Two Can Keep a Secret

by Karen M. McManus

  We drive in silence for a minute until we near a corner store, and Declan suddenly swerves into the parking lot. “Hang on a sec,” he says, before shifting into park and disappearing inside. When he comes out a couple of minutes later, he’s holding something square and white in one hand. He tosses it to me as he opens the door. “Put those on your face.”

  Frozen peas. I do as he says, almost groaning in relief as the cool seeps into my burning skin. “Thanks. For these and…you know. Saving my ass.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see him shake his head. “Can’t believe you got out of the car. Amateur.”

  I’d laugh, but it hurts too much. I sit still, with the peas on my face as we leave Echo Ridge for Solsbury, tracing the path I took to his apartment last week. Declan must be thinking the same thing, because he says, “You’re a little bitch for following Daisy.” He looks like he’s seriously considering turning the car around and leaving me in the parking lot with Kyle.

  “I tried asking you what you were doing in town,” I remind him. “Didn’t work.” He doesn’t answer, just sort of grunts, which I decide means point taken. “When did you move here?”

  “Last month,” he says. “Daisy needs to be around her parents. And me. So…here I am.”

  “You could’ve told me about her, you know.”

  Declan snorts. “Really, little brother?” He turns into Pine Crest Estates and pulls into the parking spot in front of number 9. “You couldn’t wait to get me out of Echo Ridge. The last thing you’d want to hear is that I’d moved one town over. No, wait, that’s the second-last. The last thing is me being with Lacey’s best friend. I mean, hell, what would the Nilssons say, right?”

  “I hate the Nilssons.” It slips out without thinking.

  Declan raises his brows as he opens his door. “Trouble in paradise?”

  I hesitate, trying to figure out how to explain, when my stomach seizes. I barely make it out of the car before I bend in half and vomit my breakfast all over the asphalt. Thank God it’s quick, because the movement makes my ribs feel like someone just ripped them out. My eyes water as I clutch the side of the car for support, gasping.

  “Delayed reaction,” Declan says, reaching into the car for the discarded peas. “Happens sometimes.” He lets me limp to the apartment on my own, unlocks the door, and points me toward the couch. “Lie down. I’ll find an ice pack for your hand.”

  Declan’s apartment is the most cliché bachelor pad ever. There’s nothing in it except a couch and two armchairs, a giant television, and a bunch of milk crates for shelves. The couch is comfortable, though, and I sink into it while Declan roots around in his freezer. Something plastic digs into my back, and I pull out a remote. I aim it at the television and press the power button. A golf green with the ESPN logo in one corner fills the screen, and I click away, scrolling mindlessly through channels until the word Huntsburg catches my eye. I stop surfing as a man in a police uniform standing in front of a lectern says, “…have been able to make a positive identification.”

  “Declan.” My throat hurts and my voice cracks, but when he doesn’t answer, I rasp louder. “Declan.”

  His head emerges from the kitchen. “What? I can’t find the—” He stops at the sight of my face, and comes into the living room just as the officer on-screen takes a deep breath.

  “The body is that of a young woman who’s been missing from Echo Ridge since last Saturday: seventeen-year-old Brooke Bennett. The Huntsburg police department would like to extend our condolences to Miss Bennett’s family and friends, and our support to her hometown police department. At this time, the investigation into cause of death is ongoing and no further details will be released.”

  ELLERY

  MONDAY, OCTOBER 7

  I know the script. I’ve read it in countless books, and seen it play out dozens of times on television. All week, in the back of my mind, I knew how it would probably end.

  What I didn’t understand was how mind-numbingly awful it would feel.

  At least I’m not alone. Ezra and Malcolm are in the living room with me Monday afternoon, six hours after the Huntsburg police found Brooke. None of us went to school today, although Malcolm’s day was more eventful than ours. He showed up an hour ago, bruised and battered, and Nana has been handing him fresh ice packs every fifteen minutes.

  We’re arranged stiffly on her uncomfortable furniture, watching Channel 5 news coverage scroll across the screen. Meli Dinglasa is standing on Echo Ridge Common, her dark hair whipping across her face as the leafy branches behind her sway in the wind.

