Bone Deep

by O'Brien, Kim;

  What is he talking about? What choices have either of us made when it came to Emily?

  “Are you serious?” I’m supposed to accept that Emily is missing? That there’s nothing I can do about it? I’m on my feet before he’s finished. “You can’t give up on her, Dad. You just can’t say, ‘Okay, it’s been a week. Time to move on.’”

  “Look, I’m still going to do everything I can to find her.” He takes a breath and releases it slowly. “I’m just trying to make sure you’re prepared if this doesn’t turn out the way we hope. I know we’ve hurt you in the past. I don’t want to do that again.”

  The last sentence stops me from heading to my room. It’s the first time he’s ever admitted that the divorce happened to me, too. I’ve been waiting for him to say this for so long now, and yet suddenly I’m afraid. I make myself hold his gaze. “Why did you divorce Mom? She wanted to try to work things out. She told me.”

  He takes off his glasses again. His blue eyes look larger, somehow younger. “Is that what she told you?”

  “Yes. She said she wanted you to go to counseling with her. She said you wouldn’t.”

  He replaces his glasses. “That’s true. What you need to know, honey, is that what happened between me and your mom had nothing to do with you.”

  “How can it have nothing to do with me when it happened to me, too?” That was something I was supposed to think, not say. He isn’t allowed into my head, into my thoughts. He isn’t allowed to see he can make me cry or laugh or feel anything at all.

  The couch cushions shift under his weight, and then he sits beside me. “I know,” he says. “I know it happened to you, too.” His arms go around me, but I make myself go away so that he can’t reach inside me. I stay absolutely still, and after a moment his arms fall away.

  “I love you,” he says, searching my eyes. “I don’t say that enough. I’m sorry. I’m sorry about the divorce. It was never about leaving you. I just couldn’t stay there anymore.”

  “Why?”

  A wry, ironic-looking smile lifts the corners of his mouth but doesn’t touch his eyes. “I thought that I could give you more if I started liking myself again.”

  “You give me more by moving two thousand miles away?”

  “Back in New Jersey…it was all academic. It was never going to be right for me.” He shakes his head. “It was never about leaving you, Paige.”

  Of course it was about leaving me. He chose. It wasn’t like I had the same ability. No one asked me where I wanted to live or took my feelings into consideration. Yet when I look into his eyes, I could swear he’s telling the truth. He’s happier here. He belongs here. I don’t want to admit it, but it’s the truth. And maybe he does love me—not a lot, but enough to do what he thinks is best for me. But then I remember that night I heard them arguing. The word affair rising just above the crack of a slamming door. Maybe Mom thought he was having an affair, but he wasn’t. He might be this really famous archeologist, but sometimes he’s a total geek. I almost cave in, let myself reach for him, but then my mind wanders back where I don’t want it to go—to the night Emily disappeared. My father sent me to get the pizza, but where did he go? What if the real reason my father wants to send me back to New Jersey isn’t because he loves me and wants to protect me, but because he’s somehow involved?

  NINETEEN

  Paige

  When we get to the information center the next morning, I tell my father I have cramps and won’t be joining one of the search parties. I hang out in the ladies’ room until I hear the building go silent, and then I slip out the back exit.

  Hurrying through the parking lot, I pass an assortment of cars and trucks. Two equine trailers fill the air with the sweet aroma of hay and the darker, pungent odor of manure.

  It’s about six miles to Jeremy’s house and should take less than two hours to get there, if the directions on Google maps are correct. More than enough time for what I need to do.

  I glance over my shoulder as I start down the long driveway leading to Highway 59. No one sees me, and I pick up the pace a bit, a little scared and also a little excited. It’s still early, and when I reach the highway, the road is clear for miles, flat and sunbaked. Along the shoulder, cactus plants with leaves as big as hands grow in clusters.

  Emily and I used to challenge each other to jump over them. And more than once we scraped ourselves bloody. A couple of cars rocket past in a gust of hot air. According to my phone, I’ve gone about half a mile when the rumble of an engine pulls up behind me. I motion for it to pass, but the pickup keeps pace behind me.

