Crooked Little Lies Read online

  “Where in the condo was it?”

  “Under the stairs. He made a place there and painted it so you’d never notice. I didn’t.”

  “How did you pull that off, though? Finding the drugs without Drake knowing?”

  “We waited until he was out of town and used the extra key he kept hidden outside to go in. I broke it off with him after that. He didn’t take it well. He made threats against Bo, called him names, idiot, retard—” Annie stopped, not wanting to say the rest.

  Her ignorance about Leighton felt as huge and terrible now as ever. It angered her the way she had fallen for him, the way she’d let all his talk of her prettiness, her sweet innocence sway her. She’d treasured the tokens he’d left her along with a generous tip on the table at the café after she’d served him: a single rose, a heart-shaped charm, a tiny violet suspended in a bubble of glass. Her heart, her unknowing, unschooled heart, had thrilled to every masterful move. The first time they made love, Leighton had entered her with such reverence and tenderness, she’d been mesmerized. He had said she was unique, a rare and delicate flower; he had said there was no other woman like her. It was laughable, really, and she was a fool.

  “Did you contact the police?”

  Annie looked at Cosgrove. He knew she hadn’t. “I was afraid of what he’d do if I did. Anyway, he left town, went back to Chicago, I heard.”

  “Maybe not.”

  “He’s not here?” Annie sat forward.

  “I think you’d be smart to keep an eye out.”

  “Has he done something to Bo? Is that what you think?”

  “There’s no evidence of that. But there’s a history between them. Aside from you, I mean, and the truth is we’re not sure of Drake’s whereabouts.”

  Annie pushed out a breath, biting her lips. What had she done, bringing that man into her life and Bo’s?

  Cosgrove took out his phone, thumbed it, then held it out to her. “You recognize this guy?”

  Annie looked at the photo on the tiny screen, her glance registering a man in his thirties with a strong jaw and a haunted look about his deep-set eyes. She shook her head. “I’ve never seen him. Who is he?”

  “His name’s Greg Honey. You sure you didn’t meet him when you were going out with Drake?”

  “He’s a friend of Leighton’s?” She hadn’t met many of Leighton’s friends. They’d stayed mostly to themselves, which made sense now.

  “More like an associate. Honey’s a sometime dealer, but unlike Drake, he’s a user, too—heroin mostly.”

  “Bo doesn’t like needles.”

  Cosgrove fanned his fingers, as if that was of no consequence, or maybe he was like a lot of people who thought if you’d try one drug, you’d try them all.

  “Why are you asking me about him?” She nodded at the cell phone.

  “They know each other, all three of them, your brother, Drake, and Honey.” Cosgrove pocketed his phone, bent his weight on his elbows. “And here’s the thing—they’re all missing.”

  “I told you, Bo isn’t involved with drugs anymore.”

  “What makes you so sure of that, Ms. Beauchamp?”

  “When I was dating Leighton, Bo was scared I’d start using. It made him realize how much he’d put me through, worrying over him. So he quit.”

  “Like that.” Cosgrove snapped his fingers.

  “I knew it wouldn’t make sense to you.”

  Cosgrove took out a business card and pushed it across the table toward her. “If you think of anything else—” he began.

  “You heard about the text Bo sent me on Friday, the one where he said he was with someone he referred to as Ms. M?”

  “Yeah. It’s not much use, though, having only an initial to go on.” Cosgrove stood up.

  So did Annie.

  “We’re following up on that kid, Sean Hennessy, too,” the detective added, but with so little enthusiasm Annie knew he didn’t think that lead was much use, either.

  She said, “You think something terrible has happened to Bo, don’t you? Something to do with drugs.”

  Cosgrove pushed a finger alongside his nose. “We’ll be in touch, Ms. Beauchamp. You call now, you hear, if you need anything or think of anything.”

  She didn’t answer, and he left her there to watch him go, holding his card in her hands.

  She was sitting in the booth and the business card was on the table when Cooper came in with Rufus a while later.

  “Come here, old doggie,” she said, and bending over him, she buried her face in the thick fur at the back of his neck, feeling his joyful wiggle. When she straightened, he went under the table to lie at her feet. Cooper sat across from her, and she felt his regard, felt him waiting, giving her the chance to speak first.

  “A detective was here, asking me questions.” She pushed the card over to Cooper.

  He studied it. “What sort of questions?”

  But Annie didn’t want to go into it. “Have you ever watched The First 48?” She named the television show that chronicled real crimes committed in cities across America from the point of commission through the first two days and nights of investigation. That harrowing, hysterical, fraught-with-hope, and torn-with-despair passage of time that, once it was gone, if there was no resolution, meant the chances of arresting a perpetrator or finding a missing person unharmed were practically nil.

  Cooper said he had.

  Annie said, “It’s been five days since anyone saw Bo.”

  Cooper kept her gaze; there was nothing he could say.

  “Sheriff Audi said they’ll probably be closing the command center later today or tonight.”

  “I heard that,” Cooper said. “Most of the volunteers won’t quit, though.”

