The Ugly Truth

by Cheryel Hutton

  Two seconds later, I stepped in a mud puddle and changed my mind.

  “I love the smell of cotton candy,” Liza said.

  I turned to greet the group, who had gone to check out the rides while I sniffed out the games and prizes section.

  Steve raised an eyebrow. “You do know that stuff is straight-up sugar, right?”

  Liza gave her husband a smacking shove to the shoulder with her un-casted arm. “Bite me.”

  “Oh, look. There’s Tina,” Maddie said.

  With junior-high squeals, Liza and Maddie took off in Tina’s direction.

  “You’re evil,” I told Steve.

  He grinned. “Hey, I was just pointing out the obvious.”

  Since Maddie and Liza were busy chatting with this Tina person and her buddies, I edged closer to Steve. “I have something I’d like to talk to you about.”

  He adjusted his glasses. “Okay.”

  “This thing with Maddie and Jake.”

  His forehead pulled into an unsure frown. “What about it?”

  Sudden nerves had my knees shaking, but I plowed on. “I think they just need to sit down and talk.”

  Steve sighed. “I’ve been trying to tell Jake that for years.”

  “Well, I was thinking… if we could… maybe convince them to talk.”

  The slight shake of his head and the amused pull of his lips told me what he thought of the idea. “You do know those two are possibly the most stubborn people in the Western Hemisphere?”

  I swallowed. “That’s why I was thinking of something a little. Well, drastic.”

  His eyebrows shot up so high they were visible above the frame of his glasses. “I’m listening.”

  By the time Liza and Maddie returned from their chat with Tina and friends, Steve had a cat-eating-mouse expression on his face, and I was beginning to think there might be hope for my crazy plan.

  Three hours later, I was seriously sick of being the proverbial third wheel, or fourth, I guess, in this case. Maddie, Liza, and Steve had a past in common, and a good part of the time, I felt like I was eavesdropping. I didn’t know enough to care about the people they talked about, and I didn’t understand half of what they were talking about anyway. Eventually my comfort level passed wearisome and smacked right into depressing.

  “I’m going to look around over here,” I told them. Maddie nodded vaguely, Liza didn’t seem to notice, and Steve gave me a sheepish grin. Poor guy, I don’t think his comfort level was much higher than mine.

  I wandered around for a while, taking in the ambiance. The sun was setting, and the lights edging the rides were flickering on. The Ferris wheel looked especially awesome, with the brilliant reds and purples of sunset forming a backdrop for the lofty structure.

  “Wanna ride?”

  I knew he was behind me before he spoke, but it didn’t change the intense flash of desire his voice provoked in me. “No, thank you,” I said, my voice strained.

  “What’s wrong?” Jake asked. “Chicken?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t like heights.”

  “I’ll protect you.”

  I turned to glare at him. “From the thing collapsing and killing us all?”

  “Yep.”

  I unbuttoned a middle button and pulled open his shirt a bit. He gave me a wondering frown and I smiled. “Just looking for your Superman costume.”

  “We could go back to my place and look for other things.”

  I carefully fastened his shirt back before longing overrode my guilt and I did something I would hate myself for not regretting in the morning. “I can’t.”

  He put two fingers under my chin and lifted it so our gazes met. “I know you’re in an awkward position, and I feel bad that I had anything to do with putting you there. But I’m not the one who tore out of town ten years ago.”

  “Talk to her, Jake. See if you can’t work things out.” My voice cracked, and I knew he could see the tears forming in my eyes, but I didn’t allow myself to care. This was too important.

  “It was Maddie who caused the problem, not me.”

  “Then tell her that. Tell her how you feel.”

  “That would just make things worse.”

  I held his gaze. “You don’t know that.”

  He closed his eyes for a moment, head down, shoulders slumped. When he met my gaze, I knew his answer. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, then turned and walked away.

  It took every bit of strength I had not to follow him. He wasn’t like any other man I’d ever met, and my heart longed for him as much as my body did. Damn you, Jake Blackwood.

