Every Single Secret(32)

I raised my eyes to meet his. Asking the question, laying myself out like that to a stranger, had left me feeling exposed. Vulnerable in a way I hadn’t experienced in a long time. I felt an unaccountable rush of grief slam though me. The desire to let down my defenses and cry like a little girl.

“You understand, don’t you,” he said gently, “that sometimes people hide certain facets of who they are, who they were, from the people they love? Not because they’re willfully trying to hurt them, but simply because they’re deeply, deeply afraid that the one person they care about most may reject them.”

Of course I understood that. It was basically the single motivating factor of my entire life: don’t let anyone know the truth, because if they find out, they will leave you. Heath was afraid, just like me. We were the same, in more ways than I’d ever imagined.

“I understand,” was all I said.

“That’s good to hear.” He nodded a few times, like he wanted to say more on the subject, but then decided against it. “Very good indeed.” And he turned and walked back to the house.



For the third night in a row, Heath slept. No middle-of-the-night yelling, leaping out of bed, or taking random swings at me. I wondered if it was partly because he’d told me about the couple he’d lived with, somehow the confession letting his subconscious mind off the hook.

And if the therapy was working, why would I complain? Even though I didn’t like being here, this was what I had wanted.

I put on my glasses. The clock on the mantel showed past midnight. While Heath snored softly, I stared toward the windows. Where exactly was the camera hidden? It unnerved me, that Cerny might be up in that spooky attic room full of hulking machines, waving needles, and blinking lights, sitting at the metal desk, watching us.

I sat up, grabbed a hair band from the nightstand, and swept my hair up. I wasn’t going to sleep anytime soon, but I couldn’t lie here, worrying about things I had no control over. I decided I should sneak up to the attic, see what Jerry McAdam was up to with his forbidden phone. Maybe after a little spying—thinking about somebody else’s problems for a change—my brain would settle down, and I could get some sleep.

I climbed out of bed, went out the door, and tiptoed past the Siefferts’ and McAdams’ rooms. At the end of the dark hall, I eased back the pocket door. I climbed the narrow stairs to the attic and felt a welcome slam of adrenaline—the fireproof door was cracked open. I crept in, careful to leave it open behind me, just enough that it wouldn’t shut all the way. Locking myself in up here wouldn’t be wise.

The oddly shaped room looked exactly as I’d left it, except the desk was bare. No pad or pen. The monitors were up and running—grainy and gray and still. The monitor on the left showed the McAdams, tucked in and fast asleep. The middle screen showed Glenys and her husband in their bed as well, back to back, motionless in sleep. On ours, Heath curled next to my empty side of the bed.

Back on the Siefferts’ monitor, something flickered. I moved closer. The screen was dark and the image just a shadowy blob, but I could see clearly. It was Glenys, climbing out of bed. Her back was straight and narrow in her nightgown, and her light hair tumbled over her shoulders.

She walked to the window, threw it open, and leaned out—the way Heath had the other day. She sucked in the night air, then canted back, letting her head drop between her thin arms. She looked like she was doing some kind of strange yoga stretch, but I knew she wasn’t, because under her nightgown, her shoulders shook rhythmically. She wasn’t stretching, she was crying. Sobbing, to be more exact.

Abruptly, she drew herself up, the cool air caressing her face, drying the tears. Her ghostly figure wavered on the screen. Ever so slightly, her upper body began to incline forward, to lean out the window. Instantly, I felt myself go cold. The bedroom was only on the second floor, maybe fifteen feet off the ground, but it was directly above the concrete patio, and if she went headfirst . . .

I whirled, stumbled forward, blindly tripping over a cable and careening into a tall shelf against the wall. I threw up my arms as a torrent of hard black plastic objects rained down over my head. When the deluge was over, I opened my eyes to find myself standing in the center of a mountain of VHS tapes. I waded out, kicking them to the side, slipping on them, crushing them, frantic to extricate myself.

I clattered down the steps and ran down the hall to the last door on the left. Tapping it lightly, I leaned close.

“Glenys,” I said in a hoarse whisper. “Glenys!” There was no answer. I knocked louder, then tried the knob, but it was locked. “Glenys, it’s Daphne. Come to the door, please.”

Nothing. No answer, no sound of movement from the other side of the door. Had she accidentally fallen? Or maybe jumped on purpose? It was hard to tell from the dark monitor what was happening.

I ran down the steps, taking them two at a time, my pulse pounding in my ears. Near the bottom of the stairs, my toe hooked the hem of my pajama pants and I tripped, tumbling to the floor. I scrambled up and charged back through the house, down the hall, and into the kitchen. I threw open the door and ran outside.

On the patio I stared up in the direction of Glenys’s window. The glare from the floodlight on the back corner of the house was so bright I had to shade my eyes. But when I did, I saw the window was closed, the curtains drawn. Glenys was gone.