The Deepest Secret (16 page)

“I’d rather go to Mars.” Tyler pushes himself up. “We need flashlight batteries.”

Eve watches him go. “He’d be such a great astronaut,” she says dreamily.

David grits his teeth. Tyler isn’t going to grow up to be anything at all. “I hate it when you do that.”

“Why? It’s not as if I say it to him.”

“You live in a fantasy world. Tyler’s melanoma is going to reappear. It may already have.”

“The doctors will treat it.”

“What if they don’t catch it in time?” And even if they do, there’s no guarantee.

“David, why are you doing this?”

Her stubbornness is astounding. “You’re the one who talks to the doctors. You’re the one who does the research. You know the facts better than I do, so why do you ignore them?”

“What do you want me to do—give up?”

“Of course not. I just want you to be realistic.”

“Why is that so important to you? What does it matter what I think?”

“Because all you think about is him.”

“Someone has to!”

“Meaning I don’t?”

“You couldn’t even remember to bring home his birthday present.”

“It’s just a camera, Eve. Get some fucking perspective.”

“You didn’t even check him over. He could have been seriously hurt.”

So that’s what this was about. “But he wasn’t.”

“But he could have been.”

She can never leave anything alone. It always has to be her way. There’s never room for anyone else’s opinion. “It’s always what Tyler wants, what Tyler needs. What about what I want? We don’t go to movies. We don’t eat in restaurants. We’ve never gone on a vacation. What about Melissa? Do you think of her at all? Something’s wrong with our daughter. Something’s really wrong, but you don’t have a clue.”

“You want me to face the facts?” she hisses. “Well, how about this one? What if that was Tyler’s
last
birthday?” Her eyes are blazing, her fists clenched. She looks so self-righteous.

“Did it ever occur to you that work isn’t the only reason I stay away?”

Her face goes blank. Then she stands so abruptly her chair topples backward with a crash. The patio’s quiet after she leaves, reproachful. He grinds a bolt securely into place.

In two months, they will have their first hard frost. The days will grow shorter, the sun weaker in the sky. Tyler can be up and among them for longer and longer stretches of time. They’ve grown to love the long dark nights, trudging through the snow, all of them equally covered head-to-toe in wool and fleece. For those few months, they could almost imagine what it feels like to be a normal family. It used to be enough.

MISTER

G
ot a second?
Robbie had said, coming in and sitting down in Tyler’s desk chair. He’d spotted the photographs spread across the desk at the same time that Tyler had, picking them up and shuffling through them as he talked.
The mike on my cell keeps cutting off. Can you take a look?
Tyler had watched nervously, his heart pounding. At any second, Robbie was going to stop and stare with a frown.
Dude, were you taking pictures of me?
But then Robbie dropped the photos and leaned back to pull his phone from his pocket. It was an easy fix, just resetting preferences. Robbie would know that. He knew all about phones, so why was he really there? But Robbie left without saying, rapping his knuckles on the desk before standing.
Thanks, dude
. He’d left behind the heavy stink of cologne. Tyler turned the fan on in the bathroom to make it go away.

He raises the cover on the grill. Smoke churns up, blinding him.
He steps back, coughing. It had been torture, trying to put the stupid thing together. His dad had watched every move he made, waiting for him to screw up.

“This lady came into Kroger’s today.” Zach’s voice is tinny, coming over the speaker on Tyler’s cell phone. Tyler’s got it lying on the metal tray attached to the grill. This thing is monstrous. It could grill a dozen burgers and a dozen pieces of chicken all at the same time, easy. But all it has on it are four small patties. Cheese drips onto the flames, making them sputter. “She said she was a psychic and that she dreamed she saw Amy someplace dark and cold.”

“Like where?” Tyler asks. From where he stands on the patio, he can see Holly’s house. Lights are on over there. He hears Holly’s voice, the slam of a door.

“I don’t know. She was talking to the other people in line. What do you think? Do you think she could be right?”

They’ve watched those shows where psychics talked to people in the audience and made them cry. It seemed pretty real. “Maybe. Like a cave.”

“That would suck, man.”

Amy’s scared of spiders. They used to torture her by dangling plastic spiders from tree branches so she’d run away and leave them alone. It makes Tyler feel bad, remembering this.

