calling him Ryan. I don’t know the protocol for addressing probable half brothers who, until recently, were on your short list of cold-case murder suspects.

Anyway, I’m alone. Something’s obviously going on with
Ryan,
but I have no idea what. All I know is that I’m sick to death of watching lies pile up on top of one another like the world’s worst Jenga game. I pull up the photo I snapped of Mr. Rodriguez’s army picture, studying the familiar lines of his face. When Ezra noticed the August 2001 date on my timeline I was afraid that maybe—
maybe
—we were dealing with a potential Vance Puckett paternity situation. I never imagined this.

I can’t call Sadie. I don’t know whose phone she’s been using, and anyway, it’s the middle of the night in California. Instead, I send the photo to her Gmail with the subject line
We need to talk.
Maybe she’ll read her email when she borrows the aide’s phone again.

I check the time; it’s barely six-thirty. Nana won’t be up for another half hour. I’m antsy and don’t feel like going back inside, so I head for the woods behind the house instead. Now that pieces are falling into place about Katrin’s involvement in Brooke’s disappearance, I’m not scared about walking through the woods on my own. I follow the familiar path to Fright Farm, trying to empty my brain of thought and just enjoy the crisp fall air.

I emerge from the woods across the street from Fright Farm, and pause. I’d never noticed how different the gaping mouth of the entrance looks when the park is closed: less kitschy and more forbidding. I suck in a breath and let it out, then cross the deserted street, my eyes on the still, silent Ferris wheel cutting into the pale-blue sky.

When I reach the entrance, I put my hand on the mottled paint of the wooden mouth, trying to imagine what Lacey was feeling when she snuck into the park after hours five years ago. Was she excited? Upset? Scared? And who was she with, or who was she meeting? Without Daisy or Ryan on my list of suspects, it’s back to who it’s always been—Declan Kelly. Unless I’m missing someone.

“Do you have a reason for being here?”

The voice sends my heart into my throat. I whirl around to see an older man in a police uniform, one hand on the radio at his hip. It takes me a few seconds to recognize him—Officer McNulty, the one who’s been interrogating Malcolm all week. Liz and Kyle’s father. He and Kyle look alike, both tall and broad with light hair, square jaws, and eyes that are just a little too close together. “I … was, um, taking a walk.” An unexpected rush of nerves makes my voice wobble.

I don’t know why I’m spooked, suddenly, by a middle-aged police officer. Maybe it’s those flat, blue-gray eyes that remind me too much of his asshole son’s. There’s something cold and almost methodical about how thoroughly Kyle hates Malcolm. It was a stroke of good luck that we didn’t run into him at homecoming the other night.

Officer McNulty eyes me carefully. “We don’t recommend kids walking alone in town just now.” He rubs his chin and squints. “Does your grandmother know you’re here?”

“Yeah,” I lie, wiping my damp palms on my pants. His radio crackles with static, and I think of how Ryan rushed out of his house this morning. I flop a hand toward the radio. “Is, um, something going on? With Brooke, or …”

I trail off as Officer McNulty’s face hardens. “Excuse me?” he asks tersely.

“Sorry.” Five weeks of Ryan’s superhuman patience made me forget that most cops don’t like getting pestered with questions from teenagers. “I’m just worried.”

“Worry at home,” he says, in the most
conversation-closed
voice I’ve ever heard.

I take the hint and mumble a good-bye, hightailing it across the street and back into the woods. I’ve never appreciated Ryan more—or at all, I guess, if I’m being truthful—and I feel sorry for Malcolm having to answer Officer McNulty’s questions day after day.

The damp of the early-morning dew is seeping through my sneakers as the leaves on the ground get thicker. The discomfort increases my annoyance with Officer McNulty. No wonder his kids are sour enough to hold a five-year grudge about a bad breakup. I realize I don’t know the whole story, and maybe Declan was a jerk to Liz. But she should leave Malcolm out of it, and Kyle should just mind his own business entirely. He’s obviously not the kind of guy who knows how to let things go. He’d probably even hate Lacey if she were still around, for being the girl Declan chose over his sister. And Brooke for breaking up with him, and …

I slow down as it hits me, and blood rushes to my head so quickly that I grab a nearby branch for support. It never occurred to me, until right now, that the only person in Echo Ridge with a grudge against every single person involved in Lacey’s death, and Brooke’s disappearance, is Kyle McNulty.

