Crooked Little Lies (4 page)

They had called themselves the Forever Sisters.

And in the years after their parents were killed, their bond had only grown stronger, but then Tara got pregnant and married too young, and Lauren was overwhelmed running a business and taking night classes to finish college, and life happened, the years went by, and they weren’t so close anymore.

Was that it? Was it simply the passage of time that had created the wedge?

Lauren’s bewilderment at the loss, the sudden ache of it, pierced her skull anew. She could have whimpered. She could have said I love you, but she didn’t do that, either. When Tara said she was home and that Greg was there, packing the Jeep, Lauren only said, “I labeled the box with the sheets in it.”

“Great,” Tara said. “Just what I want to do after a ten-hour day at the office, put sheets on the beds. The house’ll have to be aired out, too. Plus I’ve got a stupid safety report to write that’ll take me half the night.”

“I’m sorry, Tee, truly.” It was all Lauren could think of to say. Then, “Make Greg and Jeff do the sheets.”

Tara laughed at that, and Lauren did, too, and she would remember it later, their shared laughter, but she wouldn’t be able to recall the exact sound.

Lauren slept again, and her dreams were disjointed, a series of misaligned images, vivid and disturbing. In one sequence, she was driving in downtown Houston near the bus station, on a side street she vaguely recognized. When she stopped her car in the middle of the block, a man approached, and she rolled down her window a little way, mere inches, a space wide enough to allow in the road stench and a furtive meeting of their hands. When she woke in her bedroom later, it was completely dark, and she was sweating and afraid. She sat up slowly, still caught in the dream—more than caught, feeling it, actually. The city grit was lodged in her pores. It sanded the surfaces of her clenched teeth. She dragged her fingertips through her hair, reassuring herself that it hadn’t happened. She had not driven her car into Houston to buy drugs.

But later, after her shower, when she went into the study to find a book to read, her attention snagged on a basket filled with old auction catalogues. Why did she keep them? Jeff wasn’t much for going to auctions, and although Lauren and Tara loved them, they hadn’t gone to a single one since before the accident. Pulling the basket off the shelf, she began leafing through the stack. And that was how she found it. The small plastic bag, no more than two inches square, had adhered to the glossy cover of a fourteen-month-old brochure announcing the sale of an assortment of vintage farm implements. She ran her fingernail underneath it, lifting it, eyeing the depression it had left behind on the brochure’s cover, which pictured a 1930s-era red Farmall tractor. The color where the packet had lain was faded. She set it on her open palm, remembering the man in her dream who had handed it to her in exchange for the cash she’d given him. But this was no dream; it was real.

Real
, she thought, and her heart slammed against the wall of her chest even as her brain betrayed her, leaping as it did with anticipation. She closed the packet in her fist, and when she opened it again, it was still there. As real as the round yellow tablets it contained.

Lauren didn’t need to examine them to know that each one was carved on one side with “OC” for OxyContin and on the other with “40,” indicating the milligrams. She set the packet on the bookshelf, keeping her eye on it. The old craving was alive inside her, biting and harsh, almost but not quite eclipsing her panic, her wonder. How had she come to have these? Was it possible that her drive into Houston hadn’t been a dream? Was she hallucinating? Dreaming still? Was her mind truly going, as Bettinger had predicted it might?

Taking the packet into her hand again, scarcely breathing, she spilled the tablets into her palm and touched each one with her fingertip. There were six, a half dozen. A six-pack. Back when she’d used the drug, she could have made six 40s last almost two days. It was nearly the amount of time she had to herself right now, the rest of tonight, all day tomorrow. Closing the tablets in her fist again, she left the study and went into the bathroom and looked at herself in the mirror; she wasn’t really aware of her image so much as she was of the thought that no one was here to see anything she did, and they wouldn’t be, not until late on Sunday afternoon.

4

O
n her way out to Fishers’ farm to pick up the pumpkins and the rest of Madeleine’s order on Friday afternoon, Annie stopped by the library and asked about Bo, but no one there had seen him in several days. Annie tried his cell phone again, and when she got his voice mail, she left him another message, a brief, frustrated, “Call me.” She was fuming as she headed out of town. He was such a child sometimes, an irresponsible child. She wasn’t his mother. She wasn’t even his sister, not really. Searching the roadsides for him, she thought how she had no family. She thought how much she wanted her mother.

