Tell Me Lies (16 page)

“Nice kid,” C.L. said.

Maddie kept her voice light. “I like her.”

“She said you dropped a weight on your face.”

Maddie sat down on the stairs, too tired to be upbeat anymore. “It’s a story that sounds better if you’re eight years old.”

C.L.‘s jaw got more rigid. “How did it happen?”

Maddie shrugged. “Accident.”

“Crap.” C.L. sat beside her. “He hit you.”

She let herself lean on him a little, and he put his arm around her. “Once,” she lied. She pulled his arm from around her shoulder but held on to his hand. “I love the way your arm feels around me,” she whispered, “but Em is upstairs. And I’m fine. Really, he only hit me once.”

“Once was evidently enough.” C.L.‘s voice was grim, but his other hand was gentle when he put it under her chin. “Look at me.”

“I’m fine.”

He leaned closer, close enough to kiss. “Look at me, damn it, I want to see your eyes.”

“I’m okay.” Maddie pulled away a little. “Treva checked them. No concussion.”

“Headache?”

“Hell, yes.”

“Dizziness?”

“No.”

“Nausea?”

“No. Not even a hangover.” She tried to grin, to defuse him. “I’m okay.”

C.L. took a deep breath and his hand tightened on hers. “Maybe you are, but I’m not. I let you walk into that.”

Maddie shot a glance up the stairs to make sure the hall was still empty. “It wasn’t about you,” she whispered. “He was mad because I’d been spying on him.”

“That’s why he hit you?”

Maddie pulled away a little. “Can we talk about something else? This is the second instant replay I’ve done. It makes me sick.”

“Second? Oh, Treva.” He paused. “So what did you find out about Brent?”

“That he was having an affair. I know, I know, big surprise. I was surprised.”

“Is that all?”

“Isn’t that enough?”

“It would be enough for me.” C.L. leaned his shoulder into hers, and the weight and the warmth felt wonderful. “God, you look awful. Damn it, I should have come in with you.”

“No, it’s all right,” she said, and felt herself start to cry.
Stop it,
she told herself.
All you do is cry.

C.L. tried to put his arms around her and she stiffened. “No. Em is just upstairs.”

“Right.” He took her hand and pulled her to her feet. “Come here for a minute.” He pulled her down the hall, out of the sight line of anybody upstairs, and cupped her face in his hands. “I’m worried about you,” he said, and kissed her so gently that his kiss was a whisper on her lips. “I want you safe.” He kissed her again, slower and firmer this time, and she leaned into him, savoring the taste of him, as his arms went around her and pulled her close. She felt so safe. She shouldn’t be doing this, but she felt so safe, and his kiss made her warm all over. She wanted to spend the rest of her life in that kiss.

When C.L. pulled away, he looked as dizzy as she felt. “I have to go right now, or we’ll be on the floor, but I will definitely be back. Keep the door bolted.”

“What do you mean, keep the door bolted?” Maddie followed him down the hall to the front door, still distracted from the kiss, wanting him against her. “Is this about the prowler?”

“There is no prowler.” C.L. opened the front door and turned to her. “Henry’s investigated. Nobody’s seen anything. Don’t worry about some phantom prowler when you have real trouble on your hands.”

“What do you mean?”

C.L. shot a glance upstairs and then leaned closer to her and whispered, “I mean I don’t think it would be a good idea to let Brent in.”

Maddie felt incredulous. “He’s Em’s father. How can I keep him out?”

“Picture him hitting Em. That should do it.”

“He wouldn’t.”

“How do you know? He hit you.” C.L. craned his neck for another look upstairs. “I don’t think she’s watching, but we’d better not chance it.” He touched her lips with his finger. “Consider yourself kissed goodbye until I can do it right. I’ll be back later. Bolt the door behind me.”

Maddie watched him start down the walk. “Where are you going?”

“To find your husband,” C.L. said.

When he was gone, she felt deserted, but she closed and bolted the door.

“Hello?” Mel said.

“Did you listen in when my mom called your mom?”

“No,” Mel said. “I was outside. I didn’t even know they
called.
Did you listen?”

“My mom caught on,” Em said. “She made me go out in the backyard while they talked. And there’s more. There’s some guy here. I’ve never seen him before, but Mom knows him.”

“What’s he doing?”

Em craned her neck to see down the hall without being seen. “They’re just sitting on the stairs talking. You should have been here. He said, ‘Jesus fucking Christ’ when he saw my mom’s face.”

“He’s going to hell,” Mel said.

“My mom said she dropped a weight on her face.” Em tried to make her voice sound fair, but she didn’t believe it, so it was hard. “I think that’s a lie.”

