Poisonous

by Allison Brennan

  “I saw Austin yesterday in Sausalito,” Max said, after taking a seat. “He was at my hotel, then took off before we could talk.”

  “He wanted to make sure you really were here,” Tommy explained, glancing at her then looking down. “Are you mad at Austin? Your forehead is squishy. That’s how my mom looks when she’s mad about something. Usually, it’s about my dad.”

  This was the second time someone had made a comment about the wrinkles in her forehead. Relax, Maxine. You don’t need premature wrinkles. “I’m not mad,” she said calmly. Curious, maybe a bit suspicious of Austin, but not angry. “Before we start, I want to make sure that you understand what I’m doing.”

  “Austin already explained it,” Tommy said with a nod. “Your job is to find out who killed Ivy. Austin said when the police get stuck, you get them unstuck.”

  Maybe this Austin kid was all right. She only wished it were true all the time. “That’s what I hope for,” she said. “On the phone, I told you that I’d do everything I could to find out what happened to Ivy, and I will try my best to do just that. But sometimes I can’t find the answers. Or, sometimes, the answers I find don’t make people happy.”

  Tommy wore a sad expression as he sent an unfocused gaze over to the school yard. “But … but if Paula finds out that it wasn’t me who hurt Ivy, then I can go back home, right? She said I can’t be there because I scare her. I don’t want to scare anyone.”

  Max realized Tommy was a child in a man’s body. Not a typical child. He had a solid grasp of the world around him and was capable of taking care of himself—going to school, riding his bike, any number of things—but he had a solid linear thought process. If A, then B. If B, then C. That did not mean he had the capacity to understand all the complexities of his situation. For example, Paula Wallace might have other reasons for banning Tommy from the house.

  “You don’t scare me, Tommy,” Max said. “You seem like a nice guy. Anyway, as far as Ivy’s case, we need to take this one step at a time. I’ve already done a lot of work. I spoke to the police, and—”

  She’d lost him. At first Max thought he had just zoned out, but then she saw Tommy clutching the top of his backpack with tight fists.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t like all those people. I mean, I don’t know them—I just don’t like so many people around me. Cr-cr-crowds.” He took a deep breath. “Austin said he would be late today because he has to meet with Mrs. Feliciano about his English essay.” Tommy looked at his watch again. It was a nice digital sports watch with a large face. “It won’t take long.”

  “Then maybe we have some time for questions without Austin,” Max pressed.

  “We should wait for Austin.”

  “Tommy, I promise you my questions aren’t going to be hard. I only have one rule: tell the truth.”

  “I did.”

  “You mean you will tell the truth?”

  “Yeah.” He looked at his watch again.

  “I like your watch.”

  He smiled and showed it to her. “I got it for my sixteenth birthday. Two years ago, but I take good care of it because it’s my favorite. It has a timer and a stopwatch and an alarm. It’s waterproof.”

  She showed him her watch, a slender Cartier band with small diamonds on its face.

  “Pretty,” he said, though sounding unimpressed. “Does it have an alarm?”

  “I’m afraid it doesn’t do anything but tell the time. It’s not even waterproof.”

  “How do you wash your hands? Do you have to take it off?”

  “No, I’m just really careful.”

  He looked from her wrist to his. “I like mine better.”

  “I like yours, too. Do you and Austin always ride home from school together?”

  “We used to. But Paula said I couldn’t anymore. I … I have to stop at the corner.”

  “You don’t like that.”

  He shook his head. “I’m not lying. I mean, it’s kind of like lying because I don’t tell anyone I ride home with Austin. He’s big enough that he can ride by himself, but it’s one of the only times I can see him.”

  “Tommy, did you write the letter to me? The letter about how Ivy died?”

  “Yes. Austin helped but he said it had to be in my words.” Tommy paused, glancing over at her. “My first letter was too short, Austin said. I wrote it, I really did, but he helped me make it sound better. Was it okay?”

  “Absolutely. I thought it was remarkable.”

