The Perfect Son

by Freida McFadden

  “Erika!” Sure enough, my mother is fiddling with our coffee machine. She’s the one who bought it for us, along with a year’s supply of coffee pods. Her gray hair is gathered into a bun, and she has her tortoiseshell glasses perched on her nose. “I’ve been waiting for you for half an hour! Is everything okay?”

  I don’t even know how to begin to answer that question. My mother and I are close—she’s the first person I told when Jason popped the question—but I never shared my fears about Liam with her. What can I say? He was her first grandchild—her only grandson. I couldn’t bring myself to tell her he was anything less than the perfect little angel she believed him to be. Liam is always oozing with charm around my mother. She can’t see through him the way I do.

  “Everything is fine,” I choke out.

  Mom picks up her cup of coffee. She has selected one of the mugs with four-year-old Liam’s face on it. He looks so cute in that picture—freckles across his nose and missing one of his front teeth. But all I can think about is how that was the year I first started to realize what he was really like.

  “I heard about that girl who disappeared,” she says. “How terrifying. I’m surprised you let Hannah out of the house.”

  I clear my throat. “I’m sure she’ll turn up.”

  “That’s the worst thing about having daughters,” she says. “You’re always worried about stuff like that. With Liam, you don’t need to worry.”

  I think about the map that popped up in my car. The gap of time when he was gone last night. It’s got to be a coincidence.

  Please, God, let this girl have run away. Or anything that doesn’t involve my son…

  I plop down on the sofa, too upset to attempt to do anything else. My mother joins me with her coffee cup. The sofa shifts as she sits beside me.

  “Listen, Erika,” she says quietly. “I have to tell you, this isn’t a social call. There’s something I need to tell you. And… it’s… it’s not going to be easy.”

  I sit up straight. What does she want to tell me? Does my mother have cancer? Is that how the rest of this horrible day is going to unfold? I feel like I’m going to throw up. “What’s wrong?”

  She lowers her eyes. “You’re going to hate me.”

  I look at my mother’s face. Even though the wrinkles are new from when I was a child, she still looks the same to me somehow. She’s the same brave woman who raised me all by herself after my father was hit by a car and killed. She didn’t date all through my childhood, because she said she wanted to focus on me. It’s only in the last ten years that she started to have occasional flings and travel. I can’t imagine what sort of thing she could possibly say that would make me hate her.

  “What’s wrong, Mom?”

  “I haven’t…” She heaves a sigh and looks out the window. “I haven’t been entirely honest with you, Erika. There are things you don’t know. Things I have to tell you now, before you find out on your own.”

  She’s really beginning to scare me. “Well, what is it?”

  “It’s… it’s about your father.”

  “My father?” I conjure up the image of a handsome man with dark hair and dark eyes in the one photograph I keep in my bedside drawer. My memories of him are patchy at best. I remember the scratchiness of his face and the smell of cigarette smoke that used to cling to him. He died when I was not quite four years old, so he never lived to see me grow up. He never lived to see the grandson who looks more like him every single day. “What about my father?”

  “The truth is…” My mother’s hand trembles slightly on the handle of the coffee mug. She puts it down on the coffee table, ignoring the coaster a mere inches away from where she put the cup. On any other day, this would make me crazy. But today, I couldn’t care less. “The truth is that your father isn’t… He’s actually…”

  “What?”

  “He’s alive.”

  “What?”

  Two minutes earlier, I had been thinking there was nothing that could ever make me hate my mother. But now I’m beginning to think maybe there is. My father is alive? How could that be? And how could she make me think he was dead for all those years? Daddy was in a car accident. I had accepted her word blindly for over forty years.

  “I’m so sorry, honey,” she breathes. “I wanted to tell you earlier, but there’s no easy way to say something like that.”

  “How about not lying in the first place?” I grit my teeth. “Why would you tell me he was dead? What happened? Did he run off with another woman?”

