Tell Me No Lies (An Ava Logan Mystery Book 1)

by Lynn Chandler Willis

  “Not far. We’re almost there.”

  Ridge stopped the truck and turned off the engine. He took two flashlights from the console box and handed one each to Cole and me. He pulled his own Maglite from the side door. “We’ll walk the rest of the way.”

  We followed what Cole referred to as a path deep into the woods. I would refer to it as a highly disguised trail of teenage trouble. As we drew closer, the sound of the river grew stronger. I held the flashlight with one hand and with the other, pushed branches out of the way. Their prickly fingers snagged at my hair while the underbrush scraped against my legs. After a few minutes of hiking, we came to a clearing.

  I waved the flashlight over the area, catching the gleam of metal chairs arranged in a circle around a fire pit.

  Larry Roland, the fire chief, assembled the command light and moments later, Cole’s private party palace was lit up like Time Square. I slowly scanned the area, taking in every inch of my son’s hangout, a son I wondered if I truly knew.

  Empty beer bottles and cans were stacked neatly into a waist-high pyramid. A makeshift “bookcase” crafted from what looked like wood from a pallet was partially covered by a sheet of painter’s plastic. Even through the dingy dirt-spattered plastic, I could make out the glossy covers of Playboy and Penthouse. A mattress I wouldn’t let Finn sleep on was off to the side, away from the party at the fire pit. Three bras, one red lace, one beige, and one zebra print hung on a limb over the mattress. Discarded condom wrappers were strewn about. As my heart sank, it met the bile rising from my stomach. I turned away before I threw up.

  Ridge saw the hurt overtaking me and started to reach out but stopped when Jeff Maness arrived with Ruger, the Belgian Malinois.

  “Please don’t tell me it’s just a teenage boy thing. I raised him better.” I wanted to rewind the clock, to go back fifteen years and start over.

  “I’ll talk to him,” Ridge said quietly.

  Ruger whined and pawed at the ground, then barked loud enough I jumped. He stuck his nose to the ground then circled around the fire pit, with Maness allowing enough lead for the dog to do his job. Ruger barked again then headed down a narrow path leading toward the river.

  Ridge stood in the center of the camp, slowly turning to take it all in. “When’s the last time you were here, Cole?”

  “After the football game Friday game. That’s the last time I was here but I don’t know about the other guys.”

  “Do any of them ever come here alone?”

  Cole shook his head. “Not that I know of. There’s usually at least three or four of us.”

  Ridge nodded slowly. “I want a list of the guys’, and girls’, names that come here. Every single one that you know of who has ever been here.”

  “Yes sir.” His voice was small, scared. I didn’t know if I wanted to love him or kill him.

  All I knew at that moment was it would be hard for me to ever let him out of my sight again. “Where are you getting the beer? And do not lie to me, Cole.”

  He sighed heavily, knowing he was in deep shit. “Josh’s older brother. But it’s not like we’re out driving or anything.”

  I raised an eyebrow and glared at him. Did he really expect me to be happy about that fact? I supposed in the grand scheme of things I should be, but right now it didn’t matter much.

  “Hey chief, there’s fresh shoe prints over here,” one of the deputies said. He was near the path Maness and Ruger had disappeared down. “These are so fresh you can read the size imprint. Size thirteen, and that ain’t no little boy’s shoe either. ”

  Ridge went over to take a look. He knelt beside the deputy and shone his Maglite at the spot. “Get a cast. See what we can come up with.”

  He came back over to where Cole and I stood. “Know which one of your friends wears a size thirteen?”

  Cole shrugged slightly. “Could be any of them. Most of them are football players. They’re pretty big guys.”

  A radio crackled, followed by a muffled voice. The deputy at the footprints spoke into radio at his shoulder. “Maness and Frank met up on the other side of the river, near the bank. They’re directly behind the house.”

  “Did the dogs pick up anything?”

  “Led them right to a coat. Maness is processing it.”

  Ridge took a deep breath then let it out slowly. “Tell him to meet us back at the house.”

