Our Little Secret(52)

“Is that a question?” asks Tate. “I’m struggling to hear it in among all the conjecture.”

“Where is Saskia, Angela?”

“I’ve no idea,” I say.

“You’re still not upset.” Novak smacks both hands on the table.

“Sure I am. I just don’t like to parade my feelings for strangers. And I’m drained.”

“That’s right.” Tate nods. “Two days of constant questioning can take a toll on a person’s emotional thresholds.”

Novak composes himself. “Where did you spend last weekend? June ninth and tenth?”

“Boston. With Mom. I already told you this.”

“According to Freddy Montgomery’s statement, you stayed with him at the Boston Hotel on Berkeley Street. Did you speak with Freddy Montgomery about your frustrations with the Parkers?”

“Probably. They had just kicked me out of their house.” I glance at Tate.

“And was Mr. Montgomery sympathetic?”

“You’d have to ask him.”

“Isn’t it true that Mr. Montgomery would do anything for you?” Novak delivers the line for Tate’s benefit; he’s already tried that argument on me.

“I think he’s my friend, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Only your friend, or are you sleeping with him? Is he part of your little manipulation game, too?”

“Objection,” says Tate. “Irrelevant who my client sleeps with.”

Novak rolls his eyes and mutters.

“Do you have anything else?” asks Tate. “Unless you have something new—like, say, a body with my client’s DNA on it—I’m going to get my client out of here.”

“Wait.” Novak gets up and walks out the door.

Tate turns to me. “He’s panicking.”

“I know.”

“Sit tight.”

Tate takes a quick call, ending it with a happy sigh as he slips his phone back into his pocket. “Sorry about that. Listen, like I say, we’re talking hours now. I’d say two, max. Let’s just stay a little longer, placate him, and soon you’ll be home free—and you can carry on with your life.”





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23


I’m bored of this room and I’m bored of these people. Honestly, it seems to me that the only interesting humans in the world are the young ones. Year by year as we grow, a little more imagination rubs off us, like white paint from a fence. By adulthood, all we are is a horde of conditioned washed-out scarecrows, shuffling along with our heads full of hay.

I used to be nicer. When I was a kid, I never joined in with the neighborhood boys who pulled the legs off spiders. I never threw rocks at dogs. I held hands with all kinds of people and trotted alongside them, letting their faces beat down on me like a sun. I was a lot like Olive.

The way we live now, most people veil their destructiveness and dress it up as love. They clothe it and feed it and take it out on the town as their socially acceptable form of devastation. They do as much damage as the next person.

All love stories are crime stories and all crime stories, love. If you say that’s not true, you’re not looking properly. Perhaps when two people join, it’s inevitable the things they’ll damage in each other. If that’s what Novak means by calling this a love story, then fine, I totally agree with him.

Ezra fantasized about getting rid of his dog in high school, but the truth is I’ve always had ways stacked up in my head of how to clear my life of Saskia. But they were thoughts, not actions, and you can’t get in trouble for thinking things. Because if you could, wouldn’t everyone in the world be in jail?


Tate left the room a while ago to talk to Novak. Now they come in together. Neither of them sits down. Tate has no bag or pen with him and he’s left his jacket elsewhere, probably in the coffee room. Novak has a glass jar crooked between his elbow and his left hip. Tate’s face is clammy with new stress.

“Are you letting me out?”

Tate shakes his head.

Novak stares into my face, his hooded eyes icicle-cold. “Look, Angela, here’s your Manifestation Jar, as promised. Our forensic guys have delivered this back to us, and we’ve had a chance to read through it.”

I look more closely at the mason jar as he stands it on the table. It’s definitely mine. “I told you, anything I wrote in there is irrelevant, years old.”

“What?” Novak cups his hand behind his ear. “Speak up.”

I clear my throat and look at Tate. “It’s just a bunch of dumb hippie voodoo. It was all my mother’s idea.”

“Was it?” Novak pulls latex gloves from an inside pocket of his suit, shaking his head. “I don’t know why I bother with these things but, you know . . . You understand.” He slips his long fingers into the gloves.

My heart’s beating faster, and when I speak my tongue lisps. “Novak, you can’t take anything that’s in there seriously. It’s not fair to dredge it up. I threw the whole jar out.”

“Angela, let me do the talking,” Tate says quietly.

The rubbery seal breaks. Novak rummages in to the elbow. The nerves in my fingers scream. “This is your handwriting, Angela?” He turns a piece of paper my way. “Good, just making sure.” Novak unfolds the ragged sheet. “HP loves me more.” Novak tosses the note onto the table, where it quivers and shifts as I breathe. He goes in for a second dip. “Her parents die in a car crash. She goes home to Australia and never comes back.”