22. Adolescent Secrets

22

I t seemed to take ages for Chance and me to slowly make our way through the information we had stolen liberated from the headmaster's office, because with the end of the term fast approaching, it only left us with maybe a couple hours on weeknights and half of the weekend, if we were lucky. Still, we persevered, poring over everything together in the lounge.

Most of what Winston had amassed were things we already knew or could be easily found online. Twin sisters Faith and Hope Marshall, aged 17, juniors, disappeared in the spring of 1992. They supposedly left Montgomery Prep for spring break, but never arrived home. The problem was that there were no witnesses who saw them depart, which was why Montgomery had been the focus of the investigation.

The authorities and locals combed the woods for weeks after their disappearance, with no luck. There were newspaper clippings from all across the country, showing that the case had made national headlines, but as it was just before the 24-hour news cycle shifted into high gear, the fanfare died down rather quickly after they had failed to be found.

Although, the fact that Winston had kept so many articles showed that he was tracking the case. But his tracking news about students that had gone missing from the school he ran didn't say much about whether or not he'd had anything to do with their disappearance.

The school records for the two girls were also fairly standard. They'd had average grades, no incident reports, and they'd both seemed to be on track to apply for college by the end of their tenure at the school, even though, sadly, they would never make it there.

The police report, on the other hand, was much more valuable.

Wayne Davies, the head detective on the case, was very thorough in both his investigation as well as his documentation. There was a fair amount that was redacted, but nothing that Chance and I were overly interested in, as it was mostly student names because they were minors at the time.

Winston, it seemed, was quickly ruled out as a viable suspect because he had a rock-solid alibi during the time that the girls went missing, seeing as he was on a flight to the Maldives to start his spring break early.

In my opinion, and certainly Chance's, who was still very much convinced he was guilty of something, his alibi didn't exonerate him entirely. If he'd had a reason to want to get rid of the girls, he was wealthy enough and had possessed plenty of connections to find a way to make it happen.

The police's main theory was a botched kidnapping, seeing as the Marshalls were exceedingly wealthy and the twins' father was a politician. However, no ransom demands were ever made. No evidence was ever found in the woods during the searches, or anywhere else on campus.

DNA testing had still been an emerging field at the time, from what I could tell, but I wasn't sure what the police would have been able to test with such a lack of physical evidence, other than the girls' belongings, which had been untouched in their room. Their purses had gone missing with them, however, which had led Davies to surmise that they had been on their way home, but it was unclear where along the way they had gone missing, as their driver had never connected with them.

Reviewing the multitude of interviews with the girls' parents, friends, family, as well as faculty and staff from the school, was exhausting and turned up nothing. The girls seemed to have been well liked, they'd had no boyfriends, and had made no enemies or rivals that anyone could think of.

"I don't think there's anything here." Chance sighed, closing his laptop after we finished the last of the interviews. "They're a dead end."

"For now." I leaned back against the chair at the study table. Chance followed the movement of my arms as I stretched them over my head.

"It was always going to be a long shot that two girls, twenty years ago, had anything to do with Daniel." Chance sighed.

"Do you really think there wasn't a single person that had an issue with them? In all the interviews, it seemed like everyone loved them, but they were teenage girls. There had to have been at least one or two petty arguments that could have escalated."

Chance's brow furrowed, considering my assessment.

"Reading through the interviews, it felt like everyone was protecting the girls, but what if, in their desire to show them in the best light, they left out something that would have mattered?" he added.

"Would Daniel have hidden anything from you? I mean, I know he was trying to work on the article by himself, but something else…something that was going on in his life."

Chance's shoulders slumped. "I'm sure he could have. We were fast friends, but considering how my father treated him, he would have been within his rights to keep anything from me. Don't all teenagers have secrets?"

He was so nonchalant with the last bit that it made me curious. I leaned toward him, resting my elbows on the table. "What was your teenage secret?"

Chance gave a soft laugh. "Probably not what you'd expect."

I raised a brow, encouraging him to continue.

"I questioned my sexuality a lot when I was younger."

I reeled back, definitely not expecting that answer.

"Because I was into art and more creative endeavors, I used to get teased a lot about it; even my dad would call me gay sometimes, like it would have been the worst thing in the world if I was attracted to men. And after a while, I wondered if they were seeing something I wasn't. But the more I learned—when I actually met people who were queer—I knew for sure I was not. I was just subjected to a lot of bullying, but nothing compared to what actual queer people go through."

Chance sighed. "It was around that time I started to realize that the pressure my dad put on me, the pressure of my family name, that it wasn't normal. It was probably around the same time that I started trying to figure out an exit strategy."

"I'm sorry you went through that. It must have been very confusing and difficult." I had the urge to reach out to him, but held back. The deeper things got with Chance and me, the harder they would be to manage, and they were already so complicated.

Considering why Chance had come to Montgomery, I didn't think he planned on staying, once he discovered the truth about Daniel's disappearance. Combined with my concern over violating the faculty rules of conduct, I felt even more strongly that I needed to keep my walls up and maintain distance from him. But he made it next to impossible, when he was so very open and raw with his words, as if nobody had ever stopped to listen to him…to comfort him.

"What was your secret?" he threw the question back at me softly.

I chewed my lip nervously, debating how much I wanted to share. But Chance had been so vulnerable, it only felt fair to let him have a peek behind the wall that I kept built so high around my heart. Maybe a small part of me wanted to test him too. Would he judge me, like others before him?

"Growing up, I was responsible for a lot more than most kids my age were. My mom has always dealt with depression, and some years were better than others. But nobody knew how bad things were, because I was terrified that if they did, I'd be taken away from her, and I didn't know what she'd do without me." I folded over the table, resting my chin on the tops of my hands, but keeping my eye contact with Chance.

It was as if talking about my complicated relationship with my mother and everything I had gone through in my youth continued to physically exhaust me, even though it had been years since I'd been subjected to the worst of it.

Chance reached out, when I couldn't with him, and rested his hand on my arm to comfort and encourage me.

"I had to get a job at fourteen, the second I was eligible for a work permit. I worked every hour I could get, bagging groceries for minimum wage, which was pennies back then, just to try to keep the electricity on. We got checks from the government, but they rarely stretched far enough to cover everything without my mom being able to hold down a job."

Chance's lips parted, as if he wanted to apologize, but he closed them and said nothing, letting us sit in a comfortable silence for a while.

"I almost didn't go to college. I was worried she'd hurt herself. But she encouraged me to go. Despite it all, she was always supportive of everything I did; she did the best she could." I bit my cheek, hating that I was always protecting her, even now. "When I left, I couldn't afford to support her as much because I had to cover my own bills, so she got a reverse mortgage on the house. Those assholes are so predatory," I spit.

Chance nodded in agreement.

"Every cent I get paid here that doesn't go to pay off my mountainous student loans gets sent to the bank to pay them back for taking advantage of her at her weakest moment." I closed my eyes. "The house is too big, and she really should sell it, but it's all that's left of my dad. I can't take that away from her. She wouldn't recover."

Again the stillness surrounded us.

I opened my eyes to find Chance watching me, a melancholic expression upon his face. I wondered what he was thinking, so I asked him.

"What am I thinking?" he repeated. "That it's a lot for someone so young to take on. That it must have been painful to try to work through the contradiction of loving your mother so deeply but feeling resentment for not getting to be a child and not having been taken care of the way a child ought to be."

I let out a quiet sob. I had never had someone put it so eloquently before.

Chance leaned forward, his fingertip gently wiping away the tear that was trailing down my cheek. "You're not alone, Violet."