The Leaving(75)

“My replacements,” Adam said. “The wonder twins.”

“No,” Scarlett said, when the meaning of the words sank in. “Don’t be like that.”

“It’s true.” He didn’t seem upset by it. “My parents were so miserable for like four years after I disappeared that they decided to have another kid. And it wasn’t happening, so they adopted Nadia from Costa Rica and then they got pregnant with Belle.”

“Wow,” Scarlett said.

“I think it was smart.” He nodded. “What else were they supposed to do? Spend their whole life mourning and wishing they still had a kid? Build some crazy stone monument? Blame it all on aliens?”

“Nadia!” A woman was calling from the other room. “Belle!”

“What?” Belle said back.

“Where are your ballet shoes?” from the hall.

“In the bag!” Nadia shouted.

“Come on or we’ll be late.”

Belle dropped the dolls on the rug, stood, said “See ya,” and left the room. Nadia followed, giving Scarlett a smile and a wave.

Adam just watched them go, then said, “They’re pretty much my favorite people on the planet right now.”

“Mine, too, I think.” Scarlett smiled. “Speaking of which, why have you been avoiding us?”

“I don’t know, Scarlett.” He leaned forward in his chair. “I definitely sensed there was something maybe not great between Lucas and me. I felt tension that first night back and figured I should trust that. Now maybe we know more about why I felt that. If it’s true about you and me. Did you tell him?”

“He deserved to know. We remember so little. It seems unfair to hold back anything we actually know.”

He got up and went to a window, looked out. “Do you really trust hypnosis? Or Kristen?”

“I don’t know,” Scarlett said. “I think so. What do you trust? Who?”

He said, “I’ve started to trust that maybe it’s okay—maybe even better than okay—that we don’t remember.”

“That sounds like giving up.”

He got up again and picked up a guitar Scarlett hadn’t noticed in the corner. It looked comfortable in his hands. His fingers knew what they were doing when they found strings and frets. He sat and started to play.

She recognized the chords right away.

Knew some of the words before he started singing them.

And started to feel ill.

Started to feel her world tilt again in a way it hadn’t in days.

The song tugged at her, and not in a nice way.

It was an aggravating tug, an unwanted pull.

And after a few more lines, she felt herself burst open, like a confetti cannon.

Joy, pain.

The things you can’t forget even if you tried.

Drizzling down around her, blurring the air she breathed.

With each new note, she remembered running.

Fighting.

Aching.

For their lives.

Then snapping back.

Repeating.

Aching again.

Fear.

Running.

Snapping.

Struggling.

Failing.

Giving in.

He finished the song and looked up. “It’s the only song I can play full from beginning to end and it makes me want to throw up.”

“Who’s it by? Did you write it? What does it mean?” she asked. “It’s a message for us, right? A clue? One we left for ourselves?”

“Is it?” He put the guitar down. “Because to me it feels like a warning. It’s telling me to stop digging because I won’t like what I find.”

“We have to figure it out. What if it could somehow help explain everything and clear Lucas? You have heard that he was arrested, right?”

“Of course.” He stood. “I haven’t played that song for anyone else and I’m not going to.”

She stood, too.

“Most people never know why bad things happen to them.” He folded his arms. “John Norton did it. I’ve moved on.”

She moved on, too, by getting up and leaving. When she was tempted to skip the bottom step out front, she caught herself, grabbed the railing, and took them one at a time.

She tried to hum the song to herself.

It was already gone.





Lucas


The local jail felt like something out of the Old West. Basic slammer. Keys on silver hoops. Lucas would be sent off to a proper prison farther north tomorrow if Ryan couldn’t secure a bail bond—ten percent of the $1 million price tag the judge had put on Lucas, who was only even allowed bail and pretrial release at all because he was under the age of eighteen. Ryan was going through the motions, making calls to their father’s lawyers, but Lucas wasn’t hopeful. Overnight, he’d shared his small cell with a few drunk college students and a lone prostitute who’d grumbled loudly the whole time about entrapment.

An officer came down the hall in the late morning, handcuffs in hand, and told Lucas he had a visitor. That didn’t take long, Ryan running out of options. Since there was no real visiting room, he was escorted to an interview room.

Chambers met him outside the room, unlocked the handcuffs the escorting officer had put on him. “Ten minutes,” Chambers said, and he opened the door. “I’ll be back and we’ll all talk.”