“We dated. In high school and college. Before I met your dad,” she added hastily.
“You,” I said, finally pushing some volume into my voice, “and Hank Millar?”
She started speaking very quickly. “I know you’re going to be tempted to judge him based on your opinion of Marcie, but he’s actually a very sweet guy. So thoughtful and generous and romantic.” She smiled, then blushed, flustered.
I was outraged. This was what my mom was doing while I was missing?
“Right.” I snatched a banana from the fruit bowl, then headed for the front door.
“Can we talk about this?” Her bare feet thumped on the wood floor as she followed after me. “Can you at least hear me out?”
“Sounds like I’m a little late to the let’s-talk-it-over party.”
“Nora!”
“What?” I snapped, spinning around. “What do you want me to say? That I’m happy for you? I’m not. We used to make fun of the Millars. We used to joke that Marcie’s attitude problem was mercury poisoning due to all the expensive seafood their family eats. And now you’re dating him?”
“Yes, him. Not Marcie.”
“It’s all the same to me! Did you even wait until the ink on the divorce papers was dry? Or did you make your move while he was still married to Marcie’s mom, because three months is awfully fast.”
“I don’t have to answer that!” Apparently realizing how red in the face she was, she composed herself by kneading the back of her neck. “Is this because you think I’m betraying your dad? Believe me, I’ve already tortured myself enough, questioning if anything short of eternity is too soon to move on. But he would have wanted me to be happy. He wouldn’t have wanted me to mope around feeling sorry for myself forever.”
“Does Marcie know?”
She flinched at my sudden transition. “What? No. I don’t think Hank has told her yet.”
In other words, for the time being, I didn’t have to live in fear of Marcie taking our parents’ decisions out on me. Of course, when she did figure out the truth, I could guarantee the retribution would be swift, humiliating, and brutal. “I’m late for school.” I rummaged through the dish on the entryway table. “Where are my keys?”
“They should be in there.”
“My house key is. Where’s the Fiat key?”
She applied pressure to the bridge of her nose. “I sold the Fiat.”
I directed the full weight of my glare at her. “Sold it? Excuse me?” Granted, in the past I’d expressed just how much I hated the Fiat’s peeling brown paint, weather-beaten white leather seats, and untimely habit the car’s stick shift had of popping out of the shifter. But still. It was my car. Had my mom given up on me so quickly after my disappearance that she’d started hocking my belongings on Craigslist? “What else?” I demanded. “What else did you sell while I was gone?”
“I sold it before you went missing,” she murmured, eyes lowered.
A swallow caught in my throat. Meaning once upon a time I’d known she’d sold my car, only I couldn’t remember it now. It was a painful reminder of just how defenseless I really was. I couldn’t even conduct a conversation with my mom without looking like an idiot. Rather than apologize, I flung open the front door and stomped down the porch steps.
“Whose car is that?” I asked, coming up short. A white convertible Volkswagen sat on the cement slab where the Fiat used to reside. From the look of it, it had taken up permanent residence. It might have been there yesterday morning when we’d pulled in from the hospital, but I’d hardly been in the frame of mind to soak up my surroundings. The only other time I’d left the house was last night, and I’d gone out through the back door.
“Yours.”
“What do you mean, mine?” I shielded my eyes from the morning sun as I glowered back at her.
“Scott Parnell gave it to you.”
“Who?”
“His family moved back to town at the beginning of summer.”
“Scott?” I repeated, thumbing through my long-term memory, since the name provoked a vague recollection. “The boy in my kindergarten class? The one who moved to Portland years ago?”
Mom nodded wearily.
“Why would he give me a car?”
“I never got the chance to ask you. You disappeared the night he dropped it off.”
“I went missing the night Scott mysteriously donated a car to me? Didn’t that set off any alarm bells? There’s nothing normal about a teenage guy giving a car to a girl he hardly knows and hasn’t seen in years. Something about this isn’t right. Maybe — maybe the car was evidence of something, and he needed to get rid of it. Did that ever cross your mind?”
“The police searched the car. They questioned the previous owner. But I think Detective Basso had ruled out Scott’s involvement after hearing your side of the night’s events. You’d been shot earlier, before you went missing, and while Detective Basso originally thought Scott was the shooter, you told him it was—”
“Shot?” I shook my head in confusion. “What do you mean shot?”
She closed her eyes briefly, exhaling. “With a gun.”
“What?” How had Vee left this out?
“At Delphic Amusement Park.” She shook her head. “I hate even thinking about it,” she whispered, her voice breaking. “I was out of town when I got the call. I didn’t make it back in time. I never saw you again, and I’ve regretted nothing in my life more. Before you disappeared, you told Detective Basso that a man named Rixon shot you in the fun house. You said Scott was there too, and Rixon also shot him. The police looked for Rixon, but it was like he vanished. Detective Basso was convinced Rixon wasn’t even the shooter’s real name.”
“Where was I shot?” I asked, my skin crawling with an unpleasant tingle. I hadn’t noticed a scar, or any indication of a wound.
“Your left shoulder.” It seemed to pain my mom just to say it. “The shot was in and out, hitting only muscle. We’re very, very lucky.”
I tugged my collar down over my shoulder. Sure enough, I could see scar tissue where the skin had healed.
“The police spent weeks looking for Rixon. They read your diary, but you’d ripped out several pages, and they didn’t find his name in the rest of it. They asked Vee, but she denied ever having heard his name. He wasn’t in the records at school. There was no record of him at the DMV—”
“I ripped out pages in my diary?” I cut in. It didn’t sound like me at all. Why would I do such a thing?
“Do you remember where you put the pages? Or what they said?”
I shook my head absently. What had I gone to such great lengths to hide?
Mom made a deflated sound. “Rixon was a ghost, Nora. And wherever he went, he took all the answers with him.”
“I can’t accept that,” I said. “What about Scott? What did he say when Detective Basso questioned him?”
“Detective Basso put all his energy into hunting down Rixon. I don’t think he ever spoke to Scott. The last time I talked to Lynn Parnell, Scott had moved on. I think he’s in New Hampshire now, selling pest control.”
“That’s it?” I said in disbelief. “Detective Basso never tried to track down Scott and hear his side?” My mind cranked at full speed. Something about Scott wasn’t sitting right. According to my mom’s account, I told the police he’d been shot by Rixon too. He was the only other witness that Rixon existed. How did that fit with the donated Volkswagen? It seemed to me that at least one crucial piece of information was missing.
“I’m sure he had a reason for not talking to Scott.”
“I’m sure he did too,” I said cynically. “Like maybe he’s incompetent?”