  Someone’s following. Too easily, I imagine Emily walking the highway at night and the lights of this same pickup pinning her in their glare. A faceless man offering her a ride. Could this be an awful coincidence to have the same thing happen to me? I hunch my shoulders as the truck pulls alongside me.

  “I thought it was you,” Jalen says. “What are you doing?”

  I release a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. “Shit, Jalen. You scared the crap out of me.”

  “Where are you going?”

  I shrug. “Nowhere.”

  He accelerates past me and then jerks the truck to a stop on the shoulder of the road. When he steps out of the pickup, my heart sinks. It would be so much better for both of us if he just stayed out of this.

  When I get close enough to move around him, he blocks me. I glare up at him. “What are you doing?”

  “Trying to talk to you.”

  I try to cut around him, but he blocks me a second time. “Just get out of the way.”

  “Not until you tell me where you’re going.”

  “Why do you even care?” I study the smooth planes of his face. There’s no trace of anger in his eyes or the set of his jaw, which in a way makes it harder to be mad at him for stopping me.

  “One girl’s missing. No need for there to be two.”

  I lift my chin. “I can take of myself.”

  He just looks at me. I don’t know how I know he’s thinking of me, clinging to his hand and fighting panic as he lifted me out of the basement chamber, but I know he is. It doesn’t help that he’s right. I’m still scared of Jeremy.

  I shift my weight. “Shouldn’t you be at work?”

  “Shouldn’t you be at the park?”

  A car rockets past us. Jalen steps toward me as if he would protect me from it. It tells me even more than words that he isn’t going to leave me alone. “Look, I need to do something… It’s better if you don’t know what it is.”

  He shakes his head. “Why doesn’t that surprise me?”

  “So you should just go. Pretend you never saw me. You’re good at that.”

  I didn’t mean to say the last part—and especially not to say it so bitterly, as if I care if he sees me or not. Jalen’s head jerks as if I’ve slapped him, but then he turns around and walks back to the truck without saying a word. I’m a little surprised he’s given in so easily, but mostly I’m relieved.

  The engine rumbles. I wait for the pickup to pass, but it doesn’t. At first I think he’s just watching, but then when I look over my shoulder, I see the truck trailing behind like a dog that won’t go away.

  After a quarter-mile or so, I realize he isn’t going to give up. It’s humiliating. It’s like he feels obligated to look after me, and I keep making things worse by saying things and doing things that make us both uncomfortable.

  I stop walking, and when the truck rolls up alongside, I lean against the passenger-side door. “I’m going to Jeremy Brown’s house. If you’re going to follow me the whole way, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t let him see you.”

  “Why are you going there?”

  “Because I think he did something to her.” I clench my fists, but can’t keep the frustration out of my voice. I mean, how obvious can it get?

  “And you think you’ll find her locked in his basement?”

  His sarcasm makes me even madder. “Better the basement than the freezer.”
/>
  It’s a terrible thing to say, and part of me can’t believe it came out of my mouth. Emily’s alive. She has to be. And Jeremy knows what happened.

  “You think he’s just going to let you wander around his house looking for her?”

  “No, but I’ll figure something out.”

  He’s silent a long time. “Does anyone even know where you’re going?”

  I don’t answer. The heat of the truck pours off, making me even hotter. “Yes. My father.”

  His lips tighten at my obvious lie. “You think this kid had something to do with Emily’s disappearance, and yet you’re going to his house, alone, without telling anyone?”

  “I have to! Nobody will listen to me!”

  I walk away from the truck, trying not to let myself doubt what I’m doing, not to see that Jalen’s words had any truth in them at all.

  A moment later, Jalen’s truck pulls alongside me again.

  “What?” I shout.

  “If you’re going to search the house,” he says, “you’re going to need someone to distract Brown long enough for you to do it. Get in the truck.”

  I stare at him in disbelief. “What?”

