Page 41 of You Belong Here

We waited on the front porch, watching until the police cruiser was out of sight.

Trevor turned on me suddenly. “What the hell is going on?” he asked, a tinge of anger in his voice. He knew I’d lied to the officer about Delilah sleeping. He knew I’d wanted to stop him from talking about Delilah in the woods, even though he was telling the truth.

“Inside,” I said, pulling the screen door open, scanning the downstairs. “Where’s Delilah?” I asked, poking my head into the kitchen. I didn’t want her to hear this. Not yet.

Trevor stood in the middle of the foyer, arms crossed. “Upstairs, with my laptop. Probably checking her email.”

I couldn’t stop pacing. “I can’t believe this. I can’t believe them .” It was the past, rising up. My name alone, putting her in danger again.

“Beckett,” Trevor said, grabbing my arm as I passed by so that I had to stop, ground myself back in the present. “Talk to me, please.”

I glanced toward the kitchen again, where the steps led up to the bedroom—and Delilah.

My eyes slid back to Trevor’s. “There’s a body,” I said, my breath shuddering. “They found a body at the school.”

Trevor flinched, his face going pale, mouth open in that state of frozen shock I’d seen only once before, when I’d told him I was pregnant.

Finally he shook his head. “What do you mean, a body ? Whose body?”

I felt my back teeth grinding together in frustration. “I don’t know . A girl was found in the construction pit of the old student center. We passed the spot on the way to the campus police yesterday.”

Silence. And then: “What the hell is happening, Beckett?”

“I have no idea. No one’s getting on or off campus right now. The lockdown makes me think they’re looking for an active threat.” I swallowed, gaze sliding away.

Trevor didn’t respond, but I could feel him looking at me closely, trying to understand what I couldn’t say.

“I just want to get Delilah away from here,” I said, voice softer. It was my basest instinct, to protect my child and avoid this place. And now look. The police were here, checking her story for cracks.

He dropped his voice to a whisper. “Listen, she asked about ordering a new phone. I looked into it, but the nearest store is an hour out of town. Why don’t I take her there now, get some food while we’re there. It’ll get her away from here for a while.”

I nodded. “That sounds like a good plan. And, Trevor?”

“Yeah?”

“Please don’t tell her yet.” She’d been through enough in the last twenty-four hours. “Not until I know more.”

I took a shower while they were preparing to leave, mostly to avoid Delilah’s questions.

I was terrible at lying to her, and I didn’t want to have to do it now.

I’d made it a promise—the one foundation of my parenting.

I may not have told her everything about this place, I may have avoided the topic of my past, but I wouldn’t lie to her, either.

By the time I emerged from my parents’ bedroom, Trevor and Delilah were gone, but they’d left Delilah’s spare key on the kitchen table, beside my cell phone. At least I had a way to lock up now.

My phone was flashing with a new message. I was hoping it was Maggie with information from her husband.

But it was from someone not in my contacts—sent not from a phone number but from an email address. The name— FordGroup— sent a chill up my spine.

It was the same email account that had been contacting me about the memoir. I’d ignored their last message, asking for a meeting. But I’d given them my number in our first email exchange, and now they were using it. Escalating.

I opened the message, and all the hairs rose from the back of my neck in a slow wave.

We see you’ve come to us instead. Welcome home.

Welcome home . Like the text I’d received the very first day I returned to Charlotte, after driving away from the Low Bar.

Welcome home, like whoever it was had been waiting for me to return.

If I’d had any doubt whether the messages were referencing what happened here twenty years earlier, it was officially gone. They were watching, and they knew I was here.

I searched the sender’s address for any clues and decided to channel Trevor, making a list.

There were pens in a ceramic container on my father’s desk, and I was sure he kept pads of paper somewhere in the office.

My parents were pretty old-school with technology, as evidenced by their shared email address and the unplugged modem—like they were concerned about strangers using their Internet connection while they were away.

The larger bottom desk drawer contained hanging files of research papers and clipped articles.

Inside the one above that, stacks of papers stapled together.

I riffled through an assortment of spreadsheets that appeared partially printed but overwritten in ink, with addresses all over the country.

I assumed this was his holiday card mailing list. There was also a folder labeled Accounts with a checkbook tucked into the corner.

I cringed, thinking about the window I’d left unlocked, all their financial information within reach.

Finally I found what I was looking for. Unused pads of yellow paper and spiral-bound notebooks under a stack of unopened mail. I moved the envelopes aside—they seemed to all be from the same sender, a mortgage company.

I did a double take.

I’d thought my parents owned this place outright. It was the reason they had never left, even in the high market—so they could live easy in their retirement, however they chose. Was that just what they’d told me as an excuse for why they were still here, in the place that had sent me away?

They loved it here, despite all that had happened. They loved it here enough to stay, even though it was a place they knew I would never return. Maybe they’d made a choice, too.

Here was a place you could feel the history existing all around you, both in the buildings and in the landscape.

They’d met here, brought me into existence here, built a life here.

It was the beginning and end of their world.

During his tenure, my father had even been entrusted with the college archives—a keeper of its history on the third floor of Beckett Hall.

How could they ever leave a place like this?

I slid a pad of paper out from under the stack of mail and started writing down every possibility I could find for companies with the name FordGroup, but it was so generic.

There were endless options related to finance groups, legal teams, and automotive clubs, but none seemed to be related to Wyatt Valley or the college.

On a whim, I googled the full email address, hoping it would bring me to a website listing. But the search result came up empty. As if the account had appeared out of thin air.

Whoever had sent the message knew far more about me than I knew about them. I was tired of being on the outside, desperate for information.

Impulsively, I sent a response: Who is this?

And then I stared at my phone, waiting for something to happen.

I was holding my breath, sitting perfectly still, which was how I heard it through the office window: a creak of the gate to the side of the front porch. And then the shudder of the old wood slats catching against the uneven ground.

Someone was out there in the backyard right now . I remained perfectly still. Thinking: I’ve got you.

Quietly, I rose from the desk and left the office, planting one foot carefully in front of the other as I walked down the hall.

I passed the entrance to the basement, the kitchen, and then my parents’ bedroom.

I stopped in the middle of the hall, staring at the door—waiting.

Anticipating the slide of a key or the twist of a handle.

The seconds stretched out, but nothing happened.

Eventually I moved into my parents’ bedroom, where their windows looked directly into the backyard. But I could see nothing moving within the small, fenced space.

I backtracked to the hall and then carefully exited through the rear door, phone in hand. The yard was overgrown, and several skinny trees lined the perimeter, but there were no hiding places out here. The yard was empty.

I followed the slate path around to the side of the house, where the gate hung slightly ajar. As if whoever had opened the gate hadn’t been sneaking in but sneaking out.

As if they’d been inside the yard, watching, all along.