Sweet Liar

by Debra Doxer

  I looked at Jonah, fascinated for a moment because he wasn’t talking about football, and he wasn’t playing on his phone or tossing out sarcastic remarks like he had in school so often. He was serious and focused. He was working. This was who he really was.

  “If you’re all in the organization together, why doesn’t Drew know who you really are?”

  “His family knows my father, but I’d never met them or Drew. That fact, and my boyish good looks, made me perfect for this assignment.” He smirked.

  I rolled my eyes. Not so perfect, actually, since he’d made no headway with Drew. The truth was now that I knew about the Hoyts’ connection to my father, I wanted to talk to them, not to help Jonah or Victor but to help my own family. I wished I could ask my father what to do. He’d know how to handle things.

  “Before I decide anything, I’d like to see my father.”

  Jonah’s gaze shifted from me to the floor, hinting at his response. “You can’t see him. You can’t know where he is.” He sighed and glanced up at me again. “But maybe you could talk to him on the phone. I can ask for you.”

  It wasn’t what I wanted, but I supposed talking to him was better than nothing. I considered what Jonah was asking me to do. “If I help you, how will it help my father?”

  “There’s no way to know that yet. We need information, and your father isn’t cooperating. It will depend on what you find out.”

  I laughed bitterly. “That’s reassuring.”

  “We’re not the police. We don’t have to follow the same rules. Your father could stay locked up forever while we try to figure out what information he leaked. Knowing would be better. It would give us proof, something we could work with. If we had proof, and you helped us get it, your father could bargain with it, maybe make his situation better.”

  The lump in my throat grew. “Sounds like bullshit to me.”

  Jonah’s lips formed a tight line. “It could also help us figure out why your father did it. Wouldn’t you like to know that?”

  Yes, but I wasn’t going to answer his question and give him the satisfaction. “Can I think about it?”

  “About helping us? Sure,” he said with a curt nod. “Take your time.”

  My eyes narrowed. “You don’t want me to do this?”

  Jonah sighed. “If it means you spending time with Drew? No. But it’s not up to me.”

  I recalled our conversation from a few weeks ago, when Jonah said Drew was bad news. I’d disagreed, and I still found it hard to believe, even with this new information I had about him.

  After glancing at his watch, Jonah looked at me before he turned and walked into the kitchen. A moment later, I heard pots and pans banging around.

  “What are you doing?” I went to the kitchen doorway, watching as he gathered the items on the floor.

  “I’m cleaning up,” he replied without looking at me.

  “You don’t have to do that.”

  Jonah ignored me and kept going, opening cabinets to find the correct places for the pots he’d collected. I looked down the hallway again at the clothes strewn across the floor, and thought of the heart attack my neat-freak father would have if he saw the house in this condition. The knowledge that he wouldn’t be seeing the house anytime soon caused my spirits to sink.

  Following Jonah’s lead, I set about tidying up. I started with my father’s room and carefully hung his clothes back in the closet, arranging everything as if he might walk back in at any moment.

  In my bedroom, the suitcase I’d packed was open on my bed, obviously having been rifled through. My mother’s recipe book sat beside the sneakers and boots I’d packed. I was relieved to see it there. It didn’t appear as if they’d taken anything.

  “How are you feeling?” Jonah asked from behind me.

  I turned to find him standing in my doorway. He looked worn out, and his expression was weighed down with worry. The abruptness and neutrality he’d shown earlier was gone.

  This was the Jonah I knew, and seeing him standing there only made me feel lost. All my bearings were gone. Everything that was important to me had been taken from me, and he’d played a part in that.

  “I’m fine,” I said quietly.

  He frowned at my obvious lie.

  As he stood there watching me, my thoughts returned to the comment Victor had made about us making a nice-looking couple. He’d looked too pleased about it, and that gave me an uneasy feeling.

  Putting away the clothes I’d gathered, I watched Jonah as I spoke. “Just now in the living room, it seemed like your father liked the idea of us being a couple.”

  He straightened away from the door frame.

  I licked my lips anxiously. “That was part of it, wasn’t it?”

  “What was?” he asked, looking more alert.

  “Getting involved with me.” At the way his eyes narrowed, I spoke faster. “Maybe it turned into something real, but it started out as an act, didn’t it? Pretending you liked me. You can tell me. It’s okay. I just want to know the truth.”

  It wouldn’t be okay, but I needed to know, no matter how deep the words might cut.

  Jonah put his hand on top of his head and spun around. When he stayed with his back to me, I wondered if he would answer me.

  “Jonah,” I said in a small voice.

  He turned slowly and faced me again. “My father thought it would be a good idea, it’s true. But I wouldn’t do it. I wasn’t about to start some fake relationship with you. You may have noticed I wasn’t exactly friendly at first. But things changed. My feelings changed and when they did, it was about you and me and nothing else. I didn’t even tell my father until you stole my wallet and gave me no choice. I knew what was coming, Candy, and I wanted to protect you as much as I could. Even though you hate me now, I still intend to do that.”

