Deja New

by MaryJanice Davidson

  “Yes.” Leah was doing a wonderful job pretending this was an ordinary morning. “And I think he’ll be stopping by today.”

  Angela could feel herself getting pale, which was clinically interesting. So that’s why people faint. All the blood leaves your head and it becomes too hard to stand up. “No. Oh no, he won’t.”

  And because this wasn’t an ordinary morning, because the Drake family could never have an ordinary morning, that was when someone knocked on the kitchen door.

  “In fact,” Leah continued, “I’ve got a very strong hunch that he’ll be here any moment.”

  More knocking.

  “Son of a bitch.”

  “You gonna finish that?”

  Angela shoved her plate at Mitchell and stood in the same movement. “I’ll take care of this.”

  “Why are you getting upset?” Jack asked. “Don’t you like Detective Chambers anymore?”

  “He’s not working Dad’s case. Which I made clear. He’s not supposed to be here. Which he knows. So I will handle this.”

  “That’s the problem,” Leah said quietly. “You’re not handling anything, Angela. You’ve been handled. For years.”

  “I don’t know what that means,” she replied flatly.

  For whatever reason, that made Leah sad; she broke their gaze and stared down at her plate. “I know.”

  FORTY-SIX

  “Nope.”

  “I need to talk to you.”

  “Uh-uh.”

  “Right now.”

  “We’re not doing this.”

  “It’s important.”

  “Don’t care.”

  “In private.”

  “It’s never going to happen.”

  “Three minutes.”

  “No minutes.”

  “Two minutes.”

  “God, you’re bad at this. No minutes!”

  “Jeez, Angela.” Her brothers were staring at her in amazement, and Paul added, “Give him a hundred twenty seconds. It’s two minutes out of your life.”

  “Two minutes out of my life, then one day, then one year, and then you turn around and it’s been a decade. No.” And was she just supposed to pretend Jason didn’t make himself extra-hot on purpose before coming over? Was she supposed to act like she didn’t see how great he looked in dark jeans and an aqua polo shirt? And ignore the fact that he didn’t shave on purpose just to fuck with her and flaunt his stubble?

  Bastard.

  “One minute,” Archer said, “and that’s our final offer.”

  “Done.”

  “Wait!” Argh! What a stupid time for a lapse in concentration. It’s the stubble’s fault! “This isn’t an auction, it’s not their decisi—”

  “You’ve got sixty seconds, Detective.” Mitchell looked at his watch. “Go.”

  Jason sucked in a deep breath and got started. “Our first visit to ICC. Dennis would only talk to us for five minutes, claimed he didn’t want to go over his allotted visits for the month.”

  Angela frowned. “Yeah, but we knew that was a lie. You checked and he had plenty of hours left.”

  “But that’s all I could do . . . see what he had left. I made a small assumption—he had plenty of hours because no one had been to see him. That assumption led to a mistake: I didn’t bother asking for the log. If I had, I would have found out someone came to see him last month. Someone who hasn’t seen him in quite some time.”

  “His lawyer?”

  “Which one?

  “He’s fired two of ’em by my count—”

  “Your count sucks. He’s fired three.”

  “He’s his own lawyer, remember? How can he visit himself?”

  “Your mother,” Jason said, raising his voice. “Emma Drake.”

  Abrupt silence, like a switch had been thrown. Angela felt like she was witnessing a miracle. Or witchcraft. Something about Jason made people want to stop and listen. Maybe it wasn’t “people” (a general term), maybe it was just the Horde.

  Jason started a little. “Oh. Sorry. I was waiting for another chorus of interruptions. You wanted me to continue?”

  Silent nods. Definitely witchcraft.

  “Last month, he wrote your mother and asked for a visit. A week after that, she came.”

  Dumbfounded silence. “Why—why did we not know that? She’s always maintained zero contact, hasn’t spoken to him since he took the plea and went to prison.” Archer was shaking his head. “Why didn’t we notice he wrote to her?”

