The Perfect Family Read online

“Could Bryce Ralston be watching you on the site? Maybe you mentioned something about it when you guys were hooking up?”

  “No way. I felt him out. He’s not smart enough to lie that convincingly.”

  We sat in silence, both pondering who could have found me online. I was so irrelevant at school; I couldn’t imagine anyone else searching me out. Or even caring if they stumbled upon my chat room. And then Luke spoke.

  “What if it’s not someone from your real life who found you on the camming site? What if someone from the camming site found you in real life?”

  “But how?”

  “They could have found your IP address. Maybe they hacked into your computer. I don’t know how that stuff works, but I’m sure it can be done.”

  “Oh my god… they could find out where I live. And where I go to school.”

  “Do any of them seem obsessed with you?”

  “They all do. That’s the point.”

  “Tarryn, you need to take this seriously. You might have a stalker.”

  “I should go,” I said, as I scooched off the bed. I suddenly felt hot, and sweaty, and queasy.

  “You should probably tell your parents. Or even the police.”

  “No way,” I snapped instantly.

  “Promise me you’ll stop camming, at least.”

  “Just… don’t worry about it.” I opened his bedroom door. “I’ll handle it.”

  I hurried out of Luke’s bedroom before he could question me about what I meant. Because I really didn’t have a plan. I had no idea what I was going to do.

  Viv

  MY DAUGHTER AND I sat at the dining table, eating our chickpea curry in silence. Eli was at work, and Thomas was showing a house in Kings Heights. I hadn’t questioned my husband about this evening meeting, hadn’t pressed. If it was just an excuse to see Emma, or some other woman, I didn’t have the energy to be jealous. And some time alone would allow me to process this mess we were in. Well… I wasn’t technically alone, I was with Tarryn. But with the current state of our relationship, there wasn’t much difference.

  “I’ve got homework,” Tarryn said, standing up from the table.

  I looked at my youngest in her usual slovenly ensemble and thought about the sexy lingerie I’d found, the wig and the makeup. Was there a way I could question her without revealing my invasion of her privacy? I didn’t have the emotional bandwidth for a confrontation right now. Her righteous anger and indignation would undo me.

  “Okay, honey. I’ll clean up.”

  “Thanks.” She pushed her chair back.

  “You know I’m always here for you, right?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Just… that I support you. And I love you.”

  “Great,” she said. “Thanks.” But there was no warmth in her words.

  When she’d disappeared into her basement lair, I dumped the rest of my curry into the compost and loaded the dishwasher. My mind cycled through recent events: the faceless boys attacking us; Thomas and Eli accosting Will Nygard; the boy’s father suing us for emotional distress and mental suffering. How had everything escalated so quickly? Gotten so blown out of proportion? As I wiped the counters, clarity began to seep through the jumble of thoughts. It was male bluster and bravado that had gotten us into this mess. Perhaps female tact and diplomacy would get us out.

  The Nygards’ address was right there on the lawsuit, a sixteen-minute stroll from our home, according to Google Maps. (How convenient for Will and his playmates.) The sun was heavy in the sky, but I decided to walk. It would allow me to gather my thoughts, to prepare my spiel. My shoulders and jaw were tense, but I was confident in my mission. I could fix this with compassion and reason. It wasn’t too late.

  Their home was a stately two-story, tastefully updated from its turn-of-the-century origins. It was slightly smaller than our house, but it would have spectacular views of Mount Hood off the back deck, increasing its value. It was built close to the road, a short path lined with stylish solar-powered lights leading to the front door. Parked out front were a Mercedes sedan and an Audi wagon. The Nygards were not short on money. The lawsuit was simply meant to punish us.

  I hovered at the edge of their property for a moment. Was it a no-no for the defendant in a civil suit to show up at the home of the plaintiff? It seemed highly likely, but I had never been sued before so didn’t know for sure. Still, I had come this far. With a fortifying breath, I strode to the front door and rang the bell.

