Chapter 1
One
MARISSA
THIRTEEN YEARS LATER
Today is the last day of school before summer break. The last lunch I will be packing for ten weeks. She walks down the stairs already dressed in her school uniform. The jet black hair she gets from her father is pulled back in a French braid, and her emerald green eyes—identical to his—sparkle in the light. I swear she looks more like Adam every day.
“Morning, sunshine.”
“Good morning, Mom,” she says in a sing-songy voice. Being a morning person is the only thing she gets from me. She grabs a banana and a pop-tart before sitting at the kitchen island.
“Are you excited about summer break? No teachers, no homework, and you get to do whatever you want all day.”
“Umm yeah, so about that…” She trails off.
“What’s up?” I turn toward her and lean on the counter, bracing myself for whatever summer program she’s decided she wants to volunteer for this year. I didn’t know it was possible for a child to love school as much as she does.
“Well, you know how East View University is one of the top-ranked schools in the country for computer programming?” she asks, and I nod. “And you know how it’s my dream school, right?”
“Yes, and I also know that you’re only twelve and still have several years to think about this,” I sigh.
“Well, not exactly. They have a summer program, and normally, you have to be sixteen, but this year they are doing a class for twelve to fifteen-year-olds. Can I please go? I swear I will never ask you for anything else. I want this more than anything. Please, please, please?” She bounces in her seat.
“I don’t know, baby, it sounds really expensive, and I’m not sure we can afford it,” I sigh.
“Well, I figured you would say that, so with the help of Mrs. Holly, I applied for their sponsorship program.” Popping a piece of pop-tart in her mouth, she chews while I think of my next reason.
“You can’t count on that. What if you don’t get it?”
“Well, you see, thanks to my 4.0 GPA, my convincing essay, and a recommendation letter from my teacher, I have already been selected for it. They are paying for everything! So you can’t use the money as an excuse not to let me go.” Has she thought of everything?
“You did all of this behind my back?” I try to keep the frustration out of my voice.
“Ugh, Mom!” She rolls her eyes. “I did it because I knew what you would say, and I wanted to give you one less reason to say no.”
“Money isn’t the only problem here. I don’t know the first thing about this program. How long is it? Where will you be staying? Is it safe? What will you do for meals?” I push myself off the counter and cross my arms over my chest.
“It’s only five weeks. We will be staying in the dorms and meals are included. They will have extra security due to our age and chaperones to keep an eye on us. There’s nothing for you to worry about,” she pleads.
“It’s three hours away. Even if they do have people there watching you, accidents still happen. What if something does happen? It’s not like you’re just down the road where I can rush right to you. I would never forgive myself if something happened and I wasn’t there.” I grab a bag of chips and an apple and throw them in her lunch box with more force than intended.
“Did you forget that Grandma lives in East View? You can have her check on me as much as you want. My teacher is one of the chaperones, and you can come up every Saturday for family day. Please, Mom, I’m begging you.”
“I really don’t think this is a good idea,” I grumble.
“Oh, come on, Marissa. Let the girl go.” Amanda strolls into the kitchen, still in gym clothes, her long, brown hair pulled into a ponytail, and starts to rummage through the fridge. She goes to the gym to ogle men while pretending to exercise before taking Grace to school. Somehow, she always works up quite the appetite.
“Geez, Amanda, ever hear of knocking?” I ask in a mock hateful tone.
“Oh, I’ve heard of it.” She turns around from the fridge and pops a grape in her mouth. “I’ve just never understood the concept.”
I ignore her and finish packing Grace’s lunch. “Wait, how did you even get in here? The door was locked.”
“The front door was locked, but the back one wasn’t. Besides, if I started knocking, I wouldn’t get to hear these lovely conversations, and you wouldn’t get to listen to my great advice.” She winks at Grace before diving back into the fridge.
“I don’t see that as a bad thing,” I mumble.
“I like Auntie Amanda’s advice,” Grace chimes in smugly.
“Of course, you do because she’s always on your side! Now go wait in the car while we have a grown-up chat.”
“You gotta let her live her own life, Mar,” Amanda says once Grace leaves the room.
