33. Margo
Chapter 33
Margo
I watch Caleb jog off with Theo. The sky is clear, ice-blue, and the wind has died down. As he pointed out before he left, Now’s as good a time as any .
I tuck the envelope into my jacket pocket.
“They have to stay in shape,” Riley repeats. “Dumb boys.”
I shrug. “Did you want to talk about your thing with Eli?”
I follow her line of sight to where she’s picked Eli out of the trio of hockey players running down a different road.
She snorts. “No.”
“He’s bound to be planning something. Like, a way to get you back.” In fact, I had heard as much. Eli swore me to secrecy, but he isn’t my best friend—Riley is. So I add, “There’s nothing he can do to fix… whatever it is that happened?”
“Fat chance.” She shakes her head. “Where are we going? My place or yours?”
“Actually…”
She gives me a look. The one that says, You’re about to drag me into some shit, aren’t you?
“Caleb’s aunt and uncle are out of town,” I blurt out. “And we think there might be something in that house that can help us with everything.”
“Something that can help with everything ? What is everything? Do you actually know what you’re searching for, or are you grasping at straws?” She sighs. “You two have got yourselves so wrapped up in this mystery?—”
“Riley,” I interrupt. “We didn’t choose this. It’s been haunting us, and with everything happening with Unknown…”
She pulls me into a hug. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean how it sounded. I’m just worried about you.” After a second, she leans back and visibly steels herself. “Okay. So, Caleb’s aunt and uncle’s house.”
“I have the address in my phone.”
It takes us almost twenty minutes to get there. The last time we were there… I shudder, remembering the state I found Caleb.
“What are we looking for?” Riley asks.
I fish out the set of keys Caleb gave me, and we hurry to the side entrance. I cross the entrance to the alarm panel, but it’s already been deactivated.
“Weird,” she whispers. “Maybe they only put it on when they’re home?”
I squint at her. “Why on earth would they do that?”
She shrugs. “He really wanted you to get in here, huh? The key, the code…”
“He’s busy, and this couldn’t really wait.” I glance around. “Should we split up?”
“No.”
I raise my eyebrows.
“You still haven’t told me anything about what we’re looking for.”
I nod. “Right. Sorry. We need to find anything Lydia might’ve kept—an old yearbook, preferably, or pictures from high school.”
“Lydia, Caleb’s mom?”
“Right.”
She shakes her head. “Isn’t most of her stuff still at their old house? Why?—”
“Caleb suggested to start here,” I interrupt. We’re still speaking as quietly as possible, and I clear my throat.
She hums. “Okay, fine. May as well start in the bedrooms, right? Upstairs?”
I nod, then hesitate. “Or his uncle’s study…”
“After,” she says.
We go to the stairs, jogging up them with light footsteps. I don’t know why we’re moving like we’re thieves in the night—no one is here.
At the top of the stairs, there are two immediate doors: one to the left and one to the right. Farther down, there are more doors.
“Start at the back and work forward?” Riley points to the end of the hall.
We creep along and pass four closed doors before we get to the last one. I push it open, almost expecting Caleb’s uncle to be sitting there, waiting for us.
It is the primary bedroom, although it’s empty.
Riley goes to the nightstands while I hurry across to the bookshelves built into the wall. They frame a huge flat-screen television and an armoire below it.
I run my finger across the book titles, but nothing with Emery-Rose’s gold-and-black colors or its sigil jumps out at me.
“Nada,” Riley calls. “Just some lube, and I could’ve happily gone my entire life without knowing that was there.”
I stick out my tongue. “Gross.”
I take the next room down on the left, and Riley opens the door on the right.
“Bathroom.” She appears in the doorway. “What’s in here?”
It must be a guest room. Everything is in shades of white and gray. The drawers in the dresser are empty, the bed made neater than a pin.
“Moving on.” I ignore the discouraging feeling twisting my stomach. It isn’t just foreboding—that we’re intruding on a dangerous family’s home—but also… like something bad is going to happen.