  I suppose that could make a crazy sort of sense. Maybe my father ran off with some tramp and, in her anger, Mom pretended he was dead instead of a deadbeat. I still don’t know if I could forgive her for lying about it for forty years, but maybe I could try.

  “No,” she says. “He didn’t.”

  I fold my arms across my chest. Am I going to have to pull the story out of her? “Then what happened, exactly? Where has he been for the last forty-two years?”

  Mom looks down at her wrinkled hands in her lap. “He’s been in prison. For first-degree murder.”

  Chapter 25

  Erika

  Everything my mother says is another punch in the gut.

  My father is alive.

  Punch.

  My father has been in prison for over forty years.

  Punch.

  My father is a murderer.

  Punch. Punch.

  I don’t even know what to say. I stare ahead at the wall, my heart jumping around in my chest. This has been the most stressful morning of my entire life. At this point, my day is going to end with me in the hospital with a stroke.

  “You can see why I didn’t want to tell you,” Mom says, her words coming out quickly. “I thought it would be traumatic for you. And if it got out, the other kids might tease you.”

  “What…?” I start my sentence, but my voice sounds strangled. Ugh, poor choice of words. “What did he do?”

  “Well, he killed someone.”

  “Yes, I gathered that. Who did he kill?” And why?

  The wrinkles on my mother’s face deepen. I can tell she doesn’t want to tell the story, but that’s too bad. She’s kept this secret from me long enough. I deserve to know. “It was a woman,” she says. “A woman he was having an affair with.”

  “Why did he kill her?”

  “He claimed it was an accident. He didn’t mean to kill her—that’s what he said.” She shakes her head. “But his story didn’t make sense. And obviously, the jury didn’t believe it. They thought he planned the whole thing.”

  Maybe he just wanted to see her suffer. Maybe he just wanted to see her scream.

  “Do you think he planned it?” I manage.

  Mom is quiet for a moment. “Yes, I believe he did. She was threatening to expose the affair, so he killed her.”

  “How…” I close my eyes for a moment, imagining my father throwing this mystery woman into a dark hole so she couldn’t escape. “How did he do it?”

  “He poisoned her.”

  I feel that tightness in my chest, the same as I did last night when I discovered Liam was gone. I’m on the verge of another panic attack—my second in two days. I take a deep breath, trying to calm myself down.

  “Why are you telling me this now?” I say. “After all these years, why tell me now?” And why today?

  “Because…” She bites down hard on her lower lip. “I just found out. Your father got parole. He’s out of prison.”

  “He’s…”

  “And I thought he might come looking for you,” she says. “So… I wanted you to be prepared for that. If you want to see him. Or not.”

  “Right.”

  Today of all days, this is too much for me to take in. My father is alive and he’s a murderer. He poisoned a woman. And oh yeah, he’s out of jail and might come looking for me.

  “I think…” I take a deep breath. “I think I need to be alone right now.”

  “Of course.” My mother’s eyebrows k
nit together. “Do you hate me?”

  “No. I don’t hate you.”

  You just have the worst timing in the world.

  Mom leans forward and throws her arms around my shoulders. There was a time in my life when a hug from my mother made everything right. But that time has long since passed.

  I walk her to the door and stand by the window to make sure she drives away. But even after she’s gone, I don’t budge from the window. I stare out into my neighborhood, thinking about everything that happened today. A girl has disappeared and it’s possible that Liam is somehow responsible. My father is alive and has been in prison for murder.

  There’s nothing I can do about the former, but there’s something I can do about the latter. For all these years, I thought about what it might be like if my father had lived. I thought about the conversations we would have had, him standing proudly at my graduation, shaking his head when he didn’t approve of one of my boyfriends, going fishing together out on the lake. And all along, he’s been alive—albeit in no position to take me fishing.

  And he might look for me.

