“I ran to get my dad,” he continues, staring into the darkness around us. “He came out with a flashlight, shined it down, and saw her there. Dead. And that’s when he lost it. He just…broke. It was her choice to leave him. He didn’t want a divorce. But he lost her anyway. I’d taken her from him, from all of us.”
“Why didn’t you call the police?”
Everett groans softly. “I wanted to. But Dad made me promise to keep quiet. He said no one would understand. They’d think I did it on purpose, or thathedid it, because she’d asked him for a divorce. He was terrified, Ryan. He said we’d tell everyone she left. He grabbed me by the shoulders and said,Your mother left, you hear me? She left! Repeat after me.I was numb, so I just repeated it. Over and over again.She left. She left.”
“And that was it? You kept it a secret all this time?”
“I tried to tell myself she really did leave. I tried to just forget.” He sounds ravaged. Haunted. “Dad reported her missing thenext day, said it would look suspicious if he didn’t. The searches started, and I felt so guilty knowing all those people were out there looking for her. And then a few nights later, the cops showed up. Your father had been arrested, and they found drawings of my mother. Drawings of his victims. They said Gabriel Thorn killed her, and Dad went along with the police’s story. He was relieved. He thought it meant she’d be laid to rest in people’s minds. And Nikki was only a kid; it gave her the closure she needed.” Everett lets out a choked laugh. “Except I knew. I knew the whole time.”
I finally reach for his hand, not just to comfort him, but because I feel chilled to the bone and need his warmth.
“After your father confessed to killing those women—and included my mother on that list, for some inexplicable reason—that’s when Dad decided to seal the well.”
I inhale sharply, suddenly feeling like I’m the one in a cage. “He filled it with cement?”
Everett nods. “I think it was his way of burying her, since we couldn’t hold a real burial.”
We both fall silent for a long, suspended moment. Then I do the only thing I can think of. I hug him.
“Do you think I’m a monster?” His voice is muffled against my hair.
“No,” I whisper, holding him tighter. “What happened was an accident. You were a kid, a little boy. You didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”
“Then why does it feel like it’s crushing me? Why does it feel like I’m constantly fighting back this wave of darkness?”
“Because it’s a secret. It’s been eating at you for years.” I pause, choosing my words carefully. “The only way to be rid of thisdarkness is to tell the truth. You have to tell the cops what happened. Give your sister some real closure. She needs it, and so do you.”
He pulls back, his blue eyes filled with pain and sorrow.
“C’mon.” I offer him my hand. “Let’s go.”
This time, I take the lead, ascending the ladder and trying not to wince every time it creaks under my weight. When I reach the top, I curl my fingers over the cement edge of the well, yelping when a piece of it cracks off in my hand. I stumble, nearly losing my footing on the rung.
“I got you,” Everett says, and then he steadies me, helping me climb out.
Together, we walk back to his house to find JP.
Forty-four
You Make It Worthwhile
Over the next few weeks, things begin to settle, in the way wounds slowly close but never quite disappear. There’s a somber procession of memorials and burial services for my father’s victims. I don’t attend any of them. I don’t feel like it’s my place, even though I’m one of the people who found their remains. Which means I get one-fifth of the reward.
For all of five minutes, that is.
Of my two-hundred-thousand-dollar cut, I only keep enough for myself to live off for a year while I decide what to do after graduation. The rest I ask Natalie and the other family members to donate to a charity for victims of violence. It doesn’t feel right to keep it when my father is the reason for the families’ suffering.
The truth about Everett’s mother barely makes a blip on the nightly news. Since he was only seven, he isn’t charged, but JP doesn’t escape unscathed. Everett’s dad is charged with obstruction of justice and improper disposal of human remains but is eventually given a slap on the wrist, the sheriff deciding the James family has suffered enough. The community takes a divided stance,some murmuring about JP’s grave sin, others whispering that he acted only to protect his child.
With no more bombshells left to drop, the media is gradually leaving the area, and now Starling is almost back to normal. I skip prom, but Jasmine attends with Bo, and Connor takes Sam, and Jasmine is practically floating on air when she returns later that night. She did indeed give up her V-card, and “Oh my God, cousin, it wassomagical,” she declares when she fills me in the next morning.
A couple of days before graduation, Everett and I meet on the trail between our houses. I haven’t seen him since the night in the well. He looks thinner and a lot less cocky, and his eyes hold shadows they didn’t have before.
“Nikki’s still not speaking to me,” he says when I ask how he’s doing. “Or to Dad, for that matter.”
I frown. “That’s hard. But I get it. She’s dealing with a lot.”
“Yeah.” He rakes a hand through his hair. “I’m deferring my scholarship for a year. I’m going to stay and try to patch things up with her. Try to be the big brother she deserves.”
