All That Lies Broken (Ashmore's Folly Book 2)

by Forrest, Lindsey

  “Hold it – hold it – hold it.” Lucy held up her hand before Diana started off on another tangent. She nodded towards Diana’s wrist. “Laura knows about this?”

  “Of course.” Diana sounded impatient. “She’s the reason it happened. She – well, she sort of grabbed the glass away from me. Then she punched me on the jaw – see that bruise? hurts like the devil, that girl can throw a punch – and she drove me to the hospital. I was going to call you, but she said she’d rip the phone out of the wall if I tried, and then she ransacked my place while I was asleep.”

  Lucy sat completely still.

  She’d come here to beg her older sister to withdraw the subpoena. She was walking a fine line, but she thought she could ethically talk to Diana as long as she did not give her legal advice or apply undue influence. Sitting here, she wasn’t Richard’s lawyer; she was Diana’s sister. She’d come to protect her niece and the sister who had become mother to another sister’s child; she’d come to preserve her family. And instead, she found Diana with her wrist sliced open again, and Laura mixed up in it up to her eyeballs, and the whole family ranged against her in a silent conspiracy.

  She was so angry, she could scream.

  “I want you,” she said, “to tell me everything. And I mean everything, Di, don’t you lie or leave one damn thing out. Just start at the beginning—”

  But Diana leaned across the table and cut right across her, and that startled her. “Forget it. It’s not important, except that dear little Laura stole some stuff from me, and I want it back.” She took the glass of orange juice that the waitress set down before her. “I need to know something. You were there the day she came back. What did she say about Francie’s death?”

  Lucy sat back and considered her sister. What the hell was Diana up to? She should be sobbing, full of remorse, begging for help – not sitting there composed, dismissing her latest suicide attempt as no big deal. “She said – well, I brought it up, actually. I asked her about Francie, and she said that she’d died in a plane crash in the Texas Panhandle.” She thought back. “Not much else. She seemed a little upset, so I didn’t push it. Obviously, plane crashes are a sensitive subject with her.”

  “Hmmm,” said Diana, and sat back with a Cheshire cat look. She was enjoying this, Lucy thought sourly, she liked having the upper hand for a change. “Don’t you think it’s interesting that Francie died in a plane crash in the Panhandle, and Laura’s mother-in-law died in a plane crash in the Panhandle, but they weren’t on the same flight?”

  Lucy sat still and stared. Then, slowly, “Son of a bitch. She lied to me.”

  “That’s right,” said Diana gaily, and drained her orange juice. “And it gets better! Because I know how Francie did die, and she was nowhere near Texas! You want to know?” She leaned over, and Lucy couldn’t help it, she leaned forward too, so that she was eyeball to sparkling eyeball. Diana whispered, “She was murdered.”

  The human mind couldn’t take this, Lucy thought numbly. You could only stand so many shocks an hour, and she had definitely exceeded her quota. She felt the way she’d felt that September morning, watching the morning show before leaving for work, one horrific blow after another, culminating in the sudden onset of premature labor and the few brief moments when she’d held her dying baby boy.

  She was beginning to feel sick.

  She took a deep breath. “I don’t believe you.”

  “Wait,” said Diana, “I’m not done. Don’t you want to know how Francie was murdered?” She took the plate of waffles from the startled waitress and drowned them in maple syrup. “Oh, I ordered bacon and biscuits – thanks so much – yes, another OJ, please. And more tea for my sister?” She raised an eyebrow at Lucy, who nodded because she couldn’t trust her voice.

  Diana dug into her waffles with undue enthusiasm. Lucy finally forced herself to speak. “All right, I’ll bite. Who murdered Francie?”

  Her words didn’t seem real to her. This wasn’t real, it couldn’t be, she couldn’t be sitting in a shabby little coffee shop talking to her crazy older sister about their younger sister’s murder.

  Her younger sister couldn’t have been murdered.

  But she wouldn’t have thought that Laura would flat out lie to her about Francie’s death, either.

