SECRETS
Sara
The door clicks shut behind me, and my chest caves in hard. What just happened? He gets what he wants, whispers a soft see-you-later, and then he’s gone? After the night we had?
The meaning snaps into place, a lump rising in my throat.
I’m going home.
Chris is there when I turn, close enough to catch me if I fall. “Did I do something wrong?” The words sound small even to me.
“Of course not.” His voice is reassuring. He wraps his arms around me. “Everything’s going to be fine,” he murmurs into my hair. “We’ll all meet again. I promise.”
I search his face for any sign of a lie, for a flicker of guilt, but there’s none. He looks completely honest.
I mumble about needing a minute and slip away to the bathroom.
Hot water scalds down my face, punishment and comfort in one. I stand there, palms flat against the tile, letting the steam curl around me the way Cash’s arms did last night.
This was goodbye. My gut knows it. No matter how many times they say it isn’t, it is. It hurts in a way I don’t recognize yet.
I tip my head under the water and breathe in slow, deep pulls.
It’s messed up, but being here, locked up and guarded, I felt freer than I ever had.
I’m going back. Back to that house, that name, that man. That prison.
Here, I began to recognize the person I might have been if grief and neglect hadn’t hardened me. I found peace in a place I never expected. A place that held connection, safety, even desire. Real, physical sensation that didn’t come tangled in shame or survival. This, I am taking with me.
I pull myself together, dressing with the usual routine. It’s a hollow performance. My hands move on autopilot. Clothes, hair, teeth. One step at a time.
Downstairs, the living room is spotless, the night erased and folded away. As if it never happened. My body knows better.
Through the window, I catch movement on the porch.
Chris sits on the bench, breakfast laid out in front of him.
The sun is bright, and for a second it takes me back to my first real day here, when he got me out of the shed by offering me a deal.
It’s only been a short while, but the distance between who I was and who I am now is measured in years, not weeks.
He looks out over the lake, his profile etched against the light. As I approach, the thoughtfulness gives way to the warm smile I’ve grown to love.
“Made you a fresh one,” he says when I step outside, gesturing to the steaming coffee waiting for me.
It’s colder than on the first day. He pulls a thick quilt over my shoulders as soon as I sit, the gesture so casual and gentle I have to bite back tears.
As always, the view steals my breath, but this time I know it could be the last time I’ll see it. The lump in my throat grows. I try to swallow it down with a forkful of pancakes—the same ones that tasted like sunshine the first morning I had them.
I’m going to miss this. Miss them.
Chris must sense it. He drapes an arm around me, letting me rest my head on his shoulder. We sit like that for a while. There’s a different edge to him today. Maybe he’ll miss me too.
On the table sits a black phone. It looks harmless, but it might as well be a live grenade.
I stare at the lake. “I don’t want to go,” I admit, my voice barely there. “But I have to.”
He studies me, then nods once. “I know.”
I believe him because he doesn’t try to talk me out of it, doesn’t try to fix it. He lets me say it.
Before Chris brought me here, I didn’t care about anything.
My mind was either spinning around Mom’s death or whatever was connected to it.
Usually my father. Everything was about avoiding him or finding a way to piss him off.
All because I didn’t know what had happened to my mother, and I blamed him.
I made noise to get attention, broke things to stay in control. I hurt people before they got the chance to hurt me. Because they always did. My father, Holly, Gabe, or anyone at school. I made sure to get there first. I know that now.
The quiet thickens, heavy with things unsaid. The way Chris keeps his eyes on the trees instead of me. It’s unsettling. As if I’ve walked into the middle of a conversation I wasn’t supposed to hear, just like this morning when I entered the kitchen and the two of them were talking.
We don’t speak. There’s nothing else to say.
Then the phone rings.
The sound shatters everything. Dizziness washes over me. The blood drains from my face.
It rings again.
Chris reaches for it, sliding his thumb across the screen. “Whitmore,” he says, putting it on speaker.
“Mr. Stix.” My father’s slick politician’s voice oozes out of the speaker. Rage twists through me, leaving nausea in its wake. “How’s my daughter?”
Chris glances at me. “Ask her yourself. You’re on speaker.”
“Sara?” my father says, sounding relieved.