  Then I turned and headed off to find my friend. Maddie would be in my life long after Jake was a distant memory. I had to remember that.

  I found Maddie, Liza, and Steve outside the haunted house ride. “My husband’s a chicken,” Liza told me.

  “I just don’t like things jumping out at me. You and Maddie and Stephie go on, I’ll wait out here.”

  “I’ll wait with you,” I told Steve.

  Maddie frowned toward me. “I thought you loved haunted houses.”

  “I’m just not in the mood, okay?” Which was true. I was in the mood to beat the bloody hell out of something, and I figured a random mechanical spook jumping out might just provoke the fight or flight instinct—and I wasn’t in the mood to run. I’d hate to have to pay to repair the thing.

  Maddie shrugged, grabbed Liza’s arm, and they took off into the spooky façade.

  “Thanks for hanging with me.”

  I managed a smile for Steve. “Thanks for agreeing to help with the plan.”

  He adjusted his glasses. “Jake is my best friend and Maddie’s Liza’s. I’d love to not be caught in the middle.” He looked at me. “And I’ll bet you would too.”

  There was something in his expression that caught my attention. “So you know?”

  He nodded. “Jake told me the two of you have something going, and that you’re fighting it for all you’re worth because of loyalty to Maddie. That’s a tough situation to be in.”

  “Maddie’s my friend. She has to come first.”

  “Even if it means breaking two hearts?”

  “Whatever Jake and I have, it isn’t our hearts that are involved.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  Was I? I turned to watch as Liza and Maddie’s cart came roaring out of the house. They spilled out and headed toward us, laughing as they went.

  “It might be a good idea to know what it is you feel for Jake before you make a decision that’s going to affect both your lives.” Steve stood and went to meet his wife. I watched as he kissed Liza, and a little ball of pain swelled in my stomach. Was he right? Were Jake and I tangled up romantically as well as physically?

  “What’s up with you?” Maddie asked. “You look like you did the night you caught that senator’s aide and his blow-up “friend.”

  The memory had my stomach cringing. “Just got something on my mind.”

  “Well chill, girlfriend. We’re on vacation.” She gave me a little punch on the arm, and the four of us headed toward the tilt-a-whirl and rides beyond.

  We were shaken, stirred, and flipped upside down a few times. Then we capped off the day with hotdogs and caramel apples. I was exhausted, half-nauseous, and more than ready to climb into bed. It had been a wild day.

  On our way toward the entrance, we caught up with Tina and her huge, totally bald boyfriend. “You guys going home?”

  “Yep.” Liza looped her good arm around Tina. “We’ve had just about enough of junk food and wild rides. You too?”

  Tina laughed. “What can I say? Gotta have my beauty sleep.”

  I found myself hoping her beauty sleep would also make her high pitched laugh more palpable, but I managed to keep my big mouth shut. Barely. Did I mention she had a huge boyfriend?

  Tina walked with us toward the street where we’d parked. We were just outside the perimeter of the actual carnival when I spotted Jake walking a few feet ahead of us
. Even in the dappled glow of the streetlights filtering through the leaves on the trees, his hard body had my heart beating faster.

  I realized Madison had stopped when I plowed into her. “Maddie?” When she didn’t answer, I followed her gaze right to Jake. The expression on her face was one of pain and longing, and my conscience glared at me.

  “Maddie and Jake, the magic couple. I always thought they’d be together forever,” Tina’s stage whisper reached me.

  Immediately I saw tears form in Maddie’s eyes. Holy Maloney, or holy-something-more-bad-wordy.

  Jake disappeared around a corner and Maddie came out of her trance and started walking again. The rest of us began to move along with her.

  “I had so much junk food I’m afraid to look in the mirror tomorrow,” Liza said.

  “Fat and processed sugar, horrible for the human body,” Steve said.

  Liza glared at him. “You ate three times as much as I did.”

  He shrugged. “Just because the stuff’s bad for you doesn’t mean I don’t want any.”

