Liar's Market

by Taylor Smith

  Still, the sisters were as close as twins generally are, with a secret language of their own and a contentment with each other’s company that, in their earliest years, tended to exclude outsiders. Their parents, especially their father, anxious that both girls realize their full potential, encouraged them to pursue independent interests and friendships. And as time went on, ability levels alone meant the twins would lead very different lives.

  Carrie was allowed—encouraged—to attend sleep-overs at other children’s houses, but never Isabel because their mother worried about medication and possible falls and the potential embarrassment of incontinence. Instead, she would take Isabel out to a movie or stay up late playing Sorry! with her. When the twins were in Girl Scouts, Carrie went to all the rallies and campouts, while Isabel stayed behind with their mother, who helped her complete all the merit badges that didn’t require running or jumping or climbing.

  Once, in junior high, Carrie had talked Isabel into attending a dance with her and her friends—but only once. Carrie had always tried to match her pace to Isabel’s, and she only chose friends who were relaxed about including her sister. But that night, after hearing sniggers from the sidelines over her jerky attempts to move with the music, Isabel had withdrawn to the far end of the bleachers, rejecting Carrie’s efforts to coax her back or cheer her up, spending what remained of a miserable evening watching couples avert their eyes as they slow-danced past her. She never attended another school event again.

  From then on, whenever friends came to pick up Carrie, Isabel’s mouth smiled, but her gray-green eyes smoldered. Carrie, the spoiled twin, got dates, prom corsages, and kisses under the front porch light, while Isabel, the wounded doppelganger, stayed behind and fumed.

  Their father worked ridiculously long hours, six or seven days a week, building his business, but their mother tried hard to make it up to Isabel, almost pushing Carrie out the door, as if her mere presence were a painful reminder to mother and sister alike of what Isabel might have been, if only she hadn’t been robbed of her blood supply.

  “You two go on now,” their mother might say to Carrie and a date. “Isabel and I have a lot to do, don’t we? We thought we’d head over to the mall and check out that sale at Macy’s. Maybe get our makeup done, hmm? And have dinner out, since your father’s working late again. What do you think, Izzie? Italian, maybe? Then…well, better take a house key, Carrie, just in case we’re not here when you get back.”

  She meant well, Carrie knew, focusing all her love and attention on Isabel like that, but maybe their mother’s desperate attempts to compensate only served to remind Isabel that she was different and somehow pitiable.

  When it came time to apply for college, their father encouraged Carrie to apply to Georgetown, his alma mater. Isabel, whose medical absences had left her still several credits shy of her high school diploma, pretended to be fine with it when Carrie was accepted. Secretly, though, she must have been seething.

  Sometime around 3:00 a.m. on January 7, 1992, fifteen hours after Carrie’s plane left to take her back to her second semester at Georgetown, her twin sister managed to splash a trail of lamp oil along the entire length of the carpeted hallway leading to the bedrooms of their San Diego bungalow, as well as all over herself. Then, the fire marshal concluded, Isabel dropped the empty lamp oil can, propped herself against their sleeping parents’ door and struck a wooden fireplace match against the frame. The matchstick, which welded itself to the skin of Isabel’s melted fingers, came from a full box later found burned but intact in the pocket of what remained of her cotton flannel nightgown.

  When the D.C. Police showed up at Carrie’s dorm the next day to relay the terrible news from the San Diego Police Department, they said her twin had suffered fatal third-degree burns to eighty percent of her body. Her parents had died in their sleep of smoke inhalation.

  Carrie had been living in a fog of guilt ever since.

  Giving the kitchen counter one last swipe, she glanced up at the old railway clock on the wall. Eight-thirty. Time to get going. Jonah’s day camp started at nine, but they’d promised his counselor to arrive a few minutes early that morning to deliver the newspaper for the volcano project.

  The front hall smelled of lemon oil, roses, and the slight mustiness of air endlessly recirculated through the central AC unit. The place needed to have all the windows thrown wide for a while, Carrie thought. Maybe she could do it before Jonah got home from camp. He’d have the pool and the center’s air-conditioned indoor facilities to keep him cooled down during the day. Even so, Carrie reminded herself to double-check the asthma inhaler in his red nylon backpack and make sure it was fully charged.

  Going up the stairs, she tried, as always, to ignore the reflection as she passed the antique gilt-edged mirror hanging over the first landing. Isabel might have been around to lend moral support with this Drum dilemma if Carrie hadn’t ruined her life. Izzie had always been a good observer of human nature, with a clearer take on the personal problems her sister used to bring her to help puzzle out. Carrie could have used her advice now.

  Althea’s door was still closed when Carrie passed the second-floor landing, and although the room had an eastern exposure that got bright morning sun, the heavy lined curtains were obviously still drawn because no light escaped from the crack under the door. Nor could Carrie hear the classical music station Althea often had her radio tuned to when she was awake.

  Instinctively, her heels lifted and she went the rest of the way up on tiptoe. Best to let sleeping mothers-in-law lie.