“Maybe,” Mel said. “Hey, maybe this guy is why your mom and dad are fighting. Maybe your dad was
jealous”

“I don’t think so,” Em said. “My mom was mad at my dad, not the other way around. Besides, he just showed up today.”

“For all you know, he could of been around for
years,”
Mel said.

“In this town?” Em stopped, hearing her mother’s voice in hers. “C’mon, Mel. Get real.”

“You never saw him before?”

“Nope.”

“What’s he look like?”

Em squinted down the hall again. “He’s kind of tall, but not tall like my dad. And he’s got real dark hair. And he’s wearing a blue plaid shirt and jeans.”

“That could be anybody,” Mel said. “He could of been here for years and nobody saw him.”

“No,” Em said. “You would notice this guy. What’s going on at your house?”

“My mom is
really
mad about your mom’s face,” Mel said. “She’s cooking. I think she’s gonna yell at your dad again.”

“He’s not here,” Em said. “I don’t know where he is. And my mom talked to my grandma, but she didn’t tell her about any accident with a weight.”

“This
sucks,”
Mel said. “This really, really
sucks”

“I gotta go listen,” Em said. “I’ll call you later and we’ll make a plan.”

“I bet it’s about this guy,” Mel said. “I just
bet you
he’s the trouble.”

“What the hell?” Henry said, jerking his head up.

“I want to report a crime,” C.L. said grimly. “Domestic abuse.”

Out on the landing, Esther picked up her head, all ears.

“Close the damn door,” Henry said, and C.L. did. “Now, what the hell are you talking about?”

“Brent Faraday beat up his wife last night,” C.L. said. “Arrest him.”

Henry looked at him steadily. “Is she pressing charges?”

“She doesn’t have to,” C.L. said. “It’s domestic abuse. I’m pressing them.”

“No, you are not,” Henry said. “Sit down.”

C.L. sat. “Henry, her face is a mess. He hit her at least twice, because there are two ring cuts on her face.” The memory of those gashes came back to him, and he took a deep breath before he went on. “He hurt her. I want him hurt, too. Arrest him.”

“You better talk to Maddie about this,” Henry said. “She might not thank you.”

“The hell—”

“C.L.,” his uncle roared over him. “Shut up. She has to live in this town. People like to take care of their own problems. If she handles it, nobody needs to know what happened.”

“You’re kidding me.” C.L.‘s rage made his voice thick. “You are fucking
kidding me.
You’re going to let him do it again. You’re going to—”

“I didn’t say that,” Henry said. “I’ll have a talk with Brent Faraday. It won’t happen again. It never happened before, if that’s what you’re thinking, because I’d know. He won’t do it again.”

“He sure as hell won’t.” C.L. got to his feet.

Henry said,
“Sit down,
”and C.L. sat.

“Just what is this woman to you?” Henry said. “I’m starting to get a bad feeling about this.”

“Henry, I’d be upset about any woman who got hit,” C.L. said.

“Not like this,” Henry said. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were going out looking for Brent Faraday to maybe beat him up a little.”

C.L. sat back. “It was part of my plan.”

Henry glared at him. “Well, make it not part because if he shows up with so much as a hangnail, I’m putting you in jail.”

“Oh.” C.L. nodded. “That’s real good, Henry. He’s the beater, and I get jailed.”

“He’s the jackass and you know better,” Henry said. “Besides, Maddie wouldn’t like it. People would think there was more between the two of you than there was, and there’d be talk. You let me handle it quiet.”

“Henry—”

“Go do something else,” Henry said. “I don’t give a damn what as long as you’re not hitting anybody or hanging around a married woman. Go do something nice for somebody. Surprise people.”

“Thank you very much,” C.L. said, and got up to go.

“And one other thing,” Henry said.

C.L. stopped.

“You stay away from that woman,” Henry said. “She’s got neighbors. She doesn’t need you sniffing around.”

“Thank you, Henry.” C.L. tried to sound offended. Henry and his X-ray mind. “I do not sniff.”

He stomped out of the office, frustrated and guilty and crazy to do something. Henry was right, he couldn’t go back to Maddie’s and just hang around, and Henry would make sure Brent never swung on her again. He wanted to go see her again and touch her again, but there were the neighbors. If he didn’t do something soon, he would have to go find Brent and smack him, and that wouldn’t be good, so—

Lost in thought, he headed for the Mustang. He had to do something to help Maddie or he’d be even crazier than he was now.

It was Candace at the bank. “I’m terribly sorry, Maddie, but your account is overdrawn.”

Maddie dropped the chair leg she’d been holding. “What?”

Candace’s voice was heavy with sympathy. “I can just return the checks, but I thought if you’d run in and make a deposit, we could save you the returned-check charge.”

