Liar, Liar, Heart's Desire

by Suzie Quint

  “Did you even try?” Cleo asked.

  “There was no point. Your mother is the most stubborn person I’ve ever known. And she was determined to take as much of the financial burden off your shoulders as she could.”

  Cleo sucked in a breath.

  Willa’s knife-wielding hand paused and her face softened. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say that. You were only doing what you thought a good daughter should.”

  “Are you saying this is my fault?”

  “No, of course not. But Annaliese knew how much it was costing you. Not just that nice car you had and your fancy condo―”

  The condo hadn’t been that fancy, but it had been hers. Something she’d earned all on her own. A respectable place. Something that could have belonged to someone who deserved nice things.

  “—and of course that job you’d dreamed about and worked so hard for.”

  And yes, that was still the loss that hurt her the most.

  “Annaliese felt awful for being the reason you gave up your dream.”

  Cleo had felt twinges of resentment over that as well, and she hadn’t always hidden them. Occasionally, she had let them spill out because it was a way of showing Annaliese she was a good daughter even if Annaliese hadn’t been the ideal mother.

  Loretta had said her mother would kill for someone she loved. That had the ring of truth in Cleo’s ears. But she’d never imagined Annaliese would sacrifice what was best for one person she loved to ease the burden on someone else she loved. Cleo had never intended that.

  Was it her fault? If she hadn’t let her resentment show, Annaliese wouldn’t have made the deal with Sebastian, and Jada wouldn’t have drugged him, leaving him vulnerable to whoever killed him.

  The sharp thunk of the knife on the cutting board snapped her back to reality. She didn’t have time for guilt.

  How often did the jail review the taped phone calls? She had no idea. For all she knew, someone could have listened in real time. It was probably unlikely—wouldn’t that be the most boring job ever?—but she couldn’t risk it.

  She pulled the marker from her pocket and walked around the breakfast bar.

  “What are you doing?” Willa asked as she reached for the switch that ignited the gas burner.

  Cleo extended her hand. The paper was an inch from the flame when something sharp and cold pricked her through her shirt to the right of her spine.

  “Stop,” Willa said.

  Cleo froze, a wave of disbelief flowing through her.

  “I’m sorry, Cleo. I can’t let you do that. Now turn around and hand me the marker.”

  But she didn’t. It was too surreal. She couldn’t be standing in the kitchen with a knife pressed against her back.

  “You killed Sebastian, didn’t you?”

  Silence. Then, “I didn’t plan it.”

  The surreal sensation doubled. Cleo hadn’t really believed it until Willa said that.

  “I didn’t plan it,” Willa said again. “But I saw Jada and Annaliese come out of Sebastian’s private elevator. I knew where they’d been and why. Jada was so pale. Her eyes were huge like a deer that’s been shot at. I hated Sebastian for that, and I had to stop him from ever worrying Jada again. So I went up. I thought I could convince him. Maybe blackmail him. But he was too out of it. Stumbling drunk, I thought at first. Then I realized he was drugged, which only meant he’d try it again, you know? I couldn’t let that happen, but I couldn’t figure out how to stop it.” She paused for a moment. “Then I saw the tub was full. After that . . . well, it was surprisingly easy.”

  “With what?” Cleo asked through numb lips. Her eyes were locked on the ring of flame just beyond her hand. Mesmerizing.

  “With what, what?”

  “What were you going to blackmail him with?”

  Willa let out an unamused laugh. “It doesn’t matter. You have to care what people think before you can be blackmailed. It wouldn’t have worked anyway. He’d just have fired me, and then I’d have sounded like a vengeful nut job.”

  It was pretty nutty to be holding a knife to someone’s back in a kitchen, Cleo thought.

  “Now stop stalling and give me the marker,” Willa said.

  Cleo’s brain went into hyperdrive, and the world slid into focus. Maybe Willa hadn’t intended to murder Sebastian, but he was still dead. And maybe Willa didn’t intend to kill her, but pretty soon she’d realize she didn’t have a choice. You couldn’t admit to murder and then let the person you confessed to live.

