Tell Me Lies (34 page)

“How is she?” C.L. called out to her when she was close enough to hear.

“Considering what she’s just been through, pretty good.” Maddie slowed as she reached the porch. “I have to go to town. Can you keep an eye on her for a couple of hours?”

“I can keep an eye on her for the rest of my life,” C.L. said.

Maddie closed her eyes. “Let’s start with a couple of hours and see how it goes.”

“It’ll go fine,” C.L. said. “Em and I understand each other. It’s you and I who aren’t communicating.”

“Later,” Maddie said. “One trauma at a time. I have some loose ends to tie up. I’ll be back later.”

He watched her walk to the car and thought for the thousandth time how great it would be if she would just trust him enough to lean on him. Then he went inside the kitchen to get the poles so he and Em could get in a little fishing before dinner.

Now it was time to get that back if she could. It had only been three weeks since she’d stood at Treva’s back door and said, “Brent’s cheating on me and I have to divorce him,” and she’d thought that was the end of the world. Amazing the kind of perspective three weeks could give you. Now she didn’t care much about the adultery. Murder, she was still upset about, and kidnapping, but adultery? The hell with it.

She parked at Treva’s and knocked on the back door.

Treva opened the door and said, “Maddie, my God, it’s you.” She reached out and grabbed her sleeve. “What’s wrong? Is it Em again?”

Maddie looked at her and thought,
I didn‘t lie to Em. I’m not mad at Treva. I’m not mad at all.
But all she said was, “We have to talk, Treva. It’s way past time for us to talk. Come for a walk.”

Treva froze for a moment, and then she looked behind her. The light from the kitchen poured out around her into the early September twilight, and Maddie could hear two masculine rumblings counterpointed with one thin little soprano. Family time. “All right,” Treva said. “If that’s what you need.” She slipped back inside, and Maddie listened while she told her family she was going for a walk, “just a little one with Maddie to unwind,” and the silence that followed was heavy, but not even Mel was clueless enough to ask questions.

Treva came out with two windbreakers and handed a green one to Maddie before she pulled the door shut behind her. “It’s getting colder,” she said as she shrugged herself into the red one. “I love September, but it’s nothing to fool with at night.”

Maddie slipped her arms into the green windbreaker and shoved the sleeves up over her wrists. The jacket was an extra large, the kind Brent used to wear. They walked silently past the neighbors’ houses—Mr. Kemp’s, Mrs. Whittaker’s, and Mrs. Banister’s—toward the end of the block and Maddie asked, “Is this Three’s?”

“Yep,” Treva said. “He’s huge.”

“Like Brent,” Maddie said, and then she stopped walking because Treva had.

Treva blinked hard, as if she were trying not to cry, her mouth pursed so shut it almost disappeared. “Brent told you.”

“No.” Maddie took a step closer. “No, I realized it at the funeral. Three has Brent’s voice. And his build. And his cowlick.”

“That’s why you stopped talking to me.” Treva started to nod and couldn’t stop. “That’s why. I knew it. I thought you found the letter or Brent told you or—Maddie, I’m so sorry. You don’t know how sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

The tears did come then, hard tears, and Treva choked and pushed the drops back from her cheeks with her palms and gulped for air, and said, “I’m sorry” over and over. Maddie put her arms around her and held her tight and then began to cry with her, and it felt good to let the pent-up rage and loneliness out.

“I don’t care, Treva,” she said, letting her tears drip into Treva’s frizzy curls. “I don’t care at all. It was just a stupid screwup. It could have happened to me and C.L. It could have happened to anybody. It doesn’t matter at all.”

“I hated it,” Treva sobbed, clinging to her. “I hated it so much, but I couldn’t tell you, and I couldn’t tell Howie, God, I tricked Howie into marrying me because of it, how could I tell him, I couldn’t tell anybody, and I’m so, so, so sorry—”

She bounced her head on Maddie’s shoulder with each “so” and Maddie clamped her hand on Treva’s head to keep her from beating her brains out. “I know. I couldn’t tell you about C.L. because I was so ashamed. I remember how it was. I understand. It doesn’t matter anymore.” Maddie sniffed one last time and began to pat Treva on the back, now conscious of the cars that were slowing down to look at the two women locked together. “I’m not kidding. I don’t care. I thought I did, but I don’t.”

