Page 25 of You Belong Here

Cliff didn’t seem surprised to see me. Other than a twitch of his left hand hanging at his side, where a cigarette was dangling from his fingers, his body gave nothing away.

Even after all these years, this was the trait I remembered most about him—the way he always seemed to be observing, or pretending, so that it was hard to differentiate the real Cliff from the performance.

When I was young, it had intrigued me, as if I could be the one to crack the act, bend his reality. A dare I’d given myself.

But that was before I realized Cliff was a chameleon, inclined to change his persona to suit whatever group he was with.

I’d watched him cycle through plenty of identities, from preppy student to blue-collar worker.

How quickly I’d watched him change on me, too.

By the end of my time in Wyatt Valley, I had no idea what part of him was real at his core.

And now he had reemerged as a school administrator in the place he’d once only pretended to belong. I wanted to reach out and shake him, see what finally came to the surface.

“What the hell are you doing?” I asked as I strode up the road with single-minded purpose. Anger had displaced the fear—I knew this man. He could’ve been watching Delilah from the day we arrived.

His expression gave nothing away. Cliff had always been on the slender side, but last I’d seen him, he’d been working in construction, had grown tanned and sinewy and had dressed to show it.

Now his olive skin seemed paler, crow’s-feet branching out from the corners of his hooded eyes.

His sandy brown hair wasn’t tinged with gray yet, but the longer length covered for the way it now crept back from his temples.

He wore a plain T-shirt, loose on his frame, and a belt cinching khaki hiking pants.

“I had a feeling that was you,” he said.

I felt his gaze wash over my face, probably taking in its own changes.

The fullness of my early twenties giving way to angles as I aged.

The dark hollows under my eyes had undoubtedly grown deeper overnight from not sleeping.

The fear of not being able to contact Delilah shifting my expression, sharpening my demeanor.

“What the hell were you doing in my house?” I asked, full of self-righteousness.

His eyes shifted behind me for a moment, like he was checking to make sure we were alone.

“Your house?” he responded, a deep line forming between his brown eyes. “I wasn’t.” Then he spun the cigarette in his fingers, feigning casual. “Jesus, Beck. It’s nice to see you, too.”

I gritted my teeth. “I swear to God, Cliff, if you’ve been harassing—”

“Hey,” he said, cutting me off, one arm out, inches from my own. He looked up and down the empty block. “I’m not… For fuck’s sake, I’m not doing anything, and you can’t just go throwing out accusations like that.” As if the perception were worse than the crime.

I stared down at his hand, the way it hovered between us, faintly shaking.

Like he was hiding something. But I realized he was the one afraid—of what I would say, that others might hear.

As if I could ruin his act in one fell swoop.

“ Really . Then what the hell are you doing here?” I asked, spreading my arms wide.

“On my street. Half a block from my parents’ house. ”

He mirrored my gesture, sweeping his arms across the empty lot. “Cleaning up. The insurance company is taking their sweet time with it, and all the trash is getting caught against my house in the wind. I could only take the view for so long.”

I followed his gaze to the nearest window, where a layer of black marred the edge of the brick beneath it, though the glass had been wiped clean of the soot. A limp garbage bag rested against the base of the foundation, half filled.

“You live here?” I asked, taken aback.

He took a long drag from the cigarette, then nodded. “For the last couple months, at least, yeah. So you’ll have to excuse my presence on the same street. It’s out of my hands.”

He’d managed to get himself to the heart of the place he’d once pretended to belong. A role on campus. A house on the old Fraternity Row.

He cleared his throat. “This is the part where you say, Nice to see you, Cliff. Sorry for accusing you of breaking and entering. Been a long time. How’ve you been? ”

I shook my head, jarring myself back to the moment. “I didn’t know you lived here. My parents didn’t say.”

He frowned. “Well, like I said, it’s a recent development. Since right before school started. And it’s not like your folks are really involved in the college minutiae anymore, are they.”

I looked over my shoulder, up the road. “You didn’t see anyone else around my place just now, did you?”

He followed my gaze. A lone black sedan was driving toward our position at the intersection, blinker on. “Can’t say I was looking,” he said. “You house-sitting for your parents or something? Heard they were gone on some long trip.”

