“If none of you arrested my granddaughters,” she said, enunciating every word, “then who did?”
y tongue caught between my teeth as I worked the pick in the lock.
“Are we sure this is necessary?” Lily had never been thrilled with this part of the plan.
I glanced back over my shoulder at the empty hallway. The evidence had been planted. The scene had been set. Someone would eventually call the police about the car on the side of the road—if they hadn’t already.
Everything was in place.
“It’s necessary,” I confirmed. I felt the lock give, and the door to the cell popped open. Once the four of us were inside, I closed the door.
We heard the lock engage—and then there was silence.
“To success,” Campbell said finally. “And to unholy alliances.”
“To friendship,” Sadie-Grace corrected. She glanced at Campbell. “Or something vaguely friendship-like.”
“Sadie-Grace, we don’t have friends.” I stole Campbell’s line, wondering how long it would be before we were discovered in the cell—and how long we could keep an officer occupied once we were. “We have alibis.”
entlemen, as far as I can tell, there is not a single person in this entire unit who wants to own up to having arrested my granddaughters and left them in a cell for over an hour.”
Mackie was dumbfounded.
“What about them?” Rodriguez asked, nodding to the three teenage males present. “What are they doing here?”
“I imagine,” Lillian Taft said, “that they came here to protect the girls.”
Protection, Mackie thought. They don’t need protection! He was certain—just certain—that he was the only one who saw it, but one of the girls winked at him.
She looked right at him and winked.
“You have three seconds to unlock that cell.” Lillian Taft never so much as raised her sweet, Southern voice. “I would hate for this to get ugly.”
almost felt bad for the rookie cop who’d been stuck with us for the past hour and a half, but we were at T-minus thirty minutes until the start of the ball, and I was fairly certain that if we were even a second late, Lillian would murder us all.
“Come along, girls.”
It had taken a bit longer than expected to get things sorted out, but once it had become clear that there was no record of our arrest, they had no choice but to let us go.
Free and clear.
We were halfway out the door when the cops brought someone else in. Like Boone, he was wearing a long-tailed tuxedo. His eyes were glassy, and his speech was blurred.
“Do… you… any idea… I am?”
My grandmother startled. “Sterling Ames!” She glanced between him and the officers holding him upright. “What is the meaning of this?”
“Found him by the side of Blue River Road,” one of the officers said. “Clear case of drunk driving. Bottle of scotch was still open beside him.”
Thank you, Sadie-Grace.
“He had this gripped in his hand.” The other officer held up a plastic bag. Inside was a pet tag. “Can’t make hide nor hair of it yet.”
Nick froze beside us. He’d known we were up to something. We’d brought him here so that he would have an alibi. The fact that he was present to tell the cops exactly what they had in that evidence bag?
That was an unexpected bonus.
“That was my brother’s,” Nick said, his voice throaty and low. When no one replied, he looked up. “Hit and run,” he told the cops. “Last May.”
“I remember that,” one of the cops said. “It was over on…” He stopped talking, his eyes going wide.
Nick finished the sentence for him. “Blue River Road.”
Senator Ames picked that moment to attempt to focus his gaze on his daughter. “Campbell?” he said, belligerent and bewildered.
She leaned toward him and murmured her reply. “See me now, Daddy?”
ackie stared at the drunk man in the holding cell. This wasn’t his case. After the way that last one had gone, he wasn’t sure he’d be working a solo case for a while. But he lingered, because there was something very familiar about the man’s face.
“I’m telling you, I’m a senator!”
That gave Mackie pause. A senator. The same senator whose daughter I had in that cell?
“I don’t care if you’re the pope,” one of the other officers said. “We can’t let you go until you’ve sobered up.”
“Not to mention the charges…”
“Charges?” For a man who still couldn’t stay on his feet, the senator did an impressive job of sounding irate. “This wasn’t me. It was the girls! My daughter. Sawyer Taft…”
“Taft,” Rodriguez repeated. “Hey, rookie. Was she one of the ones… ?”
Mackie cleared his throat. “Sawyer Taft has been with me for the past hour and a half.”
e made it backstage with exactly three minutes to spare. Greer Waters was holding a clipboard, her whole body practically vibrating with intensity. Her eyes lit on us. “There you four are,” she said, in equal parts relief and accusation. “Do you have any idea…”
Belatedly realizing that Lillian was standing directly behind us, Greer gathered her composure.
“You and I,” she told Sadie-Grace, pleasantly furious, “are going to be having a chat.”
Before Sadie-Grace could shudder at that, I murmured into her ear, “Maybe you can chat about the pregnancy she’s faking.”
Greer couldn’t possibly have heard me, but her eyes narrowed slightly nevertheless. “Well,” she said brightly, “there’s nothing to do now but move on. Girls, you’ll be escorted by your fathers—alphabetical order, please. Remember: When you make it to the end of the walkway, your father will offer your left hand to your Squire escort. Left.”
She paused for just an instant, before her borderline-manic eyes landed on me.
