He’d started to ask for the case file, then realized he couldn’t remember the name of the case. “I sound like an idiot, don’t I?” he said.
Diana was normally shy around the attorneys, especially the well-known ones, but Roy’s quixotic grin seemed to inspire confidence. “Yes, you do,” she replied lightly.
“Sometimes I am an idiot.”
She laughed. “Me, too.”
“Hey, that’s something we have in common.”
About the only thing they could have in common, Diana remembered thinking at the time. But she liked that Roy had said it.
He found reason to come back to her desk at least once a day after that. When the secretary she was filling in for returned, he sought out Diana’s own station in the secretarial pool and, out of the blue, asked if she wanted to have dinner with him.
“I have a ten-year-old daughter,” she blurted out without knowing why.
His eyes crinkled in bewilderment. “And?”
“I thought you should know that.”
“Duly noted.” He paused. “I love kids, I’ve just never had any myself.” Then smiled. “Thought you should know that.”
They’d gone out to dinner that Friday evening, and then to the San Francisco Zoo the next day with Emily. They were married seven months later. And Diana had never had a moment’s doubt that he was the man she was meant to love.
She was thinking about this now as she lay propped up on the living room sofa with the green wool afghan Roy had given her last Christmas spread over her, surrounded by the anxious faces of her children and Allison.
Len had gone to get Diana a glass of water, while Allison had coaxed her from the floor to the couch.
Jeremy stood off to one side looking scared and confused.
Emily stared at Diana like her mother was some particularly obnoxious insect. “Get a grip, Mom. Geez.”
Diana felt woozy, although she hadn’t fainted. At least she didn’t think she had. But a shadowy darkness had descended on her suddenly, sucking her breath from her lungs, and she’d found herself in a heap on the floor.
Allison stroked Diana’s forehead, murmuring softly, “You’re going to be okay, Diana. Really. You’ve held it together so well these last few days, it’s not surprising the stress finally got to you.”
A series of video clips flashed through Diana’s mind. Roy at their wedding, promising to take care of her forever. Roy with Emily, patient and kind even during her difficult teenaged years. Roy holding his newborn son as though Jeremy were as fragile as a newly hatched butterfly. Roy, her life’s partner, her friend, her confidant. How could this man who was Mr. Honesty himself have been hiding a secret as big as his own identity? Surely, there had to be some mistake.
“Was that a relative of Roy’s on the phone?” Emily asked.
“No,” Diana said hotly. “No, it wasn’t.”
Len returned and handed Diana a glass of water. She drank it like she hadn’t had a drop in days.
“It was someone who knew him though, wasn’t it?” Emily insisted. “From when he was growing up in North Dakota?”
“No,” Diana said slowly. “It was a mix-up, is all. A mistake.”
Emily sighed. “Well you certainly made a production out of it.”
“Emily, let your mother be,” Allison said. “It’s been a tough couple of weeks for her.”
“For me and Jeremy, too.”
“Yes, of course, honey.” Allison stroked Emily’s long blond hair. “I know it’s been hard for you two.”
Jeremy looked upset still, and Diana beckoned him closer. She pulled him into her lap. “I’m fine, sweetie. I just needed to cry a little. There’s nothing worry about. You understand that, don’t you?”
Jeremy nodded mutely.
“I think I need to go upstairs and lie down for a bit,” Diana said. “I’m sorry to have made such a scene.”
“Do you have any sleeping pills?” Allison asked. “Maybe you ought to take one. I can stay here with the kids.”
“No, I’ll sleep just fine. It’s just that I don’t feel so well, suddenly.” She got to her feet unsteadily and turned to her children. “Sorry to flake out on you two. You’ll be okay?”
“Of course we’ll be okay,” Emily said.
Jeremy hugged Diana hard. “I love you, mommy.”
“I love you, too, sweetie.” She turned to Emily. “And you, too, Em.”
“Why don’t I come upstairs with you?” Allison said. “I want to make sure you’re all right.”
“I’m fine.” Diana knew Allison would question her further about the phone call.
There were some secrets too awful to be shared, even with your best friend.
*****
Chloe was lying on the bed with a romance novel she’d gotten from the library—a story about a handsome and wealthy landowner who’d hired a lovely young governess to care for the niece he was raising. Chloe was only on chapter five and she was already falling for the landowner, while the governess, who was something of a lightweight, found every opportunity to put him down. In fact, Chloe didn’t like the governess at all. She was supposedly beautiful, but she wasn’t nice.
The scrapes on Chloe’s cheek and hands had scabbed over and hurt every time she moved. Her hip was still bruised and so sore she had trouble sitting. And when she walked, her knee occasionally sent daggers of red hot pain up her leg. She’d gone into work the Monday after the accident, but the manager had sent her home saying they couldn’t have a cashier who looked like she’d been in a train wreck. So Chloe had spent most of the week hanging around the apartment, trying to stay out of Trace’s way. It was one of the times Chloe really missed her mother.
