The First to Lie

by Hank Phillippi Ryan

  Nora couldn’t decide whether to be suspicious or terrified of his change in demeanor. But she had no reason to be defensive. Cops did that to you, part of their tactics, she knew that. She tried to shift the power.

  “Are you trying to find the car that hit her?” she asked.

  “What do you think?”

  “You said you were calling other people. Maybe they know more than I do.”

  “Maybe? Know?” Monteiro again looked like he’d caught her in a lie. He sat back down, motionless, watching her. “More than you do about what?”

  “She was sad, Lieutenant.” Nora let out a sigh. “Disappointed. And I think she and her husband were having money problems. And—” She stopped herself, feeling as if she’d said too much, and taking what Kaitlyn had said at face value. “But that’s only what she said to a stranger who sat next to her in a doctor’s office. I have no idea what’s true.”

  “And yet you were on the phone with her when she died.”

  Nora nodded, not trusting her voice.

  “Anything more you want to tell me?”

  Nora shook her head. “I keep thinking there was something I should have done,” she finally said. “I kept telling her to pull over, because I was worried. That the conditions were treacherous, but she insisted—”

  “How long before you got there? Arrived at the scene of the accident?”

  She looked at him.

  “I know you were there.” Monteiro raised an eyebrow. “And wondered why you hadn’t mentioned that.”

  “I guess … because it didn’t matter. Lieutenant, I’m sorry. I just keep wishing it had been sooner, soon enough to prevent it. But the traffic was stopping in front of me, and all the brake lights coming on, and—”

  She closed her eyes. Remembered it. Opened her eyes so the picture would go away.

  “Had you ever seen her car before?”

  She shook her head.

  “How did you know it was Ms. Armistead’s?”

  “She’d described it.”

  Monteiro smoothed the legs of his dark jeans.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I’d been at the scene,” she finally said. “But I might as well have been a million miles away, for all the good it did.”

  Monteiro nodded. “Okay.”

  She sighed, weary and confused, her contacts stinging like they always did after she’d worn them too long. Poor Kaitlyn, she thought, before she could stop herself. All she’d wanted was a baby. And as if her longing wasn’t heartbreaking enough, her disappointment wasn’t tragic enough, as if the people she’d trusted hadn’t betrayed her enough, now it had all made her a victim. A victim of her own sorrow. Nora felt her expression change before she could stop it.

  “What?” Monteiro leaned forward, one hand on each denim knee, his face intent. “What did you just think of?”

  “Nothing,” Nora whispered. “I was only remembering how much Kaitlyn wanted a child.”

  BEFORE

  CHAPTER 14

  BROOKE

  If Brooke heard her mother’s voice one more time—literally, one more time—she’d use her new super-shiny lipstick to write the nastiest things she could imagine all over the hallway walls. Maybe in the living room. Her mother would Never. Freaking. Let up.

  She didn’t yell back, or slam her bedroom door, even though she really really wanted to. But she shut the door quietly, closing her mother out, and then leaned against the cool white wood, her bare feet deep in the plush ice-blue carpeting.

  Brooke didn’t want to be a bitch about everything, so cliché, but this was even more horrible than she’d possibly imagined. She stared at her stripey pale blue wallpaper, and at her bulletin board displaying her souvenir theater tickets and beach schedule and a now-wilting daisy from Liam tucked through crisscrossed lacy French blue ribbons. Summer was supposed to be fun.

  She slid the daisy from behind the ribbon. Held it with two fingers over the white wicker wastebasket. Silly to keep a dead thing. She took a deep breath, sighed it out. Tucked Liam’s daisy into her ponytail.

  If she handled everything right—meaning, if she could be the person her parents thought she should be—maybe it would work. She just had to get past this … situation.

  She flopped down on her bed, staring at the ceiling.

  Thing was, and she could not admit this to anyone, and almost not to herself, she wanted the baby. More than anything she’d ever wanted, she wanted her. A girl, Brooke knew it. Maybe she’d name her Phoebe, or Rachel, and she’d lavish her with love and never criticize her and always trust her. And notice her and talk to her and just … be. With her. And the baby would totally love her, Courtney, maybe, or Olivia? And they’d be happy, like in books.

