“I’m not calling you a liar,” Detective Rivera says, voice soft.
“I know,” I squeak, but he sort of is, in the way he keeps asking whether I’m holding something back. In the way his eyes seem to know that I am.
Dad sits on the arm of the easy chair, arms crossed, expression distant. I can’t even meet his gaze. I haven’t been able to for a long time.
Mom sits beside me, arm not around me, exactly, but on the couch back. She looks bewildered, anxious. “If there’s something more, Brooke…”
“There isn’t!” I say.
Detective Rivera’s sitting on the coffee table, a cardinal sin in this house, but Mom allows it, which tells the story of how worried she is. He leans in, elbows on his knees. His dark slate eyes are kind, and there are faint lines to the sides of them. Laugh lines. But he’s not laughing now. “Liam said you called him by name. That you called him Stone. That you seemed to know him.”
“You told me that was his name,” I say. “When you were last here.”
“Does he like you to call him by name?”
I swallow. “How would I know?” I say coolly as I can. “If I know somebody’s name, it’s only polite to use it when addressing that person.” I look helplessly at my mother. “There’s no reason to lose my manners.”
“Of course not, sweetheart,” she says, her voice a little sad. Like she thinks I’m hiding something, too. “Good manners are always in style.”
Usually when she says that, I roll my eyes, but now I’m so grateful I could kiss her. It’s a kind of absolution from the person who’s been most critical of me.
The silence goes on forever. I feel this flash of frustration at Stone. And longing. He made it sound so easy to tell them nothing, but it’s not easy at all. Stone was hardened by life, but I’ve never felt softer or more vulnerable. And the place between my legs feels sore, raw, alive with the memory of him. If they knew about that, they would lose their minds.
Rivera watches me. I’m a bug under a microscope in front of his searching eyes. I want to grab my phone and look at something stupid, random Facebook statuses about someone’s breakup at prom, but I don’t want them to see how bad I need this to be over. I force myself to meet his eyes. I draw my lips together in imitation of Mom’s impatient face.
“I know this is uncomfortable for you,” Rivera says. “But I’m trying to work this out in my mind—why would a man kidnap you on your prom night only to ask about your life as a high school girl?”
“I don’t know,” I say.
After another uncomfortably long silence, he asks, “Do you think he imagines some sort of connection to you? Or that you owe him?”
I shrug.
“I think sometimes we can get scared,” Rivera says, “and the easiest thing is to sweep it under the rug. But I’ve been in this business a long time, and trust me, that never helps. Things like this only escalate.”
Too late, I think. This has escalated beyond what they can imagine. But I say nothing, reminding myself that I’m in control. Just like Stone said. I’m eighteen. An adult.
“I know this is scary,” he says. “Your friends told us how violent he appeared—eyes wide, fists flying. Your friend Randall thought he had a knife. Did he show you a knife?”
“It happened so fast,” I say, even though there was no knife.
“Your friend Liam observed that he was frothing at the mouth, out of his mind. He thought drug use was involved. Did you have that impression?”
Of course Liam would make him sound like a rabid, drug-crazed monster. “No. I did not have the impression of drug use.” Or rabies, for that matter.
“So he wasn’t violent with you.”
“Not at all!”
“Except to drag you away from prom.”
“Right,” I say, heart beating fast. “Except for that.”
“He didn’t sexually assault you.”
“Absolutely not!”
At some point last night, I put the bodice of my dress together with two safety pins. Nobody noticed the rip, which ran neatly down the seam—luckily.
Now I’m in pink fleece yoga pants and a giant Mickey Mouse T-shirt, and the dress is tucked into my drawer. I’ll sew it back up later.
“So he only asked you questions,” Rivera clarifies. “For three hours.”
“I don’t know what more to tell you.”
“It must be a heady feeling,” he says, changing his tactic, making his voice smooth and almost hypnotic. “To have a man like that so focused on you. All that power and rage, except when it comes to you.”
“Detective—” Mom puts a hand on my shoulder. “What are you getting at? This is starting to sound like victim blaming. My daughter is not at fault for anything that monster did.”
A shiver of gratitude washes over me.
“Of course not,” he says, putting his pen in his front pocket. “I didn’t mean it like that. If you come up with anything else, Brooke, I’m listening. I’m on your side, believe it or not.” His eyes crinkle as he smiles. He turns to my mom, my dad. “I have some literature for you, some information about the effects of this kind of situation, if you’d…”
Dad stands. “Let me walk you to the car.”
Something passes between my mother and Rivera, and suddenly she’s walking him to the car, too. “Why don’t you draw yourself a nice bath,” she says to me, soft-like.
“Maybe I will.” I say goodbye to Rivera, and I head upstairs feeling upset and like I’m in all kinds of trouble I can’t understand.
When I peer out my bedroom window, I see them talking by the door of Rivera’s car. I crouch down and ease the window open just a crack. I can’t hear what my mom is saying, but Rivera’s voice carries through on the breeze—enough of it, anyway, to get the gist. “…develop positive feelings…reasons why she’s protecting him…strong emotions like fear…feels like infatuation…”
My pulse races. He thinks I’m on Stone’s side.
And he’s right.
Rivera gestures at Mom. She’s holding a pamphlet. “…some form of Stockholm syndrome…”
My father’s voice is a rumble back—he sounds impatient. I hear my name a few times. “Why Brooke? …why target her? …background on this Stone Keaton…need answers…”
Rivera’s shaking his head. “…not his real name…no record…”
They’re pointing at our neighbor’s house. Why are they talking about that house? It’s for sale. Our neighbors don’t even live there anymore—they moved to Florida. The place is vacant. Overpriced, Dad always says.
“Gonna come back…predictable…get this guy…” Rivera says. He’s saying things about the mall. About school. I strain to hear him, but the wind has changed directions.
I quickly duck when my parents turn to come back inside. The windows of the vacant house look down on ours. It sits above and has a good view of us, actually. It would be the perfect place for the police to hide in. Maybe that’s what he was saying. That they’d hide in that house. That they’d follow me to the school and the mall.