  “Austin said it was really good but too short and I needed to give you more information. And it turned out he was right, because here you are.”

  “Why does your stepmother think you killed Ivy?”

  The thought of that pursed his lips. “Austin says it’s ’cause she’s a bitch, but that’s not a nice word.” He put his hand to his mouth.

  “I don’t want to know what Austin thinks. I want to know what you think, Tommy. Did you get along with your stepmom before Ivy died?”

  He thought on that. “At first she liked me. I had my own room at my dad’s house, and she always had my second favorite ice cream in the freezer. Napoleon, because I like vanilla and strawberry and chocolate.”

  “Why would Paula be scared of you?”

  He shook his head and frowned. “After Ivy died. I was at the funeral. I went home with Dad and I heard Paula tell him she was scared of me. Later I asked him why, and Dad got really mad at me for eavesdropping.” Tommy straightened his spine. “That means listening to a private conversation when you’re not supposed to.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “There was a lot of crying, Dad told her I was a gentle giant, but then later he said it was best if I didn’t come to the house unless he was home. But he’s hardly ever home! He was in Japan three weeks this summer and I couldn’t see Bella at all.” His voice cracked. “She’s only five. She could forget me.”

  Max smiled. “Bella won’t forget you, Tommy. You’re unforgettable. What about your stepsister Ivy? Did you get along with her?”

  “She didn’t like me because I’m stupid.”

  Max tensed. “But you’re not stupid.”

  “That’s what Austin says. He also says my mom babies me and I need to grow up. I want to grow up. I want to go to college.”

  “Where do you want to go to college?”

  “I wanted to go to University of California at Davis because that’s where my dad went, but my mom said I wouldn’t get in. She said I will set myself up for disappointment.” He frowned. “I don’t get it. I know it will be hard, but I want to learn more things so I can be smarter.” He sighed heavily. “But I can’t go. I took the SATs last year and I didn’t do good. I didn’t finish. I don’t do good when there’s a timer.” His lip trembled and his forehead creased with worry.

  Max smiled. “My best friend Karen was very smart, but she got nervous whenever she had a test. She couldn’t concentrate and kept looking at the clock. It took her three tries before she could pass her written driving test.”

  “My sister Amanda passed the first time,” Tommy said proudly. “She’s really smart, she has straight As. Did your best friend go to college?”

  “Yes. That’s where I met her, we were roommates.”

  “Austin says my mom doesn’t think I can live on my own because people might make fun of me. But they make fun of me here, so I don’t get what the difference is.”

  “Maybe she thinks you would be happier at home.”

  He shrugged. “It’s a sad house. My mom works a lot. She works at work and she works at home. She misses Dad. She’s still mad at him, but I know she misses him. My sister doesn’t like being home. She’s a junior and she’ll go to college because she’s really smart. She said she doesn’t want to go to Davis because my dad went there. I think she wants to go far away, like where you live, in New York. I saw a big envelope from a college with Boston in the name. That’s in Massachusetts. That’s far away. So I’m alone in the house a lot, and I
don’t like that. Dad’s house is never lonely because Austin is there. He’s my best friend, but now I can’t go there.”

  Tommy wasn’t lying to Max but his perception of how things were at his dad’s house or the situation with his stepmother could be clouded by feelings of banishment from that house and loneliness at his mom’s home.

  Tommy’s face lit up. “There’s Austin!”

  Max looked across the street to see Austin standing next to a pretty blond girl.

  A very familiar blond girl.

  Emma.

  Corte Madera was a small town and the neighboring smaller towns overlapped school districts. Max should have guessed that the thirteen-year-old Austin Lake might have known the almost thirteen-year-old Emma Stratton Kane, David’s daughter.

  Heads together, Emma and Austin stood at the corner. Emma must have told Austin about Max, and either Emma or Austin came up with the idea to write the letter. And Austin used Tommy to do it. Did it matter if it was Austin’s idea or Tommy’s? Max bristled at the idea of a thirteen-year-old kid manipulating her. And he’d done it well. Extremely well.

