I don’t know who to believe anymore. These lies seem to twist and make shapes, wrapping around each other, no end in sight.
Sniffling, I brush them with the back of my hand, smearing mascara as the road in front of me becomes hazy, the tears clouding my vision.
Driving towards the highway to the trailer that’s considered my father’s office at one of the drill sites, I consider Reed. Even during our arguments, I’d never seen the kind of passion that would indicate he could be capable of this type of violence.
Until he saw me with another man or thought someone was paying attention to me.
Could we all be way off? Talin’s a pretty girl, I’m sure she has tons of male interest, I muse. Is there reason to believe she’d had another boyfriend? Reed couldn’t be there all the time. It’d be easy to have a regular one until the stand-in comes.
My thoughts wander to those that have keys to her house.
Martha and her neighbor, Lydia.
Lydia’s out, she doesn’t have the strength or mobility to maneuver that type of attack. Martha is shorter and more petite than Talin, but I can’t think of a reason for her to off her best friend. People kill for money, sex, and power.
Or jealousy. Was Martha envious of her childhood pal?
It’s dark and my headlights sweep over the barren land. The commercial site my father’s company is working on is outside of town, an ungraded stretch with potholes that my Mazda seems to hit every time, a jolt to my limbs as I maneuver over the uneven terrain.
A call comes through my Bluetooth.
Caller ID blocked.
I almost don’t answer, cognizant of all the calls and nasty messages our family’s been on the receiving end of.
It’s the prison asking if I’ll accept the charges.
Hastily, I agree.
“I thought about what you said.” Reed sounds like he’s in a tunnel.
I’m confused, unsure what he means.
“About the divorce?”
“You can have your divorce.” He’s dismissive. “I’m talking about your father in my office.”
“What about it?” I hang a right, the road isolated, nothing but agricultural wasteland up ahead.
“Meg, think about who would have an opportunity to frame me.”
“You think my father killed your mistress?” I’m baffled. “What in the hell are you talking about?”
“How did the knife get in my vehicle?” Reed’s impatient. “He had access to me and our house.”
“Reed,” I’m frustrated. “You expect me to believe my father flew to Portland and knew about your trysts?”
“I hurt you, so he hurt me.” He’s choked up. “The only way to do that is through her.”
“An affair is different from murder." I’m angry, tapping my fingers on the wheel in disgust. “My father wasn’t in Portland.”
“Meg, just listen to…” He’s exasperated.
I cut him off, muttering “Bye”, and hang up. The nerve of him.
The night is closing in on me, the mast and crown block on top of the tower standing out against the vast landscape, looming over the horizon. I remember when I was a little girl, my granddaddy would walk me around the job site. I’d hold my hands over my ears, the booming sound of the fragments being blasted, dust rising, the vapors and diesel fumes filling up my nostrils. My granddaddy always said it was the smell of money. It took me until I was ten to realize he wasn’t serious, dollar bills weren’t literally coming out of the ground. I remember his guffaw when I held my hand out, asking if my allowance came from the mud hose as he slapped his knee in laughter, his shoulders shaking in amusement.
It awes me, even now, the intricate parts and the complexity of their efficiency.
All of the moving parts that work in conjunction as a well-oiled machine. If one part breaks, it affects the rest. Kind of like our family dynamic.
The audacity of Reed to accuse my father of risking his family’s stake in his pitiful decision to have an affair.
I shake my head, loathing everything about this man.
Pulling into the parking area, trailers line the outskirts of the infrastructure, the drill crew on a twenty-four-hour schedule. It’s a hard job, but the men are well-paid, and most enjoy the nomadic lifestyle of staying in place for a matter of months before heading to the next job.
For as continual as this production is, the administrative office, the first trailer near the parking lot, is silent.
I should’ve called, made sure my father knew I was coming. I want to talk to him about the upcoming trial.
I try the door. It’s locked. That’s odd.