  “You don’t have to do this.”

  “Do what?”

  Hurt me. “Threaten me.” What she really meant was kill me. “You won’t get away with this.” God, could she sound any more cliché?

  “Why don’t you let me worry about that. Now”—a sharp prod made Cleo stiffen—“Turn. Around.”

  Willa was too smart to stab her in the back. That would be tough to explain.

  A glance at the stove’s digital clock shocked her. She’d only been home for fifteen minutes. It seemed much longer. Worse, it could be an hour or two before Alec got there. She was on her own.

  Cleo turned, rotating to the right, away from the tip of the knife. A coldness she had never seen before radiated from Willa’s eyes. This wasn’t the woman who had once been chums with her mom, who’d sat on their back porch, drinking Long Island iced tea and sharing the latest gossip, who had slipped Cleo her first trashy romance at thirteen, and given her advice about clothes on the sly at fifteen.

  “Mom was right. You’re in love with Jada.”

  The coldness in Willa’s eyes softened. “Do you know how rare it is to find someone who’s never anything but sweet? No, of course you don’t. You’re too young to understand how unusual that is.” And then her expression hardened again. “Annaliese never deserved her.”

  “You’re right. She doesn’t.” Could she get Willa to believe she was on her side?

  “Ha! I knew I wasn’t the only one to see it.”

  “Of course I see it. Who would know better than me what Annaliese is like? You made sure the cops knew she’d been in Sebastian’s suite that night, didn’t you?”

  Willa gave her a tight-lipped smile.

  A shiver went up Cleo’s spine. “Very smart.”

  “I considered planting something of your mother’s there, but that might have looked too serendipitous. I figured they’d find the marker, and that would be enough to put her high on their list.”

  “Of course. How convenient Jada dropped the bottle of muscle relaxers.”

  “Jada has an angel on her shoulder. That’s how I know this is all going to work out.”

  “Does Jada know you killed Sebastian?”

  “Of course not. I don’t want to destroy her innocence. Do you know she wanted to go to the cops and tell them she was there too, so she can swear Sebastian was alive when they left? She thinks the cops will believe her just because it’s true. Thank goodness Annaliese had enough decency to forbid that.”

  It wasn’t decency. When you’d kill to protect someone you loved, you’d also take the rap to keep them safe. Even for murder.

  “You know, without proof, the cops aren’t going to listen to what I say. Annaliese is my mom, so they’ll just . . .” Cleo waved her hand.

  “Oh honey. You’re a reporter. You won’t be able to leave it alone. And in spite of everything, you’re loyal to your mom. Everything you’ve done—impoverishing yourself, leaving the job you worked so hard for—proves that.”

  “Jada’s loyal too. How do you plan to get around that?”

  “I gave Jada a couple of pills before you got here. She’s real suggestible when she’s doped up.” Her eyes flicked up. “Or haven’t you noticed?”

  Cleo had.

  “You see,” Willa said in a storytelling tone, “Jada wanted to tell the police what she knew, but you wouldn’t let her.”

  This was the story Willa would tell the cops. Time was running out.

  “Jada is a big believer i
n the truth,” Willa said, “so when you tried to burn the marker, she tried to stop you.”

  Ironic, Cleo thought, what everyone was willing to do to protect Jada.

  Willa’s eyes went flat.

  Cleo’s breath came short and fast.

  “I had to intervene to save Jada.”

  The tip of the knife withdrew a fraction.

  Cleo’s torso clenched, preparing for the strike she knew was coming, but she wasn’t going down without a fight. She lifted her left arm, cutting to the middle of her torso. A thrust to the side, deflecting the blade away. She lunged with her right, seeking to control the hand that held the knife.

  Willa spun away from her.

  Cleo followed, taking two or three steps for every one of Willa’s. She lunged again. This time, her hand closed around Willa’s wrist, but Willa continued her turn, pulling Cleo around with her. Their rotation took them to the counter where the BLT makings still lay. Cleo tried to slam Willa’s wrist against the edge of the counter, but the angle was wrong. Their arms skated across the counter, sending everything flying, including the open jar of mayo, which hit the fridge. Mayo erupted from the jar. On the edge of the blast zone, thin white drops streaked across their faces and arms.