“They’re putting together special patrols to walk kids to school,” Zach says. “They’re even going to have parents standing on the street corners.”

Tyler hadn’t heard anything about that. Why would he have? He wasn’t walking to school. He’s never walked to school a day in his life. “You scared?”

“No way.” But Zach doesn’t sound like he means it. “What about you?”

“No.” He is, though, a little.

“You want to head over to Alan’s later? We’re having a brawl.”

Alan has every gaming platform they make. There’ll be kids sprawled across the floor and couches, drinking pop and wearing headsets. But Tyler knows how it will play out. Everything will be cool until just before dawn, and then the quiet knock on the door. His mom, come to pick him up. The other mom will stand there in her bathrobe and talk as he gets his things together. The whole point of a sleepover is to be awake when everyone else is asleep. With him around, that never happens. Someone’s mom always has to stay up.

“Maybe another time,” Tyler says, and they hang up.

“Good job,” his mom tells him as he comes in with the platter of food.

They eat on the patio, the way they always do when the weather’s okay. His mom worries about him getting fresh air. Melissa says there’s nothing fresh about the air in Columbus, but his mom tells her it’s the principle of the thing.

“How was the mall?” his mom asks Melissa.

“Didn’t go.”

“I thought you wanted to find something to wear for school.”

Melissa’s been on the phone with Brittany for weeks, talking about dresses, jeans, shoes. She’s like this every year before school starts. “I don’t care anymore.”

“Oh, honey,” his mom says. “Why don’t I take you to the mall tomorrow?”

“No.” Melissa jabs at her food with a fork, but she doesn’t bring it to her mouth. His mom’s not eating, either. It’s only Tyler and his dad, reaching for the ketchup, spooning beans onto their plates. “Brittany’s coming over later.”

“It might be tricky.” His dad looks up. “With all those reporters out there. Tell her to drive slowly. Or, if you want, I can drop you off at her house.”

“Like I’m
three
?”

“You could climb over the fence and go the back way,” Tyler suggests,
and Melissa looks at him. For a moment, he sees the spark of approval in her eyes.

“You can’t go through our neighbors’ yard,” his mom says.

“They won’t mind,” Melissa says.

“What about their dog?”

“It’s just a stupid little dog. It won’t hurt me.”

“I’m sure it’ll be okay, Eve,” his dad says. “They’ll understand, given the circumstances.”

His mom’s face goes still. His dad isn’t looking at her, though. They’ve had another fight, Tyler guesses, probably about him. Their fights usually are. He’s heard their voices through his bedroom vent. It’s always his name that catches his attention and makes him stop to listen. He’s never heard their actual words.

Circumstances
is just another word for
Amy, missing
. “What if they never find her?” Tyler asks.

“They will,” his dad says.

“But what if they don’t?”

“They’ll never stop looking,” his mom insists.

Yes, but Tyler knows there’s a difference between looking and finding.

So that’s what Dr. Cipriano’s been doing—he’s been building a cage.

Tyler crouches by the narrow basement window, peering in around the cobwebs littered with dead leaves and twigs at the room below. Cement floor, beige painted wall, and something new: a box, made of wooden two-by-fours and chicken wire. It’s huge, big enough that Tyler could crawl in and stretch out if he wanted to.

Dr. Cipriano comes into view, dragging a big paper bag behind him across the cement floor. He ducks into the cage and shakes out the bag’s contents. Tyler squints to see. It looks similar to the straw his dad spreads out to protect new grass.

Dr. Cipriano rolls the empty bag into a tight cylinder. He’s talking to someone. Who? Tyler leans close to the glass to see, but whoever it is is around the corner and out of sight.

Holding his camera against his chest, Tyler crabwalks past the stiff branches of the cypress tree that reach out to snag his sweatshirt and yank down his hood, over to the next window. Now he can see the shadow of someone lying there and just the very tip of something pale and narrow—a finger, waving this way and that. The only person Tyler’s ever seen in Dr. Cipriano’s house was Bob. He doesn’t think this is Bob’s finger. It’s too strangely shaped, for one thing. It’s the wrong color, for another. Tyler raises his camera to his eye, but everything goes black. Dr. Cipriano’s turned off the light.

Tyler pushes himself up. Next time, he won’t stop at Sophie’s house first. He’ll come directly to Dr. Cipriano’s. Sophie’s house had been a bust, anyway. Her window was dark and stayed dark the whole time Tyler crouched outside, waiting.

