Chapter 25
Twenty-Five
After Gramma Sharon drops me off at home, I text Miles and tell him to meet me in the backyard. He’s already there when I
get outside, Chardonnay sniffing along the ground behind him.
“Grant knows something is up,” I say, holding out the card. Miles looks at it, running his finger across it.
“How do you know?”
“He followed me to the library today and cornered me.”
Miles’s eyes go wide. “Does he know you’re not really Nate?”
“He didn’t say explicitly but he definitely implied it. I think he also might have implied that he thinks there’s more to
Nate’s disappearance than everyone is letting on.”
Miles chews on his lip and hands the card back to me. “So he’s investigating. Start from the beginning. Tell me everything.”
I don’t tell him everything because he doesn’t need to know how my teeth hurt from the dentist or how I had to lie and deflect
for an hour during therapy.
But when I get to the part where Grant sounded a little skeptical when talking about Nate’s family, Miles flips out.
“Holy shit. He suspects Marcus and Valencia.”
“What makes you say that?” I didn’t make that connection; I assumed he knew I was lying and wanted to expose me.
“Because he doesn’t think you’re—no offense—smart enough to do all this on your own.”
“’Kay, little hard to not be offended here.”
“I mean he’s overthinking it. He thinks Marcus and Valencia . . . I don’t know, hired you? Found you somewhere and convinced
you to pretend to be Nate.”
“What about the life insurance money? If they hired me to be Nate, they’d have to pay the insurance company back.”
Miles pinches the bridge of his nose like I’m annoying him. “Darling—” Oh. My stomach does a little flip at the way he calls
me that. But I’m quick to remind myself it’s just Miles being Miles and focus back on what he’s saying. “Don’t be a riff killer.
When we’re spitballing, we push the other theories aside because we don’t know how true they are. You can’t be stuck on one
premise; you’ll miss the others and might overlook what’s really going on.”
“Fine. Ignoring the insurance money, why would they hire me to be Nate?”
“Because then they don’t have to be the suspected child murderers anymore. The police focused the investigation on Nate’s
parents for a long time. If you show up, the Beaumonts are in the clear. And sorry, Valencia, but refusing a DNA test definitely
makes you look guilty.”
But I still don’t understand how Miles can think Grant made the leap that I was involved in their attempt to cover it up.
“If he thinks I’m a part of this, why wouldn’t he come out and say it?”
“Better to put pressure on you when they weren’t around.
He started with that to get you freaking out, which—” He gestures to me like I’m wearing a shirt that says, “I’m freaking out because a retired cop cornered me in a library and all I got is this lousy T-shirt. ” “People who freak out make mistakes.”
That’s kind of how I got into this situation. Starving and freaking out, worried I was going to be sent home to my parents.
And I made a mistake. One I need to finish.
“Okay, then we need to get me out of here,” I say. “Now. If I disappear again, then maybe he can convince the cops to go back
to investigating the Beaumonts. You said all that evidence is circumstantial. I could leave a note that says they hired me,
whatever Grant needs to hear, and you can also give him the circumstantial evidence, and he can take it from there.”
Miles holds out his hands. “Okay, let’s take a breath. That’s a terrible idea.”
“No it’s not. Look, I lied and said I was Nate to avoid going to jail or being sent home to my parents. Now, honestly, I don’t
care. I need to get out of here.”
“Stop. Listen to me. If you disappear now, all this blows up. If you lie, the evidence you found so far will be thrown out in court because now you’re the liar who said he was hired by the Beaumonts.”
“I already am a liar!”
Miles lowers his voice as a hint that I should lower mine. “It’s different! No jury is going to look at you, at what you’ve
been through, and say you’re a terrible person. Maybe you need to hear this because no one has ever said it to you before,
but you’re not a terrible person.”
The pulse pounding in my ears slows and I replay what Miles said.
Because it’s not true. Even if it is only Marcus who’s guilty, I’ve been lying to this whole family.
And I don’t care how desperate I was when I first told the lie.
I could have come clean at any time. It’s possible they might not even have sent me home.
I just didn’t know what to do at the time.
“You made a mistake,” Miles continues. “But if you run off now, you’ll be making another one.”
He’s wrong. I shouldn’t have even stayed this long. When I don’t answer him, he reaches out and gently grabs my wrist. It’s
like an electric shock and breaks me from my thoughts. I look up at him, and his expression is one of pity.