  She’s been talking nonstop since we turned the TV on, but only a few phrases sink in: …dead for more than a week…foul play suspected but not confirmed…yet another taunting message found this morning near Echo Ridge High School…

  “Great timing, Katrin,” Ezra mutters.

  Malcolm’s sitting next to me on the couch. One side of his jaw is bruised and swollen, the knuckles on his right hand are scraped raw, and he winces every time he moves. “Someone needs to pay this time,” he says in a low, angry voice. I reach for his uninjured hand. His skin is warm, and his fingers wrap around mine without hesitation. For a couple of seconds I feel better, until I remember that Brooke is dead and everything is horrible.

  Every time I close my eyes, I see her. Working the shooting range at Fright Farm, trying to stand up to Vance. Wandering the halls at Echo Ridge High looking sad and worried. Swaying and rambling her way out of the Fright Farm office on the night she disappeared. I should have pushed her harder to tell us what was wrong. I had a chance to change the course of that night, and I blew it.

  When my phone rings with the familiar California number, I almost don’t answer it. Then I figure, what the hell. The day can’t possibly get any worse.

  “Hi, Sadie,” I say tonelessly.

  “Oh, Ellery. I saw the news. I’m so, so sorry about your friend. And I saw—” She pauses, her voice wavering. “I saw your email. I wasn’t sure what I was looking at until I zoomed in on the uniform and saw…his name.”

  “Did you think it was Ezra at first? Because I sure did.” I’m surprised to find that beneath the heavy misery of Brooke’s death, I can still manage to spare an undercurrent of anger for my mother. “How could you not tell us? How could you let us live a lie for seventeen years and think our father was José the freaking stuntman?” I don’t bother keeping my voice down. It’s not like anyone in the room doesn’t know what’s going on.

  “It wasn’t a total lie,” Sadie says. “I wasn’t sure, Ellery. The stuntman happened. And, well…Gabriel Rodriguez also happened, a little while afterward.” Her voice drops. “Sleeping with a married man was a huge mistake. I never should have gone there.”

  “Yeah, well, he shouldn’t have either.” I don’t have any empathy to spare for the man in that photograph. He doesn’t feel like my father. He doesn’t feel like anything. Besides, keeping the marital vows was his job. “But why did you?”

  “I wasn’t thinking straight. My father was gone, memories of Sarah were everywhere, and I just— I made a bad choice. Then the timing of the pregnancy fit better with the, um…other situation, and I wanted that to be true, and so…I convinced myself that it was.”

  “How?” I look at Ezra, who’s staring at the floor with no indication that he’s hearing any of this. “How did you convince yourself of that when—what was his name again? Gabriel?—looked exactly like Ezra?”

  “I didn’t remember what he looked like,” Sadie says, and I snort out a disbelieving laugh. “I’m not kidding. I told you before, I drank my way through the entire funeral.”

  “Okay. But you remembered enough that you knew he was a possibility, right? That’s why you were so shifty the first time I mentioned Officer Rodriguez.”

  “I— Well, yes. It rattled me,” she admits.

  “So you lied to
cover it up. You made up a story about Officer Rodriguez at Lacey’s funeral, and you made me suspicious of him.”

  “What?” Sadie sounds bewildered. “Why would that make you suspicious of him? Suspicious about what?”

  “That’s not the point!” I snap. “The point is it did, and then I didn’t ask him for help when I could have, and now Brooke is dead and maybe—” I stop, all the anger suddenly drained out of me, remembering how I hadn’t told anyone what we’d found in the Fright Farm recycling bin for an entire weekend. Keeping secrets that weren’t mine to hold. Like mother, like daughter. “Maybe I made everything worse.”

  “Made what worse? Ellery, I’m sure you didn’t do anything wrong. You can’t blame yourself for—”

  “Ellery.” Nana sticks her head into the living room. “Officer Rodriguez is here. He says you called him?” Her eyes fasten on the phone at my ear. “Who are you talking to?”

  “Just someone from school,” I answer Nana, then turn back to the phone. “I have to go,” I tell Sadie, but before I can disconnect, Ezra extends his hand.

