“Youleftme.”
“I did?”
He nodded.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “That’s so rude. I didn’t mean to.”
“Oh, I think you did,” said Cam. “I’m really pretty sure that you did.”
“Are you mad?”
“Of course not. It’s not a big deal. Just a silly wedding!” He took her hand again and led her out of the bedroom and toward the landing.
They were about to walk down the stairs when suddenly the staircase crumbled beneath them, turning to pieces of dust and rubble.
“Darn it,” said Cam pleasantly. “Sorry about that, Alexa. I was trying to get you out before that happened. Oh well! I guess you can’t win them all.”
From the stair landing they could see down to the front door. Out of nowhere came a sharp series of raps on the door.
“Who could that be?” Alexa asked Cam.
“Oh, it’s probably the bad men.”
“The who?”
“The bad men,” he said. He turned toward her and smiled, but there were no teeth in his mouth. “The bad men are coming for you,” he said. “I told them you’d probably be here.”
She woke sweating, clutchingStock Investing for Dummies.
53.
Rebecca
Rebecca peeled her eyes from the screen. Her daughter was a... YouTube personality? She perused the comments following the three videos she had watched. On each video there were many, many comments—dozens! Hundreds! One of the first comments on each video came from someone called jt76.Love how succinct this is!Also:Great explanation of balancing risk and reward. You’re so talented!
There were a lot of other comments too, most encouraging, some obnoxious. But the thing that stood out the most to Rebecca was the number of views: Alexa’s videos averaged in thetens of thousands!The highest viewed video Rebecca saw had been viewedthirty-seven thousand times!
Alotof people were watching Alexa Thornhill do her thing online.
Then there was this. Not a single one of the dresses Alexa was wearing in the videos looked familiar to Rebecca. Morgan was exactly right: they were more conservative than Alexa’s usual garb. They were very pretty! But where had they come from? Where did they live?
Granted, Alexa was almost preternaturally self-sufficient. She’d been doing her own laundry since the age of nine, and now that she could drive, Rebecca supposed it was possible that she had herown account at Anton’s dry cleaning. How much money was shemakingfrom this YouTube thing? And how far apart had she and Alexa grown, that Alexa could have this whole identity, this whole life, this wholewardrobe,that Rebecca knew nothing about? In the past this was something she would have taken immediately to Peter, of course, and failing that, to one of the Mom Squad members. Probably Gina! Before the sleeping bag incident, Gina would have been happy to lend an ear, and Rebecca would have trusted her. But now—now the earth had shifted beneath her feet in all kinds of unsettling ways, and now she had nobody. Well, not nobody.
She pulled up Daniel’s number on her phone and typed out a text.
Can you meet me tomorrow at Maudslay? I want to tell you something.
She held her breath, but the reply came almost immediately.I would love to.
After that, the three dots, then another text came in.
I miss you.
She didn’t even hesitate before texting back,I miss you too.
The next day they did their usual thing, which was to park on opposite ends of the parking lot and meet up once they’d gotten on their way. They usually walked down the road a bit before entering the park; Rebecca liked to go in by the Gates of Hell rather than via the more common entrance, by the rangers’ cottage at the beginning of the property.
“First things first,” said Rebecca. “Daniel, I’m sorry. I’m really sorry about that whole thing at the tall ships.” She took a deep breath and turned to face Daniel. “I’m sorry I told you that you need to live in a box.”
