“Campbell,” I said lowly. “You had better be joking.”
Completely unimpressed with the death glare I was aiming in her direction, my half-sister passed me the bottle of lotion. I considered using it as a projectile.
“After Nick was arrested the first time, I brought the pearls to Daddy.” Campbell’s explanation was dainty and neat. “I confessed. If he’d wanted to do the right thing, he could have.”
“The senator has the pearls?” Lily was horrified. “Do you even know where they are?”
Campbell shrugged. “There’s a limited number of possibilities.”
I actually did throw the lotion at her then. She ducked.
“Is that honeysuckle scented?” Sadie-Grace asked suddenly. She scampered to retrieve it. “Honeysuckle is my favorite.”
“Do you even want to do this?” I asked Campbell. She was the one who’d been playing the long game for months. This was her plan. But she’d led us to believe that she had the pearls in her possession, and she didn’t. At the end of the day, it was her family’s reputation on the line. Her father’s job. Her mother’s social status. To me, the senator was just the asshole who’d knocked up my mom and hung her out to weather the scandal alone. But to Campbell?
This was her family—and her life.
“Growing up, Walker played football.” Campbell sounded almost contemplative. “I danced. He was supposed to be smart. I was supposed to be pretty. He was Daddy’s pride and joy, and I was the bane of my mama’s existence. His and hers. Like towels.”
“Cam…” Lily started to say something, but Campbell cut her off.
“Unfortunately for Daddy, Walker is not the one who inherited his morals. Walker isn’t the Machiavellian one. Walker is not the born politician.” She watched as Sadie-Grace sniffed at the lotion, then continued. “I knew when I gave the senator the pearls that his desire to make sure that my involvement in the theft stayed a secret would have him encouraging the police to focus on any other suspect—especially if that suspect was Nick. I also knew that it would help to have the senator’s fingerprints on those pearls. I wore gloves when I handled them. Since Daddy never intends for them to be found, he wasn’t so careful. So in answer to your question, Sawyer…” She tossed her hair over her shoulder. “Yes, I am sure I want to do this. I owe it to Walker—and to Daddy.”
I’d never been so glad that my mom had left town and raised me worlds away from Sterling Ames.
“Do you have any idea where your daddy is keeping the pearls?” Lily asked. Like me, she must have deeply suspected that Campbell had just about reached her capacity for sharing.
“Either the house or the office or a location I can have a special friend pull from Daddy’s GPS.” Campbell’s expression dared us to ask about her “special friend.”
Silently, Sadie-Grace handed the bottle of lotion to Lily.
“So what we need,” Campbell concluded, “is to know for a fact that Daddy Dearest will be otherwise occupied while we search.”
Lily and Campbell both turned to me.
“What?” Sadie-Grace asked them. “Why are we looking at Sawyer?”
“Because,” I told her, “nothing says ‘distraction’ like ‘bastard daughter.’ ”
he most convenient thing about having a remarkably small chest was that there was always room for padding. Since I’ve moved into Lillian’s house, my assets had been enhanced with everything from water bras to foam held in place with boob tape.
Actual boob tape.
Today, however, marked the first time that I’d padded my chest by wearing a recording device. Sadie-Grace had acquired it. I did not ask how or where, and in return, she had only attempted to fluff up my chest once. As I reached out and rang the bell, I admitted to myself that I could have probably just used the audio recording function on my phone.
But what fun was that?
I waited a full five seconds before I rang the doorbell a second time. Campbell had promised that her mother wouldn’t be home—and that, at least for the next few minutes, her father would be.
I heard footsteps coming. I measured them—too heavy to be Charlotte’s, too crisp for Walker’s.
Game on.
“Sawyer.” The senator did an impressive job of looking both happy and utterly unsurprised to see me. “Always a pleasure to find one of the lovely Taft ladies on my front porch. Unfortunately, I have to inform you that Campbell isn’t home.”
She’s staking out the house, waiting to send Lily and Sadie-Grace the all clear to search your office, while she does the same thing here.
“I’m not here to see Campbell,” I said politely.
The senator adopted a slightly more aggrieved expression, full of fondness nonetheless. “I’m afraid Walker is not in any condition to be receiving visitors.”
I took that to mean that Walker had been self-medicating again. Even a “stable” Walker wasn’t necessarily a sober one. The fact that Sterling Ames could stand there and act like he had no part in that made me want to hit something.
Hard.
Instead, I tried to sound sympathetic. “It must be difficult for you.” I tried to imagine how the senator would refer to Walker’s long and painful downward spiral. “This… stage of his.”
The senator managed a smile. “He’s sowing his wild oats.” That was the story, the acceptable one. “Boys will be boys, I suppose.”
And snakes will be snakes.
“I’ll tell him you stopped by.” The senator had the door halfway closed when I stepped forward and wedged my foot into the entryway.
“I’m actually not here to see Walker or Campbell.” I allowed a hint of something that wasn’t sunny or polite into my tone. “I came to see you.”
I’d give the man this: He had an excellent poker face. Maybe I’d inherited mine from him.
