by Linda Keir
Chapter Forty-Five
IAN COPELAND’S GLENLAKE JOURNAL
Wednesday, March 19, 1997
It was fifty degrees today—after the last two months, it felt like July. Basketball season was a waste, but there’s no way I’m going to miss soccer, so I decided to go for a run. Now that the cast is off and I finally got the cheese scrubbed off, my leg still looks white and skinny, and to be honest, it doesn’t feel that great. But I only have a few weeks to get in shape, so I figured I’d better start right away. Just two miles, I told myself. Slow.
I was headed down toward the lake when I saw Andi pick up one of the school bikes and head north on Lake Loomis Road. I had been planning on going south, but when I saw her, I changed my mind. No idea why—maybe I figured that when she turned around and came back and went past me, she’d see me running instead of gimping along in the cast. I’m sick of her having two reasons to feel sorry for me.
By the time I got to the road, she was a couple hundred yards ahead. She wasn’t moving too fast, and so I sped up to keep her in sight. I didn’t necessarily want her to hear or see me, but . . . I don’t know. I just followed her. I’m not a stalker, OK??? I’ve had plenty of opportunities to spy on her, but I’ve never taken them until now.
After about half a mile, I was already breathing hard and starting to worry about my leg, but ahead of me Andi was just rolling along and enjoying the scenery. I don’t think I was slowing down, but she was starting to pull away and leave me behind.
I guess that’s what they’d call a poetic metaphor in some classes.
I kicked it up a notch and kept her in sight, barely, for the next half mile, sweating like a pig. Then she went around a curve, and I lost her, and when I came around the curve, she was gone. I should have been able to see her because the road straightened out.
I slowed down. Both my legs felt rubbery, even my good one. I almost felt like I could puke. In a little while I saw her bike, lying in the weeds by this overgrown road. I guess it was a road because it was too wide to be a path.
At first I thought something was wrong, like someone had attacked her and pulled her off her bike. Then I thought maybe she had to pee and was just squatting behind a tree or something. But then I remembered it was California Girl Andi—she’d be afraid of getting an ant up her ass or something.
I went up the old road. My legs were getting all scratched up, and it was kind of cold in the shade—my sweat felt all clammy now—but no sign of Andi. I tried to go as quietly as I could so she wouldn’t hear me coming. I definitely didn’t want her to think I was a stalker, but now I wanted to make sure she was okay.
The road went up for maybe a quarter mile. Then the trees stopped, and I did, too.
Andi was sitting on a rock. Next to her was Dallas Fucking Walker.
It was so sweet. He even had a picnic basket and a bottle of wine, which isn’t exactly legal. Well, no more legal than doing it with your seventeen-year-old student. Andi’s birthday is coming up, so I guess they won’t have to worry about the sex part then?
I had never really pictured them being anywhere but DFW’s cottage—I guess I figured they’d be so scared of being seen that they wouldn’t get together anywhere else. But here they were in broad daylight. Even if they hadn’t arrived together. It looked like DFW had a mountain bike he’d ridden all the way to the top.
He leaned in and kissed her, and put his arm around her and pulled her close. Now I really felt like I had to puke. I was about to turn around and go, but Andi pushed him away, so I waited. She started talking to him, looking really serious. She was getting upset, and DFW was trying to calm her down. Then she wiped tears off her cheeks, and I felt my eyes get watery, too.
He shrugged and poured himself a glass of wine. She fucking SLAPPED IT OUT OF HIS HAND. It was awesome—until he slapped her face. They started arguing. My head spun, and I wanted to rush down there and throw him off the cliff.
But I didn’t.
I just watched.
I told myself it was because of my fucking leg, and I wasn’t even sure if I could run over there without falling down. I told myself it was because Andi had dumped me, so whatever happened was her own fault. I told myself I wasn’t afraid of losing a fight with Dallas.
I told myself everything except to go help Andi.
