He left Jacob in the backyard and went up to his room, where he locked the door.
His mother had gotten him a bookshelf back when she was trying to influence his tastes. It was filled, mostly, with a set of encyclopedias she’d insisted on buying, even though Tyler’s father had sworn up and down that nobody ever used encyclopedias anymore.
No one knew, but Tyler did use those encyclopedias. Some nights, when he couldn’t sleep—which was most of them—he’d choose one and look up faraway things until his eyes got tired.
Tyler reached under the top of the shelf, just above the D and E tomes, and unpeeled a tiny Ziploc bag.
Inside, there was an earpiece and a flash drive. It was what Kinley used to record her answers. He’d erase her psych notes, and then use it to record his brother, threatening him. He was going to get to his probation officer first.
He doubled-checked the door, then plugged the flash drive into the computer. His media player popped up, and Kinley’s voice began in his speakers.
Her voice was rich and deep and full. Just like her. He hadn’t talked to her much in the past couple of days, and suddenly he was filled with a strong yearning. She was so damn gorgeous.
He wanted to see her.
He wanted to kiss her.
He wanted to see her naked. To touch the soft velvet that was her skin.
Tyler wished he’d answered her calls. Her texts. He hadn’t wanted her involved in the shit with his brother. He hadn’t wanted anyone involved.
And he hadn’t wanted anyone to know. His brother was supposed to be perfect. Tyler had wanted to keep him that way. He’d wanted to give his parents one child they could really believe in.
Kinley’s voice went on in his ear about psychosexual stages and Freud and pain, and it reached some strange, latent part of him. He lay back on his bed and shut his eyes, and he wished that she was there with him. Beside him. In his arms.
And then she stopped, midsentence. There was scuffling. Mumbling.
He sat, bolt upright, his body cold.
He could hear rain.
There was rain on the speaker. Like rain falling against a building.
He knew that rain.
It went on for a minute, maybe two, before fading into the silence. Thick, heavy silence, the kind broken only by uncomfortable shifts and pain.
And then—
“Are you cold?”
It was Tyler’s voice.
“I know I shouldn’t be, but I am. I hate that he’s in there.”
Kinley.
And then Tyler, again. “I know.” There was some shuffling of straw. “We’re okay, though. And we’re going to be okay, you know. They’ll be back.”
Tyler listened. He listened as the whole horrific scene was played out again. Some parts he couldn’t hear, but he could hear enough.
More than anyone really needed.
And yet . . . Kinley had been quiet that night. She didn’t come off innocent, exactly, but good enough that if she ever decided to turn in the tape, she didn’t look as bad as the rest of them.
A cold rivulet of sweat ran down Tyler’s face.
The whole time they had been worried about a fuzzy phone call that had been made from Mattie’s pocket.
And the thing that could doom them all had been sitting on Kinley’s desk like so much homework.
He ripped the earpiece out. He had to get rid of this. He had to ruin it before anyone else could hear it. It couldn’t go back on his bookshelf, where it had been, hiding next to a bag of good weed and a stolen cell phone.
He unlocked his door and walked, very quietly and calmly, down the stairs. His parents were still in the den, and Jacob wasn’t anywhere to be seen.
He would call Kinley, and he would talk to her, and, somehow, he would find out if she had made any copies.
Tyler rested his hands on both sides of the sink and tried to keep his head from spinning. He clenched his teeth until his jaw hurt and the dizziness subsided.
Then he dropped the flash drive in the drain, and flipped the garbage disposal on.
Cade
Thursday, June 25
Cade always thought that a shrink’s waiting room should be interesting, but he’d been coming here for years and nothing ever happened.
The towering green houseplant in the corner always smelled like stale water and rotting roots. The receptionist popped bubble gum and made long, drawn-out calls to her boyfriend, Harry, usually about his mother interfering in their relationship (“Your mother shouldn’t still be dressing you, Harry. Those sweaters aren’t meant for men in their thirties.”). And the other patients weren’t any of the freaks Cade always hoped to see.
In fact, they always seemed pretty normal. So normal that since Cade had been little he’d made up stories about them that he’d whisper back and forth with Jeni. There was Annabella Axeworth, a beautiful teenager who had killed her parents with nothing but a pair of chopsticks. There was Nigel Knickerpants, who suffered from a fear of mosquito wings. And then there was their favorite, Gerbil Hamburger, who had recently developed superpowers and was just having a lot of issues dealing with the responsibility of it all.