Dark and Shallow Lies(70)

“Zale gave it to me.” I spit out the truth. And then I wish immediately that I could swallow it up again.

Hart is staring at me. Confused. “Who the hell is Zale?”

“He’s Dempsey Fontenot’s son.”

Hart’s reaction is instant. He lets go of my hand and recoils like I sucker punched him. “That’s not possible,” he stammers. But I tell him he’s wrong, and his face turns to ash in the moonlight. “You need to tell me the rest of it, Grey. Right now. No more secrets.”

“Okay,” I agree, and I rub at my sore fingers. “No more secrets.”

So I finally tell Hart all about Zale. Starting with how I saw him outside my window. That very first night I was home. And once I get started, it all comes out so fast. In such a breathless rush. Like water over a spillway.

Secrets over the dam.

I tell him everything Zale’s told me. All about how he met Elora. How they saved each other. How she gave him her ring as a friendship token. That night on the dock. Right before she disappeared.

The night she sneaked away during a game of flashlight tag to meet her secret love.

Hart looks like he’s going to be sick, but he doesn’t interrupt me.

I tell him about what Zale remembers of the night their cabin burned, too. Thirteen years ago. How his mother carried him through the dark.

And how I know now that my mother was the one who started the fire.

I end with how Zale came back here to find Aeron. His twin. So he could lay him to rest.

And to find out what really happened to his father.

“Holy shit.” Hart tries to light another cigarette, but he fumbles with it and drops the lighter in the muck.

I explain that Zale was a hurricane baby. A boy born with all the power of the sea and the sky.

Just like Dempsey Fontenot.

Hart laughs an ugly laugh. It’s nothing like the sexy chuckle that used to make me swoon. “Like father, like son,” he mutters. “Isn’t that what everybody says?”

I tell pretty much the whole story, right up through tonight.

But I never mention how Zale’s touch makes me tingle. Or how his skin feels against mine. How I wonder what it would be like to kiss him.

I do tell him how Zale says Dempsey Fontenot didn’t kill Ember and Orli, though. And I guess that’s about all Hart can take.

“Jesus Christ, Greycie. Stop it! Just stop it! Listen to yourself for a minute!” Hart runs both hands through his tangled hair like he wants to pull the curls out. “They found them on his property. Not ten feet from his goddamn back door. And everybody knew he was a freak.”

“Honey doesn’t believe he did it. She says –”

“I don’t give a flying fuck what Miss Roselyn said!” he roars. He’s suddenly on his feet, and I’m still sitting on the boardwalk, with my legs dangling over the edge. I’m afraid to move. Hart’s never yelled at me like this.

“Zale wouldn’t lie to me.” My voice is so quiet. Like Evie’s. It gets lost. Swallowed up by the night sounds.

Hart looks at me like I’ve lost my mind.

“He wouldn’t lie to you? Jesus! You gotta be fuckin’ kiddin’ me, Grey! He wouldn’t lie to you? Listen to yourself! Everybody fuckin’ lies!”

Not everybody.

Not Zale.

“Goddammit, Grey! This asshole blows in here and fills your head with all kinds of bullshit, and you take every word that falls out of his mouth like it’s the gospel truth?”

I open my mouth to argue. But then I close it again.

My mind is racing. I want to tell him that’s not what happened. But I can’t.

Because what if he’s right?

“Fuck!” Hart whirls around and kicks a metal bucket that’s sitting up on the boardwalk. I duck and it goes flying over my head. I hear it land in the mud, and there’s the unmistakable growl of a pissed-off Willie Nelson.

“Don’t you get it?” Hart’s dark eyes are glowing with rage. It scares me. He’s got the same wild look he had that night he almost killed Case on the dock. “He’s the one, Greycie! Your fucking secret boyfriend in the woods!”

“I never said he was –”

But I know he can feel it.

“He’s the fucking one!”

My head hurts. Everything hurts. And I’m so tired. “What do you mean, the one?”

Hart drops to a crouch right beside me. His breath is hot and angry in my face.

“He’s the one who killed Elora.”

“No,” I say. I’m shaking my head. “No way. That’s not true.”

It can’t be true.

I’m panicking. I shouldn’t have told him. I should’ve known that’s what he’d think. Where his mind would go. Because Hart doesn’t know Zale. He doesn’t know how gentle he is.

How beautiful.

He’s never seen the aching honesty in his eyes.

But I have.

And I’ve felt it in his touch.

“Listen, Greycie. Just listen. This guy, he meets Elora. Like you said. And they strike up this secret friendship. Right?”

“Stop it.” I’m pleading with him. “It’s not true.”

“And she doesn’t tell a soul. Nobody. Not even me. Then . . . what . . . a month later . . . bam. Elora’s dead.” He runs a hand through his hair again. Those curls. “Missing. Whatever.” He looks at me, waiting for some kind of response. But I don’t know what to say. “Don’t you think that’s fuckin’ weird?”