As far back as a young child, Chloe had known her mother wasn’t like other mothers. Her mother worked most days, and when she was home, she drank heavily and spent a lot of time sleeping. Sometimes she’d hide out in the bedroom with men Chloe had never seen before. Men who tried, with lollipops and bags of candy, to bribe Chloe to go play outside. Her mother was not, as the counselor at the group home had taken pains to point out to Chloe, an ideal mother. Not even close. But when Chloe was sick or hurt, her mother had usually come through. There weren’t many such occasions—despite her haphazard home life, Chloe had been remarkably healthy as a child—but those stolen moments alone with her mother were among the few fond memories she had of growing up.
Once, when one of the men her mother brought home shoved Chloe so hard she fell and broke her arm, her mother stayed home from work and made Chloe chicken soup. Well, not made it exactly. She’d heated it from a can, but she’d sat with Chloe and fed her, spoonful by spoonful, even though it was Chloe’s left arm that was broken.
That was what Chloe craved now. Someone to coddle and pamper her. Someone who cared about her.
Trace cared, of course. But he wasn’t good at showing it. And he was angry she’d messed up when she’d gone to the lawyer’s house. He’d been sleeping on the couch in front of the TV and had barely spoken to her all week except to complain about needing to come up with the money he owed.
She felt a tear of self-pity roll down her cheek and she pushed it away. She wasn’t a child anymore. She was almost a mother herself. She shouldn’t expect anyone to kiss away her troubles.
Besides, it wasn’t all bad. Her fall hadn’t hurt the baby. She had worried about that more than anything. She’d waited for cramping or spotting or any of the signs that might spell trouble, and they hadn’t happened. So she really didn’t have anything to complain about.
There was a knock at the apartment door and she heard Trace talking to someone.
Her heart stopped when she left the bedroom and recognized the man in the doorway as one of the three Trace owed money to, the man with the face like a weasel. He was at least four inches taller than Trace and probably fifty pounds heavier. He pushed past Trace, into the room, and said, “Well, hotshot, did you get the money?”
“Not yet.” Trace looked nervously aro
und the room. “I’m working on it.”
“Not good enough. Promises don’t mean nothing.”
Trace stepped back a couple of steps. “Look, can’t we come up with some sort of payment plan?”
“Payment plan?” The man gave an icy chuckle.
“You know, installments. I can probably manage that.”
The big man swung his arm and pushed Trace against the wall, pinning him there with a hand pressed hard against Trace’s chest. Chloe wondered if she should call 9-1-1 and began to move toward the dresser where she’d left her phone.
“Uh-uh,” the man said to her. “You stay where I can see you. Come here, in fact.”
She moved hesitantly toward him. She didn’t want to get too close.
“What do you think I should do about this no-good boyfriend of yours, huh? Asking nicely gets me nothing. Tell me the truth, is he holding out on me?”
Chloe shook her head. Her whole body was shaking too, so her head felt like one of those bobble-head toys you see on the dashboard of cars. “No,” she said. “Really, we don’t have the money.”
“So what am I supposed to do?”
“Just give me a little more time,” Trace pleaded.
“A little more time,” the man mimicked. “I don’t think so.”
He socked Trace hard in the belly and Trace doubled over, holding his stomach and moaning. Chloe felt the fire of anger in her chest. She tried to get to the man but he yanked her by the wrist.
“Your boyfriend thought he was tough enough to play with the big guys. He doesn’t look so tough now, does he, sweetheart?”
“Leave him alone,” she cried as she tried to twist free. “We can’t pay you if we don’t have any money.”
The man laughed. “What do you want with a wimp like this guy, anyway? Maybe we ought to get rid of him, huh? World would be a better place without the likes of him.”
“Look man,” Trace gasped. “I’m trying, I really am. You kill me and you’ll never get your money. If you just cut me a little slack—”
“What do you think I’ve been doing, dickwad? Problem is, word gets around. We got to send a message, you know what I mean? We let you get away with shitting us, no one’s going to take us seriously.”
Still holding tight to Chloe’s wrist, Weasel-face pulled her close enough that she could smell the garlic on his breath. “What happened to your eye? This no-good boyfriend of yours do that? You ought to get yourself a real man.”
With his free hand, he yanked Chloe’s shirt front open, sending buttons popping to the floor. Then he held her chin hard in a vice-like grip. “Take off your bra.”
“No, please,” she said, choking on her words. “Please don’t.” She looked to Trace for support.
He looked away. “Do it, Chloe. Just do what he wants.”
She felt like she might be sick.
The man laughed and let go of her chin.
