Promise You Won't Tell?

Chapter 36

“There’s one benefit to being a minor,” Riley says. 

“What’s that?”

“The police forced the camera crews to leave.”

 “That’s good news, at least.”

I’m happy for her, but mildly surprised, because ten years ago the media hammered me after I escaped from Colin Tyler Hicks’s basement. It got so bad Mom and I had to move away and change our names. 

Riley says, “What’s your big news?”

We’re in my car, on the street in front of her house. Riley looks remarkably composed. If I didn’t know better, I’d think it was just another day in her life.

 “I heard you were under a doctor’s care, on suicide watch.”

 “My mom just told the media that so they’d back off. I’m fine.”

 “You look fine,” I say, “though I have no idea how you manage it.”

 “What’s my alternative?” she says. “What’s done is done. Time to move past it.”

I shake my head in disbelief, and feel like I always do when I’m in Riley’s presence: like I’m with someone who’s in complete control. Indeed, now that I think about it, every setback we’ve faced bothered me more than her. 

 “You may be seventeen,” I say, “but you’re the most together person I’ve ever met. At any age.”

She smiles. “I’m a duck.”

I give her a curious look. “Care to elaborate?”

 “When you see a duck in a pond, the part you see is peaceful, quiet, and serene. But under the surface, his legs are kicking away, churning water. That’s me.”

 “Well, I’m impressed.”

 “Thanks,” she says.

She looks at me, expectantly.

I say, “Okay. The reason I’m here, Gavin Clark brought Ethan and Ronnie to my office tonight. They told me their version of what happened.”

 “If I understood you correctly, they implicated Parker.”

 “In a major way. And Gavin said he met with her and she corroborated Ethan’s story. Wait. Are you smiling?”

 “I am.”

 “Why?”

 “Because that’s the story Ethan concocted to tell his dad. Parker rehearsed it with him, and when his dad met her, she managed to score ten grand from him to tell it.”

I frown. “And you’re okay with that?”

She shrugs. “What do I care? It has nothing to do with me.”

 “What if Parker has to testify?”

 “Then she’ll tell the truth. Ethan gave her the story, his dad paid her ten thousand dollars to repeat it.”

 “She took advantage of him.”

 “Not at all. Parker didn’t make up the story, Ethan did. Parker didn’t call Gavin to sell him a confession, he called her. She agreed to meet him. When she did, he yelled at her and threatened her. In the end he paid her money to tell him what he wanted to hear. Something that would make him feel better about his degenerate son. He probably doesn’t believe it, but it gives him something to hang his hopes on.”

I study her face. “Who talks like this?”

 “What do you mean?”

 “I know you’re intelligent, but you sound like you’re forty years old. Worldly beyond your years.”