JANE HAD COME home, and spent a pointless two hours searching her parents’ bedroom. There was nothing there that suggested an affair had happened, or was still happening, between her mother and Cal. She could not imagine they were still currently involved; surely the accident and its aftermath ended that. But her mother’s insistence on refusing to sell the house now seemed shaded with other possibilities.
She had thought of shoving the picture under her mother’s nose, saying, You want to explain this? Asking her about Kevin Ngota, although she thought it better to simply confront her mother at their meeting with Kevin. Otherwise, if she pushed the issue now, there would be no meeting with Kevin, and Kevin was trying to prove he was on her side. And she didn’t want to explain how she’d gotten the file.
She tried Franklin’s office number. No answer. She tried his cell, nervous that it would leave a record of her call. She didn’t want to be tied to him. But she had to know, so she called, and there was no answer.
She left the picture in the file and hid the file in her room, in her closet, behind a stack of books on the shelf. She thought maybe it was better to wait and see what hand her mother played in this game between them, to keep the proof of an affair with Cal Hall as a trump card until she needed it.
Did Dad know? Did Dad know?
It couldn’t still be going on. It couldn’t be.
And snooping upstairs meant she didn’t have to go downstairs and talk to her mother about what had happened this morning with Perri and Shiloh, and what else she had learned. What Adam had told her: that the night of the crash he’d found her mother and Perri Hall arguing. Was it about the affair?
She could hear Laurel downstairs, humming, perhaps delighted that her daughter had announced she had social plans. She really didn’t want to crash the party, but if she could pour a beer down Trevor’s throat and keep him off-balance, maybe he’d talk about his truck being on High Oaks at the time of the crash. He had been willing to talk to her at the coffee shop, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have his own secrets. His own agenda. His own guilt, perhaps. Now that she saw the guilt in others—she had been blinded by her own—she could see what a powerful force it was.
She kept wondering, Did Dad know? Did he know? Did he die knowing his wife cheated on him? And did I know this and I’m just not remembering? Maybe I didn’t just forget all my regular life. Maybe I forgot my secrets, too.
“Mom?” she said, coming down the stairs.
“Yes, sweetheart?”
Start with the easy part. “Why was Kamala in your office today?”
“Look, I couldn’t just tell her I wouldn’t work with her sorority. I met with her. It was a courtesy. I know you don’t like her, but you weren’t going to be involved.” She offered a smile, but all Jane saw was her mother in Cal Hall’s arms, her palm against his jaw, like she was savoring his touch. Her mother paying Kevin to pretend to be her therapist, perhaps to help have her committed. Her mother meeting with her worst enemy.
If she told her mother everything that had happened, her mother would be hauling her off to the psychiatric hospital, “for her own protection.” But Mom was in danger, too, from this Shiloh Rooke if he showed up again. So she had to tell her.
She very calmly explained about the harasser calling herself Liv Danger, the two paramedics who had been targeted, Shiloh Rooke following her to UT, Perri’s insane certainty that Jane, or Laurel, or both were behind the Liv Danger name, Perri’s attack on her at the grave. But she said nothing about sneaking into Franklin’s office or his files or the photo of Laurel and Cal. She said nothing about Shiloh’s offer to make the Halls pay for their supposed crimes. She said nothing about Kevin or what she’d learned from Adam. She was not ready to go there yet. As she finished, she still expected Laurel to call the psychiatric hospital and inquire about room availability. Instead Laurel stood and hugged her tight.
“Why didn’t you tell me this before? I’ll take care of it so this man doesn’t bother you again.”
“What?”
“Well, I’ll call the police. He followed you. The police need to know.”
“Yes, and he’ll tell them what? He offered to help me tear down the Halls?”
“He sounds very trashy. This fiancée is better off without him.”
“I don’t want to talk about him. I want to talk about you. You had a note that proved that David asked me for help, and you didn’t share it with anyone. Why?”
The answer was obvious to her as soon as she asked the question aloud. Her mother must have had a reason for keeping hidden the fact that David was in danger: because she was part of that danger.
The second thought was like hot iron through her brain. It couldn’t be.
“He was in some kind of trouble,” Jane said. “You found the note he wrote for me. This has always been a story of two notes, two messages. I had that note in my jeans and you got it and you kept it and you didn’t tell anyone.”
“Honey, the suicide note was the trump card. Nothing beat that. David’s note was real vague. What, exactly, was I supposed to do with it?”
“Is that why Cal dropped the lawsuit? This note?” Or that you were kissing him? she thought.
“Water under the bridge, Jane. Go get ready for your party, and I hope you have a lovely time.” End of discussion, her tone said.
Is this what hurt Dad so? she wondered. Because of Cal Hall? You and his best friend, so he took his uncle’s gun…? And then did my accident mess up your planned new life with him? Is that why you blame me, everyone else, for what’s gone wrong with your life? But she could not form the words, give them breath. She didn’t want to believe it. Her father wouldn’t have left her.
“I’ll contact the police about this Shiloh person.”
“And say what?” Jane said. “It could only make me look bad. We point them toward Perri; she blames me.”
“That video has done her no favors.”
“I don’t want them investigating me.”
“Jane?” her mother said. “Are you doing these things?”
Jane stared at her, turned around, and walked upstairs to get ready. She could answer her mother, she heard her asking the question again, but she thought, Let her wonder. Let her not know. Let me have some secrets from her.
At least while I find out hers.