The liars child, p.18
The Liar's Child, page 18
Sara looked at the boy, half asleep on the edge of the bed. She’d never given anyone a bath. How did this work? Was it wrong for a stranger to bathe a young boy? Would their father be okay with it? “Come on, Boon. A bath sounds like fun.” Had that been the wrong thing to say? Did it smack of creep?
But Boon followed her docilely into the bathroom. The small space looked like the hurricane had been through there instead of outside. Wet towels puddled on the floor; a container of shampoo dribbled in the tub. The hair dryer sat on the side of the sink, trailing a coiled black cord. Wadded tissues overflowed the trash can. Sara cleared out the tub, retrieved the towels, and shook them out before hanging them back on the rack. She kneeled to turn on the water. Boon perched on the toilet seat and watched her. She shut off the water, dipped in a finger. “This feels good to me. What do you think?”
He leaned forward to test it solemnly with the tip of his finger. “Too hot.”
She ran cold water into the tub. “Try again.”
“Too cold.” He shivered dramatically.
“This isn’t like Goldilocks, you know.” She ran some more hot water in and swirled it all around. “It’s fine now. Can you get into the tub by yourself?”
“Uh-huh.”
“And your dad lets you?”
“Uh-huh.”
“All right. This is what we’re going to do. I’ll leave, and you get undressed. I’ll wait right outside. Call me if you need any help.”
“ ’Kay.”
He watched her go without moving. She closed the door behind her and heard the firm click of the door lock. Too late, she thought about what he’d put on when he climbed out of the tub. “Do you need your pajamas?” she called. He didn’t answer. “Boon?”
“He’s not supposed to be in there by himself.” Cassie was still studying herself in the mirror, inches from the glass, her chin tilted, eyes narrowed, judgmentally.
“He’s not?”
“He splashes water on the floor.”
Sara shrugged.
“He splashes a lot of water on the floor.”
Sara rapped on the door. “Boon, open up.”
“I’m ’kay” came the cheerful call.
“Your sister says you’re not supposed to be in there alone.”
“Yes, I am.”
Did all kids lie? “Boon.”
“I’m taking a bath.”
Sara glanced at the clock. Eight P.M. “Try your dad again,” she told Cassie.
“I told you. He’s not answering.” The girl draped herself across the bed and changed the channel to a reality TV show featuring a bunch of chefs running around banging pots onto stovetops. She didn’t seem the least bit worried about her father. She was surely old enough to understand the gravity of the situation, but there had been no tears, not a single anxious question. Well, that was what happened when a mother took off. Sara’s own mom had left thirteen-month-old Sara on a church pew and walked away forever. Sara had never missed what she hadn’t known. She’d had her father, and he had been enough. He had always been there for her, except at the very end, when he couldn’t. Still, Sara had understood early that in order to survive, the only person you could ever truly count on was yourself. “The cell towers are probably down.”
Cassie shrugged.
“You have no idea where your dad went?” Cassie’s phone hadn’t rung. Had their father tried, only to find himself without service? Had he even made it home to find his children vanished? It was possible he was trapped by the storm. Or worse, hurt.
“No. I told you.” Cassie raised the remote. Now Sara found herself watching two naked people with blurred body parts tromping through a jungle. Their faces were smeared with mud, their skin bumpy with bug bites.
What kind of father left two kids alone in a hurricane? Well, Sara’s own dad had left her alone plenty of times. And she’d been far younger than Cassie.
The bathroom door slammed open. Boon stood there pink-cheeked and very wet, towel bunched around his waist. He stood contentedly as Sara dried him, bashing the empty bottles of shampoo and conditioner at one another, a soggy Wolf tucked under his arm. Apparently, the toy had gotten a good soak, too. Sara dug in his backpack for his pajamas, and he pulled them on before climbing happily into the bed beside his sister. Cassie complained loudly that he’d better get his stinky feet away from her or else. Groaning, she rolled onto her side and dragged a pillow over her head.
