Tell Me Lies (9 page)

Well, at least she could depend on him to never be around. There was a lot to be said for dependability. She’d read somewhere that abused wives and children could take almost anything as long as the abuse was consistent. It was unpatterned abuse that was impossible to withstand. Now, Brent was consistent. If she stayed with him, she knew he’d cheat on her, but she also knew he wouldn’t leave her. Lots of women lived with that.

The future stretched out before her, tight with suppressed anger, rigid with unspoken pain, lonely forever, with no chance of ever feeling warm again. She closed her eyes and thought of C.L. with his arms around her the night before, telling her he hated it that she was unhappy. He was almost a stranger, and yet she’d gotten more comfort from him than she had from Brent in the last five years. And that was the rest of her life if she stayed.

The hell with that
, she thought, and got up to fight.

She needed a divorce lawyer.

But nobody from Frog Point. Nobody was going to call her dumb as dirt. The problem was getting a name in Lima. She knew people who were divorced, but not how they’d gotten that way. And besides, she didn’t want just any divorce lawyer, she wanted a shark, somebody who would make sure she got custody of Em, sure that she didn’t come out a fool. Who did she know that had done well with a divorce? Nobody. Nobody did well with a divorce. She thought of Em, and closed her eyes, and told herself,
Think,

Her mother had said that Sheila Bankhead had taken C.L. for everything he had. He hadn’t looked poverty-stricken when he’d shown up at her door, in fact he’d looked supremely successful, but they’d been divorced for years. Maybe he’d had time to recover.

She pulled the Frog Point phone book from the drawer under the phone in the kitchen and flipped through the 5s, watching the pages tremble as she turned them.
Knock it off,
she told her shaking hands, and then she found Sheila’s number and dialed, taking deep breaths until Sheila answered.

“Sheila? This is Maddie Faraday.” There was no answer, so Maddie tried again. “Sheila?”

“I’m sorry.” Sheila’s voice came through the wire, cautious. “Maddie Faraday?”

“We were in high school together.” Maddie felt like a fool. “I’m—”

“I know who you are,” Sheila said. “I’m just. . . surprised.”

Maddie pulled a chair away from the kitchen table and sat down because standing up was taking too much energy away from the phone call. “I know, we’re not close, and I wouldn’t bother you, but I need your advice.”

“My
advice?” Sheila’s voice went up a notch. “You need
my
advice?”

Maddie gave up on tact since it only seemed to be confusing the issue. “I need the name of a good divorce lawyer, Sheila. Do you know a good one?”

“
You’re getting divorced
?” Sheila practically hit high C.

“Oh, no,” Maddie said. “This is for my next-door neighbor.”

“Oh, right. Gloria Meyer. I thought she had Wilbur Carter.”

“My mother said that wasn’t a good idea,” Maddie said, pleased to be telling the truth finally.

“Your mother’s right,” Sheila said. “Tell Gloria she wants Jane Henries. She was great with my divorce. C.L. never knew what hit him. She’s in Lima. Wait. I think I still have the number.”

Twenty minutes later, Maddie had a lawyer.

“Maddie Faraday?” Jane said. “Your husband owns that construction company in Frog Point.”

“Well, part of it,” Maddie began.

“I have family near you. You had my nephew in your art class. And you want a divorce?”

“Yes, thank you.” Maddie wasn’t sure of the connection between art and divorce, but she was in too deep to back out. “Can you help me, Mrs. Henries?”

“Hell, yes.” Maddie heard her laugh. “Call me Jane. I’m booked today, but you can come in on Monday—”

“Monday is fine—”

“—and in the meantime, you gather up all the financial records you can find so I know what we’re going after—”

“I just want custody—”

“—so we don’t miss anything. We’re talking irreconcilable differences, I gather?”

“Oh, yes,” Maddie said. “They’re irreconcilable. I want him dead.”

Jane Henries laughed again. “That I can’t help you with, but get me the records and I can make him broke for you. Sometimes that’s better.”

“I don’t want him broke—” Maddie began.

“Sure you do. You’ve got a kid with college coming up. He gets married again and starts another family, and then where’s your daughter going to be?”

“He wouldn’t—”

“Sure he would. Get me those records.”

