My Secret to Tell (6 page)

I also need answers in case he tries to weasel out of coming with me today. I can’t hide him forever, because no matter how much I believe him, I don’t
know
that he’s innocent. My shoulders tense. I want to do what’s right, but what does that mean? Going to the police sounds right. But standing by a friend in trouble sounds right too, doesn’t it? Especially when you know that friend has always,
always
stood by you.

I close my eyes, flashing back to the animal shelter when Deacon got me in with Dr. Atwood. I was too young, and he stood right with me outside the office door. Three Labradors were bouncing and barking like the world loudest pinball machine, and my nerves were rattled.

“Maybe I should wait,” I said. “The application says fifteen. And the hours won’t count for high school until senior year.”

Deacon snorted. “That’s crap. You don’t care about the hours. You told me you want this more than anything.”

“I do.”

“No one’s going to be better at this job than you. Now get in there and fight for it.”

He stood beside me at Dr. Atwood’s desk, singing my praises until she agreed to take me on. He was there for me. I’m trying to be there for him too, but he’s running out of chances.

“Emmie.”

Deacon’s voice startles a group of birds in one of the live oaks. They rise in a thunder of pale wings and birdsong, and we both look up to watch them fly away. Once they’re gone, he moves closer, but I lift up a hand to stop him.

“Wait,” I say. “Did you have any part in what happened to your dad? Did you hurt him?”

Pain flashes across his features. “Not like you think.”

“That’s not an answer. I want to know everything. Joel wants me to tell you he’s sorry and that he’ll try to help, and I’m afraid he’s saying that because he thinks you’ll be arrested. Sheriff Perry is looking for someone. We both know that someone is probably you. Does Perry have a reason to be looking, Deke?”

His laugh is sharp enough to use as a weapon. “When does Perry
not
have a reason to look for me?”

“Don’t start with that. I’m asking you to tell me the truth.”

“I told you what I know,” he says. “It’s a shit show. And I’m sorry you got mixed up in it. As for Perry, yeah, I’m sure he’s looking for me.”

He turns away. Is he going to run forever? Would he do that to Chelsea, leaving her like Landon left me? And what will I do about it? Am I going to call the police? Maybe. Either way, I promised Chelsea I would bring him to the hospital, and that’s what I’m going to do first.

But I need to make sure I still believe him.

I walk closer. “Look me in the eyes and tell me if you put your dad in the hospital.”

His gaze doesn’t waver. “I didn’t.”

“Then we can fix it. We’ll fix this.”

“Always the solutions girl.” His voice is light and easy, but his eyes are a tempest. “God, Emmie, there’s just so much you don’t know.”

“Yeah, I got that memo. How about you fill in the blanks for me? Because you look guilty as sin, and I feel like I should have called the police when you showed up in my bathroom and a dozen times since then, so level with me. You didn’t put him in the hospital, but you did something, didn’t you?”

Something in his expression breaks. Underneath, he’s so raw. “I hit him.”

My breath puffs out, and my cheeks go cold.

“I can’t tell you everything,” he says. “But I promise you I hit him
once
. One time. Hard enough to hurt my hand, hard enough to hate myself for it, and definitely hard enough to make me look guilty, but that was it. I might have left a bruise, but I didn’t…” He trails off.

I square my shoulders, willing myself to stay strong. To ask the hard questions. “Have you ever hit him before?”

“No.” He squirms like something is hurting. “I need you to understand he gave me a hell of a reason, Emmie. I wish to God I could explain better, but Chelsea made me promise not to say anything to you about this.”

That stops me cold. My best friend is keeping secrets from me? I mean, sure, we’ve all got skeletons in our closet, but Chels and I have been close forever. She knows all the dirt I’ve got. I know Chelsea doesn’t air dirty laundry, but I never dreamed she’d put on a show for me.

Deacon must see the hurt on my face, because he sighs. “Please don’t be hurt, Emmie. It’s not really about her. It’s about Dad. She doesn’t want you to think badly of him.”

“Because of his reputation?” I ask. “Because he fired my dad?”

“He fired Tim?” Deke looks gobsmacked and then irritated. “Of course he did. Why not piss off every-damn-body.”

“Look, it doesn’t matter right now. Let’s just go to the police. You can tell them everything you saw that day and all the people you think might have been behind this. What did you hear at the docks?”

“Mostly that everybody’s pointing the finger at me.” He nudges a root with his foot. “No one’s heard a thing. I’m probably going to go down for this.”

I don’t know what to say. With anyone else, I’d offer a hug, but we don’t do that. So I stand there looking like an idiot, arms crossing over my middle, while some small part of me wonders how I can save him.