  Of course, I don’t have to wait for him to look for me. I could look for him. I bet Frank could track him down in five minutes flat. After all these years, I could lay eyes on my father. The man I believed to be long dead.

  Then my eyes settle on my Toyota 4Runner in the driveway. The car Liam took last night out to Olivia Mercer’s house. And then lied about it.

  My father is going to have to wait. I have much worse problems.

  Chapter 26

  Olivia

  I wake up and everything is black.

  Where am I? What’s going on?

  I clutch my face, pushing away a throbbing sensation in my forehead, right between my eyes. How did I get here? The last thing I remember is…

  Hop in the car. Just for a few minutes.

  No. No, he didn’t. He wouldn’t.

  Oh my God. I think I’m going to be sick.

  I retch but my stomach is empty and nothing comes out. I swallow, doubled over on the ground. I blink a few times, trying to adjust to the blackness, hoping the world will jump into some sort of focus, but it doesn’t happen.

  I can’t even see my hand in front of my face. I can’t see where I am or one foot in front of me.

  Why can’t I see?

  Oh my God, have I gone blind?

  But no. When I look up, there’s a tiny slice of light in the distance. There is nothing wrong with my eyes. There is simply no light wherever I am.

  My head is swimming, which makes it that much harder to get my bearings. The ground is moist and grainy. Dirt? It’s so hard to tell. I sit up and reach out into the distance, feeling for something—anything. My fingers finally touch something solid. It’s the same consistency as the ground. Also dirt.

  I think I’m in a hole.

  Oh God. Oh God. I’m in a hole. I’m in a hole in the ground.

  My fingers start to tingle as my panic mounts. I’m not claustrophobic, but it feels like… like I’ve been buried alive. One minute I was kissing Liam, one of the best moments of my life, and now I wake up here.

  Why?

  I’ve got to get out of here. There must be a way out. There’s got to be.

  There is that slice of light above me—a way out. If I could reach it, maybe I could climb out. I get to my feet, but that’s when I become aware of another sensation. Pain. Agonizing, brutal pain in my left ankle. So severe that I immediately collapse back down into the dirt.

  What is wrong with me?

  I pull up the leg of my jeans to feel my left ankle. It’s swollen. Really swollen. And warm. And even touching it gently sets off a wave of unbearable pain. My guess is that when I was thrown into this hole, the fall broke my ankle. Or at least, hurt it really badly.

  So I can’t put weight on my ankle. But I can still try to stand. This time I put my weight against the dirt wall, which collapses slightly under the pressure. It still hurts like hell, but I manage to get to my feet. Or at least, my foot. I stretch out my arm, feeling for something above that I can grab onto.

  My fingers fall short.

  I can’t reach it.

  Oh my God, I’m trapped here.

  When he put me down here, he knew what he was doing. He knew it would be hard to escape. My only chance is if somebody comes to rescue me.

  “Help!” I scream at the top of my lungs. “Help! Help me! I’m trapped!”

  Nothing.

  I scream until my voice is hoarse and my throat is raw. But I hear nothing. No footsteps. No sound. God knows where I am. Out in the wilderness? Below his soundproof basement?

  But it’s clear nobody is coming for me anytime soon. Not here.

  I collapse against the dirt wall. My throat is parched. I don’t remember when I last had anything to drink or eat. A day? If he’s planning on trapping me here, will he at least give me something to drink? He will, won’t he? Otherwise, I’ll die, and I’ll be no good to him for whatever he wants.

  I hope he brings me food. What will I do if he doesn’t?

  He hasn’t raped me. Even though there’s a gap in my memory, somehow I feel certain of this. If he had, I would know it. Right? I’m still a virgin, so I’m sure I’d feel sore if he had done that to me. That’s what Madison said, anyway. My jeans are still buttoned and zipped, and nothing is ripped or torn. I’m intact, except for my damn ankle.

  God, why didn’t I listen to Madison when she warned me about Liam?

