Dark and Shallow Lies(81)

“But really it was the whole town,” I say. “All of us.”

“Tell me what happened, Grey.” Zale sinks down to sit with his back against a wooden crate. But I can’t stop staring at the black barrels behind him. “Please,” he begs. And I hear a lifetime’s worth of unanswered questions underneath those words. “He was my father.”

Zale’s pain and confusion float between us like fog. They’re genuine.

Real.

I feel the truth of that every bit as clear as Hart would be able to, if he were here.

Zale doesn’t know about what happened on the boardwalk. On that dark summer evening. After my mother set the fire to the cabin back at Keller’s Island. And if he doesn’t know what Leo did . . . then it’s not a motive for revenge.

For murder.

And if Zale didn’t kill Elora, he didn’t take Evie, either.

Hart was wrong.

He was wrong.

About all of it.

I think about the calm, peaceful feeling that Zale gives me. And I know it’s nice. It feels good. That fuzziness. But I realize it was never why I trusted him. Not really. Because that feeling never lasted long, and I could push it away if I tried.

I trusted him because he gave me so many reasons to. At first, because Elora had trusted him enough to share our special words with him. And because he cared enough to give me back Elora’s ring, when I didn’t even know he had it. But then, because of the way he treated me. His patience and his gentleness. The way he was honest with me, over and over, when he could have fed me easy lies.

I recognized the blazing sincerity in his gaze.

Felt the burn of truth in his touch.

Why did I ever doubt him? Why did I doubt myself?

I drop the hammer and move to kneel beside Zale as he reaches for my hand.

His fingers are like ice in mine. There’s no spark. No warm tingle. The flame has gone out inside him.

“Grey,” he whispers. “Please. I need to know.”

So I repeat the story Hart told me last night. I tell Zale how Dempsey Fontenot showed up on the boardwalk after the fire, cradling the body of his dead child. How he rained down fury on the crowd that gathered to gawk at him. Hailstones the size of grapefruits. And how Leo – Elora’s daddy – blew a hole in his chest.

How they hid the body.

Right here in the heart of La Cachette.

The hiding place.

And how they all kept the secret. Every single one of them.

All this time.

When I’m finished, it’s quiet for a long while. Zale drops his head to his hands and sits with the crushing weight of the truth on his shoulders.

“Where?” he finally asks me. “Where did they put him?”

I stand up and duck under the safety rope to pick my way through the stacks of crates and the rotting fishing nets. I work my way around the broken crab traps and the rusting anchor chains until I’m standing next to the middle barrel. I lay my hand on top, and Zale gets to his feet and makes his way through the scattered junk to stand across from me.

“Do you want to open it?” I ask, but I’m relieved when he shakes his head.

“You’re sure he’s really in there?” He raises his eyes to meet mine.

“Yeah,” I say. “I saw him myself.”

Zale takes his hands and lays them on top of the barrel alongside my own. I feel that faint tingle. Like the little mound of earth back at Keller’s Island.

The moment feels solemn. Almost like a eulogy.

“Did Elora know?” he asks me. “About what happened to my father?” I nod, and Zale looks hurt. I know he’s wondering why she kept it from him.

But I think about that little grave out at Keller’s Island, and I understand why. Because even when the secrets we hide in our pockets aren’t our own, the weight of them can still be enough to drown us.

Zale is studying my face. “Thank you for this, Grey.”

“I didn’t know,” I tell him. “You have to believe me.”

“Of course I believe you,” he says, like there could never be any doubt. Like he trusts me completely.

And I feel like shit again for letting Hart convince me that Zale could be a murderer. Or that Case could, either, for that matter. I should have known better. I did know better, deep down. But my whole life, Elora has been my candle. And Hart has been my North Star. I’ve always depended on their light to guide me. It never occurred to me I had the power to push back my own darkness.

“What are you going to do now?” I ask.

“Go get my boat. Take him home,” Zale tells me. “Lay him to rest. Next to Aeron.”

“Let me help you,” I offer. “I have to leave in a couple hours, but –”

He shakes his head. “This is something I need to do alone.”

And I understand that.

Zale takes my hand and walks me back across the boardwalk to the Mystic Rose. With the people all gone, it’s hard to ignore the peeling paint and the sagging boards. The weeds and thorny vines pushing up through the holes and all the little broken places.

He stops at the front steps, but I lead him around the house. To the kitchen door in the back. I need to put some distance between our goodbye and the bones of his father.

“Be careful,” I tell him. “The storm –”