Brent wouldn’t stop taking care of Em. He wouldn’t. Would he? “All right,” Maddie said. “Whatever you say.”

“Good,” Jane said. “Keep thinking that way.”

When Em came down the stairs fifteen minutes later, Maddie was pouring milk into a Flintstones glass, measuring it with her eyes until it was an inch and a half from the rim, enough to give Em a fair amount of calcium without giving her a more than fair chance of spilling it all over the table. It was something to concentrate on besides financial records and lawyers and divorce and wondering how she was going to put Em through college if Brent was raising a new set of kids with some woman in black lace underwear, so she gave it all her attention.

Em slid into her chair and looked at Maddie over the rims of her glasses, her eyes watchful. “How are you feeling?”

“Just fine,” Maddie said as cheerfully as she could. Breakfast was not the time to tell a kid she was about to become a child of divorce. “I’m great.”

“Does your head still hurt?”

“Nope,” Maddie lied. “The pills take care of it all.”

Em let her breath out in relief and let her shoulders slump back. “That’s good. I’m hungry.”

Maddie put her milk in front of her. “So how was last night?”

“We watched movies.” Em scooted her chair up to the table. “We think Mrs. Meyer is a vampire.”

Maddie lifted an eyebrow at her. "Gloria, a vampire? Not a chance. How do you want your eggs?”

“Poached with cheese, please.”

Maddie turned to the microwave and stopped. “It’s broken. I forgot. We’ll get a new one later today. Second choice?”

“Scrambled.” Em’s eyes narrowed. “It’s not just the teeth. It’s her fingernails. And her eyes. They look like grapes. And she’s real pale ‘cause she never stays out very long during the day. Just at night.”

Maddie took a blue mixing bowl from the cupboard and two eggs from the refrigerator, admiring how pretty their blue and white roundness looked against the yellow counter. Much better than the black. She broke the eggs into the bowl and stirred them with a fork while she thought about Gloria. Of all the people in the world for Em and Mel to pick for a vampire game, Gloria was the least likely, but then Gloria was turning out to be the iceberg of Frog Point, nine-tenths below the surface.

Still, sucking blood was out. From what she’d heard yesterday, the chances of Gloria sucking anything were nil. “I can’t see it, Em.” She reached for the milk and tipped some into the bowl before she began to stir again.

Em reached for her glass. “I bet there are no mirrors in her house. She’s always out at night, and I know who she’s looking for. Dad.”

Maddie stopped stirring. “What?”

Em nodded, her eyes on Maddie. “Dad. She goes out at night and waits for him to come out in the yard. Then she calls his name. Sometimes he stops, but he doesn’t look happy. He knows she’s a vampire.” Em stuck her finger in her milk and swirled it around, making blue-white whirlpools, but she didn’t take her eyes off her mother. “But don’t worry, I know how to handle it. Garlic, holy water, and a stake through the heart.”

Maddie heated a pan on the stove and poured the eggs in, waiting until the translucent goop became creamy yellow before she spoke again. “I think all we have is garlic powder.”

Em considered. “I could dissolve it in holy water.”

“We don’t have any holy water.” When the eggs were cooked through, she tipped them onto a plate and stood admiring the delicate yellow next to the blue china. Pretty. If the Other Woman was Gloria, she was going to poison her grass. “What video did you see last night?”

“
The Lost Boys.
Maybe Mrs. Meyer will explode when I sprinkle the holy water on her.”

Maddie put the plate in front of Em. “Throwing water on the neighbors is not a good idea. I forgot to put your toast in. That’s what you get for distracting me.”

“I’ll do it.” Em got up and fished two slices of bread from the bag and dropped them into the toaster.

It couldn’t be Gloria. The whole idea of Gloria in black lace crotchless underwear was ludicrous. Em’s toast popped, and the nutty, yeasty smell made Maddie hungry, so she dropped in two slices for herself.

Em sat and slathered globs of butter and jam on her hot toast. There had to be at least three thousand calories on that bread, all of which Em would burn off by running upstairs once. When Maddie’s toast popped, she spread it with a thin glaze of jam. If she was going to be single, she wasn’t going to be fat, too. Time to start dieting. The Divorced Woman’s Diet. No fat, no salt, no money, no sex. Oh, hell.

