A Mother's Lie

by Jo Crow

  “When I went to Charlotte, I thought I saw your father.”

  Amanda’s eyes widened, then narrowed. “My father?”

  “If it wasn’t him, it was someone who looked exactly like him. It was… it was eerie. He followed me after I finished my business, and he was armed. If I hadn’t ducked into a taxi when I did, I don’t know what would have happened. It looked like he was coming for me.”

  “Clara, are you sure?” It was rare Amanda lost her chipper, cheerful tone, but her voice was marked with concern.

  “I’m sure. I couldn’t believe it, but I remember him. I don’t know how to describe it.” I frowned, felt useless, like I would never get anyone to believe me. “When I came back here, there was a scene at Chow’s, and Detective Elkins ended up saving me from four burly men. They trashed my car when I had to leave it behind, and I hate to think what would have happened to me if Detective Elkins hadn’t been there.”

  James slipped off my lap and crossed Amanda’s living room. There were toy blocks on the floor—likely inventory she kept for her CPS visits, I thought—which he sat in front of and began to stack.

  “I’m so sorry.” Amanda shook her head. “I know Hickory Hills hasn’t exactly been singing your praises the last few years, but I didn’t realize it had gotten so bad. Do you have a plan? Are you leaving?”

  “I can’t.” My head throbbed. I was confused at her switch away from talking about her father, but didn’t want to push her. The tug of war between staying and going was almost too much to bear. I knew the only way for the torment to end was to leave, but I couldn’t do that until the documentary was over. “If I leave, I won’t get paid, then I’ll never be able to afford the treatment James so urgently needs.”

  “What about getting the money from somewhere else?” Amanda crossed a leg over her knee and leaned against the arm of the couch thoughtfully. “I mean, say what you’ve told me is true: that James needs urgent treatment; there are other ways to make money, right? You’ve got some big fancy degree in some kind of medical thing, don’t you? Why don’t you use it to get a job bringing in the big bucks?”

  There were no easy answers to her probing questions. I swallowed the lump in my throat. Why had I come back here so willingly? There were reasons, I knew, but looking back into my reasoning was akin to trying to zero in on a target at the bottom of a lake on a moonless night. “It just… it wouldn’t work. I’ve gone over all the scenarios, and this is the only one that makes sense to me.”

  “It seems like a pretty big jump to make, you know.” Amanda shrugged a single shoulder. “Coming all the way from California to here, giving up your life, uprooting your son and ending your relationship with all his doctors… I know it’s expensive out there, but is the documentary really paying you that well?”

  “It’s paying well enough I can afford to pay for the treatment in cash. I wouldn’t have that anywhere else.”

  “Cash? It sounds like something from a movie on drug dealing.”

  “It means treatment can begin right away. I won’t need to wait for clearance or funding. We could jump straight to the front of the line.”

  “Then I guess the choice is clear. If you want to stay, you’re going to need to arm yourself. Wait here.” Amanda left the room.

  Distraught, I watched James stack blocks only to push them over again. He laughed.

  Amanda returned not a minute later, a shoebox tucked under her arm. She held it out to me. I was surprised to find it heavy.

  “What is this?” I asked, setting it on my knee.

  “A revolver.” Amanda’s face was grave. “The cartridges are in there, too. If you feel you need more, it takes .38 specials.”

  “Jesus!” I moved the box so that it was beside me on the settee, on edge. “A gun? Are you serious?” I’d always hated handguns. I thought Amanda would remember.

  “Are you serious about keeping yourself safe?” Amanda looked me in the eye, and I no longer saw the playful, energetic woman I thought I knew. Behind her eyes was something darker and infinitely more worldly than my bubbleheaded friend. “I don’t want anything to happen to you, and if this… foolishness continues, then you’ve got to arm yourself. You can run all you want, but running isn’t going to stop bullets. You’ll either prepare yourself for the threat, or you’ll succumb to it.”