But that doesn’t make sense. Kyle was only twelve when Lacey died. And he has an alibi for the night Brooke disappeared: he was out of town with Liz.

The sister Declan had dumped for Lacey.

My heart squeezes in my chest as I start connecting dots. I’ve always thought that Lacey died because of
someone’s
jealous passion. I just never considered that person might be Liz McNulty. Declan broke up with Liz, and Lacey died. Five years later, Brooke breaks up with Kyle, who’s friends with Katrin, and …
God.
What if they teamed up to take care of a mutual problem?

I barely register that I’m in Nana’s backyard as I yank my phone out of my pocket with shaking hands. Ryan gave me his phone number yesterday, after the photo fiasco in his house. I need to call him, right now. Then movement catches my eye, and I see Nana racing toward me in her plaid bathrobe and slippers, her gray hair wild. “Hi, Nana—” I start, but she doesn’t let me finish.

“What in God’s name are you doing out here?” she shouts, her face stricken. “Your bed wasn’t slept in last night! Your brother had no idea where you were! I thought you had
disappeared.
” Her voice cracks on the last word, sending a stab of guilt through me. I hadn’t even considered that she might wake up and find me gone—and what that would be like for her.

She’s still barreling my way, and then suddenly she’s hugging me for the first time ever. Very tightly, and somewhat painfully.

“I’m sorry,” I manage. It’s a little hard to breathe.

“What were you thinking? How could you? I was about to call the police!”

“Nana, I can’t … you’re kind of crushing me.”

She drops her arms, and I almost stumble. “Don’t you
ever
do that again. I was worried sick. Especially …” She swallows visibly. “Especially now.”

The back of my neck prickles. “Why now?”

“Come inside and I’ll tell you.” She turns and waits for me to follow, but I’m rooted to the spot. For the first time since I’ve been outside all morning, I realize my hands are numb with cold. I pull the sleeves of my sweater over them and wrap my arms around my body.

“Just tell me now. Please.”

Nana’s eyes are red around the rims. “There’s a rumor going around that the police found a body in the woods near the Canadian border. And that it’s Brooke’s.”

Malcolm

Monday, October 7

Somehow, we’re supposed to still go to school.

“There’s nothing you can do,” Mom keeps repeating on Monday morning. She puts an overfull bowl of Cheerios in front of me on the kitchen island, even though I never eat cereal. “Nothing is confirmed about Brooke. We have to think positive and act normally.”

The message might go over better if she didn’t pour coffee into my Cheerios while she’s saying it. She doesn’t notice, and when she turns I grab milk off the island and top off the bowl. It’s not the worst thing I’ve ever eaten. Plus I got back from Officer Rodriguez’s an hour ago and didn’t bother trying to sleep. I could use the caffeine.

“I’m not going,” Katrin says flatly.

Mom eyes her nervously. Peter’s gone, already left for work, and she’s never been good at standing up to Katrin. “Your father would—”

“Understand,” Katrin says in the same monotone. She’s in the hoodie and athletic pants she wore last night, her hair pulled back into a low, messy ponytail. There’s a plate of strawberries in front of her, and she keeps cutting one into smaller and smaller pieces without putting any of it into her mouth. “Anyway, I’m sick. I threw up this morning.”

“Oh, well, if you’re
sick.
” My mother looks relieved at the excuse, and turns toward me with more confidence. “You, on the other hand, need to go.”

“Fine by me.” I’m good with being anywhere Katrin’s not. If she hadn’t played sick, I would have. There’s no way I can sit in a car with her this morning. Especially not
her
car. More and more, it’s sinking in that if Katrin did half the things we think she might have, chances are good she ran down Mr. Bowman and left him to die in the street. And that’s just for starters. I grip my cereal spoon more tightly as I watch her methodically start cutting up a second strawberry, and it’s all I can do not to reach out and smash everything on her plate into a pulp.

