The Last Secret You'll Ever Keep by Laurie Stolarz (summer reads txt) 📕

“Don’t you mean your story?” she says. “Didn’t you write this?”

“I wrote it from memory,” I say, knowing she doesn’t believe my memories. “I can also describe some of the illustrations, if that’s helpful.”

“We figured you’d want to read the whole book, or as close to a whole book as we currently have,” Garret explains.

“Why don’t you email me a copy?” She sets a business card down in front of me as if I don’t already have a stack sitting on my night table. “Is there anything else?”

“Yes. There is.” I tell her more about the Jane Anonymous website and what I know about Peyton’s case. “Peyton feared her abductor was going to come back for her, and now she’s gone.”

“Gone from the chat site, you mean.”

“Yes, but just out of the blue, after she received what she thought was a warning.”

“Just to clarify: When you say warning, do you mean the torn page from the book about junkyards?”

“The page with the shaded-in message,” I say to correct her. “I think To Be Continued should count as a warning, don’t you?”

“Okay, but if she were really missing, authorities would’ve been alerted. A missing-persons case would’ve been filed in her city or town.”

“The same way one was filed on me?” I ask. “People have to notice a person is missing in order to report it.”

My aunt never noticed.

No report was ever filed.

No one ever came looking.

All the hours I spent in the well, telling myself stories about search teams and candlelight vigils …

“Peyton posted a picture of the torn page,” I tell her. “Maybe you could ask the Jane administrators to view our chat history?”

Detective Marshall jots the details down, but I can’t quite tell if she’s taking them seriously or not.

“I’m pretty sure Peyton’s from Maine,” I continue. “From a town called Pineport. I’m not sure where she’d been kept captive—what city or state, I mean—but I remember she said she’d been in a shed, in the woods, and that it’d gotten dismantled by the time the investigators found it. She was able to escape by digging a hole beneath a loose floorboard and tunneling her way out.”

“Do you know the case?” Garret asks her. “Does it sound at all familiar?”

“I’ll look into it.” She stands from the table.

“Peyton said that a book had been left in the shed,” I continue, nowhere near ready to leave. “It was about a group of people who came together as a family. They lived in the middle of the woods, in tiny one-room shacks, with their own set of rules. I don’t know the author. But think about it: the woods, the shack … Both of those details match Peyton’s captivity situation in the shed, just like the water-well book matches mine.”

“Anything else?”

“Do you think there could be a connection?” I ask. “Or maybe my crime was the result of a copycat person?”

“I’ll look into it,” she repeats.

“Will you really?” My face flashes hot.

She’s standing in the doorway now. “How’s your aunt doing? Is everything okay at home?”

“What does that have to do with this?”

“It was nice to see you again, Terra. I’ll be in touch if anything comes up.”

“And how about my storybook pages?”

“You have my card,” she says instead of answering.

I have her card but no incentive to use it.

NOW

42

Once outside, we start across the parking lot, headed for Garret’s truck. The air is chilly. Still, I breathe it in, feeling stupid for coming here, especially with Garret, especially after everything.

“Is that what it’s been like?” he asks.

“What do you mean?”

He stops in front of his truck and looks back at the police station. “I mean, was that any indication of what you’ve had to deal with? With the investigators? With no one believing your story?”

I manage a nod, somewhat startled to see his reaction to my world. “It wasn’t always that way. People believed me at first.”

“What’s not to believe? You were gone for four days.”

“I know.” I shrug. “But I wasn’t a stranger to taking off, ditching school, disappearing for days … I can’t really blame anyone for not noticing.”

“Why not? I blame them.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, you deserve to be noticed.”

I look away, feeling my eyes well up. “Why are you being so kind?”

“This isn’t about kindness, Terra.”

“Then what is it about?”

He nods to his truck. “I think I told you before this was my grandfather’s old ride? He was pretty much my hero. In the last fifteen years of his life, he worked for free as a vet just because of his love for animals.”

“And so, your grandfather’s selflessness rubbed off on you?”

“This isn’t about me.”

“I’m not some wounded bird.”

“Maybe not, but it wouldn’t be a bad thing if you were. Wounded birds deserve their time to heal. It doesn’t make them any less viable. It just means they’re getting better.”

“Are you a wounded bird?”

“In some ways, I am. We all are. Don’t you think? Anyway, I believe you about everything that happened. And I’m happy to help as much as you want me to. We can be in this together.”

Wouldn’t that be nice? But I’m in it alone. Garret can bring me to the station and help me with my searches. He can take me out for coffee and make me paper napkin roses. Together, we can search for water wells that may or may not exist. But, at the end of the day, I’m the only one who knows the truth about my hell and what it’s like to live in it.

“Well?” he asks.

“Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me. Just remember I’m here, willing to listen, whenever you want to talk.” His eyes look somber and serious, as if he really, truly means it.

I want so much to believe him. And maybe part of me even does. But I can’t help remembering: My aunt had said the same—that she wanted to listen too. Jessie and Felix were no different, pledging their friendship allegiance, but then taking said friendship away. Investigators fooled me too—all of them