An Honest Lie(23)

Her mother’s words—“new meat”—were still echoing in her head. What had she meant by that? It had sounded so ugly. And if her mother was opposed to bringing back new members, why was she going on those mission trips, anyway? But Summer already knew the answer to that: the mission trips had been chosen for her mother. People were assigned to jobs based on their strengths, and it was their duty to serve the community with those strengths. Summer served here, leading the younger girls by example. And what type of example are you setting now? she thought, keeping her eyes trained on the guard shack. The carport looked different than the last time she was there: there were three SUVs this time, a shiny new RV—an Airbus—with a lightning bolt painted on the side and parked horizontally, taking up six spots, and a black convertible BMW that looked brand-spanking-new, as her daddy used to say. She walked alongside the RV, and when she got to the driver’s-side door, she tried the handle. It was open.

Climbing into the driver’s seat, Summer closed the door gently behind her and looked around. Everything smelled new. She leaned around the front seat to see into the back. The gut of the RV had a living room preceded by a small kitchen. To the rear of that were two closed doors that must be the bedroom and bathroom. There was no indication it had been lived in. Reaching across the passenger seat, she opened the glove box. When she was little her dad had kept Tootsie Rolls in the glove box. She pressed the button that sprang the little door open and found a pile of notebooks stacked inside. Summer's forehead creased together as she reached inside to retrieve one. Opening it, she saw with surprise that it wasn’t a notebook at all, and she was staring at a photo of her mother, but the name beside it didn’t match. Staci Cartright, it said. Born August 3. That was not her mother’s name or birthday, and yet the passport she was holding said it was. Shaking her head, Summer reached for another. They were all photos of her mother, matched with strange names. She put them all back as she’d found them and moved this time to the stack of driver’s licenses, bound by a rubber band. Summer found her mother’s real driver’s license. She squinted at the address: Forsythia Drive. It was the old one, the apartment they’d left in the middle of the night. According to the front of the card, it was expired. Among the other cards, she found another face that actually matched the name: it was Feena’s father, Jon Wycliffe, his thinning hair limp across his forehead, his eyes two dead brown puddles. They were from a place called Rolla, Missouri. She stared at his photo long and hard, wondering if Feena got her looks from her mother.

She put everything back as she’d found it except her mother’s expired driver’s license and Jon Wycliffe’s—which she slid into her back pocket. The last place she looked was in the large armrest between the driver and passenger seats. Popping it open, Summer stared inside: it was messy, unlike everything else in the RV: a polaroid camera, a pack of Doublemint gum, a handheld voice recorder and two pairs of rolled-up white socks. She heard a door slam and instinctively ducked her head, thumping the armrest closed and sliding down in the driver’s seat so that her body was half under the steering wheel and her legs jutted awkwardly toward the pedals. Footsteps and voices. Summer made a mewling sound in the back of her throat. If she were to be caught... She tallied up her crimes, knowing the harshest punishment would come from the stolen items in her pockets. They’d be angry she’d used the key and snuck out, even more that she’d gone through the RV without permission, but Taured hated stealing—said it was the most dishonorable of all the sins.

The driver’s-side door was still open and unlatched; she pushed on it roughly with her shoulder. It would leave a bruise, but it opened enough for Summer to wriggle out from under the wheel and drop to the asphalt. She hit the small of her back on the step as she went down, landing on her haunches. The pain was sharp and she gasped from it, clapping a hand over her mouth. They were on the other side of the RV now, and any minute one of them would walk around the front of the vehicle and see her, crouched and panting. She pushed the door closed silently with her palms, but there wasn’t enough force to latch it. Two men: Taured and someone else. Real fear flowed through her now, making her tremble, as if she were cold. But she wasn’t cold, it was a hundred and four degrees outside. The only option was under, so she dropped to her belly and rolled. Summer came to a stop faceup, the underbelly of the RV staring back at her. Her heart was hammering and she’d swallowed a good amount of dirt, but she lay as still as she could, afraid the slightest movement would alert them to her presence.

“The money is under the seat, passports and IDs in the glove box.” The voice belonged to Sammy, one of the men who went on the mission trips with her mother. Sammy did most of the driving, her mother had once told her. His boots stopped on the passenger side, so close Summer could see the yellow stitching on their soles. She blew out her cheeks, holding her breath, her hand still over her mouth, and followed the other set of shoes to the driver’s-side door. Nice boots: gray snakeskin.

“The photos?” Taured’s voice this time.

“In your car,” Sammy said. “Front seat.”

The driver’s-side door didn’t open as suddenly. Taured was hesitating. Summer breathed through the hand cupped over her mouth. It was the door. He never missed anything that was half-finished, half-closed or half-assed.

“You didn’t close the door.”