This is a literal gut feeling.
I grab Riley’s hand, pulling her to a stop. “Maybe you should be lookout.”
There’s a narrow walkway next to the stairs that goes to a window. From there, she’ll be able to see to the driveway and the front door. She sighs, then goes to the window. We parked across the street, which will hopefully not tip anyone off that anything is amiss.
I crack the second to last door and pause.
I was expecting something more masculine, a room Caleb would’ve stayed in as a kid. Instead, it’s feminine. The walls are a blush color, and the comforter on the bed is pink and orange flowers.
Slowly, I leave the doorway and walk farther in.
It’s not as neat as the monotone room we just left. This one is… lived-in. Papers on the desk, a pile of dirty clothes in a hamper in the corner. One of the dresser drawers is cracked open, denim sticking out.
Spooked, I back out into the hallway.
“What is it?” Riley asks.
I shake my head and go to the last bedroom, shoving the door open.
Blues and purples. An unmade bed. More clothes.
“Do they have a kid?”
I go to the desk. It’s white, not inexpensive, with a blue chair on wheels tucked in. A laptop sits on top, plugged into a power strip.
Fuzzy pens in a cup.
A mouse pad with the picture of a dog.
The desk itself is pushed up against a window. To the left of it is a bulletin board. I stand in front of it, putting my finger on the one of the pins.
Newspaper clippings.
Cut-out articles.
Fatal Two-Car Accident on Elm Street and Drunk Driver Kills Teenage Boy and Rose Hill Child Fatally Struck .
“What is this?” Riley asks, just behind me.
I can’t breathe.
The board is filled with them. So many car accidents, dating back at least four years, all over Hillshire County.
“Margo,” Riley snaps. She grabs my shoulder and drags me around. “You look like you’re going to be sick.”
Because my stomach is a roiling mess.
“I didn’t know they were?—”
The front door slams, and both of us duck.
“Shit,” Riley whispers. She runs to the door and closes it most of the way.
“I’m home!” a familiar voice yells. “Matt gave me a ride since you were sick.”
Hanna.
“We’re standing in Claire’s room,” I say in a low voice.
Riley slowly pivots back to me. “Excuse me?”
“I didn’t know this was where they?—”
Footsteps on the stairs interrupt me.
“Claire?” Hanna calls.
Sweet, beautiful Hanna.
I only pray her sister left her out of this mess.
“Closet,” Riley whispers, hauling me across the room.
We slip into it, and I take a moment to be thankful for the size. She closes the closet with the tiniest snick . We both back away. I spin around. The closet is deep and narrow, with Claire’s clothes on both long sides. In the back are a few rows of shelves, sparse except for the boxes at the top.
Claire’s bedroom door flies open. “Claire, I asked?—”
My heart cracks. Wherever Claire is, Hanna expected her to be here. And now the twelve-year-old is alone in the big, creepy house , as she called it. I take a step toward the door, ready to reveal myself.
Riley grabs me from behind, covering my mouth with her hand.
“Please, be quiet,” she whispers in my ear.
My lungs stop working.
I’m so sorry .
Flashes of being in the same position—both as a child and just recently, yanked from the wrecked car—fill my mind. I can smell the smoke. Feel the bite of glass in my skin. I thrash and claw at her arms.
She holds on tightly. “Stop, stop,” she whispers in my ear.
“Claire,” Hanna sings, her voice farther away. “Are you downstairs?”
Riley releases me, and I fall out of the closet.
I land on my hands and knees, gasping for air. I wasn’t here in a closet. I was there. It was so fucking real.
She crouches beside me. “Margo, I’m so sorry. I’m an idiot, I just… we can’t be caught. You said Claire lives here—did you know? Did she mention it?”
It takes a minute for me to regain my breath, but then I grab Riley’s offered hand and stand. Ignoring her other questions, I say, “She’s obsessed with car accidents.”
