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The Secrets They Left Behind
Author: Lissa Marie Redmond

Prologue


Wednesday, December 28th

Christmas Break

Skyler slammed the front door behind them as they rushed in against the biting winter wind. The three girls kicked their boots off in unison, scattering snow around the hallway. It immediately began to melt and sink into the carpet, leaving dark splotches in the plush pile. The house was dark but warm and silent as the girls stripped off their winter coats and hats. Their escape complete, they stood in the hallway soaking the remaining melting snow into their socks, holding their outerwear, looking at each other. Olivia was the first one to speak. “This is bad.”

The hallway led directly into the formal living room, with its couch no one ever sat on and its chairs that had to be dusted. Skyler threw her coat on the far end of the show-couch and her two friends followed suit, piling theirs on top.

Olivia pulled her cell phone from her purse and checked it. No new messages. She needed to think. The grandfather clock in the corner bonged loudly. They didn’t have much time before her parents came home.

Skyler went over to the pristine, less-than-state-of-the-art entertainment center that never got used and clicked on the television. Her wild blonde hair was matted to her head from her knit hat that now lay limply on the pile. She hated that hat, but it was freezing out and there was no way around not wearing one if you wanted to keep your ears. Remote in hand, she stared at the flat screen and flicked through the channels. With the other hand, she spun the daisy wheel on the old-fashioned iPod Nano tucked into the docking station, looking for a song. The noise of the TV mixed with the music of the stereo in an assault on the ears. But Skyler was looking for white noise, something to focus on without focusing.

Neither Olivia nor Emma said anything. You could still see the wet stain running up the side of Skyler’s tight jeans where Joe had splashed beer on her. She was seething, and if she’d had the proper target right then, she’d have smashed something.

Emma sat down in an overstuffed floral armchair, cradled her head in her hands, and asked, “Now what?”

“Look, I’ll take care of it, okay?” Skyler snapped. She was frantically texting something, eyes locked on her cell screen. Emma fell silent, staring at Skyler’s stocking feet, falling into a position of defeat.

Olivia’s cell had only one bar left. “I’m calling Kayla. She’s not answering any of my texts. She doesn’t even know what’s going on.” She dumped the cell into her purse and jumped up, going into the kitchen to use the house phone.

Skyler turned from the entertainment center, eyes rimmed with red. She watched Emma’s blank expression, getting more agitated by the minute. She wanted to scream at her. She wanted to kill Joe. She wanted to go home. But things had to get fixed, and she was the only one of them who knew what to do. For once she had to be the responsible one.

Olivia came back into the living room. “What’d you tell her?” Skyler demanded.

“Nothing. I just wanted her to know why we left. She said Joe carried on for a while and then she went home. She was just walking in when I called. She asked what happened, and I told her I didn’t want to get into it again.”

“Again?”

“You know what I mean.” Olivia tried to hold on to the fact that they would all be back in school once winter break was over, except maybe Skyler. Olivia could do without this whole mess. She’d thought she missed this town when she went away for freshman year. Now she wished she’d never come back. Nothing ever changed. And now she knew there was a whole big world out there. She could walk away from Kelly’s Falls and never come back. But that had been her plan all along, right?

The sound of a car pulling into the driveway made all three of them swing their heads toward the front picture window. There was a tense silence as the car idled in the driveway. The headlights were mirrored in Emma’s eyes. Olivia swallowed hard and said, “Someone’s here.”

 

 

Monday, February 20th


If I had known the best thing that was going to happen to me that day was a black eye, I would have called in sick.

At the ripe old age of twenty-three, I’d been working as a patrol officer in the City of Buffalo Police Department for about two and a half years. While all my friends were out partying, doing entry-level kiss-ass work, or getting their master’s degree, I’d been standing in snowbanks writing tickets and arresting drunk drivers. I know how that sounds, like I’m ungrateful, but I really did love the job. Every day was something different and I was never bored. You just had to learn to take the bad with the good. That day just happened to be bad.

I was working the day shift, which was thought to be cake duty since most of the residents of South Buffalo were mainly middle-class Irish who worked in one of the few remaining factories or for the city. Most of the violence was domestic and beer inspired. It was considered an easy tour in a slow district.

I was riding with Patrick Malloy. And he hated riding with anyone other than his steady partner. Not that he wasn’t nice to me—he was as nice as he had to be—but it’s not the same as being with a real partner. I had left my real partner behind when they reassigned me to a special detail over the summer. I was trying to figure out a way of getting back to my old district as soon as possible.

At one o’clock we got a disturbance call from Delaney’s on Seneca Street. A lot of plant guys eat their lunches in the bars down that stretch. As we rolled up on the scene, two guys were locked in a death grip, struggling in a snowbank.

Some of their buddies were trying to break it up, but these two guys were really going at it. Pat grabbed one of them by the back of his neck and swung him around to the ground in one single fluid motion. Pat’s no small man and pretty strong, considering the size of his beer gut.

I came up from behind and grabbed the other guy, pushing him against our patrol car. He took one look at me, at my five feet six inches and one hundred twenty pounds of pure police intimidation, and punched me right in the eye.

My head swung back, but I didn’t let go. Pat saw it, took one step toward us while still holding the other guy by the collar, and slammed my guy onto the cruiser. He was cooperative after that.

“Are you okay?” one of the combatant’s friends asked me as I grabbed a hunk of snow from a drift and pressed it to my face.

“They’re both garbage men,” another one offered, brushing snow off the front of his coveralls. “We have to get back on the truck.”

“He just assaulted a police officer,” I told him, opening our cruiser door to deposit our fighters inside.

“But he didn’t know you were a cop,” the guy pleaded with me.

His handcuffed friend piped up, “I didn’t know it was a cop grabbing me. I would never hit a cop. I never would’ve hit a girl.”

Of course he’d never hit a girl. Or a cop. Just the girl-cop who showed up to his fight.

I ducked his head in the door and closed it. My eye was throbbing.

Pat tried to talk to me all the way down to central booking and while we were doing the paperwork for the prisoners, but I didn’t feel like chitchatting. I was feeling pretty foolish for letting myself get hit.

On the way back to the station house, Pat looked over at my face and told me, “You did good today. You got out of the car, you weren’t afraid, and you didn’t let go after taking a hard shot.”

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