“I’m happy to make time for any of my constituents,” Sterling Ames said. “You’ll need to make an appointment with Leah, of course.”
Leah-in-the-red-heels. The assistant.
“I’ve been talking to my mom.” I didn’t expect a visible reaction, and I didn’t get one—but the door stayed open. “About her Debutante year.”
The senator was a man who understood subtext. Better yet, he knew quite well that it could be used as a threat.
“About what happened back then,” I continued, decidedly not specifying that what had happened was that this man had impregnated my mom.
There was a slight tic in my biological father’s jaw. That was it—all the acknowledgment I was going to get.
“I’m sure talking to your mother has been very therapeutic.”
I needed to get him out of the house. I needed to keep him from shutting this door. Subtext wasn’t working, so I answered his statement with a shrug. “Not as therapeutic as talking to the press.”
There was a beat of silence. Cue reaction in three… two…
The senator stepped out onto the front porch, shutting the door behind him. He didn’t even look at me as he spoke. “Let’s take a walk.”
In the silence that accompanied our brisk walk away from the house, it took everything I had not to access my mental bank of famous movie quotes and murmur a message to Campbell. Houston, we
are go.
“Sawyer.” The senator had regained whatever shred of calm he’d lost. “What are your plans for next year?”
This wasn’t how I’d expected him to respond to my threat, but the whole point of this endeavor—besides the audio I was recording—was to distract the man, so I played along.
“My plans?”
“For the future,” the senator clarified.
I have a very elaborate, very detailed plan. I’m in the middle of orchestrating it right now.
“College,” I said aloud. “I’ve always enjoyed history.”
“Not the most practical degree.”
I shrugged. “I could make more as a plumber than I could in most white-collar professions straight out of college.”
>
“Do you have aspirations to plumb?”
The question was pointed, but there was enough humor there, too, to make my stomach twist. Senator Sterling Ames was too easy of a man to like.
Just keep him talking. Keep him out of the house—and away from his office.
“I’m not a person who’s ever had many aspirations.” I decided to nudge the conversation forward—just enough so that he wouldn’t forget that there was more at stake here than the pros and cons of a liberal arts degree. “I aspired to make sure the bills were paid. I aspired to make sure there was money for groceries. And I was really dedicated to the goal of not being sexually harassed more than twice a day.”
I felt a stab of something like guilt, but sharper and colder. It lingered, because what I’d just said? That wasn’t a fair assessment of my childhood. I’d taken care of my mom as much as the reverse, but I’d never wanted for anything.
Especially a father.
Especially one like him.
“What can I do?” the senator asked. “For you?”
This was just a distraction, part of the plan, a cog in a very complicated machine. But I couldn’t ignore the fact that this was also me walking side by side with the man who was responsible for half of my DNA. There he was, inquiring into my well-being.
“Think, Sawyer,” the senator said softly. “What do you want?”
I got it then. It should have been apparent from the get-go. If I’d been approaching this objectively, it would have been.
“You’re paying me off.”
That earned me a dose of disapproving silence in response. One did not simply say that one was being offered a bribe—unless, of course, one was hoping to catch one’s sperm donor saying something incriminating on tape.
The more threatening, the better.
“There is one thing…” I let that hang in the air for a few moments. “There’s a boy. His name is Nick Ryan, and you had him arrested for grand theft.”
Throwing water on a grease fire wasn’t smart, but occasionally, it was fun.
“Be smart, Sawyer. Don’t get dragged down by a loser like that.”
“You asked me what I wanted,” I insisted. “I don’t want money. I don’t want advice about my future. I don’t want anything from you, except for your family to drop the charges.”
Or, you know, for you to run your mouth off about Nick, the pearls, and your intentions. Tomato, to-mah-to.
“I’m afraid, at this point, that’s out of my hands. You would have to bring your concerns to the DA.”
“You know the DA,” I said. “You’re the one who pressured him to press charges against Nick in the first place.”
I didn’t get a confirmation. I didn’t get a denial. I got a heaping side of fatherly advice. “Your mother made some very poor choices when she was your age, Sawyer. I would hate to see history repeating itself.”
The anger buried deep in my gut loosened. I could feel it rising up, and for the first time in months, I empathized with my mom. I felt for the stupid seventeen-year-old girl she’d been and the cold dose of reality she’d faced when she turned up pregnant by a man like this.
“I would hate,” I countered, parroting the senator’s phrasing back at him, “for anyone to find out that you knocked up an impressionable teenage girl when you were a full-blown adult.” I probably should have stopped there, but I couldn’t quite help myself. “A married adult. An adult in law school, already on your way to a promising political career.”
One second the two of us were walking, and the next we’d stopped. His hand was lying on my shoulder. He didn’t grip it, didn’t squeeze, didn’t apply bruising force—but every survival instinct I had said that he wanted me to know that he could.
This was my father.
This was the answer to the giant question mark that had dogged my life.
“It would be very inconvenient if you were to continue down this line of thought.”
Inconvenient. I swallowed, weathering the blow. That was what I was to him—all that I was. I would have preferred a threat.
