The Secrets We Keep

The Thirty-Fifth Chapter

Christopher

I manage to find Farley's number in an old, yellowed phone book in my father's office. I don't know what surprises me more: That we have one at all or that he has one in his office. 

It's under the coffee table by the couch he has his morning tea on. I sit down on it and the old leather protests under my weight. I bring up my phone, enter her house's number, and wait with the phone book open on my lap for her to pick up. 

After three rings, I get a cautious, "Hello?"

"Farley?" I ask, anxious for her response. 

"Christopher?" She says and her voice is transformed. "Is that you? Oh my, how I've missed your voice! How are you, my boy?"

It hurts to hear her voice knowing I can't see her anymore after knowing her my whole life but I try not to have that show in my voice. "I'm well. And how are you?"

"I'm... I'm doing as well as can be. It's strange not being at that house anymore but I've moved back in with my sister. Your father... has he replaced me yet?" 

"No," I tell her. "You're kind of irreplaceable." And this time, there really is a smile in my voice. "But I was actually wondering if I could ask you something about him."

"Oh," she says and her voice is cautiously soft. "Has something happened with you and him?"

I clear my throat. "No. But I found out that the girl who died, Amelia, that she was here about a week before she was killed. Do you remember that?"

There's silence on the line and then a tentative, "Yes."

"Did she by any chance look into anything of my father's? Like a file that might have been classified?"

I can actually hear Farley gulp over the line. "Yes."

"Did you tell my father?"

"I-I... I didn't mean to. But when I interrupted his meeting with your headmaster, he asked me why I was bringing in the files. I only said that I didn't think they should be left unattended and that they seemed important. But I think he knew that she had."

I close my eyes as her words wash over me. To my father, he would've assumed she snooped even with such a guarded answer. That's just the way he is. He believes the worst in everybody. 

I can hear the front door open and my eyes move to the open door of his study. 

"Listen, Farley, I have to go. It was nice to hear your voice," I tell her, sliding the phone book back under the table with my cell caught between my shoulder and ear. 

"You too," she says and I can tell by her tone that she's aware of why I'm ending this call so abruptly. "Talk again soon, if you can."

"I will," I say and hang up. I don't make it out of the study in time and hear my father's footsteps on the hardwood floor of the passageway. A moment later, I see him in the doorway and he crosses his arms. 

"What's going on here?" He asks, watching me as I unbend myself from in front of his bookshelf. 

"I was looking for a reference book," I tell him. "But you don't seem to have it."

I walk past him out the door, all too aware that he's watching my retreat, and that he doesn't for a moment believe a word I've just said. 

-

Hayden

I spend the afternoon at Diane's house. Things at home are tense. I don't think either Damien or I are in trouble, but I think the fact that we were both called into questioning was worrying to our parents. Especially since they have no idea what Reyes asked Damien or why he's been so... aloof ever since.