The Gallagher Place

Chapter Twenty-Six

TWENTY-SIX

Marlowe blinked against the hazy light filtering through her window, her head still heavy with sleep. She took a few slow breaths and then sat up too fast. The room tilted before settling back into frame. Right, she thought, morning.

She pressed her fingers to her temples, trying to recall when exactly she’d left her desk and lain down on her bed the night before, but the details were slipping from her mind like water through cupped hands.

Dragging herself to her desk, she pulled out a few fresh sheets of paper and gripped a pen.

The day after reading Brierley’s notes, she was going to start keeping some of her own.

Ariel wasn’t taking her theory about Pete seriously, which meant Marlowe would have to pursue it herself.

She would have to be methodical, ruling out possibilities one by one.

And she was going to have to consider something she’d avoided for years.

Nora might have broken their oaths of secrecy.

She might have told someone about their pranks.

Or worse. She might have been seen by someone besides Dave, slipping in and out of places where she didn’t belong.

Marlowe tapped the pen against the paper, forcing her thoughts into order. Her head ached, but if she wanted answers, she’d have to push through.

At the top of one page, Marlowe wrote: Mr. Babel—Is he real? Is he Pete Gallagher?

On the back she wrote: Nate + Nora?

She had a million questions, but they all boiled down to the three she had written so far. If she could figure those out, it would lead her to answers about Nora.

She lifted her pen and began to write out the names:

Nate

Luke

Mike

Henry

Liam

She looked down. The boys who had been in the kitchen with her the night Nora disappeared, and who might have known more than they’d told Brierley.

Her mind moved to the other rooms of the house. It was like a game of Clue. There was someone behind every door.

Frank

Glory

Enzo

There was also the yard, the road, the woods.

Mr. Babel

Pete Gallagher

Harry Gallagher

Damen

Jennifer

Marlowe set the pen down, rubbed her eyes, and glared at the list. She skipped over her family members. They had given her nothing the last twenty years, and she didn’t expect them to come forth with some revelations now. But Luke, Liam, and Mike could be different.

Luke remained a close friend to Nate. He stood by his side as a groomsman at Nate and Stephanie’s wedding, delivering a hilarious and heartfelt speech. Though he lived in Philadelphia, he made a point of visiting the Gray House with his family once a year.

As for Henry’s friend Liam, Marlowe was fairly certain he still lived in New York.

She pictured his round, bespectacled face and winced.

Liam and Henry hadn’t simply drifted apart; their friendship was shattered that summer.

Marlowe could still hear echoes of Liam’s parents on the phone with Frank and Glory, demanding to know why the detective wouldn’t leave their son alone.

After that, Liam never returned to the Gray House.

By the time the next school year began, he had transferred elsewhere.

Pestering poor Liam had done Brierley no good. He was the most vulnerable, yet whatever Brierley had hoped to extract from him yielded nothing. So who should he have pursued instead?

Her eyes landed on Mike’s name. A friend, but not very close.

Marlowe remembered him pale and shamefaced and hungover the morning after Nora disappeared, climbing into Luke’s car.

They said they would just get out of everyone’s way.

They gladly gave Brierley all their information and fled to Luke’s family’s home in Connecticut.

Marlowe remembered him all but fading from Nate’s life after that.

Last she heard, he had moved to Houston.

She pulled her laptop toward her and flipped it open.

She searched “Mike Cameron Houston.” It didn’t take long to find him.

He was an orthopedic surgeon. She looked at his photo on the Texas Medical Center’s website for a long time.

His hair was thinner, and he had gained a bit of weight, but it was him.

Marlowe dashed off a quick email. She didn’t go into detail—just said she would like to catch up. He would know what it was about, and she doubted he would respond.

As soon as she clicked Send, she drummed her fingers against the table, restless energy buzzing through her. She had been so sure she knew everything about Nora, but her memory had been playing tricks on her. Her testimony would never stand up in court.

