Tell No Lies

by Tanya Anne Crosby

  Savannah gave her a knowing look, one that Augusta recognized. It was a look that made Augusta feel as though Savannah could read her thoughts—as though somehow her sister knew all her darkest secrets. “Maybe I’m just better at keeping the devil on my shoulder muzzled?” she suggested with a bit of a grin.

  “Right. Well . . .” Augusta stood, afraid of where the conversation might lead now. Tomorrow was soon enough to spill her guts about Ian. “I’m off to bed.”

  Savannah gave her another look that made her feel as though she was waiting for her to speak up, but there was no way Savannah knew about Ian or she’d have said something by now, and for the moment that was how Augusta meant to keep it.

  “Good night, Sav.”

  “Night, Augie.”

  “Night, John-Boy,” Augusta added and Savannah’s laughter followed her out of the den.

  Chapter 5

  Wednesday, August 18, 8:13 A.M.

  Some secrets were harder than others to keep.

  Sadie Childres stared down at the trio of graves at her feet, feeling old and tired. Only through sheer tenacity did the morning sun permeate the canopy of green above, but the grass beneath the huddle of old oaks was thankful for the respite, verdant green even in this hellacious heat. New patches were already beginning to spread over Florence’s grave.

  Florence had been dead four months now, and nothing would ever be the same.

  Sammy’s empty grave lay between both of his parents’, a change decreed by Robert and Florence’s expedient and very discreet divorce. Neither of them had been able to stomach the thought of their bones lying beside each other through eternity. Robert, who, with those smiling blue eyes, could convince anyone of anything. And Florence, whose friendship had meant the world to Sadie—a friendship that had spanned their entire lifetimes.

  Swiping at the moistness gathering beneath her eyes, she blinked at the fresh roses she’d placed upon their graves. Roses for both Florence and Sammy.

  Robert got nothing—the same as he always gave. How anyone had ever loved him was beyond her—how she had loved him was inconceivable.

  So many secrets.

  So many lies.

  So many regrets.

  Staring at the roses, Sadie blinked back the assault of painful memories.

  She had been coming here in secret for years now—ever since Sam’s death. Florence, God rest her soul, had never been able to bear it, but someone had to honor that poor child.

  Devastated over his death, Flo had gone completely to pieces afterward, refusing to give him up, refusing to admit that he was gone. Once the authorities stopped searching for his body—long after there was a chance he might be found alive—she paid to have the shoreline dredged—more to prove he wasn’t dead than to prove he was. With the powerful currents in the channel, his body was never found. But as far as Florence had been concerned, no body meant no proof, and although she went through the motions of burying a child, she had always believed her Sammy was still alive.

  But he was gone forever; Sadie knew that.

  All these years later, she couldn’t forget his sweet smile and his father’s blue eyes—his chubby little fingers as he’d tugged at her skirts. Losing Sam had been devastating for all of them, not just for Florence. But despite Florence’s grief, after his funeral she had never, ever come here to his grave. It was Sadie who kept his flowers fresh.

  And now she would keep Flo’s, too . . . in spite of everything.

  Lord, could Florence truly have meant to put her out of her home?

  Sadie had a hard time believing it—and yet . . . what if she had discovered the secret Sadie had kept all these years? Even twenty-nine years of praying hadn’t given her any peace. And it was probably why she couldn’t detach herself from the girls, even now.

  Guilt.

  The truth was that she wasn’t so much angry at Savannah for taking that stupid piece of paper to Daniel. She understood why Savannah needed answers. But Sadie was heartbroken over the question of her loyalty—and her honesty—heartbroken but not indignant . . .

  Because she had lied.

  She was still lying.

  And she would continue lying until her final breath, because telling this particular truth would serve no purpose other than to destroy lives.

  No, this was her burden to bear. And if her secret was a one-way ticket to hell, so be it. She wouldn’t be the only one there. She glanced at Robert’s grave and frowned.

  “Find me, Sadie!” she heard Sam’s little voice call out from the distant past.

