The Almost Truth (9 page)

I felt a ripple of disgust roll over my skin. Something about the idea of someone using a kid’s stuffed toy to make her feel safe when they were planning to hurt her was just nasty.

“A year or two ago someone mailed the foundation a stuffed bunny. No note or anything. So the McKennas freaked out and wondered if it was supposed to be some sort of message or something. Maybe at long last the kidnapper was going to tell them where to find Ava, or at least her body. The police tried to hunt down who sent the bunny, but nothing. The package was dropped off at a post office in downtown Portland, Oregon, and paid for in cash. No one remembers anything about who dropped it off. There was nothing about the paper or box that had any real leads. The manufacturer hadn’t made that model of stuffed rabbit for years, so whoever sent it hadn’t bought it recently. Dead end. The McKennas waited to see if there would
be a note or anything else later, but nothing. Just a stuffed bunny that looked like the one that used to belong to their daughter.”

“Is there some way to test the bunny and figure out if it was hers? DNA or something?” I watched
CSI
; it seemed like they could test anything these days. On TV they were always finding clues from the most bizarre things. I could picture all sorts of white-lab-coated professionals looking over the bunny with microscopic precision.

“They knew it wasn’t Ava’s—it was too pristine—but it was the same style. The tricky thing is, people send toys to the foundation all the time. We work with kids, so there’s nothing weird about that.” Chase shrugged. “The whole thing could be nothing more than a coincidence. Someone bought the rabbit a long time ago, then they cleaned out a closet and donated it.”

“I guess.” Chase was right. People tend to find meanings in all sorts of things that are just random. It’s one of the reasons so many cons work.

“Enough depressing talk. The day is too nice. Tell me more about you.” Chase tapped my knee. It was a casual touch, but a jolt of electricity shot up my leg.

I looked up into his face to see if he could tell the effect he was having on me. He stared into my eyes as if he couldn’t wait for whatever I might be about to say. I felt as if my skin had developed some kind of superpower where it could measure the exact distance between the two of us. I was supposed to be thinking
about the con I needed to pull, and instead I was thinking,
What would he do if I just leaned over and kissed him?

“Hey! Fancy seeing you here.”

I nearly fell off the bench in shock. Brendan was standing in front of us. I’d been so focused on Chase, I hadn’t seen or heard him coming.

I stood up before Brendan could say anything more, anything that might hint that I wasn’t the kind of person who had hotel-owning parents and spent her spare time on charity work. “Brendan, this is Chase Parker. He’s organizing the McKenna Foundation event.”

Brendan’s eyes sparked as he realized who was in front of him. “Welcome to Bowton Island.”

“We’ve been talking about how the youth service group could help.” I raised my eyebrows at Brendan, but I didn’t have to worry. We’d followed each other’s leads with far more complicated cons in the past. “Chase, this is Brendan. He’s my cousin.”

“You’d be lucky to get her help,” Brendan said, careful not to use my real name in case I had given Chase a different one. “She’s a whiz at these kinds of things.”

“Well, I probably should head back now, but how about I take you out for dinner to discuss it?” Chase asked, and my heart sped up a bit. A date.

“Your boyfriend isn’t going to like that idea,” Brendan said, smiling at me. “You know how jealous he gets.”

If I could have shot poison darts from my eyes, Brendan
would have dropped to the ground and foamed at the mouth before he died a slow, painful death. “Very funny, Cuz.” I turned to Chase. “He’s joking. He’s my practical joke cousin. I don’t have a boyfriend. I’d love to meet up for dinner.”

“Great. I’m guessing you don’t want to eat at the hotel,” Chase said. “I saw an Italian place in town. Would that work? I could pick you up around six thirty?”

“Tortuffo’s. They’ve got great risotto.” I snapped my fingers like something had just occurred to me. “You know what, I have to run some errands later today. It might be better if I met you there.” No way I was going to let Chase pick me up at my trailer.

“Hey, do you smoke?” Brendan asked Chase.

Chase looked slightly confused. “No. Sorry.”

“Oh, me neither. I just picked up a pack of cigarettes because this guy on the ferry was telling me it was possible to tie a cigarette in a knot without it tearing or falling apart.” Brendan pulled out a pack of Marlboros and tossed them in the air, catching them. “I was going to try to figure out if it could be done.”

