Chương 6
Leo’s shoulders rose.
“He said he was tired of paying for somebody else’s kid.”
I closed my eyes for half a second.
When I opened them, he was watching me closely.
“Did he see you?”
“Not at first.”
“What else did he say?”
“He said the trip was going to be better with just his kids.”
Behind me, something clinked softly in the kitchen.
Nora had stopped pretending not to listen.
Leo continued.
“He said he already fixed it.”
“Fixed what?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did he say?”
“He said two seats were gone.”
My throat tightened.
The canceled airline tickets.
“What happened when he saw you?”
“He got mad.”
“What did he say?”
“That I was spying.”
“Were you?”
“No.”
“I know.”
“I just wanted my scooter.”
“I believe you.”
Leo’s chin trembled once.
“He told me not to tell you because you were always looking for reasons to make him the bad guy.”
The sentence was pure Gideon.
Every word.
“What did you do?”
“I said I was telling you.”
A small, fierce part of me nearly smiled.
Of course he had.
Leo could be cautious for hours and then suddenly become stubborn over one clean line he thought mattered.
“What did Gideon do then?”
“He said if I told you, the vacation would probably get canceled.”
“Did he threaten you?”
Leo looked confused by the word.
“He said Roger and Camila would know whose fault it was.”
I sat on the bottom stair.
Leo sat beside me.
“Did you tell him you wouldn’t say anything?”
“No.”
“What did you say?”
“I said I didn’t care.”
That sounded like Leo too.
Not brave.
Angry.
Eight years old and furious enough to borrow courage he could not sustain.
“What happened after that?”
“He went inside.”
“And you?”
“I stayed in the garage.”
“For how long?”
“I don’t know.”
“What did you do?”
“I cried a little.”
My chest hurt.
He added quickly, “Not a lot.”
As if quantity changed anything.
Then he said, “He came back.”
I waited.
“He had my suitcase.”
The green one.
“What did he do with it?”
“He put it on the shelf.”
“What shelf?”
“The garage shelf.”
“Did he say anything?”
“He said I should think about whether I wanted to ruin the trip for everybody.”
The cancellation email was timestamped less than an hour later.
Gideon had not made an impulsive decision on Saturday morning.
He had begun carrying it out Thursday night after an eight-year-old overheard him complaining about taking him.
“Leo.”
He looked at me.
“Did you ever tell Gideon you didn’t want to go?”
“No.”
“Not even when you were angry?”
“No.”
“Did you ever say you wanted to stay home?”
“No.”
“Did you ever say you wanted to stay with Grandma?”
His face wrinkled.
“Grandma was in Chicago.”
“I know.”
“He knew that.”
“I know.”
Leo looked down.
Then he said, “I told him I wanted to go with you.”
“When?”
“Friday.”
The morning my mother died.
I had been upstairs packing.
“What did he say?”
“That you didn’t need me making things harder.”
A door opened upstairs.
Mark appeared at the landing, took one look at us, and quietly went back into the bedroom.
Nobody needed another adult in the hallway.
I put my arm around Leo.
He leaned against me but stayed tense.
“There’s one more thing,” he said.
Every time anyone said that now, I felt something inside me brace.
“What?”
“When Gideon left Saturday, I thought he was joking.”
“About leaving you?”
Leo nodded.
“I kept waiting for him to come back.”
“How long?”
“Until lunchtime.”
He rubbed his bare foot against the carpet.
“Then I called him.”
“You called him Saturday?”
“Yes.”
Bell had said they were checking the tablet call records.
“What did he say?”
“He answered.”
“Do you remember what time?”
“No.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That he forgot me.”
Leo’s voice became smaller.
“What did he say?”
“He said, ‘I didn’t forget you.’”
I could hear Gideon saying it.
Annoyed.
Precise.
Almost offended by the accusation.
Leo continued.
“He said, ‘We talked about this.’”
“You hadn’t.”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“I told him to come back.”
I put my hand over my mouth.
“What did he say?”
“That he was already too far.”
“How far?”
“I don’t know.”
“He didn’t tell you?”
“He said they were on the highway.”
“And then?”
“He told me there was food and money and that he would call every day.”
“Did he?”
Leo shook his head.
“Sometimes I called him.”
“How many times?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did he always answer?”
“No.”
“What happened when he didn’t?”
“He texted.”
“What did he say?”
Leo shrugged.
“Stuff.”
“What stuff?”
“Stop calling unless it’s important.”
My hand closed around the edge of the stair.
“Anything else?”
“He said you might see the call history.”
There it was.
Another detail that turned neglect into planning.
Gideon had not simply left Leo.
He had managed the evidence of leaving him.
I asked, “Is that why you used your old phone to text me?”
Leo nodded.
“He said messages looked normal.”
A sound escaped Nora from the kitchen.
Not a word.
Something harsher.
I stayed focused on Leo.
“Did Gideon ever tell you to delete anything?”
“No.”
“Did you delete anything yourself?”
He hesitated.
“One message.”
“Why?”
“Because it scared me.”
“What did it say?”
He rubbed both hands over his knees.
“He said if I kept calling, he’d turn off the Wi-Fi.”
For six days, the Wi-Fi had been Leo’s only reliable way to reach anyone.
Gideon had known that.
I stood too quickly.
This time Nora came out of the kitchen.
“Jen.”
“I’m fine.”
“You are visibly not.”
“I need my phone.”
“It’s on the table.”
I walked into the kitchen and called Officer Bell.
He answered sounding awake enough that I suspected he had never gone to bed.
“Mrs. Mercer?”
“Leo remembered more.”
I told him about Thursday night.
The phone call in the garage.
May you like
The two seats.
The suitcase.
