He paused, frowning.
“The point is, he’s not saying no about your dad because he’s some colossal jerk,” he continued. “He wanted to recover the body, believe me. There’s some good cave-rescue units out there. He was in touch with them.”
Brian paused again, looking tortured.
“But he was told to let it go,” he said. “Well, not told, really. I shouldn’t put it that way. He was asked to let it go.”
Zoe and Val replied simultaneously:
“By who?”
“It’s not my place to say,” said Brian. He dropped his head, like a dog that knew it had done something wrong. “I’m sorry.”
Zoe needed an answer. She made Brian look at her. Her eyes, she knew, were teary and bloodshot. Good. Let him see the kind of pain she was in.
“By who?” she said again.
Brian groaned. He swept a hand through his hair, which settled back down into an even messier formation.
“I just know I’m going to regret telling you this,” he said.
He thumped the car a final time, by way of good-bye.
“Your mother.”
Zoe slipped down in the passenger seat, her mood darkening by the second. There was a bank of black clouds approaching. It looked like the underside of a massive spaceship.
“You should call your mom,” Val said quietly.
“Yeah,” said Zoe. “But can we just sit here a second?”
“Whatever you need,” said Val. “I’ll sit here forever if you want. I’ll sit here until they tow the car to the junkyard. I’ll go in the trash compactor with you, if I have to.”
“Thank you,” said Zoe.
“I mean, I’d prefer not to go in the trash compactor,” said Val.
Zoe laughed despite herself.
“You want to hear something weird?” she said.
“Of course,” said Val. “Have we met?”
“When the cops came to ask us about Stan,” said Zoe, “I made some comment about how they were idiots and how they’d never gotten my dad’s body out of the cave. And my mom gave me this look, like, Nothing good will come from stirring all that up! Now I know why—because she told them to leave him there. Because she was glad he was gone.”
“Maybe there was another reason,” said Val.
“Like?” said Zoe.
Val twisted her mouth into a frown.
“I got nothing,” she said.
When Zoe was ready to call her mom, Val slipped out of the car to give her some privacy. She gave Zoe an encouraging shove as she left.
Zoe watched Val disappear into a thrift store across the street, then finally called. Even the phone sounded jittery as it rang. It took her mother forever to answer.
“Zoe, what’s up? Are you okay? I’m working.”
The first fat drops of rain had begun to detonate on the windshield.
“Zoe? Are you there? What’s wrong?”
Zoe hardened her voice so she wouldn’t cry.
“What’s wrong is that you told the cops not to go get Dad’s body,” she said. “Which is so messed up! And you lied to me about it.”
There was a long pause. Zoe waited. She could hear the everyday sounds of the Hot Springs in the background—the ping of the door opening, the beep of the cash register, the scuffling of bath slippers on the concrete floor.
“Look, this is a long conversation,” her mother said. “And I can’t have it right now. I’ve got people asking for their money back because they don’t want to sit outside in the rain—like I’m responsible for the rain.”
Zoe slid over to the driver’s seat and switched on the windshield wipers so she could see out. The rain was already coming down hard, hitting the roof like nails.
“I don’t care how long a conversation it is,” she told her mother. “I want to have it now.”
Across the street, Val was waving at her through the thrift store window. She was modeling a red suede blazer, and asking Zoe’s opinion. Zoe shrugged in a meh sort of way. The red clashed with the orange streaks in Val’s hair.
“I told the police to leave him because I didn’t want someone else to get themselves killed,” said Zoe’s mom. “And that is the truth.”
Zoe considered this.
“You’re full of crap,” she said.
“Zoe!” said her mother.
“I’m sorry, but you are,” said Zoe. “That may be part of the truth, but it’s definitely not all of it.”
“So tell me,” her mother said. “Why’d I do it?”
“Because of all that stuff you told me about him and Stan,” said Zoe. “Because Dad was never around. Because he was a ‘disappointment’ or whatever you called him. Because you hated him.”
“You’re wrong,” her mother said. “I never, ever hated your father. I wouldn’t have spent twenty years with someone I didn’t love. If nothing else, I wouldn’t want to set an example like that for you and Jonah. You’re going to have to guess again.”
“I’m sick of guessing,” said Zoe. “I told you before X left that I want to know everything.”
“And I told you that you don’t,” her mother said.