The Lying Woods

by Ashley Elston

  I glance at the clock when I sit back down. “How much longer before your parents are home?” I’ve always felt comfortable here, but I’m dreading seeing them again. I know Pippa’s mom won’t throw her arms around my neck to hug me and her dad won’t thump me on the back and tell me he’s glad to have another boy in the house since he’s always so outnumbered. Not after what my dad did.

  Pippa’s moving her food around but not actually eating. “Probably another hour.”

  “Will you tell me? Tell me what you know?”

  She won’t look at me. Just stares at her food. “I don’t know that much.”

  “Please. Just tell me what you know,” I beg.

  “I heard your mom showed up alone at that fund-raiser they do every year for the football team. It’s a cook-off and usually your mom’s food is always the first to go. They said she stood there the entire time with all that food she made laid out on the table in front of her but everyone boycotted her because by then it was obvious your dad had run off with everyone’s money. The news just wasn’t public yet.”

  My fork bangs off the side of my bowl, landing on the table. I can picture her there, probably in a pretty dress with her hair pulled back. And I can only imagine the food she made, étouffée or maybe a seafood pasta and of course something sweet like pralines, all of it sitting there untouched. And what it must have taken for her to stay until the event was over.

  “There were a few other things,” Pippa says quietly. “She was asked to leave the committee she was on that plans that big party the country club does every year for New Year’s Eve. You know, stuff like that.”

  Pippa looks at me, probably trying to gauge how I’m taking this. I want her to continue so I don’t interrupt her. I need to hear this. All of it.

  “And I ran into your mom right after her car was repossessed. She went into the grocery store and came out to find her car being towed away.”

  “They stranded her at the store?” I ask, forgetting my pledge to keep silent. “Why wouldn’t they wait until she was home? Were they trying to embarrass her?”

  Pippa shrugs and her eyes dart to mine once before she looks away again.

  “She was sitting on the curb with a few grocery sacks scattered around her, trying to call a taxi on her cell. No one stopped to help her but everyone gawked at her when they went past.”

  I push my bowl away even though it’s half-full. I should have been here.

  “So I pulled my car up and helped her load her groceries. She held it together until we were alone. I could tell she was crying but she never said anything the entire way to your house. This was when she was still in the house at Cypress Lake.”

  Her words are like a gut punch. “Thank you for that.” I reach across the table, my hand on hers for a few seconds before she pulls it away.

  “I didn’t do it for you. I did it for her. Growing up, she was like my second mother. It broke my heart seeing her like that. But when we got inside, you could tell someone had been there. Stuff was moved around and it was a mess. There was a note, too, that freaked her out but she wouldn’t let me see it.”

  “Someone broke in the house?”

  Pippa nods. “I stayed while she called the police. She was really shaken up.”

  I can feel the anger moving through me like a drug, racing through my veins. “Is that it? Or is there more?”

  Her brown eyes are glassy like she’s a second away from crying, which would normally make me panic. But instead it makes me want to reach for her again. But I don’t.

  “Some detective showed up. Talked to her. It sounds like there were other incidents. Something about a brick through a window and some threatening calls. She didn’t really want to talk about it in front of me so I left. I checked on her a few times. Went by your house before she, um, had to move. I was there when she got another one of those calls.”

  I stare at the wall behind Pippa, trying to keep calm.

  “Who do you think is calling her? Throwing bricks through her window? Breaking into her house?”

  Pippa shrugs. “I really don’t know. There are so many people angry with your dad.”

  “I get they’re mad but they think it’s okay to take it out on Mom? Dad stole some money from them, not her.”

  Pippa’s eyes get big. “I agree that no one should be doing this to your mom but your dad did a little more than steal some money. For someone like Sarah Frazier, what your dad did changed her life forever.”

  Mr. Frazier is one of the stories I read about last night. Sarah is a year behind us so I’m sure I’ll run into her at some point. Thankfully, her older brother, Reed, is older and off at college.

  I’m not sure what I would say if I saw either of them.

  “For a lot of people, their lives will never be the same because of what your dad did. But your mom was the only one here, the only connection to your dad, and they’re all taking it out on her. You should have been here,” Pippa finishes in a whisper.

  I shift back in my chair hard enough that the legs scrape against the floor. “How was I supposed to know what was going on here? No one told me anything. She won’t tell me anything. You should have called me.”

  “Me?” Pippa yells. She stands up from the table, taking her mostly full bowl of food to the sink. “Yeah, right. You and I haven’t spoken in years. How was I supposed to know you didn’t have a clue what was going on? For all I knew, you heard what was happening but refused to come home.”

  Her words cut, and the anger bleeds right out of me. “You really think I wouldn’t come home if I knew what was going on here?”

  “Owen, I don’t know you anymore. We’re not the same kids we were. You’ve changed. I’ve changed. We’re not friends. We’re more like strangers.”

  I stand up quickly, needing to be out of this house and away from her. “Tell your mom thanks for dinner. Or don’t if you’d rather her not know I was here.”

  She doesn’t stop me from leaving and that sucks as bad as the rest of it.