  “Let me talk,” he says, and his voice holds the same dull fury that mine did. It takes a lot to make the two of us mad, especially at Sadie. But she managed.

  I hand Ezra the phone and tug Malcolm to his feet. We head for the hallway as Nana returns to the kitchen. Ryan is standing in front of the front door, his face sad and haggard. I don’t know how I ever thought he looked young for his age. “Hey, guys,” he says. “I was just heading home when I got your message. What’s so urgent?” He catches sight of Malcolm’s swollen jaw, and his eyes widen. “What happened to you?”

  “Kyle McNulty,” Malcolm says shortly.

  “You want to press charges?” Ryan asks.

  Malcolm grimaces. “No.”

  “Maybe you can convince him to change his mind,” I say. “In the meantime, I have this kind of…theory about Kyle. That’s why I called you.” I lick my lips, trying to get my thoughts in order. “I ran into Officer McNulty this morning, and—”

  Ryan frowns. “Where did you run into Officer McNulty?”

  I wave my hand dismissively. “That part’s not important.” I don’t want to get sidetracked with a lecture about not going home when Ryan told me to. “But it got me thinking about Kyle, and how connected he is to everything that’s been happening around here. Declan broke up with his sister, Liz, and that was a whole big thing while you guys were in school, right?” Ryan nods warily, like he has no idea where I’m headed and isn’t sure he wants to find out. Malcolm looks the same. I haven’t shared any of this with him yet. I wasn’t sure I’d have the energy to do it more than once.

  “Then Lacey dies and Declan’s basically run out of town,” I continue. “And now, five years later, Brooke breaks up with Kyle. And Brooke disappears. And Kyle and Katrin are friends, and we already know Katrin is involved in the homecoming threats, so…” I steal a glance at Ryan to see how he’s taking all this. He doesn’t look as impressed as I’d hoped. “Basically, I think they’re all in it together. Liz, Kyle, and Katrin.”

  “That’s your new theory?” Ryan asks. I don’t appreciate the somewhat sardonic emphasis he puts on the word new. Malcolm just sags against the wall, like he’s too exhausted to get into any of this right now.

  “Yes,” I say.

  Ryan folds his arms. “It doesn’t concern you that Liz and Kyle have alibis?”

  “They’re each other’s alibi!” I say. It only makes me more sure I’m on to something.

  “So you think…what? We just took their word for it?”

  “Well. No.” A trickle of doubt seeps in. “Did somebody else see them?”

  Ryan rakes a hand through his hair. “I shouldn’t tell you this, it’s not your business. But maybe it’ll get you to stop trying to do my job and trust me. For once.” He lowers his voice. “An entire fraternity saw them. There are pictures. And video. Time-stamped and posted on social media.”

  “Oh,” I say in a small voice, embarrassment warming my cheeks.

  He makes a frustrated noise in his throat. “Will you knock it off now? Please? I appreciate you coming to me this morning, but like I told you, at this point, you’re more likely to hurt the investigation than help if you keep talking about it. In fact…” He shoves his hands into his pockets and slides his eyes toward Malcolm. “I was just telling your mother, Malcolm, that it might not be a bad idea to stay with friends for a day or two.”

  Malcolm goes stiff. “Why? Is something happening with Katrin? Was it the video, or—”

  “I’m not talking about anything specific. But tensions are running high, and I…” Ryan pauses, like he’s searching for exactly the right words. “I wouldn’t want you to accidentally say something to her that could…interfere.”

  “Interfere how?” Malcolm asks.

  “It’s just a suggestion. Tell your mother to consider it, all right?”

  “Should I be worried about Katrin?” Malcolm asks. “Doing something, I mean?” Ryan doesn’t answer, and Malcolm glowers. “It’s bullshit that she’s just walking around like nothing happened. You have proof she’s shady and you’re not doing anything with it.”

  “You have no idea what we’re doing.” Ryan’s face doesn’t change, but his tone gets steely. “I’m asking you to lie low. That’s it. All right?” We nod, and he clears his throat. “How is, ah, everything else, Ellery? With your mom and…you know?”

  “Horrible,” I say. “But who really cares, right?”

