The Truth About Us

“There’s no way I’m not coming. If that means I have to sneak out, then so be it. My dad had a rough day. Went to a DOA with two teenagers, so the chance he’d let me out tonight is slim. Stuff like that freaks him out, and it makes him overprotective. It’s just easier this way.”

“DOA?” Abigail asked as they continued toward her car.

“Dead on arrival. He’s so afraid of something happening to us too, ya know? I mean, the last time Sophie had a temp of ninety-nine, he took her to the emergency room. She gets stung by a bee, and he calls her doctor, like he’s convinced she’s allergic and going to have a deadly reaction before having any reason to suspect she is. He’s convinced the second one of us gets sick or he lets us out of his sight, something bad is gonna happen.”

Abby paused. “Wouldn’t that be a terrible way to live? Being afraid all the time of losing someone?”

The soft sound of Kaden’s breath matched her own as he moved beside her. He shoved his hands in his pockets, the evening breeze ruffling his hair as he spoke. “Yeah, but his job reinforces his fear. I think it’s hard to have your wife slowly die in front of you and then witness all the nastiness of the world firsthand and not fear the worst. It’s like he thinks if he can keep us in a bubble, we’ll be fine.”

The sadness in Kaden’s voice tugged at her heart. Worse, his dad’s sheltering him, no matter how misguided, was starting to make sense.

She bumped his shoulder with hers. “If today was a bad day—"

“What night would be better? At least we waited until a Friday night. Tomorrow, he’ll work on a teen drug overdose, the next will be a missing child, and the next day, Sophie will get sick, or he’ll handle a shooting, another crash... There’s never a good time.”

He opened the passenger door as he spoke, locking eyes with her from across the hood of the car. “There will always be something to be afraid of. And I think most parents feel like that, but he’s just unhinged about it. It needs to change, and I probably made it worse all these years by just going along with it, never pushing or questioning, always doing what he wanted.”

Abby stared at him, mesmerized. She’d never met someone so open and unafraid to speak the truth about how he felt—so unlike herself, who bottled everything up tight until she could pretend her feelings didn’t even exist. But the more time she spent with Kaden, the more he made her want to open up. To tell him things she never told anyone before, and she realized with a sudden urgency that she wanted to know everything about him, all the things that made him tick. All his fears. All his secrets.

“What?” He reached out, stretching his arm over the hood of the car, reaching for her hand but unable to close the distance. “What are you thinking?”

She rounded the car, moving closer to him, then took his hand, allowing the warmth of his touch to soak through her bones.

“I’m scared,” she whispered, breathless.

“Of what?” He brushed his thumb over the back of her hand.

Of how I feel when I’m with you.

The words balanced on the tip of her tongue, but when she opened her mouth to speak, she hesitated.

“Of this secret.”

Disappointed in herself, she pulled her hands away. Though it was true, she had so much more she wanted to say.

Clearing her throat, she straightened and glanced back over at him. “I’m scared of what all of this means. If I’m right, and Lawson and my grandmother’s secret are linked, then he might have died discovering the truth. And that’s...well, I’m not sure I even want to think about what that means.”

“We don’t know that for certain though. Yes, whatever is in Newberry has to do with your grandmother, but it doesn’t mean that’s why he died. McBride could’ve easily tailed him and followed him there like the police thought.”

“True.”

Turning, Abby let go of his hand and momentarily closed her eyes. Why couldn’t she tell him how she felt about him? Why was she such a coward?

It was too soon, she told herself. She couldn’t possibly feel any way about him yet.

Her heart screamed at her as she rounded the car and opened the driver’s side door, then got inside. Kaden followed. They buckled their seats in the silence. Glancing over at him, she put her keys in the ignition and started the car.

“You ready for whatever we find?” Kaden asked.

With a deep breath, Abby pulled oxygen into her lungs and held it a moment while they burned. “I don’t know. But I guess we’re about to find out.”

A shadow moved in the back seat. Kaden whirled around, and Abby gasped.

A body sprung from the seat behind her, eyes blinking at her in the dark, while A

bby’s scream lodged in her throat.

A HAND CLASPED AROUND Abby’s mouth, stifling the blood-curdling scream bursting from her chest.