NICE OF YOU to stop by.”
I jumped, nearly dropping the yogurt I’d taken out of the refrigerator on the fly. I hadn’t even noticed Dad sitting at the kitchen table, his bathrobe open to expose a white V-neck, boxer shorts, and tube socks. What I used to call his Dad Uniform, back when I felt comfortable enough with him to tease him. He had his laptop open and was browsing the news.
“You scared me,” I said. “I was just leaving.”
“Broken record,” he said to the screen. “I almost forgot you lived here.”
“Don’t be dramatic.” I pulled the foil off the top of the yogurt and licked it clean, grabbing a spoon out of the drawer at the same time.
His eyes flicked up to me. “It’s dramatic to miss your daughter?”
“It’s normal for someone my age to be gone all the time. If I was like everyone else, I would be off at college right now.”
“But you’re not like everyone else.”
I paused with a spoonful of yogurt halfway to my mouth. “Thanks for that.”
He shut the laptop and took off his glasses, then laid them on the table and rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. “Well, it’s the truth, right? You’re gone all the time. You’re with some mysterious man I’ve never met. You’re not going to school. You’re not working. Where in the world are you all day?”
“I’m busy being eighteen,” I said defensively.
“You’re busy hiding things from me.”
That was it. A pop of ragemonster red on the ceiling and a splash of indigo in my yogurt, fern and ink seeping across the floor and under my feet. I was done.
“Really?” I asked, setting my half-eaten yogurt on the counter. “You’re going to talk to me about hiding things?”
“Nikki, let’s not turn this into a big deal,” he said wearily. “I just got out of bed. I’ve been working and I’m tired and I’m not awake enough for theatrics.”
“Oh, sure, you’re right. This isn’t a big deal.” My Chucks were on the floor next to the garage door, and I went to them. “What you’re hiding, though, is a big deal.” Once it was out of my mouth, I could hardly believe I’d said it aloud. But it was too late to go back now, and I wasn’t even sure if I would have.
“What are you talking about?”
“Mom!” I practically shouted. I had one shoe on and was working the second one, but my hands were shaking now. “You’re hiding what happened with Mom. You knew, Dad. You knew about Hollywood Dreams. You knew about Peyton. You knew about Bill Hollis. You burned his studio down and you knew he wanted revenge. I think you even knew he wanted her dead.” I finally got my other shoe on, and I found my finger angrily jabbing the air in his direction. “You knew everything. You kept evidence in that box under your desk. I don’t know if you physically killed her yourself, but you might as well have. Because you let the killer in, didn’t you? You left her alone on your supposed date night, knowing how powerful Bill Hollis was.”
Dad’s face had remained a stunned oval. It had gone ghostly white and then filled in high up on the cheeks with pink splotches. “Nikki,” he said, his voice raspy.
“You lied to me,” I said, my throat constricting with angry rusty starbursts. I almost felt like they were going to choke me. “You said the police couldn’t solve her murder, but all these years you never said their only suspect was you and that they just didn’t have anything concrete on you. You lied to me, Dad, for my entire life. So don’t get all high and mighty on me about hiding things. I could never hide anything as well as you.”
“Nikki,” he repeated. He sounded small, defeated. “You don’t understand.”
I pulled my keys out of my pocket. “Spare me, okay? I don’t need any more of your lies.” I opened the garage door, then turned back while the big garage door rumbled and creaked open. “Oh, and what I’m hiding from you is this. I’m going after Luna. And her dad, Peter. Because somehow Mom’s murder is tied to the Hollises and to him, and Luna’s the last one standing. And because she’s tried to kill me twice, and I won’t ever be able to live normally as long as I know she’s out there. Not that I would really know what normal is anyway. But, honestly, I have been looking for her because I want her dead. And if I have to kill her myself, then so be it. Like father, like daughter, right? There. How’s that for honesty?”
I stomped down the wooden step into the garage, slamming the door behind me. My colors were going crazy—rage and sadness and giddiness and relief—and I let them float me all the way to the car. I didn’t know what was going to happen when I came back home—if I came back home—but I knew everything between Dad and me had changed, all in the course of one conversation.
And that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.
I backed out of the driveway and pointed my car toward the beach. As I rolled past my house, I could see Dad standing in a front window—the one in the spare bedroom—watching me leave, his bathrobe cinched around his waist and a serious look on his face.