Thicker Than Water

by Natasha Deen

  “How do you know?” I ask.

  “Loni said the police talked to Ella’s dorm roommate but suspected the girl wasn’t telling them everything. Turns out she wasn’t upfront about Gavin because she liked him too.”

  The questions crowd my brain. I can’t think of which one to ask first. “What?”

  “Gavin, Ella and the roommate met in statistics class. Both girls were interested in him, but he preferred Ella. They dated for a bit. But Ella broke it off after a few weeks. The guy started texting her, leaving presents, following her around on campus.” Mom looks disgusted. “The roommate thought Gavin was being romantic.”

  “Sounds more like stalking to me,” says Ayo.

  “Me too,” I add.

  “Me three,” says Mom. “The police tracked Gavin down and have been questioning him. So Loni was filling me in.” She glances at her watch. “I’ve got to get ready. I told Loni I’d try and stop by before my meeting.” She gets up and plants a kiss on my cheek. “Dinner’s in the microwave.”

  “We should definitely check Ella’s feeds,” says Ayo after Mom is out of earshot.

  I agree, but I’m still in shock about not knowing Ella had a boyfriend. I’m even more upset that she never told me about him giving her a hard time.

  “Did Ella ever talk to you about the guy?” Ayo asks as we load up our plates.

  “No.” There’s a weird churning in my stomach. Not fear. Not nerves. It’s something else. Ella was keeping secrets. If that’s true, then maybe Ayo is right. Maybe she did take off and doesn’t care who’s worried about her. But it doesn’t mesh with the Ella I knew. That’s what’s making my stomach hurt. I’m starting to wonder how well I knew her. I’m starting to wonder if I even knew her at all.

  Chapter Seven

  “So Ella had secrets. Who doesn’t?” Ayo says when we’re safely in my room and I tell him what I’m thinking.

  “I don’t.”

  “Right. You think your dad has information on Ella.”

  “That’s his secret.”

  “And you’re keeping it,” says Ayo. He points at me. “That’s your secret.”

  “Can you blame me?” I show him my phone. “Since we learned about this Gavin guy, look at what’s going on online. Everyone’s talking about it, about him.”

  Ayo takes the phone and scrolls through the feeds. “Oh, man.”

  “Yeah, it’s creepy. All it took was one post from Ella’s mom about him. Suddenly everyone’s got an opinion. Can you imagine what would happen if I outed my dad? It would ruin everything.”

  “Hey, I’m not judging,” says Ayo. “If it was my dad, I probably wouldn’t say anything either.” He stands. “I should head home. We should talk to Loni tomorrow.”

  “About what?”

  “Ella’s dad. You said Ella had reconnected with him, right? Loni’s got to have information about her ex.”

  “I don’t know. From everything I’ve heard, their divorce was nuclear war.”

  “Exactly,” says Ayo. “So she’ll be able to help. If my aunts and uncles have taught me anything, it’s that adults love talking about their terrible exes.”

  A sound wakes me up in the middle of the night. I hear muffled voices. Then the thump of something hitting the floor. I get out of bed and stand at the top of the dark stairs. I can see Mom at the bottom. A lamp from the living room is the only light. She’s bent over a garbage bag, shoving something inside. It takes me a second to realize it’s Dad’s clothes. On top is his favorite wool coat. The one he was wearing the day I saw him with Ella. I creep away from the steps and sneak back to my room.

  When Ayo picks me up the next morning I don’t tell him about what I saw. Even for me it feels way over the top to think my whole family is involved in a grand conspiracy with Ella. Still, Mom shoving all Dad’s stuff in a bag says that whatever’s going on between them is getting worse.

  Ayo drives us to Ella’s house. As we pull into the driveway, I realize how awful all of this must be for her mom. I should have been there for her. And that makes me angry at my dad. Angry that my loyalty to him has kept me away.

  Ella’s mom takes a while to answer the door. When she finally opens it, it’s obvious she hasn’t slept in days. She blinks as though trying to remember who we are. “Zack? Ayo? What are you doing here?” She reaches out to us. “Did you hear something from Ella? Did she call you?”

