Page 29 of Everyone Here Is Lying
Erin looks back at her in surprise. “A boyfriend? Hardly. She’s nine years old!” She asks, “Who told you that? Probably Jenna—Avery doesn’t really have any other friends.”
Gully says carefully, “We’re concerned that Avery may have been taken advantage of by someone older. Jenna said Avery told her they did ‘grown-up things.’ It could be that she was being molested. She was lonely, vulnerable.”
Erin looks back at her in revulsion. “My God,” she cries, “could it get any worse?” Her voice rises in despair. “What else was going on right under my nose?”
“I’m sorry,” Gully says.
“Oh God,” Erin says, “I can’t deal with this.”
“So you don’t have any idea who that might be, if it’s in fact true?”
Erin shakes her head and covers her face with her hands.
“Can I talk to Michael?” Gully asks.
Erin nods wearily. “He’s upstairs. I’ll get him.” She seems to steel herself, then rises slowly from the sofa and climbs the stairs as if she’s aged decades since her daughter went missing. She returns with Michael trailing behind her, a tall, gangly boy who looks like he’s about to face a firing squad. He seems even paler than before, with his wheat-colored hair and dark circles under his eyes.
Gully stands. “Michael, I was hoping I could talk to you about your sister, would that be okay? Your mom can stay with us.”
Michael nods and sits down on the sofa beside his mother, and Gully sits again in the armchair across from them. She leans in closer to Michael. “Did Avery ever say anything to you about having a boyfriend?”
Twenty
No,” Michael says automatically, before he even thinks about it.
“Take your time,” Detective Gully tells him, her voice soothing.
He’s glad it’s her and not the other detective. The other detective scares him. He feels hollowed out, after everything that’s happened. He can hardly think straight. He glances at his mother, who is watching him in dread, as if expecting to hear something terrible. He can’t do that to her. He must protect his mother—she might be all he has left. Besides, he doesn’t know anything. He blurts out, “She’s only nine.”
“I know,” Gully says. And waits.
“She never said anything to me about a boyfriend,” Michael says.
“I know this is hard, but it’s important,” Gully says to him gently.“We’ve discovered that Avery claimed she was seeing an older boy, that they did ‘grown-up things’ together.”
He feels his face flush with embarrassment.
“Did you ever see her with an older boy?” Gully asks.
He thinks hard. He can’t believe Avery was doing anything like that. She’s just a kid. But it makes him uncomfortable because he knows how guys talk about girls.
He shakes his head. Then he hesitates, suddenly remembering something. He says, “Just once.” And stops himself cold.
“Who did you see her with, Michael?” the detective presses.
He doesn’t want to say, because he doesn’t like where this is going. But Gully is waiting, and his little sister is missing. He swallows nervously. “It was at the tree house, in the woods.” Gully nods, encouraging him. “I was in the woods one day a few weeks ago, and I went to the tree house and Avery was there. At first I thought she was alone. But she wasn’t.”
“And...” Gully prompts him.
“They weren’tdoinganything,” he insists.
“Who was with her, Michael?”
“Derek. Jenna’s brother.”
•••
Midmorning, William finallylocates a pay phone at the local community center. He keeps an eye out, paranoid that he’s being watched. He’d snuck out the back of the hotel to avoid the reporters. For once the police seem to be leaving him alone—no one has asked him down to the station for questioning yet today. He thinks about Erin and Michael, and worries about how they’re doing. He will call them soon, if they will even talk to him.