“I wouldn’t want to inconvenience you.” There was no reason for me to sound gutted. I was the one playing him here. I was the one recording this conversation. I was the one with the upper hand.
So why did I feel six years old and alone?
“Smart girl.” The senator allowed his hand to fall from my shoulder. “Because if you do become inconvenient?” His tone turned almost affectionate. “I’ll kill you, sweetheart.”
managed to keep the senator out of the house for another twenty minutes. That was the plus side to walking and talking—once he’d issued his little threat, he had to walk back. As he did so, I texted Lily, Sadie-Grace, and Campbell to give them a heads-up.
I’ve got the music.
As far as texts sent from one teenager to another went, that was pretty run-of-the-mill. Much less suspicious than saying that I’d gotten the audio clip we needed.
It was nearly a full minute before a reply came in—from Campbell. I’ve got the dresses.
What else would we be talking about, two weeks before our Debutante ball? What a perfectly normal conversation.
I smiled as I made the mental translation. She got the pearls.
hese four young ladies and the young man in the tuxedo are to be presented to the whole of society in just under fifty-two minutes. Whatever this unfortunate situation entails, Officer, I am certain that it can wait until tomorrow.”
ow can we tell Walker?”
“Yes, Lily,” Campbell replied. “Now, we can.”
“You can,” I corrected. Campbell had told me that she didn’t want to be the one to tell Walker how thoroughly he’d been betrayed.
“I’ll call him,” Lily said softly.
Him as in the boy she’d once loved.
“What else do we need?” I asked an hour later.
Campbell glanced out the window. At first, I thought she was watching the conversation going on between her brother and Lily down below, but then I realized she was considering my question.
“A lot of luck.” Campbell glanced down the street toward Sadie-Grace’s house. “And a contortionist.”
aving a gaggle of Debutantes in a jail cell was
bad. Having Lillian Taft demand you let those Debutantes go?
Even a rookie knew that was much, much worse.
“Don’t just stand there with your mouth flapped open, young man. Unlock that cell.”
Mackie snapped his mouth closed. This was serious business. He had taken an oath.
“I’m afraid I can’t let them go, ma’am. Not until we’ve sorted this out.”
he day of our Debutante ball started with compulsory manicure-pedicures. Not for all of the Debs. For Lily
and for me. By this point, I really should have been used to being polished, buffed, plucked, conditioned, coerced, and—
“Ouch!”
The manicurist who’d just relieved me of part of my cuticle submerged my feet in bubbling water. Hot water.
“Oh, hush,” Lily said. “It feels good. Beauty is pain.”
“Pain,” I gritted out, “is also pain.”
As the manicurist put down one tool of torture and picked up another, the door to the shop opened. I’d been expecting it, but the sight of Walker Ames standing there was still jarring.
There was a bruise around his right eye—most likely delivered by someone else’s right hook. His eyes themselves, however, were clear. Not bloodshot. Not vacant. This wasn’t the Walker who drowned himself in alcohol and flaunted his flaws for the world to see.
This was a person who had recovered some trace of faith that he was—that he could be—a good guy.
Ever the gentleman, he took a seat and waited for Lily’s manicure to be completed. When that proved to be a lengthy process, he allowed one of the manicurists to give his own hands a look.
“Very manly of you,” I commented.
Walker gave me an austere look. “
I try.”
“There’s trying,” I said, imitating Aunt Olivia, “and then there’s trying too hard.”
I’d gotten used to giving him crap—and besides, it seemed like the kind of thing a sister would do.
Even if he didn’t know I was his sister yet.
I was going to tell him, but I wanted to wait until this was all behind us. Lily had already rocked his world once when she’d told him what had really happened the night a drunk driver put Colt Ryan in a coma. Campbell had been convinced that as soon as Walker knew the truth, he would confront their father. Based on the bruise around his eye, I had to wonder if she’d been right.
Soon, Lily excused herself to speak with him alone. I lingered in the doorway to the salon to make sure no one else overheard what they were saying. Walker wasn’t here just to keep Lily company. He wasn’t here for the sole purpose of letting her lay a gentle hand on his battered face.
“Let’s keep this PG,” I called out.
This wasn’t a grand, romantic moment. It was a criminal one. Or at least, it was supposed to be. The anticipated criminality, however, was taking its sweet time coming around.
He pressed his lips to hers.
After averting my gaze for a full five seconds, I decided that Walker and Lily had had enough alone time. I was ready to get this party started.
Walker was here to deliver a package from Campbell. The pearls.
As I approached them, Walker pulled back from the kiss and handed Lily a box.
This is it. Except…
“That box is too small,” I said flatly.
As Lily opened the box and found a pair of earrings inside, Walker turned to me. The expression on his face was almost, but not quite apologetic. “My sister said to tell you that the plan has changed.”
In consolation, he handed me a box identical to the one he’d handed Lily. Another pair of earrings.
“She was supposed to send the necklace so that we can plant it in your father’s car,” I said, my voice low.
Walker shrugged. “You try telling Campbell what to do.”
Little White Lies Page 26