  • • •

  Mom’s waiting for me in the backyard when I get to my aunt’s house.

  “You could have answered my calls. Or my texts. I was worried.”

  The only light comes from a lamp in the windowsill above the kitchen sink so it’s hard to make out her face, but I can tell from her stuffed-up nose that’s she’s been crying. And by now I know she only does this when she thinks no one is around to witness it.

  “I wish you would have told me what was going on after Dad left.”

  “You’ve seen Pippa,” she answers. “I’ve always loved that girl. And she’s the only one who doesn’t look like she’d rather spit on me than speak to me. I should have known she’d tell you everything.”

  I drop down on the ground near her. “She’s worried about you. Just like I am.”

  She sits up straighter and takes a deep breath. “And I’m worried about you.”

  “I should have been here the minute he left. You shouldn’t have gone through all of that alone.”

  She’s quiet, staring off into the darkness. For all of the things Pippa told me, the one thing that was clear was that my mother handled everything that was thrown at her with an amazing amount of grace. I would have fought and cussed and made things worse. But not her. She’s the kind of woman that stands quietly in front of a table full of food for hours while others ignore her.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” I ask.

  “No.”

  I’m trying to keep my cool. Trying not to stand up and destroy things. “Has anything happened since you’ve been here?” I ask through gritted teeth.

  She shrugs and picks at the hem of her shirt. “A few calls. That’s all. I think it’s safer here for us. Lucinda is always around. Always has her nose in everyone’s business. I think whoever is doing this knows that.”

  “Who do you think it is? You have to have some ideas. Someone who lost more than the others. Someone who’d lose it like this.”

&nbs
p; Mom leans back further in her chair, drawing her legs under her, and stares off into the night sky. “Everyone lost so much. I can’t even wrap my head around how much money he stole. They’re saying ten million but it’ll probably be more when they understand the full extent of what he did. And I can’t help but think of every trip we had. Was the money we used to go to Hawaii money that would have put the Barsons’ kids through college? What about that boat we rented in the Caribbean? Maybe the Wellingtons could have retired and spent time traveling the country in a motor home like they’ve been talking about for years if we hadn’t rented that boat.”

  I scoot closer to her chair, slinging the dirt and grass far away from me. “This is not our fault. We didn’t do anything to those people.”

  “Owen, we may not have been the ones to steal from them, but our lives were made better by something that was theirs. I understand why someone would be so mad at us. I understand the desperation they must feel.”

  I stand up quickly, so quickly I almost fall over. “So you think you deserve those threats?”

  She leaves her chair and stops right in front of me. Her hands reach up and she holds on to my shoulders, clenching them tightly. “No. I don’t mean that. Whoever is doing this…it’s not right. Not at all. But I’m not surprised that what he did drove someone to this. It’s why I wanted to leave you at school as long as I could.”

  I step back from her and her hands drop to her sides. “We should leave this town. Go somewhere else. Somewhere where no one knows us.”

  “We can’t leave. Not until the investigation is finished. Not until we’ve paid back as much as we can.” She pauses a moment and I know there’s one more thing she wants to tell me. One more bomb to drop on me tonight. “They set the date for the auction. Saturday, a week and a half from today.”

  “What auction?”

  “Our house. And all our belongings. There will be a public auction where everything is sold and all the money will go toward restitution for the victims.”

  “Does anyone understand that we’re victims, too? He left us with nothing.”

  Mom gives me a sad smile but doesn’t answer. She’s in the same pants she was wearing when she picked me up from school and a sweatshirt that’s seen better days.

  “Did they let you keep any of your things?” It sucks I’m just now asking her this, just now noticing she’s been wearing the same thing over and over.

  She shrugs. “A few clothes. The ones not worth much. My makeup and toiletries. The things they can’t sell.”

  “That’s it?”

  She nods. “That’s it.”

  “That’s not fair. Not all of your stuff was bought with stolen money.”

  She waves off my protests. “I don’t miss most of it. And I certainly don’t need designer clothes anymore. I do wish I could have kept a few things like the bracelet Granddad gave me when I graduated from high school.”

  I know the exact bracelet she’s talking about. She wore it all the time.

  She gets up from the chair and hugs me once more before disappearing inside the house. I stay out a while longer, thinking about everything she said. But mostly trying to figure out how to get that bracelet back for her.

  Noah—Summer of 1999

  No one ate the casserole. Not one bite. But I still have Maggie’s mom’s dish that she brought it in. Is that part of the gift? Here’s some food because someone in your house is dying or dead and as a bonus you get a glass dish to remind you of this meal.

  It’s been three days and I still don’t know what to do with it.

  After Gus caught me in the kitchen, he started inviting me in to eat at the table with him for dinner. Betty usually feeds Abby once she moves her from the porch to the bed, and Abby doesn’t want an audience for that. I guess Gus was tired of eating alone.

  We just finished dinner and I’m eyeing that pad with Maggie’s number on it. I should call her, lie to her, and tell her the food was delicious and ask if she wants the dish back. I mean, her mom could probably use it. Make another casserole, send it to someone else who’s dying.