  “Well,” said Diana, and buttered a biscuit, “I murdered her. If I understand correctly, I met her out at Ash Marine eleven years ago this summer, and I crept up behind her and cut her throat à la—” She held up her orange juice. “Then I dumped her body in the cove, where Laurie found her, and then the tide came in and washed Francie’s body away so it was never found.”

  For a moment, Lucy couldn’t think for all the noise in her head. She stared across the table at her sister, who was casually eating breakfast as if she hadn’t been accused of committing a gruesome crime in an utterly fantastic scenario, and she thought that maybe she was still in bed, dreaming.

  Except that the smell of the maple syrup was so pungent that she had to be awake.

  “And you want to know why we never knew any of this?” continued Diana, on a roll and relishing every minute of it. “Because first Francie poisoned Laurie before she went out to be murdered by me, and Laurie was out of her mind with fever or poison or whatever, so she blacked out when she stumbled across Francie’s poor lifeless body that I threw into the cove – although how I had the strength to do that, I don’t know, it must have been all that adrenaline from finally giving Francie her just desserts. Then somehow she got out of there and she passed out again and she was airlifted out to a hospital. And she never once, in eleven years, told anyone about this.” She looked across at Lucy with ostentatiously wide eyes. “The perfect murder, don’t you think? And wasn’t it nice of Laurie not to tell anyone so I could get away with it?”

  Lucy pushed her plate away. “This isn’t funny, Di. Really, do you think telling me such a ridiculous story is going to make me forget you cut yourself—”

  “Oh, that.” Diana waved her hand. “That’s nothing, Lucy dearest. You think I’m making this up? I’m still not finished. Do you know why Francie, poor dead Francie, was so defenseless against my murderous rage? Because she brought along a gun to kill me with, but Laurie decided to stop her, and she took the gun away. Too bad she didn’t take the knife too, to keep me from getting my homicidal little hands on it. Oh,” she added as an afterthought, “Daddy was mixed up in this too. Laurie doesn’t seem to know where he comes in, but Francie got the bridge keys from someone, so it was probably him. Although Laurie did hint maybe it was Richard—”

  “This,” said Lucy quietly, “is the stupidest story I have ever heard.”

  Diana folded her hands together and returned her look. “Yes,” she said. “Now that I’ve had the weekend to think about it, that’s exactly what I think too.”

  “I can’t believe this.” Lucy looked away for a moment and tried to order her thoughts. “Are you sure Laurie said all this?”

  “You bet. Right there in Daddy’s front room Friday afternoon. She sat there in his chair and accused me of killing Francie. That’s why I sort of lost it there for a moment, I thought maybe Daddy really did conspire with Francie to kill me—”

  “But this doesn’t make any sense,” said Lucy. “Are you sure she wasn’t putting you on?”

  “Oh, no. She wasn’t acting. She was shaking the whole time she was talking.” Diana ate the toast reflectively. “She believes this, Luce. She thinks I murdered Francie.”

  “I guess,” said Lucy slowly, “I need to ask. Did you?”

  Diana gave her a look. “Sneak up behind her and cut her throat? Please! Give me more credit than that. I’d have stood in front of her and stabbed her right in her black little heart so she’d see who was sending her to her eternal reward.”

  “I wonder....” She remembered a senior litigator at her first law firm, saying that the best liars used the truth. She wouldn’t have pegged Laura as a liar, but then, she reminded herself, this was the woman who h
ad covered her tracks for fourteen years. “I wonder if any of this could be true?”

  “What part?” said Diana. “Not the part about me, that’s for damn sure. Why, do you think Francie really did get herself murdered out there?”

  “Maybe.” She’d thought, talking to Tom, that it had been uncharacteristic of Francie not to have made some move to reinsert herself into Richard’s life. But killing Diana? Would Francie really have tried that? “It’s possible she went out there to hurt you.”

  “Well,” said Diana, “that would not surprise me at all. I tried to tell you all, and no one would listen. That girl had it in for me. I’m just surprised it took her that long to decide to get rid of me.”

  “Quiet.” Lucy reached into her purse for her cell and looked up Laura’s number. “I’m going to get to the bottom of this. If Laurie really said all that—”

  “Oh, she’s not there. She went off for the weekend with a boyfriend, although she’s probably back by now.”