  She wrinkled her nose, realizing the problem with that fantasy. Nine months’ worth of problem. But it was about what was right and fair. And finally Brooke could do something that wasn’t only about her. She put a hand on her tummy, wondering.

  It surprised her: the idea that someone—a new little person, from her own body—could be more important than herself.

  “Brooke!” Her mother’s voice grated up at her from downstairs. “Brooke Hadley Vanderwald!”

  And Mom was calling her by her ridiculous full name, which the minute she got out of here she would never ever ever use again. She’d take little Olivia or Courtney and be totally someone else with a totally new name.

  “I am serious!”

  Well, Brooke was serious too. She stood, and frowned at her full-length mirror, considering. She didn’t look any different than yesterday or two days before. But she was caught like a bug in a spiderweb, and someone else’s life depended on hers now, and what was she supposed to do about that?

  Mom didn’t know. No one knew, not even Liam, and she would never tell him. He’d go crazy, and who knows what he’d do after that? He was all about Princeton or wherever the school of the week was, and he’d dump her like a rock if she ever—oh, crap. Wouldn’t he? She loved him so so much, she totally totally adored him, but what was she supposed to do? What if she decided wrong?

  She wanted to call someone, but her friends were unreliable or worse. And summer friends, like the ones she had here … they weren’t real friends. She stared at the floor, at her pink-polished toes and tanned legs. Trying to think.

  She was at the shore, but just for the summer, like Liam, and they’d all go back to Annapolis in the fall, but anything was possible. But how would she look in a month? Or even in a week?

  She had to plan. She yanked at her Destiny’s Child T-shirt so it was looser, then rolled her eyes. Pitiful. Destiny’s Child, what, was like, the universe laughing at her? It wasn’t her fault, it wasn’t her darling Liam’s fault, there was nothing about fault, except maybe his, a little, but it had all seemed so magical and now it wasn’t.

  “I’m leaving now, missy!” Her mom’s voice again. Brooke closed her eyes, trying trying trying to think.

  She jammed on her flip-flops and flapped into the hall. As she leaned over the banister of their summer house, she saw the top of her mom’s head, blonder than ever, down by the vase of hydrangeas someone had placed in the entryway.

  “Have fun, Mom.” Brooke tried to act natural, like this was just another August at the shore, like they’d all done for however long she could remember, and even back when she couldn’t. The sunbaked gray house with seagrass and tended blue hydrangeas and fragrant lavender meant summer to her as much as the lightning bugs and stars and ice cream at Krazie’s. She almost put a hand on her stomach again, then pretended she needed to adjust her T-shirt. “See you after? I’m just gonna read.”

  “That’s lovely, dear.” Her mom looked up, and for a moment her face seemed to soften. “But I do wish you’d come to the club with me. You could read there too, couldn’t you? It won’t be long now before I can’t show you off.”

  Brooke’s eyes widened. What did her mom know? But Mom was looking at herself in the front hall mirror, not at Brooke.

&n
bsp; “You’ll be off to Vassar or Yale, I know you can do it.” She tucked her hair under a faded red ball cap with BJV monogrammed on the front. Adjusted it, so her eyes showed and a few tendrils of blond casually trailed to her shoulders. She turned and looked up again. “You’re so beautiful to me, Brookie, all that gorgeous hair and your wonderful eyes,” she said. “And you’re still so happy.”

  That was her Mom look, Brooke recognized it, the somehow memory of tenderness and even happiness. Brooke used to see it all the time. And now it was heartbreaking, even, how seldom that expression appeared.

  “You are too, Mom.” Brooke couldn’t help it. For all her mom’s terribleness and griping and nudging and pushing and ridiculously shallow friends and not even caring what her dad was doing half the time, she was kind of okay. But not okay enough to talk to. Brooke had to figure out what they’d do if they knew. They’d probably ship her off somewhere, if people still did that.

