Chapter 17
SEVENTEEN | TARYN
“He’s fast,” Elena yells, her chuckling bright and happy like the warm late summer breeze gliding against my skin.
She throws the ball again for the millionth time, utterly unfazed by the slobber coating her hand.
The ball rolls across the front yard, stopping just before the gradual decline of the hill.
She sprints, her pink sneakers leaving footprints in the damp grass.
She runs to catch up to Rossco, both of them content and breathing hard.
Tristan sits nearby, picking at blades of grass, and adding them on top of the pile he’s created. He doesn’t like being told he needs to spend some time outside without the Switch. That order came from Cameron before he went to the shop, not me.
Despite being forced to be their nanny, I don’t feel it’s my place to order them around yet. I’m still completely uncomfortable with all this, but Elena eases some of the angst. Is it acceptable to be jealous of a five-year-old with a stunning smile and natural curls?
I know the Lindenvales are millionaires, but the thought that I’m making triple a teacher’s salary to sit here on my ass and watch two young kids churns my stomach into knots.
Already, it’s easier than the thirty children I had in my classroom last year.
But Elena and Tristan’s three brothers seem to make up for the twenty-eight kids I don’t have.
God. I shouldn’t be okay with this.
I shouldn’t be here complying with their rules when they’ve put me through hell.
The sad part? Colten was right; there’s probably nobody looking for me, and it’s not like I have anywhere to go or a job to get back to.
The tower is ten times nicer than that house I’m renting, and I’ve come to appreciate it now that I’m allowed to be out of it.
“If I would’ve known a dog would tire her out like this, I would have begged my brothers to get one a year ago.” Jess laughs on one of the outside patio chairs beside me under the porch.
I adjust my black baseball cap and brush back some sweaty strands of hair sticking to my forehead.
We are in the shade, and it is still scorching out here.
I place it back on and lounge back, glancing up at the cloudless sky.
It’s a beautiful day, a blue blanket covering the orchard that spans a mile in front of us.
Thankfully, the fresh air in my lungs calms my head and brings some clarity. Now that I can focus on my surroundings better, I can see the distinct plots of trees. A cloud of dust disperses into the air in the distance, probably from machinery or a vehicle on the gravel road.
It’s peaceful out here, surrounded by hanging plants under the porch. I was tempted to bring the book I’ve been reading outside, but I thought it might be rude to ignore Jess.
Thousands of questions are swarming in my head, and she’s more likely to answer them than the twins.
I faintly smile. “Yeah, Rossco has a way of tiring me out too. Outside, at least. Inside, he couldn’t be lazier.”
Elena crashes her knees into the wet earth and flops onto her back, breathing heavily. The sun kisses her milky white skin. Rossco drops the ball onto her stomach, and she giggles.
I observe the sun beating down on her little exposed arms and hastily sit up. “We should get some sunscreen on them.”
Jessica meets my eyes. “Already did. I put it on them while you were upstairs.”
I slump back against the cushion and nod. “Can I ask you something— Actually, can I ask you a few things if I’m going to be trapped here?”
Jess presses her lips in a thin line and nods.
“I don’t know anything about your family, just what I’ve been told.” By one old woman living directly outside the gate, but still. I don’t know anything.
She sighs and twists a strand of straight brown hair around her finger. “I assume you want to know about my mom and dad.” She doesn’t phrase it as a question, but her tone, laced with sadness, tightens my chest. She keeps her eyes on Elena and Tristan, wiping her hands on her jeans.
“My mom was always a bright person,” she begins.
“The one whose presence would light up a room even if she weren’t smiling.
She had that effect, and it wasn’t hard to understand why my dad fell in love with her.
” She swallows. “I remember watching them in the kitchen. The way he’d hug her behind her back and place his chin on her neck to watch her cook.
The way he would kiss her was my favorite part.
Most kids hate seeing their parents like that, but for me…
it set my standards for what I want with someone someday. ”
I scan her face as she picks at the pink polish on her nails, the same color chipping on Elena’s.
“Anyway,” she continues, “it seemed like everything changed one random week. My dad was devoted to the company, and my mom had her hands full with me, three teenage boys, and Tristan—who was only one at the time. They fought more than usual, out in the open around us and not in their bedroom like they normally did. It just—changed.”
Her eyes settle on me. I may have questions, but I see them dancing in her eyes, too.
“When Mom got pregnant with Elena, she was a shell of herself. My dad lashed out more, spent lots of time in the office in the shop, and Mom always seemed to have dead eyes when she looked at him. Two weeks after Elena was born, she was gone. The few months after that were even stranger.”
“What do you mean?”
She shakes her head. “Our grandparents were always close to us, but after Mom left and never came back, she didn’t contact them or us at all—just vanished.”
Her eyes flutter closed, and she draws in a deep breath.