  Her heart stopped. “What?”

  “I told you I had some juicy gossip. I went over there Saturday night, and she wasn’t there, but her car was, and her stupid cat was.” Diana munched on a slice of bacon. “Pretty fast work if you ask me – how long has she been back, and she’s already met someone? Well, I guess she has a right to be a merry widow, it’s not like we’ve seen any tears for this Cam St. Bride, but – wait, who was that boy Daddy made her break up with? Maybe she’s hooked up with him again?”

  Lucy scarcely felt her hand going to her forehead. She heard herself say from far away, “Maybe she just didn’t come to the door.”

  “I called at least ten times,” Diana said. “I stayed past midnight, because she took—” she pitched her voice low so that the cop two booths down didn’t hear her, “she took some of my personal stuff while I was asleep. And I want it back. She can afford her own weed.”

  Lucy had now absorbed as much as any human being could be expected to absorb. “Don’t say one more word.” She put the cell back in her purse; she had to think this through before she made any calls. It couldn’t be true. Richard couldn’t have taken such leave of his senses. He couldn’t really be filing the petition in her briefcase because he wanted to divorce one sister for another.

  But he’d gone off for the weekend.

  And now Laura had been missing in action.

  The last she’d heard from Richard on the subject of Laura had been his scathing refusal to have dinner with her because she’d taken him to task about his marriage.

  Except that, of course, she had only Diana’s word that Laura had been gone. In fact, she had only Diana’s word for the entire ludicrous story she said she’d heard from Laura.

  Still… if Diana was lying, this wasn’t her usual style. She could usually tell when Diana shifted into make-believe mode, and she wasn’t behaving in her usual lie-through-her-teeth fashion.

  Lucy felt calm now. Several years in a tough law firm had disciplined her to thrust all unruly thoughts and emotions to the back of the cupboard until she had time to bring them out. She opened her briefcase, taking care to keep the pristine divorce petition out of Diana’s sight, and pulled out a legal pad.

  “I want you to tell me everything all over again,” she said. “I want to know exactly what Laura said. Don’t embellish it, don’t add anything – what are you doing?”

  Diana was rummaging through her purse. “It was here, I swear, I put it in here—”

  “What?”

  Diana shoved their plates out of the way, turned her purse upside down, and dumped the contents on the table. Lucy thought she’d never seen such a mess, except at the bottom of her own purse. Diana’s fingers were combing through wallet, check book, coin purse, brush, two lipsticks, a mascara wand, silver flask, credit card receipts, digital recorder, keys, compact, three nickels, five quarters, numerous pennies, a toll token, two ballpoint pens without their caps, an earring, two tampons, and three cough drops. “Shit! It was here! Where the hell – oh, God, think, think, where did I have it—”

  Lucy said, “What did you lose?”

  Diana looked up wildly. “A project I was taping – oh, where, where—” And then she stopped, and her eyes narrowed in on nothing at all. “Oh, God, no. That damn cat—” She swept everything back into her purse. “I’ve got to run. Can you get the check?”

  “Of course, but—”

  Diana shook her head wildly. “Sorry. Can’t right now.” She threw the last of the debris in her purse and clambered out of the booth. She leaned down and brushed her lips against Lucy’s cheek. “I’ll call you later, promise! Bye.”

  And she ran out the door as if the hounds of hell were nipping at her ankles.

  It’s official, Lucy thought. The world has gone mad.

  She paid the bill – this was the third time in a row that Diana had stuck her with the tab, she was taking it out of Diana’s pay from the club the next time she cut checks – and left to walk to her office. It was 8:15 now, and the business district was coming alive. Her office was five blocks straight, and Richard’s office was down two blocks – she stopped.

  He had to sign the petition, swear that everything was true and that there was no hope for reconciliation. He’d told Tom that he’d be out of the office for the morning, but maybe he hadn’t left yet. She could try to catch him—

  No, she wasn’t ready to talk to him yet, not until she had time to think. Better to messenger the petition to him for signature when he got back, and she’d file it during the afternoon.