  As they came full circle in front of the stove, Cleo tried again to get Willa to let go of the knife, this time aiming her wrist for the edge of the stove. The impact still wasn’t enough. She lifted Willa’s wrist for another attempt but was pulled up short when Willa grabbed a hank of her hair. Cleo shrieked. Willa yanked, and Cleo’s grip on Willa’s wrist slipped. Willa jerked her back from the stove then shoved her forward again.

  Something—a tomato maybe—squished under her foot and she slipped, going halfway down on one knee. The oven handle bashed into her ribs. Her breath deserted her for a moment, and she almost lost her grip on Willa’s wrist.

  Willa forced her face toward the burner. Cleo tried to straighten, tried to push back, but leaning heavily against the stove, she had no leverage. Her head fell under the pressure. Cleo stiffened her neck, but Willa forced her down. The blue flame dominated her field of vision. The heat began to lick her face. One loose wisps of hair swayed toward the flame, crinkling when it got too close.

  She let go of Willa with one hand and pulled her arm back, wedging it between herself and the stove, trying to force herself away from the flame, but couldn’t get enough leverage. Her breath was coming so fast she was on the edge of hyperventilating. It was hotter now. Her skin felt as though it was beginning to fry. Her right foot scrambled against the floor, trying to force a way back, but she couldn’t get any traction.

  Willa forced her head closer to the flame.

  Chapter 22

  Cleo wasn’t sure if she heard the thud or felt it, but the pressure on her head disappeared. She came up like a drowning swimmer, hard, fast, and gasping for air. A gulp, then she turned, prepared to reengage, but Willa lay unmoving on the floor. Her upper body drenched, sunflowers were strewn festively across her torso.

  Facing Cleo across Willa’s prone body was Jada. In her hand, she grasped Annaliese’s lead crystal vase.

  “Cleo!” Jada dropped the vase, which narrowly missed hitting Willa on the head a second time, and grabbed Cleo’s arm. “You’re bleeding!”

  She looked down to discover a thin red line across her forearm was oozing blood. Must have cut it when I pushed the knife away, she thought distantly in the fraction of a second before her knees wobbled.

  Think about something else, she commanded herself as Jada dragged her to one of the kitchen stools. “I thought . . . I thought you were asleep.”

  “No.” Jada grabbed a dish towel and wrapped it around Cleo’s arm. “Willa tried to give me one of those pills, but I didn’t swallow it.”

  Thank God. Or I’d be the one on the floor, and there’d be a lot more blood.

  And she’d be burned. Cleo touched her cheek. It was still too warm as if she had a bad sunburn. “Did you hear . . .?”

  “Willa killed Sebastian,” Jada said. “And she wanted Annaliese to go to jail for it.” She didn’t seem the least bit affected by the news. Bending over, she picked up a piece of paper off the floor. It had a glob of mayo on one corner.

  “This is Annaliese’s marker.” She met Cleo’s eyes. “Will she be coming home now?”

  Cleo almost laughed. That was Jada. Single minded with her eye on the prize. “I hope so.”

  Jada looked around. “I hope she doesn’t get mad. The kitchen is a mess.”

  Before Cleo could comment, the front door crashed open.

  “Cleo!”

  Alec shouldn’t be back yet, but she was still too amazed that she’d survived relatively unscathed to spare any surprise over him rushing into the kitchen. Even so, she was flooded with a sense that everything would be all right. She didn’t have to think or fight or even call the police. He’d take care of those pesky details.

  He skidded to a halt. “What the hell happened here?”

  “Nothing much,” Cleo said. “Willa tried to kill me.” There was a sentence she’d never imagined saying. Suddenly, she was laughing.

  Alec and Jada both looked at her like she was insane.

  Maybe she was because she couldn’t stop.

  Alec glanced at Willa lying on the floor then grabbed Cleo by the shoulders. “Are you all right?”

  “Willa tried to kill me,” she sputtered between laughs.

