Page 57 of Little Secrets
As she heads up to the second level, she pauses on the curved staircase to look at the framed photos mounted on the wall. They’re all of Derek and Marin’s son, depicting him at all different ages.
The last one, closest to the top step, must be the most recent. In it, Sebastian is wearing the exact reindeer sweater that he was wearing in his Missing Child poster, but in this photo, he’s sitting on Santa’s lap with a huge grin on his face. It hits Kenzie how horrific this whole thing really is. It’s easy enough to not think about it when Derek refuses to talk about it, but here, in their house, there’s an entire side to Derek she’ll never know or see.
He’s a father. Who lost his child. Who’s married to a mother. Who lost her child.
Kenzie stares at the photo, reminded that Sebastian disappeared on the last Saturday before Christmas. They would have had a tree up, probably in the front living room, where it would shine in the window for the neighbors to see. They’d probably finished all their Christmas shopping, most of the presents wrapped and ready, with a few hidden away to be revealed on Christmas morning.
But instead of waking up to the sounds of little feet thundering in the hallway and down the grand staircase, and then the whoops and shrieks at the sight of all the bounty under the tree, there would have been silence. No little boy was in the house to open those presents. No little boy has been here since.
It makes Kenzie feel sick, and she takes a few seconds to breathe.
On the wall at the top of the stairs is an 8-by-10 black-and-white photo of Derek and Marin on the beach on their wedding day. She’s wearing some kind of bohemian-chic wedding dress. He’s wearing light-colored pants and a white button-down with the sleeves rolled up. They’re laughing, holding hands, their hair whipping inthe wind. In this photo, Marin is younger than Kenzie, and breathtakingly beautiful.
She walks through the second level slowly, passing a bedroom that she can only assume must be Sebastian’s. The door has a little sticker on it, and when she peers closer she sees that it’s anotherPaw Patrolcharacter. Every other door upstairs is open except this one.
She will not open it.
The master bedroom is the only thing Kenzie really wants to see, anyway, and it’s at the end of the hallway, with double doors. When she enters, the hardwood changes to carpet, but it’s not the cheap kind like in her apartment. It’s the thick, knotted kind that never shows vacuum lines or footprints. The square footage of their bedroom alone is probably the size of her and Tyler’s entire apartment. A king-size bed sits grandly against the far wall, with matching mirror-paneled nightstands flanking each side. One nightstand is piled with books—a few self-help, the rest fiction. The other is bare save for a phone charger hanging limply off the edge. Kenzie can guess which side Derek sleeps on. He’s not a reader.
She enters the ensuite, which smells like lavender and looks like something out of a magazine. Tile laid painstakingly in a herringbone pattern. Glass-enclosed shower, big enough for two. The vanity is the widest she’s ever seen, and there’s a claw-footed tub by the window, so deep that there’s a little footstool beside it to help you step in. The toilet sits in its own room with a door just next to the shower, and Kenzie makes a beeline for it to relieve herself.
She can’t even begin to process the walk-in closet. Derek’s side is full of suits, no surprise there. But Marin’s side… The woman has so muchstuff. Dresses. Coats. Suits. Pants. Blouses. All sorted by style and color. There’s a center island—an island!—with drawers for socks and underwear and workout clothes and jeans, and the entire back wall is just for bags and shoes. And to think Kenzie fretted when Derek bought her a Dolce & Gabbana bag in New York, theonly designer bag she owns, and so nice she’s only allowed herself to use it when she’s with Derek. In contrast, his wifeonlyowns designer bags. Gucci. Ferragamo. Chanel. Vuitton. And one budget-friendly Tory Burch, well worn and clearly well loved.
Kenzie pulls out her phone, unable to resist taking a picture of herself in the most spectacular closet she’s ever been in. She takes several angles, wondering what would happen if she posted the pics on Instagram. Would either of them even know? This closet is exactly the kind of thing she’d see onMillion Dollar Listing, that Bravo reality TV show she and Tyler were addicted to last summer.
“Why the hell do we watch this?” she’d asked her roommate, stuffing her face with microwave popcorn as a rich couple no older than thirty declared on camera that their 2,200-square-foot Manhattan apartment was a bit too tight for themselves and their bichon frise. “This just makes me feel shitty about my life.”
“Because it’saspirational,” Ty answered, and he was right. “We watch because these are the people we wish we were.”
A pair of red-soled high heels catches Kenzie’s eye. Christian Louboutins. They’re works of art, black satin with a crystal bow at the toe, four-inch heels. Size 8. Kenzie is an eight and a half. Close enough. Peeling off her socks, she slips the shoes on. They’re a little tight, but she snaps a picture of her feet in them anyway. She puts them back on the shelf, then decides they look even more glamorous in front of the purse collection. She arranges the pair artfully and snaps several more photos. Why?Because it’s aspirational.
She walks back into the main area of the bedroom, her feet making no noise on the well-padded carpet. She pictures Marin reading in bed and Derek sliding in beside her, back in happier times, when their child was asleep down the hall and they finally had some time to themselves. Marin’s wearing pajamas, or maybe a college T-shirt of Derek’s. He’s wearing old basketball shorts, shirtless, maybe fresh from a shower after a long day. Maybe they make love. Maybethey just spoon. Maybe they talk about their day, quietly and lightheartedly, until one of them falls asleep. Derek would be the one to close his eyes first, and once he does, sleep would come fast. Marin would take longer, because women always do, her brain firing for a few more minutes about the hundred different things that happened over the course of the day and the two hundred things that will happen tomorrow.
Kenzie doesn’t belong here. It’s time to go.
Chapter 20
Not knowing how to reset the alarm, Kenzie leaves it off. She exits the house the same way she came in, quietly and carefully. What she just did was stupid and reckless, and she can never allow herself to lose control like that again.
The air smells fresh from the rain and she decides to walk for a while to clear her head. Her last boyfriend, Paul, had lived in a neighborhood similar to this in Boise—quiet, pretentious, suburban, white. The last time Kenzie saw him was three weeks after his drunk wife tried to push her way into the apartment. Paul had already tried to end it with her—over the phone, no less—and when she protested, he’d offered her ten thousand dollars “as a parting gift.”
As if.
Kenzie had showed up at Paul’s house a couple of nights later, crying, begging him to be with her, pretending to be drunk and heartbroken. His wife and daughters were at home, and when he answered the door and saw her, his face paled. He shut the door behind him and yanked her over to the side of the house, where it was dark and full of bushes, where nobody could see them.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Paul hissed.
His hand gripped her arm, and later, she would discover bruiseswhere his fingers had pressed into her skin. She’d never seen him so angry. He’d always been gentle with her… soft, even. It was amazing how much strength someone could muster when they felt threatened.
“You’re hurting me,” she whimpered, and he let her go.
“You can’t be here.” Paul glared at her with a look so fierce it could have detonated stone. “I have a family, McKenzie.”
“I want us to be together. I love you.” She reached for his hand. “And you love me.”
“It was never love,” he said, backing away from her. “I see that now. I was unhappy and needed someone to… make me feel wanted again. Leah and I are starting therapy, and we’re going to try to make it work. I’m sorry, okay? Now please go. My kids are inside.”
“So that’s it?” She stared at him. “You’re done with me, so you’re just going to throw me away? Like I’m garbage?”