  “I’m doing laundry, child. Unless you’re inside the hamper, I won’t be doing any looking today, eah!”

  His little face peered around the corner, looking neglected, his pink cheeks so unlike those of Sadie’s dark-skinned son, though his eyes were as vivid a blue.

  “Please, please!” he pleaded.

  Sadie dropped a pair of red pajama bottoms on the hall floor. “There you go now, eah. Why don’t you come help Sadie instead?”

  His gaze fell upon the pajamas. He was too smart for a four-anda-half-year-old. “After you do laundry, can I have a Popsicle then?”

  Sadie smiled at him. “Why yes, sir!” She nodded down at the pajamas. “Grab them for me. You want peach or blackberry?”

  “Peach!” he shouted gleefully, and hopped forward to grab the red pajamas from the hallway floor. “I love peach, Sadie!”

  “I know, dear. And just ’cause you do, I went and bought another box. But now who’s gonna eat all that blackberry, eah?”

  He strutted beside her down the hall, peering up at her with a sweet smile. “Josh?”

  Sadie had laughed at that.

  Josh indeed.

  Josh had been the only male example the boy had had to look up to. His father had never been present, even when he was in the same room. God’s truth, even when Robert Aldridge was standing right in front of your face, he was gone missing someplace.

  “You’re my best friend,” Sam announced sweetly.

  “Really?”

  “Yes ’m.”

  Now Sadie stared down at his empty grave, tears blurring her vision. “I love you, little boy,” she whispered.

  A fat tear swept down her nose as she bent to straighten a long-stemmed peach rose in Sammy’s urn, adjusting it so the baby’s breath would keep the flower upright. The heat would soon wither it, but for now, she wanted the bud to stand lovely and tall. When Sammy’s was adjusted to her liking, she adjusted Florence’s roses, as well, and without a backward glance at the unadorned grave beside it, she turned and walked away.

  No one was home at Sadie’s house so Augusta left her mother’s Town Car in the driveway and ventured toward the ruins with her cell phone in hand. Her shoes crunched over the gravel as she made her way down the drive and into the charred grass.

  It had been three weeks now since the fire that had nearly claimed her sister’s life . . . three weeks since Ian was arrested. The woodlands were devastated. Only Hugo had wreaked this much havoc, pulling up trees, like the outcome of a sisterly cat fight where gobs of hair were ripped out by the roots.

  Except that Hugo had been an act of God.

  This was an act of human violence.

  Were it not for recent rains, the fire might have actually engulfed Sadie’s home, as well, and then there would have been no house to fight over, Augusta mused. She looked toward Sadie’s house. Her blue porch was faded now to a dull blue gray. Haint blue, she called it. It was an old Charleston custom that had come straight from Geechee folklore. The blue was supposed to keep spirits out and the occupants of the house safe. But now it was a popular thing to do and most folks painted their porches blue around here. Even the main house’s porch was painted a pale sky blue to match the blue of a clear summer sky.

  Augusta stood there, scrutinizing the landscape.

  Before the fire, you couldn’t see Sadie’s house at all. Even in winter, it was completely hidden from view. But the once-thick underbrush was bu
rned away now, and many of the trees had been lost besides. The ones that remained were scarred black. Peering around at the burnt trunks, she wondered how many of the old oaks had survived the first fire—the one that had destroyed the original house—only to succumb to this one.

  The old slave quarters had once stood on this side of Sadie’s place, away from the main house—close to the marsh—where the mosquitoes were worst. The shacks were gone now, but Augusta always had a general feeling of malaise whenever she walked this part of the property. Today, the gloom was palpable.

  She might have grown up here, but there was something not quite right about Oyster Point—something that she had never been able to put her finger on . . . but it was there just the same.

  Had Ian sensed it, as well? What was he looking for? Obviously, he was stalking these woods, but to what end?

  The first time she had set eyes upon him, he had been right here, in these woods, holding their mother’s running shoe like a football. He had been contemplating them from a distance—Caroline and her as they walked Tango. The expression on his face had been one of curiosity, not one of malice.

