Second Glance: A Novel Read online

  Watson turned and butted Eli on the arm. "It's too cold out. I'm not rolling down your window."

  The answer was: Cissy Pike had gotten him thinking. About what it meant to belong--to a family, to a lover, to a heritage--and what it cost to hide the truth. He knew, as a detective, that even people you thought you knew could surprise you with their actions. But it turned out that you could surprise yourself, too.

  Eli wanted to go to the ceremony that Az Thompson would perform to gather the remains of Cissy Pike and her child. Not because he was a cop involved in the case . . . but because, like her, he was half-Abenaki. And because, like her, he knew what it felt like to keep that hidden.

  Watson sidled closer on the seat, burrowing his nose in the neck of Eli's shirt. "All right," he conceded, and opened the window. Watson liked driving that way, the wind flapping his loose lips up and down like small wings. Suddenly, he raised his nose and began to howl.

  "Jesus, Watson, people are sleeping."

  The dog only keened a higher note, then stood up on the seat and began to wag his tail in Eli's face. Faced with the possibility of driving off the road, Eli pulled over. Watson leaped through the open window as they rolled to a stop, and loped to the fence that surrounded the eastern wall of the quarry. He started to bark, then stood on his hind legs and caught his claws in the chain links as someone on the other side stepped forward. The kid was wearing gloves. It was cold out, but not that cold. Squinting, Eli tried to make out a face beneath the brim of the baseball cap, but all he could see was skin that glowed as white as the moon. "Ethan?" he called out.

  The boy's head came up. "Oh," he said, deflating before Eli's eyes. "It's you."

  "What are you doing here? Who let you into the quarry?"

  "I let myself in."

  "Your mom know you're here?"

  "Sure," Ethan said.

  Eli knew that the quarry was blasting tomorrow at dawn--they always let the police department know, for the sake of safety--and that having Ethan in the vicinity of explosives was not a good idea. "Climb over," he ordered.

  "No."

  "Ethan, it's just as easy for me to haul ass over the fence and get you myself."

  Ethan took a step back, and for a moment Eli thought he would bolt. But then he tossed his skateboard into Eli's hands, and hurtled toward the chain-link. Scrambling effortlessly as a spider, he dropped to the ground beside Eli and held out his wrists. "Go ahead. Cuff me for trespassing."

  Eli stifled a smile. "Maybe I'll break protocol. I'm assuming this is your first offense." He started walking to the car. "Want to tell me how you wound up here?"

  "I went outside and just kind of kept going."

  Eli looked down at the gloves on Ethan's hands again.

  "Didn't she tell you?" the boy said bitterly. "I'm a freak."

  "She didn't tell me anything." Eli pretended that he couldn't care less whether Ethan chose to continue the conversation. He dropped Ethan's skateboard, walked to the back of the truck, and whistled for Watson. "Well. See ya."

  The boy's mouth dropped open. "You're leaving me here?"

  "Why shouldn't I? Your mom knows where you are."

  "You mean you believed me?"

  Eli raised a brow. "Is there a reason I shouldn't?"

  In response, Ethan threw his skateboard into the pickup and got into the passenger seat. Eli started to drive. "When I was born, my fingers were webbed together." He felt Ethan's gaze shoot to his hands on the steering wheel. "The doctors had to cut them apart."

  "That's gross," Ethan said, and then he blushed. "Sorry."

  "Hey, you know, whatever. It's just the way I was made. Didn't keep me from doing what I wanted to do."

  "I have XP. It's like being allergic to the sun. If I go out during the day, even for a minute, I get burned really badly. And it does keep me from doing what I want to do."

  "Which is?"

  "Swim in a bathing suit and dry off in the sun. Take a walk outside during the day. Go to school." He glanced at Eli. "I'm dying."

  "So's the rest of the world."

  "Yeah, but I'm going to get skin cancer. From all the exposure to the sun before anyone knew what I had. Most kids with XP die before they're twenty-five."

  Eli felt his stomach tighten. "Maybe you'll be the one who won't."

  Ethan stared out the window for a few miles, silent. Then he said, "I woke up early, and no one was around. So I went outside. Hung out at the school, skateboarding. But then the other kids had to go home, to bed. And I wasn't even tired, because I'd been sleeping all day. I just kept walking, and I wound up here. I'm a freak," he repeated. "Even when I try, I don't fit in."

  Eli turned to him. "What makes you think it's different for anyone else?"

  Ross had fallen asleep over the keyboard, where he was currently inventing a ghost. He woke up, ran his tongue behind his teeth, and tasted despair. Even after brushing and rinsing with Listerine he still couldn't shake it--bitter as licorice, with small crystals that melted on the tongue and left it the sunset color of hopelessness. Grimacing, he padded downstairs to the kitchen to pour a glass of juice and realized he'd forgotten about Ethan. It was nearly midnight--and his nephew would have been up for hours.

  "Eth?" he yelled, but the house was silent.

  When he glanced out the window, Shelby's car wasn't in the driveway. That was strange, too--she should have come home from work by nine, at the latest. The message light on the answering machine blinked like an evil eye; he hit the button. "Ross, it's Shel. I'm caught up in something you won't believe. Just tell Ethan I'll be there soon, and make sure you're home . . . I've got a lot to tell you."

  So she hadn't taken Ethan somewhere. Ross opened the door, but he wasn't skating in the driveway or holed up in the backyard. Inside, he took the stairs two at a time and opened the door to Ethan's room. His bed was made; his pajamas twisted in a Gordian knot on the floor. Where was he?

  Panic slid down Ross's throat. Any nine-year-old kid could get into trouble, but for Ethan, the world posed a whole different set of dangers. "Ethan, this isn't funny," he shouted. "Get your ass over here."

  But he knew, even as he was calling out, that Ethan wasn't there to hear. He grabbed his car keys from his bedroom and hurried downstairs again. Maybe if he could find Ethan before Shelby got home, no one would have to know that he'd ever been lost.

  He had only just gotten into his car when a truck pulled in behind him. Eli Rochert's dog leaped out as if he belonged at Shelby's house, and then Ethan got out of the cab. Ross's eyes did a quick inventory--all in one piece, smiling. Then he considered throttling the kid himself. He looked from Ethan to Eli, who crossed his arms but didn't say a word. "You want to tell me where you were?"

  Before Ethan could answer, Shelby pulled into the driveway. An enormous box was in the hatchback of her car. "What's going on here?" she asked.

  "Nothing," all three men said simultaneously.

  "Then what's a policeman doing at my house at midnight?"

  Eli stepped forward. "I, um, came here because I knew you'd be up. With Ethan. But when I got here, you weren't. Here, I mean."

  Shelby stiffened. "Did you need more help with research?"

  "No, I wanted to ask you out."

  The words seemed to surprise even Eli. Ethan nudged Ross in the side, and he shrugged to show that he didn't know what was going on either. But in that moment, when Eli did not rat out Ethan, Ross's respect for him doubled.

  And that wasn't even taking account of what it did for Shelby. She pinked, then looked away, and finally met Eli's eyes. "I'd like that," she said.

  From the way they were locked onto each other, as if a homing device had pinned them both, Ethan and Ross might as well have been on Jupiter. "You would?" Eli said.

  Ethan snorted. "I'm gonna hurl," he announced, and slipped into the house.

  His departure broke the spell. Shelby cleared her throat, then opened the hatchback of her car. "Carry this in for me, will you?"

  "Wha