Twisted Lies

by Robin Patchen

  She shook her head. "I want to stay in New York. We can go to Leslie's—"

  "Absolutely not. We have to stay hidden."

  "We can hide in New York."

  "We could, but we're not going to. We're going to the cabin to get a good night's sleep and regroup. All our stuff is there, and we have two comfortable beds. If we need to, we can come back tomorrow."

  "But Ana—"

  "Could be anywhere," Nate said.

  Marisa turned and crossed her arms. "She's in New York."

  Maybe she was, but staying in a hotel was not going to get them to her any faster, and Marisa needed peace and rest, not the hubbub of New York. And so did he. And besides, they both needed to know what Sam had found out, though Marisa didn't know that yet.

  Chapter 14

  MARISA WOKE THE NEXT morning to the scent of coffee wafting beneath her door. As much as she wanted some, she needed a shower first. She checked the clock on the nightstand.

  No way she'd slept until ten.

  They'd arrived home after eleven the night before. No amount of arguing with Nate had persuaded him to turn the car around and stay in New York. Once she'd fallen into bed, she'd realized he was right. Now, after sleeping ten hours, she was even more convinced. She'd needed a good night's sleep, and this cabin in the woods was much more peaceful than any hotel could have been.

  She showered and slipped on clothes she'd found folded on her bed the night before. Probably Rae's, because Sam's clothes would have been too short for her. She chose a dark pair of jeans from the few folded there. They were a bit baggy but long enough, and with the belt Rae'd supplied, they worked fine. She looked outside at the drizzly day and chose a sweatshirt from the pile. Soft and cozy. How she'd missed sweatshirts.

  She'd live with a million stifling hot days if only she could get her daughter back.

  Hair wet and braided, she stepped into the great room and stopped.

  Nate, seated at the bar, turned and smiled at her. Sam waved from her perch at the end of the counter. Rae was behind the counter, sipping from a mug. She said, "You're up. We thought we heard the shower."

  Marisa blinked at all the faces, noted the tray of baked goods on the kitchen table, and turned when the back door opened. Brady stepped inside carrying a few logs. "Good morning."

  "Hi," Marisa said. "I'm late to the party."

  Nate walked toward her. "We didn't want to wake you. Did you get a good night's sleep?"

  "Very."

  He urged her to the bar. "Here, take my seat."

  As Marisa slid onto the barstool, Rae set the coffee caddy in front of her. "What kind of coffee today?"

  She selected one. Rae set it in the machine and pushed the button to start it brewing.

  Marisa turned and watched Brady tear a newspaper into strips and shove the strips in the bottom of the fireplace.

  "Is it cold enough for a fire?"

  Nate nodded. "It's dropped into the thirties out there, and it's raining."

  "I saw that." A thought occurred to her. "What if it turns to snow? We'll never get back to New York."

  Before she'd finished speaking, Nate shook his head. "It's not supposed to snow. It's supposed to warm into the forties today. We'll be fine."

  "But it could have, and we'd be stuck—"

  "I checked the weather, Marisa. You have to trust me."

  Brady lit the fire, and she stared into the flames for a moment as the paper burned. The twigs he'd stacked caught, and one of the logs started to flicker and hiss.

  How long had it been since she'd seen a fire in a fireplace? A very long time.

  Sam approached and slid the tray of baked goods and a plate in front of her on the counter. Marisa turned and met her eyes.

  "It's good you came back here," Sam said. "You needed your rest."

  "I need to know my daughter's okay."

  Sam and Nate shared a look, and the bottom dropped out of Marisa's stomach. Ana was dead. They'd found her body, and nobody'd wanted to tell Marisa. It was over. She whipped round to face Nate. "What didn't you tell me? Is she—?"

  "Nothing happened," he said. "Nothing's changed."

  She studied his face. "Why are you lying to me?"

  "As far as we know, Ana and Leslie are fine. And I'm not lying. I just want to wait until you have some coffee before we get into it."

  "Get into what?"

  He sighed.

