The Second Lie (15 page)

"Does Glenna have a boyfriend?"

"No. She did. But they broke up. He was a jerk."

"What made him a jerk?"

"He plays football and thinks that makes him great when it really just makes him do stupid things."

"Like what?"

"Drinking. Partying. Driving fast."

"And Glenna didn't like that?"

Maggie looked at me again. "No. She's not that type. She wants to go to college, to be a teacher. She loves kids."

So maybe we just had a case of hero worship here. A young girl being mentored by a slightly older teen.

"I heard you're playing tennis."

She clenched the purse up against her torso again and started to bounce the foot. "Yeah. Why? Is there something wrong with that?"

"Of course not. I have a friend who plays and she mentioned seeing you at the complex."

"Oh," Maggie said, nodding. "Yeah, I play out there."

"Does Glenna play, too?"

"No. She...doesn't...have time with babysitting and all."

"How are the courts?"

"Good. Do you play tennis?" The foot tapping increased.

"Nope. Never picked up a racket."

"Oh." Her foot relaxed.

More comfortable knowing I won't be hanging out at the complex?

"Anything else going on in your life?" I asked.

Maggie had an energy about her, a sense that she was holding back, and that made me nervous.

"Not really."

"Now that school's started, have you met any boys that interest you?"

"At school? Hardly." The derision was obvious.

"Any teachers that stand out?"

"My English teacher's pretty cool. She's making us journal every day."

"Anyone else?"

She shook her head. "My teachers are all nice. Just kind of boring."

So Maggie was safe at school. At least, from what she told me. But I believed her.

"How about out of school."

Silence.

"Maggie?"

"It's not like it's anything..."

Except that she seemed to want to talk about it.

"What's not anything?"

She turned on the couch so she was facing me, like two girlfriends having a chat. "There's just this guy. He's... I don't know. I just like him. He's exactly the kind of man I hope to marry some day."

Uh-oh.

"Is this the same one you didn't want to talk about before?"

"I guess."

"So tell me about him."

"There's not much to tell. I just-- We talked."

Trouble's arrived.

"On the Internet?"

"No."

"You've met him in person, then?"

"Yeah."

"Where?"

"At the park. I was there for a party with these kids I babysit. The little boy has Down syndrome and wandered off and he brought him back."

"So he wasn't with you."

"Of course not. I told you, he's just a guy I talked to."

Funny how an older guy Maggie had a crush on just happened to turn up at the park while the girl was there.

"So tell me about the kids."

"They're just these kids I watch sometimes."

"Does Glenna babysit for them, too?"

"No. She doesn't have time. She's a nanny to one family and there's her mom and stuff."

"So what was this guy doing at the park?"

"He was just there. I don't know. It's not like Chandler is a big place."

"Did he say anything to you? Touch you in any way?"

"No! He's not like that. You're making me wish I didn't tell you."

"Does your mom know you take kids to the park?"

"Yeah."

"Does she know about this guy, too?"

"No. Of course not."

"Why not?"

"Come on, Dr. Chapman. The whole reason I'm here is 'cause my mom's whacked about me and boys. She thinks I'm two steps away from being a slut or something. If she knew some guy helped me in the park and that I actually liked him, she'd lock me in my bedroom until she dies. Besides, it's not like it's anything. I'm way too young."

"So this guy...is he a dad?"

"No. I don't know. I didn't see him with any kids."

"Are you going to meet again?"

"How would I know? I just ran into him."

"Does he know how you feel about him?"

"No."

"Has he ever given you any indication that he likes you?"

No answer. I sat forward.

"Has he ever touched you, Maggie?" I asked again.

"No."

"Would you like him to?"

The girl shrugged, her shoulders closing in on herself. "I don't know. Maybe. Someday."

"But not now."

"No."

"Do you know how old he is?"

"No."

"And he's never said or done anything to you that would lead you to believe that if you'd agree, he'd have sex with you?"

"He wouldn't do that. He's a good person. Not a creep."

