Deception Read online

  Except I already had.

  I met Bennett two years ago, when he came home with Max on spring break. He was my picture ideal of what a Harvard freshman should look like: half preppy, half bohemian in faded polos and ripped khakis. His dark wavy hair fell perfectly across his brow, and every time he looked at me he seemed to be smiling. Max, on the other hand, had taken to brown plaid shirts and stovepipe corduroys—a look that suited no one.

  Meeting Bennett was like meeting destiny. When he’d appeared behind Max, something had clicked. I couldn’t look away. I just knew. Maybe we weren’t meant to be together right then, but one day our lives would join.

  He only stayed a week, yet my insides resonated every time he entered the room, like the right chord on a piano. So in a way his sudden reappearance simply felt right, after two years of fantasies. Of course, in my dreams Bennett wasn’t saving me from a foster family, but I wasn’t the type of girl to turn down a knight in J.Crew armor.

  Except he wasn’t my guardian. He was just a friend of my brother’s. He wasn’t even distant family. Guardian angel maybe, with a tilted halo, not looking quite as innocent as he used to.

  “I’ll need to examine your papers,” Cadaver told him.

  “Of course.” Bennett handed them over and flashed me a look. The smile was still there, and so was his preppy-hippie style. He wore a white button-down, tattered blazer, dark-wash jeans, and loafers. His eyes were bright blue and thick lashed, and I forced myself to look away before the Cadaver realized I was hot for him. He wasn’t going to let me go off with the sexy guardian, like in some steamy romance novel.

  “Does that mean—” I stopped. I didn’t want to say too much in front of Cadaver. “Have you seen my mom and dad recently?”

  “No. Emma, I’m sorry. We arranged the guardianship before they left. You’ve heard from them though, right?”

  “Well, they’re outside of cell reception so I can’t call them back. They’re with Max now—”

  Bennett’s frown stopped me, and I recalled why he disappeared two years ago. He and Max had a blowout fight, some apocalyptic argument, and Max refused to speak of him ever again—even though a certain sister pestered him until he locked her in the bathroom. I’d never found out what they’d fought about. Now was my chance.

  “Speaking of Max. Why did you two—”

  Cadaver interrupted. “The paperwork appears to be in order. Still, one cannot be too careful.” He showed me the papers. “Look them over, Miss Vaile.”

  I checked my parents’ signatures. My dad’s looked absolutely real, but I noticed a faint dotting of the i in Vaile on my mother’s. She never dotted her i’s. Still, the papers had been notarized, so Cadaver had no reason to doubt them—and I wasn’t going to live with the Belchers.

  Plus, I didn’t have any reason not to trust Bennett. Not yet.

  “That’s definitely their signatures,” I said. “Everything looks right to me.”

  “You now have a third option,” the Cadaver told me. “The halfway house or the foster home, as previously discussed, becoming a temporary ward of the state until …”

  I tuned him out as I gazed at Bennett. What was he doing here? How had he known to bring fake guardianship papers? Did he counterfeit the signatures himself?

  And what exactly was that shade of blue in his eyes—cobalt?

  Cadaver’s voice penetrated my reverie. “And your decision?”

  “I choose Bennett.”

  6

  On the drive home, I planned how it would play out: Bennett would transfer from Harvard to Berkeley and move into Max’s room. We’d meet for study breaks and candlelit suppers. His family also sold antiquities, so he’d help me with the shop, and in no time my parents would return and Bennett and I would be in love.

  In reality, I worshipped him like a god the entire ride home in his Taurus rental and he, apparently, knew he was divine because he rebuffed me like Apollo spurning a lowly shepherdess. Although after spending the night in a halfway house, I did look as though I’d rolled with the sheep.

  Still, despite the urge to pick straw from my hair, I was relieved to be home. And grateful. Only … how had he known to come?

  Suddenly unsure, I paused with my thumb over the security print. “Why are you here? How did you know I was in trouble?”

  He flashed a crooked grin. “Always a safe bet.”