  Automatically picking up Jonah’s dropped sock, toys and discarded drawings as she mounted the stairs to the third floor, Carrie heard him humming tunelessly in the bathroom. She felt a familiar ache in the middle of her chest even as she smiled at the sound—the smile for Jonah, the ache for Isabel, who would have loved her little nephew. Even after all this time, Carrie thought about Izzie and her parents every day. But that morning, as it had so many times before, the question crossed her mind—if they hadn’t died, would she even be here? Maybe not.

  When she’d met Drum in Africa—handsome, self-confident, and seemingly so attentive and protective—she’d been bruised and grief-stricken still, only too ready to hide out in his shadow and let her own shaky ambitions slip away. She had no one but herself to blame for having drifted into this sleepwalking state, Carrie thought. No one but herself to pull her out of it, either. If she didn’t make her move now, she sensed she might disappear completely.

  The third-floor bathroom was set into a dormer that looked down over the front of the house. The mirror over the white pedestal sink was capped with a striped awning. The towels and bathmats were in bold red and white, the walls a sky-blue. All around the room, she’d hand-painted a parade of circus clowns and animals.

  Jonah stood at the sink on a red plastic step stool, watching himself in the mirror as his brush moved dutifully up and down his small white teeth—taking extra care, possibly because he’d spotted his mother’s reflection in the mirror. She smiled at him. He’d recently discovered the wonders of hair gel, and his strawberry curls lay slicked down and shining against his scalp at the moment.

  Carrie felt a wave of emotion course through her like a warm tide. Whatever else she regretted in her life, she didn’t regret this little boy. If losing her family, not to mention her independence, had been the price of gaining her son, then who was to say that fate didn’t give back as much as it took away?

  “Hey, bud,” she asked, pushing her voice past the lump in her throat, “are you almost ready to go?”

  He nodded.

  “Did you get the newspapers for your volcanoes that I left out last night?”

  “Dere inna front hall,” he mumbled through toothpaste foam, spraying white flecks everywhere.

  “Yikes,” Carrie said, grabbing a facecloth to wipe them off the mirror. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt you. Finish up here and I’ll meet you downstairs. And don’t forget your bathing suit and t
owel. They’re on top of the dryer.”

  “’kay.”

  Carrie wiped that last spray off the mirror, then hung the cloth over the shower door. “I’m just going to finish getting myself ready. I’ll meet you downstairs in a few minutes. Don’t start any new games, please. Just put your lunch and your swimming stuff in your backpack. I want to check your inhaler before we go, too. And Jonah? Quietly, please. Don’t wake Nana.”

  His head bobbed up and down.

  “That’s my boy,” she said, planting a kiss on her fingertips and transferring to his slicked-down curls.

  She ducked into his bedroom to give it a lick and promise, pulling the blue-striped duvet up over his bed, lobbing his discarded SpongeBob pajamas into the white wicker laundry hamper. There were space cruisers, trucks, paper and markers strewn across his desk and window seat, but they would have to wait for later.

  Back downstairs in the master bedroom, she tore off her shorts and tank top and stood in her underwear, rummaging through her closet. Rapidly, she chose and rejected a haltered sundress—too ditsy—and a tailored linen pant suit—too severe, too hot-looking when she was already in a sweat—settling finally on a hip-belted, sleeveless white silk shell over a calf-length green-and-white batik print skirt, and espadrilles for her bare, tanned feet. Cool, modest, functional.

  She’d canceled three appointments with Tracy Overturf’s partner in the past two weeks, her nerve failing at the last moment. But Tracy, who was the closest thing to a sister she’d had since Isabel’s death, would know if she chickened out again. This time, there was no going back.

  In the Mighty Maid van across the road, the two remaining watchers had binoculars trained on the garage door when it began to rise. The rear gate of the blue Passat station wagon was up, and MacNeil’s wife and the little boy were loading a large stack of newspapers inside. After they were done, she opened the back seat passenger door and her son scrambled in. She tossed a backpack across the seat from him and lobbed a straw purse into the front seat, then leaned into the car to buckle the little boy’s seat belt. Tucker and Tengwall could see his tousled hair peeking over the back head-rest, which told them the kid had to be sitting on a booster seat. This was a safety-conscious mom.

  Tengwall got to her feet, ducking under the van’s low ceiling, and gathered up her own backpack and a set of keys from the console.

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to do the tail on her this morning?” Tucker asked.

  “No, I’m good. I’ll take the Kleins’ Caddy?”

  Tucker nodded. “I gassed it up yesterday. It hasn’t been out of the drive for a few days, and we did promise to give it a run now and then. Got your radio?”

  “Oops, almost forgot.” Tengwall snagged a transmitter/receiver from one of the recharging units under the console. After checking the frequency, she snapped it onto the belt of her jeans and headed for the van’s sliding side door.

  Tucker held up a hand. “Hold on. Wait’ll she pulls out.”

  The garage door was dropping and the Passat was rolling down the crushed stone drive. It paused at the end, and they saw the woman craning her neck to examine the trash bins at the curb.

  Tucker’s black eyes flashed. “Shit. Did we put the cans back in the right order?”

