Someone Knows

by Lisa Scottoline

  But he didn’t feel good. On the contrary, he felt vaguely nauseated, whether from the Scotch, from the fact that he hadn’t eaten, or from what he’d done. With Lacy, it wasn’t sex, it was a workout. She wanted everything, this position, that position, her on top, him on top. Do cowboy! I love cowboy! she had said at one point.

  I’m a lawyer, not a cowboy, Larry had thought, but didn’t say. With Allie, he would have said it. They used to laugh in bed, early on. He’d loved to make her laugh.

  Lacy was a marathoner with a lean body, muscular arms and legs, and small breasts because she had two percent body fat. After they were done, she’d jumped up, bounded into the bathroom, and turned on the water. Meanwhile Larry lay panting like a heart patient.

  A shaft of sunlight shone through the sheer curtains, and he watched dust motes bump into each other in confusion. Everything had happened so fast. He’d slept with Lacy before he’d even unpacked. He still had his wedding band on. He was still Allie’s husband. He’d set a land speed record for adultery.

  “Hi, pal.” Lacy emerged from the bathroom fully naked, strutting around. She had zero problem with him seeing her body, which was new for him. Allie was self-conscious when she was nude, and Larry felt the same way. There was a fat guy stuck in his head, and it was why he pulled up the sheet to cover his paunch. Also he was hiding his underwear, since they were plaid boxers. Single guys wore the tight black underwear that Kwame did, like bicycle shorts. Tommy Bahama? Or was it Tommy John? Larry made a mental note to get some and give himself a hernia.

  “So how are you?” Larry asked, trying to make postcoital conversation.

  “Oh, I know what you’re asking.” Lacy dropped the wet towel on the foot of the bed.

  “You do?” Larry had no idea what she meant. He was worried about the wet spot her towel would make. Allie had trained him not to do that. No wet towels on the bed. She was right. He got it. Lacy didn’t.

  “Sure. I have your number. I read you like a book.”

  But we just met, Larry thought, but didn’t say. Meanwhile she was completely shaved, a look he wasn’t ready for. To tell the truth, he wasn’t a fan. Bottom line, vaginas weren’t any prettier than dicks.

  “You guys are all alike.”

  “We are?” Arg.

  “Yes.” Lacy slipped into her thong, which reminded him of a slingshot. Surprisingly, it wasn’t lacy.

  “How are we all alike?”

  “Oh. You want an evaluation, like those emails you get after you buy something online. ‘Would you like to rate your experience?’ ”

  “That wasn’t why—”

  “Or like the evaluation sheets they hand out after your panel, with a one-to-five scale. ‘Number One, Unsatisfied. Number Two, Adequate. Number Three, Pleased. Number Four, Very Pleased. Number Five, Exceeded My Expectations.’ ”

  Larry tried to laugh it off. “I was just being nice.”

  “Nice?” Lacy put on her bra and a white silk T-shirt that skimmed her flat tummy. Larry had never had a stomach that taut in his life. Her belly button was a pierced frown.

  “Yes, nice. Asking how you are. Getting to know you.”

  “Oh, I see. So you want the section at the end of the form. ‘Please leave any comments to help improve our programs in the future.’ ”

  “No, not like that.” Larry thought the joke was getting old.

  “I’ve got to go. I’m late for my train.”

  “Okay.” Larry thought they might get dinner, but evidently not.

  “You’re not used to this, are you?”

  Larry chuckled, busted. “No, I’m totally not. I told you. I’m a divorce virgin.”

  “But you fooled around, didn’t you?”

  Larry blinked. “No.”

  “Come on. You can tell me.” Lacy smiled slyly.

  “No, I never cheated on my wife.”

  Lacy waved him off. “It’s generational.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You look like you’re judging me. I can tell by that look on your face.”

  “No,” Larry said, meaning it. He didn’t know how to make his face look less judgmental.

  “I’ve gotten this before. You’re not used to a woman having the same sexual needs as a man.”

  “You think I’m sexist? I don’t think I’m sexist.” Larry was starting not to like Lacy.

  “You were surprised that I had condoms.”

