Crooked Little Lies Read online

  “What about a cell phone?” the sheriff asked. “Does Bo have one?”

  Annie lowered her hands and said he did, giving the sheriff the number. “Can you find him that way?” Her heart seized on this possibility, relating it to movies and shows she’d watched on television.

  “It’s possible, if the phone is on, or even if it isn’t, as long as—” The sheriff broke off.

  “As long as—” Annie prompted.

  “I think the battery has to be good, right?” Cooper asked.

  “Yeah. That’s why the sooner we get going, the better.”

  But that wasn’t the only reason. Annie could see by Sheriff Audi’s and Cooper’s expressions that it wasn’t. “You think someone might have done something to Bo; they might have taken his phone—” she began.

  The sheriff interrupted her. “We don’t know anything at this point, Annie.”

  “Do you have someone in mind?”

  “Can you think of anyone who might want to hurt him?”

  “You’re thinking of the drugs, aren’t you? That someone hurt him over drugs.”

  “I’m asking if you know of anyone who might have had a problem with Bo.” The sheriff’s gaze was gentle, so gentle and kind, Annie felt she might break beneath it.

  She looked into her lap. He knew as well as she did there were folks in town who had a problem with Bo. They didn’t like him walking in their neighborhoods or talking to their kids. Once, when he’d scooped a little boy out of the street who’d fallen from his bike, the mother had come screaming out of her house. She’d grabbed her son and slugged Bo on his chest, hard enough to leave a bruise. She told the police when they came that she didn’t want “that weirdo’s” hands on her kid. “He should be locked up,” she said. Annie remembered JT saying it was a good thing the woman hadn’t had a gun.

  Would she have killed Bo, if she’d had the means? Annie didn’t know. She guessed anybody would do anything, given the right amounts of fear, real or imagined, and sufficient provocation.

  She thought of Leighton Drake. She had risked her heart with him for a few heady, hectic weeks last summer, something she had never done before, and then he’d betrayed her, threatening Bo’s life in the process. But he was gone now. He’d moved back to Chicago, where he was from, in August. She met the sheriff’s gaze. “There are people in this town who harass Bo, who don’t want him around, and sometimes, it’s gotten physical. But not so much, really, since high school.”

  “Okay, then. But if you think of an incident or anyone specific—”

  “I’ll let you know,” Annie said.

  “What about JT? I’d like to talk to him, too. Find out when he last saw or spoke to Bo. Do you know where I can reach him?”

  “He’s usually home from work around six o’clock, but I can call him now and find out his location. I should talk to him anyway and let him know what’s happening.” Annie paused.

  “What?” Sheriff Audi found her gaze again.

  She shook her head; she didn’t want to say where her mind was, that it had wandered back to have another look at her sense that JT knew something. He didn’t; he couldn’t. He would never let her worry herself sick this way. “It’s nothing,” she said and scooted out of the booth.

  Cooper and the sheriff followed her.

  The café was mostly empty, although a few people, a dozen or so, lingered. Their faces were familiar to Annie. They were the regulars, the ones she waited on almost daily. She felt their eyes on her as she crossed the floor to get her cell phone out of her purse. She felt their concern, and she realized they knew Bo could be in danger. If she were living in a town larger than Hardys Walk, she might have wondered how the word had spread so quickly.

  “What can we do to help?” One of the women who worked at the library intercepted Annie. Others joined her, making a small crowd. Madeleine came out from the kitchen with Carol.

  “I need my purse, my cell phone to call JT,” Annie said.

  Carol said she’d get it and ducked back into the kitchen.

  Sheriff Audi said he was putting out the BOLO, and then raising his voice, he addressed everyone in the café. “I think most of you know Bo Laughlin. If you’ve seen him since Friday, I’d like to hear about it.”

  There were headshakes, an exchange of worried glances, a low rumble of uneasy murmurs.

  “I usually see him,” Annie heard one woman say.

  “It’s odd not to,” said another.

