You Deserve to Know

Chapter 40

40

NOW

After Detective Salazar leaves, Aimee packs the kids’ lunches. It’s only Wednesday, but this has been the longest week of her life. It feels like forever since Scott’s been gone. His absence feels like a dull ache, the kind of bone-deep hurt that makes the smallest act feel like a chore. She just wants him back safe. Whatever trouble he has gotten himself into, she will help him find his way out. She stuffs the boys’ lunch boxes into their backpacks, but there’s no room in Noa’s, thanks to all the wrappers and papers in there. If Aimee skips even one day of cleaning out her daughter’s backpack, this is what happens.

She empties the contents onto the kitchen counter, wipes out the inside with a wet cloth, and begins reloading it. In go her folders, her pencil pouch, her latest Warrior Cats book. Aimee picks up a small box wrapped in rubber bands. She’s never seen it before. She undoes the rubber bands, a sinking feeling in her stomach. Inside the box is a small brass key. In the chaos of the previous day, she forgot all about Noa’s box of purloined goodies, but here was a stark reminder.

Ignoring the problem is not going to make it disappear.

Holding the key in her hand, Aimee goes to the bottom of the stairs. “Noa? Noa, come down here, please.”

Noa races down the stairs. “What? Am I in trouble?”

Aimee opens her hand to reveal the key in her palm. “Can you explain how this got into your backpack?”

Noa’s gaze drops to her feet. “I was going to tell you,” she mumbles. “I found it.”

“At Cathy’s house?”

Noa nods.

“Honey, I found your box. Under your bed? You’ve taken a lot of things from Cathy’s house, haven’t you?”

Tears spring to her daughter’s eyes. “Please, Mommy. Don’t be mad. It was so shiny. It looked so old-fashionedy and I wanted it for my time-travel machine. I was going to put it back after I used it, I swear.”

Noa’s shoulders shake as full-throated sobs come from her small body.

“Oh, honey, don’t cry.” Aimee strokes Noa’s hair.

“I know I’m not supposed to do it, but I kept doing it, anyway.” She lifts her chin. “What’s wrong with me? Why am I like this?”

“There’s nothing wrong with you. You struggle with something called impulse control. Do you know what that is?” The conversation reminds her of the unread evaluation in her inbox. Just one more thing to get to. “It’s when you want to do something so, so bad. Like eat all the cookies at once. Or maybe draw on the wall with lipstick because it would look cool.”

“I’d never do that.”

“But you might want to. And impulse control is talking back to that little voice in your head and saying, Well , hold on a minute. I know you really want to do this, but let’s stop and think for a second if it’s such a good idea. ”

“I have that voice, but I don’t listen to it.”

“That’s right, and we’re going to work on paying more attention to that voice. So, the next time you see something pretty or lovely, you’ll be able to have the feeling of wanting to take it, but then when that voice kicks in, you’ll listen.”

“Is that how grown-ups are? They listen to the voice?”

Aimee smiles. “Sometimes. Some grown-ups are better at it than other grown-ups.” Aimee looks at her watch and curses herself. This wasn’t a smart time to bring this up. She’s off her game with Scott missing. She should have waited until after school. Now they have five minutes until the bus comes.

“Honey.” Aimee crouches down to Noa’s level. “It’s okay. I am not mad. We’re going to talk about this when you get home from school.”

“You’re not mad at me?” Noa peers up at her.

“Nope, I’m not mad.” Aimee smiles and pushes a tear-soaked clump of hair out of her daughter’s eyes. “Now go get your backpack. We don’t want to miss the bus.”

She calls up to the twins, and they come bounding down past their sister and into the kitchen to grab their backpacks. Aimee corrals the kids and gets them outside. There’s not a cloud in the bright-blue sky after the overnight rain. It’s another perfect September day and the neighborhood is brimming with life. People heading to the cut-through to reach the metro, walking their dogs, kids rushing to the bus stop. It’s isolating to Aimee to see how little impact the tragedies on this cul-de-sac have on their neighbors’ lives, which go on as before while she struggles to keep things running smoothly and Gwen falls apart next door.

“What are you going to do with it?” Noa asks as she walks briskly beside her.

“I’ll put it in an envelope and drop it off at the house. And maybe you can write a note, how about that?”

Noa nods. “Okay, but you said Cathy was gone.”

It takes Aimee a minute to remember the story Detective Salazar spun that morning to explain why he was asking so many questions about Cathy. “Yes, but she’ll be back,” Aimee says as they arrive at the bus stop.

“Who is taking care of the kittens while she’s gone?”

“Oh, another lady, a nice lady.”

“I was thinking last night how if Cathy didn’t come back then the kittens wouldn’t have a new home. Mommy, the other things, you should put them in the envelope, too.” Noa says that last part so fast that Aimee almost doesn’t catch it.

“You mean the things in the box?”

“We should give them back to Cathy.” She looks up at Aimee with her big brown eyes. “Do you think she’ll be mad at me?”

“No, of course not. I think that’s a good idea.”

“I’m sorry, Mommy.”

“It’s all right, honey. See how much better it feels to tell the whole truth? Now, let’s get you on the bus.”

Noa runs onto the bus, but a moment later she’s bounding down the stairs and running back to Aimee.

“Mommy, I remembered one of the things in the box isn’t from Cathy’s house. One of the things is from Cathy’s car.”

“Which thing?”

“It’s a card with a fox on it. Now I told the whole truth. Bye, Mom!” She runs back up the steps of the bus and the folding doors hiss closed.

Noa waves from the window as the bus pulls away. It’s only once the bus has turned the corner that the significance of what her daughter said hits her. Cathy’s car . Cathy drove Noa home in her Subaru. Anything Noa took from the car would belong to her, and not to Jean Brewster. Aimee breaks into a run, nervous energy propelling her back to the house. Inside she rushes upstairs to her bedroom and grabs the shoebox, dumping everything on the bed.

It isn’t a lot to hang her hopes on, but it is all she has. She sifts through the items that were in the box, looking for a card that has a fox on it. She finds a sterling silver teaspoon, a magnet in the shape of the Eiffel Tower, and a piece of lilac silk ribbon. Noa’s been quite the little collector.

And then Aimee sees it, a card with a fox on it. She plucks it from under a dried rosebud whose leaves are disintegrating. She can see why it was appealing to Noa. The fox is hand drawn and wearing a jaunty ice-blue scarf. The Little Fox Coffee Shop. It’s a loyalty card with seven of the ten holes punched out.

According to the address printed on the card, the coffee shop is located in Frederick, which is about forty-five minutes northwest of where they live, near the mountains. She and Scott have taken the kids up to Sugarloaf Mountain and then gone into Frederick to eat. It’s a quaint town with Civil War–era buildings, filled with shops and cafés.

Aimee turns the card over in her hand. It’s a long shot, but just maybe someone at this coffee shop knows something about Cathy Stocker.