Found and Lost Read Free Page B

dad.”
    Khloe bit her lip. “Actually, no, I wouldn’t. Vi, if we got caught … Well, I’d kill myself. Since my life would be over anyway. And your parents—who knows what they’d do.”
    Change the locks, probably. Her mom would finally have an excuse to renounce motherhood. Well, so what? Violet would be eighteen in three months. All she needed was a livable apartment at a retail employee’s salary. But none of this was the main point.
    â€œKhloe, I don’t know if it’s right. Ignoring this. Re-education would help your dad. And all of them, whoever they are.”
    Khloe swiped at her cheeks. “This is why I didn’t want you to know. You’d be all honor-bound. But, Vi, you can’t turn him in. Please. I’ll do anything. I just don’t want to go to re-ed.”
    Violet inhaled the chilled air and leaned back against the wall. Would it be so wrong to pretend she didn’t know? The light from the ceiling fixture offered no answers.
    Khloe held up her wrist, and zircon-spangled charms glittered: a pink heart, a purple flip-flop. “I know. We’ll put one of mine on your bracelet. A pledge of silence. Or, if you want to keep up your theme, I saw a new sea-life one on the website. An octopus. I’ll buy it for you.”
    â€œKhloe, really.”
    Her voice fell. “Will this … will we change now?”
    â€œNo.” But how could they not?
    â€œI don’t want stuff to be awkward. You get it, don’t you? Why I’m not turning him in?”
    Violet crossed the room and collapsed onto the bed. She pulled her knees up to stare at her coral-red toenails, a color she’d borrowed from Khloe. When the quiet started to push in close, Violet nodded. I’m not lying. I do get it. But the nod was more—a promise that seams weren’t unraveling.
    â€œI should’ve just told you,” Khloe said.
    â€œYup.”
    â€œAnd I’ve been contemplating your future husband. Don’t you think his hair’s a little fuzzy?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œAustin. He should use some sort of product in it.”
    Violet released a sigh loud enough for Khloe to hear, but she was years past conversational whiplash. If she had gone through something as bad as radiation treatments at five years old, maybe she’d act like Khloe did when a crisis tried to knock her down. Face it, sure, but not for too long.
    Actually, Austin’s hair was silky, not fuzzy. Smooth and soft and fine as gold. Not that Khloe needed information like that, especially if she still believed all Austin and Violet did was flirt.
    â€œIf I’m ever his actual wife, I’ll tell him, ‘My best friend recommends the ultra-hold, Mohawk-inducing, mullet-defeating—’”
    â€œWho said mullet? Did I say mullet? I said fuzzy.”
    Violet flopped onto her back with all the drama she could force and glared at the ceiling.
    Laughter squealed from Khloe, the guinea-pig-at-feeding-time shriek that had been easy to mock since second grade. “You couldn’t mope for real for a million dollars.”
    She could probably pull off brooding, though. Violet grinned, turned onto her stomach, and let Khloe’s voice slip into the background of her brain. They wouldn’t talk about it again tonight, maybe ever, but silence wasn’t much of a problem solver. For Khloe, Violet should go to that meeting, watch out for her, and bury the whole skeleton of secrets. For Clay, Violet should make a phone call, file a report, and pray that re-education saved his mind from the lies he believed.
    She couldn’t do both.
    She breathed in Natalia’s favorite citrus room spray and let herself shiver in the overzealous air conditioning that Clay turned down when his wife wasn’t looking. Just a few hours ago, she had stepped into this house and left her blue flats in the same corner of the mudroom she’d left them in a