  Tommy was completely ambivalent to her sudden anger. He said, “Sometimes Austin gets in trouble and has to go to detention after school. But he promised he wouldn’t do anything wrong this week because you’re here. That’s Emma he’s talking to. She’s really nice.”

  Austin saw Max first. When the crossing guard motioned them forward and Emma and Austin began to walk, Max locked eyes with him. Austin stopped in his tracks. Emma glanced at him, then looked across the street to where Max sat with Tommy Wallace.

  Emma’s lips moved, and Max could read exactly what she said.

  Oh, shit.

  Chapter Nine

  Tommy was oblivious to the tension as the four of them met by the bench. “Hi, Austin! Hi, Emma! We’re going for ice cream. Do you want to come?”

  Emma finally looked up from the ground and Max caught her eye. She didn’t need to say anything, Emma knew Max wasn’t going to keep this from her father. “I can’t,” Emma said quietly. “I have gymnastics.”

  “Oh. Okay. Next time?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  Tommy smiled broadly. “Austin, this is Maxine Revere. You can call her Max. She likes ice cream. Emma likes double chocolate chip the best.”

  “Yes, I know,” Max said. She gave Emma credit for standing straight and looking her in the eye. “Anything chocolate, right, Emma?”

  Emma bit her lip.

  Austin stepped forward. “What’s this—a sneak attack? You can’t just show up like this.” Angry. Protective? Possibly. Austin had at first looked surprised, then sheepish, now he was confrontational.

  Max didn’t respond to him. “Tommy, where’s the ice cream place?”

  “It’s not far. Two blocks down this street.” He pointed. “Turn left, then walk six blocks, then turn right, and it’s one block down.”

  “I need to talk to Emma,” Max said. “Can I meet you there in about twenty minutes?”

  “Sure!” Tommy said.

  “No,” Austin snapped. “Leave Emma out of this. This is between you and me and Tommy.”

  Max turned to Austin, sizing him up—he was of average height for his age, which meant much shorter than Max—the same height as Emma. Clean, brown hair that curled at the collar. He looked as if he was ready to hit someone, and he wasn’t budging.

  “Austin,” she said, “this is actually between Tommy and me. He’s eighteen, an adult. You’re a minor, but because Tommy wants you involved in our conversation, I agreed to let you come.”

  Austin looked confused, but still angry—and suspicious. Good. That made two of them.

  Emma said, “Austin, it’s okay. Really. Go. Max will be there if she says she’ll be there.”

  He obviously didn’t want to leave Max and Emma but he said, “Okay.” He looked at Max. “You shouldn’t have just surprised us like this. Let’s go, Tommy.” Austin put his skateboard down on the ground while Tommy put on his backpack and grabbed his bike. Max watched after them for half a block.

  “Can we talk later?” Emma asked. “I have to catch my bus to get to gymnastics.”

  “I’ll drive you,” said Max, setting a brisk pace toward her car, parked just a block away. “You have a lot of explaining to do.”

  “Please don’t be mad.” Emma said, following. “You’re going to tell my dad, aren’t you?”

  “I don’t keep secrets from David.” Max paused. “Though I think it would be best if I didn’t mention that you were holding hands with Austin.”

  Emma blushed and Max would have laughed if she wasn’t so irritated that these kids had manipulated her—and the entire “Maximum Exposure” news team—into investigating the Ivy Lake murder.

  “I’m sorry about not being totally straightforward,” said Emma.

  “I’m thinking you had more to do with that letter than either Tommy or Austin. Is that why you were asking me so many questions at Lake Tahoe? Trying to figure out how I pick my cases?”

  Emma nodded. “It’s totally unfair that Tommy’s being blamed for Ivy’s death. If you knew him, you’d know he wouldn’t hurt anyone. He just wouldn’t.”

  Max unlocked the car and typed the address Emma gave her into her GPS system, then pulled away from the curb.