Glancing over the list of names once more, Marlowe pushed back her chair, crossed the room, and grabbed her coat from the closet.

Nora’s old friends from school were like phantoms now, nameless and faceless, but she did remember Nora’s old boyfriend, Sean Hastings.

Marlowe had almost been fond of him herself.

She had craved romance, even if she had been too afraid to start one of her own.

At least she could live vicariously through Nora.

They broke up after a year together, in a dramatic ordeal that Marlowe had to help Nora rehearse and reiterate to Sean on multiple occasions.

Marlowe hadn’t seen or spoken to him since, though she had kept tabs on him.

It wasn’t difficult—Sean had never gone far.

Marlowe overheard from neighbors that he lived nearby with his wife, a hairstylist, and that he worked at the hardware store in town.

Outside the store, she squinted through the window but couldn’t make out the man behind the register.

The bell jingled as she stepped inside, and then she saw him.

The long hair she remembered was now cropped short, dusted with gray.

He was tall, still lean, dressed in a flannel shirt and jeans, arms stretched against the counter.

She remembered how he used to shake out those sinewy arms before stepping onto the pitcher’s mound.

She had sat through enough games by Nora’s side.

Sean recognized her immediately. “Marlowe, hi.”

“Hi, Sean.” She tried to smile, but it was more of a grimace. She glanced around the store. An employee was stocking shelves on the far wall. The rest was cluttered and disorganized. But locals knew their way around it.

Marlowe steadied herself, smoothing a gloved hand over her coat.

She often wondered what it had been like for him.

His first girlfriend, a girl he was in love with, vanishing seven months after she dumped him.

He didn’t have the greatest claim to tragedy; that belonged to Nora’s parents. And, Marlowe liked to think, to her.

She had thought about reaching out before, but what comfort could they possibly offer each other?

Sean gave her a sad, lopsided smile. “I’m guessing you’re not here for a screwdriver?”

“No.” Marlowe shook her head. “You heard about the body.”

“Yeah, everyone’s heard.” His dark eyes stayed locked on her. “The detectives came by. Asked about Nora.”

She exhaled, relieved by his directness. She had no patience for subtlety. “They’ve reopened her case.”

“That’s what they told me. They asked me if I wanted her found.” Sean bowed his head, but his voice harbored some quiet rage.

“That’s a ridiculous question,” Marlowe said. “Of course you do. Like I do. I realize we never really talked about it. But I know it must have been hard for you too.”

Sean’s expression hardened. “I wouldn’t have welcomed you back then if you tried. Everyone knew Nora wouldn’t have disappeared if not for your family.”

The words were a slap across the face, but Marlowe didn’t budge.

“I know the detectives were probably a bother, but I wanted to ask you a few things myself.”

Sean glared. “Do you want my alibi? For the four-hundredth time?”

Marlowe recoiled slightly. His alibi had always been airtight.

Out of town with his cousins, a dozen witnesses to prove it.

She had never considered him a suspect, but others must have.

The whispers could be deafening around here.

Maybe that was why he blamed her family.

The Fishers had power, connections. What couldn’t they hide?

“I know it wasn’t you,” Marlowe said. “I know you were a good boyfriend to Nora. I always believed that.”

“I doubt that.”

She opened her mouth to protest, but he shook his head and held up a hand. “Nora always wanted more from me. I was always letting her down. But, hey, what teenage boy doesn’t let people down? It’s all water under the bridge.”

“Sean, I know this is awkward, but I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.” Marlowe’s cheeks were burning as she held his gaze. “Did you and Nora ever sleep together?”

His anger faltered, replaced by a stunned silence. He cleared his throat, dragging a hand across the counter. Then he looked up, and his shock turned to confusion. “How is it possible you don’t know?” he said. “I thought Nora told you everything.”

Marlowe bit the inside of her cheek, fighting the sting in her eyes. “I thought so too.”

