“Stay the night,” he murmurs into my ear.
I have a catering job to prep for in the morning, classes tomorrow night and homework due. I should be working on a paper and reading the chapters I’ve been putting off all week.
“Okay,” I say instead, and reach for him again.
20
Caroline
On Monday I work the morning shift. When I come home, I take Champ for a long walk in Osprey’s dog park, a large open field surrounded by wooded trails. In the summer, the park is social, a gathering place where I know every golden retriever and black lab by name, and I can count on a walking companion through the hot dry grass. Even in the winter I usually bump into someone I know on a weekend afternoon. Today, the park is empty, not a dog or owner to be seen.
It’s the week of school vacation. February is a bleak and desolate month on Great Rock, but never more so than vacation week, when every family that can scrape together a little extra money flees for warmer locations or the bustle of a few days in the city. When Connor was younger, we always tried to get away. Some years we’d go to Washington, D.C. to visit my family. Another year we spent a long weekend in New York City.
My favorite trip was when Connor was ten, and we went to the Everglades. We took a boat ride through the swampy water, and the air was moist and ripe with the murky green smell of the wetlands. The mangroves bloomed into a dark and eerie canopy over our heads, and we saw alligators and river snakes sunning themselves on the rocks. Connor and I peered over the side of the boat, awed that such savage predators could lurk so quietly just a few feet away. Jack sat back in his seat knowingly.
By the time Champ and I finish our walk, the light is fading and the trees are silhouetted against a dusky purple sky. The car is freezing, my fingers like sticks of ice despite my gloves, and I’m grateful I left the heat on in the house before I left. When I pull into the driveway, Connor’s car is in my spot, and I park beside him. My first reaction is pleasure, quickly shadowed by my memory of the other day. I haven’t told anyone about what I found in the guitar case. I’ve allowed myself to push the memory aside, as if not talking about it will make the whole thing disappear.
Champ hurries ahead of me into the house and runs straight for his water bowl. I hang up my coat and scarf in the hall closet. Then I head for Connor’s room.
“Hi, honey,” I call from the landing, but he doesn’t answer. I begin to climb. “Connor?” I hear him banging around in there, but he doesn’t respond. Pushing open the door of his bedroom, I let out an involuntary gasp.
The room has been turned upside down. The drawers of the dresser gape open and empty, every item of clothing piled on the floor. The sheets on the bed have been stripped bare and the contents of his nightstand table, items I saw myself just a few days ago, are strewn across the rug. Even the bookshelves have been cleared; magazines and paperbacks spill from the mound of clothes. Poking out from the bottom of the heap is the empty guitar case. Connor lies flat on his belly, searching under the bed. He’s nearly disappeared under the wooden frame and only his legs stick out.
“What are you doing?” I breathe.
Connor ungracefully wiggles himself from the narrow space and unwinds his body till he’s standing. His face is gaunt, his skin is a sickly shade of gray, and he’s damp with perspiration. His eyes have a wild frantic look. How long has he looked like this? How long have I turned away? Because I recognize it now. He looks like a drug addict.
“Where is it? I left something here the other day and it’s gone. Where is it?” His words come fast, tripping over each other. I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. It’s the gruff way he’s spoken that catches me off guard. “Did someone come in here? Did you let someone in my room?” I shake my head. “Then someone must have broken in. What the fuck.” He rakes his fingers through his pale blond hair and pulls so hard I worry he’ll rip the strands from the roots. “What the fuck,” he says again, his voice louder and more frantic.
Maybe it’s the swearing that finally makes me speak. Jack never allowed Connor to swear, and hearing him speak to me so viciously, it’s like Jack has finally stepped into the room and pushed me forward, reminding me I’m the parent.
“It was me. I found it. It was me,” I say.
Connor’s eyes scan my face, taking in my meaning. What I see next breaks my heart even more than what I found. He looks relieved. He’s relieved that I’m the one who has the drugs and not someone else.
“Where is it?” He takes a step forward, as if I might be holding the bag in my jeans pocket. His outstretched hand trembles. “Give them to me.”
