Deadly Little Lies (13 page)

Tears fill my eyes. I reach out to touch the lettering, wondering if it’s still wet, but it’s dry— except where droplets of snow have landed over some of the letters, making them look like dripping blood. I dip my finger into the snow and press down against more of the paint. A smear of red bleeds against my thumb.

I take a step back, slightly startled when I hear a car door slam. I rush to the gate and look out toward the street. It’s my parents.

I hurry back inside the house, lock the basement door, and scramble up the stairs before they even make it in.

“Hey, there,” Mom says, coming into the kitchen. “Did you find the banana soufflé for breakfast? I should have mentioned it on the note. I just made it this morning, but your dad had a hankering for rawaffles.”

“Pronounced rawfuls, taste more like awfuls; translation: raw waffles, made with dehydrated fruit and nuts.”

Dad peels off his coat and tosses it on the island. “I had a hankering for fat-laden French toast sopping with maple syrup and melted butter. I mean, who are they kidding with those tasteless disks?”

“Well, excuse me for looking out for your health,” Mom says. “Why don’t you just go ingest a tub of lard mixed with sugar and chewing tobacco?”

“It’d probably taste better than those rawaffles.”

“We need to talk,” I say, still trying to catch my breath.

“You bet we do,” he says. “I’m so tired of eating chicken feed and bird food.”

“Oh, God,” Mom says, checking her cell phone messages. Her hand clasps over her mouth.

“What now?” Dad asks.

“It’s Alexia,” she says. “Her psychiatrist wants to schedule a meeting with the three of us.”

“The three of us? As in you, me, and Dad?”

“No.” She closes up her phone. “A meeting with Aunt Alexia, the psychiatrist, and me.”

“So, that’s a good thing, right?” I ask.

“Right,” she says, staring off into space.

Dad goes and wraps his arms around her from behind, telling her everything will be fine. “It’ll be therapeutic for the both of you,” he says.

But my mother appears less than convinced and ends up swatting him away. She absentmindedly opens the fridge, takes out a jar of almond butter, and begins to feed her funk. Meanwhile, I wipe a clay smear from the side of my face, not really knowing what to say. Or what to do.

I end up sneaking off downstairs to cover my horse-in-progress with a giant piece of plastic. Then I dress in layers and head out on the longest walk I can manage, considering the frigid temperature outside.

After a good hour-and-ten minute hike, I find myself at Kimmie’s house. She pulls me inside and leads me upstairs while her parents continue to fight in the living room.

“Don’t mind the drama,” she says, closing her bedroom door behind us. “They’ve been going at it since last night. Something about him feeling suffocated and my mom’s obsessive need to control. I don’t know. I sort of lost track around the time he called her a puppeteer and himself a Raggedy Andy doll.”

“Kimmie, I’m sorry. What can I do?”

“Turn the music up, will you?” She nods toward her iPod.

I do, and then plop down opposite her on the bed. She’s wearing a V-neck sweater that exposes a couple of grape-size hickeys on her neck.

“So, I’m assuming you didn’t come here to listen to my parents fighting,” she says.

“Who cares why I came? I mean, this can’t be easy for you.”

Kimmie shrugs and avoids my gaze, but I can see that the fighting clearly affects her. Her eyes fill slightly and a stray tear falls over the black-lined rim. “My dad finally noticed my neck, by the way. But instead of calling for one of our sit-down family powwows, he told my mother she raised a slut. I think that’s what spurred the fighting.”

“You can’t blame yourself.”

“Whatever,” she says, trying to be tough, even though more tears slide down her cheeks.

I reach out to hug her, allowing her to fall into my embrace, and almost forgetting the reason why I came here in the first place.
Almost.

A second later there’s a knock on her bedroom door. “Who is it?” she shouts in an angry tone that, like the hickeys, I barely recognize on her.

“It’s Nate,” her brother says. “Can I come in there with you guys? I won’t bother you or make any noise.”

She doesn’t tell him to bug off—something I’d normally expect from her. Instead she invites him in.

“Maybe we should all go someplace,” I suggest, able to hear her parents arguing just as soon as the door cracks open.

Nate perks right up, suggesting the ice-cream shop, the movies, or the arcade at the mall.

“I vote we go to Brain Freeze,” Kimmie says, checking her vintage Gucci change purse for money. “Therapy in the form of ice-cream sundaes and banana floats.”

“I second it!” Nate roars.

“Even though it’s fifty below?”

“Suck it up, Chameleon. It’s barely a five-minute walk. Plus, who couldn’t use a little ice-cream therapy right about now?”

“I could,” I admit.

“Exactly,” she says, flipping her cell phone open. And before I can even say peanut butter barrel with extra whipped cream, Kimmie calls Wes and invites him to come along too.

Wes is already waiting for us at Brain Freeze when we arrive. “I didn’t know it was ‘kids eat free’ day,” Wes jokes.

“Don’t worry about Nate,” Kimmie says. “He’s already agreed not to make direct eye contact with anyone, and not to do or say anything embarrassing.”

“Leave the embarrassing stuff to me,” Wes says, snagging a can of whipped cream from the counter and spraying nipples onto his ski vest. “Yummy, Mommy. Come to Papa.” He charges at Kimmie, chest-first.

