Becca Fitzpatrick - Silence

“I don’t have to answer that!” Apparently realizing how red in the face she was, she composed herself by kneading the back of her neck. “Is this because you think I’m betraying your dad? Believe me, I’ve already tortured myself enough, questioning if anything short of eternity is too soon to move on. But he would have wanted me to be happy. He wouldn’t have wanted me to mope around feeling sorry for myself forever.”

“Does Marcie know?”

She flinched at my sudden transition. “What? No. I don’t think Hank has told her yet.”

In other words, for the time being, I didn’t have to live in fear of Marcie taking our parents’ decisions out on me. Of course, when she did figure out the truth, I could guarantee the retribution would be swift, humiliating, and brutal. “I’m late for school.” I rummaged through the dish on the entryway table. “Where are my keys?”

“They should be in there.”

“My house key is. Where’s the Fiat key?”

She applied pressure to the bridge of her nose. “I sold the Fiat.”

I directed the full weight of my glare at her. “Sold it? Excuse me?” Granted, in the past I’d expressed just how much I hated the Fiat’s peeling brown paint, weather-beaten white leather seats, and untimely habit the car’s stick shift had of popping out of the shifter. But still. It was my car. Had my mom given up on me so quickly after my disappearance that she’d started hocking my belongings on Craigslist? “What else?” I demanded. “What else did you sell while I was gone?”

“I sold it before you went missing,” she murmured, eyes lowered.

A swallow caught in my throat. Meaning once upon a time I’d known she’d sold my car, only I couldn’t remember it now. It was a painful reminder of just how defenseless I really was. I couldn’t even conduct a conversation with my mom without looking like an idiot. Rather than apologize, I flung open the front door and stomped down the porch steps.

“Whose car is that?” I asked, coming up short. A white convertible Volkswagen sat on the cement slab where the Fiat used to reside. From the look of it, it had taken up permanent residence. It might have been there yesterday morning when we’d pulled in from the hospital, but I’d hardly been in the frame of mind to soak up my surroundings. The only other time I’d left the house was last night, and I’d gone out through the back door.

“Yours.”

“What do you mean, mine?” I shielded my eyes from the morning sun as I glowered back at her.

“Scott Parnell gave it to you.”

“Who?”

“His family moved back to town at the beginning of summer.”

“Scott?” I repeated, thumbing through my long-term memory, since the name provoked a vague recollection. “The boy in my kindergarten class? The one who moved to Portland years ago?”

Mom nodded wearily.

“Why would he give me a car?”

“I never got the chance to ask you. You disappeared the night he dropped it off.”

“I went missing the night Scott mysteriously donated a car to me? Didn’t that set off any alarm bells? There’s nothing normal about a teenage guy giving a car to a girl he hardly knows and hasn’t seen in years. Something about this isn’t right. Maybe — maybe the car was evidence of something, and he needed to get rid of it. Did that ever cross your mind?”

“The police searched the car. They questioned the previous owner. But I think Detective Basso had ruled out Scott’s involvement after hearing your side of the night’s events. You’d been shot earlier, before you went missing, and while Detective Basso originally thought Scott was the shooter, you told him it was—”

“Shot?” I shook my head in confusion. “What do you mean shot?”

She closed her eyes briefly, exhaling. “With a gun.”

“What?” How had Vee left this out?

“At Delphic Amusement Park.” She shook her head. “I hate even thinking about it,” she whispered, her voice breaking. “I was out of town when I got the call. I didn’t make it back in time. I never saw you again, and I’ve regretted nothing in my life more. Before you disappeared, you told Detective Basso that a man named Rixon shot you in the fun house. You said Scott was there too, and Rixon also shot him. The police looked for Rixon, but it was like he vanished. Detective Basso was convinced Rixon wasn’t even the shooter’s real name.”

“Where was I shot?” I asked, my skin crawling with an unpleasant tingle. I hadn’t noticed a scar, or any indication of a wound.

“Your left shoulder.” It seemed to pain my mom just to say it. “The shot was in and out, hitting only muscle. We’re very, very lucky.”

I tugged my collar down over my shoulder. Sure enough, I could see scar tissue where the skin had healed.

“The police spent weeks looking for Rixon. They read your diary, but you’d ripped out several pages, and they didn’t find his name in the rest of it. They asked Vee, but she denied ever having heard his name. He wasn’t in the records at school. There was no record of him at the DMV—”

“I ripped out pages in my diary?” I cut in. It didn’t sound like me at all. Why would I do such a thing?

“Do you remember where you put the pages? Or what they said?”

I shook my head absently. What had I gone to such great lengths to hide?

Mom made a deflated sound. “Rixon was a ghost, Nora. And wherever he went, he took all the answers with him.”

“I can’t accept that,” I said. “What about Scott? What did he say when Detective Basso questioned him?”

“Detective Basso put all his energy into hunting down Rixon. I don’t think he ever spoke to Scott. The last time I talked to Lynn Parnell, Scott had moved on. I think he’s in New Hampshire now, selling pest control.”

“That’s it?” I said in disbelief. “Detective Basso never tried to track down Scott and hear his side?” My mind cranked at full speed. Something about Scott wasn’t sitting right. According to my mom’s account, I told the police he’d been shot by Rixon too. He was the only other witness that Rixon existed. How did that fit with the donated Volkswagen? It seemed to me that at least one crucial piece of information was missing.

“I’m sure he had a reason for not talking to Scott.”

“I’m sure he did too,” I said cynically. “Like maybe he’s incompetent?”

“If you’d give Detective Basso a chance, you’d see he’s actually very sharp. He’s very good at his job.”

I didn’t want to hear it.

“What now?” I said tersely.

“We do the only thing we can. Do our best to move on.”

For one moment, I pushed aside my doubts of Scott Parnell. There was still so much to deal with. How many other hundreds of things was I in the dark on? Was this what I had in store? Days upon days of humiliation as I relearned my life? I could already envision what would be waiting for me inside the walls of school. Discreet looks of pity. The awkward averting of eyes. The shuffling of feet and drawn-out silences. The safe option of shying away from me altogether.

I felt indignation boil up inside me. I didn’t want to be a spectacle. I didn’t want to be the object of rabid speculation. What kinds of shameful theories involving my abduction had already spread? What did people think about me now ?

“If you see Scott, be sure to point him out so I can thank him for the car,” I said bitterly. “Right after I ask him why he gave it to me in the first place. Maybe you and Detective Basso are convinced he’s innocent, but too many things about his story aren’t adding up.”

“Nora—”

I thrust my hand out. “Can I have the key?”

After a moment’s pause, she unhooked a key from her own key chain and laid it in my palm. “Be careful.”