Artemis climbed in the back with me and leaned over to buckle me in. I mumbled, “Thanks, Mom,” but she acted like she didn’t hear. She buckled herself in, too. We waited while Greta stood outside and made her calls.
Finally Greta slid into the driver’s seat, dropping her phone into the cup holder, and shifted the car into reverse. “Lazarus and Sadie are on their way,” she said. “I got ahold of Chief Rivera. She says she doesn’t know how you got out ofthe station, Zora, but she’s going to find Buster now. Are we all buckled in? Good.”
Her voice was neither gentle nor kind, and for once in my life I was happy for it. My home getting pushed off a cliff was not an occasion for kindness. It was a time for rage. Right now there was nothing for me to do. But Aunt Gretacoulddo things. She could do a lot of things. And if she was angry for me, shit was going to get done.
Her eyes flashed up to meet mine in the rearview mirror. They looked just like ours—mine and Sadie’s and Mom’s—dark and furious. Intense. Those weren’t from the Novak side of the family. Those were Aberdeen through and through.
I looked away. Aberdeen, Novak, what did it matter? Our homes had met their end on the bluffs because of the people in this town. Artemis was right: I didn’t hate Addamsville enough to set it on fire. I didn’t hate Addamsville at all.
But Addamsville sure hated me.
26
“What are you looking at there, Zoo?”
Dad’s voice was soft, almost timid, as he came up behind the couch. I shoved the picture of Mom and Aunt Greta into my shirt. “Nothing.”
He came around the couch and sat down, his knees by my shoulders. I stayed kneeling in front of Greta’s glass-topped coffee table, my wet hair dripping on the carpet.
“Sadie’s asleep,” he said. “You should get to bed, too. Greta said you could stay with Artemis on the third floor.”
“Of course they have a third floor,” I said, but my heart wasn’t in it. The living room was warm and quiet and smelled like fresh laundry. My limbs ached, and every inch of me felt like it had been bruised or cut. I held my arm against mystomach to keep the picture in place and stood. “Sure. Bed.”
Dad reached out as if to grab me, then withdrew. “Zoo, wait.” My skin prickled. “Was that a picture of your mom? Where’d you get it?”
A clock ticked in the other room. Aunt Greta was in the kitchen, and Artemis had gone upstairs to get her room ready for me. I cleared my throat. Dad took my wrist in his hand, very gently, as if he was checking for a pulse. “Zoo, sit down.”
After a moment of hesitation, I did. Dad still wore his own clothes, and he hadn’t taken a shower yet, so he looked rumpled and tired. His eyes were red and puffy. He put his other hand on the other side of my wrist and held me there.
“I’m sorry for what I said the other day,” he said. “You were right on all counts. Pulling that scheme was irrational and selfish of me. I pride myself on thinking that I’m here to take care of you and your sister, but that just made things worse for both of you, and I’m still not sure what I can do to make up for it. And I shouldn’t have told you what to believe. That’s up to you and only you. It’s hard sometimes not to confuse belief with fact.”
I picked at the hem of Artemis’s shirt.
“Can I ask you something?” he said. “I promise I’m not trying to interrogate you.”
“What?”
“Why do you believe Mom’s still alive?”
“Because,” I said, “if I can believe she’s alive, why would I believe otherwise? Why would I choose to believe something that upsets me?”
Dad smiled and reached up to smooth back my blond sheaf of hair. “Can I ask more questions?”
“I thought this wasn’t an interrogation.”
“You’re allowed to say no.”
“Fine. What?”
“How many years has it been since she went missing?”
I knew it was a trap. “Five.”
“Five years. If she’s alive, why haven’t we heard from her in all that time? Why didn’t she come home? Why didn’t she tell us she was okay?”
Because she was hunting firestarters. Because there were secrets left out there for her to unravel.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. She had more important things to do.”
