Page 82 of The Secrets We Hide
“No, but everybody at school knew about Allison, so it made sense that Bill started hurting Mandy, too.”
Pam shushed out a low breath, but she said nothing.
“But you never heard it from Mandy, and you never saw it happen yourself?”
“No.”
“Okay.” Emmy studied the girl’s face for deception but couldn’t find any. “Did you notice anything different about Mandy lately?”
“Yeah, after Bill moved out, she seemed better. Mandy effing hates Bill. We all do. He’s an asshole. Always trying to control things. Telling us we’re not as pretty as we think we are. That we’re gonna hit a wall when we turn thirty. Like, he’s not exactly a catch. Dude sells coffee makers to rich people, and he wouldn’t even have that job if his mama didn’t own the company.”
Emmy thought that was very astute. “How was Mandy different after Bill moved out? Can you give me some examples?”
“Not so stressed all the time. Smiling more. Joking. She stopped pulling out her hair. Started eating like a normal person.Talia told me Allison took the locks off the cabinets and the refrigerator. Bill put them in a while ago. He said he didn’t want them to get fat.”
Pam covered her mouth in horror.
Skylar continued, “Mandy was really looking forward to her next birthday, ’cause her last birthday she had a party at the movie theater with just a bunch of friends, and Bill pitched a fit and made Mrs. Vickery let him come, too. Like, what was he doing there? Nobody likes him. He just sat in the back and rolled his eyes when we laughed at anything.”
Emmy tried to gently steer her back to Mandy. “Did anything else about Mandy’s life change when Bill moved out two weeks ago?”
Skylar shrugged, but said, “She could finally sleep, you know? She used to just lie in bed at night waiting for the fights to start. Like, even if they didn’t fight, it kept her awake just worrying that her mom was gonna get hurt again. So I think that was the big thing. She could sleep through the night without worrying her mom was gonna, like, die.”
Emmy tried to clear the shard of glass from her throat. She knew exactly what that felt like. “Did Mandy ever say anything about leaving town, or Allison taking her away?”
“No,” Skylar said. “But she woulda been so relieved. That’s all Mandy ever wanted was for them to get away from Bill. She used to make up stories about it when we were little, like that a handsome prince was gonna save her, or maybe she was secretly royalty and her real dad was a rich duke and he was gonna fly her home in his private jet and stuff like that. But she stopped when she got older ’cause what’s the point? Nothing ever changed.”
“Did Mandy ever talk in concrete terms about her real father?”
“She never knew him. Mrs. Vickery wouldn’t say when she asked. Just got real quiet.” Skylar shrugged. “I mean, maybe she still dreamed about him being a duke and taking her away. I dunno. You’d have to ask Talia.”
Emmy thought about the way Mandy had pulled at the restraints tying her to the hospital bed when she’d talked about getting away. Emmy had assumed she was thinking about her attacker, but maybe she was thinking about her life.
She asked, “Did you notice anyone new hanging around Mandy? Not just lately, but in the last year?”
“I don’t know.” There was something different about Skylar’s shrug this time. She was closing back up, worried about getting herself or Mandy in trouble. “Like I said, she didn’t talk to me about real things.”
“Talia told me that there was an older man in Mandy’s life. That he had a job.”
Skylar started nodding. She’d clearly noticed something was going on. “That makes sense.”
“How so?”
“She had money lately. More than usual. Like, she was buying things online, and there’s no way Allison would ever let her do that. Bill was always screaming about money. They weren’t allowed to buy anything without his permission.”
“What was Mandy buying?”
“Stuff from Nike. She had it sent to Talia’s so Allison wouldn’t find out, and Talia told me that the receipt was almost five hundred dollars.”
Emmy was going to have to go back harder at Talia. “Do you know if Mandy used a cash app or Venmo to pay for it?”
“Talia said she used a gift card, but Mandy wouldn’t say who gave it to her.”
The girl’s relationship with Talia seemed to be closer than she’d earlier described. “Did you ever notice if Mandy had another phone? Like a flip phone?”
Skylar shook her head. “Allison gave her an old iPhone. That’s all I ever saw her use.”
“Did Talia tell you that she saw Mandy leave school in the older man’s car?”