I shake my head. My mind works in slow motion, trying to pin down what I know to be true. Connor is doing drugs. Connor thinks I have them. He believes I’ll give them back to him, that I’ll let him walk out of this house and into the world with a bulging bag of pills. “I can’t.” The words catch in my throat.
“Just give them to me.” He’s standing so close I can see the pores of his skin and smell his stale breath. He grabs me by the shoulders as if he might start to shake me. “Mom, just fucking give them to me.” I shake off his grasp and take a step away. For the first time ever, my own son both repulses and scares me.
“I don’t have them. I found them the other day and I got rid of them. I don’t have them,” I repeat, this time louder.
“What did you do with them? Where are they?” He storms out of his bedroom and throws open the door to mine. When I follow him, he’s pawing through my trashcan.
“Connor,” I yell. “They’re not here. I flushed them down the toilet. All of them. They’re gone.”
I watch his face collapse, the features caving in on themselves, and then he slowly lowers himself to the foot of the bed. He buries his face in his arms, and I sink down beside him on the soft carpet. “Baby, what’s happening?” I ask. When he looks up, he is my son again, not this gray stranger inhabiting Connor’s body. His eyes are bloodshot and he wipes away tears. My sweet boy. My heart.
“You don’t know what you’ve done.” He drops his head back onto his arms. His body shudders as he’s overcome by silent sobs. I cling to his forearm, trying to get him to look at me.
“Where did you get them? Whose are they?” He just shakes his head without speaking, a low keening sound suddenly coming from the tent of his arms. “Were they that woman’s? The one they found?” A vision comes to me, horrible and sudden, of Connor’s trembling fingers around her neck. Fumbling in the pocket of her coat for the bag of pills. Leaving her alone on that cold and desolate beach. The fear has been with me since Evvy told me about the drug connection, but this is the first time I’ve let the image form. I think about the way he looked at me just a few moments ago, the wild rage in his eyes, like he wanted to hurt me. There’s a ringing in my ears, and my head aches. “Honey, did you do something? Did you hurt her?” I whisper.
My words jar him and swiftly he’s on his feet, leaving me curled up on the floor. “What the hell?” he yells, and I wince at the force of his anger. His face contorts in a mask of pain and sadness. “What is wrong with all of you? You’re all so stupid!”
“I’m sorry,” I say automatically, wanting to take the words back, knowing I never can.
I feel like he’s punched me in the stomach, but I rise to my feet anyway and try to hold him. He shrugs me off with a force that takes me by surprise, and I stumble against the bed. Connor turns and leaves, his boots crashing down the stairs. I hurry after him, calling his name, repeating apologies through the house and down the front steps, Champ fast on our heels, but Connor is already in his car and reversing hard, the wheels spinning against the gravel. And then he’s gone, leaving behind a fog of dust and exhaust in the dusky twilight. Champ whimpers softly, and I stand in the quiet evening. It’s not until the car is long gone that I realize that when I asked Connor if he’d hurt Layla, he never actually said no.
21
Evvy
I’m getting ready for work when they come to arrest Ian. I’v
e just taken three Tylenol with my coffee to combat the pain in my lower back from where I fell on the floor. Ian rose early this morning and is already at work. Before he left, he pressed me into our bed and entwined his body with mine. I closed my eyes and let him make me forget the night before. He held me and murmured into my hair, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, over and over again until the words lost their meaning.
There’s a knock at the door and when I open it, there are two police officers standing on my step and two police cars in front of my house. One of the cars blocks the other one, so I can’t see if there’s anyone in it.
“Is Ian Blake here?” the younger officer asks. He’s a doughy man, a boy really, with a freckled complexion that makes him look about twelve. I’m surprised I don’t recognize him.
“He’s at work. Why?” Instinctively I turn to the older one, a dark-haired man about my age who I recognize from around the island, though we don’t actually know each other.
Fear floods me, oily and cold in the pit of my stomach, though I can’t identify what I’m afraid of.
