“Remember when we were first married,” he asked softly, “when everything was brand-new between us? I brought you breakfast in bed every Saturday.”
“You put a rose on the tray. You would put it between your teeth and dance.” Lauren’s throat closed. “I loved you so much.”
He didn’t seem to notice that she’d used the past tense. Even Lauren was surprised.
“We can be happy like that again.” His fingers brushed her temple, teased a path to the corner of her mouth. He kissed her; she felt the heat from his body, the familiar pull of desire. He was her husband, her lover, her friend, or so she had believed. She backed out of his embrace. “There is no we, Jeff, not anymore.”
Behind her, the door opened, and a man dressed in a dark suit came in. He introduced himself. Lauren heard his name, Kevin something with the FBI, he said. Fraud division, he added. More men in suits entered the room. Their voices blended, grew louder, became a cacophony. She felt herself separate from the scene, watched from a high perch as Jeff was handcuffed and read his rights.
She heard him call her name, “Lauren, Lauren, please,” and her heart broke.
She felt a touch on her arm. It was Jim Cosgrove, and it amazed her how glad she was to see him, nearly to the point of tears.
“I’m sorry,” he said, guiding her from the room. He steered her down the corridor, back to the room where he’d initially questioned her. He indicated she should sit, and she did.
He stood at the table. “Are you all right? Can I get you anything, a glass of water?”
She nodded. Her mouth was dry. Exhaustion weighted her limbs. When the detective brought her the water, she drank thirstily, draining the cup.
Cosgrove sat down. “Better?”
“Yes. Thank you.” Lauren set down the cup.
“I’m sorry we put you through that, but it was necessary. We wanted to know the extent of what your husband was involved in with Matson and Kaiser and also to make sure you hadn’t played a role.”
“You brought me here on purpose, to get Jeff to talk?” Lauren wanted to look around, to ask if they were on television. “Is that even legal?”
“He could have left at any time, the same as you. Even now that he’s under arrest, he can choose not to talk to us.”
“What will happen to him?”
“It depends on how good his lawyer is.”
“Where is Tara? Can I see her?”
“She’s waiting for you. When you’re ready, I’ll get a deputy to drive you home.”
“Home? Tara can go home? She thought—we both thought—she would be arrested.”
“She’s free to go for now.”
“What does that mean?”
“We want to verify her statement. We may need to question her again. We’ll see.”
Lauren dropped it. It didn’t matter. Tara could go home.
A fresh threat of tears seared the undersides of her eyelids. She was so tired even the burden of a small relief was nearly too much.
Cosgrove walked her out to where Tara sat on a bench across from the duty desk.
“Oh, Sissy,” she said, walking into Lauren’s embrace. They held each other tightly for a moment.
Lauren stood back, searching Tara’s eyes. “Are you okay?”
“Yes. You?”
“I think so.”
The deputy came and walked them out of the building to his patrol car. It had been warm when they came in, but as the night deepened, a wind had come up. Lauren shivered. She wondered if the kids had their jackets. She wondered how she would ever tell them about their father, that they might not see him for a while and why. The deputy opened the passenger side doors of his cruiser. Tara slid into the backseat.
Lauren looked at the deputy. “I’ll just ride in back with my sister, if it’s okay.”
He nodded.
She got in beside Tara and found her hand.
They didn’t speak on the short ride to Tara’s house, and once there, their conversation amounted to no more than the handful of words it took to agree that Tara should spend what was left of the night at Lauren’s.
They slept in Kenzie’s room, in her twin beds. Lauren couldn’t face the bed she’d shared with Jeff. “I might have to get a new bed,” she told Tara. And then they slept. Not long. Too much had happened, and there was so much more to go through, to sort out.
It was still dark on Saturday morning when Lauren woke and slipped down the stairs to make coffee. Tara came down a few minutes later, and while they sat at the kitchen island, Lauren told her everything Jeff had said. Sometimes she had to stop to find her breath or a tissue.