Okay. So maybe all we had was a normal schoolgirl crush. Girls had them. Often on safe, innocuous authority figures who posed no threat.

"Can you tell me his name?"

"Do I have to?"

"I'd like it if you would. At least his first name. Just so I don't have to worry that you're hiding something. Or that he is."

"It's Mac. I asked him and that's what he said. I don't know his last name."

Mac.

I was sending Sam on a manhunt. Immediately.

13

S
am wasn't the only one to search Kyle's place. But she'd managed to be assigned to the barns and house, while Todd Williams and Chuck had covered every inch of the fields.

If Kyle was making meth, she wouldn't cover for him. But she wanted to be the first deputy who knew--to protect him.

And she'd had to make Grandpa think she was just there visiting him while Kyle tended to Zodiac. James and Millie, who'd only known the police were investigating the fire, had taken advantage of the chance to go home and shower.

The search was conducted first thing Tuesday morning. She'd felt like an intruder going through Kyle's personal things without him there. At any other time, she'd have touched them as easily as if they were her own.

But at any other time, she'd have felt as though she was a part of him.

She wasn't sure what she was now.

Except a cop.

When it came right down to it, that's all Sam was. Anyplace. Anytime. A cop.

She reminded herself of that fact at five minutes after eight Tuesday evening when she changed out of her uniform into the jeans and black sweater she'd brought with her to work. Her plan was to head straight out to Kyle's. She'd spoken to him briefly that morning. Zodiac was awake and Kyle had been ready to take her home, but not until Sam and her fellow officers had vacated the place.

She and her fellow conspirators. There was no reason for her to feel guilty. She was doing her job. Nothing more.

She wasn't the one who'd bought questionable amounts of dangerous chemical--not that she'd told anyone about that yet. The toxic waste in the field was reason enough to search the premises. Not that Kyle was a suspect, but his land was.

And she wasn't the one who'd kept a little thing like another lover a secret for fifteen years. A lover who'd turned up possessing enough meth to be selling the stuff.

Still, she'd offered to collect Kyle and Zodiac. To take them home. Truth be known, she'd needed to see them. To be near Kyle. And to look Zodiac in the eye.

He'd said Dan was taking him back to the farm. The vet was going to help him set up a bed and IV for the dog in the kitchen.

Sam didn't ask if she could drive out after her shift. She wasn't giving Kyle the chance to tell her no a second time. Technically, if he insisted he didn't want her on his property, she'd be breaking the law by visiting him.

The Mustang faltered a bit at the slow speed up the long dirt drive, but Sam wasn't in a "roaring up" mood. Hell, for all she knew, if she showed her power, her proud and sensitive sometimes-lover might meet her outside with a gun.

Order her off his land.

He'd be within his rights to do so.

He didn't meet her car. Not even when she parked by the house. Turned off the engine. Lights were on in the kitchen. Sam climbed the steps to the back door. And stood, staring at it. Should she knock?

She hadn't knocked in years.

So she didn't.

Pulling open the old-fashioned wooden screen door, she pushed the heavier one inward.

"Kyle?" she called softly, stepping into the mudroom, but no farther.

Grandpa should be down for the night.

Still...

Kyle's boots were there. Just like they always were when he was in the house. Ready and waiting for him to slip into them to get to the barn.

They never crossed the threshold into the house. Kyle believed that a man's boots didn't belong in his house.

Because his father and grandfather had believed the same.

There was no answer to her call.

She tried again, moving a little closer to the archway that led to the kitchen. "Kyle?"

"Yeah."

She saw him then, sitting in the handmade wooden rocking chair that had been in his living room ever since she could remember. He'd pulled it over to the far corner of the kitchen where a makeshift bassinet sat with an IV drip beside it.

Grandpa's door was shut--a monitor on the table beside Kyle. When Grandpa had first come home from the hospital after his stroke, Kyle had slept in the front room so he could hear if the old man stirred during the night. Sam had bought him the monitor so he could go back to sleeping in his own bed.

