Page 76 of The Ghostwriter

“I didn’t even want to come to this party,” I say.

Vince appears on my other side, and I reach out to touch his cheek, but he pulls back. “This is a dark space, Vince. Did you hide a clue here?” I laugh at my joke, but he doesn’t laugh with me. “You shouldn’t be here,” I tell him.

My words slide into the silence between tracks as Mr. Stewart appears in the doorway “Burgers are ready,” he announces.

Then his gaze lands on me. “You okay, Poppy?”

Anger and betrayal swirl around inside of me. I don’t want Vince here to see this. He can’t know the truth. “Not really,” I say, the alcohol making me feel brave. I sway a little bit and Margot steadies my elbow.

The sound of breaking glass and rising laughter floats through the open windows. From the kitchen Amelia calls, “Paul, you’d better get back out there!”

Mr. Stewart ignores her. “I’m worried, Poppy.” He gestures toward the closed-off portion of the house. “Do you want to go somewhere private to talk about what’s bothering you?”

One of the girls on the couch mutters, “You can take me somewhere private.”

The other girls explode into laughter, but Mr. Stewart ignores them, keeping his gaze on me.

“What is it you always say?” I challenge him. “‘Information is power.’” I watch him, to see if he hears me. To see if he knows what I know. “What about when you know a secret? Is that power too?”

Our eyes lock for a moment before my stomach heaves and I turn, vomiting into a potted plant.

The girls scatter and Vince says, “I’ll take her home.”

“I think that’s probably best,” Mr. Stewart says.

Vince and Margot gather on either side of me and usher me out the front door and down the steps. We walk along the side of our house and ease open the back door, avoiding the living room where my parents are watching TV. They’re in their usual spots—our father in his chair, a gin and tonic next to him, our mother on the couch, her stockinged feet curled under her, poking away at her needlepoint, somewhere into her second bottle of wine.

We sneak past the kitchen and into my room. I kick off my shoes and crawl under my covers, not caring about my clothes. Not caring about anything.

“I’ve got it from here,” Vince says to Margot.

She slips out the back door again, no doubt heading home. Vince goes into the kitchen and returns with a glass of water and some aspirin. “Take these,” he says.

I turn toward the wall, unable to look at him. Afraid of what I’ll say. The room spins and I worry I’ll throw up again, so I take deep breaths, trying to focus on one spot.

Vince hovers beside me. “What was that about?” he asks.

I need to sleep. I need to drop into a dark hole and not dream. Not think of anything. I can’t find the words to tell Vince the truth, but I can offer him a warning.

“Lydia needs to stay away from Mr. Stewart.” I roll over and look at my brother standing over me.

He takes a small step backward, as if my words have hit him and he says, “What do you mean?” He looks scared. Worried. And I wonder if he already knows.

I shake my head, but the motion makes me sick, so I close my eyes instead.

Chapter 31

I find it in the last legal pad, just one short sentence tucked in near the end.

Danny watched her die.

I feel as though I’ve been punched. The matter-of-factness of the statement, the words, scrawled in the lower-left margin in black ballpoint pen. So easy to miss if you weren’t looking closely.

I’d finally returned to my father’s legal pads after several weeks away, slowly making my way through them. Trying to extract nuggets of information I could use—either specific events I could grow into a scene, or pieces of their lives that would make them come to life. The kind of music Danny listened to. The way Poppy liked to sit on the floor to do her homework.

Then I’d decided to collate all the margin notes, assigning meaning where I could.

I had to bury Ricky Ricardo quickly—the neighbor’s cat.

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