  CHAPTER 25

  Even with the command lights still lighting up the backyard and a small army of people milling around my home, the house seemed empty. Broken and violated. Cold air flowed in the sunroom from the shattered window. Shards of the broken wineglass and beer bottle sparkled in the carpet like glitter.

  Knowing someone was outside the window, watching our every move, even if they had been on the other side of the river, sent ice trickling down my spine. If Ridge hadn’t come over…I would have never seen any laser light. The kids would have found me, like we had found Trish.

  “Ava…” Ridge said softly from behind me. He was close enough I felt his presence. He stepped closer, putting his arm around my waist and pulling me to him. “I’ll have the window fixed tomorrow. We can put plastic up tonight.”

  Like the plastic covering my son’s library of porn. “There’s a roll out in the shed. I bought it for the flower garden last year. I guess Cole used part of it for other things.” My stomach churned and I seriously wanted to kill him.

  I wondered if one of the bras hanging over that filthy mattress belonged to one of his conquests. Or maybe she hadn’t been a conquest at all. Maybe she had been more than willing. Like I had been a few hours ago.

  “Where’s Cole?” I asked.

  “Upstairs packing a bag. Maybe you should do the same.”

  “All the times he was with Brady…to think he was just up the road doing…” I took a deep breath. “Were there drugs there too?”

  “Hey.” Ridge turned me around to face him. “No, there were no drugs. If they were smoking pot or something else, we’d have found some type of paraphernalia. I’m not downplaying what was out there, but he is fifteen. I hid my Penthouse in a duffel bag under my bed.”

  “But that mattress, and those bras…they were like trophies.”

  Ridge gently kissed my forehead. “I’ll have a talk with him later.”

  “Hey Chief—” Sullivan said, poking his head into the sun room. Surprisingly, Ridge didn’t rush to break contact. Instead, he simply turned around. “Maness and Frank are back. You might want to come see this.”

  We headed outside where Maness was loading Ruger into the cage in the car. A jacket was spread on the hood. Ridge went to his Expedition and pulled a pair of gloves from a kit in the back. I stared at the jacket on the hood, a knot hanging in my throat. It was a yellow-gold leather jacket with white sleeves and a black panther embroidered on the right chest. It was an expensive jacket. I had bought Cole one just like it at the beginning of the school year when he made the football team. Cole’s name was embroidered on his in black letters, on the left chest, across from the threatening panther.

  Ridge snapped the gloves on then ran his fingers across the name stitched on the left side. He stared at it for a long time before turning away. “Damn.” It was all he said. No shock, just resignation.

  When he moved away, I saw the black letters, the word Coach as plain as day. I grabbed Ridge’s arm, shaking my head. “It can’t be Brent. He—”

  “What? Brought flowers to her studio?” Ridge pulled me aside, away from other ears. “He may have brought the flowers out of remorse. Maybe there was something going on between them and she ended it, sending him into psychotic rage.”

  “But what about me? Why try to kill me too? I’ve never done anything to him.”

  He shrugged. “Maybe because you were her friend and he was worried she had told you somethin
g?”

  Of course. It made sense now. The upset at home. Brady telling me his parents might get a divorce. Brady’s bruises and scratches. It all pointed straight to Brent.

  Was he Ivy’s father too?

  I sat at Doretha’s small kitchen table sipping a cup of herbal tea. The kids were long ago in bed but I knew sleep would be slow to come to me. Doretha was at the stove fixing her own cup of chamomile. She was in her bedroom scuffs and tattered pink bathrobe with a high lace collar. I had given her that bathrobe the Christmas before Tommy and I got married. She told me once she couldn’t part with it because it reminded her of me, and how much I despised lace but knew she liked it.

  She set the tea kettle off the hot burner then joined me at the table. The rooster clock above the table said four a.m.

  She reached over and patted my arm. “Been another long day for you, hasn’t it, Baby Doll?”