I jiggle my keys, the metal ring filled with a set of work ones. I squint in the dark, the lock not turning. I use the flashlight on my phone as confirmation I’m not crazy as I thrust the key marked ‘AO’ for administrative offices in the door.
It doesn’t fit correctly.
The two front windows are shut and locked, the panes dirty and covered in grime.
Shooting my father a text, I ask if he’s out here. I don’t see his work truck. Cell reception is spotty out here, the tower too far away.
Weird. My father didn’t mention changing the locks. I walk around the back. A small window’s located above the bathroom. It’s usually cracked open, the purpose more for ventilation than actual sunlight. It’s higher than I can reach, my flats doing nothing for my height predicament. Searching for something I can stand on, I walk around the perimeter, stubbing my toe on the small milk crate that’s haphazardly left by the corner of the trailer. Uttering a cuss word, it’s what my mom uses to carry supplies from her vehicle to the trailer, stocking the office or fridge with necessary items.
I start to curse my mom, but I realize this might be enough for me to reach the glass. Dragging it around, the mud pond stretches out in my line of sight, the moon lucid, making the water look inky black instead of the nasty brown color of the sludge.
Standing on my tiptoes, I balance on the crate, pulling at the window pane. It’s stuck. I dig in my sorry excuse for nails and tug harder. The dirt and dust are caked on the sliding part, making it hard to smoothly pull open.
Spitting in my hand, I lubricate the bottom of the ledge. Grunting, I heave with all my might. A fingernail rips, but I don’t care. The window looks even smaller as I ball my hands into fists and punch in the screen. It rips easy, the netting cheap and tattered in places. My heart starts racing, anticipating getting stuck in the miniscule space. I grip both edges of the sill and slither my way in, grateful that I’ve been doing yoga and working on my core. Putting both hands down to catch myself, I do a half-handstand before I lose my balance and tumble over on the cheap linoleum beneath me. Missing the porcelain by an inch, I’m in a weird position stuck between the sink and the toilet.
“Ouch.” I moan, grabbing my wrist, a stabbing pain where it hit the pedestal sink.
The flimsy pocket door is open, and the only light in the trailer is my father’s small desk lamp. I see it illuminating the space underneath the door. The trailer’s too small for more than one office. The other two desks belong to my mom, who acts as his administrative assistant. The other one’s empty, shared between Reed and I. Between his travel and my sporadic office time, the only indication it’s used is the small metal picture frame that has last year’s Christmas picture on display. I swallow hard, our fake happiness as we hold the twins, their squirming bodies trying to wriggle out of our grasp.
I check the drawers. Nothing unusual, the typical office supplies and file folders used to hold our documents.
My father’s door is ajar, which is weird since he usually locks it. He must be on the premises even though I didn’t spot his work truck. Tapping lightly on the door, I wait for the silence to follow.
Pushing it open, I step inside his small and frugal office, the carpet cheap and the desk a scratched metal one my mom picked up at a thrift sale. The trailer moves to new locations frequently and construction trailer break-ins are common, so nothing
of value is kept in this office.
Thinking back to Reed and his earlier comments, I take a deep breath. I want the answers, good or bad. Or maybe I want to gloat to Reed and tell him that my father’s not involved, get him to admit he made a mistake.
I doubt he’ll ever share his guilt with me. The heaviness of it is his onus. He’s burdened with it.
Peeking out the window, I see darkness and the slow motion in the distance of the equipment. Sinking down into my father’s old beat-up leather chair, its age older than mine, it squeaks in frustration as I twist it around to look through the file cabinets.
Most of the papers I find are just purchase orders, construction notes, and land surveyor information. There’s a plat map on the wall and push pins indicating the drilling sites. I turn back to his desk. The top drawer is filled with Post-It notes, pens, and a pair of safety goggles. His laptop is situated on his desk, an old Dell he’s had for about a decade, covered in dust and grimy to the touch. I wiggle the mouse and scroll through some of the desktop files. All work-related, my eyes glance through the monotonous lines of expenditures. As I consider the rest of the files, I see one marked ‘Reed.’
