The Color of Lies

by CJ Lyons

  “I can see her, she’s so much taller than I am. Her hair is auburn, so long it reaches almost to her waist—her aura is the same color. When she leans down to pick me up, it falls around me, and it’s like being caught in a shower of red silk. I like to grab it, feel it between my fingers, it smells so good.” A wistful sigh escapes me. “That was Mommy. Warm and safe and soft as silk.” I shake my head. “I’m sorry, I was just too young. That’s all I can remember.”

  He nods and straightens. I know he’s going to want to hear about my dad next, but I just can’t face that—not if everything I remember is a lie. Not if the man I loved was the same man who killed my mother, who wanted to kill me. The heart rate monitor bleeps my distress.

  “Could you check on Joe for me?” I ask. “See if Rory and Max found Helen and Darrin?”

  “Of course,” he says. I know he’s disappointed, but he’s been living with the fact of what my dad did for years—it’s all still new and fresh and painful for me. “I’ll be right back.”

  As the door closes behind him, I lean back and think of Dad. Who was he, really? Why didn’t I know? Why couldn’t I have seen it coming, in his aura if nothing else? Why wasn’t I ever afraid?

  Memories shiver through my vision. My oldest memories: music and light, each day adding another movement to the symphony that was our family. It grows and swells until it’s difficult to contain, running through my mind in so many colors and variations, chasing a rainbow through the endless crash of ocean waves. My father and mother, one dark-haired, the other copper-bright as the sun. Together they dance in harmony, me cradled between them, so close I can feel their hearts beat.

  I remember swimming—no, not swimming, a bath, joyously blowing bubbles, delighting in ducking beneath the surface of the water, painting pictures with the light shimmering down. My father’s face, his hair a halo of black curls, his smile reflecting from the bubbles over and over again into infinity. I splash to the surface, begging for more, more, more and he holds me so safe and sound as I escape the cold air and plunge into the water again. I’m not afraid—how could I be, with his hands around me?

  His laughter creates my universe. I’m at the center of it, the sun to his Earth and Mom’s moon. Perfect harmony.

  Or so I thought.

  CHAPTER 31

  Alec

  I make it as far as the nurses’ station when I see Ella’s grandmother striding toward me from the opposite direction. Despite the incessant barrage of noise here in the ER, she seems fine. Unstoppable. A force of nature, even, with her bright silk caftan billowing around her. Her gaze lasers in to target me.

  “That’s him,” she yells. A police officer and Joe are behind her as she storms down the hallway, pointing at me. “That’s the man who’s been harassing and stalking my granddaughter. He started that fire. She could have died!”

  I back away, keeping my hands in the air so that the police officer, a white guy in his thirties, can see that they’re empty. “Officer, I—”

  “Don’t you dare deny it,” Joe says, waving a clutch of hospital discharge paperwork. “I heard you fighting with Ella, saw you storm off. Next thing we know, the place is on fire. With her locked inside!”

  “What’s your name?” the police officer asks. Hardy is the name above his badge. I know the routine, tell him my name, hand over my wallet open to my student ID—and Dad’s business card. He writes everything in a memo book while Helen and Joe watch.

  “These are some pretty serious charges, Mr. Ravenell. I think it’d be best if we went down to the station and cleared them up.” Hardy glances around the hospital ward, nodding to the nurses who’re staring at us. “A better place to talk it all through, don’t you think?”

  It isn’t really a question. My dad uses the same technique. But it calms Joe and Helen. “Of course, Officer,” I tell him.

  “You as well, Mr. Crveno. I’ll need your witness statement.”

  Joe puffs up with importance. He turns to Helen and clasps both her arms. “You watch over our girl now. Don’t let anything happen to her.”

  “Of course. I’ll have Darrin meet you down there.” She glares at me. “We’ll make sure he doesn’t get near Ella again. Darrin will know how—he’ll get a restraining order. Whatever it takes.”

  Hardy nods vaguely and ushers me down the hall, Joe following. I ride in the back of Hardy’s squad car. Joe drives himself.