  I scrubbed my face with my hands, hoping to wake up enough to think clearly. “Cole and his friends have a party camp in the woods near the house. We found beer bottles, girlie magazines, and a filthy, nasty, germ-infested mattress where they do God knows what.”

  She cocked a graying eyebrow at me. “Oh, I think you know damn well what they do on it. Probably same thing you and Mr. Grayson Ridge was doing earlier.”

  I started to fire back at her, but truth was, she was right. And I was tired of denying how I felt about Grayson Ridge. “How’d you know?”

  She smiled warmly while absently stirring her tea. “Mommas always know.”

  “He loves me, Doretha. He always has. And I’ve always loved him. I just didn’t want to admit it.”

  “You had an affair with him, Sweetie—”

  “No.” I held my finger up to stop her. “We almost had an affair. We never went through with it.”

  She tapped the side of her head then her heart with her finger. “But you did here and here.”

  I got up and poured hot water from the kettle into my cup then dropped another tea bag in. When I sat back down she was dipping the chamomile bag up and down in the water in her own cup.

  “I know Tommy wasn’t good to you, Ava. He wasn’t a nice man. And yet, you tried to make it work. You stayed with him for whatever reason. The kids, maybe? And here comes Grayson Ridge, tall, and charming, and my God, is that man ever good-looking…and he was your escape. But he didn’t save you—”

  I held a finger up. “He didn’t need to save me. I was perfectly capable of saving myself. Fate just had other plans.”

  Doretha slowly nodded then set the spoon she stirred her tea with on a napkin. “You were still in a cheap motel room with a man other than your husband. I can’t forgive him for that.”

  “I was in the motel room with him. And you don’t hate me.”

  “You’re family. I have to love you.”

  We giggled as I stared down into my tea, wondering if tea leaves really could predict one’s future. My eyes dampened. “He loves me, Doretha. I know he does.”

  She reached across the table and stroked my face. “He probably does. We’re going to get through it, Baby Doll. We always do.”

  Footsteps padded up the steps leading from the playroom where Doretha had set up bunks for the kids. Cole poked his head through the open doorway. “I can’t sleep. Can I come up?”

  My anger with him still burned but my exhaustion quelled the flames. “Sure.”

  Doretha got up and lightly touched the tea kettle to check its warmth then pulled down another mug from the cabinet. After adding a little sugar and squirt of lemon juice, she sat the cup on the table and motioned for him to sit. “I’m going to bed. You two keep each other company.”

  He looked like hell. His eyes were bloodshot and swollen, his hair a mess from tossing and turning. He mindlessly blew into his tea. He wouldn’t look at me. “I’m sorry you had to see all that.” His voice was soft, a hesitant whisper. “The magazines…Dylan’s brother works at one of those convenience stores. He gave him some that they were throwing out.”

  I didn’t say anything. I sipped my tea and let him get it off his chest.

  “I drank a couple beers. But I never got drunk.” He looked at me to gauge my reaction, as if the fact he was never inebriated would excuse him. I wasn’t letting him off that easy, so I remained stone faced.

  I finally took a deep breath and pushed a lock of hair from my eyes. “Cole…I’m not happy about any of it. But I also know you’re not four years old anymore. I know you don’t believe it now, but teenagers don’t always make good decisions. That’s what scares me the most. The faith that I had in you making good choices has kinda been blown out of the water, you know?”

  He slowly nodded. Those strong angular cheeks I used to smother with sloppy wet kisses when they were pink and chubby were now flushed with shame. “I never used the mattress either.”

  I let that one sink in a moment before responding. I took a long sip of tea. “Those bras…did the girls they belong to leave them willingly?”

  “Yeah. It’s a game they play. If they…” His lips twisted as he contemplated what to say. “If they go all the way…they get to add their bra to the tree of fame.”

  I pulled a deep breath in through my nose, not wanting him to see the disgust I was feeling. I wanted the dialogue to continue and was afraid if he thought I was judging him, he would shut down.