“Sawyer, I believe that one of your grandmother’s friends has graciously volunteered to—”
A voice interrupted her from behind. “That won’t be necessary.”
I turned to see my mom standing behind me. The last time I’d seen her, she’d walked away—because I’d told her to. I’d been hurt and incredulous and angry that she couldn’t even register the effect that anything she was saying or doing had on me.
“I’ll be escorting Sawyer,” my mom told Greer calmly. “If she’ll have me.”
The fact that she was here meant something. But after Christmas, I didn’t want to read into that too much.
My mom must have seen some trace of that on my face, because she lowered her voice. “Your grandmother came to see me.”
I glanced at Lillian, wondering what she’d said to bring my mom here.
“I’m sorry,” Greer told my mother stiffly. “But you cannot…”
“Of course she can,” Lillian said simply. “If that’s what Sawyer wants.”
Somehow, in the past nine months, Lillian had come to know me well enough to know that this was what I wanted. I wanted my mom—and my grandmother and Lily and the rest of my family, without having to choose.
“Truly,” I said, in imitation of a proper miss, enjoying the flustered expression on Greer’s face more than I should have, “I think that would be just lovely.”
“It’s settled, then,” Lillian declared.
Greer looked like she’d attempted to swallow a frog and gotten the poor creature stuck in her throat. She wanted to argue, but one did not argue with Lillian Taft.
She turned her attention to another target. “Campbell. Your father seems to be running late.”
With any luck, one of the officers would have, by this point, discovered the USB I’d slipped onto the counter when we’d left. On it, they would find a picture of the senator’s mistress wearing the stolen pearls—and very little else.
They’d also find a few select clips of the audio recording I’d taken of the senator’s conversation with me.
“You know the DA. You’re
the one who pressured him to press charges against Nick in the first place.”
“It would be very inconvenient if you were to continue down this line of thought.”
And then the kicker: “If you do become inconvenient, I’ll kill you.”
In a day or two, Campbell would come forward and give her testimony—about the hit and run and the way her father had forced her to help him frame Nick. That testimony would be backed up by a digital diary she’d been keeping, conveniently time-stamped, for the last nine months, where she’d painstakingly poured her heart out about how her father had made her tell lies about Nick, made her keep quiet about the hit and run.
“Pardon me.” Davis Ames strode toward us. “My son has run into some difficulties. If Campbell doesn’t mind…” He looked to his granddaughter, his expression inscrutable. “I’ll escort her tonight.”
The show must go on, and it did.
“Campbell Caroline Ames.” Even from backstage, the announcer’s Southern drawl was perfectly audible. “Daughter of Charlotte and Senator Sterling Ames, escorted by her grandfather Davis Ames.”
I knew the second that her grandfather solemnly transferred her arm to her Squire’s, because the announcer moved on to announcing his name, his family ties, and so on.
“You didn’t have to come.” I looked over at my mom. Our last name put us near the end of the alphabet.
“Yes, I did, baby.” My mom leaned up against me, bumping my shoulder lightly with her own. It was a familiar gesture.
It meant I’m here.
“I should have handled this better. I know that, Sawyer. How could I not? But I spent so many years trying to prove to myself and to you that I could do this. I could be everything you needed.” She looked down at the ground, her fingers playing at the edges of her sheer and sparkling sleeves. “I used to be so terrified, when you were little, that your grandmother would find a way to take you from me.”
And then, right after I’d turned eighteen, I’d chosen to come here of my own free will.
“No one is taking me away,” I said.
“Your grandmother said the same thing,” my mom murmured. “Lillian came to me, eating crow and singing your praises—singing my praises for raising such a strong and independent young woman.”
There was a pause as I heard the announcer begin the presentation of another Deb.
“She said that you have a good head on your shoulders, that you’re kind, even though you’d prefer for people not to notice.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to object, but I had the self-awareness to realize that would only prove Lillian’s point.
“She asked you to come here,” I said instead.
The indomitable Ellie Taft was quiet for a moment. “She shouldn’t have had to.”
My mom listened as they announced Lily’s name: “Lillian Taft Easterling, daughter of John and Olivia Easterling, escorted by her father, John Easterling.”
“It’s okay,” my mom told me, “to want your own life. And it’s okay to need people. Family.”
“You’re my family.” Those words were no less true than they’d been nine months earlier. She was my mom. She loved me.
And just this once: She’d surprised me.
As our turn approached, my mom let out a long breath. “Don’t trip. Don’t fall. Just walk.”
I wasn’t sure if she was talking to me—or herself.
The next thing I knew, the announcer was calling, “Sawyer Ann Taft.”
We stepped out onto the stage. The lights were bright. As I slipped my arm through my mom’s and we made our way down the walkway, I thought back to the auction.
My, how things have changed.
“Daughter of Eleanor Taft.” The announcer paused, just for a moment, then registered the fact that there was no father’s name to read. “Granddaughter,” he continued smoothly, “of Lillian Taft, escorted by her mother, Eleanor Taft.”
My mom squeezed my hand. I squeezed back. And then she handed me off to my Squire escort.