“She’s my baby. I am her mother. It‘s my job to protect her! Why is that so hard to understand?”
“Look, I know you don’t like the idea of her pursuing this dream of hers, but it’s her life and her choice. I don’t know anything about her father, mainly because you won’t tell anyone who he is, but she’s not him . She’s not going to make the same mistakes just from sharing the same genes. You can’t hold her back just because he let you down.”
“Why do you have to make so much damn sense?”
“Because that’s what big sisters are for.” She pops the lid off the bowl in her hand.
“Seriously? No.” I point to the bowl forcefully.
“What? What happened to mi casa es su casa or whatever that saying is?” she scoffs.
“My house may be your house, but my food is my food, and I’m taking that for lunch.” I take the bowl and throw a package of pop tarts at her. “Here, eat these instead.”
“Fine, hateful,” she mumbles and walks to the door before turning around and sticking her tongue out at me.
I know Amanda is right. I don’t want to hold Grace back, but this still scares me. Since finding out I was pregnant, I’ve only been back to East View twice. The thought of returning and Grace spending five weeks there is making my mind race with all these what-ifs.
East View was the first and last place I saw Adam. He wasn’t from this area, and it’s been thirteen years.
But what if he’s there and I run into him, and he finds out about Grace?
Tonight, Grace and her friends are having a summer kick-off sleepover. So I am on the couch watching a stupid romcom and drowning my sorrows in a bottle of Jack. Amanda should be here any moment. I called her when I was in the mood to talk, but that was before I found the bottle of whiskey. She’s going to give me one of her lectures when she sees me like this but honestly, I can’t find it in me to care. The door opens and she calls for me, but she walks into the living room before I can answer.
“Are you drunk?” She stands in front of the TV, her hands on her hips.
“No, but I’m trying.” I crane my neck to see around her.
“Why are you like this? Is it because of this summer program?”
“My little girl is growing up, and I’m not sure how to feel about it,” I whine.
“Well, Mar, that’s the thing about kids; they tend to grow up and have their own lives.”
“You’re not helping.”
“Maybe if you tell me what you’re really upset about, I could help you.”
“Do you think she hates me?”
“No more than we hated our parents at that age.” She plops onto the couch beside me, grabs the whiskey bottle, and takes a swig.
“Don’t tell me that,” I groan as I lay my head on her shoulder.
“You only have a couple of months until she turns thirteen. That’s when the real fun starts,” she sighs. “Listen, you’re a good mom, and she’s a good kid. You’ll be all right.”
“She’s been asking about him a lot lately. I know I did the right thing, but I just don’t want her to hate me for it. Am I screwing my kid up? I don’t even have all of the answers she wants.”
“Do you know how many times I asked myself that same question?” she scoffs.
“But you seemed to have it all together when you had Dave.” I rise from her shoulder and look at her.
“Marissa, I was fourteen when I got pregnant. In what world did it ever seem like I had it all together?”
“Maybe not at first, but you and Paul got your shit together and made it work. I couldn’t even do th?—”
She turns to me and grabs my hands in hers. “You were seven; you didn’t get to see all the shit that went down. Please don’t compare yourself to me. I got married at sixteen to a man who didn’t pretend to love me because I thought it was the right thing to do. Then, I spent the next twelve years pretending everything was okay because I was convinced putting Dave through a divorce was worse than him seeing how terribly his father treated me. I am not the role model you want.”
“I just want to protect her from the kind of life he had. Now I’m second-guessing everything.” I scrub my hand over my face. “It’s like I don’t know what I’m doing anymore. I know I should let her go to this summer program, but I just have a bad feeling about it. I left East View for a reason. What if he’s there, and we run into him? Or what if she does this summer program, loves it, pursues this as a career, and ends up just like him .”
“You’ve been keeping this secret for thirteen years. You’ve never wanted to talk about him. Come on, Marissa, tell me something. How did you meet? What did he do that was so bad? Why did his career make you hate everything to do with technology and computers?” She gives me a pointed look.
“Well—”
“Wait, this conversation needs ice cream!” She jumps up and runs to the kitchen.
It’s after three a.m. when I wake with Adam’s arm wrapped around me and my head on his chest.