  I try to explain things to Hardy, now that we’re away from the drama that seems to come naturally to Ella’s family, but it’s such a short ride to the police station that I barely have time to do more than answer Hardy’s questions about where I’m from and the like. Meaningless chit-chat designed to get me to lower my guard—except I don’t have anything to hide, so it’s all a waste of time.

  Once we’re at the station, Hardy leaves me alone in an interview room—typical utilitarian furnishings, but no two-way mirror like they show on TV. Instead there’s a camera overhead behind a black plastic bubble. The furniture is sparse: a desk with a chair that’s too lightweight to be used as a weapon across from two upholstered chairs, too heavy to be used as weapons.

  I slump down into one of the comfortable chairs. More waiting. I’m trying not to be impatient. After all, Ella’s safe, and that’s what matters most. But I can appreciate why police officers developed these tactics. Sitting here, alone and worried, definitely makes you want to confess, to talk about anything to get out, even if you haven’t done anything wrong.

  Finally, Hardy returns, taking the seat at the small desk while I remain in the relatively more comfortable chair. Another tactic—it doesn’t feel as much like an interrogation when you’re sitting in a comfy chair. I suspect that if I hadn’t left my coat and messenger bag on the other chair beside me, Hardy would have sat there—more intimate, just two guys having a chat, nothing to worry about.

  After a few preliminaries, Hardy explaining carefully that this is an interview and that I’m free to leave at any time, he asks me to walk him through the events leading up to the fire.

  “I left Ella in her studio—the garage,” I explain. “But about ten minutes later I went back. That’s when I saw the smoke. Her uncle was trying to get inside but the door was locked. He broke a window, but that only made things worse, so I went to the front overhead door. After Ella got that door open, I helped her out.”

  Hardy nods. “Let’s back up a bit. You were there at Ms. Cleary’s invitation?”

  “Uh, no. Not exactly. I went to apologize.”

  “You had a fight?”

  “No. More like a misunderstanding.” I hesitate. It isn’t my place to tell the police the intimate details of Ella’s family’s history. “I just thought it would be the right thing to apologize, so I went to her place.”

  “You apologized and left.”

  “Right.”

  “Then why were you going back again? Had she asked you to come back?”

  I force myself to sit still and not to squirm under the intensity of his carefully neutral expression. Dad uses that same look and I know it means trouble. “No. We had a bit of a fight—”

  “Another misunderstanding? About what?”

  “One of her paintings.” It sounds lame. But if I try to explain, it will just dig the hole deeper.

  “Okay.” Hardy makes a note. “Let’s go back. When did you first meet Ms. Cleary?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “Where was that?”

  “At the college. I needed help on a project for school. She was in the pool. Swimming.” I’m rambling, and rambling is not good, so I pinch the flesh between my thumb and forefinger to get myself to stop.

  “You’d never met Ms. Cleary but you knew who she was?”

  “I wasn’t stalking her or anything.” Exactly what a stalker would say. “My father’s a cop—a sheriff’s deputy down in South Carolina. Believe me, I know about stalking. I mean that it’s bad. I mean, I’d never—” I trail off.

  Hardy keeps up his bobblehead
impersonation, letting me hang myself with my own words. “So you’ve only known Ms. Cleary for a few days, and already you’ve had two ‘misunderstandings’ serious enough for you to go to her home and apologize in person?”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “Her uncle states that after you arrived the first time, you seemed rather agitated and she was reluctant to allow you inside her studio, the garage. According to him, you and she argued, and several minutes after you left he saw the lights in the garage suddenly go out. When Ms. Cleary didn’t appear, he went to investigate and found the door to the garage locked and the fire inside. Any idea how that happened?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t lock the door, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “You didn’t lock Ms. Cleary inside?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “And you didn’t knock over the space heater when you left? Or maybe pour some solvent into it?”

  “No. I just left. I shut the door behind me and left. That’s all.”