  “I can get folks together to go and search for him, Hollis.”

  Annie looked at the man who had spoken. His name was Ted Canaday. He owned the sporting goods store across the street. She’d served him his lunch today, chicken salad on wheat toast, hold the pickle. He’d ordered the same thing for lunch as long as she’d worked there.

  “Ted, if you want to set up a central location and ramrod a search effort, I know we’d be grateful for the help, and so would Miss Annie here.” The sheriff smiled at her.

  “Ted,” Cooper called out. “Count me in. Whatever you need. I’ll get my dad and my uncle, too.”

  Someone else suggested they headquarter the search effort in the community center down the street.

  Carol said, “We need a photograph to make flyers.”

  “Annie isn’t sure she has one.” Cooper answered when Annie didn’t.

  “I’ve got one on my cell.” Carol touched Annie’s elbow. “I took it when we bought Bo those red rubber gloves. Remember? To match his muffs.”

  Annie nodded even as she thought she would never let that picture be used. She’d go to JT’s, find another, one that wasn’t silly. Other voices rose and fell, swirling around her, but she lost the individual words and their meaning in the swelling clamor of her panic. She felt sectioned off from reality. Why had she spoken to the sheriff? Bo was fine: he’d call; he’d show up. Didn’t she know that? Know him? Annie touched her fingertips to her temples.

  “Do you want me to call JT?” Madeleine spoke at her elbow.

  “No,” Annie said. “I’ll just go in the kitchen so I can hear.”

  “It’s the right thing, filing a report, letting everyone know.” Madeleine seemed to have read the doubt that clouded Annie’s mind.

  “But what if he isn’t missing? What if he’s just off somewhere new, a place we haven’t thought of?”

  “Then we’ll have something to celebrate when we find him, won’t we?”

  “He got into a car with a stranger, Madeleine. I’ve never known him to do that.”

  “People do all sorts of odd things on a whim.”

  “I’d better call JT,” Annie said.

  “Bo’s all right.” Madeleine’s voice followed Annie. “We’ll find him, and he’ll be fine. He’ll ask us why we made such a fuss.”

  “You’re right,” Annie said. “That’s exactly what he’ll say.”

  7

  Jeff came back to the warehouse after lunch on Tuesday, looking grim. He’d met with a vendor, he said when Lauren asked, and they’d had words. And then he left her, going into his office, closing the door. Not a slam exactly but hard enough that she knew it would be unwise to follow him. He wouldn’t welcome her intrusion, her commiseration. He was in one of his moods. Shutting her out. It made her furious and anxious in equal parts.

  She went into the showroom, where she’d been cataloguing a collection of Depression glass, but she couldn’t focus. She thought of calling Tara, but since Sunday, she’d left a half-dozen unreturned texts and equally as many messages. Still, she reached for her phone and dialed Tara’s number. “Why don’t you call me back?” she said to her sister’s voice mail.

  A while later, she left without telling Jeff she was going. Let him hunt for her, she thought. Let him wonder. But her exit was spoiled when her car wouldn’t start. Maybe it was a blessing. At least it forced them to be together, forced
his attention.

  He opened the hood and jiggled a few things. He asked her to try it again, to no avail. Eventually, they called a tow truck, and once the Navigator was loaded and gone, she shouldered her purse and followed him, feeling the distance between them widen with every step. Not so long ago, she could have mapped the territory of his emotions the way she could number his ribs or chart the architecture of his shoulder blades, but it was harder now, and the fact that he was no longer as easily accessible grieved her.

  Jeff got into the truck and looked over to where she stood, holding the passenger-side door open. “Are you getting in?”

  She boosted herself into the cab, slamming the door, meeting his gaze. “What?” she said.

  He gave his head a slight shake. “Nothing,” he answered.

  Liar, she thought, turning away from him, mind running loose on its circuit of worry. Then quickly, she looked back at him. “It isn’t a vendor you’re angry at, is it?”

