Little Secrets (ARC)

by Jennifer Hillier

  “Yeah.”

  A comfortable silence falls between them. She can tell Sal’s in his car by the background noise, but before she can ask where he’s going so early, he says, “Do you think you’d feel the way she does? If you got the answers she did?”

  “No,” Marin says immediately. “I can imagine how Frances feels, but I just don’t think I’d feel the same way. Maybe because Sebastian’s still so little . . .” She stops for a second, aware that she still talks about her son in the present tense. “And maybe because I know it’s my fault, that what I did that day is the reason he’s not here with me.”

  “You gotta stop blaming yourself, Mar. Sometimes I wish . . .”

  “What? Say it.”

  “Sometimes I wish you could know, either way. So you could move on. Like Frances.”

  “But I’m not Frances,” she says. “I need to know what happened to Bash, but if I ever find out for certain that my little boy is dead, I’m as good as dead, too.”

  “Still?” Sal’s voice is anguished. “You still feel that way?”

  Marin has no idea how they got on this subject, or why they’re even having this conversation. She hasn’t even had her coffee yet. But if he wants the honest truth, she’s going to give it to him.

  “I never want to see my son lying in a casket, Sal. I don’t ever want to have a funeral for him. I do need to know what happened to him, because living like this is hell. But if the answer is that he’s dead, I’d jump off a bridge tomorrow.”

  “I guess I already knew that.” Sal sounds miserable. “I thought I’d ask. I wasn’t sure if yesterday changed anything for you.”

  “Where you headed, anyway?”

  “Prosser.”

  “Again?” Marin sits down on the toilet to pee. If Sal can hear her urinating, he doesn’t say anything. “What is that, the third time this week? What’s going on with Lorna now?”

  She does the mental calculation as Sal lists off his mother’s current ailments. Prosser is a three-hour drive from Seattle. That’s a ton of mileage and wear and tear on his car.

  “She’s been complaining about her other hip. You remember how brutal the recovery of her first hip surgery was.”

  “Yes, I do.” She flushes the toilet. “She had her hip replaced right before Sebastian—”

  “Right.”

  “I should come see her. I feel bad I haven’t been out there since he . . . since it all happened.”

  There’s a long pause. “She understands. But trust me, I don’t think you want to come visit. It’s depressing. She sits around all day, watching her soaps.”

  “You know what, I’ll definitely come visit her,” Marin says. “When’s a good time? How long are you there till?”

  “Until tomorrow, probably. Honestly, Mar, it’s really not—”

  “Sal, don’t be so goddamned stubborn. I want to help. I could stay longer this time. The change of scenery might be good for me. I wouldn’t mind getting out of the city.”

  Marin’s getting excited about the idea, about the thought of those vineyards stretching for miles in every direction. While she’s there, maybe they could go wine tasting, something she used to love to do, and there are nearly three dozen wineries to choose from. She never has to pay for tastings when she goes with Sal; being the heir to the former Palermo Wine Estates has its advantages. Sal’s father may have been tyrant, but the family name is still highly respected in Prosser.

  “I’ll let you know, okay?” Sal says. “I don’t know when a good time will be—”

  “Maybe I’ll call Lorna, ask her directly.” Marin’s teasing, but not really. Sal isn’t great when it comes to making plans, and if she waits for him to get back to her on dates, she might be waiting forever. “She loved having me last time. I’ll bring up some of those trashy novels she likes—”

  “She has a Kindle now.”

  “And take her into Yakima for a movie—”

  “She can’t sit in the theater for that long, her hip—”

  “And I’ll bring up some DVDs. I need someone to watch chick flicks with. Has she seen The Notebook? I could—”

  “For fuck’s sake, I said no!” Sal shouts, and Marin stops talking. “She doesn’t want to see you, okay? Other than my father, you’re the greatest fucking disappointment of my mother’s life. You’re the girl I should have married, but never did. It hurts her to see you, and to see that I can never move on from you. She thinks you’re messing with me, and she doesn’t understand why we’re still friends after all these years. Every time she sees you, she gets her hopes up, and I can’t keep disappointing her.”