  “Bye, honey.” Her mom, thank goodness, was headed for the front door. “There’s food. And Sarah made chocolate chip cookies. Don’t eat more than two. It’s bad for your face.”

  The front door clicked closed behind her, and Brooke was alone. Standing on the balcony, on the precipice, on the edge.

  And alone.

  She touched her belly again. Sort of alone.

  BEFORE

  CHAPTER 15

  LACEY

  Lacey Grisham paused at the top of the curved stairway of the Tri-Delt sorority house, full now of the girls—her sorority sisters—who’d stayed here in Charlottesville for this 2004 summer semester. Lacey’s future stood at the bottom, one flight down, in the front hall entryway. Trevor Vanderwald, scion of the Vanderwald family, their only son and rightful heir. Well, except for that little sister, who didn’t matter. Lacey assessed her beau, making use of this private moment of unbridled scrutiny.

  Reasonably smart, reasonably attentive, not an athlete but reasonably fit and more than reasonably well off. All that Vanderwald money, and all his father’s companies. She planned to research every single thing they owned. Every single company she’d—someday—inherit. She almost couldn’t believe her luck, or maybe it had truly been her destiny because, cross her heart, this was all she’d ever wanted. Trevor, or someone like him, and for once a comfortable worry-free life and a family. Please, for all that is good and right, a family.

  Plus, she had to admit, he was truly into her. He’d followed her out of psychology class the first day of the fall semester, acting like it was all so casual. She’d noticed his turquoise polo shirt, the perfect one, the collar just right, and his boat shoes, just right, and no socks. The next morning, he’d waited for her at the classroom door, and later they’d gone for a walk on the common, the still-green maple trees fluttering their leaves above them, their steps matching and hands almost touching. He’d held doors for her, listened to her ideas, laughed when she made a joke. He hadn’t pushed her when she’d changed the subject away from her own family. Hadn’t bragged about his own. But by that time, she’d done her research.

  For someone who’d always gotten what he wanted, she’d realized, Trevor Vanderwald had little patience for something unattainable. So that’s what she’d made herself. Unattainable. Which had made him want her all the more. She wanted him too, now. Funny how that worked.

  Trevor hadn’t noticed her up here yet—he had some new cell phone that seemed like the only thing he might love more than he loved her. She sometimes teased him about it, told him he’d name his first child Nokia, which he didn’t think was all that funny. But no matter. He couldn’t marry that cell phone. But he would marry her.

  Lacey was sure of it.

  In a flutter of pink pashminas and flirty little skirts, a pack of Lacey’s sorority summer-sisters bustled into the entryway, their laughter floating up toward her, surrounding Trevor with giggles and silly teasing. One of them, Priss, snatched Trevor’s sunglasses from the placket of his shirt and put them on top of her head, posing and primping. He flipped out one hand, palm up, demanding that she give them back.

  Priss, honey, Lacey thought. Give up. Some sister she was. One of them opened the front door, letting in the summer afternoon, and the group—including the insipid Priss, who tossed the sunglasses back to Trev—chattered off to wherever they all were going.

  They’d all come from some planning meeting in the living room, Lacey knew, but she’d left that triviality behind her: the pledging, the hazing, the obligatory bags of candy, the bestowing of initiation nicknames that had christened her Lacey, all the nonsensical demands of sorority life. She’d been devoted to it at first, especially since she’d never had real sisters, but she was a woman now and had set her sights higher. Into the future, a future she’d imagined since she was a child in Montgomery, dressing Barbie in bridal gowns, then taping cotton balls onto Barbie’s tummy to make her look pregnant.

  After that she’d had a baby doll too, a boy, with ice-blue eyes, eyes that really opened, and a perfect little mouth. She’d practiced with her precious baby, swaddled him, sang to him. Loved him. Soon that all would be real.