My stomach drops, the sudden lurch from a high to a low instantaneous as saved emails and communications between my father and the staff accountant go back and forth. Three months ago, Bob Larkin, the staff accountant, emailed my father about Reed’s business expenditures and trips.
A more recent email shows the concern about missing funds out of accounts that Reed had access to.
I click on the last file, a Word Document, the color draining from my face. My hand trembles over the mouse.
It’s exactly what my father described in the note he supposedly found, yet the font seems cold, unemotional, admitting to someone’s death, a contemplation of suicide.
My father typed it out before he wrote it?
Going back to the top, I read the note line for line.
There are details in the writing that make me heave, that he couldn’t let Talin leave him, and he had no choice but to end his own life.
The murder weapon, the trips, all referenced in the letter. He asks me for forgiveness and says he hopes the boys and I can forgive him one day.
Why would my father have a letter typed on his laptop pretending to be from Reed unless he’s guilty?
I cover my mouth, appalled at the thought.
No, no, no, I shake my head. It can’t be my father. He can be a pain in the ass, stubborn, and uncompromising. But a killer?
Thinking of Talin, I imagine my father wrapping his hands around her neck. Stabbing her. He’s cunning, but in the business sense, not in a predatory way.
Would he really kill Talin and frame Reed for her murder?
But the scrutiny… on our family? The trial will no doubt be salacious - our family, pillars of the community, will be twisted and examined. Inquiring minds would want to know. The story has all the makings of a sordid tale - sex, murder, affairs, and old money.
I ask myself the question: did my father hate Reed enough to put him behind bars for the rest of his life?
Leaning back in the chair, I read the letter again, word for word. I think of what’s been printed in the paper, on the news, seen on Internet searches.
Convincing myself it can’t be my father, that he’d never get involved in something of this magnitude, I shudder as details that hadn’t been made public are mentioned in the letter.
Stabbed twenty-seven times.
The news made no mention of a chunk of blonde hair missing, but the letter does.
Don’t all killers take a souvenir? Was this the secret my father’s been holding onto tightly, a piece of hair like a talisman in his pocket for luck? The thought causes me to pitch forward. A queasiness envelopes me, the urge to hurl all over the threadbare carpet forces my head down between my knees as I try to unsee what I’ve just witnessed. I have to catch my breath, keep my heart from racing out of my chest, my hands trembling as I suck air into my lungs, inhaling, then exhaling.
There must be a reasonable explanation, I think numbly.
I hear a clicking, a key turning in the lock.
Darting my eyes around the room, I reach around to shut the last file drawer I rifled through. I exit out of the files, shutting the computer screen. I don’t dare flick off the small desk lamp that was on before I came.
“Meggie, you in here?” I hear a yell.
Crap. He spotted my car in the lot.
Crawling underneath the desk, I hold my breath as the chair creaks, giving up my weight and potentially my whereabouts. Making myself as small as possible, forcing myself into a ball, I push the chair towards me, closing me in underneath the desk.
Heavy footsteps enter the office. My father’s aftershave, the same kind he’s been wearing since I was a little girl, clouds him.
Closing my eyes, I focus on holding my breath, counting to ten, and not hyperventilating.
A clunk on the metal above me forces my eyes open.
The hand that moves above me, on the only object between me and my father, is unplugging the mouse from the laptop and sliding his computer across the desk. I hear a zipper, he must be putting it in his bag to take home.
I silently urge him to turn and leave.
Getting my wish, his footsteps start to retreat, the footfalls quieting.
Until a shrill sound beeps.
My eyes widen as I realize it’s my cell phone in my pocket.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Meghan
I fumble it out of my pocket, hitting the end button on my phone, silencing Jarrett.
Turning the ringer off, I hear the footsteps heading back, one confident step at a time.
