Beneath Her Skin by Gregg Olsen (ebook reader for manga txt) 📗

Taylor glanced at their father, who was still muttering about the crazed fan. “I agree, Mom. Let’s talk.”

Hayley joined her sister and peered at their father, who now looked embarrassed and a little irritated.

Valerie led them to the old pine kitchen table, finally peeling off her coat and setting it along with her purse and keys on an empty chair.

“I’ll go first,” she said, while Kevin, paper now folded discreetly in half, slid into a chair next to her. It was happening so fast, he wasn’t exactly sure what his wife was going to say.

Valerie began by reminding the girls of their short stint as subjects for the University of Washington study.

“We’ve mentioned that,” she said, “remember?”

The girls nodded.

“We were exceptional, right?” Taylor said.

“In every way, of course. Just like me,” Kevin said, meaning it, but also trying to lighten the mood in the kitchen a little. “And your mom, yes, let’s not forget her.” Ordinarily, he didn’t mind tension because it was a great motivator—but not when it came to his family. His attempts to smooth things over fell completely flat.

Valerie went on to talk about the protocol for the study, how excited they’d been to have the university learn more about language development by studying the girls.

Hayley smiled a little. “We did say some crazy stuff, didn’t we?”

Taylor cut in. “Yeah, remember ‘levee split poop’?”

A look of recognition came over Hayley. “I’d forgotten that one. That was one of our classics.”

“So what’s with this Savannah?” Taylor asked, guiding the conversation back to the email she’d accidentally retrieved from the printer.

“I didn’t have my training back then,” Valerie went on, “but looking back now, I can clearly see that she had some serious emotional problems.”

“Very unstable,” Kevin added. “She just kind of fell apart on us. She was supposed to come back to do more follow-up sessions and she just vanished. Quit the program. The university. We never heard from her again.”

“As I recall, neither did the university,” Valerie said. “You made multiple calls there, didn’t you?”

Kevin nodded.

“What happened to her?” Taylor asked.

“Who knows? With the kind of work your mom and I do, we probably know better than any family around that the world is full of misfits, tortured souls, and the wholly unbalanced,” Kevin said.

“Why is she talking to Moira Windsor?” Hayley asked, knowing the answer.

Kevin looked away. “Moira’s writing an article and wants info on you two.”

Taylor spoke up. “So what does that have to do with Savannah?”

Kevin looked at Valerie. She wasn’t answering, so he did. “You know that the ten-year anniversary is coming up,” he said. “We’ve talked about that.”

There was no need to say what anniversary. In the Ryan household there was always… IT.

Valerie: I have a conference in Port Townsend Thursday and Friday… crossing that bridge only makes me think about IT.

Taylor: Tell me about how you and mom stayed by our sides at the hospital after IT happened.

Hayley: Even though I have no memory of IT, every time a short bus goes by I wonder about IT.

Kevin: IT almost cost us everything.

“Someone at the Herald probably tipped off Moira about the anniversary and the tragedy of Katelyn’s death. Linking all of you together, though none of it is related whatsoever,” he said.

“Talk about someone trying to capitalize on a tragedy,” Taylor said, looking at her father. Despite the seriousness of the moment, it was a playful poke at her dad’s true-crime writing.

“Thanks for that, Tay,” he said.

“What video is Savannah talking about?”

“She taped you girls,” Kevin said. “You know that. I asked the school for a copy after she quit, but they never got back to us.”

Valerie smiled as a happy memory crossed her mind. “Yes, we wanted it because we didn’t have the money for a video camera back then. It would have been nice to have. You girls were so tiny.”

Kevin suggested a slice of Dutch apple pie, like it was some worthy distraction from the conversation that was really going nowhere. Hayley got up to get the plates.

Taylor looked at her mother directly, without saying a word. She was playing the old chicken game, a stare down, just to see what she could read in her mother’s eyes. Valerie turned away first.

* * *

Later that night, Hayley and Taylor talked through the outlet cover.

“I hate it when they lie to us,” Hayley said in a soft whisper.

Taylor rolled over to get closer to the outlet. “No kidding,” she said. “I felt like calling them on it.”

“Me too. We’re going to have check out Atlanta Osteen,” Hayley said, deliberately using an incorrect first name.

“Savannah,” Taylor said.

“Whatever,” Hayley went on. “I hate it when parents name their kids for the states the moms got pregnant in.”

“It’s a city.”

“Okay,” Hayley said. “I hate when parents name their kids after cities too. Geographic names are just plain dumb.”

“Remember how we had four Dakotas in fifth grade?”

“Good night, Taylor.”

And though they were joking a little, both girls felt very uneasy about what had transpired that evening—the email, the discussion with their parents. There were things about their own lives that were foreign to them. Undeniably, there was some irony to all of that. On separate occasions, Colton and Beth had remarked about how open-minded their parents were. Hayley and Taylor knew there was an invisible wall there too.

Some things were hidden behind a curtain. But no more. Not if they had any say in it.

When word got around to everyone else in Port Gamble (thanks, Beth!) that Jake Damon had been picked up in conjunction with the death of Katelyn Berkeley, tongues wagged in the way they do in small towns where everybody has an opinion about someone else’s business. Jake had few fans to begin with. Most people were sure he was nothing but a male gold digger, though with Mindee Larsen, he was surely digging in a depleted mine. Although she never told anyone, her husband, Adam, had disappeared with more than the