Treva stepped back to palm away her tears again. “I would. If it were you and Howie, I’d care.”

“I know,” Maddie said. “I know, but the thing is, I love you so much more than I ever loved Brent. That’s such a terrible thing, but it’s true. I didn’t realize it until I was talking with Em, but I miss you so much more than I miss him. And I love Three, so how could I wish he wasn’t born? And I don’t think I could get through the day without talking to you, and that’s what I’ve been doing for the past two weeks, and I’ve really hated it, so all of the other stuff doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t. It was twenty years ago. It doesn’t matter anymore at all.”

“Oh,
God.”
Treva sat down on the steps to Mrs. Banister’s house and cried harder, gasping her words between sobs. “I’m so relieved. I’m so, so sorry, but I’m so relieved.” She grabbed Three’s windbreaker sleeve and pulled on it until it went past Maddie’s wrist. “I didn’t do it to hurt you, I swear, I didn’t.”

Maddie sat down next to her to get her sleeve back. “I know, Treva. It’s okay.”

“Brent was just—” Treva’s sobs slowed down, and she began to search through her jacket pockets for a Kleenex and then gave up and wiped her nose on the sleeve. “Brent was just everything back then, you know? I couldn’t believe he was paying attention to me. He was what everybody wanted. He was just it. And I was dumb. I was so dumb—”

“It’s okay, Treva, I know. I married him, for heaven’s sake.” Maddie patted her, but now that she had started, Treva couldn’t stop.

“And then I missed my period and wrote that letter—” Treva clutched at Maddie’s arm. “
The letter.
Where’s—”

“I tore it up.” Maddie patted harder. “It’s gone. I flushed it down the John. It can’t hurt you anymore. I swear it.”

“Oh.” Treva drew a deep shuddering breath. “Oh. Oh, my God, I can’t believe it.” She started to cry again. “I can’t believe it. Brent was going to tell you. He said he’d tell you and Howie. I screamed at him. I even threatened to kill him, but he said he’d tell if I didn’t keep my mouth shut about the money.” Treva started to sob again. “I betrayed Howie all over again. I knew he was cheating the company because Dottie Wylie told my mom, and I didn’t tell him. I called Brent and yelled and he threatened me and I did it again, I betrayed Howie.”

“It’s all over,” Maddie said. “Nobody will tell Howie.” She stopped for a minute, confused. “Wait a minute. What does Dottie Wylie have to do with this?”

Treva gulped back the last of her tears. “Brent charged her too much for her house. She told my mom it wasn’t worth what she paid for it, and Mom told me, and I didn’t tell Howie, but it turns out she was right. He came in a couple of weeks ago, right before we found out about Brent, and he said he and C.L. had gone over the books, and Brent had skimmed about forty thousand off Dottie’s house alone by double-invoicing, but they couldn’t find the invoices. He said there were lots more, going back two years, he could tell by looking at what Brent had actually billed them for in the computer, but they needed the invoices, too.”

“Yellow carbons,” Maddie said. “There were a stack of them in that damn box we found. That’s why Brent was so mad about it. His invoices were in there.” Pieces began to fall into place for her. “I thought he was mad because I’d found out he was cheating. I told him I’d been with C.L. and he said, ‘What did you tell him?’ He didn’t care I’d been with another man, he cared I’d been with an accountant. This whole thing has been over money. We went through this hell because of
money.
Can you believe it?”

“No,” Treva said. “I went through it because I made a terrible mistake twenty years ago and betrayed the two people I loved most.”

“Well, that’s over,” Maddie said. “That’s what I wanted to tell you. I know you need to cry, so go ahead, but it’s all over. I don’t care.” She put her arm around Treva and pulled her close, the way she’d held Em only an hour before. “We’re going to be okay.”

