Kiss and Tell(38)

“I’m so sorry, Calum.” She scooted closer to him on the couch. “No matter what he did, he’s still your dad.”

Calum twisted around, looking out the living room’s wall of windows. The one the police had shattered was now boarded up with wood. Outside, the sun was setting, darkening the sky. The snowflakes grew thicker with each passing second, until they seemed to thread together, a quilt of snow, flapping in the wind. The sight lifted goose bumps on Sydney’s arms despite the prickly heat flooding through the Bauer house.

“Good thing you’ve got a backup generator.” Sydney squeezed Calum’s hand, trying to elicit a response. But, still, he didn’t look at her. The silence, so unlike him, made her squirm. She stood up, busying herself by going over to the landline. “Still no dial tone,” she told Calum.

“Looks like no calls are getting in or out.” Calum’s voice was flat, but when he finally looked at her, she saw a glint of tears in his eyes.

“Oh, Calum.” She went back to the couch and wrapped her arms around him. “Just tell me what I can do. Do you want a drinking buddy?” She said it jokingly, but once again, she got no response. “Calum?”

Slowly, he pulled back. A single tear had worked its way down to his chin. “My Syd.” He pressed a hand to her cheek. His palm was warm against her skin, and there was a longing in his voice she’d never heard before. “We really could have had something. Or at least I believed that once.”

Sydney blinked. His expression was pained, a swirl of regret and self-pity. It reminded her of how he’d looked after he tried to kiss her at homecoming. “The timing was bad, Calum—” she began, but he kept on talking as if he hadn’t heard her.

“For a while I assumed it was Guinness’s fault.” He pressed his palm harder against her face, cupping her cheekbone. “That if I just got rid of him, you’d finally give me a chance. But it didn’t happen as I predicted.”

Sydney drew back. Her skin felt cold in the sudden absence of his hand. “What do you mean got rid of him?”

Calum gave her a sad smile. But when his eyes met hers, it wasn’t pain or sadness she saw anymore. It was nothingness. Hardness. “My whole purpose of working at the Club’s pool was to get to know you better, and I have to say: You took me by surprise, Syd. You really made me believe that you were different from the other girls. Real in a way that none of them are. But I should have known better.”

Sydney moved off the couch. Something in Calum’s voice wasn’t right. It was too cold, too low. It wasn’t him. “You’re freaking me out a little, Calum. Maybe you’ve had too much to drink.” She took a step away from the couch. The room suddenly felt much too hot.

“Don’t be scared, Sydney.” The words were soothing, but his tone was razor sharp. He pushed his sleeves up, revealing a small bandage on one of his arms. “You’re finally getting to see the real me. Did you really think I was that oblivious? That pathetic?”

Sydney took another step backward. The heat was oppressive now; sweat beaded on her temples and licked at her lips. “It sounds like you need some sleep, Calum. I’m going to get going, and I’ll come back tomorr—”

Calum’s laugh drowned out the rest of her sentence. It wasn’t the sweet, honking laugh she was used to hearing from him. This laugh was harsh and bitter. “Look at the bridge, Syd. Look at all that snow. No one’s going anywhere. And no one’s coming, either. No little friends to save you.” Calum nodded, looking pleased. “It’s almost as if this storm were made just for me. Fate, you might say. Just like my sister’s death.”

“W-what are you talking about?” she stammered.

“You know exactly what I’m talking about. Meryl was a whore, thanks to your dad. She ruined everything our family could have been. And she died for it. Fate punishes those who deserve it, Sydney. And you, Tenley, and Emerson deserve it. Just like Caitlin did.”

Sydney couldn’t think straight. Calum’s words jumbled up in her head, impossible to make sense of. When the realization finally came, it was like a crash. She felt it slam through every inch of her body. “It was you.”

Calum applauded over his head. “Bravo, Sydney! Took you long enough.”

“What about Meryl?” Sydney choked out.

