Familiar Lies (25 page)

Liz took a beer and they moved to the back deck. The midsummer air was warm and the crickets had begun their chatter out on the lawn as Max twisted off the cap of a fresh bottle for himself.

“I like it out here,” Liz said. “It’s peaceful.”

“I’d dare say boring,” Max said. “But these days I’m perfectly fine with boring.”

Liz grinned. “I can understand that completely.”

Max took a pull from the bottle and wiped his mouth. “So what in the world brings you out my way, Liz Potter?”

“It’s Liz Johnson now, actually.”

Max tried not to frown, but it was difficult. “I see. He’s a lucky man.”

A confused look spread across her face. Then it changed as understanding set in. “Oh, no. I’m not married. I took my maiden name back.”

Max nodded. “Good for you.”

Liz shrugged. “There seemed to be little reason to keep it. Besides, I’ve been a little paranoid after…you know, everything that happened.”

“I understand completely. Myself, I wouldn’t say that I’m hiding, but I’m not advertising either. How did you find me anyway? Just curious.”

“It wasn’t easy. I had to call in a favor.”

Max shot her a quizzical look.

“Detective Cook.”

“Clever as ever.”

Liz tipped the bottle back and took a healthy swig. “So how’s life?”

“I got a new job, bought a house.”

“How’s Katie?”

“She’s good. We’re good. You?”

“I went back to work.” She paused, gazing out onto the grassy yard stretching out from the wooden deck. “David and I gave it another go.”

“I take it that didn’t pan out.”

Liz shook her head. “There’s a reason we got divorced. I guess I wanted to make sure.”

“You’re sure now?”

“Definitely.”

A long pause followed. Max finished his beer. A slight buzz had begun to swarm in his head. He decided to keep it going, so he excused himself and went back inside for a refill. He returned with two beers, handing one to Liz before opening the other for himself.

Liz finished her old beer and opened the new bottle. “I’ve been thinking about you, Max.”

“Is that a good or a bad thing?”

Liz paused, considering. “I was angry for a long time.”

“I don’t blame you.”

“I know it’s not your fault. I knew it when I found out about what Josh did, but I just couldn’t deal with it, you know?”

Max nodded.

“I don’t blame you. I just wanted you to know that. If I blame anybody it’s myself.”

“I can understand that feeling,” Max said. “Too well.”

“I believe it.” Liz looked at him. “In fact, you’re the only one who does understand.”

“That might be true.”

“It is true.” Liz took another drink and a few more moments to think. “How do you put it behind you, Max?”

Max shrugged. “I don’t know that I ever will.”

“But it looks like you’re getting there.”

“Fake it ‘til you make it, I suppose. One day at a time. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Insert your own bullshit inspirational quote here.”

Liz chuckled. “They don’t really have a Hallmark card for people in our situation, do they?”

“I think that’s a niche market.”

Liz smiled. “Do you think about me?”

Max looked her in the eye. “Every day.”

“Really?”

“Honesty is all we have, right?”

Liz nodded. “Honesty.” She paused, thinking. “I can’t forgive Josh for what he did to Amanda. I know how bad that sounds, but I have to be honest with you, Max.”

“I don’t expect you to forgive him,” Max said. “I can’t either.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’ve spent a lot of time coming to terms with who Josh really was. He was a good kid once, I think. Or maybe he always was a monster and I just didn’t see it. I didn’t notice things back then the way I do now. But I tell myself that the seventeen years I spent raising him weren’t all a waste. I tell myself that because the alternative is just too awful to consider.”

“You did what you could, given what you knew at the time.”

“As I’m sure you did too.”

Liz nodded. “I could have done more.”

“Or maybe you couldn’t have. Maybe I couldn’t have. Maybe what was going to happen was unstoppable.”

“That sounds like a cop out.”

Max shrugged. “I didn’t say I believe that. I’m just saying that people like us are quick to shoulder the responsibility, but not so quick to consider that maybe not everything is our fault.”

“Maybe you’re right.”

“You’re not a bad person, Liz.”

“You might be the only person in the world who thinks that. I get hate mail, did you know that?”

“Fuck those people.”

“They look at me differently at work, you know? Now that it’s all come out in the papers.”

“Fucking reporters, they’re the worst. Look up the top ten jobs that attract sociopaths sometime; you’ll find reporters on that list.”

“I don’t doubt that.” Liz took another drink. “Cook told me about Julie and the money.”

“Did he? He’s very forthcoming.”

“Should he not have?”

“It’s fine.”

“Do you think Josh is her baby’s father?”

“Maybe. I’m not sure I want to know. It won’t change anything. I hope she makes something out of her life, wherever she is. She doesn’t need me poking my nose into her business.”

“Fair enough,” Liz said. A few moments of silence passed between them. “Cook also told me they turned up zilch on that mystery texter of yours.”

“I still can’t figure that out. They ran that number, but the results were…how did Cook put it? Inconclusive.”

“How so?”

“They tracked that number back and found its owner. One Myrtle Sanderson, aged fifty-three. Problem was, she disconnected her service one month before I got the texts.”

“So the number was sitting in the pool to be reassigned later.”

“Yep. Ninety days in limbo, or it should have been.”

“Then how in the hell could anyone have sent those texts if the number wasn’t active?”

“You tell me.”

“You’re not back on that ghost thing again, are you?”

Max shook his head. “Could be the phone company’s records are wrong, but that seems unlikely.”