  “No, I wasn’t.” I was surprised they were red.

  “You don’t realize that women want sex the same as men.”

  “Yes, I do,” Larry shot back, but he didn’t want sex the same as Lacy. He wanted intimacy, and she wanted to catch a train.

  “Whatever, Larry, it was great. Wanna do it again?”

  “Now?” Larry saw his life pass before his eyes. He needed a gym membership and a box of Viagra, stat.

  “No, whenever. ‘Would you buy from this vendor again?’ ”

  No. “I’ll call you.”

  “Fine.” Lacy slipped into her skirt, then put on her high heels. “Do you like these?”

  “Yes,” Larry said, because that was always the right answer with women. He waited for the follow-up questions, like with Allie: Are they too slutty? Are they not slutty enough? Are you sure? Are you sure? Are you sure?

  “Gotta go.” Lacy flashed a smile and left, closing the door behind her.

  CHAPTER 65

  Allie Garvey

  Allie entered the woods. Moving a branch aside, she made her way between the trees, which had grown closer together, the limbs heavier. The temperature dropped in the shade, and she crushed dried leaves and twigs underfoot. Though that night had haunted her ever since, she’d never come back here. The trees were so overgrown, providing a leafy bower that blocked the sun, leaving her feeling like she was back twenty years ago, on the night of her first kiss, and first murder.

  Allie felt tears come to her eyes again, but she blinked them away, moving forward, almost tripping on a log underfoot, feeling something scratch her shin. The trail that used to be here had grown over, and she guessed that the track team no longer ran here, after Kyle. She kept going, making her way to the bottom of the hill, finally spotting the bent tree. She felt her heart stop with recognition. The four of them. Kyle. The gunshot.

  She breathed, then kept walking down the hill, descending into a nightmare. She reached the tree, which had aged like a person. It seemed stooped, and its branches held fewer leaves. Twenty years was a long time in the life of a tree, as it was in a woman’s. She touched the trunk with her fingertips, then looked down at the roots. She remembered where the bullets had been, since it was all coming back to her now. Since she was embracing the memories instead of pushing them away. Maybe they could help, not harm, as awful as they were.

  She walked off a few paces, then squatted and moved dried leaves, grass, and twigs, and started digging. It must’ve rained recently because the earth was soft, but she took off her pump and used it to go faster, scratching the ground with the heel. After a few minutes, she spotted an edge of the box of bullets.

  Her heart beat harder. She dug faster, exposing more and more of the box. She wrenched it from the earth. The cardboard was soft and molded in spots, but intact. It was the same yellow she remembered, and on the top it read REMINGTON. CONTAINS FIFTY BULLETS.

  Allie sat down cross-legged, tore open the box, and emptied the bullets onto the hammock made by her dress. The bullets rolled around, clacking dully into each other. Their jackets were a shiny bronze. Their rounded tips were copper. They gleamed lethally in the patch of sun, a sight both horrid and lovely against the black fabric, like a jeweler’s velvet.

  Allie collected her thoughts, trying to stay calm. Sasha and Julian claimed they hadn’t loaded the gun the night Kyle was shot, and they had used fifteen bullets at the construction site. If they were lying, there would be fewer than thirty-five bullets in the box. If they were telling the truth, there should be all thirty-five.

  “One, two, th
ree, four,” Allie said, counting out slowly so she didn’t screw up. Her hands trembled. She reached thirty bullets, surprised to see so many still left. She counted off the last ones. Thirty-one, thirty-two, thirty-three, thirty-four, thirty-five. Thirty-five bullets.

  Allie recoiled, stunned. She counted the bullets again, but reached the same number. Thirty-five. She counted them one more time, just to make sure, and came to the same total. Thirty-five.

  Allie sat back, trying to understand the implications. So the bullet that had killed Kyle had not come from this box, which meant that neither Julian nor Sasha had killed him. None of them had loaded the gun. None of them had done it. They couldn’t have gotten the bullet elsewhere. They’d been too young to buy bullets. Julian had stolen them from the job trailer, so they’d have no reason to get them elsewhere.

