Page 7 of Breached

She squeezed her fists and took a deep inhale like she was trying to stop the loop in her head. “Do you like it? Being still, I mean.”

“It’s just different.” I went with honesty. “I feel like I can let my guard down here. It’s nice.” I wanted to remind her she was still safe here.

“Yeah.” She gave a tight nod. “Mom thinks I should be homeschooled again.” She sounded sad as she said it.

I don’t blame her.

“How do you feel about that?”

She shrugged. “I get it, and the last thing I want is to stress my parents out more. They don’t need to worry about me when Easton is…” She brushed a tear away. “It’s fine,” she went on. “I FaceTime with my friends all the time, so it’s not like I can’t see them.”

“That’s very mature of you.”

A smile drew across her lips. “And I know if I want to meet up with friends, Uncle Paul will take me. He’s cool like that.”

I laughed. “That’s nice. You’re lucky to have such a big family. They are all so different.”

“I know. They are all cool. The girls love Uncle Mark because, well, as dad says, he’s a girl in a man’s body.” Her mood lightened a little, and I could see the love for her family made the pain subside slightly. “I let Uncle Mike know when boys are driving me crazy, because he gets it, Uncle John when its anything to do with farm animals—the guy loves his chickens.” I laughed again. “Uncle Keith when I just want to be quiet with someone. He’s been through a lot. He’s great to just sit with. We’ve had some nice talks,” she went on and I let her go on without interruption. “Dad is Dad. He’s the best, but lately, I just want to be around Uncle Paul since he was gone for so long.”

That caught my attention. “Gone?”

She went quiet, and I wondered what I was missing. “He just used to travel a lot.”

Oh. “Yeah, job hazard, I guess.” I could imagine the guys being away with a job like theirs would take a toll on the family. “What about the ladies?” I liked learning about everyone—kids gave it to you real. Raw and unfiltered.

“They’re rock stars.” She huffed and smiled, and I found myself loving the kid. She wasn’t that type of ’tween who hated or got embarrassed by their family. She saw how great they were, and it spoke volumes about who Olivia would be as an adult. “Of course, Mom’s the best. I love how much she and Dad love each other. I tease them when I see them together, but I know I’m lucky—a lot of my friends’ parents are divorced and hate each other. It’s ugly.”

“Very,” I agreed, and for a split second, I put myself in her shoes and wondered where I’d have ended up if I had parents like hers.

“Is trust important to you, Nicole?”

I fought to catch up—caught off guard by her quick switch in topic. “Yes, very.”

Her nose wrinkled and her face fell. Something strange came over me, and I suddenly wondered if she knew something about what had happened at Zack’s that maybe we didn’t.

“Olivia, if you know something, you can always tell me and I’ll help.”

She shook her head like I misunderstood. “I have this friend who’s keeping a secret, and I’m scared it’s going to hurt someone.”

Oh, a friend. I relaxed a little. “Well, how bad is the secret?”

“Pretty bad.”

“Like could this person potentially hurt themselves?”

“No, nothing like that, but I’m scared it’ll change things.”

I sipped my now cold coffee but didn’t care, as I needed the caffeine. “Is the person who lied a good person?”

“Very.”

I nodded. “Well, one thing that I’ve learned in my job is that secrets have a way of coming out. So, you can either choose to be ahead of the lie and do damage control, or you can wait, and when it comes out, you have to deal with the repercussions.”

“Dad always says if you’re holding a secret, you’ll be the one who stands to get hurt the most.”

I nodded. “Very well said. Maybe tell your friend to be honest and let it out. If they’re really your friend, they’ll hear you.”

“Yeah.” She looked behind us as we heard footsteps. “Hey, B,” she greeted Keith’s son Brandon. It seemed to me he’d grown three feet since I first arrived. He was already slightly taller than Olivia even though he was a year or more younger than her, I believed. He was the spitting image of his father, only with a mop of floppy hair that he raked back off his face with his fingers. He bumped Olivia’s shoulder as a greeting.