Tell Me Lies (25 page)

“I’m sorry, honey,” he said, reaching for her hand. “I wanted him out of the picture, but not like this.”

“It’s going to be so awful for Em,” she said, curling her fingers around his and making him feel much better than the situation deserved. “Poor baby.”

“I’ll help,” C.L. said, tightening his grip on her hand. “I’ll do anything.”

Maddie slid her hand away. “The best thing you can do is disappear. You’re going to make me look very suspicious, hanging around.”

The thought made him cold.
I’ll do anything but that,
C.L. wanted to say, but then they got home and her mother met them at the door.

“Esther called me and I came over,” she said to Maddie. “She was working the phone desk at the station, and I couldn’t wait until you called, what if Em came home? This is so terrible.” She looked past Maddie and saw C.L. and her face became rigid.

What did I do?
he thought, and then remembered. He’d spent the night with her daughter having gloriously sinful sex, something Esther at the police station had undoubtedly passed on. Mrs. Martindale looked like she was concentrating on the sinful part.

“You remember C.L.,” Maddie said brightly.

“Yes,” her mother said. “I assume he’s going now.”

“Nice to see you again, ma’am.” C.L. took a step backward. “I’ll go get the locks now,” he told Maddie. “How many outside doors do you have?”

Maddie looked from him to her mother and back. “Two, front and back.”

Her mother’s coolness thawed. “What locks?”

“The prowler has a key to the house, Mom,” Maddie said. “We think he might be the guy who shot Brent. And now he can get in anytime, and we’ll be helpless.”

All the blood drained from her mother’s face, and she reached out to steady herself on the doorframe. “Merciful heavens, Madeline!”

C.L. put his hand under her arm and helped her to a porch chair. “It’s going to be all right, Mrs. Martindale,” he told her, trying to sound as soothing as possible. “I’m going out to get new locks, better locks, un-pickable locks, and I’ll have them up before noon. Nothing to worry about. Maddie, get your mother a glass of water.”

Maddie’s mother flapped her hand at him. “No, no, I’m fine. Do you need money for the locks? Good locks must be expensive. Where’s my purse?”

“No, no.” C.L. backed away again. “My treat. I insist. The stores won’t be open for another hour or so, but I’ll go home and get Henry’s tools and as soon as I’ve got the locks, I’ll be back.”

“Oh, yes. Good heavens.” Maddie’s mother patted the air where he’d been, all disapproval gone. “Be careful. Good heavens.”

Maddie followed him to the car, and he was careful not to touch her. “What’s the big idea?” he whispered to her. “Your mother almost had a heart attack.”

Maddie leaned against the car. “C.L., she knows about this morning. Esther must have told her everything when she called her. Didn’t you notice the frost when we came in?”

“Yeah, but. . .”

“Well, now she thinks you’re all that’s standing between me and death.

“She likes you.” She smiled at him, a woeful smile but a smile, and he felt the heat spread again, the way it always did when he was close to her. He got in the car and slammed the door before he did something stupid like dragging her to the ground and having his way with her in the grass while her mother watched.

“Keep telling your mother great things about me,” he said. “She’s going to be seeing a lot of me.”

She shook her head, not willing to play along. “Go get the locks. I have to call Treva. She’s got Em.”

Em. Poor kid. He didn’t have much time for kids in general, but he liked Em. He nodded his sympathy since he couldn’t hold her. “Good luck,” he said, and backed out of the driveway.

He needed to get locks, but he needed to go back and talk to Henry, too, before he got any stupid ideas like arresting his future niece-in-law.

Mel stood up and said, “Mom?” and Aunt Treva stopped laughing and straightened and saw them and looked awful again.

“I have to go; they’re here. Hurry,” she said into the receiver and hung up, and then she walked over to the stairs.

Mel went down the steps and put her arms around her mother’s waist, asking questions, but Em stayed where she was. The trouble had come on the telephone, which meant the trouble wasn’t here at Mel’s house, but she already knew that. She’d known all along the trouble was at her house. Her throat caught, and she swallowed a hot lump before she asked, “Is my mom all right?”

