The Perfect Liar (13 page)

How does that enable us to be together?"

"It doesn't
have
to end with you in prison," she said.

97

He froze. This whole time, he'd held on to the remote possibility that someone else might've broken into Kalyna's apartment and beat her up after he left, that she'd been confused and didn't know it wasn't him or else blamed him for not being there to protect her. But the truth, and all its staggering implications, hit him with the force of kick to the gut. She knew he was innocent. She was
trying
to hurt him.

"What is it you want?" he breathed.

"I told you--"

"I didn't rape you, Kalyna. You and I both know that."

"You raped my soul, Luke. You hurt me worse than anyone ever has."

"How?"

"You know how."

"No, I don't. You're not making any sense. We were never close enough for our
souls
to be involved. And I'm not the one who hit you. I don't know where you got those injuries, but it sure as hell wasn't from me!"

Damn, he wished he had a tape recorder, some way to capture her words, her tone of voice, her...weirdness.

Just in case he did have such a device and had forgotten about it, he strode to his dresser and pulled out the top drawer. Shoving his M9 to one side, he pawed through his gun license, extra bullets, his iPod, pocket change, checkbook and earplugs but found no recorder.
Shit!

"Please, Luke. I don't want to argue."

"So why did you call?" He dashed into the living room and replayed the messages on his answering machine. He needed Ava Bixby's number.

"Why do you think?"

His chest rising and falling with each breath as if he'd run five miles, he turned down the volume so she wouldn't be able to hear what he was doing. "I don't want to play games. Wil you drop this, Kalyna? Wil you tell the truth?"

No answer.

"Kalyna, talk to me. Please, stop what you're doing. There's no point in it. I don't know what you've conjured up in your mind, but June 6 was a one-night stand, nothing more, and you knew it when you took me home with you."

98

"No, I didn't."

"Yes, you did!" He pushed the fast-forward button to skip a message from his mother. Ava had called after that, hadn't she? He was so frantic it was hard to remember.

"How could you make me feel like that and then say it means
nothing?
" she said.

"It was a climax, Kalyna. A physiological reaction to stimulation. I was trying hard not to be the selfish jerk you're accusing me of being. But that's different from love." Where was it? Why couldn't he find it?

"You just don't get it."

He skipped another message, this one from a friend wanting him to play racquetball.
"You're
the one who doesn't get it," he said. "I was an idiot to go home with you."

"So now you regret it."

Could she expect anything less? "Of course!"

"Al you care about is yourself!"

Finally! Here it was. As Ava's voice came softly into the living room, he jiggled his leg, waiting for the number, then jotted it down. "I hope that's not true," he said, stil trying to maintain the conversation, "but if it is, I'm sorry. I'm not asking for a lot here. I just want this to go away. I just want you out of my life. So what's it going to take? Money?"

There was a lengthy pause during which he grabbed his landline and dialed Ava. If only she could hear Kalyna. If only
someone
could hear this...

Never had it seemed to take so long for a connection to go through, but eventually her phone started ringing.

"Money?" Kalyna repeated. "Do you think I'm stupid? You're not going to get off that easily."

"Why not? You have to want
something,"
he said, "or you wouldn't be doing this."

Answer, damn it. Answer the phone.
He'd been in such a hurry, he wasn't sure if he'd written down the number correctly. When he got a voice-mail response at The Last Stand, he realized he'd called the office instead of her cell, and it was asking him for an extension, which he didn't have.

Son of a bitch!

"You're nothing but a selfish bastard, you know that?" Kalyna was 99

saying.

"Maybe that would upset me if it wasn't coming from a deranged, vindictive bitch." He knew he shouldn't let her incite him, that it would only make matters worse. But he was so focused on trying to get the right number, he wasn't completely sure of what he was saying. Nothing he said or did seemed to improve the situation, anyway.

"You're going to pay for that," she said.