“A month later, after no contact, my grandparents raised their suspicions to law enforcement that my father was involved with her disappearance somehow. That week, cops and investigators were all over our property like ants, and my dad was around his lawyer more than us. They took some samples of a few large stains and smaller ones in my parents’ room as evidence to test. My dad claimed it to be red wine they spilled one night, but after the report came in a few weeks later—” She clears her throat, and I clench my hands in my lap.
“It was her blood. They arrested my dad early that next morning, and none of us has seen him since.”
My mouth opens, but her story evaporates anything on my tongue. It’s one of those stories where your head is consumed by thick fog and swishes around like liquid because there is too much to process. I can’t even begin to understand what it would’ve been like for all of them to experience that.
“You don’t have to say anything or apologize,” she mutters, picking at a hangnail on her thumb.
“He’s been at Washington State Penitentiary for over four years.
He writes us letters, but Cam, Bren, and I are the only ones who write back.
” She faintly smiles. “Elena draws him pictures even though she has no memory of him. And, of course, Tristan doesn’t have a lot to say, but he tries. ”
My heart plummets into my stomach like the chaos of an avalanche destroying everything in its path. The cold snow drifts over my skin, leaving chills in its wake.
A short exhale breaks past her lips. “Sorry, I know that’s a lot for you to process.”
Not as much as it has been for them to process. No wonder the Lindenvale children keep to themselves up on this hill.
“Do you think he did it— Your dad? I mean, there’s been no body.” I don’t know why I say it. I’m sure she’s considered that brutal fact enough to drive her to the brink of madness.
She pulls her bottom lip between her teeth. “No. But there was a lot of blood…There was also enough circumstantial and behavioral evidence to charge him. Honestly, I don’t know what I believe.”
When I went inside to go to the bathroom, I wandered around the house to get acquainted with my prison for the next…
however long they plan on keeping me. Jess looks like her mom.
I’ve seen the family pictures framed in a few hallways, on mantels, and in the kitchen.
Their smiling faces, frozen in time, are a stark contrast to the broken family I’ve found myself trapped with.
Her mom had shoulder-length light brown hair, but their arched brows and button noses are the same.
Jane Lindenvale was beautiful. I can see some of her features in all of them, and I’m sure that haunts them sometimes.
I shift in my chair to face her, placing one foot on the cushion and wrapping my arms around my knee. “What about Cameron, Brennan, and Colten? What do they think? Do they think he did it?”
The breeze floats through her hair, blowing some across her lips.
She picks it away with her finger. “Brennan writes to Dad, but he bottles up his emotions pretty well. I think he only writes because he feels guilty if he doesn’t.
Cameron loves hard and trusts hard—with everyone.
He doesn’t believe Dad could do something like that.
” I give her a weak smile because even though I barely know them, her descriptions seem spot-on.
“Colten, on the other hand, doesn’t like mentioning or talking about my father at all.
He remembers everything too well. Sometimes, I wonder if he knows more than us. ”
“Why do you say that?” I listen intently.
“Because the night before she disappeared, my parents were having the biggest fight they’ve ever had.
Something shattered, and Colten gathered us all in Brennan’s room and told us not to come out until he came and got us.
I remember hearing the front door slam once and a second time a few minutes later. ”
“Did he ever come to get you?”
The perplexed look that passes over her glassy eyes forms a lump in my throat.
She languidly shakes her head. “We stayed in that room the rest of the night until morning. But when morning came, Colten was gone, and so was Mom. He didn’t come back until three days later. Even then, he didn’t seem the same and hasn’t been since.”
My eyes expand. Three days later. After something like that happened? Unease scrapes under my skin. I hug my knee tighter, trying to suppress all the other questions that continue developing.
What happened during those three days he was gone?
Where was he?
We both turn our heads, laughing as Elena runs around in circles with the ball, trying to dodge Rossco as he leaps for it. His body crashes into her petite frame, sending her flying and sprawling out across the lawn.
Jess and I gasp, rising to our feet, but Elena jumps up and giggles so loud that it sends the crows flying off the patio roof.
Maybe it’s her contagious happiness, or he’s tired of being bored, but Tristan finally joins her.
He wanders to the rope lying in the grass, piquing Rossco’s interest in the toy.
He picks it up, and Rossco darts for it.
My body warms, feeling Jess’s eyes on me.
“We never talk about it,” she sighs. “Well, sometimes we do, but Colten shuts the conversation down pretty fast. I know you hate this situation, but I’m glad they brought you here when they did—before I leave for school.
” My chest rises and falls a little heavier.
“It feels good to talk to someone about it. Each year, I think my brain gets a little fuzzier about it all.”
I’m relieved she shared, giving me more insight into their complicated family history and why they’ve made the decisions they have.
But I’m not a therapist. I don’t have wise words to share or advice.
How the hell does someone get past something like that?
I may not talk to my parents, but I know they are there if I need them.
The Lindenvale children have nobody; they only have each other. And when my eyes settle on hers, the reality of my situation sinks further into my gut, hardening the truth into something solid.
They once only had each other. Now they have me.