Page 6

I don’t take my gaze from my mom, but I slide my hands into his. “This is a lot.”

He rests his chin on the top of my head. “Yeah.”

Mom makes it over to where Caden is, and I release a breath. I can see now how both of us climbing over the forgotten equipment might have shifted things. But I also think Luke is like a mother hen when it comes to protecting me. With everything that’s happened, I can’t blame him.

“You okay with your dad?” I ask.

“I’ll be glad when he can’t touch either of us anymore.”

I squeeze his hands. I don’t know how we get to that point. But that’s a worry for a future day. What we find today might go a long way to making William Foster either fall in line or end up in prison.

If he murdered my father, I want him to pay for it. Pay for destroying my mother’s future with my dad. I don’t think if my father was in the picture, any of this would have happened the way it did.

It makes it hard to reconcile the grief for a present that would have eliminated my current one with my guys. We may not have even stayed in this town. We might have left and started over somewhere new.

I never would have had Eli, Caden, Nico, Jack, or Luke. Never would have hidden for years because it was easier than putting myself out there and being rejected. Those girls in kindergarten didn’t really reject me, but it was made obvious I wasn’t part of their group. I didn’t belong.

Rather than rallying and making new friends, I accepted my place in the social ecosystem. I was invisible. I couldn’t go to the parties like the other kids. It wasn’t easy to keep friends. So I just sank into the background. I don’t know why I was so happy with that for so long.

Maybe I wasn’t.

But then it became a point of pride. How I wasn’t like those other girls who fell over themselves to be with the horsemen. How I was going to get out of this town without losing any part of myself to it.

Caden has the burner phone and takes a few pictures of the spot. Mom lifts something out of the dirt and brushes it off. A ghost of a smile haunts her lips as a tear rolls down her cheek.

Caden says something to her and she nods, placing her hand on his forearm. My heart grows chaotic. Did something finally work out for us?

Eli moves closer to help my mom navigate the wreckage while she holds onto the small box like she won’t ever let it go. Luke holds me tight against him, and I don’t release him.

His first hugs were truly abysmal, but now, fuck... I don’t think I could go a day without being in his arms.

When the others join us, I’m trembling. I can’t help it.

We found something. Something concrete. Something my father left for my mom. Mom brushes off a little tin that used to hold mints. She holds it up to me with teary eyes. “Your dad’s favorite.”

I don’t leave the safety of Luke’s arms. My breath barely escapes my lungs as I wait to see if my dad truly did give us evidence that could free us of this place.

Mom opens the tin and lifts out a plastic case with an SD card inside it. Tears flow freely now. She hands the box and SD card to Jack. I don’t even think as I step out of Luke’s arms and take her into mine.

She wraps around me, and just like this morning when she held me, it’s my turn to hold her as she sobs, releasing the grief she never had a chance to let out. She’s been too busy staying strong for me. Protecting the secrets of this town.

My tears mix with hers. It’s so fucking unfair. Mom shouldn’t have had to go through this. She should have been able to keep the man she loved. Not lose him to whatever fate he suffered out here alone. Somehow I’ll get her and my dad justice.

CHAPTER 3

The Quarry

Eli

It’s been a strange day. We found the SD card which is a win, but the mood was definitely low when we took the recovered card back to Jack’s. Jack and Caden stopped and picked up Nico. The rec room makes the most sense for us to view whatever is on it. Fortunately, it’s Lucy’s nap/quiet time, so she’s not bouncing around wanting to be an airplane.

Harper and Jennifer look a little worse for wear. They both stopped in bathrooms to wash their faces. Jennifer was reluctant to leave the quarry. Maybe part of her wanted to see if Sean’s body was still there. But there are so many places a body could be lost or buried and never recovered.

We crawled over every inch of that quarry as kids. If there was something to be found, we probably would have stumbled over it. There’s a possibility the body could still be there after all this time, buried in an unmarked grave, but finding it would have been traumatic for both the women and they’ve been through enough.

When Harper comes back out, she settles between me and Nico on the couch, taking each of our hands and holding them on her lap. Her mom sits on the edge of an armchair.

Whatever emotions rose up in Jennifer at the quarry are back on lockdown. She’s the steady, responsible mother we’ve all come to appreciate. Jack finishes setting everything up to play whatever is on the card.