“You’re staring again,” he chuckles and brushes his shaggy dark hair out of his face.
“Can’t help it. You’re just too pretty not to look at.” The blush creeps across my face.
“You’re adorable.”
“Adam,” I sigh and pull myself away from him.
“You having regrets already, Red?”
“No, but I’m wondering what happens now.”
“I have to be honest with you.” He leans over and kisses my forehead before getting up to put on his clothes. “I’m a fugitive, I can’t stay here and even though ? —”
“What do you mean you’re a fugitive?” I start to panic. Did I seriously just lose my virginity to a—to a what exactly? Murderer, rapist, con artist? He works in cyber security, so it could have something to do with that. “What did you do?” I stand and start to pace around the room.
“I didn’t do anything, Red. You have to believe me on that. I’m just the fall guy. The one they decided to pin everything on. I need to go away for a while, go into hiding. I need some time to clear my name and then ? —”
“What do they think you did?”
“Honestly, Red, the less you know, the better.”
“Okay, how are you even here if you’re a fugitive? How were you even allowed on a plane?” I stop pacing and face him, my hands on my hips.
“I’m a hacker. You think I can’t hack into the government database and create a new identity? Or that I don’t have connections to people who can falsify documents?”
“You certainly don’t sound innocent.”
He walks over, snakes his arms around my waist, and pulls me in closer. “I promise you I was innocent until a couple of months ago. Once you’re labeled a criminal, you lose all the resources to do even the simplest of things legally. I may not have committed the crimes I’m accused of, but I’m no longer completely innocent.”
“I’ll come with you. Just give me a few minutes to pack, we can go wherever you want.” I pull away from him and start shoving things into a duffle bag.
This may sound crazy, but I’ve never felt this way about anyone before. If I don’t go with him, I may never see him again.
“Isa, stop!” He grabs my arm and turns me to face him. “I can’t let you throw your life away for me. You won’t be able to have any contact with anyone. If we get caught, you’ll go to prison too. I can’t let that happen.”
“But I want to. Adam, I love you.”
“Baby, you barely know me. We’ve spent one week together. That is not enough for you to want to throw your life away for someone.”
“So, you don’t feel the same way.” I start to sob.
“Hey. Look at me.” He grabs my wrist and pulls me around to face him. “I didn’t say that. I do feel the same way, but that is exactly why I can’t let you do this.”
Amanda sits back down on the couch, bringing me out of my thoughts. She hands me a spoon and places a carton of chocolate ice cream between us. “Okay, spill, I want to know everything.”
“Ice cream and whiskey, what a combo,” I chuckle. “Do you remember online message boards?”
“Yeah, like where people would post questions or comments, and others would respond and such?” She stuffs a spoonful of ice cream in her mouth.
“Exactly. Well, there was this website specifically for people who loved horror. I posted on there a few times and started talking to this girl from Germany named Jennifer. We became best friends instantly. After we talked for a while, she invited me to join this online community type thing, which was just her and a bunch of friends.”
“So, he was a part of that?” She gives me a confused look.
“Yes, and in this group, you had Jen and her best friend Freedom.”
“Wait, Freedom Grace!” She slaps my knee. “You named Gracie after her!”
“There was also,” I continue without first acknowledging her, “Freedom’s little sister Anneliese, or Annie as we called her, their older brother Adam, and a couple of other people. So, Grace is named after her aunt.”
“That’s not fair! I’m her aunt, too; you couldn’t throw Amanda in there somewhere?” she laughs.
“You’re ridiculous.”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, tell me more.” She waves her hand for me to continue, then grabs my arm to stop me. “Wait, he’s older? How old are we talking?”
“Everyone was at least two years older than me except for Annie; she was two years younger, so seventeen. Adam was one of the older ones in the group, he was twenty-four. They all grew up together in the same village, so they had been friends since they were kids. Well, all except Adam, he moved there as an adult.”
“Okay, I got it. You can continue with the rest of the story now.” She takes a sip of the whiskey.
“Anyway, Freedom had this boyfriend who was an absolute asshole. She finally decided to break things off with him, but he decided if he couldn’t have her, nobody could. He lured her to a cabin, held her there for almost two weeks while he brutally tortured her, and then poured gasoline everywhere and set the place on fire with them in it. She managed to escape, but he didn’t.”