Aunt Treva jerked her head up. “Yes. Yes, yes, she’s all right, she’s here. That was her on the phone.”

“What’s wrong?” Mel demanded. “Nobody tells us anything. What’s wrong?”

Em’s voice went on automatically. “Is my dad all right?”

Aunt Treva looked desperate. “Your mom’s coming right over, baby. She’ll—”

“What’s wrong with my dad?” Fear made her cold, and even Phoebe slumping down the steps to sit beside her didn’t make her warmer. “Is he hurt?”

Aunt Treva came closer and took her hand through the stair rail. “Your mom will be here right away, baby.”

Aunt Treva never called her baby, ever. “Is he hurt?”

“Is he dead?” Mel asked, and Aunt Treva jerked her hand away, and Em felt cold all over. The cold pressed in on her chest, and she tried hard to breathe.

“Go upstairs,” Aunt Treva told Mel. “Go upstairs right now.”

“He’s not dead,” Em said around the cold. “He’s hurt, right?”

“Your mom—” Aunt Treva began again, and Em said, “He’s not dead,” and her not-for-real aunt’s head wobbled, not a nod or a shake but a wobble, and Em thought,
My daddy’s dead
and she said, “No.”

Aunt Treva said, “I’m sorry, baby, your mama’s coming over,” and then she came up the stairs and put her arm around Em and hugged her close, and Em sat there on the stairs with Phoebe on one side and Aunt Treva on the other until her mother came through the front door and looked up at her.

“He’s not dead,” she told her mother, and her mother scrambled up the stairs to hold her, and then Em started to cry, because saying it didn’t make it so, and he was.

“God bless C.L. for giving her this dog,” Maddie whispered to her mother when she had Em in the house and could hold her. “Phoebe may get her through this better than we can.”

Her mother nodded and looked miserable. “Maybe it’s not good for her to cry like this,” she whispered back.

“Better to let it out,” Maddie said, conscious that she hadn’t cried yet.

Could she cry for Brent? There had been good things about him. Lots of good things. When he was in a good mood, they’d had fun. He’d loved Em. She supposed he’d loved her, too, in his own way. When she’d asked for a divorce after Beth, he’d sworn it would never happen again. “I can’t live without you, Maddie,” he’d said, and he’d fought like crazy to keep her, wearing her down until she’d just given up and stayed. She didn’t want him dead, but it was going to be hard to cry for him. Maybe she could cry for Em instead.

She put her cheek on her daughter’s hair and rocked her back and forth until Em’s crying eased. “I love you, baby. I love you and love you.”

Em drew a long sobbing breath and held Maddie tightly.

Maddie’s mother came in the room with a tray. “I brought you cocoa, Emmy. And cookies. And here’s some dog cookies for Phoebe. She looks very hungry.”

Em didn’t move her head from her mother’s shoulder.

The phone rang and Maddie’s mother went to answer it while Maddie watched Phoebe try to climb up her leg to get to Em. She hooked her hand under the puppy’s rear end and scooped her up into Em’s lap, and Em’s arms let go of Maddie to keep the puppy safe. Phoebe snuggled down in Em’s lap, and Em’s breathing slowed a little bit, still ragged but not sobbing.
Thank God for this puppy,
Maddie thought. If C.L. never did another thing for her, she’d owe him forever for this dog.

Her mother came to stand in the doorway to the living room, looking helpless. “Maddie, it’s Leo at the service station. I’ve told them it’s not a good time, but he’s insisting.”

“On what?” Maddie said, but she eased Em and Phoebe off her lap and onto the couch and went to the phone. Her mother took her place beside Em.

Leo was short and to the point. “You gotta empty out this car because the insurance guy is coming in an hour to get it towed. Anything in this car you want?”

The Civic. That had been a thousand years ago. Four days and a thousand years ago.

Leo kept on talking. “The insurance guy said you wanted it done today, so they’re coming today, but there’s stuff in it. So is there anything in this car you want, because if you do, you gotta come get it now.”