  “Hypocrite.”

  “Am not.” He made to grab her, but Liza took off running, laughing as she went. Steve caught her a half block up the way. They wrestled a minute, then grabbed each other and dove into a kiss that had parents covering little kids’ eyes. Actually, I kind of felt like covering my own eyes.

  “Get a room,” Tina told them.

  I didn’t say anything, but I had to agree with the sentiment.

  Tina and Huge took off toward their car, and the rest of us piled into the hot couple’s gorgeous black Lexus and headed for home. Steve and Liza were busy making plans for later that I didn’t want to think about. Maddie stared out the window without saying a word. And I sat and worried. I was so in over my head.

  Then again, what else was new?

  Chapter 14

  “What did you do to my computer?”

  I stopped halfway between the hallway and the bedroom. “What are you talking about?”

  Maddie pointed to her screen. “It was booted up and on standby. I closed it down yesterday after I checked my email.”

  I wrapped the towel around my hair and went over to her laptop. “Are you sure?”

  “Positive.”

  “I haven’t touched it. Let me check mine.”

  She frowned. “Why?”

  I simply shrugged. Something told me she wouldn’t want to hear my reasoning. “Mine’s on standby too.”

  “Maybe Mom used mine. She could have tried yours first, then realized it wasn’t mine.”

  “Maybe.” Honestly, I doubted it. I really didn’t think it would be hard to figure out the pink one was Maddie’s. Mine was black, had a bigger screen, and more RAM. I had some serious photo software on mine, plus the photos stored on the hard drive. And mine was password protected. It was highly unlikely Margaret could get into my computer even if she tried. And why the heck would she even want to?

  I did a quick check to see if I could figure out what someone besides me might have gotten into, but Maddie was giving me quizzical looks, so I decided to go in another direction. “Let’s go ask your mother if she used our computers.”

  As we went downstairs, I decided in spite of the total, complete unlikelihood of it happening, I seriously hoped Margaret had, for some unknown reason, booted up and managed to get into my computer. I wasn’t crazy about anybody using my computer. On the other hand, any other explanation was beyond scary.

  “Mom, did you use my computer?” Maddie asked as soon as we got to the kitchen doorway.

  Margaret frowned. “No. Is something wrong?”

  Maddie dropped into a chair at the kitchen table. “My computer was on standby mode and I always shut it down completely.”

  “You didn’t forget just one time? After all, you’re on vacation. And a bit stressed out.” Margaret gave her daughter a look that said she knew the stress was more than a “bit.”

  “Stephie’s was on standby too. And she keeps hers locked up like Fort Knox.” Maddie grinned and glanced toward me. “She’s paranoid, but I know how to get in there.”

  I’d pulled myself onto a barstool. “I’m not paranoid, just used to keeping important shots and expensive software safe. And yeah, you know me well enough to get in my computer, and Brandon could too, probably. He knows the passwords I like and how I tend to set things up.” This talk of my brother was making me sad. “Bottom line, no, I didn’t accidentally leave my computer on. I finished up the shots for the newspaper, put them on a disk, and shut everything down. There’s no way I forgot.” I shifted a little. “Besides, what are the odds Maddie and I would forget to shut down our computers on the same day?”

  “True.” Margaret’s face pulled into a deep-thinking frown and she walked over to the back door. “I always take my morning coffee on the porch, but this morning the lock wasn’t fastened. You didn’t happen to go out there last night, did you, Stephie?”

  “No, I went straight to bed.”

  “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” Maddie’s eyes widened until they looked a bit like softballs. “Because break-ins don’t happen in Ugly Creek. Back in high school we used to call the sheriff the Maytag Man because he never did anything.”

  Margaret lowered herself into one of the kitchen chairs. “Even Ugly Creek has changed in the last ten years.”

  “Why would someone break in and get on our laptops and not just take them?” I asked.

  “Good question,” Margaret said. “As far as I can tell, nothing’s missing.”

