Crooked Little Lies (25 page)

21

L
auren left for Tara’s without phoning Jeff. She wanted to call him; if he wasn’t so pissed at her, she probably would have, but she was afraid he would dismiss her suspicion as crazy, that Tara was hiding Greg, and try to talk her out of going or, worse, warn Tara she was coming. She couldn’t take that chance, not while Drew was in the house with them.

The house was dark when she pulled into the driveway behind Tara’s car. There wasn’t any sign of the Jeep Greg drove, but maybe he hadn’t driven himself there. Maybe Tara had picked him up. Anything was possible. Lauren eased out of the Navigator, closing but not latching the door. An errant breeze skittered through the bare-branched canopy of the sweet gum tree near the drive. Eerie shadows trembled over the lawn. She looked again at the house; the windows across the front glittered in the streetlight, like glassy eyes.

A murderer was behind those windows, inside that house, sitting with her son and her sister. He might even now be watching her, waiting for her, waiting to see what she would do. The possibility raised the hair on Lauren’s head. She felt light-headed. Fear uncurled from her stomach.

Call the police
. The voice in her head was strident. She had Detective Cosgrove’s card, but then she remembered it was in her purse, left at home, with its contents spilled all over the floor of the mudroom. She’d only grabbed her keys when she left after speaking to Annie. She’d not even brought her cell phone. Everything had left her mind the moment Annie said Bo knew Greg. Because Lauren knew Greg, too, knew his history and what he was capable of. She’d listened to him describe his nature, its capacity for violence, in a meeting. She brushed her hands over her face. If only she’d known of the association before, she could have prevented this. Prevented a lot of things. Now Tara and Drew were in danger.

Lauren walked up the steps, onto the front porch. Tara didn’t keep a key to the door anywhere outside that Lauren knew of, nor did she think she would find any of the windows unlocked, but she tried them anyway, without luck. And when the outside light came on, she wheeled, heart pounding. The front door jerked open.

“What are you doing?” Tara said in a loud whisper. She thrust open the screen, leaning around it.

Lauren saw that her hair was still caught in the same messy ponytail, and she was wearing the same filthy T-shirt and sweats she’d had on earlier.

“Where is Greg?” Lauren whispered, too.

“Greg?”

“Is he sleeping?”

Tara only gaped at her, and Lauren felt a jolt of fear-fueled annoyance. “Don’t play games with me. This is serious. You have to get Drew now as quietly as you can and come with me. We’ll call the police—”

“What in the hell are you talking about now, Lauren?” Tara came out, letting go of the screen door.

Lauren tried to catch it before it slammed. “Drew!” she said.

“He isn’t here. I told you he wasn’t staying with me. He’s at Gabe’s.”

Lauren was perplexed. Still, she said, “Thank God.” She took Tara’s elbow. “We’ll go to my house. We can call Detective Cosgrove from there.”

Tara shook free. “If I call anyone, it’s going to be the men in the white coats.”

“You’re determined to protect him, is that it?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’m not protecting anyone. I don’t know where Greg is. I told you that before.”

“Let me see.” Lauren whipped open the screen door and then paused, waiting for Tara to stop her.

But she didn’t. “Go on,” she said, “since you’re so determined. Search the place.”

Lauren’s pulse pounded in her ears, and every instinct said it was crazy to be here in the house with a man who might possibly be armed, who was most certainly dangerous. Tara followed on her heels as Lauren went from room to room.

“You’ve got no sense about men,” Lauren said, pausing in the guest-bedroom doorway, switching on the light. The room was neat as a pin.

Tara laughed. “And you do, I guess.”

“He’s a drug addict, Tee.”

“So are you.”

“Yeah.” Lauren went to the master bedroom. While the bed there, Tara’s bed, was made up, it was rumpled. She switched her glance to Tara, locking eyes with her. “But Greg’s using again, and I’m not.”

“Is that why you’re here? You’re going to turn him in?”

“He might have killed someone,” Lauren said. “The boy they’ve been looking for all week, Bo Laughlin.”

“You’re insane. Why are you saying that? I thought Greg was your friend—your 12-step mentor. You’re always telling me how much he’s helped you, that he’s the only one who understands.” Tara gestured, making a broad arc with her arm. “The rest of us are idiots, out to get you, ruin your marriage, and take your kids. But Greg? He’s perfect.”