  His words did cut, but they soothed me too, even though I didn’t want them to.

  “Protect me from what?”

  He muttered something and turned away again as if he didn’t want to answer.

  I stepped closer and grabbed his arm. “Protect me from what?”

  He swallowed, looking down at my hand on his arm. The way he held himself still beneath my touch made me all too aware of him and how he affected me.

  His eyes flickered with something too. No matter how I felt about Jonah, the air around us remained charged with electricity.

  “I’m the reason they know you weren’t involved in anything your father was doing,” he said. “They wanted to take you in too. Pull you out of school and question you, and then keep you there to get your father to cooperate. I convinced them it wouldn’t be fair since you did nothing wrong.”

  I swallowed thickly at this news, but I didn’t know how to feel about it. A part of me wanted to be there with my father, or at least know where he was, although I didn’t want to be used against him. Jonah convinced them to leave me alone and thought he’d done a good thing, but I wasn’t so sure.

  “I’d better go,” he said. “Are you going to be okay here alone?”

  I gave him an incredulous look. The house was clean, and the sun would be rising in an hour or so. “Do I have a choice?”

  Jonah tilted his head. “I could come back later. I’d be happy to do that.”

  “No. It’s okay.” Part of me wanted to say yes, though.

  He nodded, not surprised by my reply. “I don’t expect you to go to school today after being up all night. Try to get some sleep. I’ll be in touch if I get the okay for you to talk to your father. You can also give me your decision on the other thing.”

  The other thing. Getting close to Drew. Jonah didn’t even want to say it.

  Then he started to leave, but stopped on the threshold and turned back. “I know I’ve said it already, and I’ll keep saying it. What happened between us was real. It’s still real to me. Even though I have a job to do, my feelings haven’t changed, and I don’t see them changing anytime soon.”

  His expression seemed to plead wi
th me. “If your feelings for me are real too, maybe you could try seeing things from my point of view. Maybe you could understand a little. I may not be the nice guy you were looking for, but I’m not a bad guy either. I never intended to hurt you, and if you let me, I can be here for you now. I want to be here for you.”

  Jonah didn’t wait for a response before he walked out, closing the door gently behind him.

  The ice in my heart wanted to thaw at his words, but the wounds beneath that ice were too raw. If it even cracked a little, I was afraid blood would come spilling out everywhere.

  ***

  What would my father do?

  I kept asking myself that as I paced the living room aimlessly. My father wouldn’t cry, obviously, the way I wanted to. It would be so easy to curl up under the covers and drown in self-pity, but I could already see the disappointment filling his dark blue eyes if he heard I’d done that.

  He wouldn’t trust anyone; I knew that much. He relied only on himself, and he’d prepared for the worst by quietly taking care of me. He’d given me our house. I still couldn’t comprehend it, but I couldn’t help the anger burning inside me at all the secrets he’d kept.

  Jonah was right about one thing. My father should have prepared me for this possibility. He should have talked to me, but even as I thought that, I knew how out of character it would have been for him. There was something different inside him, something broken that made him the way he was. Just like my mother had, I understood the broken parts of my father. I didn’t like them, but I loved him and so I accepted them.

  Now that the first light of morning was brightening the sky, I didn’t want my thoughts to be derailed by the overwhelming fact that this was my house. The papers were still sitting on the coffee table by the couch. The car in the garage was mine too. My father had arranged it all and had never said a word to me.

  That meant I had to find things out on my own in order to help him. I had to figure something out because the thought of him never coming home again was inconceivable. I simply wouldn’t believe it. I would see him again.

  If we’d only left last night instead of putting it off until this morning, we’d be on the road to somewhere else right now, on our way to making a fresh start. Why had he decided to wait until morning when he knew how much trouble he was in? Why did he do anything the way he had?

  Frustrated, I flopped onto the couch and picked up the manila folder. Needing answers, I began sifting through the papers. This time I looked for a date, and found one typed at the top. It read November of last year. My father had done this just over a year ago. He had so much time to run. Why hadn’t he? All he had to do was say the word, and I would have gone with him whenever and wherever he asked.

  Even as I thought that, I knew he would never have asked me if I hadn’t moved back and gotten involved in his mess. He might have run, but he wouldn’t have taken me with him. He probably believed I wouldn’t want to go, or he wouldn’t want me to make the sacrifice.

  It wouldn’t have been a sacrifice, though. Not for me.

  Once done looking through the papers again, I lay down on my side on the couch. Pulling my knees against my chest, I closed my eyes, intending to rest only for a moment. I had no idea how my brain could be running a marathon while my body was ready to collapse.

  I thought of how my father called me “little one,” and the way I’d hugged him and told him it was going to be okay last night. He’d only smiled at me, but I had no idea what I was talking about at the time. I wished he’d said something, anything about the trouble he was in.

  My eyes were heavy and I gave in, letting them close.

