Page 27 of You Belong Here

As I walked back to my parents’ home, I felt some long-dormant part of me coming back alive, as if I’d thawed and something else had been set free.

I had always been a person who made quick and finite decisions, who didn’t waver. Who knew what she wanted and took the steps to make it happen. Who wasn’t afraid to go it alone. All those parts had always been there and had been fine-tuned to their most efficient form in adulthood.

But I had been other things, too. Before I learned to mask my thoughts, to keep my own secrets. Before I learned to hide behind someone else’s words, worried what other people might discover in my own.

Maybe we didn’t become something in adulthood so much as unbecome .

But I felt it all now: the remembrance of who I used to be. The person who did not care for rules, who paid no heed to expectations. Who did not wait for permission or approval.

The one who wanted to be seen, and followed, and feared.

Someone had been in my house. Not Delilah and not Cliff.

It was possible my parents had entrusted a neighbor with a key in their absence.

Someone who could bring in the mail, provide access in an emergency.

I’d ask them when I had a chance to get on email, before I falsely accused someone else of breaking and entering. But I was skeptical.

For now, I assumed that whoever it was had been spooked as much by my presence as I had been by theirs. I had a plan, a series of steps I would take before Trevor’s arrival, to make progress, keep busy, prevent my mind from spiraling any further.

Cliff had promised to talk to campus police, but that would take time. And time, I knew, was the critical factor.

It was noon. Ten hours since the dropped call. Twelve hours since she’d entered Beckett Hall.

I closed my eyes and pictured her running through the dark hall, the sound of her footsteps echoing in a trail, leading straight to her—

Bryce was my only lead to understanding what might have happened last night. And maybe even before. Violet was my way to Bryce.

And now I had her address.

The gate to my parents’ backyard was still hanging slightly ajar. I secured it and then entered the house through the front door. The screen was shut, but the front door hadn’t fully latched behind me in my rush out of the house.

I needed to grab my keys, to keep moving. But something was off in the kitchen. My purse was out on the table, wallet beside it. Everything emptied to dry out, as I’d left it. I’d assumed whoever was in here had noticed my bag, realized someone was home, and quickly left.

I approached the table, drawn closer, tallying the items. Then noticed what wasn’t there.

The mask was gone.

I circled the table in case I’d missed something, then dug my hands into my bag, pulling out old gum wrappers, crumpled receipts. No mask.

Whoever had been in here hadn’t just noticed my purse and fled.

They’d taken the mask with them.

My ears were ringing with a high-pitched frequency. I had assumed whoever was in here had been spooked by my presence. I had hoped the realization that this house was occupied would be enough to deter their return.

But they’d taken the mask. And they must’ve realized I’d find it missing.

The mask was proof that something had happened out at Cryer’s Quarry. That kids had been running through the night just like we had done years ago.

Proof that, despite what Cliff said, the tradition wasn’t dead—that it had merely taken on a new form.

But now the mask was gone. The trail was disappearing as fast as I’d uncovered it.

I returned my wallet and car keys to my bag. I didn’t have a key to the house—but someone else clearly did. I couldn’t even lock up behind me and return without climbing through a window. And what was even the point, if there was someone out there with a key?

I remembered a trick from when I was in middle school.

When I believed my mother had been snooping through my room, looking at my journals—before I’d learned to hide things more carefully.

I’d leave a piece of tape on the upper edge of my bedroom door, out of sight.

Something someone hopefully wouldn’t notice as they sneaked inside.

Something I could check before entering again myself.

Now I rummaged through the kitchen junk drawer, which held an assortment of supplies—scissors, scotch tape, open matchbook, pads of paper, pens.

I took the tape with me to the back of the house, then stood on my toes, adding two strips to the upper edge of the door. Then I locked it for good measure.

I decided to leave the front door unlocked. I was worried that if anyone was going to call the cops on someone in the house, it would be me climbing through the window off the front porch.

I slung my purse on my shoulder, took the last strips of tape with me out the front, and carefully adhered them to the outside of the screen door, crossing the top of the black metal frame.