  “Huh?” He kept his eye on the road.

  “I can’t see how a vendor could piss you off this much, so it must be me. Something I’ve done. What is it?”

  “I don’t think I said it was a vendor, did I?”

  “Yes, that is what you said.”

  “Well, I meant to say contractor. It was Wick Matson, and I didn’t want to tell you—”

  “Because we owe him a lot of money.” Lauren was guessing, but it only made sense, given that Matson National Equipment provided Wilder and Tate with the heavy machinery they used for demolition. But even knowing the source for Jeff’s anxiety, that it wasn’t about her finding the Oxy after all, didn’t give her much relief.

  “It’ll be all right.”

  “You don’t need to protect me.”

  “I’m not.” The streetlight made a haggard puzzle of his face. “You need time, is all, and I’m trying to give it to you.”

  “This is about the bank, isn’t it? I’m back to square one in your mind, because I forgot we opened the account.” Why had she told him? But what did that make her, if she didn’t let him see how handicapped she might be—was. Still. For who knew how long? What if she never recovered all of her wits? She looked out the window, fighting tears, damned if she’d cry.

  They passed several miles in silence.

  She broke it. “Sell the farm. I don’t care. I just want us out of this mess.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe it’s not the best idea. Like I said before, I don’t know when I can get back out there. Neither does Tara. We talked about hiring someone to finish the job.”

  “What happened? I mean, I know you got into it about the money, but what did she say? I’m guessing Greg overheard and neither one of them liked your advice, right?”

  Jeff made a sound, something derisive. He fiddled with the radio, turning it on and off.

  “I told you, didn’t I, that Greg does that day-trading thing? He’ll probably offer to invest for her.” Lauren’s pulse tapped lightly in her ears. There was no probably. Tara was already investing with Greg. Lauren knew because he had told her last August over coffee at a café where they often went—after a meeting. So this particular secret, unlike his other one, wasn’t covered by the pledge of confidentiality. Lauren was free to say whatever she liked about it, which was nothing.

  “Well, that’s a sucker bet, a fast way to lose everything. She better run like hell.”

  Lauren picked at her thumbnail. Too late now, she thought. Greg already had his hands on some of Tara’s savings. Not all of it.

  He had told Lauren on that August night, nearly bragging, that he wouldn’t let Tara take out all of her savings.

  Lauren was shocked. “How could you take anything from her?” she demanded. “What if you lose it?”

  “I know what I’m doing,” Greg countered.

  “You need to give it back,” Lauren said. “Now.” She pressed her fingertips to her temples. “God! This is such a mess, all the things I know about you and now this.”

  “You won’t tell her I told you, will you? About the money, I mean.”

  “I don’t know, Greg. What you’re doing isn’t safe, and she can’t afford to lose anything.”

  “Look, I’m sorry. I’d never hurt her for the world. You know how much I care about her, and you, and Jeff and your kids. You guys are like family to me.”

  The note of pleading in his voice made her heart ache.

  By then, she’d known his background, that he’d been taken away from his parents, both addicts, who had neglected him so severely CPS became involved. From the age of six, he had been bounced from one foster home to another. At meetings, he often spoke about the yearning he had inside to belong to a family, one that would love him and that he could love in return. Lauren knew what he meant; she knew his hunger and need were bone deep.

  She had sympathized with Greg that hot summer night. His pain was so like her own. But she also knew enough about addiction and its hold on the addicts who were possessed by it to be afraid. Addicts could slip; they could pick up their old ways and, out of desperation, commit unspeakable acts, and it wouldn’t be only money that was on the line then, but someone’s life. In this case, Tara’s life. Or Lauren’s, or Jeff’s, and the children’s lives could be at risk.

  She didn’t know what to do about Greg and his secrets, and since finding them out, she had avoided him. And it was confusing, because her doubts aside, she missed him. Greg was a good and loyal friend to her. The only friend to stand with her in this place, this lonely, foreign, ex-addiction place, where no one but another ex-addict could or would want to be. It was just one more in a numberless line of losses, all of them lying behind her like a row of crooked stitches.