They really argued. Dallas said something, and Andi started crying hard, her shoulders shaking. He poured himself the other glass of wine and sat there sipping it, looking out at the lake.
I was so cold I was shaking, too. My leg felt like shit as I went back down the road. I could barely jog back to school, but I kept going as fast as I could because I didn’t want Andi to come up on her bike and catch me.
I think my leg is fucked up again.
How is someone like him still walking the earth?
Why am I letting him?
Chapter Forty-Six
Ian had just come home from work and was standing in the front hall, separating junk mail from the two or three envelopes of interest, when a car he didn’t recognize pulled up out front. A pink mustache glowed on the dashboard. Lyft.
Then Cassidy got out of the back seat, dragging a duffel bag behind her.
He met her on the porch, his heart thumping, still clutching a stack of envelopes.
“Cassidy, what’s wrong?” he asked, brain spinning through different scenarios. It was a weeknight, and she should have been at Glenlake until spring break.
Ignoring his attempt to take her bag, she brushed past him and dumped it on the floor of the hallway.
“Is Mom home?”
“She’s still at work. What’s going on?”
His daughter looked at him and then took her coat off, deliberately, as if she was buying time.
“Tell me you’re okay,” he pleaded, his worry now shot through with adrenaline.
Her voice was tight, almost strangled. “Who was Mom seeing?”
Worrying about the present day, about her now, Ian stupidly didn’t understand her question for a moment.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he told her, panic welling up.
“When we were in Colorado and I asked about your breakup with Mom, you basically admitted she was seeing someone else.”
“I did,” he said.
“Do you know who it was?”
No, he wanted to lie. I never found out.
Instead, he said, “She never told me.”
Which was true.
She paused again, as if deciding what to say next—or deciding whether she believed him.
“That bracelet Whitney found at Thanksgiving. There was one just like it in Dallas Walker’s car. I saw a picture—it looks identical.”
There it was.
“Cassidy, everybody had those,” he told her, his voice sounding weak and unconvincing even to him. “It was a thing. Kids were making those in metalworking class.”
“I talked to Georgina, and she said they were all different,” said Cassidy flatly. “That Mom’s was unique. But that she’d spent so long working on it she could have made another one just like it.”
He didn’t answer, not trusting himself in another lie.
“Dad, was Mom seeing Dallas Walker?”
“That’s ridiculous, Cassidy.”
“How can you be so sure? You just said she didn’t tell you who she was seeing. Isn’t it possible that it was a teacher? It happens, Dad!”
“I’m well aware. That’s why your mother was worried about your closeness with Mr. Kelly.”
“Or maybe just feeling guilty about her own bad behavior.”
While Ian thought about what to say next, Andi’s car slipped past the dining room window toward the carriage house–turned–garage.
Ian finally put the mail down on the narrow marble-topped table.
Neither spoke until Andi found them. Instinctively glad to see her daughter, she reached out to hug Cassidy but, seeing their expressions, let her arms drop.
“What�
�s going on?” she asked warily.
Cassidy took a deep breath. “You gave Dallas Walker a bracelet just like yours as a gift, didn’t you?”
“Cassidy,” said Ian, not knowing how to finish that sentence. Wanting to warn her. Wanting her to stop before they all went over the cliff.
Knowing it was too late.
He watched a range of emotions flit across his wife’s face. Tight-lipped, Andi finally nodded.
“I don’t know what’s going on.” Their daughter’s eyes welled with tears. “I’m worried you know way more than you’ve been saying. For all I know, you could even be involved in this whole Dallas Walker mess.”
“That’s crazy,” Ian said. “I don’t know what’s been happening in that class of yours, but your mother has nothing to do with any of it.”
Knowing it wasn’t entirely impossible.
Cassidy turned to him. “But how would you know, Dad? Unless . . .”
“Your father isn’t involved.”
Cassidy turned back to her mother, the same question in her eyes.
“We know each other,” Andi said with finality, looking to Ian for agreement.
