Tell Me Lies (33 page)

“It’s all right.” C.L.‘s voice came over the line, warm and sure. “Call off the dogs, babe. I’ve got your kid, and she’s fine.”

“What?”
Maddie’s knees gave way and she sat down on the stool by the phone.
“ You’ve got
her? She’s all right?”

Her hand shook so much she couldn’t hold the phone, and Henry took it from her. She heard him say, “Who is this? C.L.? What the hell is going on?” and she put her head down on her knees while Henry listened and then said, “Tell it to Maddie.” She picked up her head and he handed her the phone. “Em is fine. I’ve got to make a call or two. You stay here and talk to C.L. and calm down.”

Maddie took the phone, trying to swallow back tears of relief. “C.L.?”

“It’s okay, honey. She’s fine,” C.L. said, and there was so much love and concern in his voice that she felt weak and leaned back against the wall, moving the phone away from her mouth so he wouldn’t hear her cry.

“She was trying to ride her bike out here to the farm,” C.L. went on. “She did pretty good, too, considering. She’s really tired but she’s fine.”

“She’s all right?” Maddie started to rock back and forth, holding herself while she cried with relief. “She’s all right. Where did you find her? Who took her?”

“Nobody took her,” C.L. said. “That was my first thought, too, but she took off on her own. Anna’s giving her lemonade right now. She’s fine.”

Maddie sniffed and told herself to breathe slowly or she’d hyperventilate. Em was all right. She wasn’t kidnapped. She was all right. Maddie wiped her tears away with the back of her hand. Some jerk had heard Em was missing and called for a prank, and all along she’d just taken her bike for a ride. “I don’t ever want to be that scared again. Tell her she’s grounded forever. I can’t believe she did this. After everything else—”

“She did this because of everything else,” C.L. said. “You have to talk to her, Mad. She’s scared and confused and she needs to know what’s going on.”

Maddie’s tension focused on C.L. Some jerk had threatened her daughter and now C.L. thought he was Dr. Spock. “Thank you for the advice. I’ll come get her.”

“Why don’t you let her stay out here for a while? I think she could use a change of scenery.”

“C.L., I don’t—”

“And Anna’s crazy about the idea. I already asked. They’re going to bake cookies tomorrow.”

Maddie gritted her teeth. “C.L., I
really
don’t—”

“Humor me,” he said in that tone of voice that meant
Do it.
“Pack some stuff for yourself and come out here where you’re safe and you can get some rest. The two of you have had enough Frog Point for a while.”

“C.L.—”

“I know you’re mad,” he said. “I know you were scared and now you’re mad and I know you’ve been through hell and it’s not over. Come out here and let us take care of you.” He dropped his voice a little, and Maddie knew there was somebody listening on the other end. “Come out here and let me take care of you. You don’t get extra points for doing it by yourself, Mad.”

You should,
Maddie thought. You should get bonus points. But she was so tired of doing it herself, and going out to the farm didn’t mean she was giving up. It just meant she was resting a little.

Maddie closed her eyes to keep from crying because it sounded so good. C.L. Anna. The farm and the river and no kidnappers because Henry and C.L. wouldn’t let any near. Not that C.L. was a hero just because he’d tripped over her kid and was keeping her safe. Maddie tried to hold on to her anger because it was the only thing keeping her from running out to the farm without the car and throwing herself into his arms and saying,
Somebody’s out to get me, stop them..
She could save herself. She was going to save herself. And Em.

“Anna’s making fried chicken and gravy,” C.L. coaxed. “Em can’t wait. And there will be mashed potatoes. The only thing you love more than mashed potatoes is Em. And me.”

There was a grin in his voice, and she felt lighter just listening to him. “Cholesterol,” Maddie said.

“Em’s eight,” C.L. said. “She won’t need a bypass until high school at least.”

She should not go out there. C.L. was out there, and she’d made careful plans to stay away from him, from everybody, until things were calm again, until she could handle people and phone calls again. Until she could handle being with C.L. again.

“C’mon, Mad,” he said. “Em’s happier out here. And safer. Come on out.”

He was right. “All right,” Maddie said. “I’ll come out.”

She hung up the phone and sank down on the stool and tried to find her place in the world again. Em was all right. If Em was all right, there wasn’t anything else in the world that could be too wrong.

Except there was. Maddie straightened on the stool. The voice had said,
Tell the police about the gun and the money.
Which meant that the caller wasn’t some miscellaneous jerk. It was the murderer and he was out to get her.