  “I can probably get you five minutes, but not longer. The guy’s a jerk, and any longer than that I’ll end up punching him.”

  I hesitate, but looking at Jalen’s face, I know there’s really no choice. The passenger-side door opens with a groan, I get in, and minutes later we’re driving to Jeremy’s house. The shocks in the truck are gone and every bump jolts me hard. Cranking the windows is slow and hard. There isn’t even air-conditioning, so we ride with the wind streaming in our faces, too loud to speak. But not too loud to swap gazes, for each of us to wonder what in the world we’re doing.

  When Jalen exits the freeway, however, it’s less noisy, the silence more pronounced. I try to turn on the radio, but when it doesn’t work, Jalen shoots me a quick, sideways smirk as if he expects me to complain. I look at my cell.

  “Take the next left,” is all I say.

  What I don’t tell him is that the truck smells like summer and feels unstoppable, as if we’re driving a tank to Jeremy’s house. The air blowing on my face reminds me of riding through the desert in the old Jeep with my parents all those summers ago. They would sit in the front, and Emily and I would bounce around in the back, laughing and clutching each other as my father drove through the bumpy, unpaved desert.

  The memory fades and my stomach clenches, however, as we turn into the Mesa Verde development. All the houses here are brand-new, most of them sprawling concrete-and-glass buildings. Some are under construction, consisting of no more than frames of what look kind of like giant Popsicle sticks.

  Deeper into the development, I look at a bed of concrete on a newly poured foundation and think it looks like a perfect place to hide a body.

  Jalen pulls to the side of the road in front of a large, sand-colored, concrete one-story with an interesting grid on the front, like a gate molded onto the exterior. There are no neighbors on either side, only taped-off lots with scrubby trees and underbrush. Behind Jeremy’s house, the humped shapes of mountains loom.

  My mouth goes dry and my heart hammers as we step up to the mahogany front door with its black, medieval-looking hinges and crisscrossing bars. I’m shaking inside as I press the doorbell.

  As if someone has been watching us through the window, the door swings open immediately, and suddenly Jeremy Brown is standing in front of us. The sight of his thin, evil face fills me with so much hatred that I can’t speak.

  “Hello, Paige.” He smiles warmly. “Nice to see you.”

  I swallow. “Hello, Jeremy.”

  “Well,” he says, “to what do I owe the honor of your visit?”

  “I need to talk to you about Emily Linton.”

  He shakes his head. “I’ve been told not to talk to you without a lawyer present.”

  From inside, I hear a woman’s voice asking who’s at the door. Jeremy turns his head. “Friends from the park, Mom.”

  “Well, invite them in,” she says.

  He pulls the door wider, and suddenly I’m glad Jalen is with me. We step onto a white marble floor with dark-colored veins running through it. A few pieces of Native American artwork hang on the white walls, and we pass a three-foot bronze statue of a running horse tucked into a niche in the wall.

  Jeremy’s mother—a thin, dark-haired woman with large hazel eyes and small, airy bones—greets us. When she hears my name, her expression freezes and her lips thin.

  “What are you doing here?” she says, and her voice is cold as ice.

  “Relax, Mom,” Jeremy says, “I’ve got this.”

  “You’ve got this?” Her voice rises. “What you’ve got is a suspension from the university.”

  “What I’ve got,” Jeremy says calmly, “is a chance to work things out with Paige. Now go to your bedroom and give us some time alone. If I need you, I’ll let you know.”

  “I don’t trust her,” Mrs. Brown says and gives me another hateful look. “I think you should leave.”

  “Mom,” Jeremy says, “you want this to go away, don’t you?” He doesn’t wait for an answer. “You have to trust me. Now leave us alone.”

  With a final glare at me, she disappears down a hallway off the kitchen. Her high heels clack crisply, echoing her disapproval. After she goes, Jeremy offers us iced tea, but we decline. He pours himself a tall glass and then leads us to a glossy black leather sofa in the family room.