Kimmie lets out a laugh, dodging his creamy nipples. Meanwhile, I step up to the counter and order Nate and me mini peanut butter barrels with extra fudge sauce.

“This is so much more pleasant than listening to my parents try to off each other,” Kimmie says as we all slide into a booth at the far corner.

“Details, please,” Wes says, digging into what appears to be a strawberry blitz.

“Later.” She motions toward the top of Nate’s head.

“I’ve got details,” I offer.

“Thank goodness,” Kimmie says, tightening the scarf around her neck, the print of which is oddly apropos— lipstick kisses—to camouflage all her hickeys. “Let’s talk about something other than my dysfunctional life.”

“Like
my
dysfunctional life,” I continue.

“Here,” Kimmie says to Nate, emptying out her change purse. “Go play a few rounds of pinball on me.”

Nate happily complies, and finally we can get down to business. I proceed to tell them about what happened this morning with the bulkhead message.

“And you waited until now to tell me this?” Kimmie asks.

“There’s more to it.” I tell them about the voice I heard, followed by the giggling.

Wes perks up. “A female voice?”

“Wait,” Kimmie says. “If the whispering was coming from outside, how could you possibly have heard it? Sound travels, but not like that. I mean, through a basement door
and
a bulkhead?”

“Unless this person’s a ventriloquist,” Wes says, tapping his chin in thought.

“Be serious,” she sighs.

“I
am
serious. Didn’t you guys see that movie . . .
When a Stranger Calls Back
? The babysitter thought the psycho-in-question was outside, talking to her through the front door, but in fact he was already in the house. Turned out he could throw his voice on cue.”

“Okay, getting back to reality,” Kimmie says, rolling her eyes. “If someone had only recently painted that message on the bulkhead, don’t you think the writing would still have been wet?”

“Exactly,” I say, thinking how droplets of snow had dripped down over the letters. “But it also could have been marker. It was really hard to tell.”

“Yeah, but even marker would still be wet, right?” she asks. “I mean, considering it was done on metal. . . .”

“Not if it was
permanent
marker,” Wes says. “Like a Sharpie. Trust me; that stuff dries instantly. But if the writing was streaky in places, as you say, then they probably used something else. Your best bet is to have a pro take a peek at it.”

“Or she could simply have you look at it,” Kimmie says to him.

“For all I know, that writing could have been there for weeks,” I say.

“Or at least since the last time your parents were in the backyard,” Kimmie corrects.

“Which was probably over a month ago for my mom.” I gaze at my thumb, where there’s still a smear of red. “When it’s as cold as ice out, she only ventures as far as the driveway to get into her preheated car.”

“Don’t you mean as cold as
ass
?” Wes says. “Or at least as cold as
my
ass? This place obviously doesn’t believe in turning on the heat. I’m starting to get frostbite.” He zips his vest all the way up and peers over his shoulder to give the guy working behind the counter a dirty look.

“You
are
eating ice cream in January,” Kimmie reminds him.

“Anyway,” I say, getting us back on track. “Let’s just say for the sake of argument that the writing was done days, weeks, or even months ago; how do you explain the whole mysterious voice issue?”

“No one was upstairs or in the basement—” Wes begins.

“The TV was off, and so was the radio,” Kimmie finishes.

“I know,” I repeat. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

“So you’re hearing voices,” Wes says, sloughing it off with a wave of his spoon. “It could be a whole lot worse.”

“Right,” Kimmie says. “Your parents could be trying to rip each other’s heads off on a regular basis.”

“Or your dad could be calling you ‘Wuss,’” Wes says. “And signing you up for Girl Scouts. Did I mention he had a troop leader call my house to ask if I wanted to sell cookies?”

“Bottom line,” Kimmie says, “you need to talk to Ben again. You need to tell him about the voices you’ve been hearing.”

“No.” I shake my head. “I’m done with Ben. I’m going to give him his space.”

“Don’t you think he’d want to know if something funky was going on with you?”

I shrug, not quite sure of the answer.

“Did you happen to notice graffiti on any of the other houses in your neighborhood?” Wes asks. “People usually tag in sprees.”

“Oh, do they now?” Kimmie raises an eyebrow. “Are we suddenly an authority on defamation?”

“I’m an authority on a lot of things.” He licks his spoon clean.

“I need to do more research on psychometry,” I say.

“Exactly.” Wes nods. “You need to learn all you can so you can start putting this touch talent to good use.”

“Which does not include trying to score you a date with someone who doesn’t charge an hourly fee,” Kimmie says to him.

“Ha-ha.” He fakes a laugh.

“You realize that at this point, you have to tell your parents,” Kimmie says. “I mean, it’s not like they’re not going to find out on their own anyway.”

“I almost told them this morning.”

“But?” she asks.

“But it’s complicated,” I say, thinking about Aunt Alexia.

“Well, I, for one, am not going to have this hanging over my head,” she says. “Either you tell them, or I will. How’s that for uncomplicated?”

“I’m all out of money,” Nate says, returning to the table.

“And I’m all out of ice cream.” Wes pillages from my peanut butter barrel. “What do you say we swing by your place to put an end to the whole paint versus marker mystery?”

“I’m game,” Kimmie says. “God knows, checking out deathly stalker messages is a whole lot more fun than being at home.”