Lauren looked away, undone in the face of Tara’s sarcasm, by the reminder of her fallibility. She tried to remember what had brought her here, what progression of thought. Because Tara was right, Greg had been there with her through the darkest period of her life. Now she was ready to condemn him? Based on what? The fact that he and Bo knew each other? She didn’t know where to go from here. She wanted to back down from whatever this was that had begun to feel like a challenge, yet something—pride, she thought unhappily—propelled her to walk through the rest of the house, the living and dining rooms, the kitchen. The sound of her footsteps, and Tara’s, rang in Lauren’s ears.

They reached the small foyer.

“He isn’t here, believe me,” Tara said.

“I’d like to,” Lauren said. But driving home, she thought of all the places in Tara’s house she hadn’t looked. Places big enough to hide a man. She thought her sister might have lied to her, and her heart felt hollow and cold with fear.

22

A
nnie sat a moment, holding her cell phone, but her confusion about Lauren, the abrupt way she’d ended their conversation, wasn’t something she felt equal to sorting out by herself. She didn’t want to go back inside the sheriff’s office, either, but she had no choice. Crossing the reception area, skirting the groups of volunteers, she felt their eyes following her, felt their collective sympathy and their pity, and clenched her jaw. When he saw her, JT half rose, asking where she’d been. Distress and fear made a muddy turmoil of his expression. He looked shell-shocked, like a man coming off a battlefield. One who was hunting for a place to lie down.

“How will I tell his mother?” he asked, and his gaze clung to Annie’s.

She was nonplussed. Did he mean Bo’s mother who was dying?

“Come and sit down.” Cooper got up, offering her his chair.

Annie didn’t want to, but she went to it, sitting awkwardly, fighting aggravation and the fresh bite of tears both at once. She wanted to tell Cooper to go, that she didn’t need him. What was he doing here, anyway?

“The sheriff had some questions for me,” Cooper said as if he’d read her mind.

Because he’d been with the team that found Bo, Annie guessed. She wouldn’t meet Cooper’s eyes and looked at his hands instead. They were mapped with scars. From working with the metal, she decided. She thought how much she would like to see his art, and then she was appalled. How could she think of such a thing now?

“JT was just telling me about your brother’s mental state, his drug use—” the sheriff began.

“He wasn’t on anything, not recently,” Annie said.

“He might have been.” JT caught Annie’s glance.

She shook her head.

“You didn’t want to believe he’d get into a car with a stranger, either,” JT said.

“And I was right about that. He knew Charlotte; he worked for her.”

“But you didn’t know that about him, did you? The same as you don’t know whether he was using or selling drugs and that’s what got him killed.”

Annie opened her mouth to argue.

JT cut her off. “You never wanted to see the pain he was in. You and your mama, always thinking you could fix him when there is no fixing that—what was wrong with him. Not ever.” JT flattened his palm, using it to cut the air like a knife.

No one spoke. The sheriff crossed his arms over his chest. Cooper leaned against the wall. Annie pushed her palms down her thighs.

“He knew, don’t you see?” JT spoke softly. “Bo knew he wasn’t right, could never be the man he might have been if—if—shit—this whole thing makes me sick. Sick in my heart!” He pounded his chest with his fist, jerked to his feet.

Annie felt his glare. She was aware of Rufus getting up, of Cooper beckoning the dog to his side, but she didn’t look at any one of the three men or the dog. She couldn’t. It was taking every ounce of her self-control not to cry, not to scream. What she might scream or at whom, she couldn’t have said.

“Doesn’t matter what any autopsy says or what dope they find in his system or even who pulled the fucking trigger on the gun and shot him.” JT’s voice was rough and loud with his grief. “It was how he wasn’t whole—it was that little part of him that knew, that was aware he’d never be a whole man. Never be smart enough to love a woman, earn a living, father a kid. That’s what killed him!”

Rufus whined, and Annie jumped when JT slammed his fist into his palm. “Can’t you see? It would be like being paralyzed from the neck down and you can’t do shit about it, but every day, you got to wake up and face it. How many years could you do it? Huh?” He divided his hot, angry gaze among them. “How goddamn many?”

Now in the hard, frozen silence, JT sat down again and bent his elbows on his knees and dropped his face into his hands.

Annie could have reached across the gap between them; she could have put her hand on his arm, comforted him in some way, but she didn’t. She didn’t know why. She was as sickened by what had happened as he was, but she was angry, too. JT was right about her mom. She had searched out ways to help Bo, tried every one, no matter how wacky—everything from macrobiotic diets to herbal supplements to acupuncture. But Annie hadn’t gone along. In fact, she’d argued with her mom about it. JT knew that. He wasn’t any better than her mother, though, with his stupid idea that Bo had been miserable. But none of them had truly understood him, Annie thought.