“Holy shit,” she gasps.
“Long story short, after that they all needed a vacation. A few months later, they came to the US to visit me, and the rest is, as they say, history.”
“Nope. Back up, you aren’t just going to rush through all of that. I have way more questions than answers. What happened to Freedom? Why did you run away from Adam? Why was it safer for him not to know about Grace?”
“Do you really need all the details?” I groan.
“Yes!” She looks at me like I’m crazy.
“Freedom survived, but that’s a whole other story for another day. As for Adam, he wasn’t really active in the group chat, he and I had chatted a few times here and there. We had really gotten to know each other. I was a young, naive, hopeless romantic, so the more we talked, the harder I fell. Then, when we met, there was an instant pull to him that I can’t really explain. It was like I knew he was the one I was meant to be with. After the week was over, and after we slept together, he told me he was a fugitive and was facing life in prison.”
“What the fuck did he do?” she mumbles around a mouth full of ice cream.
“Well, he really didn’t do anything. He was a white hat hacker and worked in cyber security. Companies would hire him to try to hack into their networks to see how safe they were. He was contracted by an accounting firm for several years, and during one of his security tests, he found out they had been embezzling millions from their clients. He threatened to release the info to the public if they didn’t make it right. Instead, they tried to pin everything on him.” I breathe a sigh of relief. “It feels good to get that off my chest. You’re the first person I’ve ever told. There’s one more thing, but I don’t want you flipping out.”
“I’m a little worried,” she says.
I begin fidgeting with the hem of my shirt to avoid eye contact with her. “The morning everything went down, the owner of the company was found stabbed to death in his office only an hour after meeting with Adam. So, of course, he was framed for that, too.”
When I finally look over at Amanda, her eyes are wide and mouth is open. For the first time in her life, she’s speechless, but she finally finds her words. “Do you actually believe he is innocent?”
I shrug. “I did. Still do. Although, as time goes on, I wonder if I really believe it or if I am just in denial that I could ever love someone capable of doing such horrible things. He was the first guy to ever really pay attention to me, and I was so blinded by my love for him that I was willing to throw everything away for him.”
She gives me a curious look. “What do you mean?”
“I wanted to go with him the night he left. The night we had sex. Everything was perfect until he dropped the bombshell about him being a fugitive. He didn’t tell me what he was accused of. I didn’t get that out of him until a couple of weeks later. It didn’t stop me from wanting to run away with him, though. He said he needed some time to get us new identities, and I needed time to think about it. To make sure it was what I really wanted. Three days before he was going to come and get me, I found out I was pregnant, and everything changed.”
She stabs her spoon into the carton of ice cream. “Damn, Mar. I can’t believe you were going to run away with a potential murderer, and that we were that close to losing you.” She sits the carton on the coffee table and wraps me in a big hug. “I can totally see why you decided to run from him instead of with him. And you’re sure she’s his? You weren’t with anyone else during your conception window?”
“Nope, he’s the first and last guy I’ve ever been with and… I need more alcohol.” I get up to make my way to the kitchen to avoid any more questions, but she follows.
“You haven’t gotten laid in thirteen years? No wonder you’re always so damn angry!”
“Seriously?” I grab a bottle of wine and begin pouring two glasses. “I do just fine by myself, thank you very much. You see why I don’t want to let her go, right?”
“I do, but I stand by what I said earlier. You can’t punish her for his mistakes. Obviously, she comes by this love for computers, honestly, but she’s not him. You have to let her do this or she’ll end up resenting you.”
“I know you’re right, but I’m scared to go back there.”
“Would he have stayed in East View if you weren’t there? Or would he have gone back to Germany? It seems a little unlikely that he’d still be in the area.”
“Honestly, I don’t know. He could be anywhere, and that’s the part that scares me.” I hang my head and sigh. “I don’t want to do this alone. Will you come with me to drop her off?”
“Duh! You know I’m always up for a road trip!” She downs her glass of wine and walks back into the living room. “All right, I get to pick the next movie.”