Her head was so filled with her mental rant that she didn’t consciously register the BMW’s shimmy or the clatter the engine made. Only when it quit right in the middle of the farm-to-market road she was traveling on did it get her full attention. Still, she was in disbelief, pushing the accelerator to the floor, bending forward, urging the car onward as if it were a horse, thinking,
Please
. Thinking,
This can’t be happening
. But it was and with the engine dead, the power steering was gone, too. She yanked hard on the steering wheel, managing to get the car off the road and onto the grass that verged on its tarred edge. “Shit,” she muttered, shoving the gearshift into Park. She pounded the dashboard with the heel of her hand and said it again, louder: “Shit! Shit!”

A cow that could have passed for the Borden Dairy cow, Elsie, ambled over to the fence as if Annie had summoned her, and hanging her head over the rail, she stared balefully at Annie. “I should leave this piece of shit here,” Annie said to the cow. “I’ll ride you where I need to go from now on. How about it?”

The cow lifted her huge head and mooed.

“Hah!” Annie dug her cell phone out of her purse, but of course there were no bars. Not this far out of town. “Perfect,” she said softly. “Just perfect.” The only saving grace was that she’d left the car windows down, and stowing her phone, she sat for a moment, listening to the useless engine tick as it cooled. Listening to “Elsie” chew. She heard a pair of mourning doves calling, a softer chirr of crickets. A welcome breeze fanned her cheeks. In spite of herself, her troubles, her eyelids grew heavy, and curling her hands around the steering wheel, she rested her head on them. She’d been up since four, going like a house on fire, as her mother used to say. It wasn’t the life Annie had envisioned, although if anyone had asked, she couldn’t have told them her plan. She didn’t have one.

Bo said love was all about persistence.

How could he be so wise and so goofed up all at once? How could she miss him so much? He drove her crazy, but he was nearly her only friend, the closest thing she had left to a relative.

She didn’t hear the tow truck pull in behind her or the door when it slammed or the man’s footsteps when he approached. And when he said “Miss?” she jumped, violently, blinking, trying to clear her vision.

He peered in at her, concern radiating from his expression. The sort of concern that appeared genuine. A radius of fine white lines cornered his eyes and seemed to suggest he either squinted or laughed, a lot. She thought he was older than she was, past thirty, maybe. But she glanced away too quickly to be sure, concerned about her appearance, that the wetness on her cheek was drool. She put a hand there.

“Are you all right?” he asked, and now he sounded wary. It occurred to her he might think she was drunk or on drugs.

She straightened, swiping at her face. “I’m fine,” she said. “It’s this stupid car. It just quit. It was shaking and making this noise—like a cough—and then it died.”

The man took a step back, running his glance from the hood to the trunk. “A cough, huh?”

She looked at him again and couldn’t decide if he was mocking her.

“How long have you been sitting here? Have you tried starting it again?” he asked.

“No,” she said and felt ridiculous. Why hadn’t she?

“Want to give it a whirl?”

He twirled his finger, and then she was certain he was mocking her. Her cheeks warmed, and she felt betrayed when the car’s engine caught, but the noise it made, the loud knocking, had him shouting at her to shut it off.

“That doesn’t sound good at all,” he said. “Pop the hood for me?”

She glanced in the rearview mirror at the truck parked behind her. “You drive a tow truck?”

“Um, yeah. Is that a problem?”

She looked at him. “There’s a dog inside.”

“That’s Rufus, rhymes with doofus, which he mostly is.”

She looked forward, through the windshield, and saw her cow friend meandering down the fence line.

“I’m not a maniac, if that’s what’s got you worried. My name is Cooper, Cooper Gant.” He pulled out a wallet, a well-used brown leather wallet, and handed her a business card.

“It says you’re a welder for Gant Oilfield Servicing.” She noticed the same company name was stitched on the pocket of the brown T-shirt he wore.

“It’s my dad’s and my uncle’s company. I work for them.”

“But you’re driving a tow truck.”

“The truck’s a side business,” Cooper answered patiently. She liked his voice. It was low and calm, with a bit of a drawl, but not so he sounded hokey. “My dad and uncle have a lot of that going on. Side businesses, I mean. According to my mom and my aunt, it keeps them out of trouble.”