  “Hey! I’m never in trouble—I mean, except now. And that’s not what I meant. How did you know where to find me? And those fake papers—”

  Bennett’s phone jingled. “Saved by the iPhone,” he said, and stepped away.

  I stood there with my thumb hanging out, watching him. He eyed me as though I were trying to eavesdrop, which I was, so I went inside and tried to eavesdrop from there.

  I heard him murmuring, but couldn’t make out the details. He said either “love you” or “you, too” before hanging up. Was he talking to his girlfriend?

  He came inside and said, “I’ve gotta run.”

  “The last time you left,” I said, “you didn’t come back for two years.”

  He took my hand and looked at me with his cobalt eyes. “So you did miss me.”

  “That’s not—” Okay, yeah, that’s exactly what I meant.

  He grinned. “I’m not going to leave you again, Emma.”

  Then he told me to stay out of trouble—like I was ten—and disappeared. My hand tingled where he’d touched me. After staring dreamily at the doorway for a few minutes, I pulled myself together. What was it about him?

  I wasted the afternoon cleaning up from the party and avoiding the hallway outside my dad’s study, still not wanting to think about the scary smoke or the death mask in the shop downstairs. Truth was, I wasn’t sure I didn’t belong in some sort of home. Was I really going crazy?

  I ate leftover chips and salsa by myself for dinner, wondering when Bennett would be back. I didn’t light the candles on the table, figuring that’d look desperate. I did, however, devise a revenge strategy for the traitorous Natalie that involved shaving her head of perfect hair—I just wasn’t sure she’d let me get close enough with the razor.

  The doorbell rang late that night, as I was steeping my chamomile. I brought my mug to the front door and let Bennett inside. He looked tired and almost solemn, with his jacket rumpled and his hair mussed. I, on the other hand, had applied some discreet lip gloss and donned my gray silk robe, trying to look effortlessly chic on my way to bed.

  I intended to say something sultry and sophisticated, but instead blurted, “Where have you been?”

  “Why?” he asked, his eyes suddenly keen. “Did something happen? Are you okay?”

  “Um …” My mind blanked, startled by his burst of interest. God, he was gorgeous when he gave a damn. “No, I’m all right. Nothing happened. Well, except someone turned my dad’s Indian oil lamp into a bong.”

  “That’s so Bollywood,” he deadpanned, though he looked relieved that it was nothing more serious. “Get some sleep. Tomorrow’s a big day.”

  Ugh. Tomorrow was Monday. How was I going to face Natalie and everyone?

  “Our flight leaves at two, so you can pack in the morning,” Bennett continued.

  “Our what?”

  “It’s direct, straight to Boston. You can take three suitcases.”

  “Massachusetts?”

  “I believe that’s where it’s located, yes.”

  I ignored the sarcasm. “When I agreed to your guardian thing, I didn’t know you were gonna drag me to Boston.”

  “Well, you can’t have thought I was going to move here.”

  “No,” I said, in a small voice. “What about school?”

  He looked at me for a moment, and I thought maybe he’d take my hand, but instead his eyes just grew tired again. “You’ve been accepted at Thatcher Academy, a private day school in Echo Point, where my parents are trustees. It’s just north of Boston and we have a house nearby. You can stay there.”

  “With you?” Maybe
this little fantasy of mine could still work.

  He pulled out his iPhone and started scrolling through messages. “No.”

  I nodded, trying to keep the tears at bay. “Just for the record, this really sucks.”

  He brushed past me down the hall. “Yes.”

  But did it suck more than going crazy? More than living in a halfway house?

  No. No, it didn’t.

  So I decided to stop being emo and went to bed. I slept better than I had in years. He may have been distant and dictatorial, but the idea of Bennett sleeping on the other side of the wall comforted me.

  I woke early and set to packing. After watching my mother do it so often, stuffing my own suitcases was second nature. I was ridiculously excited about the plane ride—I hadn’t left San Francisco since the Incident, when I was seven. Pre-Incident, my passport looked like I’d been adopted by the Jolie-Pitts, but one doctor had said, “She needs stability,” and my parents had anchored me to the city.