“Let me think.” Maddie pulled the phone back to the living room doorway. “Em, did you leave anything in the Civic?”

Em nodded, her head wobbling. “My Barbies and my dog books from the l-library.”

“It’s okay,” Maddie said. “I’ll go get them right now.”

“Mommy’s going to go get them,” her mother said, but Em started to cry again anyway.

“I’ll be right over,” Maddie told Leo. “Don’t let them take that car until I get there.”

She grabbed her big old leather bag from the closet shelf and Em’s Barbie duffel bag from the closet floor.

“Be careful, dear.” Her mother rocked Em, who keened hopelessly in her arms.

“I love you, Emmy.” Maddie kissed her daughter’s forehead and smoothed her hair back. “I’ll be right back here and I’ll hold you again.”

“Go,” her mother said. “Hurry.”

Maybe she was crying for a dead car because of a dead husband.

“I’m really sorry about this,” she told the car. “Really.” Then, feeling stupid talking to a car, she pulled up the crumpled hatchback. Half a dozen Barbies stared back at her in mascaraed apathy; the trunk looked like a tornado had hit a home for anorexics. She piled them into the duffel bag and then pulled back the carpet over the tire well to see if any had fallen underneath.

There weren’t any Barbies, but there was a whole lot of money, packages of one-hundred-dollar bills, all over the place. “Oh,
hell,”
Maddie said, and slammed down the hatchback and sat on the edge of it.

If she looked at it just right, this whole money thing could be pretty funny. There was so much of it, it almost didn’t count as real money. It was like Monopoly money. And at the rate she was going, she could afford both Boardwalk and Park Place. Pretty funny.

Except her husband was dead.

Maddie put her head on her knees and tried to think. She had to take the money to Henry. She’d just take it to him and tell him where she’d found it.

You two just better pray nothing else turns up against you,
he’d said. Well, this wouldn’t count. This was Brent’s stash. He must have put it here. He’d have known the car was going to be stuck here for a while. Really, it was the perfect place to hide money.

Really, this wasn’t going to look good.

“You okay, Mrs. Faraday?”

Maddie jerked her head up. Leo stood in front of her in his oil-stained dungarees, looking sympathetic and pressed for time. “Yes, Leo, I’m fine.”

He nodded at her. “You about done?”

“Almost.” She smiled as brightly as she could and then remembered she was a widow and let the smile die. “I’ll be right there. Just another minute, honest.”

She watched him walk back to the station, and then she yanked open the hatchback and dumped the Barbies out of the duffel, stuffing it with the money instead, as fast as she could, counting the packages as she stuffed it in. Two hundred thirty of them. It didn’t matter, what mattered was getting it out of here. She zipped the duffel shut and let her mind go numb walking through the rest of the cleanup. The Barbies went in her leather bag. She went to the passenger side and checked under the seats, pulling out Em’s library books and shoving them in the leather bag, too. Then, almost as an afterthought, she emptied the glove compartment into her bag: first aid kit, maps, gum, sunglasses, gun.

“Oh, hell,” she said for the second time, looking at the gun in her hand. And now it had her fingerprints on it. They were all in the wrong places, but that wasn’t much comfort. She wiped the gun clean with the tail of her T-shirt and dropped it in with the money in the duffel bag. Brent wouldn’t have put the gun in the glove compartment. He’d probably been killed with that gun. She had to get some time to think before she told anybody anything because she was pretty sure this looked very bad. Henry would think this was something else against her. She could go to jail, and she couldn’t go to jail because she had a baby on the edge of collapse already because her daddy was gone. Thank God for Em’s Barbie dolls and library books because otherwise somebody else would have found the gun and called the police, and then Em would have come apart.

Maddie slammed the door of her Civic for the last time and thought of Em, and her lost car, and Em’s tearstained face, and somebody out to get her, and Em’s hopeless little moans, and then she put her head on the edge of the car and began to cry, for Brent, and for herself, but mostly for Em, fragile little Em, who was not going to lose a mother, too, not if Maddie had to lie to everyone in town.