“What are we doing tomorrow?” Boon sat cross-legged with Wolf in his arms, watching Sara as she looked around for her bag.
She found it on the chair by the desk. It was damp from rain, but water hadn’t reached inside. Her laptop was okay, and so were her clothes. “Well, hopefully we’ll reach your father.”
“Then what?”
“Then he’ll come get you.” Sara retrieved the remote from the floor where Cassie had dropped it and switched off the TV.
“What if he doesn’t?”
“He will.”
“What if he doesn’t?”
“Then I’ll take you to the authorities.” She’d have to figure out a way to manage that. Not here. Not in this little town where Joyce at the Step On Inn would helpfully tell the local cops all about the desperate mother hiding from her husband. She’d have to bundle them into the car, drive a couple towns away. She’d leave them a block from the station and get on the highway as quickly as possible. She’d have some time while the police questioned the kids and tried to figure out how they’d gotten there. Fifteen minutes, maybe thirty? The cops’ first reaction, as Sara knew from her own childhood, was to assume a kid had things wrong. Not your mom, they’d repeat. How did you get here? they’d ask. The kids knew only Sara’s first name. Chances were good they wouldn’t be able to describe her car. They certainly wouldn’t have memorized her plate number.
“What’s the…’thorities?”
“The police.”
“But I don’t want to go!”
“Why not?” Didn’t they teach kids that cops were their friends? They certainly had when Sara was in school, though it had been a lesson her father had quickly revised. You ever get in trouble, he told her, you come to me. Never the cops. If he were still alive, he’d be furious with her. He wouldn’t listen to her explanations that she’d had no choice but to work with the Feds. He’d jeer at her plans to outwit them.
Boon shrugged. He wouldn’t meet her eyes. He scratched his arm. The rash looked angry. Should she put something on it?
“No one’s going to arrest you. You’re not in trouble.”
“I know.” He scratched more furiously.
“Well, it’s the only way you’re getting back to your dad. And will you stop scratching, for God’s sake. You’re making yourself bleed.”
He let his hand fall to his lap. “Can’t we stay with you?”
“Absolutely not. This isn’t a vacation, you know.”
Boon considered that, started to scratch, then lay down and put his small, rounded back to her.
Sara turned off the light. The room settled to the cough and wheeze of the air-conditioning unit.
She went into the bathroom and closed the door. The tiles were puddled with water, the sink inexplicably stoppered and brimming. She dragged a towel across the floor to clean up the worst of it, and drained the sink. As the water gurgled down the pipes, she pulled on a nightgown, brushed her teeth. She flipped off the light and came back into the room. She heard a stealthy sound behind her and turned to see Boon crawling on his hands and knees into the closet. What on earth was he doing? Sleepwalking? The door closed slowly behind him.
“Leave him alone.” Cassie’s voice was muffled.
Sara walked over and opened the closet door. Boon lay curled inside, his knees drawn to his chest, Wolf beneath his chin. His eyes were open, gleaming in the darkness. “Hey, what are you doing in here?” she asked softly.
“Nothing.”
“Come out and go to bed.”
“I’m okay,” he insisted and gripped Wolf closer.
Was it all right to let him sleep there? Should she try to force him back into bed? Cassie had hoisted herself up onto an elbow, watching her. “I’m not moving him,” Sara told her, hearing the edge in her voice. Cassie flopped down, glaring. Ignoring her, Sara removed the blanket from her bed and the extra pillow, and tucked Boon into the folds, settled the pillow beneath his head. “That good?”
“Uh-huh.” He closed his eyes. He did seem perfectly content. How did parents deal with the upheaval? Why the hell would anyone want to?
She climbed into bed and pulled the thin sheet up to her chin. She couldn’t remember ever being so tired. Was it still Friday? It felt like years since she’d driven away from the Paradise, but it had been only hours before. She’d lucked out finding this place. She’d be safe tonight. Fifty-six hours to go before the bank opened Monday morning.
She sighed, searched through the darkness for sleep. Seemed like she’d been running her entire life.