  “No, I’m sorry,” I say. “We haven’t heard from her. But we wanted to see how you were doing.”

  “Oh.” Her voice goes flat. “I’m good. Thank you, boys.” She starts to close the door.

  “Wait, Loni. Can we come in? Can we talk?”

  She brushes her hair back. “Yes, sure.” She steps aside to let us in. “I’m afraid I don’t have much to offer you. I haven’t had time to—”

  “It’s fine.” Ayo holds up a bag of bagels and a tray of coffees. “We brought supplies. We thought you might be hungry.”

  “That’s very sweet of you.” She moves down the hallway. “But I’m afraid I don’t have much of an appetite these days.”

  Ayo and I look at each other. We had hoped to get Ella’s mom to relax over some food and coffee. Then we could ask her about her husband. Now it feels like a jerk move.

  “So, how can I help you?” She sits down on the living-room couch.

  “Just wanted to make sure you were eating,” said Ayo, “and—uh—sleeping okay.”

  “You can see I’m doing fine, under the circumstances.”

  “Right.” I wipe my hands on my jeans. “The cops, have they updated you on the case?”

  “Not really,” she says with a frown. “Even this Gavin kid, the police won’t tell me what they learned.” She leans forward. “That boy was harassing her. He spread terrible rumors about my daughter, but you know what those officers did? They let him go. They let him go! They said they didn’t have enough evidence, said he wasn’t in town the day Ella went missing. But that stuff can be faked, right?” Her eyes are wide, angry. “He could be phishing or twerking or whatever it is they do these days.”

  Normally, an adult mixing up tech and dance terms would be hilarious. But there’s nothing funny about Loni’s rage.

  “I watch TV. I know you can fake an alibi. How do we know this boy didn’t do that? I asked the police to let me talk to him—begged to talk to him.” She puts her face in her hands. “But they won’t let me. They say it’s not appropriate.”

  “Did they say anything else?” I ask.

  “Like what?”

  I clear my throat. “Maybe about your ex-husband?”

  Ella’s mom goes still. “What about him?”

  “Did the cops tell you that Ella had reconnected—”

  She waves me off. “I heard. It’s not true. My ex owes me thousands of dollars, tens of thousands, in child support. If he had contacted Ella, she would have told me, and I would have had the lawyers on him. He knows that. Phil would never have talked to Ella.”

  “Ella said—”

  “It must have been someone else,” she says. Her hands flutter in agitation. “Someone who pretended to be him. Ella was trusting and easily manipulated—”

  “She knows her dad.”

  “Maybe when she was a child.” Loni spits out the words. “But it’s been years, and her loyalty is to me.”

  “Maybe that’s why she didn’t tell you,” Ayo says gently. “Maybe she was worried about hurting you—”

  “She never went near that man. That would have been a betrayal of everything I’ve done for her. She wouldn’t do that!” She rose to her feet. “I think it’s time for you boys to leave.”

  “We didn’t mean to upset you,” I say quickly.

  “Ella and I have had to survive together. We’re a team, best friends. I know everything about my daughter. We don’t have secrets.”

  I don’t know what to say.

  Ayo’s expression mirrors what I’m feeling. Horror at watching Ella’s mom unspool, frustrated because there�
��s nothing we can do to make it better. She’s shrieking now, yelling about all the ways she and Ella are united. Screaming that if people would just listen to her, they’d find her daughter. “We can be a family again,” she says and then collapses back on the couch.

  The silence is a relief.

  “Loni—” I begin.

  “Get out,” she says, her voice barely a whisper now. “I’m fine. Get out.”

  “Well, that didn’t go the way I expected,” I say to Ayo as we walk down the front steps to the car. “I shouldn’t have come here. I shouldn’t have brought up her ex-husband.”

  “Life’s about asking hard questions and being cool when people get mad at you. But that was intense. Poor Mrs. Loni.” Ayo climbs in and puts on his seat belt. “At least we found out something. Two somethings, if you think about it.” He starts the car.