“I know this is a shitty situation, but I promise I’m going to help you get out of this. For now, stay calm. And whatever
you do, don’t talk to Grant again.” He smiles, trying to play it off as a joke.
I nod and take a deep breath, then tell him the lie he wants to hear. “You’re right. Okay. I’m good now.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. Thanks for talking me down.”
“Anytime.” He nods over my shoulder. “You should probably water those hydrangeas again.”
I turn to see that some of the hydrangea leaves have turned brown and droopy, which is strange considering it’s ten degrees
cooler today than it was yesterday. Sorry, Valencia, I don’t have time to rescue your plants today. Miles and I say our goodbyes
and I go back in the house.
Despite what Miles thinks, I’m not staying here anymore.
I race up to Nate’s room and grab the duffel bag from the closet. It’s a little after five. Valencia is going to be home within the next hour. Marcus won’t get here until after six, and I have no idea where Easton is. Probably hanging out with JT.
I unzip the duffel and throw in my toothbrush and toothpaste. Then I grab one of the library books I checked out today and
throw that in as well. I’ll rip out one of the blank end pages for the note. And leave the book too, because the librarians
might be able to track me down better than the cops.
“Nate?”
I freeze. Shit. Valencia is home. I look at my phone and, yes, there are notifications that the downstairs door was opened.
My opportunity is gone. At least for now.
I’ll use Easton’s trick later tonight after everyone has gone to bed. Actually, that’s a better idea anyhow because it will
give me more of a head start. No one will realize I’m gone until the morning. I turn to put the duffel bag back in the closet.
Only the sweat on my hands causes the bag to slip. I try my best to catch it with my knee, but that topples it over. My clothes,
food, toothbrush, and the library book spill out onto the floor, the cans making loud thuds as they fall out from between
the folded clothes.
“Nate? Are you okay?” The floorboards creak as Valencia comes down the hallway. I scramble, trying to throw everything back
in. My hands shake nervously and I almost drop another can before tossing it back in the duffel.
The bedroom door opens, and I freeze.
There’s a look of confused humor on Valencia’s face when she first enters the room. But that slowly drops when she takes in the scene. Me, with clothes and canned food, my toothbrush, and a duffel bag.
“What is this?” she asks. But the tone of her voice says she knows exactly what this is. She’s just hoping she’s wrong.
I don’t have an excuse ready. My mind is completely blank. Now all my plans and preparation are for nothing. She’s going to
take the duffel bag and food and probably lock it up. It’ll end up being more secure than the gun Marcus has in his fucking
closet. So she can make sure I can’t run. At least not prepared. I’ll still find a way to get out of here.
Valencia shakes her head. Her eyes are glassy.
“What is all this, Nate?”
She wants to hear me say it. But I can’t because she looks devastated. My own eyes start to burn and everything catches up
with me. Before I know what’s happening, my chest is aching with sobs.
I want to get out of here. And the most disturbing part of all this: I want to go home. How fucked up is that? I wouldn’t let my parents send me to conversion therapy—maybe after all this I’d be able to stand
up to them. Yell at them and tell them I’m not going. That they can try to send me there but I’ll keep running away. I’ll
be good. I’ll be quiet. They don’t even have to know about my love life. When I get married to a man and adopt three amazing
kids, they can continue to think I’m single. We won’t talk about it.
Valencia wraps her arms around me, tight.
I shake against her as tears drip from my face like a broken spigot.
Her hug makes me feel safe, but that feeling is at odds with the confusion in my gut.
She walked in on me very obviously with my queer homeless kid bug-out bag.
She should be yelling at me. Calling me an ungrateful brat and locking me in my room.
Instead she gently rocks me back and forth on the floor while I cry. All the stress and anxiety of the last week has caught
up with me at once.
After a few minutes, my sobs subside and the tears stop. Valencia gently smooths the back of my head and down my neck. When
I’ve calmed down, she leans away from me but still keeps an arm around my shoulders.
“What’s going on?” she asks. Her voice is calm, without an ounce of judgment or anger. “Did something happen at therapy?”
“No.” I wipe at my face. “I . . .” What can I say? Their retired FBI agent neighbor knows I’m not her son and I freaked out?
If she isn’t mad now, she’d be furious then. And there’s a deep, selfish part of me that doesn’t want this moment between
us to end.
Her comforting voice. The way she holds me like she doesn’t know how to fix me but wants to protect me from everything that