The phone rang again, and Maddie stared at it. It could be anything, the murderer, the police, her mother-in-law, Treva, dozens of people she didn’t want to talk to, dozens of problems she didn’t want to handle. The phone rang again, and she answered it and told her mother that Em was fine and she’d call later and explain everything, and then she called Treva and told her that Em was fine and she’d call later and explain everything, and then she went to get Em’s PJs and a change of clothes, telling herself that things were going to be fine.

She couldn’t wait to get out to the farm.

Then her mom came down the road in the rental car and parked at the edge of the lawn and got out and marched across the grass to her, and Em wanted to run to her, but she wasn’t going to. Not this time. Em put the lemonade down carefully on the steps and stood up and crossed her arms in front of her.

Her mom stopped before she got to her and looked at her funny, and Em raised her chin a little. Her mom said, “I was worried
sick
about you, don’t ever do that again,” but Em just stared at her until her mom said, “Em?”

The screen door slammed and Em heard C.L. walk across the porch behind her. “Em is tired of being lied to,” he said to her mom. “She wants to know what’s going on.”

Em saw her mom’s jaw get tight. “I can raise my child on my own, thank you,” she said to C.L. over Em’s shoulder.

“Well, you know, you can’t,” C.L. said. “That’s why she tried to bicycle fifteen miles to find me.”

Em’s mom took a step closer, still glaring at C.L. “
Listen
—”

“He’s right,” Em said. “You can yell at him if you want, but he’s right.”

Em’s mom looked shaky. “Em—”

“He doesn’t lie to me,” Em said. “I know he doesn’t tell me everything, I know he knows stuff that I don’t know, like why he’s worried about you even though he says you’re not in trouble. But he doesn’t
lie
to me. And you do. You lie and you
lie.”

Once the words were out, Em started to shake, too. The words were so awful, but she had to say them. “You lie all the time,” she said, and then she turned and walked away from the house to the dock, trying not to cry. When she got to the dock, she took off her shoes and sat on the edge of the splintery boards and dangled her feet in the warm water. Phoebe came bounding along and Em grabbed her collar to keep her from falling in and hugged her warm squirmy body close and tried really hard not to think about what she’d just said.

“You have to stop lying to her, Maddie,” C.L. said, and she turned on him because he was the only person she could yell at.

“You want me to tell her that her father was murdered?” she demanded. “You want me to tell her that he was an embezzler and that he was having an affair, and that he was planning on kidnapping her and taking her to South America without me? You want me to tell her about you and me?”

“Yeah.” C.L. looked grim, but he nodded. “Yeah, I do. Because she already knows something’s really wrong, and the truth is better than all the things she’s afraid of. And you’re all she’s got, Mad. If she can’t trust you, she’s all alone, and she’s too damn little to be all alone. And I’ll tell you something else, now that I’m at it. Em is not that fragile. You treat her like she’ll break any minute, and I know she’s having a hard time, but she’s tough as an old boot as long as you’re straight with her. If you’re straight with her, she’ll be fine.”

No. Maddie swallowed and took a step back. Losing a father was enough of a nightmare for Em; losing one to a killer who was still out there would be unbearable.
No.
“I cannot tell her that her father was murdered. I won’t.”

“You don’t have to.” C.L. sat down on the porch steps, bending slowly as if he’d aged suddenly. “I already did.”

Maddie went cold. “You
what
?”

C.L. looked up at her, and she could tell he was resigned to her anger. “She asked me. The kids at school had told her, so she asked me if it was true. And I’m not going to lie to that kid. Ever. Even if it means you hate me.”

“Well, good for you,” Maddie said, her head wobbling with anger. “You must be feeling
very
virtuous.
Do you realize
—”

“I realize what it’s like to be lied to,” C.L. snapped. “I realize what it’s like to look at you and love you so much it hurts and know you’re lying in your teeth to me because you don’t trust me. And I’m not doing that to your kid. Forget it.”

He had it all wrong, as usual, but she didn’t have time to argue her point. “Listen, you. Em and I are fine. We do not need you or your help, so kindly
butt out.”

C.L. flinched. “You may not need me, but your kid does. And I need her to need me. If you and I aren’t going to make it, well, that’s how it goes, I guess. But don’t mess with Em and me. Because we are going to make it.”

Maddie really looked at him then, grim and determined on the porch steps, telling her he wasn’t going to desert her daughter no matter what. He’d be there for Em. He wanted to be there for Em. And Em trusted him, she’d come to him.

And Maddie thought,
I trust him, too, damn it.
He was solid and sure and funny and sweet and exasperating and inescapably desirable, and he wanted to protect Em forever, and all she had to do was go back to being the old Maddie he wanted and she could have him. That was all she had to do.