  Rae slid the coffee across the bar to her. "Cream? Sugar?"

  Marisa ignored her and stared at Nate.

  "Get your coffee, eat some breakfast, and we'll talk."

  "I don't want to eat."

  "It's not optional."

  She could tell by the set of his mouth that he wasn't kidding. She could throttle him or eat. Eating was faster, even if the food tasted like cardboard. She snatched a muffin off the tray and took a bite. When she'd swallowed, she said, "Satisfied?"

  "Is it good?"

  She's hadn't noticed. Banana nut, she thought. She set it on the plate. "It's fine."

  He nodded to the sofa in front of the fire. "Let's go where it's warm."

  She sat on the end of the long sofa nearest the fire. Sam chose a club chair opposite her, and Rae perched in the love seat across from the fireplace. Nate followed a minute later with Marisa's coffee and muffin and set them on the table before he sat beside her.

  Brady futzed with the fire another minute before he sat beside his wife.

  When Brady moved out of the way, Marisa could feel the heat from the flames. She stared at them, wondering what terrible news Nate had for her and trying to figure out how she'd ended up in the middle of a fire herself. She'd built a life. She'd fallen in love with the people in Mexico, tried to serve them well.

  She imagined the ancient chapel in the orphanage, where the priest had come every week to teach the kids about God. "God is on your side," he'd said. How she'd wanted to believe it. But Ana's kidnapping had taught her better. If God existed, he didn't care about her. She was on her own.

  She tore her gaze away from the flames and looked at Nate. "What happened?"

  "Yesterday when I saw Charles, he told me something that got me thinking. I told Garrison about it, and he agreed it was suspicious."

  "But you didn't tell me."

  "I needed more information."

  She looked at the faces gathered around her. Ten o'clock Thursday morning, and everybody was there. For the first time she realized that little Johnny was missing. People had taken off work, Rae had gotten a babysitter, all for this news.

  Marisa looked back at Nate. "You might as well tell me. It can't be worse than what I'm imagining."

  He took a deep breath. "Your guess about your sister was right. She's the one who told Charles what Vinnie was up to. He confirmed that yesterday."

  Marisa let that sink in. She'd never known for sure, but she'd always suspected. Leslie hadn't wanted Marisa to marry Vinnie. Marisa could imagine that her sister had seen the information as an opportunity to break them up. Leslie would have justified it, if she'd been caught. I was only trying to protect you. I only want what's best for you. And Leslie would have believed her own justifications.

  Marisa looked back at Nate, glanced at the rest of the faces, all studying her. She focused on Nate. "Leslie set this whole thing in motion."

  "Looks like it. I told Garrison—"

  "Is that what you two were talking about yesterday when you stepped out of the car?"

  "He'd had time to process it. He told me that he was going to do more digging. And after you and I met with Jessica yesterday, my theory sort of blossomed. When we stopped for gas and you stepped into the restroom, I texted Garrison."

  Marisa's anger at being left out was slightly overpowered by her desire to know the rest of the story.

  Sam cleared her throat. "Garrison called me last night and suggested Leslie's finances might shed some light on the mystery. It took time, but I managed to figure out where she banks and looked at her transactions."
<
br />   Brady shook his head and looked down. "I don't even want to know."

  "The hardest part," Sam said, "was figuring out where she banks. After that, it was pretty simple. It's not that I hacked the bank. All I had to do was go to her bank account and request a password reset. Then hack her email."

  "What part of I don't even want to know did you not understand?" Brady asked.

  "Anyway." Rae gave both Sam and Brady a look that had them clamping their mouths shut. She nodded at Nate. "Go on."

  "Sam looked at her banking habits in the last seven years."

  "That was as far back as the records went," Sam said.

  "Every few months," Nate continued, "she has a small influx of cash. A couple thousand here, a couple thousand there. Sam checked the business account and doesn't see any reasonable explanation. And it's always from the same bank account."

  "An overseas bank account," Sam said.

