Page 28 of You Belong Here
Violet smiled, rubbing the boy’s mop of brown hair as he passed. “I told you not to go farther than I can see,” she said. He looked to be in elementary school, before the growth spurt of gangly limbs that had overtaken his brother.
“I didn’t notice,” he said. “Sorry.”
“Go on inside,” Violet said, pushing him along. “And please feed Oscar.”
“I didn’t mean to interrupt your weekend,” I said, watching them enter the lower level of the house, beneath the deck. It seemed Violet and I were staying put, behind the swing set. “It’s just, it’s urgent, and I didn’t know where else to go.”
She frowned slightly, though her face didn’t move much. She seemed dressed for a day of work around the house, in an oversize camo T-shirt and black leggings. “ What’s urgent? What are you doing here, Beckett?”
My hand went to the base of my neck, where I could feel the rapid-fire pulse, the words I had to say again and again, making them real. “I can’t find Delilah,” I said.
Her mouth opened as she reached to the space between us. “Since when?”
It was the same question Cliff had asked, like they needed to confirm the details before knowing how to proceed. Decide whether this was worth their panic or their empathy—or whether I was being unreasonable.
“Her call dropped in the middle of the night, and I haven’t been able to get back in touch.
Not by phone or text or email or social media, which is really not like her.
She hasn’t been in her dorm. I don’t know if I’m panicking for no reason, and I just thought your son might…
” I swallowed. “I thought Bryce might have some information that could point me in the right direction.”
She stared back at me, hazel eyes wide and glassy, then jarred herself back to the moment. “Of course. My God.” She nodded vigorously, then pulled her cell phone from the side pocket of her leggings. She held the phone to her ear, still staring right at me. “Hi, sorry, did I wake you?”
It had been only a few hours since I’d seen him running back to his dorm. He must’ve been jolted from sleep.
“Everything’s fine,” she said. “But I’m standing here with Delilah’s mom, remember we met her at orientation?
” A pause. “Right. She’s wondering if you’ve seen Delilah recently.
She hasn’t been able to get ahold of her.
” She nodded at whatever her son was saying on the other end. “Can I put you on the line with her?”
She tapped the phone, triggering the video, and Bryce’s face suddenly filled the frame. Violet held the phone between us, and she moved closer, shoulder pressing into mine. Bryce was lounging in bed, one arm behind his head.
“Hey,” he said, as Violet tilted the camera my way. “Sorry, I haven’t seen her, but we’re not exactly friends.”
His voice was slightly hoarse, and he jostled the phone as he spoke, like he was repositioning himself in bed.
I nodded in understanding. “Thanks for talking to me, Bryce. I spoke to administration, and they mentioned she’d tried to change dorms. It’s a small school, thought you might’ve heard what happened…”
He looked off to the side, and I imagined someone else in the room with him.
Another freshman boy who might know something.
Who might say something. Bryce shifted so he was sitting upright, phone held at a more manageable distance.
“Yeah…” he began, dragging out the word.
“She accused her roommate of theft or something? She was cleared, but that obviously didn’t go over well.
” He shrugged. “Hana says she’s basically got a single now. ”
Things going missing from her room. A reason to want a new living arrangement. But Cliff said she’d wanted out of the entire dorm, not only her room.
“Do you know the numbers for her friends? Gen? Sierra?”
His dark eyebrows knitted together. “Sorry, Ms. Bowery,” he said, drawing out our last name. “I really don’t. Like I said, we don’t really run in the same circles.”
I nodded, and Violet said, “Thanks, hon,” like she was about to disconnect.
“One more thing,” I said, hand around her wrist, keeping the phone steady between us. “Security scans showed that she entered Beckett Hall last night, just before midnight. Do you have any idea what she’d be doing there?”
His jaw shifted, then tightened slightly as his eyes slid to the side—maybe to his roommate, maybe to nothing. “I don’t, really. But if she wasn’t getting along with her roommate, maybe she went there to study,” he said.
“You didn’t see her out on campus at all last night?”
“Nah, sorry, we ordered pizzas in the dorm last night. Had some friends over. I haven’t been out since my classes yesterday.”
My stomach dropped.
He was lying. Lying to his mother or lying to me.
I stared directly into the phone screen, like a dare. Debating whether to say something else, back him into a corner and push.
“We appreciate your help,” Violet said, pulling the phone closer. “Do me a favor and call if you hear anything, though?”
“Sure thing,” he said to his mother before the screen went black.
Violet took a deep breath in and out, staring into the woods again. “I don’t know what to say, Beck. I’m really hoping everything’s okay and this is just kids being kids. You know what it used to be like.”
I nodded. It was a line people kept repeating to me.
“Let me get your number. If Bryce hears anything, I’ll pass it along.”
We exchanged contacts, and she led me up the rock steps in the side yard back to my car. At the front, through the large glass windows, I thought I saw a shadow inside—a man, presumably Joseph Wharton, watching from the center of the room, standing perfectly still.
Violet didn’t seem to notice. “Listen, Beckett, could it be she just isn’t answering your calls?”
“No,” I said, “she wouldn’t do that.”
Violet raised an eyebrow. A jab she was making even now. “Kids do all sorts of things,” she said. She grabbed my arm, squeezed. “I’m sure she’ll turn up.”
I walked for the car, shaken. By Bryce’s lie, and the husband in the window, and Violet’s implications.
As parents, we’re afraid that our children can be stolen from us—by people, by ideas, by careless choices. We don’t consider that they might choose to leave.
But they do. I knew this well. Sometimes they do.