  The thought of Bennett sitting beside me curbed my enthusiasm. He’d be all cool and jaded about flying and I’d have to pretend I wasn’t thrilled during takeoff so he didn’t think I was acting like a child. Plus, his current demeanor—chilly and polite—was sort of a drag.

  My wardrobe looked incomplete as I plopped it into the suitcase, so I decided to raid my mother’s closet. I found a few scarves and snagged two cashmere sweaters before pausing at her jewelry case.

  My mother had amazing jewelry. I tried to lift the lid, but it was locked. Good thing I knew the key was taped to the back of the dresser. Sadly, she’d left only the glittering gems, nestled in the pink satin, that were too dressy for everyday. I rifled through, looking for a piece that would remind me of her, but nothing was quite right. My finger caught on the bottom of the case and the satin lifted and I found a little carved pendant underneath. Hmm. Had it fallen through the seams or was she hiding it there?

  It was the size of a quarter, a delicate art nouveau design made of green jade. Though I’d never seen my mother wear it, for some reason it reminded me of her. I strung it on a gold chain and clasped it around my neck. I smiled, knowing I had something of my mom’s to take to Massachusetts, then locked the case and returned to my room.

  As I passed through the hall I heard Bennett rustling around in my father’s study. I sidled past the urns and found him standing in the middle of the room, his arms in a defensive position. He wore a black polo, fraying khakis, and yesterday’s loafers. His skin was lightly tanned, probably left over from sailing in Nantucket all summer. God, I bet he looked great on a sailboat. Great with his shirt off. Great with—

  He made one final motion then stopped, breathing deeply.

  Something felt out of place in the room, but I didn’t know what. I glanced at the musty old tomes in the bookcase about ancient burial rights, séances, and necromancy. Everything looked in order. Well, except for the obsession with the dead. I wished my parents would mix it up a bit and show some concern for the living every now and then. Even the dying would’ve been an improvement. Max had read every one of these books, but they’d told me to wait until I was older. Like I was eager to raid the library. If I wanted to commune with the dead I’d go graveyard-hopping with my friends.

  Well, if I still had friends.

  Bennett saw me in the doorway and dropped his arms.

  “Tai chi?” I asked.

  “What?”

  “You were doing tai chi, right?”

  He cocked an eyebrow.

  “Or qigong or something,” I said.

  “Tai chi, right.” He mimed holding a ball of energy, then tossed it into the air. “That’s the beach ball pose.”

  I laughed. “No seriously. What are you doing in here?” But the question I wanted to ask was “Do the funeral urns freak you out?”

  “I heard something in here, and I—”

  “You heard him, too?”

  “Who?” he asked.

  I hesitated to reveal my imaginary smoky-snake guy for obvious reasons, but if Bennett thought he heard something, then maybe … Maybe what? He had nightmares, too? “Um … just the curtains in the breeze. I’m pretty sure that’s all I saw. I mean, with our security system—”

  “Don’t play games with me, Emma. What did he look like?”

  What games? I didn’t know what Bennett wanted to hear. He couldn’t know about the Incident, could he? If he knew and he was teasing me, that was just cruel.

  Anyway, I wasn’t going to tell him about my nightmares. So I said, “When do we leave?”

  Bennett checked his watch. “Right now.”

  “Great,” I said.

  Takeoff was nothing special. I didn’t get excited or anything.

  I said: “Omigod! Here we go—woo-hoo! The front wheels are off the ground. There go the back wheels. We are officially airborne. We are in the sky. Look at all the tiny buildings. Hey! There’s boats and fields and … We’re in the clouds! Oops, nope—we’re over the clouds. Wow. It’s like a whole new world up here.”

  Bennett spoke nothing but monosyllables the entire trip, like something was bothering him. Possibly me. But since he said no more than “yes,” “no,” and “mmm,” there was no way to tell for certain.

  I knew people flew every day, but I still found it amazing to wake up in San Francisco and go to sleep in Boston. Of course, not as amazing as putting on someone’s death mask and reliving their dying thoughts. Or being smothered in your dreams by ashes in your father’s urn collection.