  What was he searching for that day?

  She tried to see the place through his eyes.

  Certainly not the stupid tennis shoe, although finding their mother’s shoe out in the woods was certainly weird. At the time, Augusta had downplayed the fact when Caroline made such a big deal out of it, but she had to admit it was creepy. Florence W. Aldridge would never have stepped foot in the woods. She might have torn her skirts on blackberry brambles. And hell, she’d bought running shoes, but Augusta would lay bets that she had never used them for their intended purpose. So what was her shoe doing in the woods—one, not both?

  The idea that Ian would break into their house and steal their mother’s shoe and then hand it back as some kind of warning was ludicrous. First of all, their mother’s death had been an accident. Flo fell down those stairs; no intrigue there. And while Caroline had been targeted by a killer, it was most likely because of her role at the Tribune. Caroline was high profile now, and she had made a big deal out of searching for the Secessionville killer. Of course he would notice her. Everyone in the city had noticed her. And despite the shit they all said—and felt—about their mother, Caroline seemed so ready to step into Flo’s shoes. It seemed Caroline’s principles had more dents than an Eggo waffle.

  Admittedly, Augusta had a hard time with that fact. Maybe she wasn’t always in the right, and maybe sometimes she was a bit of a bitch about it, but at least when Augusta said something, she didn’t vacillate. Come what may, she was single-minded, decided.

  She didn’t know her sister anymore and that fact made her sad.

  She turned and walked a few yards deeper into the brush until she reached the burnt carcass of the old Georgian house. The original main house had burned down during a kitchen fire the year after the Civil War ended. All that was left of it now was a pile of twice-charred bricks with the remains of a chimney at one end. The wooden columns had burned completely the first time around, but pilings still remained to show where they had once stood, along with a few of the brick steps that led up to the porch. You could still see—but barely—where Jack had carved his and Caroline’s initials into the brick during their senior year together. Hopefully, their relationship would last at least as long as his artwork, she mused, and stopped in front of the steps to reexamine the surroundings.

  Whoever had lured Caroline here that night had done so using Augusta’s cell phone. She tried to recall the kid who had taken her purse that day after she’d left Daniel Greene’s office, but all she could remember was that he had short brown hair and big feet. She couldn’t even give a proper description for a police sketch because it had been so late in the afternoon and she’d really only seen the back of his head as he ran away. By the time she’d realized her purse had been nabbed, along with her car keys and cell phone, the kid had darted into an alley. Augusta didn’t go in after him, chiefly because of something Savannah had said to her.

  A few nights before the mugging, she’d said, “There might come a moment when you will ask yourself, ‘What should I do?’ Do what Augusta Aldridge would never do.” Although it had pissed Augusta off at the time, Savannah seemed to have this uncanny ability to know things.

  Without her car keys, she’d called Savannah to come get her. And somehow their mom’s Town Car had weathered a night on the street in one of the worst parts of downtown without a single scratch. Later, police searched the area to no avail. In retrospect, Augusta wished she had paid more attention to details, but who could have predicted the events that had transpired that night? Not even Savannah could have truly known.

  Crossing her arms, she wondered . . . if they found the kid who’d stolen her purse . . . would they find a link to the real killer? Ian—she was more certain than ever—was innocent.

  Balancing on her arches on the top step of the ruins, she peered out toward the marsh. At low tide, the shallows seemed to stretch on forever. With so many of the trees decimated, all you could see now was spartina flats for miles. From where Augusta stood, it was easy to see where the water had risen the night of the fire because the singed grass stopped abruptly and fresh grass rose high beyond that threshold, golden tips swaying softly in the breeze.

  The cemetery where Cody Simmons had disappeared was just down the road a bit—close enough to raise the tiny hairs on Augusta’s arms.

  Was there something about the ruins themselves? Or was it simply a coincidence that both Jennifer and Pamela had visited this place—and that Caroline had been lured here, as well? It seemed to Augusta that Ian believed there might be a connection.