  He frowned at her, but he must have decided she wasn’t dangerously unhinged because he let her go to examine Willa. “Who hit her?” he asked as he picked up a sunflower and tossed it aside.

  “I did,” Jada said.

  “Good job.” Then he picked up the phone. “Anything in particular you don’t want me to tell 911?”

  Cleo couldn’t think of a thing.

  ~***~

  If Alec thought the situation he’d walked into was crazy, it was nothing compared to the chaos that came with the arrival of the police. Cleo gave them a bare-bones recital of what had happened. The cops called an ambulance to take her and Willa to the hospital. Before she got in the ambulance, Cleo asked Alec to call Danny Bonner. Neither she nor Jada, she insisted, was going to talk to the police without a lawyer.

  The ambulance doors were closing when Cleo yelled, “Stop!” She leaned out. “Alec, where are you?”

  He rushed to her. “I’m here.”

  She grabbed his arm and squeezed then, as if this was the most important thing she’d ever say, she told him, “My voice recorder is in the kitchen.”

  “You want me to get it for you?” Was she afraid she’d forget the details if she didn’t capture them soon?

  “No, no, no. I was recording Annaliese’s call. Everything’s on there.”

  “Everything?” he asked.

  “Everything,” Cleo said. “Make sure Danny gets it.”

  He nodded. “Consider it done.”

  So that’s what he did while Cleo was at the hospital getting stitched up. By the time she arrived at the police station, Jada had already disappeared into one of the interrogation rooms with Danny; Cleo went into another with Danny’s daughter.

  “Are you going to lawyer up too?” a middle-aged cop with a bushy mustache and eyebrows asked Alec.

  “I don’t see a big need to,” Alec said. “I didn’t get there until the action was already over.” And as long as they didn’t ask about the marker and Cleo’s search of Sebastian’s office, which he didn’t think they knew about yet, he was comfortable answering their questions.

  The interview was fairly straightforward. The cop only made one Elvis joke when Alec told him he worked for a tabloid but, what the heck, this was Vegas. If you couldn’t make Elvis jokes there, you couldn’t make them anywhere.

  When the cop was finished with him, Alec sat in the station’s lobby and waited for Cleo. At the condo, he’d only gotten a brief explanation about what had happened, and even that Cleo had given him at hyperdrive speed. He hadn’t gotten a chance to lis
ten to much before he’d turned the recorder over to Bonner, and he’d winced when he heard Willa mention the marker—Cleo might face repercussions from her exclusion—but the sound quality was enough. If what was on there really did implicate Willa, Annaliese should be a free woman within hours.

  To pass the time, he made notes for the story on his iPad. He hoped he’d get to write a happy ending.

  He’d been working on it for almost an hour when Cleo appeared. Alec jumped to his feet. “How’d it go?”

  ~***~

  “Pretty well, I think,” Cleo said, hoping it was true. “They’re talking to Willa at the hospital, but I don’t know what they’ll get from her. The lawyer thinks if Jada’s story matches mine, they’ll charge Willa.”

  “Did you tell them about the recording?” Alec asked.

  She shook her head. “I’ll leave that up to Danny, but I’m sure he’ll want to listen to it first.” And he had gone with Jada, so she didn’t know if he’d had the opportunity yet or not.

  “And Annaliese? What about her?” Alec asked.

  “If they believe us, she’ll be released as fast as they can process the paperwork. Within hours the lawyer says.”

  “So it was all worthwhile, then. All the interviewing, sneaking into Koblect’s office, having to fight off Willa.”

  Cleo nodded. She hadn’t wanted to do any of it, but it had paid off. “Yes. As long as it brings Mom ho―” She froze in mid-word. Had Alec caught that? She forced herself to look at him.

  Oh hell. He was wearing his gotcha smile.

  “I—I—I mean . . .”

  He touched her shoulder. “Cleo, I already know.”

  “Know what?” She was grasping at straws, hoping—somehow—for a miracle.

  His smile quirked to one side. “I know Annaliese is your mother.”

  Her heart leaped into a fast rhythm. “How . . . How long have you known?”