  Allie gasped. She felt shaken to her very bones. It was a revelation that changed everything. She’d believed that she had been protecting a murderer, for twenty years. She’d thought she’d been keeping a secret for a killer who deserved to be brought to justice. But she hadn’t. She’d been wrong, all this time. She’d tortured herself for twenty years. She’d ruined her life and lost her marriage over an incorrect assumption. She’d been completely mistaken about the defining moment in her own life. It struck her as an epiphany of the worst kind. Or was it the best?

  Her mind was so blown by the thought that Allie might have burst into laughter, if Kyle hadn’t died in this very place. It would forever be where an innocent young man had lost his life. Nothing here would ever be funny. But she realized that more than Kyle’s young life was lost that night. Barton had been right. Her life was lost here, so long ago, too. David had killed himself. Sasha had washed out of a stellar future. Julian had become a ruthless businessman. They hadn’t been punished, so they had punished themselves.

  Allie couldn’t tell herself that they’d been innocent, because they’d still played a prank and handed a loaded weapon to Kyle. They weren’t innocent, but they weren’t completely guilty, either. She realized, for the first time, that not guilty doesn’t always mean innocent. Justice isn’t always black and white. This was gray, like purgatory. Like the City of Refuge. And Allie felt finally that she could live in that grayness. Now she could live.

  Her heart lifted, just the slightest bit. She breathed easier than she had before, then she ever had since that night. She gathered the bullets, put them back in the box, and rose to take them with her, the same as her memories of what happened here. They would always be part of her, and she wouldn’t try to suppress them, or pretend they didn’t exist anymore. They belonged with her, forever. The past and present. The living and the dead.

  Allie was going home.

  CHAPTER 66

  Larry Rucci

  Larry lay still, trying to recover from sex with Lacy. The luxury hotel room was dead quiet, and the walls must have been thick. He doubted anybody had heard their lovemaking, which was a relief. Lacy had yakked up a storm, telling him to do this, do that, then when to turn her over and back again, like she was a girl steak, done on both sides.

  Larry thought of Allie. She didn’t give orders or make noise, but he knew when he had pleased her in bed. And with Allie, Larry had been the one who made noise, the guy trifecta of ahh, oooh, and yes. He liked it, all of it. Ovulation sex had made it less spontaneous, but spontaneity was overrated. He liked good, steady consistent lovemaking, like a foundation to their marriage. Their marriage bed had been a bedrock. They’d had that, until the end.

  Larry swallowed hard, trying not to remember. He hadn’t made any noise with Lacy, and he realized it was because he didn’t want to hear himself. He was hiding from himself. He had cheated on his wife, that’s what it felt like. He felt regret so deep it could have drowned him, like he could’ve gone scuba diving. He’d need oxygen tanks to get to the bottom of this guilt ocean.

  He got up suddenly, trying to shake it off. He had to snap out of it. He had to move on. He walked to the window, which overlooked Rittenhouse Square. Larry found himself looking away from the park, toward the western part of the city, to Fitler Square. It was outside his window frame, but that was where he belonged, where his home was, where his wife lived. He was homesick, lovesick, wifesick.

  He would have to get over it. Allie had lied to him about the birth control pills. She had lied every month, when he got his hopes up about whether they’d gotten pregnant. He’d imagine the little baseball mitt he’d buy if the baby was a boy, or the tricycle if it was a girl. He wasn’t sexist, no matter what Lacy said. She didn’t even know him at all. Comment section, my ass.

  Larry shook his head. He missed his wife, and he hated himself for that. He loved his wife, and he hated himself for that, too. She didn’t want a baby with him, and their marriage was over. He’d already moved on, having broken the seal on meaningless sex that would end in cardiac arrest.

  He went to take a shower.

  CHAPTER 67

  Allie Garvey

  Dad!” Allie said, entering the house, and her father met her at the door, throwing open his arms.

  “Honey, come here,” he said, his lined face soft with sympathy, and Allie felt her defenses give way, surrendering to the comfort of a father’s embrace. She was surprised that his body seemed so frail, his shoulders knobby and spine bony through his oxford shirt. He felt like an older man, which only made her cry harder. She couldn’t lose him, too. She couldn’t lose everything. She’d been such a terrible daughter.