  A group of boys, Drew among them, was shooting hoops in their driveway when she and Jeff got home. Jeff parked at the curb, turned off the ignition. “We could order pizza for dinner.” He didn’t look at her.

  “I was thinking the same thing,” she said, when truthfully, she hadn’t thought about dinner at all. “I have a meeting.” She wasn’t sure where that came from, either. She hadn’t planned to go to a meeting.

  “Again? Weren’t you just at one a few days ago? Thursday, wasn’t it?”

  “I should attend at least two a week. I thought you wanted me involved.”

  “It takes up a lot of your time, is all.” He glanced at her, and she saw something in his eyes, frustration, disappointment. Some pained mix of emotions that she couldn’t bear.

  “I found some Oxy tabs over the weekend in the study in a stack of old catalogues. I don’t know how they got there.” The words were gone before she could stop them, but she owed them to him. Owed him the truth.

  His eyes widened. So much she could see flashes of white. His astonishment was palpable, and her heart fell against the wall of her chest. He hadn’t known. She almost groaned aloud. Why hadn’t she kept her mouth shut?

  “What did you do with them?”

  “I flushed them, Jeff, I swear. And I promise you, I have no clue how they got into our house, much less the study.” She felt his stare, his disbelief. She said, “Gloria says I could have hidden them at some point. People at meetings have talked about it, how they’ll find stuff they were using, booze or drugs or whatever, ages after they quit.”

  “I searched the house, though. I look through those catalogues all the time. Why didn’t I find them?”

  “They were pretty far down in the stack.”

  “How can you not remember hiding them?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe because of the head injury? I did have a dream Friday night that was—Oh, God, I sound so crazy.”

  “You didn’t take them?”

  “No. I wouldn’t do that to you.” Of course, she had done it to him, countless times.

  “Maybe Gloria’s right. It makes sense, I guess. But, Jesus, it makes me want to search the ho
use all over again. It scares the shit out of me that the kids’ll find it.” Jeff took the keys from the ignition.

  Lauren wiped shaky hands over her face.

  Jeff got out of the truck, saying he would phone in the order for pizza.

  Drew shouted at them, and the other guys called out greetings when they walked up the drive. Jeff lingered, horsing around with them, but Lauren only waved and went into the house, needing space, knowing Jeff needed it, too. Setting her purse down on the countertop, she gripped the sink’s edge. Whoever said confession was good for the soul didn’t know what they were talking about. She didn’t feel one damn bit better. And Jeff was more suspicious and worried about her now than ever.

  She blinked up at the ceiling. How she wished she could redo it, all of it, going back to the day she’d volunteered to climb into the church bell tower. She might have screamed from frustration if she hadn’t heard Kenzie coming down the stairs. Lauren shook herself slightly, and turning, picked up the mail, smiling when Kenzie appeared, dressed in her black leotard, pink tights, and pink ballet slippers, twirling a series of piqué turns across the floor.

  So like a tiny fairy, Lauren thought, heart bursting. “How was your lesson?” she asked.

  “Okay.” Kenzie boosted herself onto a stool next to Lauren.

  “You practiced in your toe shoes?” Lauren tucked loose strands of hair from Kenzie’s ponytail behind her ear.

  She nodded, not smiling. She didn’t smile a lot since getting braces, and when she did, she covered her mouth. Lauren deplored it; she was nearly as anxious as Kenzie for the ordeal to be over.

  “It was hard, I bet,” Lauren said. Miss Madden, Kenzie’s dance instructor, had warned Lauren privately that the transition from demi pointe to pointe would be more difficult than Kenzie realized. Few students were prepared for the amount of work that was involved, never mind the pain that was also part of it. Only the girls who were serious bothered to persist. Lauren thought it was Miss Madden’s way of culling the students who lacked the necessary passion and discipline.