  “They can’t keep at it forever. They have jobs and families, obligations and lives of their own.” Annie looked into her lap. “Detective Cosgrove is like Sheriff Audi. He thinks Bo was involved with drugs, too.”

  “But you don’t?”

  “It’s possible,” Annie admitted, and then, despite her misgivings, she went on, telling Cooper more than she’d ever expected to or wanted to about her relationship with Leighton, the threat it had posed and might still. She felt her face burning, but she was unable to stop.

  And when she was done, Cooper said he was sorry for what she’d gone through. He seemed to Annie to be as flustered and uncomfortable as she was. “There are fresh pumpkin muffins,” she said. “I’ll get them.” She left the booth, but before she could get away entirely, Cooper caught her hand and, locking her gaze, searched her eyes.

  “You haven’t done anything wrong,” he told her.

  She nodded, slipping her hand from his grasp, afraid she would cry. She was back in a few minutes, and Cooper helped her unload the tray she’d laden with muffins and mugs of strong coffee.

  She sat down again, indicating the sugar shaker. He shook his head.

  Annie slid her feet a little nearer Rufus’s sleeping form, close enough to feel his warmth through her shoes, taking comfort in it. She stirred sugar into her mug.

  “I heard you say Bo is your stepbrother.”

  “Yeah. My mom and JT met when JT moved here from Morro Bay, California, after his mom died when he was five.”

  “That’s a long way to come with a little kid. Do they have other family here?” Cooper helped himself to a muffin and took a bite.

  “There isn’t any other family that I know of. I think they were looking for a change, a fresh start,” Annie said. She was distracted, watching Cooper, worried the muffins were awful.

  But then he groaned in a good way, closing his eyes. “These are so good.” He was practically smacking his lips in his pleasure.

  Annie’s gratification, her delight at his enjoyment of the food she had made from scratch, stole through her, a momentary benediction.

&n
bsp; Cooper helped himself to another.

  Annie said, “JT’s first wife was sick for quite a while, almost from the day Bo was born.” She paused to think about it, how ironic it was that Bo’s mother’s death had spared her having to live through this current anguish. Annie’s own mother had escaped the nightmare, too. Lucky for them. The words were heated, a whisper that sawed across her brain.

  She looked at Cooper. “You know Bo’s earmuffs?”

  Cooper nodded.

  “He had them on the first time I met him. He said his mom talked to him from heaven through them. He was so little.” Annie’s throat narrowed at the memory.

  “Was it cancer?”

  “Brain.” She touched her temple.

  Cooper grimaced. “He remembers her?”

  “He remembers going to see her in the hospital and crawling into her bed. She told him all kinds of things, that they’d go to Disneyland when she was well, and the zoo. They’d swim in the ocean. She said they’d travel to every country in the world. It seems sort of cruel—” Annie’s voice caught, and she stopped.

  Cooper said, “Maybe she thought she would beat it.”

  “Maybe.” Annie toyed with her napkin. “From what Bo said, she read to him a lot, but she’d fall asleep a lot of the time, too. From the medication, I guess. Anyway, he missed out on how the stories ended, so Mom and I read them to him. He loved The Wind in the Willows and the Just So Stories, anything about animals.” The threat of tears was serious now, and she pressed her fingertips to her eyes. “Sorry.”

  “No,” Cooper said, and he went on talking, saying something about how close he was to his own mother, that he couldn’t imagine what he would do without her, and Annie thought he was trying to soothe and distract her.

  He wiped his mouth. “I’m the kid the other kids called a mama’s boy, but I’ve never cared much what anyone thought about it.” A smile, half-abashed, tilted over his mouth.

  Annie smiled, too. She liked that he was close to his mother, that he was man enough to admit it.

  His gaze held hers. “I’m so sorry about your mom, Annie. You lost her way too soon.”

  “It’s hard without her. She was my best friend; I could tell her anything.” Annie closed her hands around her coffee mug. “All my life, until I was ten, it was just the two of us, then Bo and JT came . . .” Annie paused, remembering the crowded house, the lack of privacy, having to share things. Not only her mother. The bathroom, her toys and books, the television remote control. “I wish I’d been a better daughter, a better sister. I wish I’d taken better care of Bo.” She looked at Cooper, then away. The memory of Leighton, her confession, hovered in the air between them, but maybe it was only her guilty conscience.

  He cupped his hands around hers. “It isn’t your fault, Annie, no matter what’s happened to Bo. He’s a grown man.”

  “In his body, not so much in his mind.”

  “But even you have talked about how independent and stubborn—”

  “You don’t know anything about him or me.” She pulled her hands from under his and scooted out of the booth. She couldn’t listen to him anymore, taking her ill-advised confessions and turning them into some sort of an excuse, a justification.

  “Maybe not, but I’d like to if you’d let me.” His voice followed her, quiet and steady; the words were an offering.

  Annie stopped, shoulders loosening, chin lowering, as if someone had pulled a pin. She was drawn to him, to the strength she felt in him; she couldn’t deny it, and she wondered in that instant what it would be like to accept, to say yes to him. But even as her heart grabbed like a thief at the possibility, she knew she didn’t deserve the relief of leaning on Cooper, or the happiness he might bring into her life, not while Bo was missing.