“I can’t do it,” she told him. “I cannot be that insipid wimp I was twenty years ago. I can’t even be the sarcastic wimp I was a month ago. I’m not the woman you fell in love with in high school. Forget it.”

C.L. blinked at the shift in the conversation, and then picked up the thread. “Her? Forget her. I have. She was a terrific memory, but you’re not her. You’re stubborn and bitchy and you have a hell of a mouth on you, and most of the time I don’t know whether to jump you or scream and get the hell away from you, but I love you and that’s the way it is. God knows why, but I do. I love your kid, too. So deal with that, babe.” He scowled at her, and she almost laughed except everything was too miserable.

No more lies,
he’d said, and she thought about the last two weeks, about not having him with her, and avoiding Treva, and pretending with her mother that everything was fine, and about Em not trusting her anymore, and about how she’d felt an hour ago, her whole world ripped away, and how she never wanted to feel that way again. She’d tried to protect Em by pushing everyone away, but the loneliness of it had been overwhelming, something she’d never felt before because she’d always had Frog Point wrapped around her, keeping her safe. Well, she’d gotten what she wanted, away from Frog Point. Away from everybody.

And she’d been miserable and vulnerable and afraid, and she hadn’t protected Em at all.

So maybe it was time to go back.

“Don’t move,” she said to C.L. “I have to go talk to my kid, but I want you to stay right here until I get back.”

“I don’t have anyplace else to go,” C.L. said. “I’m building a house here.”

She turned and headed for the dock, pushing herself toward the worst of several conversations she didn’t want to have but was damn well going to have.

Em splashed her feet a little, and when Phoebe slipped from under her arm to climb into Maddie’s lap and lunge to lick her face, Em set her jaw and turned away a little.

Maddie picked the puppy up and put her on the dock behind them and took Em’s hand.

Em took it back.

All right. Maddie folded her hands in her lap and started over. “Okay, you’re right. I should have told you the truth. I was trying to keep you from being hurt because the truth was so ugly, but I guess there really wasn’t any way I could do that.” She ducked her head a little to look at Em’s face. “Was there?”

“No,” Em said. “No. And it’s awful not knowing what’s going on. I can’t stand it.”

“What do you want to know?” Maddie said.

Em bit her lip and looked up at her. “C.L. said somebody shot Daddy.”

Oh, hell.
Maddie nodded. “Yes, but he died right away. He didn’t feel anything, Em. That’s the truth.”

Em pressed her lips together for a minute. “Who did it?”

“I don’t know,” Maddie said. “Truly, I don’t know. Henry is working on it, but we really don’t know. I don’t even have a guess.”

“Tell me what happened,” Em said. “I want to know.”

“Okay.” Maddie swallowed. “We don’t know a whole lot. But that Friday night, your dad met somebody in his car. And he was feeling really sleepy because he’d drunk some wine that had some of my pills in it. So the other person drove the car up to the Point and parked it. And we don’t know exactly what happened next, but your dad must have fallen asleep from the pills, and then”— Maddie put her arm around her daughter’s rigid shoulders —“and then the other person shot him.”

Em nodded, not leaning into her mother. “That’s what the kids said. Grandma said he got sick and died real fast, but the kids said he got shot.” She looked up at Maddie. “But I didn’t know about the pills. Does that mean he didn’t even know he was getting shot, even for a minute?”

“Probably,” Maddie said. “Even if he was still awake, he was probably so groggy that he didn’t know what was happening. It didn’t hurt him, Em. That’s no lie. He didn’t hurt at all.”

Em sighed and leaned against her mother. “That’s better. A little. It’s still awful, but I didn’t like thinking if he’d been scared or something.”

“No.” Maddie kissed the top of Em’s head. “No. He was probably fast asleep.”

“Is the person going to shoot you?” Em asked.

“No.” Maddie pulled back a little to look in Em’s face. “No, of course not. Don’t worry about that at all.”

“He shot Daddy,” Em said, her voice quivering. “He could shoot you, too.”

“I think he was mad at Daddy.” Maddie tried to think of a way around all the messy details without lying. “There were some people who were mad at your dad, but they’re not mad at me.”

“Because a lot of really bad stuff happened to you, too,” Em said. “Like the car accident and your face.”

“Those were accidents, Em,” Maddie said. “The car thing was just an accident.”
Webster’s little brother rear-ended you,
Henry had said. “I think it was just an accident. People get in car accidents all the time.”

“Was your face an accident?” Em asked, and Maddie swallowed again and said, “No.”

“What happened?” Em’s eyes narrowed as Maddie hesitated. “Don’t lie.”