  “I’m really glad you’re here,” Jeremy says, sipping his tea and settling himself more comfortably into a matching leather chair angled toward us. “I was going to call you, but then this whole thing with Emily happened.” He leans forward, features creasing. “I’m really sorry, Paige. I know you two were close.”

  I look around the room—a painting of a desert sunset centered on the massive mahogany mantelpiece, shelves of painted pottery; a set of bleached antlers supporting the glass-topped coffee table in front of us. My gaze drifts to the floor-to-ceiling windows. Across what looks like several lots, a bulldozer is clawing at the land.

  “When was the last time you saw Emily?” Jalen asks.

  Jeremy sets the glass down on the end table. “The day she disappeared.”

  The day I told Emily about him attacking me. And the day she lied to her parents about spending the night with me. “What time?”

  Jeremy shakes his head. The expression in his eyes is earnest, like someone trying really hard to give the right answer. “I don’t know. Sometime in the afternoon. I was in Chamber Seven, doing some measurements.” His gaze returns to mine, ignoring Jalen. “She was very upset. You’d just told her what happened between us, and she had it in her head that I should withdraw from the program.”

  “You’re admitting that?” The surprise in my voice is clear even to me.

  He nods. A lock of his long, dark bangs falls forward, and he pushes it behind his ear. “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “She would have gotten you thrown out of the program.”

  He shakes his head. “I’m sorry for what happened in that chamber, Paige, but it was a miscommunication, nothing more. I have nothing to hide.”

  Speechless, my mouth gapes open, and it takes a few seconds to get anything out at all. “Are you crazy? You attacked me.” Next to me, Jalen tenses.

  When Jeremy speaks, his voice is very patient, as if I’m a young child and he’s explaining something complicated. “Paige, you knew why I brought you to that chamber.” His eyes hold mine. “You wanted me. You said you did.”

  “I told you to stop.” I make myself hold his gaze, but inside I’m shaking. I said those words, thought I meant them. Remembering what he did, however, is humiliating. I wipe my sweaty palms on my shorts and hope my face isn’t as red as it feels. I can’t even imagine what Jalen must be thinking.

  “Not to piss off your new boyfriend—” he pauses to shoot Jalen what seems like an apologetic half-smile “—but you kissed m
e back. You gave me mixed signals. Look, I’m sorry about what happened, but there was fault both ways. You need to ask your father to lift the suspension.”

  I search his eyes. They’re wide open, innocent, truthful. In his light blue polo and neatly pressed tan shorts, he looks clean-cut and all American. There’s no trace of the violence or ugliness inside him. I feel myself waver.

  “I already told my father the truth.”

  “All of it?” His eyes get a little more intense.

  I clench my fists. “Yes. And I think it’s pretty convenient, too, that your mother is your alibi. What TV show did you say you were watching?”

  “Why would I admit talking to Emily if I had something to hide? I had nothing to do with her disappearance. Nothing.”

  “But you know something,” Jalen says. It isn’t a question as much as it is a statement. “I’ve seen you. You like to stay late at the ruins. You like to watch people, don’t you? What did you see the night Emily disappeared?”

  Jeremy shakes his head, completely covering one eye with his hair until he pushes it back impatiently. “Nothing. I was home, remember?” He folds his hands together, and a sly look comes into his eyes. “But it doesn’t mean I wasn’t at the park late on other nights.” He looks directly at me. “The two of you were even more alike than I thought.”

  “What did you see?” The bones in the back of Jalen’s hands stand out as he grips his legs.

  Jeremy ignores him and keeps looking at me. “I’ll tell you,” he says, “because I want you to stop going around saying that I had something to do with Emily’s disappearance. Paige, I’m asking—no, begging—you. Tell your father the whole truth about us.”

  Just what is the truth? That I was sad and lonely and starving for someone to touch me, to hold me, to want me. Jeremy was there. Did I lead him on? Did I deserve what I got? It’s suddenly hard to say. I realize I’m twisting my hands and stop. “I already told him everything.”