  The next thing I knew, my back ached and bright sunlight was streaming in through the window. Sitting up, I glanced at the clock in the living room and saw it was already one in the afternoon. I’d managed to sleep away the entire morning and had missed school today, but that was the last thing on my mind right now.

  My mouth was dry and my stomach rumbled. I could probably use a shower too. Even though it felt as if the world should stop, it kept moving forward, and so would I.

  As I pushed myself up, I took stock of my back and head, noting they still felt sore from the fall I’d taken. When I got to the bathroom, I found the bottle of ibuprofen in the medicine cabinet, and swallowed a couple of pills after sticking my mouth underneath the running faucet. Then I stripped off my clothes and stepped into the shower.

  Going through my usual morning routine calmed me a little, and once I was dressed, I picked up my phone for the first time since yesterday to find texts from Lea and Theo. I looked at Theo’s twice to make sure I hadn’t imagined it.

  My heart knocked a little harder. I hadn’t heard from him in weeks.

  Theo: Sorry I’ve been MIA. Got your messages. What’s up?

  Rather than texting back, I called his number. When it reached the third ring, I knew he wasn’t going to answer. Muttering in frustration, I pulled up his message again to text him back.

  Me: Where have you been? I tried you and your parents. No one responded. You had me worried.

  When he texted back right away, I knew he hadn’t answered his phone on purpose.

  Theo: We went off the grid. My folks think I spend more time with technology than them. But after lots of together time, they’ve decided they prefer to share me with my many devices.

  I snickered, but I didn’t believe him. As far as excuses went, it was a seriously lame one.

  Me: So you’re good then, now that you’ve been reunited with your phone and all?

  Theo: Peachy. You?

  Peachy? There was something seriously wrong with him.

  Me: Same here. Just peachy.

  Bullshit for bullshit. Unfortunately, that approach didn’t work. There was no reply.

  Me: I don’t even like peaches. What’s going on?

  Theo: Seriously? Peaches are great. Peach cobbler, peach pie, and other peachy stuff I can’t think of right now. How do you think that saying got started? Because peaches are awesome, obviously.

  I sighed. After weeks of no contact, this was what we were talking about?

  Me: I stand corrected. Peaches = yum. Are you okay?

  There was another long pause.

  Theo: Just not up for talking right now. Had a treatment, but wanted to get back to you so you wouldn’t worry. The not worrying you thing doesn’t seem to be working, though. Will call you next week. OK?

  Me: OK. Miss you and your inspirational calendar quotes.

  Theo: Burned that calendar.

  Reluctantly smiling at that, I watched the screen, but there was nothing more from him.

  The need to cry crept up on me again. Everything was going to shit. I needed to talk to my father. I needed to talk to Drew. I needed to see Theo.

  At the moment, I could do none of those things because I was waiting for Jonah to come back with the answer about whether I could speak to my father. That burned me worse than anything, needing his permission to talk to my father. It was infuriating.

  Slipping the phone in my pocket, I walked into the kitchen and made a bowl of corn flakes. When I was done eating, I put the bowl on the floor and watched Pumpkin rise from his place in the corner of the kitchen where he’d been watching me, trot over to it, and start to delicately lap up the leftover milk.

  It was at that moment that the doorbell rang, and my stomach jumped. It had to be Jonah. My friends didn’t come here, and my father didn’t have any friends that I knew of.

  My hair was still wet from my shower, dripping a cold puddle of moisture onto my back. On my way to the door, I grabbed a sweatshirt from my room and pulled it over my head.

  When I opened the door, there was Jonah, as expected. He had on his leather coat and a pair of black wool gloves. His nose and cheeks were red from the cold that was seeping into the house. His expression was slightly wary but mostly unreadable again. A good night’s sleep had apparently put his mask back in place.

  I moved aside and closed the doo
r quickly behind him. His movements were stiff and awkward, as if he didn’t know how to act around me anymore.

  Pulling off his gloves, he said, “I’ll place the call to your father in about ten minutes. Does that work?”

  My eyes widened. “Um, yeah. That works.”

  “I’m not sure how long you’ll have to talk. They’ll cut it off on his end at some point.” Jonah took off his coat and draped it over the back of the couch. “Did you get any sleep?”

  My heart was pounding and I was supposed to make small talk? “A little. You?”

  “Some,” he replied distractedly. “Do you want to sit in here or go into another room?”

  Something occurred to me then. “Are you going to listen?”

  “This isn’t a private conversation, Candy.”

  “Of course it isn’t.” I deflated because I should have realized. No doubt my father knew and would say nothing of consequence, at least not with them listening. Hearing his voice would have to be enough.

  “I’d rather talk in the kitchen, I guess.” I’d spent part of my night and all of my morning on the living room couch. I could use a change of scene.

  I walked into the kitchen and could feel Jonah’s gaze on me as I picked my cereal bowl up off the floor and placed it in the sink. Rather than sit with him in strained silence, I stayed busy by making tea. After placing my mug in the microwave, I watched it spin slowly through the little square window. When it was done, I dropped in the tea bag and brought it over to the table.