  Angela felt dull pain in her palm and realized she’d clenched her fist so hard her knuckles had whitened. “Because Mom checks the mail. It’s the one thing she’s consistently done for the last ten years. And we let her because, hey, at least she was engaged in some part of family life, right? That’s what we told ourselves.” She turned toward the fridge, where her mother had been standing a minute ago. “Isn’t that right, M— Dammit!”

  Emma Drake had left the building.

  FORTY-SEVEN

  “It’s settled: Mom should be helping with the grocery shopping from now on.”

  “How did we not notice any of this?” Jordan cried. “She left and drove off right under our noses. Multiple times! She somehow got out of here without drawing attention to herself or asking anyone for a ride or for their keys?”

  “Because of that.” Angela pointed to the keyboard beside the fridge. Almost every hook had keys; the only one that didn’t held the flyswatter. “There are so many of us and we’ve all got different schedules and we all need vehicles at different times. You remember—it’s why we put the board up in the first place. If any of us get blocked in, we can come in here, grab keys, and move cars. Easy.”

  “Even so . . .”

  “Are you new? This place is locked onto a 24/7 chaos cycle. Half the time we’ve got no idea what the other half is up to.”

  Archer was rubbing his forehead. “So she leaves now and again and nobody noticed. And my dad could have been writing your mom every month and we’d never have known. It’s not like Dennis would mention it during one of the few visits he didn’t refuse. Or in one of his rare letters. ‘Dear son, how’s it hanging? Also I write to your aunt every few weeks, which totally isn’t a secret.’”

  “Exactly.”

  “I don’t get it.” They all looked at Jack. “So she went to see him. So what? I mean, it’s shocking in terms of nobody knew what she was up to, but it doesn’t really mean anything.”

  “That,” Jason said, “would depend on her motive for visiting.”

  “Maybe . . . to warn him off?”

  “Nooooo. Auntie Em didn’t warn him off. That would have involved caring. And dressing before noon. And driving.” But even as he said it, Archer looked puzzled. Because if it wasn’t to warn Dennis off, what possible reason would she have to go see him? Especially after spending years of energy making it clear that no one should see Dennis Drake under any circumstance?

  “I think I get it.” Jack was nodding, eyes bright as he reasoned it out. “I think she played the Widow Drake card and drove out there to tell Uncle Dennis to be a bastard to Angela and make her go away and never want to see him again so we could get on with our lives.”

  Archer and Angela traded glances. When Jack put it like that, it wasn’t quite as mysterious and sneaky and terrible. Under those circumstances, Angela could almost understand. It was misguided and controlling, but in a weird way, it was also an act of love.

  “That’s not why she visited him,” Jason said. He looked at Angela. “It’s been sixty-three seconds. May I continue?”

  Most of the group: “Yes!”

  “I’m gonna vote no,” Mitchell put in. “Just so there’s one voice of dissent, but honestly, I think you should keep going.”

  “Very well. Once I realized Emma and Dennis had been in communication, I st
arted to see things through a different lens. Things you told me, Angela. ‘She’s been after me to let Dad lie.’ And his explanation for avoiding the trial, do you remember? ‘I told the cops what I did because I essentially killed my brother and hurt your mother.’ That was odd phrasing. ‘I didn’t take a plea to leave wiggle room if I got buyer’s remorse.’ How in the world could he get buyer’s remorse? What did he buy? And ‘this was always my mess. I bought it; it’s mine.’

  “And aside from all of that—what has your mother been hiding all this time?”

  “Guilty knowledge.” There. It was out. She’d finally put it into words.

  “Yes.”

  She was shaking her head numbly. She could almost see what he was getting at. But it was insane. Literal insanity: It was madness, an act of extreme foolishness or irrationality.

  “The wrong one’s in jail. You always maintained that; you built your lives around the concept. And you were always right.”