  “What’s that?” I buckle in.

  “She and Ella aren’t as close as she thinks.”

  “We knew that.”

  “No, we knew there was stuff between them because of Ella. Now we know Mom thinks her kid didn’t keep any secrets from her.”

  I don’t really get his point, but I nod. “And the second thing?”

  “Something happened the day Ella went missing. Something her mom doesn’t want us to know.”

  I think about that for a moment. “Assuming Ella wasn’t kidnapped, assuming she’s taken off, it makes sense. Profilers always talk about a trigger, something that happens that makes the person in question snap.” I think about it some more. “But moms and daughters fight all the time, so it couldn’t have been something regular.”

  “Or maybe it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Maybe it was one fight too many.”

  That’s similar to something Dad said too. I’d been hoping the visit with Ella’s mom would clear up things. Instead, all I have are more questions and more secrets to untangle. What I do know is that I am tired. Tired of not knowing where Ella might be. Tired of watching Loni come apart every time her daughter’s name is mentioned. Most of all, I’m tired of not knowing what part my dad has played in all of it. I may not have the answers, but I know what I’m going to do next. I’m going to find my dad and force him to tell me the truth about what happened that day at the mall.

  Chapter Eight

  “When is Dad going to be back?” I ask Mom as soon as I get home.

  She shrugs. “How am I supposed to know?”

  “You’re his wife—”

  She snorts. “You’re his son. Why don’t you know where he is?”

  “Jeez, Mom. I was just asking.”

  Mom is on the couch, flipping through the channels. “Why don’t you phone him? Leave me out of it.”

  “I tried. But it went to voice mail.”

  “Did you leave a message?”

  “Yeah.”

  More channel flipping. “Well then, I’m sure he’ll get back to you soon.”

  “Can you cut the attitude?” That’s usually Mom’s line. I can’t believe I just said it to her! “I mean, I don’t know what’s going on between the two of you—”

  “Nothing. There’s nothing going on—”

  “You know, my friend’s missing. I’m trying to talk to Dad, and he’s not around. And you’re not even paying attention—”

  Mom shuts off the TV, stands and turns to me. It’s a solid, fluid motion, and it catches me off guard. “Well, we all have people who are missing. As a matter of fact, I have a missing husband.”

  “Yeah—”

  “He’s been missing for weeks, because even when he’s here, he’s not here.”

  “Is that why you threw out his clothes?”

  “What?”

  “The other night, I saw you throw away his favorite jacket.”

  “You saw that?”

  “He’s going to be pissed.”

  She smirks.

  She’s happy. I’m freaking out, and she thinks this is some kind of party. I have had it with both of them.

  “You think this is funny?” I yell. “Dad’s keeping secrets—I saw him at the mall with Ella.” It slips out before I can stop myself, but I’m too mad to care. “Now he’s suddenly selling the car, and you’re throwing out the jacket he wore that day—”

  She freezes. “Wait a minute. You think your dad’s involved in Ella’s disappearance?”

  “What else could it be?”

  Mom doesn’t say anything for a moment. “Your dad doesn’t have anything to do with Ella going missing.”

  “But he’s acting weird. Why?”

  Silence.

  I stare at her, rearranging everything I know. Instead of bringing Ella into it, I go over each piece of information by itself. Mom and Dad fighting. The money troubles. Dad working late. The way he’s glued to his phone. The messages that come through.

  “He’s having an affair, isn’t he?”

  She still won’t say anything. The way the tears fall, though, tells me everything.

  I’m such an idiot. I want to be a detective and solve crimes. But I couldn’t even see what was right in front of me all along.

  She points to the chair. Dad’s briefcase is on it. “He says he’s at a meeting, but he left all his work stuff here. He’s given up pretending. I’m sorry, Zack.”

  I grab his briefcase and go to my room. I want to fling it at the wall. I want to break holes in the drywall and smash my fists into the furniture. But then I realize something. I don’t want to destroy my bedroom. I want to punch my dad.

