She climbed off the stool. “I’m going to head upstairs, see if I can get Scott to eat something.”
Beth set down a spoon and moved to the oven. “Wait, I’ll prepare a plate for him.” Opening the door, she pulled out the tray of cheeseburgers she’d kept warm in hopes he would come downstairs.
Nita waited as she assembled one with bacon strips and a bun, half wrapped it in foil, and placed it on a tray with a handful of crispy fries and a bottle of ketchup.
“He want mustard or pickles?” Beth asked.
“No, this is fine. Thank you.”
Nita skipped the stairs and took the elevator, juggling the tray with one hand as she closed the gate and pressed the button for the second floor. Scott’s phone records had been alarming, so much so that she had woken up George to get his take on them. There had been almost constant activity until the day he was taken—then, as expected, complete silence for seven weeks. Then, upon his return, almost nothing.
Almost.
With the exception of his single call to the Realtor, all his calls and texts had been to a single number. Just one. No calls to Kyle or Lamar or Andy. No back-and-forth messages with the dozens of girls who had always hung around, hoping for his attention. This had been just one number, and dozens of calls and texts to it. The calls had been short, less than a minute in length. And all the texts outgoing, with none incoming.
Then, a couple of weeks ago, he stopped, and his cell phone usage ceased to nothing. As if he were gone again.
George had told her to call the number, which she had. It had gone straight to an automated voice mail, one that repeated back the number but gave no hint to its owner.
The elevator chimed, and she stepped off. At Scott’s door, she knocked, then jiggled the heavy chrome handle. “Scott, it’s Mom.”
Music played from inside the room, and this was how suicides happened. Emotional withdrawal was always the first sign, according to the articles she was reading online. And Scott had been sulking ever since they’d returned from the police station and he and George had had that fight.
God, she would almost rather take the screaming over the silence. Though, later, George had agreed—yelling at Scott hadn’t been the right move. Yes, he had lied to police. Yes, he could be facing an obstruction-of-justice charge—but he was alive. Home. Safe. The other details didn’t matter.
“Scott, Beth just made bacon cheeseburgers,” she tried again. “I’ve got one hot and ready for you, with those crispy fries you like. Please open up.” She put her ear to the door and listened. Nothing. Could he even hear her?
At the end of the hall, the door to their study opened, and George emerged. He was in pale-green golf shorts and a white polo and looked as successful and put together as he had the very first time she’d seen him, twenty-two years ago.
“The door still locked?” George asked.
“Yes.” She used the flat end of her fist to pound on the door. It created a soft thud, and if she’d hit her childhood bedroom door that hard, it would have cracked the cheap plywood.
George spoke from behind her. “Just let me kick the door in. He’s not going to open it.”
A week ago, she would have argued with him, but her concern for Scott was beginning to border on panic. “You shouldn’t have been so hard on him,” she said quietly, though she had been right there beside him, both of their voices raised in frustration during the drive home from the station.
“Scott,” George called out, “open the door or I’m going to break it down.”
The music turned down, and Nita held her breath. A few moments later, Scott opened the door.
At the sight of her son, she put a hand on her husband’s arm and gently pushed him away. Navigating into the room with the tray of food, she gave George a warning look and pulled the door closed behind her.
“Come on, Mom,” Scott groaned, his shoulders slumping. “I just want to be alone.”
She set the tray on his desk and made her way to his minifridge. Opening the door, she tsked over the almost empty contents. All sugary soda. Her son, who had once been so health conscious, was now just like every other American teen. Half-opened bag of Cheetos on the top of the fridge, an overflowing trash can with candy bars and empty soda cans. She pulled an orange soda from the fridge and brought it to him. He already had his butt in the desk chair, the burger to his mouth. Fast, ravenous bites.
He was shirtless, and her gaze traced over the heart outline that Randall Thompson had cut into his chest. He cleared his throat, and she realized he was watching her.
She averted her gaze. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay.” He stuffed a fry in his mouth.
“I can put some ointment on that,” she offered. “I have a scar-repair cream I used after my knee surgery that really worked . . .” Her offer dropped off as he shifted away, almost shielding the wound from her.
“I don’t want to put anything on it.”
She frowned. “It’ll leave a scar, Scott. Surely you don’t want to—”
“No!”
The ferocity in his tone shut her up. She swallowed and sat on the edge of his bed. “I was just trying to help.”
His face softened. “I know, Mom. I just—I don’t want to lose the scar. This happened to me. I’m not going to forget it.”
Of course he wasn’t. And she wasn’t trying to make him forget anything. She just wanted to heal him. Inside and out. “We miss you, Scott. You don’t have to lock yourself away up here.”
“I don’t want to talk to anyone.”
“I know, but Scott—” She swallowed the urge to ask him a dozen questions and settled for one. “Why’d you tell us that you escaped? Why didn’t you just tell us that he let you go?”
He took a bite of the burger and chewed, his eyes on the wall before him, his shoulders stiff with tension. By the time he wiped his mouth—he never wiped his mouth—she was ready to reach out and shake him. “I don’t know. No one else was let go.”
In Scott’s newest statement to the police, he said Randall had unlocked his handcuffs and put him in the trunk of his car, then drove him out to a gas station a couple of miles from their house, where he pulled him out and told him that he’d let him go, but only if he ran straight home.
“I was different,” he’d said, his voice thick with emotion. “Special. It’s why I was set free.”
Special? Something about the way Scott said it had unnerved Nita. There was gratitude in his voice, a spark of pride in his eyes. Even now, he placed his hand on his chest, almost as if to protect the wound.
“So, you thought we wouldn’t believe you? That’s why you lied?”
He swallowed the bite he was chewing and reached for the soda. “Yeah.”
Her motherly intuition flared, as it had been doing since the moment he got home. He was lying. Had the first time, and still was. The conflicting evidence, previously dismissed by her, was starting to stack up. Just this morning, the attorney reminded them that they hadn’t found any of his DNA in Mr. Thompson’s trunk. Her patience snapped. “Scott, look at me.”
He turned his head, and his eyes found hers, but there wasn’t a connection there.
“Right now, I need you to tell me the truth. Without your father listening, without the cops around. Just talk to me.”