  Yeah, that’s why I need to call her. Not because I can’t quit thinking about her. That smile, those pink cheeks, that rambling she does when she’s nervous.

  Before I can talk myself out of it, I pick up the phone and dial her number. I twist the cord around my finger, hoping she’s the one who answers the phone.

  “Hello.”

  “Maggie?” I ask.

  “No, this is her sister, Lucinda. Who’s calling?”

  “This is Noah. Is Maggie around?”

  “Noah who?” she asks, but before I answer, everything sounds muffled and then Maggie is on the phone.

  “Hey!” she says.

  “Hey, um, Gus and Abby wanted me to tell you the casserole was delicious. And we cleaned the dish. It’s ready if you need it back.”

  “Oh,” she says, sounding disappointed.

  That’s the only encouragement I need so I go for it. “And I wanted to see you again.”

  “Oh!” she says again but much perkier this time. “I’d like that.”

  Gus walks in the kitchen, a confused look on his face when he sees I’m on the phone. I point to the clean glass dish on the counter and then back to the receiver I’ve got cradled between my ear and shoulder.

  His eyebrows shoot up and he shakes his head while he leaves the room.

  “Are you there?” Maggie asks.

  “Yeah, Gus just walked in. Sorry. Anyway, do you want to hang out sometime?” I’ve got nothing to offer this girl. Not a car to pick her up in, not money to take her out, nothing.

  “Sure. When?”

  I stare at the ceiling, willing something clever to come to me but I’ve got nothing. “Whenever is good for you. Can you come over here? I don’t have a car,” I mumble in the phone. There, I said it.

  “Yeah, sure. How about tomorrow night? Am I coming to Gus’s house? Is that where you live?”

  I take a quick glance around the kitchen, making sure I’m still alone. “I live in a small house on the back of the property. I’ll wait for you at the road and then ride with you to the back.”

  “Okay, I’ll bring a pizza. How’s seven?” she asks.

  “Seven works for me,” I answer and feel like such a tool. I can’t pick her up and she’s buying dinner.

  “Great! See you tomorrow,” she says, then hangs up the phone.

  Shit. Now I’m nervous. I’ve got twenty-four hours to think about what a bad idea this is. I stick my head into the den, where Gus is sitting in a chair, reading.

  “I’m leaving. See you in the morning.”

  “Maggie is a nice girl, but I can promise you her daddy doesn’t know she’s planning to hang out here alone with a boy.”

  “You mean a boy like me,” I say.

  Gus lets out a deep breath and drops his head for a second then looks back at me. “Yeah, that, too. It’s a small town, Noah. Right or wrong, people are funny when it comes to their daughters and boys they don’t know.”

  I nod and dig my hands in my pockets. “Trust me, I know how it is. I’ve been fighting my whole life for people to look at me and not see trash.”

  Gus gets up from his chair and moves toward me, putting both hands on my shoulders. “You’ve been better help around here than I could’ve hoped for. You’re giving me time with her, and that’s worth more to me than any amount of money. And anyone who takes the time to cut flowers every morning for a woman who is…very sick…isn’t trash.”

  I hang my head but he nudges my arm until I’m looking him in the eye again.

  “What are you running from?”

  It takes everything in me to hold eye contact with him and not flinch. Somehow Gus has turned into the big brother I never had. “I’m not running from anything.”

  He can’t know that it took me a few days to understand that weird feeling in my stomach was the fact that it was full. He can’t know that for the first time in forever I’ve gone t
o sleep without the fear that I’d never wake up again.

  “You haven’t set foot off this place since you got here.”

  “You haven’t set foot off this place since I got here, either. What are you hiding from?” I ask.

  We stare at each other for a long moment before he says, “Everything I need is right here. No reason to go anywhere else. And I don’t know what you’re running from but you’re safe here.”

  It’s been a long time since I felt safe.

  Gus drops back down in his chair and says, “That’s enough talk for one night. Good luck getting your girl.”

  My girl. Is there any chance in hell that I could make Maggie Everett my girl? Probably not but damn, I’m going to try.

  6

  Mom thinks I’m running out of the door so I can make it to school on time, but I’ve got another destination in mind. The street is still packed with news vans but Aunt Lucinda is out there just like she is every morning. There’s one reporter that’s been overly flirty with her, probably just to get her talking, and she’s fallen for it hook, line, and sinker.

  No one glances my way when I come out of the side door and slip into the neighbor’s yard.

  The police station parking lot is full so I have to find an empty spot on the street and a few quarters for the meter. I spent most of last night digging back through the news stories I read a few days ago, but this time making a note of every person that has gone public saying Dad stole from them.

  It’s a long list.

  There’s an officer manning a security desk just inside the front door so I empty my pockets and walk through the metal detector, thankful nothing on me triggers the alarm. Once my change is back in my pocket and my belt is on, I walk to the information desk across the room and ask for Detective Hill.

  “What’s your name? I’ll call him and tell him you’re here,” she says, the phone already in her hand.

  “Owen Foster.”

  The officer does a double take when my name registers. “You can have a seat over there,” she says and points to a small waiting area.