  With a deep breath and a wish on an invisible star, Lacey trotted down the carpeted stairway, head high. She felt her newly curled hair bouncing on her shoulders, and the flip of her own flirty skirt, not quite too short, against her bare legs. Her sisters had worked so hard to tan over the summer, but Lacey kept her face pale, unable to forget her mother’s admonitions about wrinkles and spots. Her debut at the Vanderwalds’ was set for Labor Day weekend, according to Trevor, at the family’s annual goodbye-to-summer picnic. Her empty suitcase had been on the vacant twin bed in her room since July, reminding her it needed to be filled with clothes for her future.

  From this summer on, that’s where she’d be, with Trevor. And soon, very soon, as Lacey Vanderwald—what a perfectly perfect name—with Maryland in the winter and the islands in the summer, with beach parties and butterfly floaties and the fragrance of sunscreen and rum, and helping her daughters be just like her, happy and pretty and like those F. Scott Fitzgerald heroines she wasn’t supposed to admire but somehow still did. Other girls could go off and have jobs and careers, and she wished them all happiness, following their dreams. But what was wrong with wanting pretty things and a family? Family kept you safe and happy and secure. Mama had taught her that, because no one else was at home left to say it, and besides, she knew it in her soul, that—well, what was a woman without a family?

  She patted her flat stomach, knowing that soon, so soon, she’d be like cotton-ball Barbie and her future would be secure. Like Trev, she was class of 2005, but maybe that degree in psychology wasn’t necessary. One day at a time.

  “Lacey Vanderwald,” she whispered to herself, just to practice. She’d never say that out loud, not yet, it was too soon. “Mrs. Winton Trevor Vanderwald. And their beloved son, Trevor the fourth.”

  Trevor had put his sunglasses back in place, dangling from the collar of his shirt, and was fiddling with his phone again. He glanced up at her finally, smiling, signaling hello. To Trevor, she supposed, this might only be a moment in time, a summery fling, a weekend. And she was well aware other girls had gone with him to see his parents, even other Tri-Delts, gone and come back disappointed. But Lacey had no fear of failure.

  “Hey, Trevor,” she said as she reached the bottom of the stairs. It came out Trevah, and she knew he thought it was adorable. The August sunshine sent golden light through the still-open front door, and when he looked up, appraising her, he couldn’t keep the admiration from his face. And the lust. Precisely what she’d hoped for.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting.” She tilted her head, teasing. “Calling anyone in particular?”

  “Nah, just stuff.” He stashed his phone, thank goodness, and looked her up and down. She’d have been annoyed if it were anyone else, but she loved his eyes on her. “Hey, babe. What took you so long?”

  She tucked her arm through the crook of his elbow and settled herself against him,
close enough that he could smell the honey gardenia fragrance she’d misted through her hair, close enough that she could smell the beer already on his breath. And not even three o’clock. But that was not for her to criticize. She would never disparage this linchpin of her future. Mama had done that to Daddy, she nagged him to certain death, and look what happened. She’d married again, for whatever that loser was worth.

  Lacey knew better. She had not let Trevor touch her down there, no matter how he tried to convince her, and once he got angry, and once he got her so ridiculously drunk, but it didn’t work. She had big big plans, and this was her power. Sex. That word, harsh as it was, that was her power. The others, her sisters, that’s not how they dealt with men, but Trevor wasn’t just anyone. He was the one. In so many ways, she had saved herself for him. She felt like a beautiful spider, spinning a gossamer but inescapable web around her prey. It was so intoxicating she had to stop herself from smiling. She touched wood at the front door to make sure.

  “Trev?” she asked as they left the house and walked down the geranium-lined front walkway. A yellow convertible squealed around the corner, top down, its radio blaring “Soak Up the Sun” and the back seat overflowing with students singing along. “Do you think your parents will like me? It matters so much that they do.”

  “I know they will, Lace,” he said. “You’re perfect.”

  Lacey almost burst out laughing.

  BEFORE

  CHAPTER 16

  BROOKE

  “Really? Peanut butter?”

  Her mom’s voice came through the kitchen door, all judgey before Brooke could even see her.

  “That’s what you’re eating, Brooke?” Her mom went on as she strode in from the backyard, the screen door clacking shut behind her, her arms full of pink and lavender hydrangeas. “And I can’t believe you’re up this early.”