Why am I not okay the way I am?
Bo had asked her once, and remembering now broke her heart all over again.

“I know this is real hard for you folks.” The sheriff’s voice brought an end to the bruised silence, and Annie was grateful. She gave him her full attention.

He said, “If we want to get whoever did this, we need to know everything we can about Bo, his friends, habits, what he did every day, and who with.”

The sheriff looked at Annie. “You were in a relationship with Leighton Drake.”

“Yes,” Annie said, and she went on without prompting, recounting the details that repetition had stripped of emotion. She might have been speaking of someone else, their stupidity and not her own.

“So,” the sheriff said after a pause, “during the time you were going out with Drake, did you ever meet a man named Greg Honey?”

“No,” Annie answered, “but Lauren Wilder may know him.”

“Your friend who came in with you yesterday?” Sheriff Neely leaned back in his chair. “What makes you think that?”

“I was on the phone with her just now, and when I mentioned Greg might be involved, she ended the conversation. It was weird. But then, she’s kind of weird,” Annie added and felt bad. Who was she to judge?

“When you say
weird
, what do you mean exactly?” The sheriff leaned forward on his elbows.

“Nothing, really. She’s had a rough time.” Annie explained about the accident and, reluctantly, about Lauren’s addiction to pain meds. “I don’t believe she got anything from Bo, though, or that she’s on anything now.” But even as Annie said this, she thought being on something might explain a lot about Lauren’s moods, her unpredictability. She said, “You should talk to Detective Cosgrove. He interviewed her. Sheriff Audi talked to her, too.”

“Oh?” The sheriff set down his pen.

“She was one of the last people to see Bo alive.”

“Huh.” Sheriff Neely leaned back in his chair. “Well, I know Jimmy Cosgrove. We’ve worked on some stuff together in the past.”

“What about these assholes, Drake and Honey?” JT asked. “What’re the odds you’ll find them?”

“BOLOs for both men were issued a few days ago, back when Lincoln County wanted to question them in regard to Bo’s disappearance. Those’ll continue.”

“That’s it?” JT sounded unhappy.

“Unless you can think of anyone else we need to look at?”

“I might know of someone,” Cooper said, and Annie stared at him, openmouthed.

23

A
fter she came home from Tara’s, Lauren paced around the island in the kitchen, holding on to her phone, debating. She wanted to talk to Jeff. If only he weren’t so furious at her, if she could get him past it . . .
I should have been there for Kenzie
, she would say.
Our daughter should have come first before Annie’s brother and his disappearance.
But that wasn’t the crucial thing anymore. That’s what she had to make Jeff understand. Even Bo’s death, as tragic as it was, wasn’t the issue. Not now that a member of Lauren and Jeff’s own family was involved, however peripherally. There could be legal ramifications for Tara if she was covering for Greg. They had to do something, talk sense to her before she did something really stupid, like running away with Greg. Lauren closed her eyes in the face of that unnerving prospect.

Jeff had to see it, that Greg’s involvement put a different, more urgent light on the situation.

Sitting on a stool at the island, Lauren switched on her phone, noting the time, after two in the morning. It was against her better judgment when she dialed Jeff’s number. She imagined him folded uncomfortably in a chair, dozing, at Kenzie’s bedside. She hoped someone had put a blanket over him. She thought, I should be there in that chair
.
Her eye fell on the Waller-Land folder full of the documents Jeff had needed on the job site and been without because of her foggy brain, her preoccupation with someone else’s calamity. She’d let him down not once but time and again. She thought how often she complained that he didn’t treat her as an equal partner in the business, but how could he?
I have got to get better
, she thought.

Her call rolled to his voice mail.

“I shouldn’t have called so late,” she said, “but something has happened.” She paused, hesitant now to bring up Tara, to put her first. “Never mind. It can wait. Please call me when you’ve spoken to Kenzie’s doctor. I’ll wait here at home, or should I go to the warehouse?” She paused again when she heard how she was rambling. “Just call me, okay?”
I love you.
She started to add that, but something stopped her, the sense of her vulnerability, she guessed. The fear of his rejection. An underscore of resentment that she clung to in the more damaged part of her brain, the part that still struggled with feeling weak and inferior.

She fell asleep at the bar, head pillowed on her arms. The sound of Jeff’s truck in the driveway woke her. She was disoriented, blinking wildly at the daylight streaming through the uncurtained kitchen window. She jumped when the truck door slammed, her elbow hitting the Waller-Land file folder, and grabbing it, she set it on the counter behind her, not completely out of view. She would have to confess her mistake, but there were other issues she and Jeff had to discuss first.