  “Dad, I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay, honey,” her father said softly, his voice vaguely raspy, and Allie breathed in the familiar smells of faded aftershave and antimicrobial soap from the office.

  “I’m so sorry, I should come out more.”

  “No, stop, honey, don’t cry.” Her father rocked her slightly back and forth, and a memory came out of nowhere, but it wasn’t of him rocking her, it was of him rocking Jill, when Jill was so sick and hurting so much, which guaranteed the tears would keep flowing.

  “Everything is going to be okay. You and Larry, you can patch it up.”

  “No, Dad, we can’t.” Allie released him, wiping her eyes. “He wants out.”

  “Larry loves you, and you’ve been so happy.”

  “Dad, you don’t understand. Hold on, let me get a Kleenex.” Allie set down her purse and headed into the kitchen, where the two hotdogs were frying in butter, cut in half, lengthwise. Their aroma filled the air, and the kitchen looked neat and clean, if unused. The old pictures of her and Jill were still on the corkboard, but Allie tried not to look. She tugged a Kleenex from a box next to the undercounter TV, playing on low volume. She wiped her eyes and blew her nose.

  “Honey, have some water.” Her father filled a glass under the faucet, then handed it to her.

  “Thanks.” Allie accepted the glass and took a sip of lukewarm water. It didn’t dissolve the lump in her throat, which would undoubtedly remain there until the day she died.

  “Take another sip, honey.”

  Allie put the glass down. “Dad, so much is going on, I don’t know where to start.”

  “Sit down, we’ll talk.”

  “I want to stand, if that’s okay. There’s so much I need to tell you—”

  “First, listen to me. Your mother and I didn’t have the easiest time, but our marriage was a good one, before.”

  Allie felt a twinge. She didn’t have to ask what he meant by before. She knew. Before Jill died.

  “Marriage is about give-and-take, and I know things can go wrong when there’s a medical crisis. You know your mother and I had one in a big way, with Jill. But we weathered that, and you will, too.”

  Allie didn’t understand. “We’re not having a medical crisis.”

  “I happen to know you are, honey.”

  “What?”

  Her father hesitated. “Larry told me you couldn’t have a baby.”

  Allie felt her mouth drop open. “What? When did he tell you that?�
�

  “Christmas. He told me not to say anything. He said you wanted to keep it secret, but you know Larry.”

  “Oh, great.” Allie laughed at the irony. A man who couldn’t keep a secret married to a woman with nothing but secrets.

  “He said you blame yourself because of stress. You have too much stress from your job. It aggravates your colitis. You do too much for those kids, but you have to learn to do for yourself and for a child of your own.”

  Allie couldn’t believe her ears. “He told you all that? He never told me that.”

  “He was trying to help.” Her father smiled shakily. “Honey, it’s okay that I know. Stephanie at the office is doing IVF. She gives herself shots for two weeks.”

  “Dad, no—”

  “If you don’t want to do IVF, you can adopt—”

  “Dad, I’m not having a baby because I don’t deserve a baby.”

  “No, don’t say that. You deserve a baby. Remember, we had you tested. You’re not a carrier for CF. You can have a healthy baby.”

  “Dad, I don’t—” Allie fell abruptly silent, glancing at the TV. A news bulletin was on, showing a photo of Sasha from their high school yearbook. Underneath, the chyron read WOMAN FOUND DEAD OF SUSPECTED OVERDOSE IN DEVELOPER’S HOME.

  Allie gasped. “Dad, sorry, I have to go,” she said, heading for the door.

  CHAPTER 68

  Julian Browne

  Julian called Allie’s cell, on his burner phone. “Allie, I have terrible news about Sasha. I wanted to reach you before you saw it on TV.”

  “I just did!” Allie sounded shocked. “I was just about to call you! I looked up your address, and I’m on my way over. They said on TV she overdosed!”

  “Allie, you can’t come over.” Julian shuddered. The last thing he needed was that blabbermouth around the crime techs. “There’s police here. It’s no time for visitors—”

  “But what happened? She overdosed?”