Meanwhile, Em’s thoughts had bounced on. “You really do feel okay?”

“I feel fine,” Maddie said. “Stop worrying.”

“Then can I spend the night at Mel’s?” Em bit a corner off her toast. “I was supposed to stay last night, remember? I came home so you wouldn’t be here alone, but you look pretty good now. If you’re all right, can I stay tonight?” She stopped, anxious. “If you’re not, I’ll stay with you. I don’t mind at all.”

“Oh.” Maddie swallowed. “Have I mentioned that you’re the perfect child?”

“Thank you. Can I stay with Mel?”

“Did you ask Aunt Treva?” Maddie bit into her toast carefully and chewed. Her head didn’t come off in pain. So far, so good.

Em shook her head. “No, Mel’s going to. Can I?”

“Call and find out.”

Em scraped her chair back.

“After breakfast.”

Em bent over the table and shoveled her eggs onto the jam-and-buttered toast, making the breakfast sandwich from hell. “I’ll eat this on the phone,” she said, and took off for the family room, dripping butter. “Thanks, Mom.”

Maddie mopped the butter from the floor with a towel and straightened, encouraged that the toast was staying down even though she’d gotten reckless enough to bend over.
Good,
she thought.
I’m going to live.
Things were looking up.

Em shrieked from the family room, “Aunt Treva wants to talk to you,” and Maddie picked up the extension.

Treva’s voice was cautious. “How are you?”

“Em, are you off the extension?” Maddie called.

“I heard her hang up,” Treva said. “How are you? Did you talk to him?”

“No.”

“Oh, hell, Maddie—”

Maddie cut her off. “Wait a minute, he didn’t come home until I was asleep, and he was gone when I got up, but I called a lawyer. I’m filing on Monday. I’m doing it, Treva. I’m going to do it as quietly as I can, but I called her. It’s done.”

“Yes,” Treva breathed into the phone. “Oh, yes, yes, yes. Oh, good for you.”

Maddie leaned against the wall. “I don’t know. This is going to be awful. She says I should have financial records.”

“She who?”

“The lawyer. Jane Henries from Lima.”

“Ooooh, she’s good.” Treva’s voice sounded hysterical with happiness. “I’ve heard she takes everything but their socks. Where are you getting financial records?”

“I already have them. I do the taxes every year, so I have all the records in the closet. It’s no big deal.”

“What about the office? I think we should search his office.”

Maddie almost dropped the phone. “Have you lost your mind? I want the divorce, not the scandal. I told you, I’m going to do this very quietly, and if I search Brent’s office, people will not be quiet.”

“He’s scum, Maddie.” Treva’s voice was so intense she was snarling. “He deserves to get taken to the cleaners. Don’t you want to see what he has squirreled away at work? I sure as hell do, and I bet Jane Henries does, too. We’re going to the office. We go all the time, nobody will think anything of it. I’ll pick you up in fifteen minutes. Three can watch the girls.”

“Treva, I don’t think he’d have stuff hidden at work. Why would he—”

“Where else would he hide it?” Treva said. “If you won’t do it for yourself, do it for me. I’ve had a bad week. I’d like to pass it on to somebody else, Brent if possible. Besides, what else do you have to do today?”

Treva, as usual, had a point. If Maddie didn’t search the office, she’d be pretty much stuck sitting at home, waiting for Brent to walk in so she could divorce him. She really didn’t think there was anything there, but then she really hadn’t thought there was another woman, either.

“Oh, come on over,” Maddie said.

The phone rang again as soon as Maddie hung up, and she put her head against the cool wall, trying to find her place in the world. What she wanted was to have a nice nervous breakdown, but she wasn’t ever going to have the time because she’d be on the phone. When hers rang again, she picked it up and said, “Hello?” and her mother said, “Maddie, honey, it’s Mama.”

Maddie winced. Her mother had heard about the divorce already. “It’s all right, Mom.”

“No, it isn’t. Lock all your doors.”

Maddie frowned at the phone. Not the divorce. Maybe this was about C.L. holding her in the middle of her lawn last night. She’d been trying not to think about that again, but if her mother knew— “Why?”