Not to mention the hoo-ra when the town found out she’d been bouncing checks. Her mother would have a fit. Maddie pressed her hand to her forehead, trying to think. They couldn’t possibly be overdrawn. She’d just balanced the checkbook when the statement had come last week. Something was wrong, but she didn’t feel like arguing about it now. At least she’d finally come up with a problem she could solve. “Why don’t you just transfer over some from the savings? I can authorize that on the phone, can’t I?”

“Your savings account is empty, too.”

Maddie sat down hard on the stairs. “What do you mean, empty?”

“Five dollars and sixty-three cents.” Candace sounded apologetic, which was pretty decent of her, considering it wasn’t her screwup.

“Right. Thanks, Candace. Give me a minute.” She rubbed her head with her fingertips. The throbbing there was turning into pounding. Where was the money in their accounts? Brent must have pulled everything out this morning. Why? And where was she going to get money now? Her automatic paycheck deposit wasn’t for another week.

“Let me think for a minute,” she stalled Candace. She could ask her mother, but her mother would want to know why. Maybe Treva—

“Is there anything in your safe-deposit box?” Candace suggested. “You’re only going to need about two hundred and forty to cover the checks so far.”

There were a couple of CDs in there. There would probably be a penalty for cashing one in early, but penalties were the least of her problems right now.

“I’ll be right there,” she said. “Thanks, Candace.”

She went to the little spindle-legged desk her grandfather had left her for the key. The small middle drawer was pushed in crooked, and all the anger she’d felt for Brent spurted up.
Damn him.
He knew you had to push the drawers in gently or they sat crooked. He knew—

She was going to scream or cry, and either one was a bad idea. The desk drawers didn’t matter, even if they did pretty much sum up Brent: he knew better, but he didn’t care.

She pulled out the right-hand drawer where they kept the safe-deposit key, but it wasn’t there. Brent must have taken it. What was he doing with all their money? The possibilities weren’t good, and she searched the rest of the desk for the key, desperate to be proven wrong.

It turned up in the little middle drawer after all, pushed to the back.

Thank God,
Maddie thought, and called up to Em to tell her they were going to the bank, but when they went outside, there were no cars. Brent had taken the Caddy the night before, and her Civic was dead, towed to its semifinal resting place at Leo’s Garage. She could walk the mile to get to uptown, but not everything from now on was going to be that easy. She felt trapped. Somebody had murdered her car and now she was trapped.

Mrs. Crosby came out on her porch.

“Hello, Mrs. Crosby.” Maddie waved at her, self-conscious about her face until she remembered Mrs. Crosby couldn’t see beans.

“Goin‘ for a walk?” Mrs. Crosby called, and Em said, “Sheesh” under her breath.

“Just downtown,” Maddie called back, and then she heard the phone ring inside.
Damn.
Em rolled her eyes and sat down on the porch step while Maddie went back in and grabbed it.

“Mrs. Faraday?”

Yes?

“This is John Albrech, about your Civic?”

All this and insurance agents, too.

“It may be a while before we can settle on your car—”

Maddie’s temper broke. “No, it will not be a while. It will be immediately. I have paid premiums on that car for twelve years, right on time. I want this settled on Monday. Is that clear?”

“I don’t think you understand, Mrs. Faraday—”

“I understand perfectly. I either want that car fixed at Leo’s or a check to replace it. By Monday.”

“Well, fixing it is out of the question, it’s—”

“Fine. A check will be fine. I need a car. Either my old one back or a new one, but I need a car.” She heard her voice rising hysterically.

“Now, just be calm, Mrs. Faraday. A rental—”

“I will
not
be calm!”

“I’ll be back in touch on Monday,” he said, and hung up.

She went back out to Em. “We’ll walk.”

Em took this philosophically, and Maddie was glad. She didn’t feel like extolling the virtues of exercise at the moment. Her head hurt and it took all of her energy to keep walking. And thinking. Something was going to have to be done about Em since all hell was breaking loose and she knew it. And what did Em think about C.L.? And there was something wrong with Treva, and she was going to have to find that out and help. And then there was Kristie’s baby, if it was Kristie’s baby. And why was their checking account bouncing all over the place? And where was Brent anyway? Hard at work in his bowling clothes? And what was C.L. doing? Belatedly she remembered that C.L. had had a small violence problem in high school, and wondered if he was someplace beating up her husband. He might still have the same violence problem. He still had the same sex drive.

Her life was too small in a town that was too small to have this many loose cannons rolling around. Maybe she should call a meeting. She could have everybody gather in the living room and tell them to sit down and shut up until she got her bearings.

It was only a twenty-minute walk, and she and Em did it in record time, each of them lost in her own thoughts. She saw several people she knew, and they stared at her face, so she figured her makeup was less than successful. “Ran into a door,” she said cheerfully. Everyone seemed to accept it; it must have sounded like something she’d do.