Something’s moving over in Albert’s yard, something small and determined. It’s Albert’s cat, Sugar, creeping through the tall grass, the pale tip of her long tail barely visible. She’s after something. That would be good—an action shot. Tyler follows her across Albert’s yard and stops as she crosses into the Farnhams’ yard.

He eyes the small white box perched above the Farnhams’ back door. It just sits there, pushing him away. Tyler’s old enough now to push back.

The Farnhams’ grass is cut short and even, springy beneath his shoes. There are lots of interesting things all around him: a gazebo, a water fountain, a wishing well, a pond with a little statue of a boy with a watering can. Wind chimes dangle from the branches. He ducks to avoid hitting them. Something sparkles in the distance and he fumbles for his flashlight. Then the world around him bursts into brightness.

“Get out of here!”

Tyler drops like a stone. Light’s swarming all over him. He shoves his face against wet blades of grass, slides his hands beneath his body. He can’t breathe.

“Shoo!” It’s Mr. Farnham.

That halogen bulb blasts UV into the air like a laser.

“Leave it alone, Larry,” Mrs. Farnham says. “It’s not hurting anything.”

“There are leash laws, Joan,” Mr. Farnham says, and Mrs. Farnham says, “You can’t put a cat on a leash.”

Light travels 186,282 miles per second. Even The Flash can’t outrace it. It’s hot on his clothes, swarming through the fibers and down to his skin. Denim’s safe, his mom’s told him. But there’s a hole that he hasn’t shown his mom, behind his knee. UV particles are diving into his leg, digging deep. No. He’d feel it. His skin would burn like fire. His skin would bubble into blisters and burst, exposing his insides. He has nightmares about this, his skin peeling away and leaving only blood and muscle and bone behind. He’s fooling himself. That’s not what happened last Saturday night. He’d been utterly and completely surprised to pull off his shirt that night and find the redness blazing his arm.

“Sir, ma’am!” A new voice, a stranger. “Jason Freed, Seven TV. Do you have a few minutes?”

Go away!
Tyler doesn’t dare open his mouth. He’s hot, steaming hot, sweat prickling his skin.

“This isn’t a good time,” Mrs. Farnham says. “It’s late. We’re all upset.”

“I understand,” Jason Freed says. He sounds closer. “It’s a terrible thing when a child goes missing. It impacts the entire community. That’s why I’d like to talk with you, get your perspective. It’s Larry and Joan Farnham, is that right?”

“How do you know that?” Mrs. Farnham demands.

“It’s all right, Joan,” Mr. Farnham says. “What do you mean, our perspective?”

“Well, you live right across the street,” Jason Freed answers. “You probably know Amy very well.”

“We’ve watched her grow up,” Mr. Farnham says.

“From all accounts, she seems like a nice little girl.”

“Mischievous, I’d say,” Mr. Farnham corrects. “And curious. Always wandering over here, looking for coins in our wishing well, wanting to help me build a goldfish pond. She’s very outgoing.”

“The police think she was abducted.”

“Well, that’s the natural conclusion, isn’t it?”

“They’re looking into the similar disappearance of another little girl in Lancaster. Do you think you could have a serial predator in your neighborhood?”

“What do you mean, a serial predator?” Mrs. Farnham says shrilly. “What little girl?”

Tyler’s hood’s still up, isn’t it, keeping UV particles from sliding down each strand of hair all the way to his scalp?

“She disappeared eighteen months ago.”

“I never heard a thing about it!”

“She was initially thought to be a runaway, but now the police are taking a closer look.” Jason Freed’s nearer now, his voice rolling over Tyler. “There are reports of a red car driving past that little girl’s house several times before she disappeared. The police chalked it up to a coincidence, but now they’re not so sure.”

“A lot of people drive red cars,” Mr. Farnham says.

Mr. Farnham has a red car. It sits right in his driveway.

“Sure,” Jason Freed agrees. “You say Amy’s outgoing?”

“Oh yes. That kid’ll talk to anyone and everyone.”

“Anyone in particular?”

“Well, she’s good friends with the boy who lives at the end of the street.”

“Larry, no—”

Tyler doesn’t lift his head. He doesn’t dare breathe.