“We know each other,” he echoed.
Thinking the only time he’d been 100 percent sure they knew each other was in school. Before Dallas Walker arrived on campus.
Chapter Forty-Seven
ANDI BLOOM’S GLENLAKE JOURNAL
Tuesday, March 25, 1997
Dallas is nowhere
His cottage is locked
The poem tree bears no fruit
I am alone
With my relief
And free
IAN COPELAND’S GLENLAKE JOURNAL
Wednesday, March 26, 1997
So the great Dallas Fucking Walker has disappeared from campus. I heard the kids in the poetry seminar are practically in mourning over that scumbag.
What can I say but good riddance?
Chapter Forty-Eight
Andi had insisted that the only reason she knew Roy’s nickname was because Ian himself had used it during their Skype call with Cassidy.
He hadn’t, but he’d seemed convinced. For the time being, anyway. But Ian was the one who’d alerted Cassidy and Kelly to Roy’s existence in the first place. Why had he done that?
Thinking about Roy brought back bad memories of the party at his decrepit house. Having Cassidy show up at home to interrogate her and Ian about Dallas, insinuating they knew something about his death, was both surreal and agonizing.
Andi had never been more grateful for Whitney and Owen and their raucous energy. Dropped off from the after-school carpool, they’d materialized just in time, joyous to see their sister and loudly wondering why no one had told them Cassidy was coming home for the weekend.
“I was homesick,” Cassidy said, saving Andi or Ian from sharing a truer, if far less believable, excuse.
Your sister came home to confront us about a huge secret that was supposed to go with me to my grave.
Or:
Your sister rushed back from school so we could reassure her we’re not murderers.
With their synchronized, knee-jerk reactions, they’d hopefully done just that.
We know each other.
Starved as always, the twins insisted that Cassidy’s condition could be cured only by comfort food, with an all-you-can-eat mostaccioli and meatball dinner at Rigazzi’s. Cassidy seemed to perk up at the very idea, and Andi welcomed the distraction as they all piled into the car and made their way to the Hill, an area dotted with fifty-year-old Italian family restaurants. As natives, Ian and the kids were devotees, but Andi’s only interest was in the wholly incongruous fishbowl margaritas.
Tonight more than ever.
Ian clearly felt the same way: he didn’t even ask to see the wine list before following her lead and ordering one of his own. She flagged the waiter for a second round as the kids dunked their toasted ravioli in marinara sauce.
Despite the strain around Ian’s eyes and the ramrod-straight posture she hadn’t seen since their boarding-school days, he seemed to relish dinner, joking around with the kids, until she believed the threat between them had diminished. Soothed by a pleasant buzz, Andi allowed herself to pretend their inevitable summit would be softened by the lovely evening they’d shared with their three spectacular children.
After dinner they went to Ted Drewes for dessert, drove home, played a game of Scrabble, and called it a night. The kids were in bed when Ian closed the bedroom door.
“I know about you and Dallas,” he said.
Sitting on the bench at the end of their bed, one shoe on and one in her hand, Andi took his words like a blow. She looked around the room at the furnishings they’d chosen together, trying to ground herself in the familiar present but finding everything strange. Until this moment she’d managed to insulate herself with her countless blessings—more than anyone deserved—always believing she’d gotten away with it all and that Ian would never know the details of what she’d come to think of as the forgotten five months.
“How?” she asked simply.
“I saw you two together.” His voice cracked. “More than once.”
But where had he seen them? What exactly had he seen? She couldn’t bring herself to ask.
“How could you do that?” Ian demanded, suddenly sounding seventeen.
“I don’t know,” she said, starting to cry. “I don’t know how it happened. It just did.”
“Did you love him?”
“I’ve only ever loved you,” she said.
He nodded, his eyes wet, one lone tear escaping down his cheek. “I thought I’d made my peace with it. But then they found Dallas Fucking Walker in the lake.”