A flicker of what could be remorse crossed Calum’s face. “I didn’t mean to do it. She was the one who took the boat out. She was on her way to a rendezvous with your dad; did you know that? I was just a kid. I had hidden belowdecks to play. It took me a few minutes to even realize the boat was moving. When I messed around with the controls, I thought I was playing captain. I didn’t know—I didn’t think—but then I heard the crack. I’d crashed the boat right into the Phantom Rock.”

Calum frowned. “The jolt must have made her fall, because by the time I got on deck, she was already dead, sprawled out on the ground with her neck bent at the wrong angle. All I did was push her overboard. I had no alternative. She was the one doing something shameful. I was just a kid; I couldn’t take the blame for that.” Calum let out a long sigh. “Afterward, I took a life raft back to shore in the darkness. I only ever told one person what really happened that night.”

“Your dad.” Sydney dug her nails into the sides of her legs. “He didn’t just create the Lost Girl myth for your mom. It was to cover for you, too.”

“He didn’t need to at first. I’d handled it; everyone believed Meryl had died in an innocent boat crash. No one would ever guess that her little brother had been the one to crash her boat—then dump her body overboard. But then Kyla Kern started poking around for an article for the school paper.”

The room swam around Sydney. She reached for the wall to steady herself.

“When Nicole Mayor died, my dad thought we could use her death to solve everything: Kyla’s questions and my mom’s depression. All he had to do was create the Lost Girls myth, flash some ghost lights, trick the whole town into believing Echo Bay was cursed. No one dares question a curse. And for a while it worked; we were triumphant. But then Kyla started asking questions again. I stole my dad’s typewriter and tried to scare her off with notes and threatening phone calls, but she refused to stop.”

“So you killed her.” It was a statement, not a question. How had she not seen it before? She’d thought no human could fit in that small cave on the cliffs—the one with the perfect shot of the Phantom Rock—but she’d been wrong. A small, scrawny seventh grader could. “You threw an explosive at her Fall Festival float.” Each word was like a noose, tightening around her neck.

“I waited until all her friends had gone swimming,” Calum said magnanimously. “Kyla was afraid of the water. Did you know that about her? So as soon as her friends climbed off the float, I did it. I took care of her, just as my dad took care of my mom and Jack Hudson. Like my dad always says, ‘The Bauer men handle their problems.’”

“But it was done after that,” Sydney whispered. “Why didn’t you stop?”

“It was never done.” Calum closed his eyes, sinking back into the couch cushions. “After Kyla, my dad transferred me to Danford. But Danford was no better. Jenny Hearst was there, and all she ever talked about was Meryl. ‘Meryl this, Meryl that; Meryl was like a big sister to me.’ It left me on edge all the time. How could anyone condemn me for snapping? That was when I had the idea to send her notes like I did with Kyla.”

Sydney was shaking all over. “So all of this—this whole game—it was all about Meryl?”

“The shameful sister,” Calum hissed. “Our family was in ruins because of her! And all of you—you’re all tied to our collapse in one way or another.”

“All those reasons in the shed,” Sydney murmured.

Calum smirked. “I don’t know how Tenley and Emerson found my shed, but I have to admit even I was impressed when the security system went off and my surveillance showed they were the ones who’d triggered it. I’d chosen that spot specifically because of how remote it was: in the backyard of a dilapidated house on renter’s row. No one would ever think to look for me there, not even my dad. Plus, it was the perfect vantage point to keep an eye on your Romeo of a father.”

Calum crushed a couch cushion between his hands. “Your friends almost managed to throw me for a loop. After my security system went off, I knew I had to act quickly, but I was trapped at my dad’s awards ceremony. Luckily, Tenley and Emerson made it all too easy in the end. When the security system went off at our house, my dad assumed it was a false alarm, but I persuaded him to let me accept the award on his behalf so he could go check it out. I knew exactly what would happen if he found intruders in our home. Too bad he wasn’t successful.” A twisted smile tugged at Calum’s lips. “But I digress. You asked about the reasons in my shed, and, yes, Sydney, you’re right: I chose you all for this game because of Meryl. You because you’re the devil’s spawn. Caitlin because she dared to squirrel away in our basement like some Meryl replacement.”