Another part of me can’t stop thinking how much Mom would want me to stay away from this. But who else does he have? Chelsea is lost. Joel is suspicious. His mom is…gone. I know what it’s like when the person you need isn’t there. When my parents decided they needed a
break
, my brother was a thousand miles away, with a string of disconnected phone numbers and bad email addresses. If I didn’t have Chelsea and Deacon then, I’d have lost my mind.

I owe him this. I owe it to both of them.

“I’m not okay with this secrets crap,” I say. “I deserve better. I deserve the truth.”

“You do.”

“But you said you’d go to the hospital and that you’d talk to Chelsea. You gave me your word about that.”

“Would you come with me?”

“To the hospital?”

“We can take my bike.”

My hands and feet tingle. He says bike, but he means motorcycle. I can already picture my mom’s lips going thin, her head shaking before the
no
is even out. Still, I don’t have a car. Don’t usually need one since the historic district is walkable and a bicycle will get you anywhere else. The hospital, however, is a town over.

He shrugs. “It’s okay. Maybe it’s a bad idea.”

No maybes about it—it’s a terrible idea. A motorcycle ride with Deacon? There will be leg-to-leg, arms-around-waist touching involved. On a vehicle that terrifies my mother.

“Of course I’ll go.”

I hand Deacon the keys I scooped up with his phone. He doesn’t say anything when we walk up his driveway, but I can tell he doesn’t want to go inside. He doesn’t even look at the house.

He finds an extra helmet in the detached garage and hands it to me, mounting the bike while I stand there with my knees knocking and my teeth chattering from nerves.

“Okay, do you see the silver thing here?” He’s pointing at small pegs on each side of the bike, and I just zone out. I’m about to get on a motorcycle. A motorcycle. I swipe my hands down the sides of my shorts. Check the strap on my helmet. Check it again.

Three days ago, I would have killed for this opportunity. I could fill notebooks with a variety of daydreams that featured this motorcycle. But now that it’s here, scaring me… I check my strap again.

“Hey.” His fingers brush my elbow.

“Don’t go fast,” I say, feeling myself go crimson inside the helmet. And now I’m twelve. Maybe nine. A nine-year-old girl who’s terrified of the big, scary motorcycle.

“I won’t,” he says.

Three days ago, he would have teased me.

But three days ago, Mr. Westfield wasn’t hurt. Deacon wasn’t a suspect. I wasn’t needed like this.

Everything was different.

Deacon puts on his helmet, settles into the seat, and looks up at me with his too-pretty eyes. I’m sliding, just like always. Like it’s gravity. This part is never going to change, is it?

I check my strap again, and he bites back a smile.

Deacon’s saying something, but I can’t make it out. I can’t really hear anything beyond the humming in my head and the engine. I still manage to nod and scrape together enough common sense to figure out that it’s time for me to get on.

I hesitate because there’s no way around it. I’m going to have to touch him. Just planting one hand on his shoulder feels like crossing a line. Lots of lines actually. And when I’m settled in the seat, with about an nth of an inch between us, I’m thinking I’ve crossed continents.

With the way my heart’s pounding now, I’ll probably go into cardiac arrest when I actually have to hold on. It’s ridiculous.

He inches the bike forward, and I feel like I might get sick.

“You’re going to need to hold on,” he says, voice strange and muffled through the helmet.

“Okay.”

“Before I take off here.”

“Okay.”

“I won’t scare you, Emmie.”

“Okay,” I say because my entire vocabulary has been reduced to
okay
.

I gingerly reach for his waist, but he says something I can’t hear. It might be “need to hold on tighter.” It must be something like that, because he takes my wrists and pulls my arms around him.

Now we’re
really
close.

I shut my eyes and sort of expect him to take off like a bat out of hell, laughing his ass off while I whisper endless prayers and hold on for dear life. It’s not like that at all though. He eases us out of the driveway and down the road. I feel every crack in the pavement, because I’m desperately focusing on the ride instead of the abs-of-steel guy in front of me.

Deacon picks up speed on Highway 70 to keep up with traffic. All I can hear is wind and engine. The rest of it fades away, and it’s not exhilarating or scary like I thought. It’s like floating on a tube in Taylor’s Creek, all easy, mindless escape. I close my eyes and let the sensation take everything else away.

Guilt swarms me at the first lane change, so swift and sharp it’s like choking on a knife. Chelsea’s dad is lying in that hospital half-dead. I’m here for my best friend. Not to float away in dreamland or to think about Deacon’s abs. I loosen my grip a smidge. The rest of the trip, I keep my eyes wide open.

