The Neighbor's Secret(73)

FIFTEEN YEARS EARLIER

Annie felt Bryce watch her face as she flipped open her cell phone and read the text.

Meet me inside.

He had been there, right by the house, watching her for who knew how long. He cocked his head slightly toward the door, which was propped open for the caterers and their heavy trays.

Not like this, she wanted to object. She watched helplessly as he slipped inside.

“Excuse me,” she said to Bryce.





CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO



“What a beautiful family,” Lena said.

After the graduation ceremony, it had taken forever to get the Perleys lined up for a family photo because people kept stopping for hugs and high fives and gleeful “see you tonight!”s.

Lena took a step backward to better frame them within her phone screen. She forced herself to smile even though a cold lingering pressure remained in her chest from the morning’s conversation with Rachel.

The Perleys looked lovely, at least, and the photo’s composition would be good. Mike and Annie perched behind Laurel, and Hank kneeled in front, his arms flung wide. Whether by accident or design, they were color-coordinated in shades of blue that cooled the shiny vibrance of Laurel’s green gown.

“Say cheese,” Lena said.

“Not cheese.” Mike grinned. “Say time for high school.”

“Time for high school!” they sang out-of-sync as Lena snapped away.

“Hey Perleys,” said a tall balding man in a sports coat. “Want me to take one with Grandma in it?”

“Oh,” Lena demurred, “I’m just the photographer.”

“Lena”—Mike reached out his arm toward her—“get in the photo.”

“Come on, Lena!”

With a sweaty, sticky hand, Hank reached out to Lena, pulled her next to him. She allowed his warmth to melt the doubt.

Lena wouldn’t have done anything differently that night: there was no point in looking back.





CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE



Level five of Abe’s game noisily played out on Nan’s phone. So far, Jen hadn’t seen anything out of the ordinary.

Nan just wasn’t used to this generation’s exposure to violence. The Kingdom School didn’t even do lockdowns. It existed in some innocent alternate universe.

Jen glanced at Nan. She must be at least a little impressed by the graphics, which were clear and crisp and as professionally done as any game they’d ever bought. Abe had structured level five so that the player’s point of view was from behind a giant machine gun. When it expelled bullets, the entire screen shook.

Part of Nan’s concern was probably that the target appeared to be a human girl. When she was cornered in the otherwise empty room of the haunted house, the hero’s gun ripped holes into her flesh and she collapsed dead on the floor, gushing blood.

It wasn’t ideal, Jen could admit, but nor was it Abe’s fault that Corporate America had decided teenaged boys should maim things for recreation.

When the video ended, Nan focused on stirring her cappuccino with the tiny metal spoon, like she was giving Jen space to process the images.

“This is what video games are like these days,” Jen said.

She hoped her twist of a smile communicated that she agreed they were awful, but such was life.

“Yes.” Nan stirred the spoon faster. Clink, clink, clink. “But Colin was worried that the girl looks like a friend of Abe. That it’s cyberbullying.”

Clumsily, Nan rewound the video to the scene where the girl was first trapped in the gun’s graticule and paused the frame.

Lanky. Curly brown hair down past her shoulders. Dressed in jeans and hiking boots. Arms raised defensively, her mouth open in a scream, two dimples appearing in her cheeks.

Jen’s throat went completely dry. Laurel.

Nan was back to stirring the damn spoon.

Arguments ran through Jen’s head in Paul’s voice: You can’t kick out someone for a picture! Freedom of expression is a fundamental right! How can you be sure that’s even Laurel?

Jen felt her hands start to shake. To settle them, she wrapped them around the coffee cup. “What do you make of it?”

“I’m worried,” Nan said. “I may have dropped the ball here.”

Wait. What?

The new mother across the coffee shop swapped the gauze cocoon baby to the other breast and watched Jen with a beatific smile. She was not exhausted, Jen realized, but blissed out.

“I’ve been distracted,” Nan continued, “and Abe and Colin seemed to get along so well and—not that I’m trying to excuse myself, I obviously need to make amends—but I haven’t gotten to know him the way I usually do my students.

“I’m aware he’s more of a gamer than a reader, but I was thinking Abe and I could maybe read one of his vampire books together over the summer. Initially it might be a way for us to connect.”

“You’re not kicking him out?”

“No.” Nan appeared startled at the suggestion. “For the moment I’m more interested in figuring out why he created this. Is Abe just expressing pain? Does he have a plan to hurt people? We just need to get to the bottom of this, but I am not abandoning him.”

Nan handed her neatly folded paper napkin to Jen. She paused as Jen swiped it under her eyes.