It wasn’t perfect, but it would have to do.

The entrance to the Estates was a few miles out of downtown, where the roads wove up into the mountains. On the Whartons’ designated street, the houses on my right were set just above the road, while the ones on the left were barely visible, built into the sloping landscape below.

The address Cliff had written on the sticky note led me to a house above—part modern, part contemporary, a blend of wood and metal; large black-trimmed windows and a traditional peaked roof. I turned up the steep driveway, weaving through the trees.

A black SUV was parked outside the garage, and someone had planted a shock of colorful flowers in a mulch bed surrounding the front steps. If anyone noticed my arrival from behind the walls of glass, they made no indication of it.

A text message came through as I parked—I guessed there was some sort of cellular service accommodation for those up in the mountains of the Estates. Closer to both God and satellite.

Trevor: Halfway there. Any updates?

I responded while I had the chance: School security is looking into it. Checking cameras. Seeing if they can track where she went.

Even though I wasn’t sure whether Cliff believed Delilah was missing, I knew it was his job to move it up the chain.

Trevor responded immediately: ETA 2 hours. Call if you hear anything please.

I peered up at the Wharton place. No signs of movement. Meet you at the house, I wrote back. Save the directions before you hit the town. You’ll lose service when you get close.

And then I stepped out of the car and walked across the Whartons’ front yard.

Even the front door was made of glass, so I could see directly inside their open living space as I pressed the doorbell, waiting.

Eventually a man appeared from around the corner, with a slightly hunched posture, so he seemed not much taller than I was, at five-six.

If this was Joseph Wharton, he didn’t seem nearly as intimidating as Cliff had made him out to be when warning me that this was someone he didn’t need to make an enemy of.

The man greeted me wearing a polo, gym shorts, white socks, and a single white earbud in one ear, as if he’d been in a virtual meeting. He peered first at my car and then at me. “Can I help you?”

“I’m looking for Violet?” I said. “I’m Beckett. Our kids are in school together.”

He blinked twice, frowning. I guessed he was at least a decade older than Violet, maybe more. His hair was more salt than pepper and overlong at the edges—like that of a tech kid who hadn’t realized he’d grown up.

“Sure, sure,” he said, beckoning me inside. “I think she’s out back.”

The inside of the house was as immaculate as the exterior.

The open front area encompassed the living and dining rooms, along with the kitchen—and nothing was out on the counters or the sofa.

It looked like a page from a catalog. Professional family photos lined the walls, stretching back in time in black and white.

Here, I could see the story of Violet’s life: two sons, a husband, and a dog; a destination wedding at the beach, barefoot and understated in a form-fitting slip dress and a strand of pearls, smiling at the same man currently leading me through their home.

From inside their living room, I could see straight through the large glass sliding doors to a wooden porch and the trees beyond.

Joseph Wharton slid open the back door, gesturing for me to exit.

From the deck, I could see through the iron railings to a small circle of grass with a swing set.

Violet stood at the edge of the woods, behind the swing set, perfectly still as the branches swayed above her.

She was staring into the trees in a way that unsettled me.

That made me think she’d heard something.

Like the wind was whispering something to her, drawing her closer.

“Vi!” the man called. “You have company.”

She startled, then turned as her husband slid the door shut behind me.

Violet’s hair was pulled back into a short, tight ponytail, and she seemed disoriented, not that I blamed her.

“Hi,” I said, descending the steps, like it would be perfectly normal for me to drop in on her. Old friends. Like Cliff.

“Beckett?” she asked, though it must’ve been clear by now.

“Sorry, I didn’t have your number to call first.”

She tilted her head, clearly confused by my presence here. “Just one sec…” she began, holding up a hand as she turned back to the woods, waiting.

These were the same woods that eventually bled into town and surrounded the campus, miles in the distance.

“Joey!” she called.

“Coming,” a boy called back, his voice faint under the wind.

And then I saw them: a young boy with a stick in hand, walking beside a black Lab not on a leash. Both of them meandering through the trees, back toward home.