The hospital must have just gone through a shift change, because when I usher Deacon toward the elevators, half a dozen nurses head our way with limp hair and mascara-smudged eyes. A couple of them still offer us smiles as we pass them.

We wind up on an elevator with a patient and two people I assume are visitors. They’re chatting and oblivious to both of us, so they don’t notice Deacon’s face going ashy, but I do. I edge a little closer, until my shoulder bumps his arm.

I want to ask if he’s okay, but everyone would hear me. People might look. It’s the opposite of what he’d want, so I just stand there, willing strength into him.

The doors open, and I expect him to pause, but he surprises me, walking straight into the waiting area. I follow, running a hand through the snags in my hair from the ride over. Chelsea is sitting at a table with a cup of coffee that looks untouched.

She looks up and sees me first and then Deacon. The smile that breaks over her face makes it totally worth every ounce of hell I’ll receive if Mom catches wind of the motorcycle situation. Their embrace fills all the spaces their silence leaves.

“She found you,” Chelsea finally says.

I sit down and admire them together. They could be twins. Same thick hair and kaleidoscope eyes. Same sharp cheekbones and smiles that crook up just a little on the left.

“You’re here,” she finally says.

“I’m here.”

“Joel’s on his way too. They’re trying to take Dad off the ventilator right now, so he’ll be able to talk soon.”

“Then he’s awake,” Deacon says, looking relieved.

Chelsea nods. “He’s in and out, but he can’t talk because of the ventilator. I haven’t said much because we’re not sure what he remembers.”

Deacon frowns. “Is the ventilator because of the—”

Chelsea inhales sharply, cutting him off with a glare. I can’t see the look that passes between them, but Deacon sighs. I’m pretty sure whatever he was going to ask has something to do with what Chelsea doesn’t want me to know.

A nurse opens the door to the waiting room and sticks her head inside. She spots Chelsea and smiles. “He’s all ready for you.”

“I think it’s time,” Chels says, and then she takes Deacon’s hand.

They’re almost at the door when Chelsea stops and runs back to me. Her arms are around my neck, and she squeezes me tight. All my worries about her secrets vanish in that moment. We’ll talk when she’s through this. When life is normal again.

“I’ll never be able to thank you enough,” she says.

“You’ll never have to.”

Then they’re inside. I slump down in my chair with a happy sigh. A game show is chattering on the TV in the corner, and there’s a flower arrangement at my table, so maybe I was wrong about the flowers. I pull the basket closer and look it over. Roses, irises, lilies.

I finger the white edge of a calla lily, the first one I’ve touched since their mother’s funeral. I wore a navy-blue skirt and an itchy sweater. I’d never been to a funeral before. Couldn’t quite get my head around the idea that Chelsea’s mom was in that strange box. Chelsea sat on her dad’s lap, sobbing softly into his lapel. Deacon stood like he was carved from stone.

After the service, everyone gathered back at their little family sailboat—no big business then—and they tossed flower after flower on the deck of the boat. Once we were done, everyone headed up the block to the house to make small talk and eat casseroles. I’d wandered back down the road to the water. Deacon was there, picking out the lilies and throwing them overboard.

I’m guessing his mom didn’t like lilies.

I climbed aboard to help, and he let me. It felt like it took hours. By the time we were done, the water around us was black and stars were blinking their own memorial. But there was not one damn lily in sight—and that felt good.

“Eddie.” Joel’s voice yanks me from the memory. He’s standing by the table when I look up, hair still damp from a shower and tie only half-done. “Is Chickadee in with Daffy?”

“She’s in with him right now,” I say, and then I smile. “I think he can talk now. Oh, and I found Deacon. He’s in there too.”

The shock on his face makes me laugh. Almost anything would make me laugh right now. I’m just so relieved.

“Well, I’ll be,” Joel finally manages.

“Never underestimate my powers.”

“I never would.” He winks. “I can take Dink home if you want. They’ll have lots to discuss.”

I hesitate, not sure what I should do, but I don’t think I should leave him. Joel must see as much in my expression.

“Emmie.” Joel presses his lips together, like he’s choosing every word carefully. “We still don’t know Deacon’s role in all this.”

“I’d bet my life he didn’t do it.”

“Don’t bet that,” Joel says softly. “Never bet that.”

“Do you really think he
could
do something like this?”

“I shouldn’t talk to you about what I think at all.”

“Because I’m under eighteen?”

“No, because I’m the attorney for the Westfield family, and there is a strict client confidentiality law that protects them and me. Something you’d do well to read up on, because I can tell you there’s a good bit of work on that subject on the North Carolina Bar Exam.”

“Which I have about thirty-six years to prepare for.”

