Little Secrets(98)

“But I think Sal also did it to hurt us. Because he knew we would fracture. How can you not, when something like this happens? I’m pretty sure he thought we would separate. In fact, I think he’s tried to split us up before.”

Derek’s silent, but she can feel his rage coming off him in waves. It mimics her own.

“The first time you cheated, he was the one who told me he saw you.” It’s crazy how obvious this is to Marin now, when it never occurred to her at the time. “He said he was sitting at a restaurant by the window when you and the sales consultant from Nordstrom walked by. I didn’t believe him, and he got so angry with me, accusing me of being willfully naive. But then she called, remember? Left a message accidentally on my cell? I had no choice but to confront you. Looking back, I’m sure he orchestrated me finding out somehow. Wanted to get you in trouble.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“But we stayed together. I was pregnant at the time, which Sal didn’t know. Weeks later, when I told him about the baby, he seemed … defeated. Like he’d lost. At a game I had no idea we were all playing.”

“I’m going to kill him.” Derek’s voice is quiet, but there’s no mistaking the wrath behind it. “I’m going to rip his fucking heart out.”

Her phone pings. It’s Castro, with a text. Everything okay?

The PI should know better than to ask her if things are okay. Things haven’t been okay for a long time now. Marin doesn’t reply, but she feels a swell of grief rising inside her, overshadowing the numbness. She can feel herself teetering on the brink, right on that sharp, thin line between sanity and the abyss. If she doesn’t act now, she’ll lose herself forever.

She is not okay. She is very not okay.

One last push to keep it together, to finish this, before she lets go.

“I’m going to Prosser,” she says to Derek, straightening up. “I need to see him. Wherever he is, he’s somewhere on that farm. I know it. I feel it.”

They both know she’s not talking about Sal.

“Marin, please.” Derek is horrified. “Don’t put yourself through that. Too much time has passed, and we don’t know what Sal—”

“I need. To see. My son.” She’s not shouting. On the contrary, her voice is low. Controlled. And simmering. It scares him; she can see it in his eyes. “You can come, or you can stay here, I don’t give a shit. Either way, we’re finished.”

They both know she’s not talking about this conversation.

She reaches for her purse, then pushes past him and into the mudroom, where she grabs her coat, shoes, keys. When she opens the garage door from the inside, she’s surprised to see Castro’s car parked in their driveway, right in the middle of it, making it impossible for either car in the garage to exit. Marin walks over and taps on the windshield. Castro rolls her window down.

“Going somewhere?” the woman asks.

“Prosser. I’ll need you to move your car, please, Vanessa.”

“Get in, both of you,” Castro says, her gaze directed over Marin’s shoulder. Marin turns to find Derek right behind her. “I’ll drive.”





Chapter 31


They’re trying to pretend like everything is normal at dinner, when it’s so not normal, for reasons Kenzie can’t even begin to speculate.

Lorna, quirky on her best day, is agitated, muttering to herself as she picks at the tuna casserole, her eyes darting toward the clock on the stove every few minutes. The house is warm from the oven, and it’s a mild evening in general, but she’s wearing a quilted robe over her lounge pants like it’s the dead of winter.

J.R.’s plate is clean, but it’s not because he ate. It’s because he didn’t. He’s currently pacing back and forth in the living room, smoking weed, drinking beer, and trying desperately to get ahold of Julian, who isn’t answering his phone.

The small, ancient tube TV that Lorna keeps on the kitchen counter is tuned to Jeopardy!, which just started. I’ll take “What the Fuck Is Wrong with Everybody Tonight?” for six hundred, Alex.

“Motherfucker,” J.R. shouts suddenly from the other room.

Kenzie jumps, dropping her fork into her casserole at the sound of a beer bottle hitting the wall. It shatters, the shards falling onto the wood floor.

Across from her, Lorna is rigid, her eyes flickering to the living room, ears pricked. She relaxes slightly a few seconds later when she confirms that whomever her son is mad at, it’s not her. A plastic container of Two-Bite Brownies sits open on the table, and she grabs one, munching rapidly even though her plate is still half-full of tuna and macaroni. She mumbles syllables under her breath that sound like words, but Kenzie still can’t make out what she’s saying.

Is she really not going to ask her precious boy why the hell he just smashed a beer bottle against her living room wall? Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs, the both of them.

J.R. calls for her, and Kenzie leaves Lorna at the table. She steps into the living room, careful to avoid the shattered glass all over the floor.

“Julian isn’t picking up.”

“Uh, yeah, I got that.”

He glances past her into the kitchen, checking to see if his mother is listening. She’s not. Lorna has scooped a helping of casserole onto J.R.’s plate and is now studiously buttering a dinner roll. Kenzie rolls her eyes. For fuck’s sake, old woman, he said he wasn’t hungry.