  Maybe he left me some water. Maybe there’s a whole thermos of it somewhere. I need to feel around this space and get my bearings. If there’s any chance of trying to escape from here, I’ve got to figure out what I’m dealing with. After all, women escape from being kidnapped all the time. I’ve read articles about it. They use their moxie or intelligence or whatever, and they find a way out.

  Or else they don’t. And years later, their body is discovered half-buried in the woods by some hikers.

  Oh my God, I’m going to be sick again.

  I double over, retching on the dirt ground. Once again, nothing comes up. I retch hard enough that tears fill my eyes. And then before I know it, the tears are streaming down my cheeks.

  I’m trapped here. He trapped me.

  I want to go home. I want my mom.

  Please…

  Chapter 27

  Erika

  Dinner is a very subdued affair.

  Jason managed to make it home early tonight, which is something he doesn’t get to do very often. Usually when he gets home early, I make a big deal of it and cook something special, but not tonight. Tonight, we’re eating Kraft macaroni and cheese. And anybody who says a damn word about it will have their plate yanked away from them and hurled into the garbage.

  Not that anyone will care. Both Hannah and Liam have barely eaten anything. Both of them are just pushing the little pieces of macaroni around their plates. Liam has barely said a word since he got home hours ago.

  “I’m sorry about dinner,” I feel compelled to say.

  “What are you talking about?” Jason says. “I love macaroni and cheese. It tastes really Gouda.”

  Hannah comes alive long enough to groan. She can’t resist complaining about Jason’s puns. “It’s not Gouda, dad. It’s that powder stuff that comes out of a package.”

  “Yes, I realize that, Hannah. Geez, I’m just trying to lighten the mood.”

  “Well, it’s not helping,” she says.

  Jason gives me a look, then he reaches out and grabs her wrist. “Hey. No phones at the dinner table. You know that.”

  Wow, Hannah is sneakier than I thought. I didn’t even realize she had her phone under the table. She obligingly places it in Jason’s outstretched hand. She leans back in her chair, pouting. “I just wanted to see if they found Olivia.”

  My heart leaps. “Did they?”

  Hannah shakes her head. “I don’t think so.”

  I look over at Liam, who is staring down at his dinner plate.
I haven’t asked him about what I found in the GPS yet. I’m afraid to. Because it’s hard to think of any explanation that won’t make him look really bad. All I know is that he lied to my face this morning and I couldn’t even tell.

  “She was in your year, right, Liam?” Jason asks.

  “I guess. I didn’t really know her.”

  Then why were you going to her house last night? At two in the morning?

  The doorbell rings, which is a relief, because I wasn’t doing much better at eating my macaroni and cheese than the kids were. That relief lasts only until I look through the peephole and see the two uniformed police officers standing at our door.

  Oh God. I think I’m going to have another panic attack.

  I take two deep breaths before I unlock the door. I plaster a smile on my face that I feel looks very genuine. Maybe Liam is rubbing off on me.

  There are two police officers standing in our doorway. One is a man, who is in his late thirties with ruddy cheeks and a gut that’s straining against his uniform. The other officer is a thin woman. She looks of Hispanic descent, with sharp black eyes, high cheekbones, and hair pulled back into a severe bun.

  “Hello there,” the male officer says in a thick Long Island accent. “Does Liam Cass live here?”

  Oh no. No no no no…

  “Yes…” I manage. “He’s my son.”

  The female officer flashes a smile that doesn’t touch her eyes. “My name is Detective Rivera and this is Detective Murphy. We were hoping to ask Liam a few questions. Is he home?”

  “Yes?” I say, although I’m not sure why it comes out like a question. I clear my throat. “He’s just eating dinner.”

  “Would you please interrupt him?” Rivera says. The phony smile has disappeared from her face.

  “Um…” I glance in the direction of the dining room. Jason has come out to see what’s going on, and his eyes widen at the sight of the police officers. “Does he need a lawyer?”