  Marisa met Sam's eyes, but the woman immediately gazed at the table. Marisa turned back to face Nate. She didn't like where this was going. "Maybe she has a client that pays her from that overseas account?"

  Nate looked at Sam, who looked up, her expression almost pitying. "Your sister emails her invoices to her clients. I matched most of the incoming money to invoices. But these large deposits—there are no invoices that match. Plus, the invoices aren't usually round numbers. You know, they're exact, like eight hundred thirty-seven—numbers like that. But these are big, round numbers—two thousand or twenty-five hundred."

  Nate reached for Marisa's hand, but she yanked it away. "What are you saying?"

  Sam looked at Nate, and Marisa turned to him.

  "Leslie knew about the fraud," he said. "She knew about the FBI, and she told Charles about Vinnie's plan. She knew you were talking to me. Did you contact her when you were in the hotel?"

  "She didn't know where I was staying." Marisa had promised not to contact anybody, but of course she'd contacted Leslie. "I called her once, just so she'd know I was okay. When I ran away, I met up with her. She gave me some money."

  "The first time you contacted her," Nate said, "you told her what was going on?"

  "Yeah. Of course. She's my sister, she needed to know."

  "That's what I thought."

  Marisa scanned the rest of the faces. They were all watching her. She focused on Nate. "That doesn't... I don't understand what you're trying to say."

  "From Jessica English," Nate said, "we learned that your sister told her about all the other women. Did you see Charles with a lot of women in the office?"

  Marisa shook her head. "No. Just Jessica, that one night."

  "No other women?"

  Marisa looked back at the flames, mostly because their compassionate gazes were making her angry. "It makes no sense. Why would Leslie tell Jessica that?"

  "I don't know exactly," Nate said. "And I don't know why she'd say you and Charles had been together. And you said yourself, it went against what she always told you—to mind your own business. To keep your head down and not get involved."

  "She was angry at me for dating Vinnie, even more so because we met there. She even threatened to fire me."

  "Did you consider breaking up with him?"

  "We were in love. Like I was going to give up the man I loved for a night job cleaning office buildings. I just worked there to pay my way through school. She paid well, but not that well."

  "She wanted you to keep your distance from the G&K employees. But it seems she was very involved in what was going on there."

  Marisa stood and stepped to the fireplace. She stared at the flames consuming the logs, one simmering spark at a time. She spun and faced Nate. "What exactly are you trying to say?"

  Brady cleared his throat. "All that evidence... It points to something. If I were investigating your sister, I'd be pretty convinced at this point that she had done something wrong. People don't go against their own standards for nothing."

  Marisa turned to Nate and crossed her arms. "Just say it."

  "Your sister stole the money from at least one of the accounts."

  "The company account," Sam clarified. "Garrison checked the bank accounts the money was transferred to eight years ago against the one your sister's been getting money from. It's not the same account, but it's at the same bank."

  "There's no doubt your sister stole that money," Nate said.

  "I don't understand," Marisa said. "Why that night?" Nate opened his mouth, but she lifted her hand to stop him. "I'm not saying she didn't do it. I'm just trying to understand. You're saying she somehow got the bank account information."

  "She had plenty of opportunity to go through people's drawers. She probably found the account numbers and passwords written somewhere."

  "Fine. So she maybe could have gotten that stuff. Why did she steal it that night—exactly the same night Charles was arrested? If she had the access, she could have done it any time."

  Nate started to speak, but Rae beat him to it. "I don't think we can answer that for sure. But I have a theory."

  Marisa was almost sorry she'd asked the question, because whatever Rae and the rest were going to tell her, it was going to make perfect sense. And she wasn't sure she wanted to know. She steeled her courage and said, "What's your theory?"

  "Your sister knew the feds were coming, right?" Rae asked.

  "She knew everything," Marisa said.

  "I think your sister had a thing with Charles."

  Rae's pronouncement hung in the air. Sam's dropped jaw mirrored what Marisa was thinking. Brady, on the other hand, nodded slowly, as if all the pieces were falling into place.

