Dark and Shallow Lies(27)

What’s the point in having this stupid gift if I never see anything useful?

Honey makes pork chops and gravy that night, and I’m helping her wash the dishes when I finally ask, “Are there any new families around here? Since last summer?”

She gives me a funny look. “Why?”

I shrug. “I saw someone I didn’t know yesterday. Looked like a local. Not a tourist.”

Honey wipes her hands on the dish towel. “What kind of someone?”

“A boy.”

“Oh. Well, let’s see.” She hands me the towel to dry my hands. “Some new people moved in last fall. Bought the old Landry place, out near Blackbird Point. Cormier, I think their name is.” She covers the leftover pork chops with foil and puts the plate in the fridge. “I know they have a couple girls. Seems like they might have a little boy, too.”

“A little boy?”

“Maybe six or seven years old.”

“Oh.” Honey has no idea that when I say a “boy” these days, I don’t really mean a six-year-old. “Anybody else?”

“No. Not that I know of.” She shrugs. “But there’s an awful lot of swamp out there. Plenty of places to hole up and not be bothered, if you’ve a mind to live that way.”

I nod and put the clean silverware in the drawer. Like it’s no big deal.

But I keep thinking about those ice-fire eyes. The burning blue of them.

“You know, tomorrow’s your birthday,” Honey says after a few minutes. “I thought maybe we could get away for the day.

Get Bernadette to watch the store. Go up to New Orleans. Do a little shopping. Maybe take Evie and Sera –”

“I don’t wanna do anything.”

“I know it’s hard,” she goes on. “But it’s still your birthday. You deserve –”

“My birthday’s canceled this year.”

Probably forever.

Honey sighs. “You sure that’s what you want, Sugar Bee?”

“Yeah,” I say. “I’m sure.”

Honey turns back toward the sink. She wrings out a wet cloth and wipes crumbs from the countertop. “It might be a nice time for you all to celebrate Elora. To mark that special relationship in some way. Honor her.”

“You mean honor her memory.”

“It might help. That’s all I’m saying.” Honey’s voice is gentle. “It might bring you some peace.”

“I don’t need peace,” I tell her. “I need to know where she is.”

I escape to my bedroom and lie down in the cool air. My mind keeps going back to that drawing of Sander’s. étranger. The stranger with the missing face.

Someone we don’t know.

It could be Zale. The stranger outside my window. But what if it’s Dempsey Fontenot, come back home to steal another summer girl? Or Case? His familiar features distorted by rage and jealousy.

Or Mackey. Or Hart. Or Evie or Sera or Sander.

Because I know they all must have their own dark corners.

Or what if it’s Elora herself ? How well did I really know my best friend?

Or . . . what if it’s me?

Because I’m starting to think that I’m the biggest stranger of all. I’ve been home just over two weeks, without Elora, and I can already feel myself changing. I’m keeping secrets from Hart. And from Honey. Telling half-truths.

And I can’t really even say why.

Later, when I get up, I hear the shower running in Honey’s upstairs bathroom. I head into the kitchen to get some milk. I don’t let myself look at that picture. The one of me and my mom. Instead, I cross to the back window and part the curtains to peek out into the night.

I see the storage shed, and I think about Case again. Crawling around in there on his hands and knees.

I grab a flashlight and head out back. The wind has really kicked up, and Evie’s chimes are singing so loud.

Feels like maybe there’s a storm blowing in.

I push open the door to the shed, then I drop down low and shine my flashlight around the dusty floor. The rough wood bites at my palms and my knees. But I keep looking. I didn’t find anything yesterday. But this time, something tells me not to quit.

So I don’t.

I check every spiderwebbed corner and lift every single box to look underneath. I’m about to give up when something shiny catches my flashlight beam. It’s wedged down in a crack between two of the floorboards. I pry at it with one fingernail, but it’s stuck tight.

I dig a screwdriver out of the toolbox on the counter, and I use that to pry at it some more. And it eventually comes free.

I hold it in my palm and shine my flashlight on the little silver circle.

Saint Sebastian stares up at me. Patron saint of athletes.

Elora’s good luck charm.

The one she’s carried in her pocket every single day since we were twelve years old.

My hand starts to shake, and it makes it hard to turn the medal over. But I have to. I have to know. For sure.

And there’s Case’s name engraved on the back. So there’s no mistaking what this is. Who it belonged to.

It isn’t the name that stops my heart, though. It’s the dark red smudge across the name. Something dry. The color of rust.

I drop the Saint Sebastian medal like it’s on fire.