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

a brick wall that’s painted white. Go to the right of it—to the seventh or eighth section of chain-link fencing. One of those sections is curled up at the bottom. He made me crawl through it.”

“And then?”

“Look for a bus.”

“A what?”

“Hurry. I’m inside the bus. The junkyard is closed. I’m pretty sure it’s been closed for days now, but still there’s tons of stuff here—old cars, piles of building supplies … The bus is somewhere, but it’s not exactly visible.”

I grab my cell and turn it on. Twenty-five percent charged.

“Please, Terra,” she says, her voice breaking over the words.

I close my eyes, trying to get a grip, my mind flashing back to the night of the fire, my bedroom on Bailey Road.

“I have to go,” she says.

“Peyton, wait.”

The phone clicks off.

I hang up and press Detective Marshall’s number. It goes straight to voice mail. I leave her a message, choking out the words: “The girl I told you about … Peyton, from the chat site … She’s been taken again. Please, can you call me back? I’m at Harborview Park in Pineport, Maine. This is Terra.”

I end the call and dial 9-1-1, stepping out of the booth, desperate for some air. At the same moment, a rustling noise comes from somewhere in the darkness.

I grab the wasp spray in my pocket. Did the sound come from behind the slide? Or over by the fence?

Was it the snapping of twigs?

Or the swishing of a jacket?

Maybe it was a swirl of wind through the fallen leaves.

It’s stopped now. My heart has too. I look back down at my phone screen. It’s turned black again. How far is my car? Thirty yards at most. I hurry in that direction, one step at a time, through the park, propelled by Peyton’s cries.

NOW

48

Back in the car, I lock my door, start the engine, and set my nav for the salvage yard. As I pull out of the parking lot, I try dialing 9-1-1 again, my pulse racing, my fingers trembling. The call connects as I turn onto the main road.

The operator picks up: “Nine-one-one. What is your emergency?”

“A friend,” I blurt. “She’s been taken. She’s being held against her will.”

“Can you tell me your name?”

“It’s Terra,” I say, avoiding my last name in case she’s already heard it, in case she wouldn’t take me seriously.

“Okay, Terra, can you tell me who your friend is?”

“It’s Peyton,” I say, but I’m not sure she hears it.

The navigation voice speaks over mine, tells me to turn left, onto a dark, narrow road.

“Her name is Peyton,” I repeat, louder this time. “I’m not sure of her last name, but it might be Bright. Or it could be McNally. She says she’s trapped inside a bus, in a salvage yard.”

The navigation directs me down a dead-end road. The streetlights are even sparser here. It’s started drizzling again. I click on my windshield wipers; they swoosh back and forth, making streaks across the glass and producing a scratching-scraping sound that grates inside my ear.

“Hello?” I ask.

Why isn’t she talking?

I check the screen. It’s gone black. The call got dropped. I have no signal. The nav has stopped working too.

How long were we connected? Was she able to trace the call, ping my location?

It seems I’m in the right place. A white brick building faces me, at the front of the property, just like Peyton said. The salvage yard sign stands tall and bright, though everything else looks dark.

I cut my engine and switch off the headlights. A chain-link fence surrounds the junkyard, as do a few spotlights—four or five, maybe.

I get out, locking the car behind me, keeping the wasp spray clenched in my hand. I move to the fence. A giant heap of scrap materials sits beyond it. Behind the yard is a wooded lot, what Stacey at the yacht club must’ve been referring to when she mentioned the conservation land.

I try my best to focus, looking for a bus—a school bus, a city bus … But what if it isn’t a bus at all? What if Peyton is somehow mistaken?

I follow the fence to the right, counting up the sections. When I get to the ninth one, I see the place where the metal has been curled up. I take a moment to peer all around—behind me and over both shoulders—before checking my phone again.

Still no signal.

Twenty-one percent charged.

I take a photo of the junkyard sign and text it to Garret and Detective Marshall, along with a message that tells them I’m here. The text will go through eventually; there must be a hot spot somewhere.

My pulse races as I squat down and crawl through the hole in the fence. I imagine Peyton having done the same. How did that happen? Where did she get taken from? Or did she come here on her own?

Once on the other side, I click on my key ring flashlight and shine it over heaps of wood, scrap metal, tires, and bumpers. I move in deeper, passing smaller sections of junk: collections of things like hubcaps and car seats.

Peyton mentioned the bus wasn’t exactly visible, meaning she’d been alert when she first arrived. Had she come to meet someone? Or had she been scouting out the area, looking for clues related to the page she got in her mailbox?

It’s eerily quiet. There’s only the clattering of wind chimes somewhere in the distance. I creep past a pile of car doors, still unable to spot a bus. Where is it? I continue to follow the fence, moving toward the back side of the salvage yard. I hold my flashlight high, able to see the wooded area that borders the yard.

Who owns this place? Does the person know about the wide, gaping hole in the fence section? Peyton said the junkyard’s been closed, but for how long? And when is the owner coming back?

I shine my light over a mound of old bricks, five feet high. Behind them, I find two stacks of compressed cars, piled like