He ignored the threat. "If you don't want to work this out, why are you calling?" he asked. "To gloat? To rub my nose in the fact that I can't work because of you? That I have to worry about how this is reflecting on my parents, who don't deserve the humiliation? That I have to suffer strange glances from my female friends, knowing that they're wondering if I'm dangerous--if I'd hurt them if we were ever alone?"

While he talked, he listened to Ava's message with one ear.
Now
he had the right number.

"That's what you're worried about?" Kalyna screeched. "How this looks to
other women?
"

How had she isolated that from everything else he'd said? "I want my life back!" he shouted.

"Well, you can forget it! You're obviously not ready."

Dial, come on.
He was trying to go too fast. As a result he'd made a mistake and had to hang up, start again.
Damn it!
"For
what?
" he said, trying to keep her talking.

"You'l see. You'l come crawling to me on your hands and knees before I'm done with you, Luke Trussell," she said. And then she was gone.

Ava's cell phone was finally ringing, but it was too late. Calling her now would prove nothing.

With a curse, Luke slumped onto the couch and hung up.

100

"W
hy are you stil awake?" Tati mumbled, yawning loudly.

Kalyna felt the pressure of Luke's watch against her, held tightly to her body by her underwear. But the excitement of placing it in such a sensitive spot had long since disappeared.

"Kalyna?" Tati persisted.

She'd just returned to the bedroom, after calling Luke from the bathroom, and sat on the floor, rocking back and forth. "I can't sleep."

Her sister punched her pil ow but sounded just as drowsy as before.

"What's wrong?"

Kalyna dug her nails into her palms so deeply that she almost drew blood. But it wasn't enough. She needed to do more, do
something
to punish herself for being so stupid. So she'd remember. So she'd learn.

It's my fault. I blew it. I called him too soon because I couldn't wait.

I'm so stupid
. She forced her nails deeper.
I'm
so
stupid!

"Kalyna!"

It took her a moment to realize that her sister had called her name yet again.
"What? What do you want?"

The snarl in her response made Tati hesitate. "Can't you go to bed?

I'd like to get some sleep. I have to work in the morning."

Jumping to her feet, she whirled on her sister. "Sorry if I'm keeping you up. I wouldn't want to
inconvenience
you just because I'm dying inside!"

Tati propped up her head.
"Dying
inside? Kalyna, what are you talking about?"

"Never mind. You don't care."

"Of course I care," her sister said, but her carefully engineered tolerance grated on Kalyna's nerves.

"No, you don't. You've been mad at me all night, ever since I asked you to talk to my caseworker. Don't try and pretend otherwise."

"I haven't been
mad.
It's just--" She blew out a long sigh. "Kalyna, I 101

don't agree with some of the things you do. And I don't like getting dragged into them. Surely you can understand that."

"You'd rather take Mom and Dad's side? You make me sick! You're as much of a weakling now as when we were kids!"

Tatiana didn't answer right away. When she did, her voice was barely audible. "Whatever you think of me, I'd rather not lie for you again."

"When did I make you
lie?
Mom was horrible to us while we were growing up. Have you forgotten, Tati? Have you forgotten how she shut us in the cooler for hours at a time? How she'd tell us the dead bodies in there were zombies that were going to come to life and eat us for being bad little girls?"

"There were those times," Tati conceded. "But they didn't happen often. And there were decent times, too. She kept us and fed us and took care of us. That's more than our birth mother did, or Mrs. Robertson, either.

Aren't you the least bit grateful?"

Kalyna couldn't believe Tati had used that word in association with the Harters.
"Grateful?"
she echoed. "Did you just say
grateful?
She used us to work in this damn mortuary so she wouldn't have to. So Dad would have someone to help him because she couldn't stomach the thought of death. So she could lie in bed all day, mourning her poor little Robert."

"She lost a child, Kalyna."

"We were children, too!"

"It could've been worse."

"And it could've been a lot better. If she'd cared half as much about us as she did Robert."

"It wasn't al her. Let's face it, Kalyna, you provoked her. You did anything and everything you could to torment and upset her."