Moving in slow motion, she took her second shoe off, stood, and hugged him, but he didn’t relax into her arms.
“Why didn’t you ever tell me?” she asked.
“Maybe I was waiting for you to tell me.”
“I thought about it. Many times.”
“But you didn’t say anything.” The angry, wounded edge was creeping back into his voice.
As every emotion she’d ever suppressed flooded through her—fear, doubt, guilt, shame—she felt a glimmer of relief that she no longer had to hide one of the secrets she’d assumed was hers to bear alone. And that he didn’t know the worst of it.
“The more time passed, the harder it seemed. And we were happy. Other than one brief interruption, we’ve been happy together since we were fourteen years old, Ian. I didn’t want to ruin it.”
He hugged her back, briefly, then let go and turned away. “That spring, after my cast came off, I went running down by the lake. I saw you ahead of me, riding one of the red school bikes.”
The knot in Andi’s stomach tightened.
“I wasn’t following you,” he continued, “but when I found the bike lying in the weeds, I got worried.” He inhaled deeply, held it, and let go. “I saw you together. Drinking wine. Kissing.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said, tears coming harder.
“I saw you fight. I watched you break up.”
Andi stopped herself from correcting him. There was nothing to be gained by telling him they’d never actually broken up.
Finally, he turned around. “How did you feel when he disappeared?” he asked.
After all these years, she could still feel the sting of Dallas’s hand on her face. “Honestly?”
“Don’t you think it’s twenty years past time for honesty?”
“You can’t possibly think we’ve had a dishonest marriage.”
“The foundation was certainly built on a lie,” he said coldly.
“You lied, too,” she snapped back. “By not admitting you knew.”
“You didn’t answer my question,” Ian said.
“My feelings were complicated,” she finally said. “I got in deeper than I’d ever meant to. He wasn’t who I thought he was.”
“You mean, instead of being a sensitive poet to whom age was meanin
gless, he was just a teacher who wanted to fuck his students?”
“Something like that.”
“I fucking hated that guy from the start,” Ian said smugly, once again sounding just like his teenage self.
“You would have hated him even if nothing had happened between us,” she said. “Sometimes you used to be closed-minded back then.”
She knew the moment she shut her mouth it had been the wrong thing to say.
“So what does that mean?” he demanded. “You’re defending him now?”
“What he did was wrong, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t a brilliant poet,” she said, stepping back ever so slightly in the face of Ian’s anger. “It didn’t mean he deserved to die.”
A strange look passed over Ian’s face. “Well, it’s not like either one of us had a say in that, is it?”
She didn’t know how to answer that.
When he left the room, she felt relieved. If they talked any more, she was afraid she’d blurt out all the bottled-up thoughts and fears that had been simmering since the moment Wayne Kelly projected the photo of Dallas’s waterlogged car on the screen.
Things certainly looked different now that she knew Ian was aware of why she’d broken up with him. Had he been spying on them during some of their other intimate moments, too?
The thought horrified her as much as the fact that he’d kept his knowledge secret all these years.
I fucking hated that guy from the start.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Cassidy couldn’t sleep. She’d been lying in bed texting Tate—all innocuous, nothing about her parents—until he finally ended it with a don’t you SLEEP??, followed by a to let her know it was okay. Lying there, she’d heard her parents arguing, then water running, then nothing at all.
She wondered who was mad at whom and why. Also, how they could have been so weirdly relaxed at dinner, although that could have had something to do with the fishbowl margaritas they’d both slurped down. Mom always ordered one, but it was out of character for Dad, who usually interrogated the waiter about the skimpy wine list.
They obviously weren’t telling her everything. If Mom did have a relationship with her teacher, it made sense that she would have kept it secret, even from Dad, but that didn’t explain why Roy seemed to know Mom so well. And why did Roy seem so sure he was going to get out of jail? Was it really faith in a higher power? If she were unjustly accused, she’d put her faith in lawyers, not God.