“Oh, Sissy,” Tara kept saying.
“The man I talked to last night, who looked like Jeff, isn’t the man I married. The Jeff I knew wasn’t a liar or a thief. He’d never stolen from anyone in his life.” Lauren didn’t know why, but somehow the idea that Jeff had robbed people bothered her more than his implicating her or lying and twisting the truth. She wanted the investors paid back and wondered if there was a way. She wondered if she would receive threats now.
“I was one of them,” Tara said. “I invested twenty thousand in that venture.”
Lauren looked at her, incredulous.
“Initially I was getting anywhere from 18 to 22 percent, then a few weeks ago, it dwindled to 12, then 10, then nothing. Every time I’d ask, Jeff made an excuse. He seemed really nervous when we were at the farm. Even before—before Bo died, he was avoiding the subject, avoiding me. Now I know why.”
“Why didn’t you tell me, Tara? You must have known it was illegal—”
“It was Jeff. He wanted to surprise you.”
“I thought he put your money into a federally secured mutual fund.”
“Well, I always knew he was an asshole, kind of arrogant, a control freak. He knew it all, what was best for everyone. I never really trusted him.”
“Tara, don’t.” Something in Lauren resisted blackening Jeff’s image. It was almost as if they were speaking ill of the dead. “Don’t talk like that about him around the kids, okay?”
“I won’t. But don’t be surprised if, one day, they don’t talk like that about him around you.”
Lauren didn’t want to think of it, the way Drew and Kenzie would come to view their dad. She would have to be ready to hear anything from them. Hadn’t she run through the gamut of emotions? Everything from anger and disgust to fear and grief?
“You were suspicious enough of him to go for a drug test,” Tara said.
“Not him. Me. I was suspicious of me.”
“Yeah, because he manipulated you.”
“Well, the good thing is there was nothing there.”
Lauren had listened to the message in her voice mail from Dr. Bettinger’s nurse, Shelly, when she got up.
“You’re clear,” she had said. “Not a trace of anything toxic or illegal in your system.”
Lauren had been so relieved, her knees weakened. She’d had to sit down. Her joy hadn’t been diminished, either, when Shelly had cautioned that the negative result only meant Lauren hadn’t ingested the drug, whether by her hand or another’s, in the twenty-four hours prior to the blood sample being drawn. Shelly suggested that if longer-range results were wanted, Lauren could have her saliva or her hair tested. But Lauren didn’t think she would.
It was over, whatever it had been—her love affair with the Oxy—she was done with it. She wanted life; she wanted to be a mother to her children, the sort they deserved, and drugs weren’t part of that picture. Already, looking back, she couldn’t understand that woman, the one who had chosen addiction over her family. Oddly, seeing the conflict in herself shed a small light on Jeff’s actions. He had gone far off the path, too. The difference was, she had come back.
Tara turned her coffee mug in her hands.
Lauren said, “How much did you give him?”
“A good chunk of the money you guys paid me when I sold you my share of Wilder and Tate. Greg got the rest of it, and I’ve seen nothing from that investment, either.” She drank her coffee. “I think I’m what you could technically call broke.”
“Oh, Tara. I thought he was taking care of you. How could I have been so blind?”
“You wanted to believe in him. I guess I did, too.”
“The Forever Sisters,” Lauren said.
“Maybe we should be the Pollyanna sisters.”
Lauren’s smile was reflex. She said, “Detective Cosgrove told me they might question you again.”
“They’re going to the farm, to see if the evidence supports my statement about what happened.”
“Will it?”
Tara looked up, hurt, annoyed. “Yes. I’m not lying.”
“So, they’ll let you off?”
“I think so. I don’t know.” She rubbed her upper arms briskly. “I almost wish I’d go to jail like Jeff, and like Greg will, too, if they ever catch him. It doesn’t seem right, sitting here.”
Lauren didn’t answer.