  “But you didn’t leave. You came back.” Hardy consults his notes. “Ten minutes later. Where did you go?”

  “I started to ride my bike back to the campus. But then I changed my mind and went back.”

  “And why did you return to Ms. Cleary’s studio?”

  “I told you, to apologize.”

  “And that’s when you saw the smoke?”

  “Well, I think maybe I smelled it first. I’m not sure.” I meet his eyes. “You said the space heater was knocked over? Is that how the fire started?” I remember the glass jars with cleaning fluids scattered around Ella’s studio—it wouldn’t take much to spark those fumes into flames.

  Hardy doesn’t answer my question. Instead he asks, “Were you surprised?”

  That stops me cold. “Surprised?”

  “By how quickly the fire spread?”

  “I don’t know when it started, so how could I be surprised by how fast it spread? Besides, I didn’t really have time to think about anything. I saw the smoke and flames, saw that Joe couldn’t get in, he said Ella was still inside, so I went in after her.”

  “You were trying to save her.”

  “Of course.”

  “Did you think by saving her life, she’d see you as some sort of a hero? Maybe it’d make up for all these misunderstandings and arguments you two were having?”

  “No. You see someone in a fire, you go to help them. You don’t think about it, you just do it.”

  Another nod. Another note jotted down. Another glance at the camera, making sure it’s still recording. All of which does not bode well for me.

  “Besides,” I say, hoping to turn the tide before I drown, “I didn’t save her. She ended up saving herself.”

  Hardy sits back at that, abandoning his pad and pen. “Son, this is nothing to joke about. Arson. Possible attempted murder. Stalking. These are some serious crimes. You might want to think about telling me what really happened and why you’re so fixated on Ms. Cleary. Get it off your chest, help me understand. I’m sure appearances are deceiving—but I’ll need your help to clear all this up.”

  Another ploy I recognize: make them think you’re in this together. That’s when I know it’s too late—Hardy thinks I’m guilty.

  “I’ve told you everything I know.” I stand and reach for my jacket. “If you’re not charging me with anything, I think I’d like to leave now.”

  Hardy frowns, seems to realize he’s missed his chance. But he also knows he’ll have other chances—it’s not like TV where criminals are locked up before the commercial break. Real police know the value of taking their time, building a case.

  “You can leave. But we’ll be talking again—me or the detectives, depending on what the arson investigator finds. And if I were you, I wouldn’t go anywhere near Ms. Cleary or her home again. Understand?”

  I jerk my chin in a nod, grab my messenger bag, and leave, my head held high. It’s sheer bravado, totally fake. And Hardy knows it.

  CHAPTER 32

  Alec

  The police station is a little more than a mile from my dorm, and since my bike’s back at Ella’s house, there’s no choice except to walk. It’s just after midnight by the time I reach my building. I stop outside my door. Then I turn and leave again. I can’t deal with my roommate—a guy I barely know even three months in. I need to be alone, to think.

  My obsessing time, Mom used to call it, her laugh half genuine and half nervous. Burning up like a lit firecracker is how Dad describes it. But I don’t know how to function any other way; once a problem or question or puzzle grabs me, I can’t turn my mind off until I solve it.

  This time it’s more than plotting a way to spy on an osprey’s nest or spending a week over summer vacation locking myself in my room until I’d finished reading—three times through—Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, deciding what it meant to me as a black kid getting ready to start at a mostly white middle school, before moving on to devour James Baldwin.

  This time it’s life and death. Ella’s life.

  I retreat to the student union, barricade myself inside the same meeting room where I’d met Ella and her friends. The union is open twenty-four hours a day, but a Friday night like this, it’s virtually empty except for a crowd on the other side of the building at the bowling alley and arcade. I remove my laptop from my singed messenger bag, holding my breath as I turn it on. The screen has a star-shaped crack—probably from when I fell helping Ella crawl out of the fire—but the machine comes on, no problem. Good thing, because it would take me a year to save up for another one.

