Secrets We Keep (Thistle Cove 1)

He waves me off and I go, feeling calmer with every step. The truth doesn’t come naturally but, for once, I didn’t have anything to hide.

It’s a strange, strange feeling.

21

Kenley

Although it’s weird not to drive Alice home after school, the front passenger seat isn’t empty. I saw Ozzy as I left the main building and offered him a ride. We’ve just pulled out of the parking lot when his phone buzzes. He opens his screen and says, “They found something.”

My stomach plummets and nausea churns. “Did they say what?”

“No. My parents are helping with the search,” he says, reading the message. “They say they were about to call it off for the day when someone found something in a shallow pool on the edge of the water.”

He types quickly, thumbs flying over the screen.

“My mom says it’s a piece of jewelry. A charm of some kind.”

“A heart with two hands?”

He types something out as I continue to drive back home. I’ve gone the long way again, away from the bridge.

“Yes.” He narrows his eyes. “That’s Irish, right?”

“A Claddagh.”

“Rose wore one of those. Every day. Finn gave it to her.” A sob wracks through me and I pull the car to the side of the road, slamming the brakes. “I can’t believe this. I can’t believe this is happening.”

Ozzy reaches across the center of the car and rests his hand on my leg. “You don’t know that it means anything.”

“We know it means she’s probably not playing a prank, or off shopping and having fun. It means that something happened to her that night that made her lose the necklace she wore every single day.”

“Maybe she got pissed at Finn and tossed it in the water.”

“It would sink like a stone.”

He rubs my knee. “You don’t know that, KK.”

I look up at him. That nickname. I haven’t heard it in years, but that’s twice now one of the guys have used it. It warms my heart, just like looking at his sweet, handsome face. At his kind, pleading eyes. He wants to believe what he’s saying as much as he wants me to.

I take a deep breath and say, “I know something is wrong. Very wrong. Rose is in trouble or worse.”

A fat tear rolls down my cheek, and he reaches up, catching it with his thumb. He holds my face like that for a heartbeat, a long one where we just look at one another; two old friends struggling with loss and confusion.

“We’ll find out what happened to her,” he says, thumb stroking my cheek. “I promise.”

I didn’t realize how important that was to me until he said it. “Thank you.”

He holds my face and my eyes for a moment longer before blinking and dropping his hand. He clears his throat and looks back down at his phone—which has a long line of messages showing.

My hands shake when I grip the wheel again—I’m not sure if it’s from the news about the charm or from the intimate moment Ozzy and I just shared. Maybe both.

I ease back out on the road and head home, knowing that whatever is happening with the case right now, and possibly whatever just transpired with the boy next to me, is only the beginning.

While making dinner, my mom turns on the TV to catch up on the local news.

Janice Hill, the local reporter, stands just outside the police-taped-off bridge.

“It was a long day for residents of Thistle Cove, a sleepy, tight-knit town thirty miles south of the city. Hundreds of volunteers took the day off to help search for clues in the disappearance of seventeen-year-old Rose Waller. Rose’s car was found abandoned on the bridge just over forty-eight hours ago, and family and friends have had no contact with her since.”