  She was right, and I knew it, but it didn’t make the reality of the situation any less difficult. When I was younger and still in the town’s good graces, I’d gone hunting in the woods behind the estate with some of the kids I’d gone to school with. I knew how guns worked—I could handle a rifle—but I’d never owned a handgun. To have one for self-defense was a hell of a lot different than having one for deer season.

  “You’re going to keep it near you at all times, if not for yourself, for James. If anything happened to you, I don’t know what I’d do.” Amanda shook her head. “Just… be safe, okay?”

  “Okay.” I tightened my lips and nodded.

  We parted ways not long after, Amanda shooing me out of the house so she could get ready for whatever appointment she had to keep. I left in a rush, the shoebox tucked under one arm and James holding the other hand. Amanda saw me out with a stern expression on her face. She was right to worry. I was scared out of my mind.

  That night, well after James had fallen asleep, I sat up in the living room of the old house I knew I needed to leave with the revolver on my lap.

  Waiting.

  Listening.

  Watching.

  No sounds but the rapid thrum of my heartbeat; no one but shifting shadows.

  Something had to change.

  17

  Jerry and Francine took James for me the next morning, and pushed a travel mug of coffee into my hands even when I insisted I didn’t want it. It sat, steaming, in my cup holder on my way back to the McNair estate. The familiar scent of brewed coffee woke me, but nothing could shake the unrest in my soul.

  The people I drove by on the streets—the parents of the children I’d gone to school with, and my grown classmates—wanted me out of town, hurt, or worse. The more I dwelt on it, the more real it became.

  How was I supposed to deal with something like that?

  There were people who didn’t like me. I could accept that. I’d done enough awful things during my teenage years I was used to the grown-ups looking down on me. But to hate me in such an extreme way? The volatility didn’t just sting—it threatened to render me into pieces, like each tiny impact created fault lines on my soul that would split under pressure.

  And God, was I under pressure.

  The drive back to my family home from the Appleton house was slow and melancholy and, when I arrived, I felt no better. Filming had wrapped up at the cemetery the day before, thankfully, but there was still footage to be shot at the original crime scene. The tiny shed out back where finger segments were discovered, and later found to have been severed from the hands of my mother and father, was to be included in the documentary. I was supposed to deliver a heartfelt monologue about the discovery, and what I’d felt at the time, but at that point I didn’t have much heart to put into anything.

  I didn’t know what had happened to my mother and father. No one knew. The only trace the police had ever found, was the carnage in the shed—the severed finger segments and the blood. All that blood. It had turned my stomach then—it still does. Nausea didn’t begin to describe it. The twisted feeling of doom in my soul festered, putrid, in my stomach.

  To imagine something like that would happen to me, too? That I could be subjected to the same torture, years later?

  To think it might happen to James?

  My parents hadn’t known what was coming until the second it happened—at least, I liked to think so.

  But me? I knew what was coming. I knew the dangers I faced and the chances I took.

  And I’d become shackled, tempting fate with each passing day.

  I turned down the long driveway leading up to the silent house. The cof
fee sat, untouched, by my thigh. If we kept to schedule, there’d be a short spell of filming to deal with, and then I’d be free. We’d go to Boston and get James started on his treatments. I’d find a job and work to repay our bills while he got better and did the things normal children were supposed to do.

  Ahead of me, around the back of the house, I saw the trailers and cars Samuel’s crew used. They’d parked there overnight. As I drew closer, I noticed the production crew were clustered around one vehicle instead of dispersed and scrambling to get ready for the heavy filming schedule Samuel had programmed.

  I parked beside the old house and exited the car. As I approached, the sound of my footsteps alerted them to my presence, and Heidi, the makeup artist, looked over her shoulder in my direction. She frowned in a deep, uncomfortable way that instantly set me on edge.

  Something had happened.