  She turned to reexamine the charred bricks. Right now, they were laid bare—the moss and vines scorched away. Behind the ruins, she could see Fort Lamar Road. At this end of the street, there weren’t many cars passing by—for the most part only those coming to Oyster Point because the road dead-ended into their property. For all intents and purposes, the ruins were simply ruins . . . pretty much exactly the same as any of the ruins in these parts—random piles of bricks that nature had begun to reclaim.

  Augusta had come across an old tintype once that showed the old house in all its former glory. With two wings that spread out like arms off the main house, its proudest moment was in its service as a Confederate division field hospital. Just down the road, commemorating the battle of Secessionville, there were nearly three hundred unmarked graves where she and her sisters had played as children. These days it was illegal to trample over the embankments, but there was something about old graveyards that drew kids . . . like moths to a porch lamp.

  Poor Cody.

  Her cell phone rang, startling her, and she glanced down at the number. Caroline. Her sister had been calling from the moment she’d got into the office this morning and Augusta knew why: By now Caroline knew Augusta had paid Ian’s bail, but she wasn’t in the mood for one of Caroline’s lectures. She waited for the ringing to stop to be sure she wouldn’t accidentally answer and shoved the phone into her back pocket.

  Really, she should simply turn it off, because she was getting texts by the dozens—mostly from pissed-off folks who didn’t agree that she should have paid Ian’s bail. It was none of anyone’s business, and it had been a grievous mistake to give out her personal phone number as a contact for the reward money for Amanda Hutto. All of Charleston seemed to be calling her. Right or wrong, she was never going to hear the end of it now.

  “What are you doing out here?”

  Augusta started at the sound of Josh’s voice. “Shit!” she exclaimed. “You scared the hell out of me!”

  She put a hand to her breast, settling her heartbeat. She hadn’t realized how spooked she was to be out here alone where her sister had nearly been murdered, and where two more women had vanished. “Looking around, I guess. What the hell are you doing here?”

  “I saw the Town Car at Mom’s.”

  With his hands in hi
s pockets and dressed in his usual politician’s uniform, Josh seemed like a stranger to her—hardly the little boy she had grown up with. Unlike Josh these days, that kid hadn’t always had an agenda. “She wasn’t home,” Augusta offered. “So I came out here to poke around. You know where she is?”

  “Yep,” he said, but offered nothing more, simply gave her a very patient, somewhat condescending look.

  Augusta took offense. Irritation prickled up her spine. “Well?” Whatever fight Sadie had with Savannah, it wasn’t Augusta’s fault. She didn’t appreciate his attitude.

  He took his hands out of his pockets but stood right where he had appeared—probably worried he would get his Armani suit dirty. Augusta peered down at the hem of her jeans, noticing for the first time that hers were covered in black ash.

  “Damn,” she said, brushing her pants.

  “Mom doesn’t want to talk to you right now. Just give her time.”

  “You know Savannah didn’t mean to upset her,” Augusta offered, feeling helpless and a little disconnected without Sadie in their lives. As long as she could recall, Sadie had been the one to clean up their scrapes. She’d been the one to hand Augusta orange juice when she came in sweaty and hot after playing outside. Their own mother had never been around for that.

  “Doesn’t matter what she intended, Augie. The fact is, Mom’s feelings are hurt.”

  “None of us believe she had anything to do with the missing codicil, Josh—not even Savannah.”

  Josh shrugged, apparently unconvinced.

  “For God’s sake, she’s a writer!” Augusta reasoned. “She’s got to ask questions, no matter what she believes!”

  “Yeah? So I’m an attorney,” he countered. “Questions are my business, too, but I’d defend you without hesitation, because I just know. Seems to me you should have just known.”

  Never mind that Augusta had had nothing to do with any of it. The self-righteous look on Josh’s face pissed her off. “People make mistakes, Josh,” Augusta argued. “In this case, Savannah made a mistake. Is Sadie really going to punish all of us because of something one of us did? I mean, come on!”