There’s an office phone on the desk, but it doesn’t have this ringtone.
I’m busted.
I’ve never been scared of my father until this moment.
If he knows I know, I wonder what he’ll do to protect himself.
He’s never liked Reed, that’s not a secret, but if Talin’s murder is tied to him, being his daughter doesn’t seem like a get-out-of-jail free card if I’m between him and prison.
Play dumb, I repeat over and over in my head like a mantra.
The desk chair’s rolled away from me, my only shield as I cower under the desk.
“Meggie.” My father looks bemused. “What are you doing under my desk?”
“I…I uh, I came out to bring you mail.”
“And?”
“The door was locked. I’ve always had keys, but mine didn’t work.” It comes out accusing.
My father runs a hand through his balding hair. “Yeah, we had another break-in. I’ve been a little preoccupied and forgot to give you a new set of keys.” He looks alarmed. “How’d you get in then?”
“Oh, the window.” I press my hand against my pocket, reassured that I can call for help. If my phone can get a signal.
He’s incredulous. “When are you going to stop acting like you’re seventeen? You could’ve fallen.” He taps his foot on the floor. I just nod, staring at him, making no effort to move.
“Are you going to stay under my desk?” He’s baffled. “I’m not sure what’s going on right now. Why are you in here?” He steps away from my hiding spot, giving me a few feet of space.
“The mail,” I say smoothly. “I put it in your drawer.”
He goes to reach for the handle. “Don’t bother, nothing important,” I say quickly. “Can you please help me up?” The mail is on Reed and mine’s desk, but it’s my only excuse for being in his office.
“Will you tell me why you’re under the desk?” He puts out a hand to help me up. My limbs hurt from my contortionist position, and I wince as I rub my neck, standing.
“I got scared.” I attempt a small smile. “I heard someone come in.” He doesn’t believe me. “Your work truck wasn’t here, so I didn’t know who it was.” I shrug. “I’m on edge right now, sorry.”
He looks crestfallen. “Of course
you are. Well, come on.” He grabs the nape of my neck. “You wanna come over for dinner?”
“I gotta grab the boys.” I cringe, his touch making my spine tingle. Act natural, I sternly remind myself. “You shouldn’t be working so late,” I chide him.
He chuckles. “You know I got a site to run. Plus.” He holds up the laptop bag. “I forgot my computer. Didn’t need another break-in.”
“It’s so old, it might be better if it disappears.”
“Oh, but the files are invaluable, Meggie.” He gives me a wink. “Some things are irreplaceable.” I crawl out of my skin when he says this, his hand patting my back awkwardly. “You tell those boys grandpa will see them soon.”
“Okay.” I start to walk, slow but unsteady, ready to bolt if he asks one more question.
The door slams shut after me, and my senses are heightened. The walk to my vehicle seems tedious. I want to run to the car and lock myself in, barricading myself from my own father.
Pulling my phone out, I have multiple calls from Jarrett, but no messages.
I want to call him, tell him what I know, but when I try to call back, the signal cuts.
Trying twice more, the call drops.
Angrily, I throw the phone on the seat next to me, where it bounces before settling into the crease of the black leather upholstery.
Swiping at the offending tears, I speed towards town, the drive forgettable, my mind on auto pilot. My tires screech as they hit gravel, my destination implanted in my brain.
The Hanky Panky.
I have to see Jarrett, tell him what I know.
He’ll know what to do about my father. He’ll tell me I’m crazy, that Reed’s only passing the blame, using me as a conduit to deconstruct what happened to Talin that night.
What if he won’t talk to me? I see his pained expression, intrinsic in my memory.
His eyes, sparking with fire, smoldering as I lit into him about Reed and Talin. He was already fired up about something, yet he wouldn’t say.
And I put the nail in the coffin. I called his place a ‘dump.’
I park sideways, almost taking out my side mirror on a metal pole as I squeal into the narrow spot.
All the Pretty Lies Page 22