  “Mom, I swear…I’ve never…I’ve never even been anywhere near the mattress.”

  I propped my chin in my hand and stared at my son. “Why not?”

  “Why not what?”

  “Why haven’t you been anywhere near the mattress? I mean, if the girls are willing…”

  He drank his tea. After a moment, he said in a soft voice, “I’m scared to. I mean, I’ve kissed a girl and you know…copped a feel, maybe—”

  “Maybe? You don’t know if you did or not?” I allowed a slight smile to break the tension. He was trying so hard to be open, I didn’t want to shame him with coldness.

  His mouth parted into a huge smile. “No, I mean…yeah. I have. But I’ve never done, you know…it.”

  I reached across the table and pretended to straighten his hair. An excuse just to touch him. “When the time’s right, you won’t be scared. You’ll be nervous, but not scared. Remember that.”

  He stared into his cup, clearly searching still for words that weren’t coming easily. “I’m glad Ridge was there with you tonight. I saw the way he touched you at the camp.”

  I watched him for a long moment then got up and poured us both more tea. I didn’t know that I was ready for this conversation, especially with one of my kids. Ridge had always been a presence in our lives, but this was different.

  “It’s okay, Mom. You deserve to be happy. And I know he makes you happy. You just never would admit it.”

  Oh, this son of mine was wise beyond his years. I handed him his cup then rejoined him at the table. “I’m glad he was there tonight too. It scares me to think what would have happened if he hadn’t been.”

  “Do you still have the gun in the side table?”

  I nodded. “It’s been a while since I’ve shot it though. Probably couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn. But yes, I have it with me.”

  “Good. I mean, in your line of work…it might not be a bad idea for you to carry it all the time.”

  I laughed. “My line of work? The majority of the articles I write and publish are feel-good stories, human interest. There’s not a whole lot of danger involved in that.”

  “Well, you’ve sure pissed someone off enough for them to want to kill you.” He lifted his mug, pointed it in my direction in a mock salute.

  “Yeah…” I took a slow sip of tea. I couldn’t argue with his logic on that one. I pushed a few thoughts around in my head on how to broach the subject of Brent O’Re
illy. Cole had been upstairs packing his bag when Ridge examined the coat with Coach embroidered on it. I understood now how Ridge felt discussing Trish’s murder with me. I didn’t want Cole to know everything I now knew about Brent, but I wanted to know everything he knew.

  “How’re Brady and his dad getting along?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t think they’re talking anymore.”

  “How are they at practice? That must be awkward.” I felt underhanded, like I was interrogating my own son without his knowledge. Which, of course, was exactly what I was doing. It was really no different than demanding answers about the party camp, I reasoned.

  “They don’t speak at practice either. But that’s not that bad because on the field, Coach O’Reilly’s the coach, not the dad, you know?”

  “Is Brent a good guy?”

  Cole drank his tea and shrugged. “He’s always seemed okay to me. But Brady says he’s a real dickhead. Um…I mean—”

  I waved him off, not happy about his language but accepting my son wasn’t ten years old anymore.

  “He says Coach and his mom fight a lot.”

  “Has it ever turned physical?” I wondered if he remembered his own father punching me in the face or slamming me against a wall. I hoped not.

  “You mean like between Brady and Coach or his mom?”

  I shrugged slightly. It was a difficult topic to talk about, let alone try and understand. I didn’t want to make my question sound more foreboding than necessary.

  “I think him and his dad have gone at it a couple times. Brady’s never said anything about Coach hitting his mom. Like Dad used to hit you.”

  My tea mug stopped in midair as I was about to take another sip. I slowly sat it back down and forced myself to look into the eyes of my son. “Cole—”

  “I’m not sorry he’s dead, Mom. I know that’s probably mean to say, but he was a mean person.”

  I reached out and took his hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. My eyes watered at the knowledge he’d had; even in his little child’s mind he knew his own father wasn’t a good person. It’s hard for any kid to accept their parents aren’t perfect; it’s harder when they realize just how screwed up they really are.