  Jacky was shaking his head so hard, he reached out to steady himself on the back of the chair. “No. You’re wrong. Angela, tell him he’s—” He clenched a small fist and looked up into Jason’s face. “Are you saying our mother murdered our daddy? Which is why he’s been protecting her and keeping away from us?”

  “No.” Angela couldn’t remember feeling so calm in her life. Once again, it was like watching someone else put the puzzle together in front of you, the one you couldn’t solve on your own. “He’s saying our dad’s still alive. Donald Drake is alive, Dennis is dead. And somehow, Mom got Dad to take his place.”

  FORTY-EIGHT

  Pandemonium. (Understandable.) Most of the boys were yelling and Leah had gone to Jacky, who was crying, and put an arm around him, and walked him around the turtle table and made him sit down before he fell down.

  But Angela wasn’t touched by any of it. Instead she stood like a statue—like Eternal Silence, who showed you your death if you matched its gaze—and did what Jason had done: looked at “reality” through a different lens.

  “This was always my mess. I bought it; it’s mine.”

  You can’t save him.

  “He’s dead. Let him stay dead.”

  And, particularly damning: “It should have been him.” She thought about sitting across from “Uncle Dennis” and vowing to avenge the wrong brother’s murder. How could he have just—just sat there and let her ramble on and on about all the time she was wasting?

  He tried to make you stop. He and Mom both tried to make you stop.

  Yeah? You know what a great way to make me stop would have been? Mentioning that HE WAS MY FATHER AND CLEARLY NOT DEAD. Christ, this was her life as Augusta Harrison all over again!

  “He did tell us,” she said. Her mouth felt like she’d gotten a shot of Novocain; it was hard to make her lips move. “He told us over and over. And he was right. I heard, but didn’t listen.”

  She and Archer stared at each other and then said, almost in unison, “The wrong brother’s in jail.”

  Paul, meanwhile, was holding his head in his hands. “This. Is. So. Fucked.”

  “Archer, you were right,” Leah marveled. “You said it yourself on the way back from ICC: It was right in front of our faces.”

  “And I didn’t recognize him.” Archer was wearing the dazed expression of someone who was still standing despite taking a beating from a larger, more skillful opponent. “Why would I? It’s been ten years. And they have the same build, the same coloring, sometimes people thought they were twins. If you look at the old pictures, you can see it.” In his shock, his eyes showed the whites all around. “My dad’s the one in the ground. Donald Drake—the ‘good’ brother—he’s the one who’s been locked up all this time.”

  “That’s why he wouldn’t see us,” Mitchell said. He looked as punch-drunk as Archer did. “He couldn’t stand to look at any of us, knowing what he’d done. We were kids, but he must have been scared we’d recognize him and blab.”

  “We’ve been in a soap opera for ten years!”

  “Not even a good one, like Days of our Lives,” Paul added, almost tearful. “A dumb, shitty one, like Judge Judy.”

  “Wait. Wait. You’ve got it wrong.” Jack was rubbing his face, smearing tears. “All of you. Think about it—Daddy just turned himself over to the police and said, ‘Hi, I’m Dennis and I want to go to prison now’? And nobody questioned it? How is that possible?”

  When was the last time he used the word “Daddy”? It’s been years. Ten, in fact. “Who would he have to fool? Fellow inmates? The COs?”

  “Who’s gonna say ‘What’s this, you’re reading Shakespeare? How out of character, that seems more like something Donald would do, you must be an imposter, someone get this man a new lawyer!’”

  “That . . . seems farfetched,” Archer admitted.

  “But that’s crazy!” Jack said. “It wouldn’t have even gotten that far before he would have been busted. If nothing else, Mom would have—”

  He cut himself off so abruptly, Angela heard his teeth click together. Her heart cracked for him in that moment. Because in order to believe in the Drake brothers switcharoo, you had to first acknowledge that . . .

  “She was in on it.”

  “Worse,” Leah said gently. “It would have been her idea. There’s no other way this would have worked. And for whatever reason, your father went along with it.”