All this waiting is a nightmare. Especially when you know you’re going to hate whatever answer comes.

Mom smooths a hand over her bathrobe. “I’m going to take a shower, unless either of you need anything?”

“Can I take your car?” I ask.

She smiles distractedly on her way to the stairs. “Yes, of course.” And then she’s gone, leaving Katrin and me alone in the kitchen. There’s no sound except the clink of my spoon against the bowl and the loud ticking of the wall clock.

I can’t handle it for even five minutes. “I’m leaving early,” I say, getting up and dumping my half-finished coffee cereal in the garbage disposal. When I turn, Katrin is staring straight at me, and I’m struck silent by the cold blankness in her eyes.

“Why don’t you just walk to school?” she asks. “You like walking, don’t you?”

Fuck. She knows I followed her last night. I got too close on the way home.

“Who doesn’t,” I say tersely. I reach for Mom’s keys on the kitchen island, but before I can pick them up them Katrin lays a hand over them. She regards me with the same cool stare.

“You’re not as smart as you think you are.”

“And you’re not sick.”
To your stomach, anyway.
I pull the keys from beneath her hand and grab my backpack off the floor. I don’t want her to see how rattled I am, so I look away, even though I’d like one last chance to read her expression.

What do you know? What did you do?

I drive to school in a haze, almost missing the entrance. It’s so early that I have my pick of spots in the parking lot. I cut the engine but keep the radio on, searching for a news station. NPR is talking politics and all the local shows are breaking down the Patriots’ come-from-behind win yesterday, so I pull out my phone and search the
Burlington Free Press
site. There’s a blurb at the bottom of the Metro section:
Police investigate human remains found on an abandoned property in upper Huntsburg.

Human remains. My stomach turns, and for a second I’m positive I’ll puke up every single coffee-soaked Cheerio that I was stupid enough to eat this morning. But it passes, and I recline my seat and close my eyes. I just want to rest for a few minutes, but the lack of sleep catches up with me and I’m dozing when a loud rap on my window startles me awake. I look groggily at the car clock—it’s two minutes past the final bell—then out the window.

Kyle and Theo are standing there, and they don’t look like they’re about to give me a friendly warning about being late. Viv is a few yards behind them, her arms crossed, a look of smug anticipation on her face. Like a kid at a birthday party who’s about to get that pony she’s always wanted.

I could drive away, I guess, but I don’t want to give them the satisfaction of chasing me off. So I get out of the car.

“You’re gonna be la—” is all I get out before Kyle drives his fist into my stomach. I fold in half, and he follows up with another punch, to my jaw, that sends me reeling against the car. My mouth fills with the coppery taste of blood as Kyle leans forward, his face inches from mine.

“You’re going down for this, Kelly,” he spits, and pulls back for another punch.

I duck and manage to land a blow to Kyle’s face before Theo steps in and pins my arms behind my back. I stomp on Theo’s foot, but I’m off balance and he only lets out a slight grunt before tightening his grip. Sharp pain shoots through my ribs, and the entire left side of my face feels like it’s on fire. Kyle wipes a trickle of blood from his mouth with a grim smile. “I should have done this years ago,” he says, and hauls his fist back for a punch that’ll break my face.

It doesn’t come, though. A bigger fist closes over his and yanks him backward. For a few seconds I don’t know what the hell is going on, until Declan steps forward and looms over Theo. “Let him go,” he says in a low, threatening tone. When Theo doesn’t, Declan wrenches one of his arms so hard that Theo squeals in pain and backs off, hands up. Once I’m released I see Kyle sprawled on the ground a few feet away, motionless.

“Is he gonna get up?” I ask, rubbing my aching jaw.