Annie didn’t say anything.

“You want to pop that hood now, or maybe you want to walk back to town?” He smiled.

She did as he asked, and while he lifted the hood, she got out of the car and, leaning against the front fender, looked where he was looking, at the snarl of machine parts and belts. Not that she could make any sense of what she saw. Changing the oil and the tires was about the extent of her car smarts.

Cooper wiggled this and that and mumbled that it might be her harmonic balancer, as if Annie would know what that was. She imagined an orchestra conductor, his raised baton.

“I don’t know much about BMWs,” Cooper said. “My dad’s the mechanic in the family. I could tow you, or do you have someone you’d rather call?”

She didn’t, she said. “This is all I need. Stupid car.” She kicked the tire, felt childish, and kicked it again anyway.

“Maybe it won’t take too long,” Cooper said kindly.

But it wasn’t just the time; it was the money, too. She never had enough of either one. “How am I going to get to Fishers’?” She was looking at the tarred-over pavement when she asked, unaware that she’d spoken aloud until Cooper offered to drive her.

“You’re talking about the farm, right?” he asked.

“You know it?”

“Who doesn’t?” Cooper pulled a rag from his back pocket, wiped his fingers, and said he’d gone to school with the oldest of the Fisher sons. “We graduated in the same class, in 2000.”

“You went to Hardys Walk High?” Annie asked. “I graduated in 2003. I don’t remember you.”

“I was an art nerd,” he said without a trace of regret.

She met his gaze. His eyes were shades of gray, the color of the sky before a storm, but his expression was quiet. In fact, his entire manner seemed peaceful, and yet she would swear that at any moment, he might burst out laughing. She felt drawn to him. She liked standing here with him. She wasn’t afraid.

She said, “Where would you tow the car so your dad could look at it? Into town?”

“No, lucky for you, the garage is on the way to Fishers’. We can drop it off, and I can run you out there.”

She looked at him.

“You did make it seem as if you really needed to get there.”

Annie explained where she worked and what she was after, essentially the makings for breakfast at the café tomorrow. She mentioned the muffins. “I wanted to get the pumpkin cooked tonight.”

“Well, then, let’s get to it.” Cooper went to the tow truck, climbed in, and pulled it in front of the BMW. In a matter of minutes, it seemed, he had it loaded. It turned out he knew Madeleine, too. He said he’d eaten at the café dozens of times, that he’d seen Annie there, that she’d waited on him. Annie almost didn’t believe him, but why would he lie? He didn’t strike her as the lying kind. But who knew? People could fool you.

She waited for Cooper to mention Bo, to question her about him. If he’d dined at the café at all, he must know about Bo and wonder about him. Almost everyone did. She’d had people ask her straight out what was wrong with him. She wondered at their nerve, their lack of respect, of compassion.
Obviously, he’s smarter than you are.
That was one answer she gave them.

Cooper opened the passenger door of the tow truck and told Rufus to get in the backseat, which was more a shelf covered with an old tarp and some other stuff, a tool box and assorted, tattered-looking manuals. Rufus obeyed, sitting tall on the tarp, tail wagging.

“He’s an Irish setter, right? He’s gorgeous.” Annie took the hand Cooper offered her, letting him boost her onto the high seat, and leaning around it, she let Rufus get a look at her. “You are a handsome boy,” she said in a silly voice, the one she reserved for dogs and other four-legged creatures. “Such a good doggie.”

Cooper got into the driver’s seat and switched on the ignition. “You’ll be hard to live with now, won’t you, buddy? Got a pretty girl giving you attention.”

Annie scratched Rufus’s head between his ears and around them, and when he practically swooned, she laughed, delighted.

“You like dogs.” Cooper sounded pleased.

“I do, very much.” She fastened her seat belt. “I like cats, too, and just about any animal.”

Cooper pulled onto the road, and she asked him how far they had to go.

“About eight miles,” he answered. “Fishers’ is maybe fifteen miles farther on.”

Annie nodded, and watching the countryside pass, she wondered if she should take him up on his offer to drive her there, if she should impose. She would owe him then, and she really didn’t like that. But if she didn’t get to the farm, Madeleine would have to go, and that would mean leaving Carol on her own at the café. Stifling a groan, Annie asked Cooper about his art. “What do you paint?”