“In Peru,” I said as the black car turned left, an older couple visible in the front seat. “A visiting lecturer assignment.” It wasn’t lost on me that he seemed to know more about them than they had known about him.

Cliff dropped his cigarette, grinding it into the sidewalk. I got a flash, then, of a glowing ember, and suddenly pictured Cliff out in the night, at this very spot, back in August—watching me in the dark.

“Did you see me out here, then?” I asked, dropping my voice. “During orientation, I mean.”

He ran his tongue across the ridge of his teeth, thinking. “I remember I saw someone out here. I was just moving in. Didn’t have your name front and center at the time.”

He turned back to the empty plot. Wood and debris were scattered on the footprint of the foundation, outlined in cinder blocks. At least the dumpster had been removed.

“Were you here when it happened?” I asked, imagining the flames growing, catching.

He shook his head. “Hadn’t finished moving in.

I was promoted over the summer. The new role came with living arrangements.

” His hand twitched again. If anyone else would have a visceral reaction to a fire, it would be Cliff.

Charlie Rivers and Micah White and Cliff had been friends since high school—maybe before.

He’d probably been haunted by that night, too.

And now his view each morning was of a pile of ash and debris. I didn’t blame him for wanting it gone.

“Cliff, I’m looking for my daughter. Have you seen her? Staying at the house, maybe?”

He blinked. “Delilah?” he asked, her name like music. Like he knew her. Knew everything I was desperate to uncover. I pictured him up on the desk chair in my room, black marker in hand—

And then he shook his head. “I’ve noticed a light on when I passed some nights. Assumed it was automated, honestly.” A shrug.

Delilah in the house. Asking her father for money. What did she need? What was she running from?

I took a step closer, felt a tightening in my throat. “I can’t reach her.”

The line deepened between his eyes. Everything in his demeanor tightened—shoulders up, jaw tense. “Since when?”

“Last night. Since the howling.” I felt myself tensing, the word like a portal to the past.

His shoulders relaxed. “It’s just wind, Beckett.

It’s not the same anymore.” But he didn’t look at me as he said it.

As if he hadn’t once stalked me through the trees in the night, as a joke or not.

He peered down at his watch. “It’s been, what, half a day?

She’s probably sleeping off a hangover.” He rolled his eyes for good measure.

“But you can check, right?” I asked. “You can check the cameras?” I knew they must’ve been positioned around campus for security.

“No,” he said pointedly, “I can’t. Only the campus police can do that, and only if there’s an actual investigation.”

“Oh, please. I’m sure you know exactly how to access—”

The front door of his neighbor’s house swung open just before a stocky man in a ball cap stepped out.

“Jesus,” Cliff said under his breath as his neighbor locked up behind him. “Just— Let’s take this inside.”

I followed Cliff up the concrete steps. Over the narrow door was a wide stretch of beige trim where Greek letters used to hang.

Inside, the circular foyer gave way to a step-down living area to the right and a closed room to the left.

Before me, a stairway led up to a visible balcony.

Behind the stairs, the wood floor of the main level stretched down a long, dark hallway.

It was easy to see the ghost of what this place once was.

The old fraternity homes here were small, operating more as a base of operation than a housing system.

If these walls could talk, I imagined they would tell of decades of parties, of fights, of people stumbling through doorways.

If I closed my eyes, I could almost smell the liquor, feel the sticky floor and the humidity of too many bodies pressed together in one space.

I shifted on my feet; I wasn’t sure why he’d brought me in here—what he didn’t want his neighbor to hear. “Can you… I need you to talk to the RA in Delilah’s dorm. Her name is Raven something. She definitely knew something she wasn’t saying. And I need to track down Delilah’s friends—”

His eyes widened. “You can’t go questioning students, Beckett. There are protocols, I told you.”

“I’m asking as a favor, then. From an old friend.”

He pressed his lips together, considering me. It was so much dimmer inside the house than out in the morning sun, and my eyes were adjusting to the change in perspective.

“An old friend,” he repeated. “I had no idea.”