  “Clara!” Samuel’s voice rang out a little too loudly. He ducked out from inside one of the trailers and cut me off before I could reach the ring of crewmen. “Good to see you this morning. It looks like we’re going to need to do a little more makeup than usual—did you sleep last night? Those dark bags beneath your eyes are terrible.”

  “What’s going on?” I didn’t respond to Samuel’s obvious attempt to sidetrack me from the scene. “What’s everyone looking at?”

  “I don’t know. Something unimportant. Now, let’s go get you in Heidi’s chair. The sooner we get started, the sooner—hey!”

  I broke away from Samuel and shouldered my way through the crowd. It became clear to me immediately Samuel knew very well what was going on. The trailer everyone was gathered around belonged to him, after all.

  Six distinct bullet holes marred the side of the trailer. Six uniform, round holes where the metal had given way. I looked at each of them, just as stunned to silence as the crew.

  If there was a clearer sign someone didn’t want us here, I didn’t know what it was.

  “Heidi, get Clara into your chair,” Samuel demanded. His voice was a little more terse than usual, and I took stock of it immediately. He was shaken, but holding himself together. “We need to get moving. Let’s get going, people! A few holes in a trailer don’t change the fact there’s filming to be done. We’ve got to get on this.”

  The crew were sluggish to reply. Some hesitated, lingering gazes cast at the destruction on the trailer. Others slowly broke away from the ring to get back to their posts. Heidi caught my eye, sympathy was there, then she nodded her head toward her setup area. “Let’s go, Clara.”

  I didn’t want to. The danger was escalating: not just for me, but for the people who were working with me. Samuel had to see that, didn’t he? If he was smart, I figured, he’d suspend production of the documentary until things were right again.

  But right felt like it was going to be a long way away.

  Heidi led me from the scene of the incident to her preparation area, and we settled in for another day of work.

  “I wouldn’t let it get to you, honey,” Heidi murmured as she dabbed at my face with a beauty blender. “You’re going to be okay. All of us are going to be okay. I’ve been with Samuel through a few documentaries, and sometimes when you record very controversial or sensitive topics, things like this happen. People get… upset. It’s human. We’re all going to be okay.”

  “Do you really think that?” I looked into Heidi’s eyes and already had my answer. The fear in them drew her brows a little closer together and worried her lips in subtle ways.

  “Of course I do. It’s just another bump along the way—nothing to be worried about. Nothing at all.” She set the beauty blender down, then buried her gaze in powder palette to dodge my eye. “Besides, we’ll be finished with filming soon, then we’ll all be able to go about our lives. We can’t let one little incident slow us down, can we?”

  Except it wasn’t just one little incident. Samuel and Heidi might not know, but I did.

  I knew things were going to keep happening, and they were going to get worse the more time went on. The vile acts of hatred would continue to escalate until someone was hurt.

  Until someone died.

  And from there, who knew what floodgates would open.

  “How much longer until she’s ready, Heidi?” Samuel asked as he swept by. “We’re going to film an impromptu segment by the trailer, getting Clara’s reaction and thoughts to what’s going on.”

  “Ten more minutes, Mr. Lowery.”

  “Samuel?” Heidi had stopped momentarily to respond to Samuel, and I saw my chance. “What are you going to do about this? You can’t pretend it didn’t happen. Six shots… that’s not an accident. This isn’t some hunting trip gone wrong, or a misfire. This was intentional.”

  “We’ll increase security.” Samuel beamed at me, too-white teeth exposed. “I think we’ll be able to afford it. The documentary I had planned is dry compared to the live footage we’re getting from these incidents. People are going to be talking. The discovery of the bones, the bullet holes, the danger. This is turning into the Amanda Knox case, Clara. No one’s going to believe this is real, and that means they’re going to be talking about it for months and months. Think of the controversy… of the arguments. This very well might take North America by storm. And that could mean a big payday for me… and a big payday for you, too.”