CHAPTER 29
Whit
RAIN SHEETED DOWN. The loud rumble of an engine. Whit halted on the porch. He looked up toward the road. Headlights bounced between the fogged trees. From this distance, he couldn’t make out what sort of vehicle it was, but it was headed toward them with purpose. His mother came out to stand beside him, dragging her coat around her shoulders. Together they watched the headlights coalesce into high-mounted bulbs. Then a huge vehicle appeared, rearing up out of the downpour and turning in to the driveway. Tires tall as a man, box-shaped cab perched on top. It lumbered off the pavement and sank into the soft earth of the side yard, shifting side to side, crackling branches and churning up mud. As the backhoe rocked past, Whit caught a glimpse of the driver: his father, sitting high and working the gears, his cast stretched out before him, his face obscured beneath the brim of his cap. Whit watched in disbelief as the backhoe disappeared around the side of the house into the thin trees beyond.
His mother patted Whit’s arm. “I better put on another pot of coffee.”
By the time Whit joined his father, maples and poplars lay strewn like matchsticks on the sodden ground. His father labored between them, struggling to heave up the tires Whit had rolled down the hill to anchor the plastic sheeting, now whipping freely. The wind drove the rain through the branches to strike his head and shoulders. He tightened the cord around his hood and knotted it.
His father put the backhoe in neutral, leaned back on one hip. He had his leg propped to the side, his bare toes peeping out above the mud-spattered plaster. “What the hell are you doing here?”
Whit could ask him the same thing. “Both bridges are closed. I couldn’t get across.”
“So you left your kids.” His father snorted. “Came running home to Mommy.”
Growing up, Whit had admired his father as much as he’d feared him. No one pushed the man around, not a demanding boss, not some smart aleck in a bar. With all his heart, Whit wanted to be the same, tried to be strong the way he thought his father was. When Cassie was born, he suddenly understood that what he’d once considered strength was obstinacy, what he’d seen as power was in fact cowardice. Now he told himself not to rise to the bait. “I thought you were resting.”
“Sure. Let this mess take care of itself. Like you always do. The sheeting was already coming loose.”
It was a fairly new machine, in pretty good condition. Not a rental. Then Whit got it. “You took that from the site?”
“They won’t miss it.”
A roll of plastic sheeting stood propped against the split pine. A cement cover and riser lay off to the side, atop a mashed bed of dead leaves. Probably stole that, too. Another scattering of raindrops. Branches thrashed. The storm was getting closer. “You shouldn’t be doing this. You’re getting that cast wet.” His mom didn’t need the worry.
“Who else is going to do it?”
“I will.” Whit could at least remove the tires.
His father’s mouth curved in a sneer. “You don’t know the first damn thing about driving one of these things.”
It didn’t look that complicated. A lever to operate the bucket, a steering wheel. “I could give it a try.”
“Yeah, sure. And we’d be here all night.”
A screen door clapped. Whit glanced through the trees to the house next door, didn’t see anyone. “Someone’s watching.”
“Let ’em.”
“You’re a stubborn bastard.”
“You’re one to talk. You’ve been bad luck since the day you were born.”
“Yeah, you were doing so well before I was born.” He’d been barely making ends meet, his temper keeping him from holding down a steady job. Whit was the reason his mother went back to school for her nursing degree.
“You always figured you were better than me.” His father slammed the backhoe into gear. The huge wheels sank in the mud.
“Hold on.” Whit grabbed the roll of plastic, flung out a few yards, spread it down behind the tires. “Try it now.”
His father spun the steering wheel. The machine groaned, heaved itself backward, spattering mud. A branch crashed to the ground. “Get that crap out of the way, unless you’re scared of getting dirty.”
“Fuck you, old man.” Whit yanked the branch in a deluge of dripping leaves.
His father grunted. “When we’re done with this, I never want to see you again.”
“Fine by me.”
That night, Whit had paced his apartment, then snatched up the phone and called his parents. His mother had listened without interrupting as Whit told her Diane was dead. It was an accident, he said brokenly, needing her to understand. A horrible, unbelievable accident. Come here, his mother said. Your father and I will help you.
