Sweet Water(46)

Summer came and went, and so did Josh—so abruptly that it wrecked me for a little while.

I couldn’t even cry to Mandy, because I hadn’t told her, so I just tried to pretend none of it had ever happened.



There is one thing he said to me back then that I still think about, especially on the day Martin surprised me with Stonehenge.

Right before I went off to college, during one of our last encounters before he disappeared, I revealed to Josh that I’d been in love with his house since I was a small child, and that when I first heard him play, it was because I was coming back to visit the house and not him.

He said, “Well, this house is mine. Once my parents pass on, they’ll leave it to me. Maybe if I come back one day, we can live here together.”

It’s one of the last things he ever said to me, and I know he was being facetious, but it somehow seemed like a promise, a way to hold on to him—and Stonehenge—forever. It’s one of the reasons I’ve never felt quite right about Stonehenge becoming mine. Especially after I found out how Martin paid for it.

This day is the first time since Martin handed me the keys that I feel like I’ve disappointed the house. That I’ve failed it somehow, tainted it with my dirty secrets. I never felt like I truly deserved it to begin with, but I thought if I played the part, treated it with the reverence it deserved, I could live here.

But no longer.

Maybe the rose is an offering of peace.

The house is telling me to turn us in before it’s too late.





CHAPTER 12

Present

Alisha: We need to talk. I think you know why. Meet me today before I go to the news with this.

Night came last evening, and no one left the house. Martin slept, I did not, who knows about Finn, and we woke up to this.

Martin! The internal scream is so loud inside my head, it numbs me. My arms prick cold with sweat and fear. No sound can leave my body.

I grip my phone, my stomach churning with leftover sick from staying up all night worrying, turning my insides to rot. If this is a waiting game, as Martin suggested, I can’t keep pace, one land mine after the next.

Martin, on the other hand, looks ready to take on the world already, showered, button-down shirt, glasses cleaned, pushed all the way up—in the game. “It’s clearly a threat,” he says. “Now she’s going to sue us. See, Sarah, this is why we did what we did.”

Our lines of thinking couldn’t be more different. My only frenzied thought is, She knows!

She knows Finn was in the woods with her daughter when she died.

She knows Finn had something to do with it.

She knows we lied to cover it up.

But all Martin can think about is protecting his money.

“Martin, she obviously knows something,” I whisper. I’m emotionally rocked, and I can barely speak.

“She can’t know anything. Everything there is to know is gone.” He’s fucking smiling when he says this, and it’s the most repulsive thing in the world. It’s like he’s proud of himself for having the crime scene swept so thoroughly.

“Well, maybe Alton missed something. Or she found something! She claims to have newsworthy information.” I point at my phone in case he’s missed it, and my chest hurts so badly, I feel like I’m going to have a heart attack. How can he be smiling?

Finn walks into the kitchen. “What’s going on?” He looks terrified to ask, and I don’t blame him.

“Yaz’s mother wants to meet,” I say.

Finn’s face goes from terrified to sullen. “What does she want?” He opens the pantry for cereal and then closes it. He hasn’t eaten much, and this would’ve been his first attempt in two days, but no such luck. We’re robbing this kid of his existence.

“We don’t know,” I say, and I’m lying to him, because I’m so trained now, I don’t even have to look at Martin for my script. And I realize in that moment that if I don’t break away from him, this way of life will become my future. This is exactly how Mary Alice came to be.

I don’t want to become Mary Alice.

“Are you going?” Finn asks. “To meet her?”

I hesitate for a moment deciding the best course of action.

“She is. She’s going,” Martin says.

There it is, the command. I knew it was coming. He’s gotten used to telling me what to do, and that’s not something I’ll let become part of my future either.

I glare at him, and he smiles and shakes his head side to side as if to say, “This is what you signed up for.”

My stomach turns, and I look at Finn. “Have some breakfast, honey. I need to shower so I can meet her.” I kiss him on the cheek, but he pulls away. “Please don’t be mad at me,” I whisper in his ear.

He stares at me despondently. “Can I go to soccer practice tonight?”

I look over my shoulder at Martin for his reaction and hear Finn reopen the pantry door. He’s missing school again today, and I want Finn to look alive again, but I’m not sure how he can think about soccer at a time like this. It seems insensitive, especially for Finn.

“No, but this is the only practice you have to miss. We just need the air to clear a little,” Martin says. That son of a bitch thinks we’re out of the woods—no pun intended—but I think our true nightmare has only begun. And I’m sure my lunch date will reveal more. How can he be so smug? He probably knows something I don’t.