  First things first. She had to find out if Laura had lied to her. Diana had included too much detail – the parallel crashes in the Texas Panhandle – to dismiss her story out of hand. She’d chart out that story about Francie’s death on Ash Marine, separate fact from fiction. See if Laura had indeed woven life and fantasy together into a tapestry of death and betrayal.

  Because, if Francie had indeed died on Ash Marine, and Diana hadn’t killed her – and Di was right, a sneak attack wasn’t her style – then who by her own admission had been the only other one there? Who had taken the gun? Who had mothered Francie’s child? Who had suffered a lifetime of coming in second best to Francie?

  But Laura hadn’t killed Francie. Lucy felt sure about that. Leave home without a word, shut out her family, take another’s child as her own, stay married to a man she didn’t love, maybe even – better not! – go off with her sister’s estranged husband – oh, Laura could do that, and more. But kill?

  So she had to clear Laura before Diana started to come to the logical conclusion.

  Then she’d deal with Laura’s whereabouts over the weekend.

  ~•~

  Conversations decorated the day, beads on a loosely strung necklace.

  The first came early, as Laura lay in bed, loathe to rise, loathe to relinquish the warmth of the comforter he had draped over her the night before as she hovered between sleep and wakefulness. I have to leave, he’d whispered to her. No, don’t get up, I’ll let myself out…. She’d remembered his lips on hers throughout the night; she’d wrapped the comforter around herself to compensate for his loss. During the night, Max had taken his place, and the heat of his purring body had made her warm and secure.

  When the phone rang, Max raised his head hopefully to see if she was ready to do her duty and feed him breakfast. He’d been extraordinarily patient the day before, not making his demands known until she had gone into the kitchen to make omelets for dinner.

  She reached for her cell phone and squinted at the caller ID. Her lover had programmed in his various numbers over dinner, taking over the speed dial buttons once occupied by Cam. “Morning,” she murmured lazily in her best bedroom voice, and Richard laughed, a low, masculine laugh that made her want to sink further into the featherbed.

  “I wouldn’t mind hearing that every morning,” he said. “Did you sleep well?”

  She couldn’t help smiling as she snuggled back into the comforter. “Oh, yes.” She’d slept soundl
y, the result of two fitful nights, two days of considerable walking, and a morning and afternoon of emotional peaks and valleys. “How about you?”

  “Well enough. I missed you.” She heard vague traffic noises in the background. “I’ll be out of the office until early afternoon. I’m meeting a client, then I have a board meeting at Julie’s school this evening. Hold on.” A few seconds of silence. “The meeting won’t end until ten – we’re voting on a capital campaign to build a fine arts center, and it’s going to be contentious – but I could swing by for a few minutes if you’ll be up.”

  “Sure.” Laura stretched out in the pale sunlight filtering in through the draperies. “I’ve got errands to run today—” a new bank account, cell phone, and credit card, at the very least— “I’m not going very far. I’ve got to do some work. That concert is coming up fast.”

  She had missed this, the coordinating of schedules, the mundane recital of plans for the day. Even when she and Cam had exchanged only the bare recital of facts – I’m working on a new code stream, don’t interrupt me unless the house is burning down – I’m working in the studio, just call if you need me – there had been a comfort, a security, in meshing their schedules together, in knowing that their activities mattered to each other.

  Richard must have driven under a bridge; she’d missed a few words. “—doing for the 4th? Are you going to Texas?”

  Laura sat up and shoved her pillows against the headboard. “No. Meg’s going to the lake with some friends. I don’t want to be with Mark and Emma if she isn’t there.” She needed to talk to Mark about Dominic’s checks, one more thing to add to the day’s list. “How about you?”

  He laughed. “Here’s where I start shamelessly imposing on you. I usually hold a get-together on July 4th – I get rid of all my entertaining obligations for the year in one fell swoop. My partner’s wife usually shares the hostess duties with Lucy, but she’s on call for the ER, and I don’t want Lucy to do it by herself. The food’s catered, and people usually bring dessert – not a lot to do, but if you could help Lucy supervise—”