My parents and I squinting into the sunlight, the Atlantic Ocean in the background. Dad had his arm around my shoulders.
I traced his shape under the glass. Daddy . . .
That had been the day he’d gotten stung by a jellyfish, and he’d come tearing out of the surf howling and laughing, because he’d known he looked silly, with his red trunks flapping around his legs, skinny and pale like mine. We’d walked to a nearby store, and Dad had bought vinegar to pour on the wound, telling me how the acid would neutralize the toxins. I smiled a little at the memory, even as a tear splashed on the glass.
Dad . . . always a chemist, a teacher, even in pain. What a wonderful day that had been . . .
“Are you okay, Jill?” Tristen asked, coming up behind me and resting a hand on my shoulder, squeezing.
I took off my glasses and swiped a finger under my eye. “I don’t know . . .”
“You three look happy together,” he noted. His hand felt warm even through my shirt.
“We were,” I said, eyes fixed on the picture, fighting a new, stronger wave of tears. My body shook as I struggled against a sob. Why had Dad changed? Done terrible things at work, and to me?
Tristen stepped directly behind me, wrapping his hands around both my shoulders like he was shoring me up again. “Jill,” he said softly. “I told you that it gets better, and I didn’t lie. But it takes time. When my mother vanished, it was nearly two years before I could go a day, now and then, without thinking of her. And that’s hellish, too, in its own way, to think that I’ve started to forget her. But you have to carry on, right?”
I spun slowly to face him, forgetting for a second my own grief. “Your mother . . . vanished?”
“Yes,” Tristen confirmed, still holding me. “About three years ago.”
Vanished. It was like a magic word. It made me think of red velvet curtains and men in black capes and ladies in spangled outfits who disappeared into tall boxes . . . and came back. Slipping my glasses back onto my nose, I searched Tristen’s face, wanting to see some hope there for his mother. “Do you think . . . ?”
“She’s dead.” Tristen was matter-of-fact. “Murdered, I’m convinced, although my father disagrees and the case remains officially unsolved.”
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered, horrified. “So, so sorry.”
It all made sense suddenly. Tristen’s presence at the cemetery, and the way he’d understood when I was about to fall apart.
“It’s okay, Jill,” he said, like he was comforting me about his own misery when I should have been consoling him. “It’s okay.”
We were face-to-face, closer than we’d been even at Dad’s funeral, and I felt at once warm, and soothed, and nervous, too. Finally somebody understood my grief. Somebody strong. Very strong. In fact, all of the qualities that made Tristen Hyde seem powerful and compelling from a distance were magnified up close. His height, the way he stood, the mature planes of his face . . .
Although the room was lit only by the moon shining through the dusty windowpanes, I could see a trace of dark stubble on Tristen’s jaw, darker than the shock of dirty blond hair that fell over his forehead. A lot of guys in my school still had curving, boyish cheeks, but Tristen’s cheekbones were angular and defined. I looked into his eyes again and saw that, although one was framed by the dark bruise, they were an unusual shade of deep brown, and warm, warmer than I would have expected, but shadowed with sadness. Troubled but beautiful, like his music.
My fingers tightened around the picture in my hands, and I remembered my dad, and suddenly felt like a traitor again. I was mourning but feeling something else, too . . .
Tristen’s eyes stayed trained on mine for another long minute, like we shared a communion of misery. He was the first to break away, looking past me and squeezing my shoulders a little harder. Like maybe he was excited. “Is that . . . ?”
I turned and followed his gaze right to the box, on a high shelf in the corner of the room.
Chapter 16
Jill
“YES, THAT’S IT,” I told Tristen.
But he was already tossing down his messenger bag, which he’d brought upstairs with us, and walking across the room. He reached high and took down the forbidden battered metal container. When he had it in his hands, he stood in the middle of the room, looking down at it almost like I’d just looked at my dad’s picture, which I set back on the desk, turning on the lamp.
Tristen still didn’t move. His eyes were fixed on the box. He stroked the sides with his thumbs, seeming lost in thought.
“Tristen?”
He looked up, and for the first time since I’d met him, he looked a little uncertain. But he quickly shook it off. “Do you have a paper clip, Jill?”
“What?”
“To pick the padlock,” Tristen said, bringing the box to the desk. He pulled out the chair and sat down, and I had a momentary urge to protest. That was Dad’s seat . . .
Pushing away the impulse, I joined him, standing at his side. “Do you know how to pick locks?”
“Of course,” Tristen said, like it was a skill everybody should have. “It’s not difficult, especially with padlocks. The Internet is filled with demonstrations.”
“Are we going to open it now?” I asked as Tristen pulled open the top desk drawer, fingers searching the interior. “Right now?”
“Yes.” Tristen dug deeper. “Why not?”
“Tristen, stop,” I said. He was going too fast, touching too much of Dad’s stuff . . .
But he’d already found what he wanted. Fingers moving surely, as confidently as they’d moved across the piano keys, he uncurled a clip, bent one end to form an angle, and inserted this into the lock, moving the makeshift tool in what looked like a systematic way.
“Tristen . . .” Should we be doing this? I needed time to think. Maybe rethink.
It was too
