Secrets in the Attic (Secrets 1)

He turned to me slowly. "There's nothing to take pictures of," he said.

"What do you mean, nothing?"

"Not a bed, no furniture, nothing. In fact," he added, "the room's never been completed."

"Not completed?"

"The walls are studded, but they were never sheet- rocked. The wiring is hanging out. It's an unfinished room, Zipporah. No one could have lived in it."

"But Karen said . . ."

He stared at me a moment, and then he started the engine. "I know what she said."

"What does it mean?"

"I don't know. Maybe, maybe, her mother just had the place ripped apart to do something else with it."

"Why?"

"She didn't want to remember any of it. Of course, that would be something we could easily prove or disprove. Just check with the builder remodeling it, but I think it's highly unlikely." He shook his head. "Highly unlikely," he repeated.

We rode around aimlessly to pass time so our parents would believe we had gone to the department store. Jesse said he would claim it closed before we arrived.

"I don't understand this, Jesse. Karen and I were going to go in there," I told him.

"What do you mean?"

"Didn't she explain what our plan was originally?" He slowed down. "No, tell me."

I described it and told him how she said she wore Harry's mother's wig, made up her face to resemble the way his mother did hers, and wore one of her dresses.

"And she confronted him that way?"

"Yes. He came to her room when her mother was away, and that's how she wanted to greet him. She said she expected him to come, and she was trying to get him to stop."

"What about the wig, the dress?"

"She left it behind afterward," I said.

"That's great. The police would have found it there. Listen--" he said.

"But how can you explain the room, the apartment she said was there? She even told me she had slept there recently.

"I don't know just yet. Let's not say anything to her about this for now. I don't want to see her frightened or unnerved in any way at the moment. She's walking on hot coals as it is. Dad will get me the information about what the police did and didn't find."

"How will you get him to ask for that sort of detail?"

"Leave it to me," he said. "Dad and I have a good relationship, Zipporah. Sometimes we're more like brothers."

"Not if he finds out who's in the attic," I muttered. "He won't," Jesse said confidently, but to me, it sounded more like a prayer.

He was silent now, and I settled back in my seat, feeling numb. Suddenly, he slowed down, stopped, and pulled to the side of the road.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"I just realized something How did you know all that about the actual incident and what she left behind? You spoke to Karen afterward? Did she call you?"

Lies give birth to lies, I thought, which have a way of leading you to the edge of a cliff. After you fall, the only parachute available is honesty.