  His breath is coming faster now. Marin can only hope Sal has both hands on the steering wheel and is focused on the road. She can hardly believe what he’s saying. He’s never said any of this to her before, and he’s certainly never shouted it. Marin has always been kind to Lorna, and Lorna to her. She had no idea how the woman truly felt . . . or how Sal truly felt.

  “Leave my mother alone, okay, Marin?”

  “Okay,” she snaps, not sure if she’s more angry than hurt. “You don’t have to be an asshole about it. I was just trying to help.”

  “Help who?” Sal’s voice is back to a normal volume, but the ice behind it is unmistakable. “You always want everything on your terms, Marin, and it’s not fucking fair. You want to stay married to your husband, but you’re constantly pushing him away. You want me as your best friend, yet you have sex with me when you feel like shit. You want to be known as this successful businesswoman, but you still act like a goddamned trophy wife. You say you can’t bear to live with not knowing what happened to Sebastian, but if you ever find out, you’ll jump off a fucking bridge.”

  “How dare you bring up—”

  “It’s so fucking selfish.” Sal’s voice breaks. Jesus Christ, is he crying? “Because you don’t live in this dead space by yourself. You suck everybody who loves you down into it with you, and you hold us hostage, threatening to kill yourself if you ever hear the news you don’t want to hear. So you know what, Marin? Fuck you. I’m done.”

  Marin can feel her mouth hanging open. She has no idea how to respond to this, and while she’s thinking about it, the call disconnects, giving her no chance to retort, to defend herself.

  Lorna once told her that Sal’s father used to hang up on people a lot. It was important for him to always have the last word, and he was well-known in Prosser for slamming down phones, slamming doors shut, and stomping out of rooms. Sal Palermo Sr. was an asshole, and at times the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. Sal Palermo Jr. could be the exact same way when he was upset.

  “His father had such a temper,” Lorna had said during Marin’s last visit. The older woman was grinning, as if the memory were funny, as if the word temper didn’t mean that he’d spent their entire marriage beating on her and bullying everybody else. “And J.R. is the exact same, just like his father, when he doesn’t get his way.”

  “J.R.?” Marin asked, confused.

  And then she remembered.

  When he started college, Sal started going by his actual first name. But in his hometown of Prosser, he’d grown up with his mother—and everybody else—calling him J.R. It was easier for Lorna, and the winery employees, for her husband’s and son’s names to sound different.

  J.R. was short for “Junior.”

  Chapter 27

  Still no word from McKenzie Li, and from the looks of things, her roommate is starting to panic.

  Marin sits in her office at the salon, munching on one of the bagels brought in for the staff meeting earlier that morning. For the first time in months, she did not receive a good morning text from Sal, asking if she was alive. It feels awful. It’s hard to imagine that their friendship is done, but she doesn’t know what she can do to fix it . . . or if she even has the energy to try.

  She refreshes Tyler Jansen’s Facebook page for the third time. He posted an update about his roommate this morning, and the comments have been com
ing in steadily for the past couple of hours. The new post includes a photo of McKenzie at the Green Bean, hair freshly pinked, apron tied around her waist, wearing a T-shirt that reads Ask Me About My Feminist Agenda. The Facebook post includes a link.

  I’ve filed a missing persons report on McKenzie Li. Here is the official link. If anyone has info, please call the number immediately. And then please call me. She’s been missing for four days now, and given her mother’s condition, I’m the only one looking for her.

  Her mother’s condition? Marin scrolls down, reading all the comments, chewing the bagel but not tasting it. The post has been shared over a dozen times already, and it’s up to a hundred comments and counting. Two comments in particular catch her eye, both written by a woman named Pearl Watts, who appears to be a former neighbor of the Li family.

  The first is a response from Pearl to someone asking if McKenzie’s mother is even aware that her daughter is missing. Pearl wrote, Unfortunately even if she were told, I doubt Sharon would remember. Her Alzheimer’s is v. advanced. I visit her in Yakima every other week at the assisted living center & sometimes she knows me, sometimes she doesn’t. It’s v. sad.

