Found

CHAPTER 47

Speed was of the essence, so I asked Myron to drive me to Ema’s house.

“Was Ema close to Buck?” Myron asked.

He saw the look on my face, nodded, and grabbed his keys. We sprinted to the car. He gave me details, though it all came to me through a haze. Buck’s body was found buried in the woods not far from his father’s gym. The news hadn’t been released to the media yet. Myron had been called in his “professional capacity.”

I wasn’t sure what he meant by that.

We reached the front gate. There were two lion heads on either side. Uncle Myron had already called Angelica Wyatt, Ema’s mom, so the gate was open. We drove through and up the long hill toward the estate.

“The cause of death is still unknown,” Uncle Myron said.

“But he was murdered, right?”

“I don’t think so.”

In front of us, the huge baronial mansion started to come into view.

“Wait, you said someone buried him in the woods.”

“Yes.”

“So how could it not be murder?” I asked.

He didn’t reply. Or maybe I didn’t wait long enough for the answer. We’d arrived. I said, “Stay here,” and hopped out of the car. Before I knocked on the door, Angelica Wyatt opened it. I hesitated for a moment. It is odd what star power does to a person. I had only met her in person a couple of times, so seeing her in the flesh, after so many years on the screen, still felt surreal.

Angelica Wyatt crossed her arms and blocked the door. “What’s going on?”

“I need to talk to Ema.”

“What happened with you two?”

“Nothing. If I could just-”

“She’s been crying since she got home.”

That slowed me down a second. “She’s been crying?”

“All night. She won’t say a word to me or Niles. She just”-Angelica Wyatt started welling up too-“cries.”

“Does she know…?”

“Know what?”

“Please, I just need to talk to her. Where is she?”

“The basement.”

I didn’t hesitate now. I knew the way. I ran past her, nearly slipping on the Italian marble floor. I ran toward the kitchen, veered right, found the basement door. I didn’t bother knocking. I opened it and started down the stairs.

“Ema?”

The room was dark. There were faint lights above the Angelica Wyatt movie posters. I couldn’t see much with it. But I could hear the cries.

Ema was sitting on a beanbag chair. I started toward her, but she put her hand up. “Don’t.” She looked up and met my eye. The tears were still on her face. She didn’t bother to wipe them away. Gone was the heavy makeup, the black lipstick, the temporary tattoos. Ema looked so young right now. She looked young and vulnerable and really, in a way I don’t think I ever fully noticed before, pretty.

“I need to tell you something,” I said.

“Go ahead. Tell me from there.”

I took a deep breath. I had never delivered devastating news like this. I wasn’t sure of the protocol, but the fact that she was already sobbing made me rush it. “It’s Buck,” I said. “He’s dead.”

I wasn’t sure what I expected. I figured that she’d start sobbing again. But that wasn’t what happened. Instead she stood and said, “Thanks for letting me know.”

I waited.

“That’s it?”

She didn’t reply.

“You’ve been crying,” I said.

There was something close to anger in her tone. “You’re so perceptive, Mickey.”

“Why have you been crying?”

Again she didn’t reply. She didn’t have to. The answer was obvious.

“You knew already,” I said. “But how? They just found his body. The media…” And then I saw it. “My God. That’s what Buck’s mother told you, didn’t she?”

“She knew who I was,” Ema said. “She found Buck’s e-mails to me. She knew what I meant to him. And what he meant to me.”

“I don’t understand.”

“She said that she didn’t want me to live not knowing the truth. Or thinking Buck had just carelessly broken my heart. But I don’t think that was it. I think she needed someone to confide in. So she made me swear never to tell.”

“And you agreed?”

Ema nodded. “I agreed.”

“And that’s why you didn’t tell me about it yesterday?”

“No,” Ema said. “That had nothing to do with it.”

“But you said… wait, what did Buck’s mother tell you exactly?”

“She talked about how Buck had felt all that pressure. Your buddy Troy added to it. Buck needed to get bigger and stronger. So, yes, he took steroids. A lot of them. And then we met online-and he started to change. But, like Jared said, he was still torn between his two worlds.”

I swallowed. “What happened to him, Ema? How did he die?”

“His brother, Randy.”

“He killed him?”

“In a sense,” Ema said. “Randy thinks he understands how these drugs work. He doesn’t. I don’t know if Buck had a bad reaction to them. I don’t know if he took too many of them accidentally. I don’t know if he took too many on purpose.”

“He overdosed?”

Her tears came freely now. “Yeah,” she said. “He overdosed. He was alone and he shot this stuff into his veins and…”

“But his body,” I said. “It was buried in the woods. If it was an overdose…”

“Think about it, Mickey.”

I tried, but it wasn’t coming to me.

“The NFL draft was coming up,” Ema said. “Randy was already secretly fighting a positive steroid test. If this came out, if they found out Buck had overdosed because of Randy…”

I shook my head. My eyes went wide. “Parents would never do that.”

“You don’t get it.”

“What?”

“Of course they would. Buck’s mother said it clear as day. Buck was dead. There was nothing they could do for him. They had another son. He’d lose everything. He’d probably go to jail on drug charges and maybe even for manslaughter. She and I sat at her kitchen table, Mickey. She looked me in the eye and said, ‘We lost one son, but we didn’t have to lose two. What good would it do to destroy Randy’s life too?’”

I couldn’t believe it, but it all made a strange, horrible kind of sense. “So they buried Buck’s body,” I said. “They made up that story about him going to live with his mother. Who’d check a remote island? And even if they did, she could just say, what, Buck was at work or traveling.”

Ema nodded. “They hadn’t really thought it all out, but eventually she would move overseas. She’d tell people that she and Buck were living in Europe.”

“My God. That’s awful.”

“And yet it would work. Who’d question it? In a horrible way, it’s logical and even loving. They couldn’t save the one child-”

“So they tried to save the other,” I said, finishing the thought.

I thought about what Uncle Myron had said, about the mistakes that cost my father his life, about the ghosts that haunt him even now. “Still,” I said. “How do you live with that?”

“I’m not sure that she could.”

“So you think, what, you were, like, her confession.”

“I think she just needed to confide in someone. She knew I cared about him. She thought that maybe I even loved him. So she told me the truth and swore me to secrecy.”

We stood there, feeling the full weight of the moment.

“But now Buck’s body has been found,” I said.

“Yes.”

“Hours after you learned the truth and promised not to tell.”

“Yes.”

“That’s some coincidence,” I said.

“No coincidence. You see, that’s what Buck’s mom didn’t count on.”

“What?”

“She loved both her sons,” Ema said. “But I loved only one.”

The room grew very still.

“You called the police?” I asked.

“No. I stopped at the library after I left you. I sent an anonymous e-mail to them. I told them where Buck’s body was. I told them how he died. I told them the truth. With the clues I gave them, they’ll put it all together.”

We stood there. Upstairs I heard voices. Myron had come into the house after all. He was talking to Ema’s mom. They were right above us. And they were a million miles away. Everyone else was a million miles away. Right now, in this basement, there was only Ema and I and maybe the ghost of a teenage boy who was no longer buried alone in the woods.