  If Jack or Will Nygard answered, I would assure him that I came in peace, that I was not trying to cause trouble, that I just wanted a quick word with his wife/mother. I didn’t relish facing off against the Nygard patriarch. He’d been dismissive and belligerent on the phone, and I knew his type. He’d try to intimidate and bully me… and he might succeed. To my relief, the door swung open and I stood facing a woman, about my age. She was shorter than I was, heavier, with lovely dark hair and eyes. Her calm female energy gave me a good feeling.

  “Hi there,” I said, my voice warm and conciliatory, “my name’s Viv Adler.”

  She folded her arms across her chest, instantly hostile. “What are you doing here?”

  Her tone and body language made it clear that her son had filled her with misinformation. Of course he had. It was normal for a kid to lie to protect himself. But I was here to gently set the record straight.

  “I thought we could talk this out, woman-to-woman. Mom-to-mom. I feel like things have gotten way out of hand.”

  “Things got way out of hand the night your husband and son attacked my boy.”

  Any vestiges of the sweet nature I’d first glimpsed were gone. Mama bear was coming out. I kept my voice level. “I’m very sorry for that. But your son and his friends had been vandalizing our house for weeks. It’s been really scary and upsetting for all of us.”

  “All my son ever did was throw a few eggs. That’s hardly vandalism.”

  “Our tires were slashed. Our window was broken.”

  “That wasn’t Will.”

  “My husband caught him with a glass beer bottle. He was going to throw it at our house.”

  “Will and his friends were going to drink beer in Washington Park. They just happened to be passing by when your husband and son ambushed them.”

  Her gullibility was astonishing. This might be more challenging than I’d thought.

  “Look”—I swallowed the lump of anxiety clogging my throat—“Thomas and Eli may have been a little… forceful—”

  “A little?” she snapped. “They tackled my son to the ground. They dragged him into your backyard in the dark of night. Your son held his arms behind his back while your husband yelled abuse at him. Will is fifteen! He was terrified!”

  “They just wanted to know why we were being targeted! They just wanted some answers! These endless attacks have caused us incredible anxiety.”

  “My son is suffering anxiety! He can’t sleep. He’s lost his appetite. His skin has broken out.”

  “I’m truly sorry that Will is upset. But I don’t see how fifty thousand dollars is going to help him sleep at night. Or… make his pimples go away.”

  Her dark eyes narrowed at me. “You people need to learn that you can’t treat a child that way.”

  “Your son needs to learn that he can’t attack people’s homes with impunity. He needs to learn about consideration and respect.”

  “Really? I’m getting a parenting lesson from a woman whose family engages in father-son child abuse. Do Thomas and Eli go out kicking puppies together, too? Knocking baby birds out of nests?”

  “It wasn’t child abuse! It was a stern lecture that should have been delivered by his own mother and father!”

  She let out a humorless laugh, almost a bark. “You’re nuts. Just like your husband.”

  “You’re a… vindictive jerk, just like your husband.”

  “Get out of my yard before I call the police.” She slammed the door in my face.
/>   I turned and hurried along the path, now illuminated by the trendy solar lights. I had come here to fix things, and I had made them worse. So much worse. Would Mrs. Nygard really call the police on me? Would they add trespassing to the lawsuit? My heart was fluttering, and I was on the verge of tears, but I was almost at the street.

  And then my gaze fell on the last light on the path, the stylish lantern stabbed into the lawn. It was about four inches above the ground, a tasteful orb with a brushed nickel finish. The Nygards could be watching me right now, making sure I was leaving. But I was powerless to stop myself. In one swift move, I plucked the light from the earth.

  Concealing it between my body and my arm, I hurried toward home.

  Thomas

  I’D SHOWN THE ultramodern house in Kings Heights to a twenty-eight-year-old app developer who’d quickly decided it wasn’t right for him. After he left, I lingered in the empty home, all glass, beams, and concrete, my laptop set up on the quartz countertop. The current owners had given me an hour window for the showing. They wouldn’t return for forty-five minutes, at least. This gave me the privacy I needed to sort out my next move.