Riley nods slowly.
I go to Claire’s desk, yanking out the chair and taking a seat. Her computer is bound to be password protected—but at least it’s more proof that she has a laptop. Portable computer .
“It can’t be her,” I mumble.
I open the drawers and riffle through loose paper. At the bottom of the last drawer, there’s a wooden box.
I pause. Whatever is in this box was worth her hiding it—or it’s nothing.
If I don’t open it, the contents can’t hurt me. Claire remains innocent.
“What?” Riley takes the box from my hands and flips it open. Inside is a folded picture of me and Caleb. She pulls it out and flattens it.
I gasp. I can’t help it.
She’s…
“That bitch scratched your face off.” Riley’s tone is appalled.
I shudder.
“We need to get out of here. Fast.” She looks over her shoulder. “I hate to say Hanna’s right, but I’m getting creeped out.”
“We still need the yearbook. What if Masters is in on it?”
“Can’t we just trust the police for once?” Riley retorts.
I shake my head, then snap a picture of the photo with my phone.
She puts the picture back in the box, dropping it in the drawer. “Come on.”
I start to follow her, then freeze. “Riley! The boxes.”
Her eyes narrow. “What?”
I slip back into the closet, standing on my toes to reach the boxes on the top shelf. Riley is suddenly beside me, taking the one I hand her so I can grab the second.
We bring them out and set them on the carpet, ripping the lids off.
Sure enough…
A box of jewelry with the initials L.A. engraved in the velvet, a few different baubles, a…
“Is that a mermaid?”
I pick up the glass figure. It looks remarkably similar to the one Caleb found in my room. There’s another one made of porcelain, and a third…
“She collected them,” I say slowly. “And Claire must’ve just needed something to use.”
Riley grunts. “I always had a bad feeling about that girl. But this seems bigger than just her.”
“L.A.” I shake my head. “Lydia Asher?”
“Fucking weirdo.”
I nod my agreement, and we focus on the second box.
Against one of the sides is a black-and-gold hardcover book.
The yearbook.
I choke on my laugh. “Holy shit, we found it.”
“Great,” Riley says. “Now we need to get out of here before we’re discovered by a twelve-year-old.”
“Right.”
She puts the lid back on, but a notebook catches my eye. I stop her, removing it. I quickly take pictures of the box and then nod. We tuck everything into place, take a look around the room, and creep into the hallway.
The notebook and yearbook are under my arm. We make it almost all the way down the stairs before Riley hits a creaking step.
“Shit,” she whispers. “Go, go.”
We bolt.
Out the door—I close it as quietly as possible behind me—and off the porch. We cut across the grass, sprinting to her car.
“Fuck, fuck,” she yells.
“Riley, go,” I snap.
I dial Caleb’s number.
Straight to voicemail.
I call again, just to be sure.
“Wait, wait,” I say, just as we get to the end of the road.
She pulls over, turning toward me. “He’s probably still running.”
“Yeah.” Still, that bad feeling I had? It only gets worse.
Maybe I’m panicking over nothing.
I call Theo.
“Wolfe,” Theo answers on the first ring. “You okay?”
“I… me? I’m fine.” I shake my head. “I was looking for Caleb.”
“Um… Like, you’re fine, as in, they’re releasing you from the hospital?”
I jerk back. I put the call on speaker, because maybe Riley will be able to make sense of what he’s saying. “Theo, I’m not at the hospital.”
“Oh. Girl must’ve been overreacting. She was crying like you were on the verge of death.”
In as calm a voice as I can manage, I say, “Theo. Where is Caleb?”
“We were on the run, and Claire came by. Said you had been in an accident—I’m glad you’re okay, by the way. She was taking Caleb to the hospital.”
I close my eyes. “I wasn’t in an accident.”
He’s quiet.
“Riley and I went to Caleb’s uncle’s house searching for something. And…” Just spit it out, Margo . “Claire is the one who’s been harassing me.”