  Yakima? Eastern Washington? That’s not far from the wineries.

  The second comment is on its own. Pearl wrote, Kenzie is a lovely young lady & everybody here in Prosser is praying she’s found safe.

  Prosser. She’s from Sal’s hometown? What are the chances?

  Marin shifts in her chair, suddenly uncomfortable. Something about this doesn’t feel right. Marin had showed Sal a picture of McKenzie, and he hadn’t seemed to recognize her. Mind you, she’d been drinking heavily during that conversation, so her recollection might be fuzzy, but surely her best friend would have said something immediately if he’d recognized a girl from his hometown. He’s nineteen years older than McKenzie, and would have moved out of Prosser for college before she was born, but the town is so small.

  Marin ponders it some more, feeling the connection of something about to form . . . but the thought slips away before she can tie it together.

  And what does Derek know? Is he even aware that his lover of six months has disappeared, and that a missing persons report has been filed? It feels like things have officially ended between him and McKenzie, but still, how can he not know? Vanessa Castro’s words come back to her: . . . this makes two people in your husband’s life that have disappeared. Which makes him the common denominator.

  Now that the police are involved, it’s only a matter of time before they question Derek. In fact, maybe she should give him a heads-up that they might be knocking on the door any day now. But that would mean admitting to her husband that she knows about the affair.

  Marin wishes she didn’t know. She wishes she’d never found out. She wishes she’d never started this.

  She goes into the App Store, finds the Shadow app, and reinstalls it on her phone. All she has to do is reenter her login and password at the prompt and confirm Derek’s phone number. This time, however, when the app asks her if she wants to shadow all of Derek’s contacts or only specific numbers, she selects “All.” Her husband’s a busy man, and Marin’s phone might very well blow up with notifications, but it’s possible McKenzie has another phone that she’ll use to contact Derek. Or maybe someone else will try to contact Derek about McKenzie.

  Marin needs to know what her husband knows. And at some point, she needs to figure out what Sal knows.

  A minute later, it’s done. Like the first time, she waits for it to sync, half expecting a flood of text messages from Derek’s phone to download, even though the app can only shadow in real time.

  Nothing.

  A tap on the arm makes Marin jolt, and she drops her phone onto her plate, where it lands with a clang next to her half-finished bagel.

  “Sorry, Marin,” Veronique says with a laugh. “Didn’t mean to scare you. Just letting you know that your one thirty is here.”

  Marin checks the time. It’s exactly one thirty. Shit. She doesn’t like to keep clients waiting, but she could use another ten minutes to mentally work through everything she’s just learned about McKenzie. There’s no way Sal doesn’t know her, or at least know of her. Prosser has a population of less than seven thousand. She could call him right now.

  Or . . . maybe she could send a Facebook message to Pearl Watts, who clearly knows McKenzie and her mother. The woman would definitely know Sal and his family, as she’s a current resident of Prosser. Sal’s out there all the time.

  She realizes Veronique is waiting for her to say something.

  “Who’s my one thirty again?” Marin asks.

  “Stephanie Rodgers.” The receptionist’s cheerful tone turns mock-ominous, and she raises an eyebrow ever so slightly.

  Shit, again. Stephanie doesn’t like to be kept waiting. No client does, but some are more vocal about it than others.

  Resigned, Marin logs out of Facebook and pushes her chair back. “I’m coming.”

  She forces herself to make small talk after she greets her longtime client, but fortunately Stephanie is the chatty type who can carry a conversation all by herself. She’s originally from New Jersey (though she tells everyone New York), and she recently divorced a man twenty years older than she is. The marriage lasted less than five years. She and Marin float in similar social circles and get along well, though they don’t spend time together outside charity events and salon appointments.

  Stephanie’s beloved Chihuahua has been sick, and she can’t seem to shut up about the veterinary bills her ex-husband refuses to pay. It’s fine by Marin, who’s content to half listen while thinking about other things.