  Now that I was being sued for fifty grand, there was no way I could pay my blackmailer the remaining twenty-five. I was innocent, I had not abused Chanel. That had been confirmed after my conversation with Roger Bains. But the photos, if leaked, could still hurt me. Badly. Those who didn’t know me well might think I was capable of such violence. They might believe I was a monster who would strangle and bite a stripper. But the people who mattered—my wife, my kids, my real friends—would know that I’d never ever do such a thing. They would believe me.

  They had to.

  I examined the photos on my laptop screen. They still turned my stomach. Even though I hadn’t done the damage, someone had. Maybe it had been done intentionally, maybe it hadn’t. Either way, it was disturbing. Zooming in on the photo of the bite mark, I looked at the deep-red bruising, the spot of blood where a tooth had pierced the skin. Jesus. An injury like that could not be faked with makeup. Chanel had let someone hurt her that way for money. And then, I noticed something.

  The bruises made by the bottom row of teeth were distinct. There were the usual indentations, and then there was a gap, just left of center. A tooth was missing. Whoever had bitten Chanel’s breast had a gap in their smile, a lost lateral incisor. My teeth were close to perfect. I’d even had Invisalign a few years ago.

  The proof was irrefutable. I had not hurt Chanel, and her photograph was evidence! No one could doubt me now.

  Excitedly, I composed an e-mail to Chanel.

  I’m not paying you any more money.

  You can’t frame me for this.

  I didn’t hurt you and you know it.

  Thomas

  P.S. I have all my teeth.

  I hit SEND and heard the message swoosh away.

  I packed up my laptop and headed home, relief lightening my step, lifting the corners of my lips. The attacks on our home had ceased, and now I had shut down my blackmailer. I even had a plan to deal with the lawsuit. Things were definitely looking up.

  I tried to ignore the knot of anxiety that still twisted my stomach.

  Eli

  NOAH DIDN’T COME into the restaurant that night. My eyes darted regularly to the front door, but he never materialized. Was he still sitting out there, waiting for me to finish? Did he know Drew Jasper had asked for my support? Was Noah here to make sure that I didn’t give it to him? Noah Campbell was a messenger, sent to let me know that my teammates could still get to me, even though I’d blocked their phone numbers and social media access. His presence was an implied threat. On my break, I ate a burger in the kitchen, afraid of what might happen if I went outside.

  I wasn’t physically scared of Noah Campbell; I just didn’t want to get into some kind of scuffle in front of the Thirsty Raven. I was bigger, stronger, and probably tougher. I had never been in an actual fight, but I was pretty sure Noah hadn’t, either. But he’d always seemed so desperate to please everyone on the Worbey soccer team. He might do something crazy, like pull a weapon on me. After my shift, I steeled myself for a confrontation. But when I walked out into the crisp night air, Noah’s Mercedes was gone.

  My earbuds played ambient techno as I rode the bus home. I closed my eyes and lost myself in the music. I was exhausted, tired of thinking about the mess at Worbey, the mess at home, the mess that was my life. The music soothed me, swept me away. I was so immersed I almost missed my stop.

  As I walked through the streets, I turned down the soundtrack and savored the stillness. It was almost midnight on a Thursday, and no one was stirring. Everything felt peaceful, content… normal. Like nothing was wrong and ugly and hateful. Maybe, if I just kept walking, I could stretch out this moment.

  And then I saw the flames.

  Tarryn

  IT WAS ALMOST midnight, but I hadn’t even started putting my makeup on and I was still in my sweatpants and T-shirt. My regular viewers would be expecting me any minute now, but I didn’t know if I could go online tonight. Someone out there in the ether had found me. They knew where I lived, where I went to school, what I wore, and when I cut classes. That person could be out in the night watching my house right now. And the thought scared the crap out of me.

  At dinner, I’d been tempted to open up to my mom, but she was distracted and upset. She kept taking deep breaths and letting out small sighs. And she barely touched her curry. She’d told me we were being sued by Will Nygard’s dad. It wasn’t the right time to tell her that her daughter was a sex worker and that it had just turned dangerous.