“They had me call Greg while I was giving my statement.”
“Really?”
“He didn’t answer. His voice mail was full. He probably ditched the phone.”
“Well, you’re cooperating. That’s got to count for something.”
“What about the kids?” Tara asked after a moment. “What will you tell them?”
“I don’t know,” Lauren said. Why didn’t you consider the effect on them before? The thought seared her brain. She would ask, but it would lead to hard words, more hostility. What good was that? “I’ll have to pick them up soon,” she said instead.
“It scares me that they could hear about their dad on the news. I mean if Amanda’s or Gabe’s parents listen to it—the early-morning programs . . .” Tara’s voice trailed into doubt.
Lauren stared at her. She hadn’t considered it before, the potential for media coverage, the fact that everyone in town, in the entire country, for all she knew, would soon know their names and worse about them. Sudden, furious tears packed her throat and stung her eyes. “How could Jeff do this? He’s the one Drew and Kenzie lean on, the one they feel safe with. Not me. I’m the crazy druggie. I embarrass them. They hate me.”
“They don’t hate you. They just don’t trust you right now, but they will. You have to show them you’re okay. If they can see you handling it, that will reassure them.”
“But what if I can’t? I relied on him, too. Since the accident, all the stuff with my stupid brain.”
“Your brain isn’t stupid. I don’t ever want to hear you say that again. You’re strong, Sissy. Of the two of us, you’ve always been the strong one, like Mama was.”
Lauren opened her mouth to argue, to say how tired she was of being told she was something she didn’t know herself to be, but Tara waved her hands.
She said, “You’ve just forgotten, and I’m not only talking about how you gave up your life for me when Mama and Daddy died. I’m talking about the last two years, coming back from having your brain bashed in, coming off an addiction you never asked for.”
“I couldn’t have done it, though, without Jeff and you and the kids.”
“Yes, but we didn’t do it for you. We only showed you where you got off track. Coming back, that was you. All you.”
“I’ve slipped.”
“Who doesn’t?”
“My head is still not straight all the time.”
“But every day it gets straighter. You can do this, Sissy. You can,” Tara repeated, and she reached for Lauren’s hands. Tears stood in her eyes. “You’ll be okay and so will Drew and Kenzie. We’ll all be okay. You’ll see.”
“I want to see her,” Tara said a little later when they were leaving the house to pick up Kenzie and Drew.
“Who?” Lauren asked. She was looking over her shoulder, marking her progress down the driveway.
“Annie Beauchamp. I want to tell her I’m sorry. I don’t know if she’ll listen, but I have to try.”
Lauren headed in the direction of Suzanne’s house, steeling herself, coming to terms with the fact that she would have to tell Suzanne—and Pat, too—at least something.
Tara said, “Sorry is such a useless little word.”
“It’s better than nothing,” Lauren said. “Sometimes it’s all we have.”
The drive back to the house was surreal. The children sat in back, and Lauren could feel their mutinous stares, their furious questions, the threads of encroaching alarm, because they knew; kids always know. It was like riding with a lit stick of dynamite, she thought, and she could only pray to make it home before one of them exploded.
After they gathered around the kitchen island and Lauren explained how their father and Tara were involved in Bo’s death, Drew shouted she was a liar.
Kenzie was mute; she looked terrified, and her injuries, the bruising on her face and the whip-thin slash too near the corner of her eye, made her seem even smaller and more vulnerable. Lauren would have gathered her into an embrace, but like Drew, she wouldn’t have tolerated it.
“Who can trust you?” Drew shouted. “You’re nothing but a fucking druggie. They always lie.”
“Drew,” Tara’s protest was soft.
Lauren said, “Do you remember the weekend Dad went to the farm and you went fishing and caught the bass? You tried to call him, more than once, you said, and Aunt Tara, and they never answered. This is why. Because your dad and Greg did this thing—”
“And I knew what they’d done,” Tara said.