  Tengwall crab-walked back to her station at the back window and rummaged around until she found a stack of Polaroids on the fold-down workbench. She rifled through them, then withdrew one she’d shot the night before showing the woman, wearing shorts, a tank top and clogs, her wavy red hair spilling up and over the clip at the back of her head, wheeling a blue recycling bin into place next to a green waste container and a gray trash can. Taken at dusk, the shot was dim and a little blurry due to the low shutter speed, but using a flash would have drawn too much attention.

  “Looks right,” she said, her gaze moving back and forth between the Polaroid and scene across the road, where the Passat’s engine was idling. “I don’t think it’s the bins that are the problem. She looks like she’s waiting for someone.”

  They heard what it was before they saw it come around the curve in the road—grinding gears, the squeal of metal sliding, then the bang of heavy-gauge plastic hitting the road. A powerful engine revved as the Waste Management Industries truck pulled up, brakes shrieking at the MacNeils’ drive. Tucker and Tengwall watched as the mechanical arms on the side of the garbage truck reached for the green garden waste container.

  “Ah, that’s it,” Tucker said, finally exhaling. “The kid wants to watch.”

  “What is it about little boys and trucks?”

  “Don’t know, but it seems like they’ve all got that fascination with the big machinery.”

  The six-year-old across the way had obviously un-buckled his seat belt because he was hanging over the front seat now, grinning broadly as the big truck’s mechanical arms screeched and lifted the bin, tipping it upside down and dumping grass clippings, leaves and pruned branches into the back. Seeing that he had an audience, the driver gave the bin a few wild up-and-down shakes before finally lowering it back to the curb. The little boy’s face lit up with delight.

  Tengwall returned the Polaroids to their place and gathered up the car keys once more as the garbage truck pulled ahead to the next drive. She and Tucker watched the boy’s mother turn in her seat, presumably supervising as he buckled himself back in. Then, after glancing both ways, she pulled the station wagon out into the street and headed up the road.

  “Lift-off. I’ll be in touch,” Tengwall said, flying out the door of the Mighty Maid van.

  Tucker watched her climb into the Caddy, and heard it roar to life. He frowned as the big tan sedan peeled down the driveway on a squeal of rubber. He clamped the transmit button on his radio.

  “Hey, Tinkerbell, surveillance is supposed to be subtle,” he said. “Not to mention the fact that car belongs to a taxpayer. Take it easy, will you?”

  “Yessir, boss. Slowin’ up here,” Tengwall’s voice came back as she turned sedately out into the road and headed off after the station wagon.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  McLean, Virginia

  August 12, 2002—8:31 a.m.

  Huxley, meanwhile, still had MacNeil’s silver-gray Jaguar in sight. For a while, everything went along just fine, but when it began to go bad, it went bad with a speed that was mind-boggling, as these things are wont to do.

  Huxley kept the bike a respectable distance back as they drove toward the George Washington Parkway. Like any good military-trained operative, he had a map of the terrain firmly embedded in his memory, and between that mental image and more than three months of tailing MacNeil on his home turf, he knew the most logical route to FBI headquarters was to take the GW south to one of the bridges leading across the Potomac to the D.C. side. The George Mason Bridge near the Pentagon would be Huxley’s choice, since it was the most direct route with the least amount of downtown traffic to negotiate.

  On the other hand, direct wasn’t necessarily the name of the game here. The target’s habits, like Huxley’s own, showed the effects of years of personal security briefings. MacNeil varied his route frequently, often taking circuitous paths to arrive at his destination. And then, of course, there were times when his destination turned out to be one the watchers hadn’t expected—not so surprising, given what they knew about MacNeil’s extracurricular activities and his penchant for unexplained intrigues, including a taste for women to whom he was unencumbered by the bonds of matrimony.

  Today would turn out to be one of those days where the unexpected should have been expected.

  The Harley was gunning around a curve along the George Washington Parkway, a couple of car lengths behind the Jag, heading south, as predicted, toward the D.C.-bound bridges. Suddenly, a merging Ryder moving van switched lanes and cut Huxley off, apparently deciding that size trumped right of way. Huxley slammed on the brakes just in time to avoid running the bike up the truck’s rear bumper like some ambitious Chihuahua mounting a St. Bernard.r />
  He was tempted to blast his horn in protest, but the first rule of surveillance was not to draw attention. Besides which, there was always a chance that the move had been deliberate, and that this was a confederate of MacNeil’s, here to nail potential threats. But when Huxley pulled out and caught the driver’s reflection in the rental truck’s side mirror, the guy’s panicked eyes and nervous lip-chewing suggested he was inexperienced at handling a big vehicle in heavy traffic. Not malicious, just stupid.

  Huxley fell back and watched for an opportunity to get away from the fool. A break in the lane to the right came about twenty seconds later and he took it, shooting around the big Ryder van and darting ahead, eyes peering through his black tinted helmet visor to locate the silver-gray Jaguar once more. When he spotted it, Huxley was surprised to see MacNeil talking on his cell phone.

  He frowned. The call had been initiated in the thirty seconds or so Huxley had been stuck behind the Ryder truck, but he had no idea whether it was inbound or outbound. MacNeil’s home and office telephones were being tapped, all calls recorded, but ironically, when he was on his cell phone out in the open, generally the most insecure of environments, he was relatively safe from prying ears.