“We’ll find him there,” the dark-haired one answers. “You just stay here. And don’t call him.” Then they turn to leave and get back in their car, pulling out onto the road and leaving me standing there open-mouthed. I’m about to go back inside to call Ian—of course I’m going to call him—when Cyrus gets out of the other car. He’s in uniform. I’m so happy to see him I nearly run to him.
“Cy, what’s going on? Why are they looking for Ian?”
He lets me collapse in his arms for only a moment before he peels me off with gentle but firm hands.
“Let’s go inside.” He turns me around and pushes me toward the house.
“What’s happening?” I ask once we’re inside.
Cyrus’s face is serious. “They’re going to arrest him.”
“What? Why?” I find my phone on the counter and swipe at its black face. “I need to call him.”
Cyrus catches my arm and gently extracts the phone. “You can’t.”
“Cyrus, I need to.” I imagine the police marching into the ticket office to arrest Ian in front of all of his co-workers and the morning commuters. The humiliation he’ll feel. Ian is easygoing and social, but only I know how insecure he is underneath it all. How desperately he craves the acceptance of others. The shame of such a scene will destroy him. Despite last night, I want to protect him.
“Evvy, no.” Cyrus shakes his head.
I drop my hand. “But why? He didn’t do it.”
He sighs. “Ian talked to her at the bar. He left right after she did and possibly assaulted her. There’s the fact that they knew each other based on the phone records. And he was seen walking along Beach Road right around the time of the murder.”
“He walked home. That’s the fastest route,” I snap.
“I know. But they also found boot prints by the body.” His eyes lock on mine. “Same size as Ian’s.”
I’m quiet for a moment, absorbing this new information. “That doesn’t mean anything. He’s a ten and a half. How many men on this island are the same size? You’re a ten and a half,” I point out. Cyrus doesn’t answer. “Those prints could belong to anyone.”
“Goddammit, Evvy, there are phone records between him and the victim. Don’t be blind.”
The screen door slams and then Daisy is with us. I inspect her closely. Her hair is tangled and her cheeks are pink. “Where have you been?” My words come out more harshly than I intend.
“Hi, Dad.” Daisy ignores my question.
“Hi, honey.” Cyrus kisses her on the head.
“What are you doing here?” she asks.
“Ian’s been arrested,” I say so he doesn’t have to.
“What? Why?” Daisy asks.
I can’t read what’s behind her eyes. Ian and Daisy have always gotten along, although he’s never been a father figure to her. He moved in too soon after Cyrus and I split up, into the house that Cyrus had lived in so recently. Suddenly, there he was in Cyrus’s place at the dinner table, on the sofa, in my bed. Ian never knew Daisy as a child; he didn’t get to see her as a chubby toddler full of devilment or a cheerful seven-year-old bouncing into the house after school, eager for a snack. Ian didn’t get to know Daisy till she was fifteen, a surly teenager still reeling from our recent divorce and Serena’s death that infiltrated everything.
I don’t want to tell her, but I’d rather she heard it from me than Cyrus. “For killing that woman. It’s a mistake. He didn’t do it,” I add quickly.
“Are you okay, Mom?” My eyes fill with tears. It’s the tenderness in her words that threatens to undo me. These days she communicates in shoulder shrugs and one-word answers, still a teenager in her relationship with me, despite being almost twenty-one. The gentleness in her voice is a reminder of when she loved me unconditionally.
I purse my lips and nod, avoiding both their eyes. “So, what now?” I ask Cyrus.
“Now you get a lawyer. Do you have one yet?” I shake my head. “Call Mark Keene. I’ll send you his contact info right now.” Cyrus pulls out his phone, and a moment later I hear the ping of a new message on my phone, which Cyrus is still holding. “Call him. He’s good.”
“What happens to Ian?”
“They’ll bring him down to the station to be booked. He should be arraigned in the next twenty-four hours, which means he’ll go to court with his lawyer and the charges will be read.”
“What about bail? Can he come home?”
