“I actually sat here on purpose,” the girl said, her tone confessional.
Violet nodded, intrigued as to why anyone would want to sit by her. Ever since she and Nicole had stopped hanging out, she’d found a few acquaintances—she wouldn’t call them friends—to eat and chat with, but they avoided her after the news had broken. Now she sat in the back corner of the cafeteria, scarfing down her lunch as fast as she could so she could go to class early and get a head start on homework. Her grades had never been better.
The new girl continued, “I wanted you to know that my mom died, kind of recently actually, and I thought maybe we’d have something in common. Since we both lost our moms.”
Violet looked at the girl, blinking as she tried to process what she’d said. Lost her mom? She hadn’t lost her mother; she knew exactly where she was. Sure, she wasn’t physically with her right now, but she’d be back soon. Wouldn’t she? Violet looked around the cafeteria. Did everyone here know something she didn’t?
She’d scoured news articles to find out all she could—the things the adults wouldn’t tell her—and she’d seen nothing that said that Norah’s fate was determined as of yet. Based on what Violet had read, if her mother would just give up that stupid client list, she’d already be home. She hoped her mother could explain why she wouldn’t just do the one thing that would reunite them. Violet hoped that when Norah did explain it, it would somehow make sense, so Violet could forgive her for what she’d put her through.
She thought of last night and Micah’s request. She’d told him she’d help him. But she hadn’t considered that finding the client list might help her, too. Maybe her mom wasn’t willing to give up the information, but an anonymous informant could. And then the police would have no choice but to let Norah Ramsey go, because they would have what they wanted. Violet envisioned the headline just above a photo of Norah reuniting with her daughter after being released. Violet could make this happen.
She glanced over at Micah again, watched him as he looked down at his phone, surrounded by a cafeteria full of people but utterly alone. What if they found his dad’s name on her mom’s client list? Would she have to betray Micah to free her mom? She didn’t want to think about that, about what could come. She would pretend to help Micah, and she would decide later what to do if the time came. It might not come at all, she consoled herself.
She turned back to the girl and started gathering up her things. “If you’ll excuse me, I see someone I need to talk to. It’s kind of urgent.” She pointed in Micah’s direction and stood up.
“Sure,” the girl said. A worried look crossed her face. “I’ll see you here tomorrow?”
“You bet,” Violet said. She gave the girl her best, warmest smile, the one she’d used countless times to reassure her mother that nothing was wrong when really she’d failed a pop quiz or not been invited to a party or her best friend had inexplicably dropped her. Violet marveled that those things had ever seemed like problems. She made to leave, then remembered her manners. She turned back. “I’m sorry for your loss,” she said. Then she walked quickly away, thinking as she did: But your loss isn’t mine.
Bess Strickland was in her house when Violet got home, back in the kitchen buttering up her grandmother. Violet heard her voice and grimaced. Polly called her name and she replied, then walked upstairs, letting them hear her loud footsteps, before she tiptoed back downstairs so she could listen in on whatever those two were talking about. Thinking she was safely tucked away in her room, they would talk freely, and she wanted to know what they were saying.
Mostly they talked about nothing. She could hear a wariness in her grandmother’s voice and an overeagerness in Bess’s. Bess, Violet could tell, wanted Polly to like her. She liked that Polly wasn’t falling under Bess’s spell so easily. When the conversation turned to Norah’s release, Violet’s ears pricked. Though it sounded like they didn’t know any more than she did. Actually, Violet knew more.
She knew about the storage unit her mom kept, had gone there with her several times over the years to stow things away or retrieve things. They’d had it since Norah and Violet’s father had split up. She knew there was a filing cabinet and some old computer supplies in there. It was the place their old junk went to die. She hadn’t considered that there was anything of importance in there, but that was back before she knew her mom had been hiding secrets. She had rented it in Violet’s name, something she’d said she did so her dad couldn’t find it. At the time, Violet had accepted the explanation at face value. But now everything her mom had done looked fishy.
Bess was now talking about a body. Violet tilted her head to try to hear better because the two of them had lowered their voices, perhaps out of reverence for the dead or perhaps because they really wanted to make sure she didn’t hear, which made her want to hear all the more. A dead body had been found in the lake down the road.
It seemed, from what she could make out from the conversation, that the cops had said it could somehow relate to her mother? Was that possible? She now realized her mom was capable of things she’d not considered, but her mother wasn’t capable of murder. Violet knew that, but she also knew that if there was a dead body possibly linked to her mother’s case, things had just gotten even more serious. She needed to take action fast.
With the stealth of a cat burglar, she pivoted on her toes and tiptoed back upstairs to the safety of her room. She pulled her phone from her backpack and found the new contact she’d added in the wee hours of the morning. She held the phone and looked at Micah Berg’s name there among the others. For a moment she let herself appreciate the miracle that she now had his number, and he had hers. Once upon a time, she would not have believed this possible. Then she pressed the call button, because there were things more important at hand than a silly crush. There were possibly lives on the line, and one in particular Violet wanted to save.
Casey
After the utter humiliation of her mom walking in on her and Eli, she had to escape the house and her mother’s brooding silence. The discovery of the body in the lake was all anyone on social media was talking about, so she decided to go check it out. She cut through the woods, something she’d done more than once. One of her good friends in high school had lived near there, and they’d often walk to the lake to get out of earshot of their parents so they could talk freely. They’d walk laps around the lake, discussing boys and school gossip and anticipating a future that shimmered in front of them. Casey couldn’t have fathomed that her future would be anything but #blessed. She’d never considered she’d end up back home not even halfway through her first semester at school.
She exited the woods and made the short walk over to the lake just in time to see the stretcher bearing a black body bag pushed by several men up the hill to a cluster of emergency vehicles. Cops milled everywhere. Trying not to be too obvious, she stood at the edge of the small crowd that had gathered to watch the techs collecting evidence, the officials walking around looking concerned and important.
She eavesdropped as she watched, piecing together what had happened by the bits of conversation she overheard from her fellow nosy neighbors. The body had been inside the submerged car for a good while, though they didn’t know how long yet. The car had been discovered when, after the recent summer of drought, the lower lake level yielded its secret. A fisherman had spotted the top of the car just under the water. The officials would transport the car to some special cop garage and search for evidence. The death could’ve been an accident, but foul play hadn’t been ruled out. Anyone knew that foul play meant murder.