The bucket swung through the trees. Whit leaped back. His father sniggered, lowered the swaying bucket to the churned ground, everything in him channeled down into that deep, dark, stinking hole where Whit and his father had worked sixty-five days before to push Diane’s body, her long blond hair going last, a fishtail of beauty slithering over the riser’s edge and sinking into the filthy septic tank below.
* * *
—
His parents had gone to bed. The house was dark and cold. Rain rapped on the roof. Trees shivered in the wind. Unable to sleep, Whit was on his way to the kitchen when flashing lights filled the hallway. He moved to the window and saw the source: police cruisers, two of them, parked outside, light bars spinning. A uniformed officer was already thumping up the porch steps. Whit’s first thought was that they’d found his kids.
He flung the door open. The officer standing there held up a brass badge. “Whitfield Nelson?” His face was grim.
In that moment, seeing how the officer stood with his hand near his gun, how the other officers behind him peered over Whit’s shoulder into the darkness of the house beyond, Whit understood instantly the police weren’t there about his kids. They were there for him.
Three looped lollipops from the bank—purple, red, and green—in shiny wrappers pressed flat. Only one is cracked in pieces.
CHAPTER 30
Cassie
CASSIE DIDN’T KNOW how she’d ended up in a crappy motel room with the Bitch lying in the bed beside hers. Well, of course she knew. She’d been there when the Bitch banged on the apartment door that morning; she’d been the one to shine that idiotic flashlight their dad had bought across the room as Sara stood in the doorway, rain blowing in and puddling. The legs of her jeans were soaking wet, her red hair plastered against her cheeks, her mean eyes. You can’t stay here alone, she’d said, and in the space of those few words, Cassie had heard so much more.
She’d gone down those rain-slicked stairs on her own two feet behind Sara, clutching fast to the railing so the wind didn’t scoop her up and carry her away. She’d curled herself in that stupid, cramped backseat and stared out the window at everything flying around them in the storm, listening to the Bitch curse under her breath and Boon sing stupid made-up songs and hold conversations with Wolf, a pathetic monologue with responses only her dumb little brother could hear. He missed his booster seat, he’d whispered to Cassie, and she’d told him to shut up. So he’d ridden around beside her, sitting so low the seatbelt cut across his chin. She’d smacked his hand away each time he’d reached for her. At least he hadn’t begged Sara to roll down the windows a few inches. At least there was that.
She’d climbed in and out of that piece of crap car into the pouring rain, so the Bitch could pick out a motel, each one crappier than the one before. Cassie had showered in that revolting tub, careful not to touch any surface she didn’t have to, dried herself on those scratchy towels that reeked of fabric softener. Now her entire body reeked. So she did know exactly how she’d ended up here. What she couldn’t explain was why.
Rain tapped against the motel window. The air conditioner rattled and hummed, frigid air whooshing into the room in stale bursts. She burrowed deeper, shivering. She grew warmer, then suddenly hot. As soon as she kicked off the covers, her skin prickled with goosebumps, and she had to yank the stupid sheets back up again.
Lexi had texted that morning. Party! Which meant Lexi’s stepdad was hosting. Lexi’s stepdad was kind of creepy, the way he laughed at everything everyone said, but he never charged for the beer. Not like Mikey P’s sister, who made everyone pay before she went into the liquor store. When Lexi’s text arrived, Cassie had gone to the window. Things were really blowing around out there. The rain was really coming down, too, striking the Paradise, and flooding the alley far below. Did she really want to walk in that? But she hated the way she’d left things the day before, her dad yelling at everyone, telling Cassie to cover up for Christ’s sake. She glanced to Boon, on the couch and sucking his revolting thumb. He’d be fine, she’d decided, but the minute she went to the front door, he was there, pulling at her and wanting to know where she was going. She tried to shake him off, but he snatched at her sleeve, her shirt. You can’t leave, he sobbed. Don’t leave.