I inhale deeply. “Hi, Dad.” My voice is flat. The bench vibrates in sync with my leg.
“Are you all right?” There’s genuine concern in his voice.
“Mm-hmm.”
It’s all I get out before I stand up to go inside.
“Talk to you soon, okay?” is the last thing he says before the door shuts.
In the kitchen I brace my hands on the table and concentrate on breathing, forcing myself to stay present instead of smashing the nearest thing into pieces. Wasn’t that the point of all this? Control?
I steel myself to leave this place for good, not just with my feet, but with everything I have become.
Memories surge. I picture the three of us at the table, eating, washing up afterward. The ordinary life I didn’t know I ached for.
I tuck the image away. Maybe one day it’ll make me smile without barbed wire squeezing around my heart.
My gaze catches on the far-left cabinet, and Cash’s words echo back. There’s something for you. He didn’t say it outright, but the message was clear: find it without Chris around. The thought prickles at the back of my neck.
I glance into the empty living room. Chris is outside, talking. I hurry to the cabinet and sink to my knees, curiosity getting the better of me. The key slides into the lock and turns effortlessly.
At first, everything looks normal. Towels, sponges, cleaner.
There’s a thin strip of clay-like material pressed into the wood.
Wires snake from it into a small black box tucked behind the hinge.
Whatever this is, I can’t imagine that’s what I’m looking for.
I reach to the back. Empty. Annoyance flares.
Then, on a last impatient rummage between the towels, my fingers close on a folder and pull it out. It’s beige, unlabeled.
I stand and set it on the table, lifting the cover as if it might explode.
A police emblem sits at the top of the first page.
Beneath it, most of the text is obscured by a handwritten note, several names listed in dark ink.
My breath catches. G. Tate, P. Mendoza, M.
White, D. Kane. The room tilts, my pulse roaring in my ears.
What the hell is this? I slide the note to the side.
The words underneath hit like a punch to the gut.
Case Status: Sealed.
It’s the police file from Mom’s accident.
A wave of sickness rolls over me. My knees wobble as I sink into the chair.
The first two pages are police reports from the crash site. Nothing new, just details. Mom’s car, deployed airbags, white powder clinging to everything. Every mention of her is blacked out by thick censoring strokes, reducing her to a silhouette.
The next set of pages looks almost the same but isn’t. The formatting is identical. The words are not. The black marks are gone. It’s a rewritten version, this time including a body trapped in the wreckage.
My fingers shake as I flip to the medical report. “No vital signs upon arrival.”
Tears blur the words. I’m crying. Drops slide off my chin and land in tiny splashes on the paper.
The autopsy follows:
“Multiple blunt force injuries consistent with high-impact motor vehicle collision. Notable contusions and abrasions across thoracic and cranial regions.”
Half the terminology is foreign to me, but enough is clear. The edge of a picture peeks out underneath.
Slowly, I draw it out.
It’s a forensic photograph showing a dead woman from the shoulders up. Her skin lies smooth and unbroken. No marks where there should be. Nothing to explain what she went through.
I pull the whole photo free and go rigid.
It’s Mom.
Her face serene, eyes closed, hair fanned out in perfect curls. She looks asleep.
Only one mark mars her: a small, precise wound in the middle of her forehead.
You don’t need medical school to know what this stems from.
A bullet.
Time stops.
She wasn’t just murdered. She was executed, and the proof is in my hand.
I don’t know what hurts more; seeing her dead or realizing I was right all along.
I’m not crazy.
I didn’t imagine it.
With numb hands, I turn more pages filled with witness statements and interrogations.
According to the report, my father was home with me that night. I can’t recall any of it. I only remember the next day, when I was told my mother wouldn’t be coming home. After that, everything is fog.
The file notes say I was too shocked to speak. They didn’t question me again. Why would they? I was twelve.
I reach the end of the folder, and the air vanishes from the room.
Another printout lies face down.
I flip it over.
My eyes go wide. My hand flies to my mouth.
It’s a screenshot from a street camera: the moment a man raises a gun toward Mom’s car. His face is blurred, but unmistakable to me.
Gabe.
The man who’s been my driver for more than five years.
Gabe killed my mother.