She heard him come in, heard the
thunk
of his briefcase hitting the mudroom floor, the clatter as he emptied his pockets into the tray on top of the chest.

He opened the door to the kitchen and spotting her, said, “You’re up.”

“I never went to bed.” She looked past him at Kenzie, standing in his shadow. The thick padding of gauze that slanted across the corner of her left eye didn’t quite hide all the bruising, and Lauren felt sickened at the sight of it. It was her fault, she thought, this damage to her daughter’s face. She half rose. “I’m so sorry, Kenzie. I know I let you down, but it won’t happen again. Okay? I mean it.”

Without a word, Kenzie left her dad’s shadow and went swiftly from the kitchen. Lauren heard her light footsteps on the stairs. She wasn’t open to her mother’s protestations. That door had closed, and why not? How many chances could a kid give to her mother?

Lauren looked at Jeff. “I thought you were taking her to Tara’s.”

“I am, but I’ve got a meeting with Kaiser, and I need a shower first.”

“Did Drew get to school? He’s not at Tara’s.”

“Gabe’s dad took them. I had to wait for the doctor.”

“What did he say? Is Kenzie okay?”

“She’s fine. Everything tested normal, brain function, reflexes, all of it. But she can’t do PE or ballet or anything too physical for a week.”

“Oh, she’s not going to like that. Where is her dance gear anyway? Did you get it? Her tote?” Lauren was suddenly worried it was lost, left behind in the wrecked car or at the hospital. She thought of Kenzie’s new toe shoes that were packed inside it along with her tights and leotard. The toe shoes were still so new, so untried. Kenzie had attached the long pale silk ribbons herself, tacking each of them with a tiny, hidden stitch. She had used pale pink yarn to darn the toes. When she had brought them to Lauren to see her work, her eyes had shone.

“It’s in the truck,” Jeff said.

“I’ll get it.”

“No, she wants to go to Tara’s.”

“Well, she can’t,” Lauren said. “Tara’s in no shape to look after her.”

“It’s just for a couple of hours. I talked to Tara. She’s feeling better. It’s fine.”

“I went over there last night. Did she tell you? After I found out from Annie Beauchamp that the police think Greg may be involved in her brother’s death.”

“Really? Why do they think that?”

“Something to do with drugs, Annie said. I think Greg must be back using again. What do you think? I mean, how was he at the farm?”

Jeff shrugged. “He seemed fine, but you’re the one who’s always saying what good fakers addicts are.”

It was true; Lauren did say that. Heroin addicts were especially good at hiding their habit. Unless you knew what to look for, you might never know. “He wasn’t at the Tuesday meeting, and some of the guys said he’d left town for a job, but I don’t believe it.”

“The cops have any idea where he is?”

“I don’t think so, but if Tara’s protecting him, and she’s caught, she’ll be in trouble for helping him. It scares me, Jeff, what she might be involved in if she’s with him.”

“Lauren, I’m sorry, but I don’t have time for this. I’ve got to meet Kaiser.” He started across the kitchen.

She followed him up the stairs. “You can’t put our daughter into this situation.”

“Jesus, can you just let me get a shower first?”

Lauren stopped and watched him disappear into their bedroom. Within minutes, she heard the water running. She was outside Kenzie’s closed door and knocked softly. No answer. Resting her forehead against it, she felt exhaustion overwhelm her. It weighted her shoulders, dragged at her spine. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “Will you open the door and let me talk to you?”

Nothing.

“I’m not on anything, Kenzie, I swear it. I’ve even gone for a blood test that will prove it.”

No answer.

Lauren went back downstairs and out the back door, walking straight to Jeff’s truck. She would get Kenzie’s tote, wash her tights and leotard and whatever else was inside it. She would make cookies, chocolate chip, Kenzie’s favorite. The smells of fresh laundry and baking would permeate the house. Somehow, Kenzie would be lured downstairs; somehow, Lauren would reach her, reach through her fear—because that’s what this was, Lauren was sure of it—and find her daughter. They’d find each other and come to an understanding.

That’s what Lauren was thinking when she came through the back door into the mudroom with Kenzie’s tote and saw it, the notepad with the pale green cover, one small enough to fit in a man’s shirt pocket. It was on the floor in front of the big entryway chest, the catchall place, where she kicked off her shoes and set down her purse, where Jeff dropped his briefcase and emptied his pockets and the kids left their backpacks. Setting Kenzie’s tote on the dryer, she bent down to pick the notepad up, but then, on seeing the name that was printed on the front, on the line that was there for that purpose—
Bo Laughlin
—she recoiled, as if it were some horrible bug, one that might attack her.