  “Annie?”

  She lifted her head.

  “Someday you’re going to have to trust somebody again, or you’ll always be alone.”

  She might have answered that he wasn’t telling her anything she didn’t already know. But she didn’t want to encourage him. It wouldn’t have been fair to him. Lifting her chin, she wiped her face and walked away, through the kitchen and out the alley door.

  She heard Rufus, the click of his nails on the tile floor, following her, and then she heard Cooper.

  “Come on back, boy,” he said. “She doesn’t need you.”

  Annie was shaken and meant to go home after she left Cooper. She had some idea that she’d shower and put on clean clothes, maybe take everyone’s advice and lie down for a bit. Instead, for reasons she would never fathom, she detoured by the community center, the one place she dreaded being above all others. She was talking to Mary Evans, one of the librarians, when she happened to look up to find her mother looking back at her. At least for one mind-numbing, heart-gladdening moment, Annie thought the woman who was staring intently at her was her mother.

  The impression was strong, garnered more from a wish for it to be so than the handful of similarities; the woman’s size and stance bore a likeness to Annie’s mother’s, as did her hair coloring and style. Her complexion was as flawless as fine porcelain, the way Annie’s mother’s had been, too, and her eyes were the same gentle shade of green. Even the way the woman tucked her hair behind one ear, which had signaled Annie’s mother’s anxiety, was reminiscent, and Annie felt a wave of longing so hard and fierce, it loosened her knees. She put out her hand, almost flailing, foundering.

  The woman took it. “What is it?” she asked. “How can I help?”

  Annie couldn’t speak. It was as if her voice had fallen down a well.

  “Come and sit down.” The woman led Annie to a nearby chair. Settling beside her, she introduced herself. “I’m Lauren Wilder.”

  Annie started to repeat her own name, but Lauren said she knew and offered an apology that slid into a rueful groan. “That sounds ridiculous. When I think of all you’re dealing with.”

  “No, I—” Annie broke off in confusion. There was too much she couldn’t say, not to a stranger. You are so like my mother. I miss her so much.

  Lauren tried again. “I—I heard about the awful ordeal you went through this morning.”

  The trip to the morgue, Annie thought. Of course, she would have heard about it. Annie raised her glance to Lauren’s, then let it fall away. It was hard to look at her, this woman who for one soul-riveting moment of utter joy had been her mother. It felt awful that she wasn’t, like the cruelest joke, the sort where Annie struggled to get the punch line, and once she did, she felt aggrieved, as if her mother had been taken from her all over again.

  “It wasn’t him, thank God,” she told Lauren, and she was on the verge of standing, of excusing herself, but some impulse made her turn back to Lauren. “I think I’d know, don’t you?” She was seeking more than Lauren’s opinion. “I mean if Bo was—” She couldn’t say the word dead. “If something that awful had happened, I’d feel it, wouldn’t I?” It was so unlike her to reach out in this way, so against her natural reticence to open herself to a stranger. She felt her face warm.

  “When my daughter was six,” Lauren said, “she broke her arm on the playground at school, and I knew something had happened before the school called. I wasn’t surprised. I think such things happen when you love someone. There’s a special connection.”

  “My mom used to say the same thing,” Annie said.

  Lauren fiddled with the strap of her purse. “I have to tell you something.” She searched Annie’s gaze in a way that made her heart constrict. “I feel just awful about it, too. I should have come before now.”

  Annie was at sea. “I don’t understand.”

  “I saw Bo and spoke to him,” Lauren said. “Last Friday,” she added.

  13

  Lauren apologized, this time for not having come forward sooner, as if any number of apologies made a difference. The horrible fact was that, no m
atter what she said or did, Bo would still be just as gone, and precious time when her information might have helped would still be lost. She thought of Tara. What would she do if her sister vanished? If one day Tara disappeared into thin air without a trace? The sense of what Annie must be going through emptied Lauren’s mind. She wanted to do something for her. At the very least, she would have covered the trembling knot of Annie’s hands with her own had she not been afraid Annie might take offense. She was small, much smaller than she had appeared on the television last night, a tiny slice of a girl, and as delicately boned as a wren, one that would fly if Lauren touched her, if Lauren even looked as if she might.

  “I had turned the wrong way, or I never would have seen him,” Lauren began, and she went on, describing her meeting with Bo. It wasn’t until she mentioned the dog, Freckles, that Annie interrupted her.

  “We don’t have him anymore,” she said. “He died six years ago.”

  “Oh, Bo seemed—that is, I thought—”

  “I know.” Annie looked away. “He gets confused sometimes.”

  “I should have insisted on getting your phone number from him.”

  “No, don’t blame yourself. He wouldn’t have waited for me.”

  “He did seem to have a plan.”

  Annie made a face. “He probably did. He kind of has this one-track mind. He’ll even write down what he’s going to do in a little notepad he carries. He could have written down the name of the woman you saw him drive away with. You didn’t see it, the notepad?”

  “No.” Lauren thought a moment to be sure.

  “I feel as if I should know who that woman is,” Annie said, “but then I’m finding out Bo has all sorts of friends I know nothing about.”