The bank was cool and dark inside, and she had to take her sunglasses off to find her way to a teller’s window. “I need my safe-deposit box,” she said, showing her driver’s license. “What do I do?”

The girl, who was all of twenty, looked at her face, obviously dying to ask what had happened. “You wait right here, Mrs. Faraday,” she said, patting Maddie’s hand. “I’ll get someone to help you.”

Who the hell is she?
Maddie thought, not in a mood to be patronized. The nameplate by the window said
June Webster.
Maybe June was Brent’s extracurricular activity. She looked like she might be expensive.

Harold Whitehead came out of his office and crossed the floor to Candace’s desk, nodding to Maddie as he went by her. He must have missed her face entirely because he didn’t react. That was like Harold.

When he went back to his office, Candace looked up and smiled at her. Then her eyes widened. She came across the floor to them, cool in her beige and pale gold suit, and whispered, “Are you okay?”

Maddie smiled. “Ran into a door.”

Candace didn’t look convinced, but she didn’t push it, either. “What did you decide to do about the checking?”

“Safe-deposit box.” Maddie held up her key. “And could you print me out a statement of my account so I can see where we went wrong?”

“Sure.” Candace held out her hand to Em. “I’ve got some ink stamps you can play with while your mom goes downstairs, Emily. Want to stamp some paper?”

“Thank you,” Em said politely, and took her hand without much enthusiasm. Em’s tolerance for adults was evidently on the wane.

“Mrs. Faraday?”

The infant teller stood waiting. “Here’s Mr. Webster to help you.”

Another Webster? They looked like brother and sister, pale and blond and patronizing. Mr. Webster was older, middle twenties tops, but he was serious, very serious. He frowned at her face and then took her through the formalities of signing for her box and led her to a cubicle.

“I’ll leave you alone,” he said, making Maddie feel conspiratorial.

“Good idea,” she said. “That way I won’t be able to drag you down with me when they find out.”

Mr. Webster looked blank. “Pardon?”

“Joke. Never mind. Thank you.”

He left so she could have some privacy, and it was so quiet, Maddie thought about spending the rest of her life there. No phones. She opened the box, and then blinked.

It was full of hundred-dollar bills.

“Oh, my
God,"
she said, and Mr. Webster came back to the cubicle.

“Are you all right?” he asked, and then his eyes fell on the cash.

“Fine,” Maddie said weakly, waving her hand at him. “You can go.”

Mr. Webster looked at her uncertainly, and then he faded away.

She took a quick inventory of the box. Her grandmother’s jewelry was there under the money, and Em’s college bonds, and the CDs, but mostly the box was full of bills wrapped in packages, a hundred bills to a wrap in the package she counted, ten thousand dollars each. She counted twenty-eight packages. Two hundred and eighty thousand dollars. No cents. It was more money than she’d ever seen in her life, and she was quite sure it wasn’t possible for them to have that much. Not legally, anyway.

Think,
she told herself, but it was hard because there was so much money right there in front of her.

Obviously Brent had been doing something besides having an affair. Unless he’d been charging for his services. And if so, there was still something wrong because no one would ever pay Brent that much for sex. He just wasn’t that good.

This was going to be bad. She should tell somebody. Henry Henley or somebody. Except she didn’t know where the money came from. What if it was honest somehow? What if Brent really had this much money, and she turned him in to the police? Frog Point would love that one. No. She’d have to talk to Brent first. “Excuse me, but after I found the underwear, I found a lot of money, and I’m getting upset. Are you a thief and an adulterer, or just an adulterer? My divorce attorney will want to know.”

It was too confusing. She started to shut the box, and then thought again. With the way things had been going, better to empty the whole box and make sure there wasn’t anything else appalling in there. She pulled out Emily’s bonds and her jewelry cases and the money, and underneath them all she found a manila envelope.

I don’t want to open that,
she thought, but how much worse could things get? Her husband was an adulterous wife beater who was also quite probably a thief, and her car was dead. She’d pretty much hit bottom. It was just an envelope.
Get a grip,
she told herself, and opened the envelope and dumped the contents out: two airplane tickets and two passports.

The tickets were to Rio on Monday, August 19, the day after tomorrow. He was going to South America with somebody. Two days ago that would have shocked her. Now all she thought was how much easier it was going to be to divorce him if he was out of the country. If you looked at it just right, it was semigood news. He could send Em postcards and she could collect the stamps.

Then the significance of the two passports hit. At last she’d know the identity of the blonde. The first passport she opened was Brent’s, and she threw it back in the box. Then she opened the second passport and went cold. There was a rushing noise and she thought,
I have head injuries. I must keep calm. Now, let’s keep our perspective here.

The good news was, he wasn’t taking some bimbo to South America with him.

The bad news was, the second passport was Emily’s.