Whatever Sean saw in her face, it made his shoulders sag. “Twice,” he murmured. “The fall before we broke up.” He rubbed the back of his neck. She gripped the strap of her purse and nodded.

“Did she ever say anything about me? Or my family? Something that struck you as odd.”

She was trying to disguise the real question: Did Nora dump you because she wanted my older brother?

Sean let out a dry chuckle. “Everything she said about your family was weird. She was obsessed with you guys. It seemed like her life didn’t happen unless she was with you.”

Marlowe had heard it before. The privileged Fishers, and Nora, their poor adopted daughter. But it wasn’t like that. It never had been.

“I felt the same way about her,” she admitted. “Nothing mattered as much as the two of us.”

For a few weighted moments, neither Sean nor Marlowe had anything to say.

“I lied to the first detective,” Sean said, finally. “Told him we never had sex. I was terrified.”

“But this time?”

“I told them.” His eyes darted to the window, as if he was hoping for a distraction.

“What else did they ask?”

“They asked me to describe Nora. So I did.” With that, he pulled his computer keyboard in toward his stomach and shook the mouse to wake the monitor. “Look, I gotta get back to work,” he said, gesturing at the screen. “End-of-year inventory.”

“Right.” She nodded. “Sorry to bother you. And thank you.”

She hesitated before pulling a scrap of paper from her purse and jotting down her number.

“If you ever want to talk,” she said, setting it on the counter. “You can call me.” She swallowed hard. “I’m sorry, Sean.”

He picked it up, sliding it somewhere underneath the counter, likely planning to throw it away as soon as she left. He would go home and tell his wife about the crazy lady who showed up at work, rehashing one of the most painful episodes of his youth.

As she turned toward the door, Sean called out, “Marlowe. Have a Merry Christmas.”

Marlowe swung her head around. His smile was faint, tinged with remorse. She nodded again. “You too.”

She didn’t return to her car. Instead, she walked to the coffee shop and ordered a latte.

The room was packed with weekenders and locals alike.

Marlowe could easily distinguish between the two.

The locals wore hoodies and muddy shoes, Carhartt jackets.

The weekenders wore boots that held their shine, and tan or forest-green barn coats.

A tinny Christmas song echoed over the speakers. It was an older one. Sadder. No upbeat jingling of bells, just a melancholy croon mourning Christmases past.

Sipping her drink by the window, she turned over all the new information in her mind. Nora wasn’t a virgin. She had slept with Sean and never told Marlowe. It didn’t have to mean anything, but Marlowe couldn’t imagine any scenario in which Nora wouldn’t share such earth-shattering news with her.

Marlowe was never close enough with girls at her own school who might have swapped tales of their first times. In college, it was more of the same. Marlowe hung out with a studious group of coeds who were serious about academics.

Marlowe had envied the girls who spoke about sex so easily, who turned to their friends while brushing their teeth and said, So, he tried this one thing in bed last night …

She had never been that girl. But she had confided in the people she trusted most. When Marlowe lost her virginity her junior year to her first boyfriend, Nick (who didn’t know she was a virgin), she told only her roommate, Paige.

The two shared most meals together, and by junior year, Marlowe had warmed enough to open up about everything.

She even told Paige about Nora one late night over a bottle of wine.

Marlowe finished her latte, the last lukewarm gulp heavy in her stomach.

The crucial details Nora had withheld from Marlowe were beginning to pile up.

In all her years mourning Nora, in all the time Marlowe had spent agonizing over what had happened, she’d rarely asked why.

The answer always seemed obvious. People hurt teenage girls.

People raped teenage girls. People took girls and locked them up and threw away the key.

For the first time, Marlowe wasn’t sure that was it. Evidentially, Brierley didn’t think it was that straightforward. Ariel and Ben didn’t seem to think so either.

And yet, of all the secrets Nora had been keeping, Marlowe still didn’t know which was the one that had put her life in danger.