Kalyna started laughing. "Because I hated them both from the beginning."

"See? Why? It wasn't their fault our real mom gave us up!"

"Don't talk about our birth mother! As far as I'm concerned she doesn't even exist."

"I'm just saying Mom had her own issues to deal with. And things are better now, a lot better."

"For you! And that's all you care about. I don't mean anything to you 102

anymore."

"That's not true."

"Yes, it is." She stalked closer. "You've changed. You're not the sister I knew, the sister I grew up with."

Tati didn't move. "Would you
stop
saying that? I'm trying to put the past behind me, Kalyna, and make peace with who I am and where I come from. And I'm trying to plan where I'm going. I'm happy for the first time in years.
Is that so bad?"

"If it changes who you are."

"Maybe it only changes who you want me to be."

With the lights off, Kalyna could hardly see her sister, but she concentrated all her hatred on that dark amorphous shape. "You're not better than I am. You never wil be."

Throwing off the sheet, Tati sat against the headboard and drew her knees to her chest. "I never said I was. You're purposely misinterpreting everything I say. We're adults now, Kalyna. I want to decide who I am. I don't want you to decide for me. Not anymore."

Kalyna propped her hands on her hips. "I don't know why I'm even bothering to talk to you. You're just like he is."

"He?
Who's
he?"

"Never mind." So what if her sister no longer admired her? Luke was the only person Kalyna cared about. And she'd have him. One way or another, he'd be the father of her children.

She pressed a hand to her stomach, remembering, hoping. "Do you have a pregnancy test?" she asked.

"A
what?"
Obviously taken aback by the sudden shift in topic, Tati gaped at her.

"You heard me."

Scooting down, her sister curled up on her side. "Of course not. I haven't even slept with a man yet," she grumbled.

"How pathetic! And you think there's something wrong with
me?
"

"It's
my
choice, Kalyna. I'm saving myself for marriage, and I don't want to hear what you have to say about it."

"Oh, good grief!" Kalyna felt like slapping her sister. "You've seen too many Disney movies. Life isn't a fairy tale, Tati. If you're waiting for a knight 103

in shining armor to come and rescue you from this dump of a mortuary, you might as well embalm yourself because you'll wind up rotting here, just like the corpses in the cemetery down the street. That's all that'l happen."

"I'l take my chances," Tati said.

"Oh, yeah? Well, I'm not taking
any
chances. I'm going to get what I want."

"And how are you going to do that?"

"Any way I can!" she snapped.

"That's what scares me," Tati muttered, and pulled the covers over her head.

Luke continued to pace long after Kalyna hung up. He wanted to call his attorney, but he didn't have an after-hours number. Instead, he made circuit after circuit of the room, struggling to come to grips with his anger. If only he'd gotten hold of Ava Bixby. If only she could've heard what a terrible liar Kalyna Harter really was.

He was tempted to call Ava back, hoping she'd pick up so he could tell her about it, even though he couldn't provide proof. He hated waiting for the legal process to unfold, and longed to help himself. But he was afraid he'd come across like some kind of madman, phoning Ava in the middle of the night without a more pressing reason than his panic and impatience.

He spent several minutes arguing with himself but finally realized there was nothing to do but wait until morning. He decided to watch TV, hoping it would distract him enough so he could stop fuming.

It didn't work. He was just as angry when the sun began to lighten the sky.

At exactly eight o'clock, he called in sick. Then he called McCreedy, Eisner and Goran, but he wasn't able to speak to his attorney. McCreedy was already on his way to court, he was told. He should be back after one.

Luke watched the clock for most of the day, but his attorney never called. At three, the law firm's secretary informed him that McCreedy had left for the Fourth of July weekend directly from the courthouse and would have to call him on Monday.

"Of course!" he snapped as he slammed down the phone. And that was when he decided he couldn't sit back and bide his time anymore. He 104

was going to effect some change. He was going to fight back.

He was going to call The Last Stand to see if he could meet with Ava Bixby before she left for the weekend, too.