“There’s no way. They would tear for sure,” Chase said.

I stepped forward and caught the cigarette pack on Brendan’s next toss. I’d seen Brendan do the cigarette con at least a dozen times. There was no way I was going to let him cheat Chase out of five or ten bucks. “Of course there’s no way it could be done. You’d better not let your dad see you with cigarettes. You know how he feels about that.” I stared him down.

Brendan smiled, but I could see the annoyance in his eyes.
“Yeah, you’re probably right. Most likely the guy was trying to con me out of some money.” He slid the cigarettes back into his pocket. “So, I came looking for you because we’re supposed to go do that stuff for Aunt Millicent, Cuz.” He drew out the last word.

“I’m sure we could do it later,” I said.

“Oh you know how Auntie can be.” Brendan shook his head and turned to Chase. “Our aunt Millicent is a hundred and one years old. She’s actually our great-aunt. She’s got this china doll collection that’s amazing. A whole room full of shelves stacked from floor to ceiling with dolls.”

“You’re right, she will worry,” I said, cutting him off before he could come up with more elaborate stories. I squeezed Chase’s arm. “I’ll meet up with you later.”

“No problem. I should get back to work anyway. I’ve got to pick out the right table linens.”

“You wouldn’t want wrong linens,” Brendan said in a fake chummy voice. “Imagine the horror.” I wanted to ninja kick him in the knees.

“See you later.” Chase gave me a smile that melted my desire to whack Brendan with a bat. He shook Brendan’s hand. “Nice to meet you.”

Brendan and I watched Chase walk back toward the hotel.

“Aunt Millicent?” I hissed when Chase was far enough away.

“Cousins?” Brendan countered with a raised eyebrow.

B
rendan followed me home. He wanted to look through the information I’d already gathered on the McKenna family. I never used to care if he was in my room with me, but ever since we’d been together it felt weird. Now I didn’t want to sit with him on my bed, but there wasn’t any other space in my room, so I dragged everything outside onto the broken-down picnic table in our yard.

Brendan sat down carefully. “The only thing this table is good for anymore is making splinters. You touch it and it imbeds wood into your hand.” Brendan lightly touched the surface of the scarred table. “It’s a terrorist table. The United States could drop this into a war zone as some kind of weapon.”

I dumped the pile of information and pictures I’d printed off the Internet onto the tabletop. “If it’s giving you splinters, then don’t touch it.”

“Somebody’s cranky.” Brendan flipped through the stack of papers.

I decided to ignore him. I managed to stay quiet all of a few minutes. “I’m not cranky. I just didn’t need you trying to con the guy I need information from with one of your two-bit cigarette bets.”

Brendan looked up from what he was reading and raised an eyebrow. “Uh-huh.” He looked back down.

I sat on the edge of the seat and bounced my foot up and down in annoyance while he read. Brendan was the master of driving me nuts. He could get a PhD in irritating behavior without having to study.

I reached for a newspaper article and a splinter sliced into the pad of my fingertip, burying itself into my flesh. I snatched my hand back. I stuck my finger in my mouth and sucked on it, trying to pull the sliver of wood out. I glanced across the table and saw Brendan smirking.

“So are you happy now?” I asked him. “You’re right. The table has some kind of splinter jihad going.”

Brendan shrugged and looked back through the stacks of paper. I spun the ring on my finger in irritation.

“Don’t think I don’t know that you were pulling the con on Chase because you don’t like him,” I said.

Brendan rolled his eyes. “Rich people call their kids weird stuff. Who the hell names their kid Chase? It’s like that movie star who named her kid Apple.”

“You don’t like him because of his name?” I crossed my arms. “Well, that makes sense. Very mature.”

“The issue isn’t what I think of him; it’s what
you
think of him. You like him. You should have seen yourself, flipping your hair around, leaning in whenever he said anything.” Brendan pressed one hand to his heart and the other to his forehead. “Oh, Chase,” he said, in a fake girly voice. “You’re so smart and clever! Why, I would love to have dinner with you. I can’t imagine what else I would rather do.”

If not for the fact that a thousand splinters would have sliced me to death, I would have reached across the table and smacked Brendan. “Like you’ve never flirted to get what you wanted? Besides, I’ve never been anything but honest with you. I don’t know why you’re surprised I would go out with someone else. If you want to pretend that we’re destined to be more than friends, that’s fine, but you shouldn’t be upset that I don’t share that delusion.”