  I feel cut off from the rest of the world, isolated and alone in some desolate land where nothing makes sense and no one is who they seem to be . . . least of all, me.

  What kind of person am I that the police imagine I’m capable of arson and attempted murder? How can I prove them wrong?

  I spread my notes across the meeting room’s table. If the police are right and someone set the fire, the only way to save myself is to discover who and why. If it saves Ella in the process, that’s fine, but after being forced to examine my own actions as if I’m a criminal, I finally realize that she never asked me for help, never even wanted my help—I’m not even sure she needs my help.

  Except . . . the fire. Who would want to hurt Ella? Maybe it was just an accident—her studio was a natural firetrap with all those flammable canvases and papers and solvents. Maybe she did it herself, is as unstable as her father. I frown at that, pounding the computer keys harder than necessary. No, out of all the possible theories, I can’t bring myself to believe that one.

  But where to start? That’s easy—exactly where Ella said I needed to start: from scratch. Treat her parents like any murder victims.

  One wall of the room is constructed of white boards, so I take advantage of the space to organize my thoughts. Suspects. Who knew Mia and Sean Cleary?

  Darrin West is an obvious first choice. I shuffle through my paper files and use a magnet to stick a photocopy of Darrin’s driver’s license to the board, courtesy of Dr. Winston and his access to all sorts of investigative databases. Motive? Money, control of the company, control of Ella’s trust as executor of the Cleary estate. Opportunity? No, he was definitely in London. Means? He could have hired a hit man.

  I squint at the words. Try to fit their logic with the man I’d met, who’d seemed generous and kind. No, keep feelings out of it, the way Dad does when he’s working a case. Stick to the facts. Who else? Sean Cleary had no other living family, so that left his wife’s mother and brother.

  The police back home had copied their New York state drivers’ licenses when they had to prove their identity to claim Nora. I put them up on the wall beside Darrin’s. Motive? Money, the universal motive—with the funds from the Cleary estate, they never had to work again. Sure, Helen had a successful career as a voice talent, but that was by choice, not necessity. She and Joe had all the money they needed while Ella was alive.

  That stops me. I r
emember an investigator’s note that if Sean Cleary died without heirs, the family trust went to charity. But what happens to the Cleary estate if Ella dies? And what about her educational trust fund, the one she said only opened up after she turned eighteen?

  I don’t have access to a copy of Ella’s trust. I start to make a note to ask her—except I can’t, can I? Not without being accused of being a stalker.

  I sink into the chair. If the police charge me, I’ll need a lawyer—which means money, which means asking my parents for help, which means telling them I’m accused of stalking and arson and whatever other charges the police dream up. If I’m not careful, Professor Winston will be using my own story in his next book. And there’s a good chance it won’t have a happy ending.

  I stare at the crack on my computer screen. It’s asymmetric, just shy of center. I snap the lid shut. Close my eyes, concentrate on breathing. Focusing on the numbers, I count to four, breathe in, hold for four, breathe out for four, hold for four . . . now try five . . . six . . . I make it up to an eight count before my pulse finally smooths out, the tingling wasps beneath my skin calming down, returning to hibernation. I open my eyes, stare at my wall.

  Back to Helen and Joe. They were obviously estranged from Mia Cleary since they hadn’t been listed as her emergency contacts. It was Darrin who told the police where to find Mia’s next of kin. Was it just distance? They lived in upstate New York while Mia and Sean lived in the house by the lake, about a half an hour outside of Cambria City. Or maybe Mia thought their synesthesia was so debilitating that they weren’t reliable? Maybe that’s also why Darrin was listed in their will as Ella’s guardian instead of Helen and Joe.

  Means and opportunity for the two of them? They’d claimed to have been home the night Ella’s parents died, but the police never found any other witnesses—made sense since, because of their synesthesia, both Helen and Joe worked from home and rarely ventured out.

  I frown, leave the chair, and draw two large question marks below each of their drivers’ licenses. Hard to imagine a brother killing his sister that way, much less a mother committing such a heinous crime against her own flesh and blood.