He didn't smile when she entered the room. Hardly looked at her at all.

But he didn't tell her to leave.

"How is she?"

"Sedated. Her throat and lungs are burned pretty bad. Dan wants to give them a day or two to heal before seeing how she does up and around."

Peering over the side of the long wooden crate on top of a saw table padded with sheets and bedding, Sam looked for signs that Zodiac was better.

The dog looked just as lifeless as she had the day before.

"Has she been awake at all?"

"An hour the first time. 'Bout the same, the second."

A cereal bowl with cooked chicken and rice sat on the edge of the table.

"Has she eaten anything?"

"A little bit. Can't give her too much. Throwing up would hurt her throat."

"Did she seem to know you?"

"
She
knew me." The implication was clear that someone else in the room didn't.

And that's what happened when a person kept fifteen-year-old secrets....

She had to let it go. It was past. Over a long time ago.

She just couldn't believe that Kyle hadn't told her. That he'd impregnated a woman and...

But she didn't know that for sure.

She looked back at Zodiac. "She's going to be okay, right?"

His gaze, when it met hers, lacked his usual confidence. "I don't know."

Swallowing, Sam wasn't sure what to do with herself. Take a seat at the table? Rub Kyle's back and neck? That's what she'd have done a month ago. He had to be exhausted, aching, after spending the night in a tiny exam room at the animal hospital.

Leaving should probably be an option. It wasn't.

"Can I touch her?"

"Suit yourself."

Okay, she would. She'd done nothing wrong. And she'd loved Zodiac since she'd watched the dog come into the world, the pup of Kyle's dad's dog, Missy, who'd since passed on.

She'd been caring for Kyle a whole lot longer than that.

Instead of its usual silkiness, the German shepherd's fur felt kind of sticky. Zodiac didn't flinch, didn't move at all, as Sam stroked her, rubbing gently along the dog's chest between her front legs. Zodiac's favorite spot.

The dog was so strong. Had seemed invincible. Smart enough to keep herself safe in any situation. And to keep Kyle safe, too.

Look what had happened to them both.

"I don't know the rules here." His voice was even. Unemotional. "Do you tell me the results of your search or do I find out when you show up at my door in uniform?"

"I'm here as a friend, Kyle."

"So you can't tell me what's going on."

"I didn't say that. It's just...this doesn't seem like the right time. It's not like we can do anything tonight."

"You found something."

"I didn't say that."

He shot up, the chair knocking into the wall behind him. "Dammit, Sam. What's the big secret? And how can there be a right time for a friend of twenty years or more to show you they don't know you at all? That you could think, even for a second, that I would--"

"Wait just a minute, buster."

She should have told him before now. Shouldn't have let it fester.

"What? You come at me like I'm some kind of criminal and I'm supposed to just take it in stride?" His quiet tone didn't take any of the anger out of his voice. "I can't believe you didn't trust me."

"Don't talk to me about secrets, Kyle," Sam said, her own throat burning. "Or about not trusting someone."

"What? I've got nothing to hide?"

"Oh, yeah? What about Sherry Mahon?"

His face paled.

"Name ring a bell, Kyle? Now let's talk about good friends and secrets."

He didn't say a word. And any hope that Chuck had somehow been wrong, confused his stories, was dashed.

Sam fell to a chair that had been pulled away from the kitchen table to make room for the makeshift dog bed. "You want to talk to me about how I could possibly doubt you, Kyle? About how it feels to have a friend for so long and then discover you don't know them at all?"

"Sam..."

"No, I don't think I'm ready to hear about it yet. Which is why I didn't tell you when I first found out."

"When was that?"

"The morning I discovered your chemical purchases."

He nodded, his face grim and filled with disgust. But Sam had a feeling the negative emotions were no longer directed at her.

"Did you use protection?"

"No."

That hurt. More than it should have. He'd... With his... That had been hers... And the very next night he'd put that used thing inside Sam.

What was the matter with her?