Brendan barked out a laugh. “I’m delusional? What about your delusion? You think this guy likes you? You think he would have anything to do with you if he knew you came from here?” Brendan’s arm swept around. “The person he asked out for dinner doesn’t exist. You made her up, some rich girl who spends her time doing charity when she isn’t planning to head off to the Ivy League. He’s not interested in you, he’s interested in your con.”

“Oh, please, and what about all the stories you tell to get summer girls into bed? Didn’t you convince some stupid slut last
year that you were in the witness protection program? That you were living under a death sentence?”

Brendan smiled as if this was a fond memory. “I told her I’d given evidence to put a mobster away in prison for life. I knew it was dangerous, but I had to do the right thing; innocent people deserve justice. She wanted to make sure I had a happy memory, since it was likely they would catch up to me someday and take me out in a hail of gunfire.”

“Hail of gunfire? Nice touch. I suppose next you’ll pretend you have some sort of terminal illness and want to know the love of a good woman before you breathe your last. Maybe you could ask the Make-A-Wish Foundation to help you get some cheap tail.”

Brendan held up a hand to cut me off. “Whoa up. She wasn’t cheap. I’ll give you that she wasn’t that smart, but I took her out to dinner at least two or three times. Nothing cheap about that girl.”

“You’re disgusting,” I said.

“Maybe, but I’m honest. I always knew the whole thing was fake. The problem is that you seem to be forgetting it. You want to tell Mr. Fancy Pants some story to get what you want, fine by me. Hell, I’ll help you make the story better. But don’t lie to yourself.” Brendan’s eyes locked with mine. “When you start lying to yourself, it’s just sad.”

I wanted to get up from the table and run around screaming. Maybe pick up one of Ms. Flick’s plastic garden gnomes and hurl
it at Brendan. I enjoyed the image of bashing him in the head with one of the gnomes’ pointy red hats. He went back to ignoring me, reading through the printouts. Brendan’s hand suddenly slapped down on a stack of paper and he let out a whoop.

“What?” I leaned forward.

Brendan’s smile spread across his face. He looked like a kid who’d wandered downstairs and caught Santa Claus unloading a heap of giant presents under his tree. He waved a newspaper article at me. “Here’s the angle on your con.”

I grabbed the article out of his hand and skimmed through it. It was an interview with the McKennas’ nanny about what had happened. Nothing stuck out to me. I couldn’t figure out what had caught his attention.

“Don’t you see it?” Brendan asked.

I read the article again, and then it leaped off the page at me. The nanny stated that she was in the McKennas’ suite, but she left because the maid had wanted to clean the room. She took a napping Ava in the stroller outside, and while she was looking out at the water, Ava either climbed out of the stroller or was taken. Brendan passed me another sheet of paper, where I had written down a timeline of events. Ava went missing between ten thirty a.m. and eleven a.m. I felt a smile slide across my face.

“No way a maid came to clean the room at that time,” I said. Cleaning over three hundred hotel rooms in a day requires a system. Each night, the hotel front desk prints out a list of what
rooms are due to check out the coming day. Those would be the first cleaned so that when new guests checked in they could go immediately to their rooms. Once those rooms were done, the hotel was cleaned floor by floor, starting with the second floor. The McKennas were in a suite on the top floor and weren’t due to check out. No way anyone would have shown up to clean their room at 10:30 unless someone had called down and requested the room be done right away. “The nanny lied,” I said.

“The nanny lied,” Brendan repeated with a smile. “It wasn’t an accident.”

“Do you think she did something to Ava?” I pictured Nancy Goodall as she appeared on TV with her perfectly shellacked hair and bland politician-styled suits. She annoyed me, and Thomas hadn’t liked her, but I hadn’t thought of her as someone who would do something to a kid.

“Doubt it. My guess is that she went out to sneak a smoke or to meet a boyfriend. Something she shouldn’t have been doing. She lied to cover herself, and nobody caught it. The important thing is, this woman makes millions now talking about how to protect your kids. You think anyone is going to want to buy books and safety crap from her if it comes out that she lied to cover her own ass?”