  I drop the briefcase on the floor and dump out its contents. There’s nothing in it that can tell me where he might be. It’s a bunch of stupid hotel pens and—wait. I look at each of the pens. They’re all local hotels.

  All the times he told us he was at a meeting or at a conference, he was still here. He was staying at a hotel with someone else. All the lies. All the stupid smiles, calling me “Champ,” pretending he still cared about the family. I go back out to talk to my mom.

  She’s crying, and her face is red. “I’m sorry,” she says. “About everything.”

  “Me too.” My voice is flat. “Where is Dad?”

  “Honey, I don’t think—”

  “He has information about Ella. I need to talk to him. Where is he?”

  Eventually she gives me an address. It’s for the other woman’s house. “Her name’s Jenny.”

  I text Ayo and tell him what’s going on.

  I don’t know what to say. He replies immediately.

  The stuff between Mom and Dad can wait. I want answers about Ella.

  That’s a bad idea, dude.

  Either you drive me, or I take a cab. Your choice.

  Okay, I’m coming.

  When Ayo arrives, I hand him the paper. “Here’s the address,” I say. “Let’s go.”

  “In a minute,” he says. “First I need you to calm down.”

  “I am calm.”

  “Zack, I’m not playing. I only came here because I’m worried you’re going to do something stupid.”

  My hand reaches for the car door, but Ayo starts driving.

  “You’re under a lot of stress, and you’ve had a couple of bad things happen. Ella’s missing. Your dad’s… gone.”

  “He’s not gone. He’s off with some chick. He should be at home. Helping me deal with my missing friend. But he isn’t. He’s off with Jenny—”

  “Right, and now you want to go and yell at him. I get that. Actually, I’m all for you screaming at him. I need to make sure that’s all you’re going to do.”

  “I can’t promise I won’t punch him.”

  Ayo sighs. “Let’s go somewhere else, at least until you calm down.”

  “We go to Jenny’s house. You take me anywhere else, and I’m taking a cab.”

  He shakes his head, but he turns down the street, and heads to her place.

  Chapter Nine

  Ayo parks in front of Jenny’s house. I don’t know what I expected. Maybe a house with peeling paint and br
oken windows. Instead, her house is pretty. White with blue trim, flower boxes and a green lawn.

  “You okay?”

  “No.” I climb out of the car. Behind me I hear the other car door slam shut. “I should do this alone.” I don’t bother turning around.

  Ayo jogs up beside me. “Yeah, like I’m going to leave you alone.”

  I get to the front door and lift my hand to ring the bell.

  “Are you sure you want to do it like this?” Ayo asks softly.

  I ring the bell. By the time the door opens, anger, fear and pain are rushing through my body.

  A woman I assume is Jenny smiles. Her gaze goes from Ayo to me. “Yes?”

  “I’m Zack. I’m looking for my father.”

  Her smile is uncertain. “I think you have the wrong house—”

  “Patrick Bernard. He’s here when he should be at home with me and my mom.”

  The blood rushes from her face.

  “My mom said I could find him here. I need to talk to him about one of my friends. She’s missing. She was with him the day she went missing, but he’s lying about it. That shouldn’t be a surprise to any of us, though, right? We all know he’s a liar.”

  Jenny tries to close the door, but I block it with my foot. “Is he here?”

  “N-no.” She forces a smile. “Patrick and I are just friends. I don’t know what you and your mom are thinking.”

  “We’re thinking my dad’s a slime-ball. I don’t know what she thinks of you, but I think—”

  “He’s at the gym.” The words come out in a rush, and then she slams the door in my face.

  Ayo puts his hand on my arm and pushes me down the stairs.

  I catch Jenny watching from her windows and give her the middle finger.

  She ducks her head and moves away.

  “Trust him to screw around with a coward,” I mutter. “The least she could do is face the consequences.”

  “Speaking of consequences, we’re attracting a crowd,” says Ayo. A couple of people are out on their lawns, pretending to do yard work.

  “Good. They should know what kind of neighbor they have.”