“Are you going to tell Howie?” Treva straightened. “I understand if you do, I deserve it.”

“Of course I’m not going to tell Howie,” Maddie said. “Haven’t you been listening? What do you think I am?”

Treva’s head swayed a little. “I think you’re wonderful. I’m the one who’s awful. I knew Brent was stealing from the company and I let him
blackmail
me—” Treva collapsed on Maddie’s shoulder again.

“Are you girls all right?”

Maddie lifted her chin over Treva’s head to look behind her. Mrs. Banister stood on her front porch, squinting through the twilight.

“We’re fine, Mrs. Banister,” she called back. “It’s just Maddie Martindale and Treva Hanes. We’re talking about old times.”

“All right, girls.” Mrs. Banister waved as she turned to go back inside. “You need anything, you just come ring the bell.”

“Thank you,” Maddie called back as Treva burst into tears again.

“Everybody’s so nice to me,” Treva sobbed. “And I’m the scum of the
earth
.”

“Okay, that’s it.” Maddie stood up and hauled Treva to her feet by the collar of her windbreaker. “Pull yourself together and let’s walk some of this off. You are not scum, you’re the best person I know, and if I go to jail, I want you to raise my kid, so get over this self-pity thing.”

Treva clutched at her again. “You’re not going to go to jail. Even if they convict you, they’ll give you temporary insanity or something.”

“Well, Treva, that’s not much help.” Maddie started them both walking again. “I don’t think it’s going to do Em a whole lot of good to live in a town that thinks her wacko mother shot her cheating father.” That made Maddie think of her grandmother. “They’ll shut me up someplace, and Em will come to visit and bring me Esther Price candy, and I’ll spit the walnuts at the walls.”

“What are you
talking
about?” Treva said.

“Heredity,” Maddie said. “Do you ever look at your mother or your grandmother and think, ‘Dear God, someday that’ll be me’?”

“Sometimes I think I’m them now,” Treva said. “That’s why I’ve been watching Three like a hawk for twenty years. I’ve been terrified I’d wake up one day and he’d be Brent.”

“It’ll never happen.”

“Or that Howie would look at him one day and say, ‘My God, he looks like Brent.’ Because he does, a little.”

They passed two more houses before Maddie said, “Look, I know you’re relieved, but you do have a good point about Howie. This is something he should know. I’m not going to tell him, ever, but you probably should.”

“I can’t.” Treva grabbed Maddie’s windbreaker sleeve. “I absolutely can’t. He’ll think I just married him because I was pregnant with Brent’s baby.”

“Howie Basset is a lot of things, but dumb isn’t one of them,” Maddie said. “He’s lived with you for twenty years. He’s known you all your life. Give him some credit.”

“I can’t,” Treva said, but her voice sounded less quavery.

“I have just this day become a big proponent of telling the truth,” Maddie said. “I highly recommend it. You wouldn’t believe what a
relief
it is.”

Treva inhaled on a huge quavering sigh. “Well, actually, I would. I’m feeling pretty giddy myself right now just because this is all out for us.”

Maddie nodded. “So imagine you and Howie. Do it.”

They reached the corner of Linden Street under the streetlight, and while Maddie waited for whatever Treva was going to say next, the light came on and flooded Treva’s blonde curls, and just for a minute she looked exactly the way she had when they were kids, a little dizzy and absolutely a part of Maddie’s world.

They’d been together a long time. And they’d be together a lot longer now. This was the reason she’d never leave Frog Point, not just Treva or her mother or Em, but all the memory and tradition and sureness that thirty-eight years in the same place gives you. “Streetlight’s on,” she told Treva. “You know what that means.”

Treva grinned at her, a little weak and watery, but still a grin. “Home in ten minutes, or we’re grounded.”

“Whatever happens,” Maddie said, “nothing changes us. You may change, I may change, but nothing changes us. Okay?”

“Okay,” Treva whispered. “Okay.”

“Okay,” Maddie said. “Jesus, what a day.”