“Your dad came home that night really mad,” Maddie said. “And I was mad, too. And we had a fight.” She stopped again, and Em sat stone-faced next to her. “And he hit me.”

Em blinked, and then she pulled away and said,
“No, he didn‘t.”

All right
. All right.

“He didn’t do that,” Em said.

Maddie sat silent, determined to keep her promise and not lie, equally determined not to batter her daughter with the truth.

They sat staring at the water, watching the fish dart just below the surface, and the sun highlight the ripples, and the reflection of the dock wavering on the cool green water. Behind them, Phoebe scratched at fishy smells.

Finally Em said, “Why?”

Maddie took her hand, feeling how fragile Em’s little bones were against her fingers. She was so little. Too little for the truth, but that was all that Maddie had anymore. “He was just really mad, Em. He said he was sorry.” Maddie remembered Brent on the other side of the door saying, “I’m sorry. I just need to know what you know.” Everybody wanted the truth. “He was really, really sorry. He lost his temper. Listen.” She bent down closer to her daughter. “He never, ever hit me before or after that. Ever. He wasn’t like that.”

“I know.” Em stared back down at the water and sniffed. “I know. He was a good daddy.”

“Yes, he was.”

Em nodded. “So nobody is trying to hurt us.”

“No,” Maddie said, ignoring for the moment the kidnapping call. “Em, I’m sorry about all this. I’m sorry you heard all this.”

“It’s better,” Em said. “It’s better than not knowing what’s going on. It was scary not knowing.”

“I know,” Maddie said. “I don’t like it much myself. Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Em said. “I’m really, really sad, but I’m okay.” She lifted her chin and stared around her, as if she were looking at the farm and the river for the first time. “I’m glad we’re out here, though. I like Frog Point, but I’m glad we’re out here for right now.”

“Me, too, kid,” Maddie said. “Frog Point wears on a person.”

Em tilted her head to see her mother. “Are you mad at Aunt Treva? Because you haven’t been talking to her at all, even when she calls.”

Treva. One more lie to confront. One more betrayal. Maddie let go of Em’s hand and hoisted herself up off the dock. Phoebe leaped for the sky in ecstasy because they were going someplace and ran back and forth across the end of the dock. “No. I’m not mad.” That wasn’t a lie. She was disappointed and hurt and betrayed, not mad. “Listen, I’ve got to go into town and talk to your grandma and tell her you’re all right. You and Phoebe will be fine here with C.L. and Anna.”

“Do you like C.L.?” Em’s eyes were back on the water, carefully not looking at her mother.

“Yes.” Maddie looked up at the sky and thought,
I am not discussing my sex life with this child. Forget it.

“Is that why Daddy was mad?”

“No. Oh, God, Em,
no.
”Maddie dropped down onto the dock, and Phoebe came loping to lunge into their laps. “Listen, your dad and I hadn’t seen C.L. for twenty years. He just came back into town for a couple of days. Your dad wasn’t jealous. I swear.”

Em pulled Phoebe under her arm without looking at her, staring all the time at the water. “Because C.L. likes you a lot.”

“Well—” Maddie felt herself nodding like an idiot “—I like him a lot. Too.”

Em faced her mother. “Are you going to marry him?”

“No,” Maddie said. “I am not going to marry anybody for a long time and maybe not even then. You and I are okay together.” Phoebe squirmed under Em’s arms, and Maddie reached out and scratched the dog’s ears. “You and I and Phoebe.”

“And Grandma,” Em said. “And Mel.”

“Right.”

“And Three. And Aunt Treva and Uncle Howie.”

Three. Em’s half brother. Three, tall and smiling and careful with Mel and Em. He was a good kid. No, a good man. He was twenty years old. He was grown. So many years. Did what happened twenty years ago really make a difference now? Was what had happened worth losing Three?

More than that, was what had happened worth losing Treva? She’d known Treva her whole life. There wasn’t a memory she had that didn’t have Treva somewhere in it, even if it was just telling Treva about it later. Thirty-eight years of whispering and giggling and
you ‘re going to love this one
and knowing that whatever happened, Treva would be there, with chocolate and wisecracks and unconditional support.

Maddie closed her eyes and thought,
I miss her so much
and then
I’ve been so dumb.

“Mom?” Em said.

“Yes,” Maddie said with a quaver. “And Three and Treva and Howie. We’re not alone. We’re going to be okay.”

“And Anna,” Em said. “And Henry.”

“Lots of people,” Maddie said.

Em nodded. “And C.L.”

“And C.L.,” Maddie said. “We have people. We’re going to be okay.”

“Okay.” Em bent to bury her head in Phoebe’s soft furry neck. “Okay.”