  Marisa turned to Nate, who had closed his eyes. He slowly lowered his head, so she couldn't see his face. But she could guess what expression he wore.

  Marisa turned back to Rae. "Why do you think that?"

  "She told Jessica about the other women. Why would she do that? What other motive except jealousy?"

  "But Leslie never said..." Marisa tried to remember something that would have hinted at an affair with the boss. "I think she would have told me if she'd been in a relationship with the boss."

  "Would she, though?" Rae asked gently. "After grilling you about keeping your distance from the business people you worked for, after trying to break you and Vinnie up, would she have confided in you that she was doing the same thing?"

  Marisa tried to imagine that conversation, but the picture wouldn't come. No, Leslie wouldn't have told her, not after all the lectures about Vinnie. About how she could do better. About how he would never see her as anything more than the cleaning lady. Marisa had always wondered if Leslie's biggest objection to their engagement was that she had been wrong.

  And to admit Leslie'd been duped into the same kind of thing? "You're right. She wouldn't have told me. But still, why that night?"

  Nate finally looked up. His expression was...sad. "When did you tell her Charles had come onto you?"

  Marisa remembered that conversation well. Leslie'd been furious. The truth hit her, and she staggered back to the sofa and sat. "After Vinnie died, when I was at the hotel. A week or so before he was arrested. She was trying to tell me that Charles probably hadn't meant for Vinnie to die. That he was probably a decent guy who'd just gotten in over his head." Marisa's admission that Charles had come on to her—that's what had prompted Leslie's decision to steal the money.

  "I hate to say it," Brady said, "but your sister doesn't have your looks. You were used to men fawning all over you, but your sister... Maybe it was a first for her. She just got sucked in."

  Nate said, "And she gave you money to help you escape. Nice, of course, but it made you look guilty. It was kind of the perfect plan. Because Charles wasn't going to tell the feds he was sleeping with the cleaning lady. He underestimated her."

  "He probably never even considered her," Sam said. "If what Anderson said was true. Sounds like he had a sexual addiction. Maybe there were too many to think about."

  Marisa looked at the
flames as she let the information settle in. Her sister had stolen at least part of the money. All those people had lost their jobs, the mortgage company closed down, because Leslie had used the information Marisa gave her to steal that money.

  Leslie had been her big sister, her protector. She'd given Marisa a job to help her get through school. She'd paid all the household bills so Marisa could focus on tuition. And Marisa had always pitied Leslie. Poor Leslie had no father and had lost her mother. Poor Leslie had to play the caretaker to Marisa when their mother died. Poor Leslie wasn't blessed with good looks like Marisa, with a talent like Marisa's. Poor Leslie.

  Poor Leslie was a liar and a thief.

  Marisa considered the money Leslie had given her to escape. A few thousand dollars, a drop in the bucket compared to what she'd stolen, but because of it, Marisa had been able to escape.

  And because she'd run, she'd looked guilty. And Leslie had gotten off scot-free. She'd continued to build her business, and she'd been smart, never taking too much. It was as though she'd taken the money not to get rich, but to prove something. To get back at the world for dealing her such a rough life. To get back at Charles for using her and discarding her. To get back at Marisa for what?

  It didn't add up.

  Marisa turned back to the room. "If Leslie has the money, why doesn't she just tell the kidnappers, offer to pay them off in exchange for their freedom?" She looked at Sam. "She hasn't spent it all, right?"

  "Assuming this is the only bank account she's using, she should still have plenty."

  Marisa couldn't sit still. She stood and stepped back to the fire, warming her hands in the heat. She turned to Nate. "How do you explain that?"

  Nate looked at Brady before he stood and joined Marisa by the fire. He took her hand, and she resisted the urge to yank it away.

  "What I'm about to suggest—it's sort of good news for Ana."

  "What?"

  "We believe"—he nodded to his friends—"that your sister always believed you had stolen Charles's money. Remember what she said back in Mexico—'just give it back to them, and I'll be safe.'"