  “It’s his dog, too, you know, Mar? We agreed we would share the vet expenses—it’s, like, in writing in the divorce agreement. Like, he’s a fucking joke, pardon my language. Guy made eight mil last year and he can’t pay for half the seven thousand to get the fucking cysts out of the fucking dog?” The word dog comes out daw-ug. “Sorry for all the f-bombs. Sometimes I can’t believe I was ever married to that guy. Hey, how’s Derek? Count your lucky stars you got a good one.”

  “Sorry, Steph, that’s rough,” Marin murmurs, and a second later, her phone pings in her pocket.

  Reflexively, her whole body seizes. It’s the Shadow app. She stops cutting and checks her phone quickly with her free hand. It’s nothing. One of the investors in Portland is running late for a meeting. Sorry, Derek, be there in five minutes. As she’s holding the phone, her husband’s response comes in. No rush, George, we just sat down.

  “So how’s Salty doing now?” Marin asks, resuming the cut. She swallows a sigh of relief. It’s crazy how stressful it is to spy on someone.

  “Oh, he’s fine.” Her client didn’t even notice that Marin had paused for a few seconds. Stephanie’s face is buried in her own phone. “Back to being a feisty little shit. He’s one spoiled Chihuahua. He ran out the back door the other day and I thought I lost him. Probably a good thing we never had kids, you know?”

  Stephanie freezes, looks up, meets Marin’s gaze in the mirror. “Oh my god, Mar, I can’t believe I said that. Me and my fucking mouth. That was so insensitive. I am so sorry. Oh my god.”

  Marin doesn’t care. People have said worse to grieving mothers, and on purpose. This barely registered at all, but before she can reassure Stephanie that it’s fine, her phone pings one more time. It’s the Shadow app again. Maybe selecting “All” when she reinstalled it wasn’t the best idea.

  The cut is finished, at least. It’s clear Stephanie feels terrible, and Marin seizes the opportunity to take advantage of the other woman’s blunder.

  “No worries, Steph. Listen, do you mind if Jackie does your blow-dry? I need to leave a bit early. We have a new heat protectant crème I think you’ll love—it’ll make your hair so soft.”

  “Of course,” her client says right away. Normally Stephanie—or any of Marin’s other VIP clients, for that matter—would never allow herself to be passed off to another stylist
for the finish, but she’d stuck her foot in her mouth and was in no position to argue. “Go, do your thing.”

  Marin motions Jackie over, then bends down and gives Stephanie a quick hug before the other stylist takes over. “I’ll see you in two months.”

  “Sooner than that,” Stephanie calls out. “I’ll see you guys at the Spring Gala.”

  Back in her office, she shuts the door and checks the Shadow app. This time, it is a text from McKenzie. No words, just a photo. The thumbnail is small, and without reading glasses Marin can’t make out what it is without enlarging it, but one thing is obvious.

  If she’s texting him photos, then Derek and his mistress are still talking. It’s not over between them. Marin’s heart sinks.

  How could she have been so stupid? How could she have trusted him? He’d whisked her away to the mountains, said he wanted a fresh start, but he obviously doesn’t mean any of it. Lies are like breathing for her husband. She saw a meme on Instagram once: How do you know a cheater is lying? He opens his mouth.

  Leaning against the wall of her office, Marin taps on the thumbnail, and braces herself for the gut punch. The app is a bit slow, and it takes a few seconds for the picture to enlarge. When it does, it takes a moment for Marin to process what she’s looking at.

  It’s a photo of Derek’s mistress, all right. But it’s not a selfie. She’s not nude. She’s not smiling. She’s lying on a bed, on her right side, on top of a flowered quilt, in a bedroom that looks dated and sparse. She’s dressed in a T-shirt and jeans, and her wrists are bound behind her back, her feet tied together at the ankles. Her face is angled awkwardly toward the camera, as if whoever took the photo told her to look up.

  What the hell is this? Some kind of bondage thing? Have she and Derek gotten into something kinky? Is this the kind of shit that turns him on?

  Then Marin notices how stringy the younger woman’s hair looks. Her pink waves are limp and greasy, not damp. Also, something doesn’t look right with her face. She zooms in on the picture to get a closer look, and she gasps when McKenzie’s features come into focus.