  “Someone could have been hurt.” I wasn’t going to let it go. Samuel needed to understand this wasn’t some game. “Our lives are in danger. Extra security isn’t going to help if someone shoots you through the back of the head. You need to call the police.”

  “Extra security will keep the crazies away. No one is going to die.” Samuel laughed. “Relax—but not too much. We need some of that fear for the footage. We need your reactions to be as heartfelt and fearful as possible when we ask you about what’s been going on. But just between me and you? The police have been here already; they took the bullet casings and whatever other evidence they were able to find. They’re going to figure this out. Whether it is just townsfolk trying to make a point—like I think it is—or some fearsome murderer with a decade-old grudge, it’s not going to be an issue much longer. This time around, whoever’s responsible is being sloppy. We don’t have to worry about anything.”

  The bottom dropped out of my stomach, and I swallowed hard. Creeping dread, like ivy slowly winding up the trunk of a tree, wrapped me tight.

  Heidi touched my cheek gently, a silent sign she needed my attention again, but I wasn’t ready to end my conversation. I looked at Samuel directly. “All of this for what? For money?”

  “Why not?” Samuel shrugged. “This is how I make my living, Clara. It’s how all these people make their livings. That’s why you’re here, too, isn’t it? For the money?” He arched a brow. “I’ve been in war zones and ghost towns before, and I’ve always come out unharmed. Small-town Hickory Hills isn’t going to get the best of me.”

  “So you’ll risk your life, and the lives of those you work with, so you can walk out of here a little richer?”

  “You’re not getting it through your head, are you?” Samuel sighed. “There’s more to this than making millions, you know. There are risks in any business. What matters most is risk versus reward. Is the danger worth the price?” Samuel gestured around the set. Heidi wasn’t the only one who stood nearby—cameramen, lighting crew, sound engineers, and even caterers were visible from where I stood. I knew beyond my line of sight there were others. “Yes, we’re making money and we’re delivering a form of entertainment, but when you look deeper than that? I’m providing jobs for people who would otherwise be out of work. I’m bolstering the economy of a town that, frankly, will probably be dead long before I am. Everywhere we go, we bring life. Hope. Excitement. So what if there are some people hung up on it? So what if there is some danger? Nothing worth doing in life is easy. So here we are, doing what others won’t so that we can provide for our own.”

  I got it then. Listening to Samuel, I understood my father’s dilem
ma. The people on set needed me—needed this—to keep roofs over their heads and food on their tables. If I walked away, I would be depriving my son of his chance at a future—but I’d also be depriving families of rent money, or a hot meal.

  “Then you’ll get that extra security, and we’ll wrap up this movie as quickly as I can deliver my lines.” I wasn’t proud, but then again, I didn’t feel I was caving to his demands; I got it. We were all doing the documentary for our own reasons. “And whatever you do, you will not try to provoke something like this just for the sake of footage.”

  “Of course not.” Samuel waved his hand in a dismissive way that made no promises. “I’ll meet you by the trailer in ten minutes, and we’ll have a brief, candid interview before we go to film the segment in the shed. Don’t delay.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

  The faster we got this done, the faster we could all get out.

  So we filmed. We filmed until my words slurred and my brain refused to spit back the lines Samuel had me memorize.

  And I did it all for him.

  For them.

  For us.

  Shooting wrapped up at four that afternoon. Samuel had been satisfied with the work I’d done, and we’d moved along at a rapid pace. There was a little more urgency on set than there usually was—a kind of unspoken dread that kept everyone in line. No one lagged behind. Despite Heidi’s attempt at comfort, it was clear the crew was as rattled as I was.

  No one wanted to stay here longer than they had to.

  As the crew packed up for the night, I headed back to my car and sank into the driver’s seat. My handbag was tucked beneath the seat for safekeeping, and in it, my phone. I needed to call Francine to let her know I was on my way. With a yawn, I pulled my bag out from beneath the seat and found my phone.

  I had a new voicemail.

  18