  “And besides, Austin needs your help,” Emma continued. “He’s so angry all the time. And it’s gotten worse, since the whole Bella birthday thing.”

  “Angry about what?”

  “How his mother treats Tommy, et cetera. She’s a total bitch.”

  Max cleared her throat. “Well, some people call me a bitch. It’s not always a bad thing.”

  Emma gave her a half smile. “They don’t know you like I do.”

  “Even people who know me well,” Max mumbled.

  “It’s not the same. Mrs. Wallace is … I don’t know exactly how to explain. She has a perfect house and perfect hair and perfect decorations and Bella—that’s Austin’s little sister—is spoiled, not in a good way.”

  “Is there a good way of being spoiled?”

  “Yes—like when you took me shoe shopping in New York last year. Dad said you spoiled me.”

  “A girl can never have too many shoes,” Max said. “And we only bought you four pairs.” Max had been making light of the situation, but it was time to get serious. “You need to stay out of this, Emma. I appreciate your concern, and I admire that you want to help your friends, but you can’t be involved.”

  “Does this mean you’re not going to find out who killed Ivy?” Her voice cracked and she blinked back tears.

  “I didn’t say that,” Max said.

  “You have to. You just have to find the truth.” Now the tears were coming steadily and Emma couldn’t stop them. Max didn’t know what to do. She drove the rest of the way to the gym in silence, trying to figure out why Emma was so emotional. Max always kept her feelings to herself. While some people might think that was a deficiency, it helped her do her job.

  She pulled into the gym parking lot, parked several lanes away from the entrance, and shut off the ignition. Max looked in her purse for tissues. She found a small package and handed it to Emma. “I didn’t mean to upset you, Emma.”

  Emma grabbed the tissues and blew her nose. “But if you don’t find out who killed Ivy, no one will!”

  “I will do my absolute best to find the truth. But I’m serious: stay out of this. Austin manipulated you into helping him, he’s manipulating Tommy, and he knew where I was yesterday. I won’t tolerate a lie coming out of his mouth, and I have a feeling he has a whole laundry list of lies he plans on telling me. You don’t want to be in the middle of that. But the primary reason you need to walk away is because of your father. Not only will he not want you in potential danger—because someone killed Ivy and that person is most likely someone she knew—but because if you’re involved with one of my cases, your mother will have a fit. I will not be the cause of any more problems between yo
ur dad and mom.”

  Emma rubbed her eyes. “When are you going to tell my dad?”

  “I’m not.”

  “You’re not?” She sounded optimistic.

  “You are. Before he figures it out on his own.”

  Emma shook her head rapidly. “No, please. I don’t want to.”

  “It will come out sooner or later, and I’m not keeping it a secret. You have until eight tonight to call him.”

  “But you’re staying, right? You’re still going to find out who killed Ivy?”

  “As I said, I will do my best.”

  Emma didn’t make a move to get out. “Austin didn’t manipulate me,” she said. “He didn’t even know about you or your show. I told him all about you. I said if anyone can find out who killed his sister, you could.”

  “I understand the situation between your mother and your father, but you could have called me.”

  “Dad says you’re overcommitted.”

  “I am, but I’m used to it.”

  “He’s worried about you,” said Emma. “I noticed in Lake Tahoe. I asked him about it, if someone had threatened you or something like when he first started working for you, and he said no. But he didn’t explain.”

  “You’re wrong.” Max had thought the same thing: the way she’d caught David watching her. The concern in his expression.

  “No, I’m not.”

  Stubborn. Like her father.

  Was David worried because of what happened over the summer? Or because she’d jumped back into work after the attack? That couldn’t be it … she’d taken an entire week off to go to Lake Tahoe.

  “Emma, you and Austin are friends and I’m not going to tell you not to talk to him. But I don’t want you and Austin doing anything related to Ivy’s murder. Don’t start asking questions on your own. Do you understand?”

  She nodded. “I promise. Max, it means everything to me that you’re here.”