Page 17 of Darkwater Lane

“No apologies,” she says, cutting me off. “If it weren’t for your past, you’d never have moved to Stillhouse Lake, and we’d wouldn’t have become friends. It’s because of your past that I get to have you in my life. And for that, I’m grateful.”

My eyes burn as tears threaten. Kez isn’t one to wear her emotions on her sleeves, which makes her words even more meaningful. “You’re the best.”

She clears her throat. “Stupid pregnancy hormones, making me tear up all the damn time,” she grumbles. “I’ll be glad when that’s no longer an issue.”

I laugh. “Postpartum hormones are even worse.”

She groans. “I don’t want to hear about that,” she says. “Hanging up now. Bye.”

I smile as the call disconnects. Even so, I still feel unsettled. I check the location app on my phone: Lanny’s at school, Connor is at the library, and Sam is offline, which probably means he’s flying since he tends to turn his phone off before takeoff.

A familiar anxiety sits heavily in my stomach. I try to determine the source of it: the podcast, the FBI visit, spending so much time focused on Sicko Patrol. Sure, all of those things are contributors, but the feeling in my gut is more than that. It makes me antsy, like there’s something I should be doing that I forgot.

I rack my brain, scrolling back through my emails to figure out if maybe I scheduled an appointment and forgot to put it on my calendar. There’s nothing. It’s maddening, because if I can’t figure out the source of my unease, then I can’t address it. It just sits there, churning and weighing down my thoughts.

I decide to distract myself with laundry. I’ve often found that I get some of my best thinking done during the most mundane tasks. I’m sorting through my dirty clothes when I realize I haven’t seen my favoriteRamonesT-shirt in a while. Which means it has once again fallen into the black hole of Lanny’s room.

I go hunt for it, and while I’m there, I figure I might as well start on her laundry as well. I’m excavating a trove of old clothes from under her bed when I come across a shoebox. It gets hooked on the hem of aBlondieT-shirt—also mine—and accidentally tips over, spilling its contents.

It’s nothing risqué, just a collection of envelopes. I wonder for a moment if perhaps I’ve come across her trove of love letters and consider taking a peek. But then I remind myself that Lanny’s room is her sanctuary, and I’m invading it. I should stop, shove the envelopes back into the shoebox, and slide it under her bed. To do anything else would be a violation of the deepest kind.

Then I think about Connor and how he spent last year secretlyposting on a Melvin Royal message board. He’d created an entire online identity as Melvin’s Little Helper and posted details about Melvin and his crimes that he learned by snooping through old letters Melvin had sent me.

I’d had no idea about any of it: that he’d found the letters or was posting snippets online. I only learned about it when the FBI searched Connor’s computer after his best friend took a gun to school and shot two students, then claimed Connor had put him up to it.

The whole experience had shattered my trust and opened my eyes.

It’s not fair that Lanny should also suffer the consequences of Connor’s missteps, but that’s just the reality of our lives. We’re not like most families who don’t give the safety of their homes and their lives a second thought.

We’ve been hunted before. Both of my kids have been kidnapped. Each of us has a target on our back because of our relation to Melvin Royal.

I know the right thing to do would be to return the shoebox and walk away. But then I remember when Lanny was four and chased the neighbor’s dog out into the street without looking. I’d screamed in terror as I watched a car barrel toward her. Thankfully, it stopped with a squeal of brakes. When I was able to catch my breath, I explained to her that she couldn’t ever, ever, ever run out into the street like that again.

She’d looked at me, genuinely confused, and asked, “But why?” I’d told her she could be hit by a car. She still didn’t understand. Her brain couldn’t grasp the finality of that danger.

The conversation had left me shaking, because if she couldn’t recognize danger, how could I ever teach her to avoid it?

As adults, we recognize dangers kids don’t. That’s our job.

I’ve spent the last several years trying to instill thatunderstanding in my kids. Sometimes, I think they get it. Sometimes, I know they don’t.

It’s the latter that keeps me up at night. It’s also what has me retrieving the first envelope from under Lanny’s bed. I freeze when I notice the return address. It’s from Stanford University. I read the first line:Congratulations! We would like to welcome you to the class of…

My eyes go wide, and I find myself smiling and laughing giddily. It’s an acceptance letter! To Stanford! My baby girl got into Stanford! I let out a whoop of excitement and immediately reach for my phone, wanting to congratulate her.

Then, I realize I can’t.

I’m not supposed to know about this.Maybe she’s waiting to surprise me with the news, I think. Then I glance at the date and feel like I’ve been punched in the gut. The letter is from months ago.

I sit back on my heels and reach for the next envelope. It’s another acceptance letter. This time from Berkeley. There’s another from Smith and one from Princeton. Another from Duke. I shake my head in wonder. I’ve always known Lanny is smart, but this blows my mind.

My chest swells with pride at what my daughter has accomplished.

But my pride is tempered by confusion. Why hasn’t she shared any of this? Why keep it a secret? How did I not notice all these letters coming in the mail?

That’s when I look closer at the top of the letters and notice that all were sent to a private mailbox and not home. Which makes all of this even more intentional. She had to have found a place that would rent a box to a minor and set it all up before she even started applying.

Keeping this news a secret took planning and effort. Why?

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