The door slams open, and I jerk back in my chair, surprised when Deacon storms out, barely looking at Joel on his way to the elevator. I lurch out of my chair, and he gives me a look that breaks my heart.

“What happened?” I ask.

“You can add Chelsea to the list of people who think I did this.”

• • •

I follow him down out of instinct alone. Three nurses join us on the elevator before I can ask him a single thing. We ride down in silence while they chatter about the jewelry one of them is selling. I watch Deke out of the corner of my eye, my body tensing as he clenches his fists.

The doors whoosh open, and Deacon waits until the nurses file out. Then he bursts from the elevator, and I’m right on his heels.

“Wait a minute,” I say. “What’s happening? What went wrong?”

“I’m leaving,” he says. “You can stay or go.”

“Just hold on a second!” I smack my toe into one of the chairs in the main lobby and cry out. Deke turns, not exactly sympathetic but not exactly ignoring me either.

“Are you all right?”

“Never mind me—what happened up there? Talk to me.”

The other elevator doors open, and Chelsea and Joel slip out. Chelsea charges at Deacon the second she spots him.

“I’m going,” Deacon says.

“How could you?” Chelsea snarls. “How could you hit him?”

Oh.
Oh.
He told her.

My insides snag on the pain in her voice or maybe at the unsteadiness of Deacon’s breathing. They’re both hurting, and hell if I know who to help or how. Deacon tries to back away until Chelsea scoffs, face purpling with rage.

“You’re going to just run away,” she says. “Watch me
not
be shocked.”

The elderly volunteers at the front desk are casting worried glances in our direction. Deacon edges closer to me and his sister.

“You’re the one who told me to get out.”

I step right, toward Chelsea, and then back, hesitating. I don’t get this. Any of it. All she wanted was for him to come. And now
this
? I know he messed up, but this rage isn’t like her.

“Do you have any idea what it was like for me to see that?” Deacon says to her.

“Don’t you dare! I don’t care what it was like for you.
You
aren’t lying in the hospital right now!”

The woman at the desk picks up a phone, but Joel lifts a hand, walking briskly across the lobby to talk them down. The three of us watch warily, clustering a little closer. I can’t hear what Joel says, but he must smooth things over, because he’s back with us fast, and the woman is no longer holding the phone.

“Chickadee, Dink, let’s just all calm down here. We’re scaring these poor ladies to death.”

“I’m sorry,” Chels says, voice much lower, head ducked.

“Sorry for scaring them but not for accusing me.”

Deacon’s laugh sends chills up my spine. I’ve played referee for plenty of their sibling fights—but this? I don’t even know where to start.

I touch Chelsea’s arm to ground myself. “You’re both stressed,” I say. “So stressed.” I give her a squeeze, and she shrugs me off hard.

“Don’t. You have no idea what’s going on here.”

My breath lodges like a knife between my ribs. “I’m trying to help, Chels.”

Her expression gives me frostbite. “You
can’t
help. Don’t you get that? You can’t do
anything
, Emmie!”

“Hey! Don’t turn this on her,” Deacon says.

“Oh,
now
you notice her? After how many years?”

My spine goes iron-stiff at her words, embarrassment knotting every muscle.

“Chelsea.” Joel’s voice coupled with her real name is a rare warning, but she’s too far gone. Her eyes are dark with rage, and I’m still stunned by her words.

“You’re unbelievable,” Deacon says.

“What you
did
is unbelievable. That’s the last thing Dad remembers, Deke. You hitting him.”

Deacon’s red now, and I can see a muscle in his jaw twitching, but he doesn’t say anything. Just looks at the door.

“Just go,” Chelsea says. “You’ve got your precious freedom now, and hey, you’ve got Emmie too, trailing around behind you like a puppy.”

The words hit like a hard slap. I reel back, too shocked to respond.

“You’re done,” Deke tells her, and this time he steps in front of me. I feel the heat rolling off his back and the lingering sting of Chelsea’s words.

“I agree,” Joel says. “That’s too far. Eddie didn’t do a thing to you.”

I close my eyes, fighting tears. How could she?
How could she?
She knows I didn’t want him to know. Not ever, because I knew it was stupid and it would make everything weird. And now she does it here? In the middle of all this?

I’m out of my depth and sinking fast. No time for maydays or lifeboats, just a quick spiraling descent to nowhere.

Joel touches Chelsea’s arm, and
he
doesn’t get shrugged off. That stings. It shouldn’t, but it does.

“Chickadee, let’s you and me run Emmie home.”

“
No
,” Deacon says. “I’ll take her.”

Chelsea’s laugh is the cruelest sound I’ve ever heard her make. “Of course you will.”