  “But why?”

  The memory bubbled up to the surface again: her father, holding a bulging suitcase.

  I never would have left him. And he never would have left me.

  “That’s the question, isn’t it?” Angela was already slinging her purse over one shoulder. “I’m going to go ask her.”

  Jason, who appeared to have been waiting for her to reach that conclusion, got up and held the door for her. “You know where she went.”

  “I know where she went.” Angela took a breath. “Will you take me there?”

  “Of course.”

  “I don’t want to go,” Jack said at once. “I can’t.” The oven timer went off and she’d never seen him look so relieved. “Because of the pudding.”

  “It’s fine.”

  “I’m not going, either. I might actually kill her. Kill her for real, not ‘kill her but not really and then sit in jail for a decade’ kill her,” Archer said.

  “You guys stay here and keep Jack company, okay?” She was amazed when uncharacteristicly quiet nods were the only response. A hundred years ago, she would have loved the deference. Now it looked wrong. Felt wrong.

  “Felt wrong.” Oh, boy, that was putting it mildly.

  She pulled a Kleenex from her purse, handed it to Jack, watched him wipe his eyes. “I’ll go take care of this.”

  He sniffed and looked up at her. “How?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I might kill her, too, Archer. For putting that look on Jack’s face, if nothing else.

  “Let’s go,” she said, and Jason was right behind her.

  FORTY-NINE

  It was a loooooooong drive. Angela sat with her arms crossed and her teeth clenched and her feet braced against the floor mat, mind whirling, peeking at Jason out of the corner of her eye.

  A few miles in, she realized he was giving her the side-eye, too. This is insane. And this car ride might be the strangest part. No, my dad being alive is the strangest part. A snort escaped before she could lock it back. She crammed both hands over her mouth in a frantic attempt to block the noise, then made the mistake of glancing at Jason, whose eyes were watering with the effort of not laughing.

  They lost it at the same time, each indulging in one of those full-body belly laughs that leave you gasping for breath. Jason had to pull over on a side street and park, and they both abandoned themselves. When they’d calmed down some, and Jason was wiping his eyes, she turned toward him, thinking she’d start w
ith “Can you believe this shit?” or “Bet you’re glad I broke it off last night” or “Will you hold my Mom down while I punch her in the throat?”

  Instead, she started to cry. And somehow she was in his arms

  (how long have I been able to teleport?)

  and she was sniveling into his neck and rubbing her face against his stubble just a bit, just a little tiny bit so she wouldn’t get tears on his shirt because dammit, she was considerate that way.

  “I’m so sorry,” he was murmuring into her hair. “I can’t imagine. Can’t imagine.”

  “It’s a nightmare.” She sniffed. “An ongoing nightmare where, in between the horror reveals, I get laid, which I have to admit is a new one.” She pulled back to look at him. “How’d you know? How’d you figure it all out?”

  So he told her about Kline and, in a way, it was the most infuriating thing of all: A random phone call had brought answers she’d been seeking for a decade. What were the odds of Klown retiring and Archer falling for Leah Nazir, setting in motion a cascade reaction that ended up with Dennis—with Donald shrieking the truth at Intake Processing?

  Wait. Think that over again.

  “Jeez. Maybe the universe really did want this to happen. I thought Leah would solve it, or point us in a new direction, and in a way . . . But now I don’t know what to think.” She rested her forehead on his warm shoulder for a few seconds, then pulled back into her bucket seat. “Thank you for coming to the house. It couldn’t have been easy.”

  “Devastating,” he said simply. “But in the interest of full disclosure, I was thrilled to finally have answers. I ran two red lights getting over there.”

  “I can’t condone your rampant disregard for the law, but it’s an understandable reaction.” A line from The Silence of the Lambs—the book, not the movie—had always stuck with her: “‘Problem-solving is hunting; it is savage pleasure and we are born to it.’” She knew exactly why he’d been compelled to race over.