Our Little Secret(15)

I nod. “My parents owned a small house—I mean, an extra one. They had two places. I was living in the smaller one for the past six years or so, but my parents got divorced recently, so my mother moved in with me.”

“Does your father still live in Cove?”

“Nope. After the divorce, my dad sold our old family home and took off for the coast to get away from my mother’s endless judgment. I don’t really know how he’s doing. He calls now and then to check I’m okay.”

“Are you?”

“More okay than he is.”

Novak licks his thumb and forefinger. “So while your mother moves into the smaller house, you move into Mr. Parker’s?”

“HP offered me his spare room so I could have some space until my mom felt better. She can be high-maintenance. Have you met her yet?”

“So yesterday, when Saskia disappeared . . .” He looks up. “Where were you?”

“Like I already told the other cops, I was home last night. With my mom. Detective Novak, I really don’t think Saskia’s even missing. She’s probably staged this whole thing to get attention.”

“What is it about Saskia that makes you feel competitive?” One of his eyebrows sits higher than the other.

I stop myself, breathe. “She’s a fake. She lies about everything. I knew it the minute I met her.”

He stretches luxuriously. “I see. So tell me a little bit more about all that.”

My shoulders slump forwards and I cover my face with my hands again. It’s impossible to finish a conversation with this guy. After a few seconds I look up. “Is HP here? Do you have him in one of these rooms?”

“We’re speaking with several people. And we think you’re protecting somebody. If you’re not telling us everything, you put yourself in a dangerous position. Have you considered that?”

I reach over and grab a slice of his pear, shoving it into my mouth sideways and speaking while I chew. “You know what I think has happened? Saskia’s probably lying low, licking her wounds.”

His eyes narrow. “What wounds? Is she unhappy? Is that what you’re saying?”

“Define happiness.” I grab another glossy crescent of pear and drop it into my mouth.

Novak sits back. “I’d rather you defined her unhappiness for me. Why might she have felt wounded, Angela?” He crosses his arms, marking the end of his input. For now, it’s back to me.





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6


What Detective Novak will never understand is that I know what real happiness looks like. I lived it with HP that summer and the memories are burned in my mind.

We’d spend entire days together at the lake—him on the Tarzan swing while I read a novel in oversized sunglasses. He’d drop me home for dinner, much to my mom’s delight, and then show up again in an hour and we’d go for a drive in his truck to the lake, or head up to the old mill site to make out. Every time a new movie came to town we sat together near the front, like couples did, while Ezra threw popcorn at us from the back row. We slept all night in his truck a bunch of times, even when I had curfew. We’d wake early, our noses cool, and burrow down under his man blanket until the sun seared us out into the day. We were inseparable.

Each weekend, there were pit parties out on Old Creek Road where our classmates drank from kegs, hanging out on truck tailgates. I’d turn up late and strain to find HP in the crowd, but when I saw him my body relaxed. I can’t stand parties: I don’t like the chaos. Lacy turned up to every one of those gatherings, too, desperately pivoting a toe in the dirt on the periphery of all conversation, just biding her time until HP had drunk enough beers that she could squirm into his ear with various propositions.

“She’s a goddamn train wreck,” Ezra said as we sat on a rock at the end of summer, watching HP unwrap Lacy from his waist for the tenth time. “It’s so hot.”

“You’re disgusting,” I murmured, but I took the cigarette he passed me.

Ezra put his arm around my neck. “You have so much to learn about guys.”

“Don’t kid yourself, Ez, it’s a one-page manual.”

I was bluffing. My summer with HP was filled with new discoveries. Every day I got closer to him, swam deeper, so much so that by the end of August I felt like I was breathing at the bottom of a warm ocean, looking up at the surface where all I used to do was paddle. I didn’t want it to end, but like a hangnail snagging at the very back of my mind were my college plans for fall. I hadn’t been able to turn Oxford down—I couldn’t do it to my father. And as Mom kept pointing out, the family reputation was at stake. Besides, she was right about one thing: I wanted to get out of my parents’ house and our rinky-dink town, even if I still couldn’t imagine leaving without HP. How would I manage without him for eight months? At night in my own bed, I lay awake blinking at shadows. I hadn’t found a way to tell him.

HP joined us on the rock, shaking his head as he sat down. “Lacy’s the Terminator.”

“I dig that level of desperation in a girl.” Ezra nodded. “I was just teaching LJ what guys want.”

To the left of us on the dirt road someone poured kerosene onto a pile of twigs and threw in a lit match. The bonfire thumped into flame to a chorus of cheers.