She would never be sure how much time passed before she heard Jeff calling her name. He appeared in the doorway, and she snatched up the notepad, holding it out to him. “Where did this come from?”

“What is it?”

“Bo Laughlin’s notepad. Annie told me he carried one, that he wrote things down in it.”

“Where did you find it?”

Lauren saw that he was watching her with trepidation.

“Right here, on the floor.” In the same place where her purse had fallen last night. She remembered scooping the contents back inside it and setting it back on the chest. It was there now, and she looked at it, then back at the notepad. “Where could it have come from?” She asked Jeff as if he should know.

But his face was full of doubt and pity. “Maybe Bo gave it to you last Friday when you spoke to him? Or is it possible you’ve met with him since then?”

“No. I—” Lauren rubbed her brow. Her head ached, and so did her back and hip. And she was so tired.

Jeff took a step toward her, and then another, and it seemed to Lauren he was moving almost imperceptibly. She might have been an injured animal and he her rescuer—familiar roles for them both. She raised her gaze.

The silence thinned, becoming taut.

“You can tell me anything. You know that, right?” He spoke softly to her.

“You think I did something to him?” Why was she saying that?

“I don’t know, sweetheart.”

“Daddy?”

Lauren looked past Jeff at their daughter, framed in the doorway.

“It’s all right,” Jeff told her. “Get your tote, and I’ll take you to Aunt Tara’s.”

“What’s wrong with her now?” Kenzie came to Jeff’s side, eyeing her mother warily, and somehow, with the two of them staring at her, Lauren felt intimidated, and she tried to mentally shoulder the feeling away, not wanting it. Not wanting to believe in it. But that would mean she was imagining it the way she’d begun to imagine so many things. She gave her head a brief shake.

She said her daughter’s name. “Kenzie?”

“You need help, Mommy.”

“Mommy will be fine.” Jeff was calm. Reaching for Kenzie’s tote, he handed it to her.

She sidled toward the back door.

“No, Jeff.” Lauren blocked Kenzie’s path. “Let her stay with me, please. What if she’s not safe at Tara’s?”

“She’ll be okay,” Jeff said.

“At least let me call Suzanne and see if Kenzie can stay there until you can pick her up.” Even as Lauren said this, she wondered how she could ask Suzanne for a favor after yesterday, after leaving their daughters stranded. How would she explain it?

But Kenzie said no. “I want to go now, Mom.”

Lauren looked down at her, and she knew holding Kenzie would be the same as trying to hold a small bird.

Jeff found her gaze. “I’ll come back as quickly as I can get everything settled with Kaiser, okay?”

“How long?”

“An hour, tops.”

He came to her and kissed her lightly. Lauren smelled his aftershave, something that always reminded her of lemongrass and wind. She loved it and could never remember the name. She clutched his shirtfront, bunching it in both hands. “Don’t leave me. Please,” she whispered against his chest. “I’m so scared.”

“I won’t be gone long, I promise. It’ll be all right.” He set her gently apart from him.

And then he was gone.

But the notepad, Bo Laughlin’s notepad, was here in her hand.

How had it come to be in her possession? Panic clawed out of her stomach, ballooning against her rib cage.

She carried the notepad into the kitchen and setting it on the island, picked up her coffee mug, dumped the contents into the sink, and rinsed it. She cleaned the coffeemaker, wiped down the countertops. But she could not forget it.

Bo’s notepad.

Maybe if she read what he’d written. She lifted the cover, enough that she registered pencil smudges, and rifling the pages, she saw darker strokes that seemed angular and hurried, illegible, but here and there a word emerged: parakeet, flowering, harbinger. On one page he had written:
The path of least resistance leads to crooked rivers and crooked men.

Lauren thought she recognized it as a quote from Thoreau. She remembered Charlotte Meany—Ms. M—saying Bo had an affinity for him. But farther on, the pages were filled with more gibberish, entire lines where Bo had scratched only numbers. She let the cover fall and crossed her arms, cupping her shoulders, keeping her eye on the little notebook as if it might leap from the spot where it lay. Blood hammered through her heart like heavy footsteps.

What should be done with it?

Throw it away
. . .

The sense of this, what amounted to an order, hovered in her mind. But there was only one answer, one right thing to do, and if she did not know this consciously, she did know it where it counted, in her bones, in the center of her soul.