“Eventually,” Declan says. Theo doesn’t even check on Kyle, just sprints past him on his way to the back entrance. Viv is nowhere in sight. “Fucking cowards, going two on one.” Declan reaches for the Volvo’s door and pulls it open. “Come on, let’s get out of here. No point in you going to school today. I’ll drive.”

I slump in the passenger seat, nauseated and dizzy. I haven’t been punched since ninth grade, and it wasn’t anywhere near that hard. “Why are you here?” I ask.

Declan turns the keys I left in the ignition. “I was waiting for you.”

“Why?”

His jaw sets in a hard line. “I remember the first day of school after … news like this.”

I suck in a breath and wince. I wonder if my ribs are cracked. “What, you knew something like this was gonna happen?”

“It happened to me,” he says.

“I didn’t know that.” I didn’t know much back then, I guess. Too busy trying to pretend none of it was going on.

We drive in silence for a minute until we near a corner store, and Declan suddenly swerves into the parking lot. “Hang on a sec,” he says, before shifting into park and disappearing inside. When he comes out a couple of minutes later, he’s holding something square and white in one hand. He tosses it to me as he opens the door. “Put those on your face.”

Frozen peas. I do as he says, almost groaning in relief as the cool seeps into my burning skin. “Thanks. For these and … you know. Saving my ass.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I see him shake his head. “Can’t believe you got out of the car. Amateur.”

I’d laugh, but it hurts too much. I sit still, with the peas on my face as we leave Echo Ridge for Solsbury, tracing the path I took to his apartment last week. Declan must be thinking the same thing, because he says, “You’re a little bitch for following Daisy.” He looks like he’s seriously considering turning the car around and leaving me in the parking lot with Kyle.

“I tried asking you what you were doing in town,” I remind him. “Didn’t work.” He doesn’t answer, just sort of grunts, which I decide means
point taken.
“When did you move here?”

“Last month,” he says. “Daisy needs to be around her parents. And me. So … here I am.”

“You could’ve told me about her, you know.”

Declan snorts. “Really, little brother?” He turns into Pine Crest Estates and pulls into the parking spot in front of number 9. “You couldn’t wait to get me out of Echo Ridge. The last thing you’d want to hear is that I’d moved one town over. No, wait, that’s the second-last. The
last
thing is me being with Lacey’s best friend. I mean, hell, what would the Nilssons say, right?”

“I hate the Nilssons.” It slips out without thinking.

Declan raises his brows as he opens his door. “Trouble in paradise?”

I hesitate, trying to figure out how to explain, when my stomach seizes. I barely make it out of the car before I bend in half and vomit my breakfast all over the asphalt. Thank God it’s quick, because the movement makes my ribs feel like someone just ripped them out. My eyes water as I clutch the side of the car for support, gasping.

“Delayed reaction,” Declan says, reaching into the car for the discarded peas. “Happens sometimes.” He lets me limp to the apartment on my own, unlocks the door, and points me toward the couch. “Lie down. I’ll find an ice pack for your hand.”

Declan’s apartment is the most cliché bachelor pad ever. There’s nothing in it except the couch and two armchairs, a giant television, and a bunch of milk crates for shelves. The couch is comfortable, though, and I sink into it while Declan roots around in his freezer. Something plastic digs into my back, and I pull out a remote. I aim it at the television and press the power button. A golf green with the ESPN logo in one corner fills the screen, and I click away, scrolling mindlessly through channels until the word
Huntsburg
catches my eye. I stop surfing as a man in a police uniform standing in front of a lectern says, “… have been able to make a positive identification.”

“Declan.” My throat hurts and my voice cracks, but when he doesn’t answer, I rasp louder.
“Declan.”

His head emerges from the kitchen. “What? I can’t find the—” He stops at the sight of my face, and comes into the living room just as the officer on-screen takes a deep breath.

“The body is that of a young woman who’s been missing from Echo Ridge since last Saturday: seventeen-year-old Brooke Bennett. The Huntsburg police department would like to extend our condolences to Miss Bennett’s family and friends, and our support to her hometown police department. At this time, the investigation into cause of death is ongoing and no further details will be released.”