“I don’t know. In cases of murder, sometimes there’s no bail set.”
I imagine Ian going to prison. Not just the prison on the island, which is a beautiful old colonial that’s been fitted with bars and locks, but real jail. Visiting him in a big room with other couples, a plastic table between us, guards looking on. Taking the ferry every weekend and then driving hours for just a few minutes together. Do I love him enough? It frightens me that I’m not sure, and then I’m ashamed that already I’m thinking about myself instead of Ian.
“I’ll call Mark right now,” I tell Cyrus.
“Use mine,” he says and holds his phone out, Mark’s contact info already loaded. “Tell Mark I gave you his number,” he adds.
Cyrus’s name opens doors. Just like Jack’s. The two most popular boys in their class grew up to be the most popular men on the island. They both have a way of making the people around them feel safe. Cyrus’s love is like a warm room in winter, a haven that keeps the outside world at bay. And sometimes I think it’s the feeling of that warmth that I miss as much as I miss him. I think of Ian, so different from Cyrus—louder and funnier, more demonstrative in his affection for me, but weaker in other ways. His worry that I’ll leave him, his neediness for me that feels like love but maybe is something darker and more complicated. I take the phone and make the call, wondering if the right lawyer is just a small fix for something that may already be broken.
22
Daisy
It’s Connor that I turn to. Of course it is. We haven’t talked since yesterday at his apartment—no texts, no calls, nothing. We crossed some unbreachable line, and I’m not sure what’s on the other side, yet I can’t imagine going to anyone else right now.
My mother still has a dinner to cater tonight, and apparently a party can’t be cancelled just because your boyfriend’s in jail. I decide to skip my classes for the afternoon and I promise her that I’ll head to Petunia’s to get things started. I stop at Moby Dick’s on my way.
The restaurant smells of brick ovens and roasting meat, comforting winter smells on a bleak afternoon. It’s a Tuesday though, vacation week, and only a few of the tables are filled. I don’t know why they bother serving lunch in the winter anyway. The place is too upscale for locals to come midweek. It’s amazing they’ve stayed in business for so many years, one of the few restaurants to stay open year-round. The bartender is watching the news on one of the big-screen TVs and there’s only one server on duty. Bella Lincoln is at the hostess stand
, ready to greet me, her iPhone perched beside the menu. Bella graduated the same year as me, a bland but harmless girl who wears too much eye makeup and constantly chews gum. She smiles when she sees me.
“Hi, Daisy. You here for lunch?” Her eyelids glitter a sparkly purple and a wad of pink gum flashes behind her teeth.
I shake my head. “I’m looking for Connor.”
“He’s in the back.” She tilts her head toward the door that leads to the kitchen then turns back to the tiny screen of her phone, scrolling through pictures of people we both know.
Connor’s in the kitchen with Scott Lambert, the head chef, both of them hunched over their cell phones.
“Daze, what are you doing here?” He’s in his chef clothes: striped pants and a long-sleeved tee shirt, a bandana tied around his head. I know that if I got close to him, his skin would smell of cooking oil and garlic, a pungent and unpleasant scent, yet I still want to crawl into his arms.
“Ian was arrested. For that girl’s murder.”
Connor’s face twists in confusion.
Scott’s head snaps up from his phone. I know he’s dying to hear the rest of the conversation, but instead he tells Connor he can take a break. He’ll get the details from Connor later.
I follow Connor out the back door, away from the warmth of the kitchen and into the cold bright afternoon. We end up in the alley between Moby Dick’s and the souvenir shop next door where the trash collectors load the dumpsters.
“What happened?” Connor asks.
“They came by and told my mom they were going to arrest him. My dad says he probably won’t get bail,” I say. The whole thing is still so incredible to me. It’s unbelievable that anyone could think Ian had something to do with this. Ian is a grounding force in our household, filling it with his loud laugh and the smells of his cooking. The house has an aura of calm when he’s around, and my mother absorbs it like a sponge.
Everybody Lies Page 15