He met her glance, brows raised.

“You said you were an art nerd. I assumed you were a painter.”

“No. I’m a welder.”

Now Annie raised her brows.

“Between the oil field–service work and the car-repair gig, there’s always a lot of scrap metal lying around. I make stuff out of it.”

“Really.” Annie didn’t know what else to say.

“Yeah.” He glanced at her, then back at the road. “It just came over me one day,” he went on as if she’d asked. “I was looking around at all the pipe and odd pieces of sheet metal and scrap, and I started fooling around with it. Next thing you know, I built my mom an arbor for her garden, then a gazebo. After that, the neighbors started asking for stuff. Now I’m in business. I’ve got orders and customers from all over, more than I can keep up with.”

“Sounds cool,” she said, because it did. She liked that he’d begun by building something for his mother. She wondered if he would say he’d found his life’s purpose.

He said, “I tried painting. You know, landscapes, even portraits, but it turned out I was pretty bad. I like working with my hands better.”

They turned down a gravel road, and Annie saw a metal building and a sign painted in fresh-looking green, white, and brown lettering that read “Gant and Sons.” She’d been by the place before, she realized, passing it every time she went to Fishers’. As they got closer, she saw the garage had three bays, only one of which was empty. There were other cars and trucks, too, parked around the area along with an assortment of heavy-duty machinery. In an adjacent field, dozens of pallets were stacked with pipe of every type, length, and diameter, more than she’d ever seen in one place. The pallets were set apart the width of a riding mower, and the grassy aisles between them were neatly cropped, giving the property an air of orderliness and prosperity.

The sun was hot on her shoulders after she climbed down out of the tow truck, Rufus at her heels. A man came out of the middle auto bay. Tall, broad-shouldered, and dark-haired like Cooper, he walked toward them, his gaze flashing from Annie to the car and back to Annie.

“She got you stranded?” he asked, and Annie realized he meant the BMW.

Cooper made the introductions. “Annie, meet my dad, Patrick Gant. Dad, this is Annie Beauchamp. She works at—”

“Madeleine’s, in town.” Patrick took Annie’s hand in his warm, rough-palmed clasp. “I know this young lady, or rather, I know her pumpkin muffins. It’s that time of year again, isn’t it?”

Annie said it was.

“The café serves the best food in town.” Patrick winked at Cooper. “Other than your mother’s.”

Annie smiled and thanked him. She said Madeleine did most of the cooking. Unlike Cooper, she remembered Pat Gant. He came into the café fairly often, every couple of weeks, for breakfast, mostly.

Cooper and his dad got the BMW unloaded and into the middle bay. Pat lifted the hood, and when he gave a sign, Cooper turned the key in the ignition. The engine clattered to life. Annie covered her ears. Rufus bolted. Annie lost sight of him and then, moments later, saw him drinking from a nearby water bowl. When Rufus came back after Cooper cut off the engine, he was holding a scruffy chew toy in his mouth, that resembled a frog with warts. He offered it to Annie, and the look in his golden eyes was somewhere between a taunt and a plea. She took hold of it, wrestling with him, playing his game.

She and Bo had found a dog once when they were kids, some kind of bird-dog mix. He’d had three brown patches on his cream-colored torso and a smattering of tiny brown specks dotting his muzzle. Not so originally, they’d named him Freckles. He’d belonged to Bo more than anyone else. They’d been inseparable, and when Freckles died, Bo, who was seventeen at the time, was hit hardest. He began isolating himself after that. He seemed to live more and more in his head. He’d started walking then, too. The family blamed Freckles’s death, but it would have happened anyway. That was the nature of Bo’s disease, the awful evidence of the loosening connections in his brain.

The ones that were even looser now in the two years since her mother died, Annie thought. She let Rufus have the frog, running her hands over his head, absently scratching his silky ears. Somehow, despite his symptoms, Bo had managed to graduate high school and work for Madeleine. It was only since her mom’s death that his walking had totally taken over, that his existence had become almost marginal. He didn’t see it that way. He was fine, perfectly fine, in his own eyes. Even when he got confused and thought her mom or Freckles was still alive, it didn’t register that anything was wrong. Sometimes Annie thought they were the reason why Bo walked; he was looking for them.