Page 15 of What Boys Learn

He unhooked his thumbs and lowered himself to the couch, gesturing to the spot next to him. “Abby, I think you should sit down.”

There was no other living room seating except the small couch. I yanked a kitchen chair over and dropped into it from an awkward six feet away.

“So.” He did the shoulder roll I’d seen him do in public when he was in uniform but trying to convey that everyone should relax. “Benjamin and I both figured maybe you got caught up meeting someone while you were waiting for the pizza.”

“You want to know if I went on a quickdate?”

It was all coming back now, the other ways Robert had tried to assert his control, even aside from dropping by unannounced and creating excuses to stay over. It was the way he wanted me to delete all my dating apps after we’d only seen each other for two weeks. It was the way he brought Benjamin presents—an Apple gift card for good grades, a pair of wildly expensive basketball shoes—when we’d only been dating one month. He moved too fast and tried too hard, and when it was over, he kept trying, even when I asked him to stop.

“You don’t get to ask me about my dating life,” I said. “Please just tell me why you felt it necessary to ask Benjamin to let you into our home.”

“I didn’t ask Benjamin to let me in, Abby. I picked him up.”

My indignation shriveled. “What do you mean?”

“After I saw you at the school, I followed Jack Mayfield back to his house, and I checked back again an hour later, just to let him see the car and realize he should stay chill.”

“And . . .”

“Then he comes out and tells me I don’t need to keep hassling him, he’s going away overnight to his brother’s vacation house in Racine, to get some family support. I tell him that’s a good idea and to convey my best wishes to Geneva, but he says she’s already flown the coop. I pretend not to know that their marriage is on the rocks. I circle back a while later, just curious to see if the lights are all off—just wanting to see if Jack was blowing smoke. Obviously, there’s no law that says he has to leave town just because he said he would—”

“Robert,” I pleaded, wanting him to go faster.

“And when I’m just about to pull away I see a figure, halfway down the block, sprinting across the street, coming from the direction of another yard I recognize.”

I hated how he was telling it like a story, trying to keep me in suspense.

“The person is wearing a Cubs hoodie, which I recognize, because I was the one who bought it for him.”

I felt sick. This wasn’t about Jack Mayfield.

Robert said, “Benjamin broke into the Scarlattis’—technically, there was an unlocked sliding glass door he knew about, but that’s still breaking and entering.”

I put a hand over my mouth.Breaking and entering. Which made no sense. Benjamin wasn’t impulsive, usually. He certainly wasn’t stupid.

“When I picked him up, he had something. A diary. That belonged to Isabella Scarlatti.”

I was nearly speechless now, thinking of the future. Benjamin, with a police record. College applications. Misdemeanor? Something worse?

“What was he doing with Izzy’s diary?”

“Exactly.” Robert’s expression turned grim. “I’m assuming that he wanted to know what Izzy was up to, just before she died. I mean, why else try to read the words of a dead girl, unless you were close to her—unless you cared?”

But Benjamin hadn’t professed any strong feelings about Izzy’s death. He hadn’t even seemed curious.

“And I should tell you,” Robert continued. “Saturday night, a bunch of friends showed up at Izzy’s house for a party. Her parents were out of town. She’d invited a bunch of kids, evidently, but then she must have been in Wadsworth, already.”

“Who let them in?”

“Her sister, Talia, home from college.”

A Scarlatti sister. The comment reminded me. I started telling Robert about the long-haired, shoeless girl on the road and the argument I’d witnessed. How she looked and didn’t look like Izzy. Maybe it was Izzy’s sister. Maybe what I’d seen was Talia reacting to the stress of her sister’s death.

Robert looked annoyed by my interruption. “Talia Scarlatti is a redhead. On top of that, she’s with her parents right now, down at the station, providing statements.”

I nodded, fingers to my temple, massaging away a headache just building. I needed a second to absorb it all. The girl I’d seen had nothing to do with anything except to demonstrate there’s always a girl somewhere, having a bad day or night, walking a knife-edge of safety.

Robert continued, “Saturday, Talia left the house with her own plans and didn’t call their folks or think it sufficiently strange that her kid sister wasn’t home yet for her own party. She regrets it, of course. In any case, she ID’d all the friends this afternoon.”