“Fuck.” Something crashes in the background. “You’re telling me I let him get in the car with a psycho bitch?”
“I’m sure he made the choice himself,” Riley mutters. “Bullheaded boys.”
“I heard that, Applebottom,” Theo snaps.
“Okay, enough.” I glare at the phone. “We’ll find them.”
“Keep me posted,” he says.
The line goes dead. The fear working its way up my throat is going to bubble over at any moment.
“We can find him,” she says. “You know your foster sister?—”
“Clearly not .” I drop my head into my hands. “How long has she had him? Twenty minutes? An hour? Is she going to hurt him? Kill him?”
Riley pinches my arm, hard enough that I flinch away from her.
“Stop it.” She pats the same place she pinched, a silent apology. “We just need to think.”
“I may not know her as well as I should,” I say slowly. “But…”
“Hanna,” Riley and I say at the same time.
She makes a U-turn and pulls into the driveway. “You want me to come in?”
I frown. “No. I’ll talk to her.”
I go back into the house that has started to feel much more terrible than I originally thought. It holds too many secrets and too many grudges.
I follow the sounds of the television to the living room set toward the back of the house. It’s one of the more lived-in rooms. I stop in the doorway.
Hanna is on the couch, a blanket across her lap, and a bowl of ice cream hugged to her chest.
It makes me smile.
“This is what you do when you’re home alone?” I ask.
She jumps. “Oh my God, Margo!”
She puts down the bowl and races toward me, colliding into me.
I wrap my arms around her and push down the panic. The need to immediately question her. Hanna is a sensitive soul. The first to cry when someone yells or start at a loud noise. The foster system hasn’t been kind to her—but she’s still good.
I try to hold on to that.
“Hanna, I need to ask you an important question.”
She releases me, bouncing on the balls of her feet.
“Do you know where Claire is?”
A frown flits across her expression, there one minute and gone the next. “Did you just come to see her?”
I take a deep breath. “No, hon. I’m sorry.” I guide her to the couch and sit next to her. “But I think she knows where my friend is.”
Hanna perks up. “Caleb? He’s all she ever talks about. She said she was going to date him when you were gone.”
I exhale. “When I’m gone?”
She shrugs, leaning over to grab her ice cream. “I dunno. She seemed pretty convinced that he was going to fall in love with her.”
Bitch .
I shove away my anger and fear, and instead put my hands on her shoulders. “Can you do me a favor, Han?”
She looks at me with wide eyes.
“I just need to know if there’s somewhere special Claire might’ve gone after school.”
“Well…” Hanna glances around. “She does like to go visit her boyfriend.”
I pause. “She has a boyfriend?”
“Matt! We had to play a silly game and act like strangers at the football game. Isn’t that weird? They said it was like role-playing.”
I blink a few times as more pieces of the puzzle click into place.
Of course . Who else would lie—or was it even a lie? She said she was with him, and for all I know… she could’ve been behind my abduction.
“She has a boyfriend but she thinks Caleb is going to fall in love with her?” I make my tone light. “That’s kind of greedy.”
She giggles.
“Come on, Hanna. She wouldn’t take Caleb to Matt’s house, right?”
Hanna’s smile drops off. “She took Caleb?”
“I don’t know.” I shake her shoulders lightly. “Think. Where would they go?”
“I don’t—stop!” She bursts into tears.
Shocked, I release her.
Oh God.
I’m no better than my mother, shaking a child.
I jump to my feet, ready to bolt.
“T-the diner,” she says through her tears. “She’s always talking about hanging out with her future mom.”
Lydia.
The diner.
My mother.
I take a step forward—to hug her, to thank her—but she flinches away from me. It stops me dead in my tracks.
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper. “But Caleb…”
“Yeah.” She swipes at her face. “You and her are the same. Only focused on him.”
Only focused on him . How did I miss that about her?
I run out of the house, down the steps, and straight into Riley’s car. “You remember how to get to Lucky’s Diner?”