  “You looked?” Maddie asked. Margaret nodded, and Maddie’s eyes got big again. “You already thought somebody broke in.”

  Margaret shrugged. “I thought it was a possibility, but there was no evidence of anything. Not really. A few things seemed looked through, but nothing I could definitely say had been touched.”

  “We need to call the sheriff.” Maddie grabbed the cordless.

  I took it from her hand. “And tell him what? That somebody didn’t take our computers.”

  “They can do fingerprints and DNA and all that stuff from TV.”

  “Or they’ll dismiss us as paranoid,” Margaret said. “Why don’t we just lock up carefully, hide the laptops, or give them to me to take to work, and we’ll see if anything else happens.”

  “Works for me,” I told her.

  “I’ll hide my laptop here,” Maddie said, in a voice so dry it made me thirsty.

  My conscience twitched. “Me too,” I said. I’d have felt better if my laptop was safe at Jake’s store, but it wasn’t worth hurting my friend over.

  Maddie and I put our laptops and their cases under some clothes in storage boxes in the linen closet, and headed off to the day’s festivities.

  The Ugly Creek Big Foot Festival Parade started lining up on a back street at eleven am, three full hours before the two pm scheduled start time. It was a fun atmosphere, and excitement seemed to sparkle despite the inevitable last minute hitches.

  In spite of the heat—and it was hot and humid enough to turn ice cream into soup—the crowd was big enough to have my heart bouncing hard in my chest. I’d have liked to curl up in a corner and hide, but I was determined. I wasn’t about to let my uneasiness in crowds team up with anxiety about the laptops, and mix with the straight-up fear about whether my plan would work. That was a recipe sure to ruin my day.

  I ran around lending a helping hand where I could, but mostly I took advantage of the myriad photo opportunities. The tiny bumblebees were there, along with their fairy princess dance school classmates. Business-suited dignitaries stood in the shade, jackets off, ties loosened, chatting and laughing with leather-clad equestrians who easily kept their beautiful horses calm in the neatly lined-up pandemonium.

  Keeping busy kept my mind off my fear of crowds while denial held back worry about my soon to be executed crazy plan, but anxiety over what was going on with the computers spilled over in spite of my best efforts. It didn’t make sense someone broke in an
d just booted up our computers. Unless he was looking for something. Why anybody would look for anything on our computers was beyond me. It wasn’t like we were spies or something. There was nothing on either of our laptops worth breaking in over.

  Except one incredible picture.

  Maybe the Bigfoot broke in for it?

  I chuckled. I really was getting paranoid. Nobody even knew that photo was on my computer, not even the Sasquatch-type critters.

  The little bumblebee dancers were practicing their act, and I ran to watch—I mean I hurried to catch some great shots. Okay, okay, I mostly wanted to watch. They were incredibly cute little kids.

  I was about halfway there when I saw my brother standing over to one side, near that jackass Butch. “Brandon!” I yelled, as I started toward him.

  He looked at me, glanced toward Butch, back at me, then took off running in the opposite direction. My mouth dropped open in disbelief. I couldn’t believe it. My little brother was running from me?

  Determined to catch him, I sprinted off in the direction he’d gone. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Butch’s evil smirk. I should have known. Later, dude, I promised. I’d get that ass-wipe. It was just a matter of time.

  Anger and determination fueled my adrenaline, and I tore through the crowd and across the courthouse lawn. I knew Brandon wasn’t happy I’d left him in Alabama, but why run away? Was I that vile?

  The toe of my sandal caught a crack in the sidewalk, and suddenly I was facedown. I glanced up to see my baby brother rounding a corner. Groaning, I looked down at my equipment. The only camera I had out of the bag was my Nikon digital, and it seemed there were enough bags and things around my neck to cushion against the concrete, because there wasn’t a scratch on it.

  “Are you all right, dear?”

  I looked up into the concerned eyes of Aunt Octavia. She was dressed in a bright red pantsuit and a hat to match. All I could think was it was good to see a friendly face. “The cameras and I are fine.”