“Dad’s phone was off; that’s all.” Drew was adamant.
“I was there.” Tara spoke softly. “It happened just the way your mom says. She isn’t lying, honey. I wish she were.”
Lauren was glad for Tara in that moment, that she was present and could back up the horrible things Lauren was forced to say about Jeff.
“How did the cops find out?” Drew’s voice hitched.
Lauren explained about the rug with the tag attached, the one that Bo’s body had been wrapped in. “Someone from a neighboring farm found it and called the police. The tag had my name and our farm’s address on it.”
Kenzie looked at Tara. “How come you aren’t in jail like Daddy?”
“The police might still arrest me,” Tara said. “I’m doing everything I can to help them now, but I should have called them when it happened. I was very wrong not to. It’s what your mom would have done if she’d been there, but I was afraid.”
Both Kenzie and Drew looked at Lauren; she didn’t know what she saw on their faces. Wariness, she thought, mixed with confusion and outright denial.
Lauren thought how much more they had to know, and she braced herself.
“Is Daddy coming home?” Kenzie asked.
“No, honey. I don’t think so, not for a while.” She didn’t have to say it now, that in all likelihood, they would never again be together as a family in the way they had been. She herself couldn’t fathom how or what the future would be.
“If the cops don’t know who shot Bo, whether it was Dad or Greg, then why did Dad get arrested?” Drew asked. “Where is Greg? Did they arrest him, too?”
“They haven’t found him yet,” Tara said.
“I’m afraid there’s more that your dad has done that has gotten him into legal trouble,” Lauren said.
“What do you mean?” Drew wanted to know.
“Well, you know it’s been hard, money-wise, right? Ever since my accident, we’ve been struggling. Daddy got overwhelmed; he made some bad choices.”
“What kind of choices?” Kenzie asked.
“Complicated ones,” Lauren said, and she went on picking and choosing among the terrible facts, feed
ing them only the ones she thought they needed, slowly and gently, as if they were tiny sips of bitter medicine, and her heart broke, watching as their expressions changed, going from bewilderment to panic to something harder—maybe outright disbelief, maybe anger.
Drew crossed his arms on the kitchen-island countertop and buried his face in them as if the shame of what he was hearing about his father burdened his shoulders. Kenzie stared at Lauren as if she were trying to sort out the meaning of some strange dialect. Lauren wondered how much she understood.
“It sucks,” Drew said when Lauren finished. “What he did is so lame.”
His chin trembled, and Lauren felt an overwhelming ache of futility, watching his struggle not to cry. She could only pray he wouldn’t hate Jeff, or at least that he wouldn’t hate Jeff forever. She hoped one day he would be able to forgive them both, his parents, who were fools.
“He was desperate, honey. It warped his judgment. When Bo was accidentally shot, I think it just pushed him over the edge. I think he kind of lost his mind.”
“Will he go to jail?” Kenzie asked.
“He’s in jail now, stupid,” Drew said.
“Don’t call your sister names, Drew.” Lauren’s admonition was automatic.
“I mean prison, dummy,” Kenzie said.
“We’ll have to wait and see,” Lauren said. “There will be a trial first, and Daddy will have a lawyer so he can tell his side.”
Kenzie asked if they could go to see him.
“I’m sure we can, if you want to.”
“But I don’t have to?”
“No,” Lauren said, “absolutely not.”
“Well, I’m not going. I don’t care if I never see the asshole again.” Drew pushed his stool against the island and shoved his way out of the kitchen. His steps were hard on the stairs, and when he slammed his bedroom door, it felt to Lauren that the whole house shook.
29
Four days after Jeff Wilder was taken into custody, Greg Honey was arrested in Las Vegas. Sheriff Audi called JT with the news, and Annie found out when she brought JT vegetable soup and salad after her shift ended at the café. She had been bringing him meals nearly every day. She was afraid he wouldn’t eat if she didn’t.
Crooked Little Lies Page 33