  I wanted my people, my tribe. The camming community would listen to me. They’d worry about me and offer to help. But one of them could be my tormentor. And what could the rest of them do for me? They didn’t know me, not really. They couldn’t protect me from someone who had found where I lived, where I hung out, where I went to school. Only my parents could do that. And maybe the police.

  And then I heard my brother’s voice. It sounded like he was on the front porch. “Mom! Dad! Wake up!”

  Had those fucking kids come back again? What had they done now? It was so annoying. I was really over it. Then a fist banged on my window. “Tarryn! Get out of the house!”

  I jumped off my bed, my heart pounding in my throat. What the hell was going on? I ran from my room and up the basement stairs to the main floor. My mother, in her nightgown, met me at the top. “Get outside, honey.” The smell of smoke hit me, and I hurried toward the back door, my mom on my heels.

  We moved around to the front yard, where my brother was holding the garden hose and my dad had a fire extinguisher, both trained on our hedge. It had burned halfway to the ground. The flames had licked up the sides of our porch, charring the white painted posts. What would have happened if my brother hadn’t come home from work when he did? Would our house have burned down? Was someone trying to kill us?

  My mom was on the phone. “We need the police and the fire department,” she said, giving them our address. “Please hurry.”

  Viv

  WE SAT IN the living room, all four of us unable to sleep though it was now almost 3 A.M. I wanted to be strong for my family, but I was overcome, on the verge of tears. This harassment had suddenly become serious. Almost deadly. The fire inspector had told us that someone had used an accelerant on our hedge. Someone had tried to burn down our house, with us in it. Someone hated us enough to kill us.… But, why?

  The police had dismissed it as another prank gone wrong: “Kids can be stupid. They don’t think through the consequences of their actions.” But this felt different, it felt calculated. And the security camera footage made my blood run cold. It had captured a hooded figure walking calmly around the edge of our lawn carrying a gas can. That person could have killed us. Had they intended to? Or were they simply indifferent to our survival? The police had the footage, but as usual, it was useless. It could have been a boy, a man, even a woman—it was im
possible to identify the perpetrator.

  “No more secrets,” I said, my voice wobbling. “Does anyone know who’s behind this? Why someone would want to kill us?”

  Tarryn’s eye roll was subtler than usual. “They didn’t try to kill us, Mom. They tried to burn the hedge.”

  “The front porch was on fire!” Thomas backed me up. “The house would have gone up next!”

  “These kids are stupid,” Eli said. “But they’re not killers.”

  “We can’t minimize this,” I said. “This isn’t just mischief now. Someone is trying to hurt us. To seriously hurt us.… Who? Why?”

  No one spoke for a moment. My family appeared to be considering the question. I had done so myself and come up empty. I had no enemies.… Yes, I’d stolen a few things, but they were small, meaningless. And their former owners remained clueless. Even if they knew, they wouldn’t burn my house down in retaliation. It was far too extreme.

  Thomas ran his hand through his hair. “Will Nygard said that a boy named Finn offered him beer to attack us. I think it was Finn Dorsey.”

  “Who is Finn Dorsey?”

  “He was Roger Bains’s stepson for a while. When he was married to Connie.”

  “He went to Centennial for a couple of years,” Tarryn said, “but I barely talked to him. He was a total skid.”

  “What does that mean?” I asked.

  “He smoked pot, skipped school, failed classes—a loser, basically.”

  Eli said, “I remember him from Dad’s company picnics. He was really hyper.”

  “Roger says he’s troubled,” Thomas added. “He sounds mentally ill. Maybe even dangerous.”

  “But why would he want to hurt us?” I asked.

  “I have no idea,” my husband said.

  “You need to call Roger,” I said. “Right away.”

  “He’s not even in touch with the kid anymore. Besides, it’s the middle of the night.”

  “Well, he must know something! This can’t just be a coincidence.”