This Secret Thing, стр. 22
He watched as the guy opened the folded paper and gave it the cursory read that everyone did. Reading the words didn’t change what they said; you had to get out of your house so strangers could turn it upside down, rifle through your personal things, look for incriminating items that would later be used against you or a loved one. He wondered what Laura Jones had hidden, what they would find.
“Do you have anywhere you can go?” Nico asked. This part wasn’t his responsibility, but he asked anyway.
“My kids—they’ll be home from school soon.” Dave Jones started to argue, as if this were something that could be rescheduled. Nico wanted to reach out and give the man a sympathetic pat, but his arms stayed by his side. Dave Jones didn’t want his sympathy.
“You’ll need to make arrangements for your children,” was all Nico said. He stood, motionless for a moment, thinking Dave Jones might say more. But instead he just turned and walked away, leaving Nico to open the door for the officers waiting to come inside the Jones house and do their job.
Casey
Casey got ready to leave, rationalizing as she did. She hadn’t gone looking for him. He had found her. And besides, this was just lunch. Not a date. Not even close. She wasn’t so weak that she had reached out to the one constant in her life since she had been a sophomore in high school. She hadn’t caved and done that. Since she had come home she’d been a strong, independent woman, handling her problems by herself. Until there he was, behind her in line to pick up a pizza, calling her name.
He’d pointed at the pizza as they handed it to her over the counter, closed his eyes, and said, “Black olives and mushrooms, extra sauce.” But he might as well have said I know the way you like your pizza. I know everything there is to know about your family. I know your worst fears and private dreams. I know you. Only he didn’t know her, not anymore. Things had happened to her, things that had changed her that he didn’t know about.
They stepped off to the side. He took the pizza from her hands, set it on a table nearby so they could chat. “Don’t you need to get your pizza?” she asked, and pointed back at the line.
He waved away her suggestion. “I’ll get it after you leave.” He gestured at the pizza. “Bess doing some volunteer thing, too busy to cook?” He always thought it was ironic how her mother would cook a meal for another family, then order a pizza for her own.
Casey shrugged. “She’s all freaked out about this woman who got arrested in our neighborhood. We had her kid staying with us, but then the kid left because Nicole has turned into a little beyotch. Anyway, she sent me out for pizza because she hadn’t ‘had time to even think about dinner.’” This was said in her best Bess imitation. Foolishly she’d thought that upon her arrival, her mother would cook all her favorite meals, welcome her home with maternal love and care. Instead Bess hadn’t seemed to notice she was there.
He crossed his arms. “You home for a break already?”
She looked down at the tile floor made to look like red bricks lined up in a pattern, two up, two down. “Kind of just . . . taking a break,” she mumbled.
“You’re not dropping out?” he asked. She heard the concern in his voice. But also, just under it, hope.
“No,” she said, and as she said it, she meant it. She was down, but she wasn’t out. Not yet. But she couldn’t keep missing classes. The dean had said she could take some time, that the profs would be notified, and she could stay abreast of her classwork from home. But that her absence couldn’t drag on. She would have to take a withdrawal or come back. Soon. Meanwhile, the great love of her life—the boy she’d broken up with before leaving for school—stood right in front of her. And all she could think was, Maybe this changes everything.
Thankfully he didn’t push her for more details on her homecoming. Instead he said, “Got time for lunch before you go back?” He’d made it sound so nonchalant that she almost believed he didn’t care whether she said yes.
The first few weeks after they’d broken up had been grueling—the texts, the calls, the tearful “Whys?” that she could not answer except to say “It’s for the best.” He’d stopped calling eventually, and she’d thrown herself into the parties, the new friends, the late nights in the dorm. She’d worked to find her niche at school, forced herself to enter fully into this new life, one that hadn’t involved him. When he crept into her mind, she would focus on something else. But now, here he was. That had to mean something, didn’t it?
“I could do lunch,” she said, and made her voice sound as cavalier as his did.
They’d agreed on a date and time. She’d told him she’d meet him—not to pick her up—her mom would freak if she saw him picking her up, but she didn’t say so. He’d seize on that if she did. He’d known that her mother was behind their breakup, that it wasn’t really what she, Casey, had wanted. Being independent was doing what you wanted, not what your parents told you. But her mother had been so insistent that she break it off, so certain in