An Honest Lie(32)

“Close the door on the way out, will you?” Shanna wasn’t looking at her; she was frowning at her Scrabble board. Both women had always been warm to her, so the whole situation made Summer feel uneasy. The first bell rang for bedtime. Everyone would be heading to their rooms now, so if Summer wanted to make it back to Kids’ Camp in time for second bell, she would have to leave now. Instead of turning to the hallway that would lead her to the dorms, she cut a left and went back to her mother’s room. She’d wait there all night if she had to.

Summer woke. She’d fallen asleep on her mother’s bed, her arm trailing the rug. Disoriented, she sat up. She thought she’d heard a scream. Glancing at the digital wall clock, she saw that it was 3:36 in the morning. Had she been dreaming? The room was the same it had been before she fell asleep, with the bedside lamp on and the door closed. She listened for some other sound to confirm she hadn’t been dreaming, but nothing came. It was hot, she realized, really freaking hot. Scooting off the edge of the bed, she slipped into her shoes; if the Airbus hadn’t left yet, she could catch her mother there. And then what? You’re going to get her alone somehow and tell her what you heard.

Summer stalled halfway to the door as a realization slipped like ice into her head: Taured. What would he do if he knew she’d been hiding under the Chevy, listening to his conversation? Had they noticed she wasn’t in her own bed, or had Sara covered for her? She reached for the door, determined to find her mother one way or another, and found it locked.

Locked? She tried again, yanking at the handle. Had there been a key? She tried to remember the first day, if Taured had given her mother a key, but there was no such memory. No, no one in the compound had a key to their room; she’d been watching people open and close their doors for years without keys. And besides, the door was locked from the outside. Mama installed a lock after you moved to Kids’ Camp, she told herself. That was it. And she probably left for her trip and locked up without coming inside. She pounded until her fists were numb.

Wherever her mother was, she didn’t know this was happening. Summer screamed until it felt like she’d swallowed broken glass. Her mother kept bottled water under the bed, so she crawled forward on her hands and knees, pulled out a bottle and, unscrewing the cap, gulped down the whole thing. The room was hot, too, like the air-conditioning wasn’t working. But someone would find her. They had to.

No one came for Summer until hours later. By that time, she was cried out, hungry and defeated. Sara’s mother, Ama, heard her pounding and had gone to get Taured, who came back with the master key.

“My God, Summer,” he said, looking at her in amazement. “How long have you been in here?” He looked rested, fresh, like he’d just gotten out of the shower.

Summer stood by the bed in socks, shorts and a T-shirt and asked in a half daze, “Where is my mother?”

“She’s gone, left on mission trip to Florida. Didn’t she tell you?”

“No,” Summer said numbly.

“She’s known about it for a while, Summer. I’m so sorry.”

That was it: that was the lie. He lied with clear, bright eyes and an easy smile. It wasn’t his true self; she’d heard his true self speak to Sammy. Summer, who was tired and hungry, began to tremble. Just yesterday, she’d trusted this man with her whole entire heart, and now she could barely look at him. The things she’d taken from the envelope were just feet away. If he found those...if he knew what she’d seen...

“She never came back to the room. I waited here for her.”

“She must have come back because she locked the door,” Taured said.

“It’s never been locked before,” Summer argued. “It was like someone locked me in here on purpose.”

“Why would someone do that?” He was frowning now, his eyes alight with curiosity. “No one wants to hurt you here, Summertime, you know that.”

She looked at his face: it looked honest...kind. When he smiled, creases appeared at the corners of his eyes. He smelled like soap and cloves—good things. He played with the little kids, tossing them into the air and tickling them until they squealed. He sang on some nights, while he played the guitar, and his voice froze everyone to complete stillness until the last verse.

The sins of the parents will be visited on the children.

“She always tells me when she’s leaving and she always says goodbye, so I was confused,” Summer said.

Taured seemed to look right into her when he said, “Did y’all have a fight? You certainly ran out of the cafeteria in a hurry...”

So he had been paying attention to more than just Feena and Jon. If she said yes, he’d ask her what the fight was about, but if she denied it, he’d know she was lying. Either way, she was royally screwed. She decided her best bet was distraction.

She kept her voice light so it didn’t sound like she was challenging him. “I’m surprised you noticed. You seemed to be very focused on what you were doing.” She could keep her expression scraped of anger, but her voice was another story altogether. Everything she said sounded like a challenge and she hadn’t intended—

“And what was I doing, Summer?” There was a threat dangling in his question.

Summer imagined herself standing on a tall ledge, balancing her weight so she didn’t fall. Her mother was en route to Florida, and she was stuck here for the next few months on her own. She would make it hard for herself by picking a fight with Taured. She’d seen what happened to the people who did it. Her dad, her drug-loving con man of a father, used to say, “Tell an honest lie when you need to.”