“Or maybe somebody tampered with them,” Liz said. “It’s possible it could have been an inside job. Someone could have used the number to send the texts and then went back later and covered their tracks. Or deleted the records.”

“Maybe.”

Liz smiled. “Or maybe a ghost did it.”

“The world is full of mystery.”

“Did you tell Cook your theory?”

“I wouldn’t call it a theory. If anything it had only the vaguest resemblance to a hypothesis…and that’s stretching it. So no, I only told you.”

“Your secret’s safe with me then. Did you get any more texts?”

Max shook his head. “I changed the number a few months ago, but up until then I never got another one. I doubt I’ll get any more either. I’m okay with that. I guess I’m okay with not knowing who sent them too.”

“You haven’t…
seen
him again, have you?” Liz asked. “Josh?”

“Now I’m not sure I ever did. I was under some stress at the time.”

Liz returned the smile. “Understatement of the year.” She held her bottle up. “A toast.”

“To what?”

“To new beginnings.”

“I’ll drink to that.” Max touched his bottle to Liz’s and they both drank. Liz looked at him for a long time.

“What?” he asked.

“Do you think we could start over? I mean, do you think it’s possible?”

“You mean you and me?” Max asked. “Together?”

Liz nodded.

“I don’t know. There would always be something terrible between us.”

“But what if that’s a good thing?”

“How could that be a good thing?”

“We both lost so much, Max. We both lost everything.”

“Liz, Josh killed Amanda. I mean, my son killed your daughter. That’ll always be there, under the surface.”

Liz looked away.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

Liz looked him in the eye. “No, don’t apologize. You’re right. Your son killed my daughter. We both should be able to say that out loud.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I told you I lost Amanda a long time ago, long before she got herself into all that trouble. I’ve had to say that out loud more than a few times.”

“Does it make things better?”

“I don’t know. It’s the truth at least, so there’s that.”

“Honesty, right?”

“You didn’t really answer my question, Max. What if that terrible thing between us is a good thing? I’ve thought a lot about it since then. Nobody else could ever understand what we went through. Only the two of us have that frame of reference.”

“A shared experience.”

“Not just a shared experience, a shared loss. Shared guilt. Shared responsibility. Every day I wake up and it’s there, that terrible thing that happened to our kids. That happened to us. Every day is like waking up beside a monster and I know it’s never going to go away. For the rest of our lives, we’re going to have to face this thing. My question is, Max, do you want to face it alone or together?”

“We did make a good team, didn’t we?”

“A hell of a team.”

“I can’t guarantee anything.”

“Neither can I.”

Max looked at her. “Then I’d like to try.”

Liz smiled.

“Want to stay and watch the sun set?” Max asked.

“Don’t you think that’s kinda cheesy? A sunset?”

“It is cheesy. It’s also beautiful.”

“Then I’d love to.”

Liz took Max’s hand in hers and together they watched the sun slowly disappear behind the horizon.

About the Author

Brian J. Jarrett is a computer programmer by day and a horror/thriller writer by night. He grew up in West Virginia and now resides in St. Louis, Missouri with his wife and children.

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Also by Brian J. Jarrett

NOVELS & NOVELLAS

Into the Badlands (Badlands Trilogy #1)

Beyond the Badlands (Badlands Trilogy #2)

Out of the Badlands (Badlands Trilogy #3)

The Desolate

The Crossover Gene

It Came From the Mountain

The Saint, the Sinner and the Coward

Muster Drill

Yesterday In Black

Familiar Lies

COLLECTIONS & SHORT STORIES

Walking At Night

Wishes and Desires

Dine In

Cycle

Afterword

Do we really ever know another person? I mean,
truly
know them?

I tend to think people are like diamonds. We start out rough and unpolished, an amorphous rock of potential. The proverbial
diamond in the rough
. Then we’re cut and shaped into multi-faceted jewels that are capable of reflecting light in different ways…depending on the angle.

Look at a diamond in the light the same way every time and you only see a facet or two, and they’re always the same. But turn it and you see something different. The diamond isn’t new; you’re just seeing new facets because the angle is different. In this sense, we show only certain facets of ourselves to specific people. Our spouses see a facet, our employers another; our parents and our children yet another. We’re different things to different people; it’s almost as if we suffer from multiple personality disorder.

Are we being duplicitous by hiding certain parts of our personalties when dealing with a particular person? Are we being dishonest by choosing which facets to show and which to hide?
 

I don’t think so. In fact, I think it’s necessary in order to maintain social relationships. In that sense we’re all a little like Josh, showing his father the perfect son while hiding the more nefarious and shameful facets of his personality. Whether or not he did this out of respect to his father or out of fear of being caught, I don’t know. Maybe a little of both.

Point is, as people, I think we’re an amalgamation of every aspect of our personality; the sum of our parts. Problem is, it’s too much for any single person to handle all at once. The diamond in its entirety is the rock and all of its facets, but they can’t all be seen from a single angle. It’s just not possible. There’s a “dark side” out of sight, much like the moon, and that’s usually where we hide the worst parts of ourselves.

Maybe it’s just better to appreciate what we can see for what it appears to be and stop worrying about what we can’t see. Maybe we don’t want to see what’s lurking in the dark side.

Or maybe it’s better to know the truth. Honesty, right?

I’ll let you decide.

Brian J. Jarrett

May 21, 2016

St. Louis, MO

Acknowledgements

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