  He heaves a sigh that sounds as bone-deep exhausted as I feel. “Right.”

  MALCOLM

  THURSDAY, OCTOBER 10

  Turns out I didn’t need to leave the house. Katrin did.

  Her aunt swooped in two days after Brooke’s body was found. She wanted to take Katrin to New York, but the Echo Ridge police asked her not to leave the state while the investigation is pending. So they’re at some five-star hotel in Topnotch, instead. Which pisses me off every time I think about it. Of all the possible scenarios I thought might happen once I turned over that video of Katrin, her taking a spa vacation wasn’t one of them.

  “So much for keeping the key witnesses nearby,” Declan snorts when I tell him. “We were all told we had to stay in Echo Ridge after Lacey died. Money talks, I guess.”

  I’m at his apartment, having dinner with him and Daisy. It’s weird for a few reasons. One, I’ve never seen my brother cook before. Two, he’s surprisingly good at it. And three, I can’t get used to seeing him with Daisy. My brain keeps wanting to replace her with Lacey, and it’s kind of unnerving.

  He doesn’t know about the car repair receipt, or the video I took of Katrin. I’m keeping my promise to Officer Rodriguez to stay quiet. It’s not hard with Declan. We might be getting along better than usual, but he still talks a lot more than he listens.

  “Peter didn’t want her to go,” I say, shifting in my chair and wincing at the pain in my ribs. Turns out they’re only bruised, not cracked, but they still hurt like hell. “Katrin’s aunt insisted.”

  “Getting away isn’t a bad idea, though,” Daisy says. She and Declan are washing dishes while I sit at the kitchen table, and she keeps brushing against him even though there’s plenty of room for two in front of the double sink. “It’s so horrible, those first few days after. All you can think about is what you could have done differently. At least a new environment is a distraction.” She sighs and flips the towel she’s holding over her shoulder, leaning into Declan. “I feel for Katrin, honestly. This brings back such awful memories of Lacey.”

  Declan kisses the top of her head, and the next thing I know they’re whispering, nuzzling, and about ten seconds away from a full-on make-out session. It’s uncomfortable, not to mention crap timing after what we’ve just been talking about. I realize they’ve been suppressing their big forbidden love for years, but I could’ve
used another half hour. Minimum.

  When the doorbell rings, I’m relieved at the interruption. “I’ll get it,” I volunteer, springing up as fast as my bruised ribs will let me.

  Too fast, as it turns out. Even though Declan’s front door is only steps away from the kitchen, I’m still wincing when I open it. Officer Ryan Rodriguez is standing on Declan’s stoop, wearing his full police uniform. He blinks in surprise when he sees me. “Oh, hey, Malcolm. I wasn’t expecting to see you here.”

  “Um. Same,” I say. “Are you…” I try to think of a reason why he might be here, and can’t come up with one. “What’s up?”

  “Is your brother around?”

  “Yeah, come on in,” I say, and he steps through the door.

  Declan and Daisy have managed to separate by the time we enter the kitchen. “Hey, Declan,” Officer Rodriguez says, folding his arms in front of him like a shield. I know that stance; it’s the one I get around Kyle McNulty. I don’t remember much about Ryan from when he was in high school, since he and Declan didn’t hang out, but I do know this: if you weren’t part of Declan’s crew, chances are he would’ve treated you like shit at some point. Not slamming you into lockers, necessarily, but acting like your existence annoyed him. Or pretending you didn’t exist at all.

  “And…Daisy,” Officer Rodriguez adds.

  Crap. I swallow nervously and look at Declan. I forgot nobody’s supposed to know those two are together. My brother doesn’t acknowledge me, but I can see the muscles in his jaw tighten as he steps slightly in front of Daisy.

  At least they aren’t shoving their tongues down one another’s throats anymore.

  “Ryan, hi!” Daisy says, with the kind of forced cheerfulness I’ve noticed she uses whenever she’s stressed. Unlike Mia, who just glares extra hard. “Nice to see you again.”

  Declan, on the other hand, cuts to the chase. “What are you doing here?”

  Officer Rodriguez clears his throat. “I have a few questions for you.”