“Boone Davis Mason, son of Julia and Thomas Mason…”
oone and I were required to dance together. I expected him to ask me what exactly he’d been a part of this afternoon—the car, the notes, our “arrest.” Instead he adopted an overly serious look.
“The cut over my eye is quite dashing, is it not?” he asked.
I rolled my eyes. “Sadie-Grace thinks she broke you.”
He sighed happily. “Yeah.”
I decided to let him have his moment.
“Don’t look now,” Boone said as our waltz was coming to an end, “but I believe you have a gentleman caller.”
I glanced back over my shoulder, expecting to see some other poor sap of a Squire who’d been told he had to dance with me, but instead, all I saw was one of the massive ballroom windows, overlooking the Northern Ridge pool down below.
Standing next to the pool was Nick.
Sneaking out of one’s own Debutante ball was harder than it should have been for a criminal mastermind such as myself. But eventually, I managed to make my way outside.
“Fancy meeting you here,” I told Nick.
“That’s all you have to say?” he asked incredulously.
From his perspective, this whole evening probably did merit an explanation.
“The DA has already dropped all charges against me. You and Campbell,” he said. “You…”
“Make quite a team?” I suggested.
He stared at me. “How did you even—” he started to ask.
Given that I’d recently caught someone else’s damning words on tape, I cut him off. “I’m going to plead the Fifth on that one,” I said. “But for the record, when I was a kid, I watched a lot of police procedurals and telenovelas.”
I would like to say that the dance was Nick’s idea, but that would be a lie.
I’d always believed in absolute honesty. I’d believed that people were fundamentally predictable. I’d believed that no one who wanted to flirt with a teenage girl was remotely worth flirting back with.
For a long time, I’d believed in being self-sufficient and independent and, with the exception of my mother, alone. And then I’d come here.
For reasons I couldn’t quite pinpoint, I found myself holding my hand out to Nick, a boy I barely knew, one I’d framed and unframed and hit in the stomach with the door of a car. “Can I have this dance?”
He could have refused. He probably should have.
He didn’t.
This time, someone really did cut in. Based on the voice, I thought at first that Walker was the one who’d followed me outside, but when I turned, I found myself staring at Davis Ames instead.
Nick was gone before I could so much as say good-bye. I expected Davis to lead me back inside, but he didn’t. Instead, he took my hand. “I probably shouldn’t have to tell you this,” he said as we started to dance, “but I’ll lead.”
I waited for him to get to the point. I had no idea how much he knew about what had happened tonight, or what, if anything, he knew about me. But I did know, from Lillian, that he was ambitious.
I knew that he valued family.
And I just helped put his son in jail.
“Still not much of a talker, I see.” The old man offered me a small, self-satisfied smile. “Note that I’ve banished all forms of the word nattering from my vocabulary.”
“Congratulations.”
“Spitfire,” he murmured. “Like your grandmother.”
For a second, I thought that was why he’d asked me to dance. Maybe I looked the way Lillian had, when he’d first known her. Maybe this wasn’t about my connection to his family—or the events of the past twenty-four hours—at all.
“I don’t suppose you would happen to know anything about the series of frantic calls I’ve received from my son’s attorney, would you?”
And there it is. “Can’t say that I do,” I lied cheerfully.
There was another long stretch of silence. “I’ve helped
my son out of a jam or two before.” Davis Ames sounded almost reflective. “He has indicated to me that you might be a problem for this family.”
A problem. All things considered, that was rich. “Has he indicated to you that I’m your granddaughter?”
With as much time as I’d spent avoiding saying that, the words came out surprisingly smoothly. In response, the Ames family patriarch choked, then coughed.
“My dear,” he said, once he had recovered, “I wish that you were.”
“There’s no use pretending.” I stopped dancing and took a step back from his grasp. “Your daughter-in-law as good as told me. My mother confirmed it. And your son? He’s awfully invested in keeping me quiet for someone who didn’t knock up a teenager eighteen years ago.”
There was another silence—this one, measuring. “I’m not denying that my son had a lapse in judgment.”
“I’m thinking of legally changing my name,” I quipped. “Do you think I should go by Lapse or Judgment?”
“He got a girl pregnant.” The old man’s voice was far gentler than I would have expected. “He was an adult. She was a teenager. I handled it.”
Handled it. The words hit me, hard. Just like you “handled” the hit and run that left Nick’s brother in a coma?
Campbell had said that her father had called someone that night. Someone had made his little problem go away. Someone had blocked the investigation. Someone, I thought, had needed to be convinced that Walker was the one driving that car.
“Campbell had a few things to tell me earlier,” Davis Ames said, eerily perceptive when it came to my train of thought. “I believe that after tonight, my son will have to handle things for himself.”
I doubted that Campbell had told him everything. Even if she had, I couldn’t persuade my brain to focus on that. I’d finally told Davis Ames that I was his own flesh and blood, and he’d denied it.
Denied me.
“You know what,” I said quietly. “Don’t worry about me telling anyone that your son is my father. I have no intention of becoming a problem.”
Little White Lies Page 28