  But those were delusions. Right?

  We arrived in Boston late. Well, maybe ten at night, my time, but it still felt like one in the morning. Guess I was already adjusting. I’d never been to Boston—they really do have those crazy accents. I sort of loved it.

  “Where did you pahk?” I asked Bennett.

  He finally looked at me, struggling along with the luggage cart.

  “I hope you didn’t pahk the cah too fah,” I told him.

  A tiny smile finally escaped his stony face. “That’s the worst Boston accent I’ve ever heard.”

  I felt a warm satisfaction at his tiny smile. And a warmer one when he relieved me of the luggage cart. We trekked to long-term parking where Bennett stopped at a decrepit Land Rover.

  “You drive this?” I said.

  “What’s wrong with it?”

  “Looks moody and irritable,” I said, giving him a meaningful look as he tossed my bags in the back.

  “Not at all,” he said. “Totally trustworthy.”

  I started for the passenger seat, then stopped. “How come the wheel’s in the wrong place?”

  He got into the right side and me the left. “It came over from England,” he said, pulling out of the spot. “It’s my lucky car.”

  “Why? Because it’s where you got lucky?” I glanced at the back seat, trying not to picture the kind of girls he liked. Abercrombie & Fitch models. With their tops off.

  “Well …” There was a spark in his eye before he remembered himself and frowned at me. “How old are you again?”

  “I’m seventeen.”

  “Just a kid.”

  “You’re only twenty, right?”

  “I wouldn’t say ‘only.’ ”

  I would, because that meant he wasn’t too old for me.

  “I signed you up for junior year,” he said. “If you’re seventeen, shouldn’t you be a senior?”

  “I started school late.” Actually, I repeated a year, but that required more explanation involving the Incident.

  Instead, I laid my head against the seat and watched the scenery. I counted five Dunkin’ Donuts—which I’d never seen in San Francisco—before giving in to exhaustion and letting my eyes flutter shut.

  When I woke, we were pulling into a long drive lined with maple trees.

  “We’re here,” Bennett said.

  He stopped the car in front of a museum. A four-story house with columns, a solarium, multiple chimneys, and extensive grounds.

&nb
sp; A sign in front read:

  Welcome to Stern House Museum

  A Federal period home

  Designed by Adam McIntyre

  “Here where?” I asked. “I thought you were taking me to your house.”

  “This is it.”

  “You live in a museum?”

  He snorted. “Like you can talk. I’ve seen your house.”

  He stepped out and I followed him to the back of the Land Rover, where he was retrieving my suitcases.

  “But—this really is a museum,” I said.

  “Only in the summer. You’ll be gone by then.”

  Gone where? Everything hit me at once. What was I doing in Massachusetts, staying at Bennett’s museum? I didn’t really know Bennett, or why Max hated him now. And where were my parents? Why hadn’t they called?

  I’d been ignoring my feelings of abandonment, the panic and the rejection, just refusing to think about it—like I refused to think about so many things. Yet now it all hit me, and I slumped into the house behind Bennett, feeling more alone than ever.

  My only consolation was that I no longer had to avoid the funeral urns at home. That and, well—the place was spectacular. There was a sweeping staircase with a gleaming mahogany banister, two adorable parlors, a cozy library, and more bedrooms than I could count. The decor was mostly sea greens, yellows, and blues, invoking a classic sense of sun and ocean wherever I went.

  “And you’ll like this,” Bennett said, throwing open a set of double doors in the middle of a wide hallway.

  I stepped through. “A ballroom?” I twirled across the floor. “This is gorgeous. You know, it turns out I throw a great party.”

  “No,” he said. “No, no, no.”

  “I’m kidding!”

  He eyed me suspiciously. “I can never tell with you.”

  We wandered into the north parlor and after admiring the white bas-relief mantel and mosaic tile floor, I caught Bennett’s eye in the gold mirror over the fireplace. “Do you think they’re dead?” I asked. It was getting harder to come up with any other excuse for my parents’ lack of communication.

  “Of course,” he said.