“You’re a piece of work, Trace. A real piece of work. And here’s a word of advice, you’d better start watching your back.”
The man grabbed Trace’s shirt front, kicked him in the shins, then slammed his head against the wall.
And then he left.
Chloe rushed to Trace. “Oh, God. Are you hurt?”
Trace writhed on the floor. “My shoulder. That bastard got me right where I was shot. Jesus Christ, it hurts. We got to get out of here, Chloe.”
“Where would we go?”
“I don’t know where.” He moaned in pain. “But we’ve got to get away before there’s real trouble.”
“We don’t have any money. I’ve got like, ten dollars. I get paid tomorrow. Can’t we wait until then?”
Trace might not have agreed if hadn’t been hurting so much. “Lock the door and don’t open it no matter what. We’ll talk about this later.” He managed to sit up and brace himself against the wall. “Now get me some of those pain pills.”
Chapter 20
Diana ended up taking a sleeping pill after all, but she still couldn’t sleep. She didn’t dare take a second one. Her mind twisted and turned, flooded with unbidden memories. How was it possible to love someone, miss them terribly, and be angry with them all at the same time? It was as though she’d lost Roy twice. Once to death and a second time to something worse.
A little after midnight, she went downstairs to the file cabinet in the den where she and Roy kept their important documents. She looked through the files until she found his birth certificate. In the soft light of the desk lamp, she examined it.
His mother’s name was listed as Barbara Walker. Place of birth, Grand Forks, North Dakota. And the time of birth, 5:32 a.m.
The woman on the phone wasn’t crazy. She was the mother of a dead boy whose identity Roy had stolen.
Diana’s chest was tight, her mouth dry. A silent scream exploded in her head. Her beloved Roy, the man who connected all the disjointed parts of her and made her feel whole, was an imposter.
Shivering from the cold and the shock, she slowly climbed the stairs back to her bed. The truth was a heavy weight in her chest, too terrible to contemplate. Diana, who had always believed in facing her demons, found to her great surprise that she had something in common with Scarlett O’Hara. Tomorrow, she told herself. She’d think about it tomorrow.
*****
Trace was still asleep, snoring loudly, when Chloe left for work Monday morning. She’d stayed up half the night quaking with fear at every sound from the outside, terrified Weasel-face would return and terrorize them further. Trace’s idea of running made some sense, but where would they go? A motel? For how long? And how would they pay for it? Besides, driving around in a car with stolen plates was asking for trouble of a different sort.
The only real solution was to repay the money Trace owed. A couple of thousand, he’d said. She wasn’t sure she believed him—it could be a lot more. To some people a couple of thousand might not seem like much. But Chloe had trouble even getting her mind around that much money.
She had packed up last night and had no regrets about leaving the ugly, soiled furniture that had come with the apartment, or the ratty linens and cracked plates they’d gotten at a thrift shop. She used her old suitcase—the one she’d carried into foster care—to pack clothes for both of them. She used the lawyer’s gym bag for toiletries, a few kitchen basics, and bulkier items like her warm sweater. It surprised her to see how meager their possessions were. Everything they owned, practically, fit into a suitcase and a bag. She hid them, and the TV Trace refused to leave behind, in the storage room downstairs so that if Weasel-face returned and they had to leave in a hurry, they could come back and get their stuff later.
The more she thought about it, though, running away was a terrible idea. Trace would be able to work soon. He was strong, despite the injury to his shoulder, so he shouldn’t have trouble finding a job. And her job didn’t pay a lot, but it was something. Maybe if Trace began paying the men some money, they’d back off a bit.
Tomorrow Chloe would go to work, pick up her paycheck, and then head back to the apartment. Trace would try to figure out where they could go.
But the manager at the Craft Connection was late.
“Where’s Mr. Black?” Chloe asked Velma, when it was almost noon and he still hadn’t shown up.
“All I know is he called and said he’d be late.”
“We’re supposed to get paid today.”
“I’m sure he knows that. He’s never stiffed us yet, has he?”
He hadn’t. But Chloe had never been desperate to get her check before closing, either. She bit her lower lip. “I was hoping to get to the bank today.”
“You that short on cash? I could lend you twenty to tide you over until tomorrow.”
Chloe shook her head, afraid she might burst into tears any moment.
Trace called twice. The first time Chloe explained that the manager was late.
“Christ, Chloe, we need to get going.”
“What am I supposed to do,” she
whispered into the phone. “We need that paycheck.”
“Shit.” He hung up abruptly.
The second time he called, Chloe let the phone go to voicemail. It wasn’t her fault that Mr. Black was late.
He arrived about four, but she didn’t get her paycheck until the end of her shift at five. The bank would be closed by the time she got there, and they wouldn’t be able to leave until the next morning. Trace would be angry.
Maybe she could convince him that running wasn’t such a good idea, after all. She could cash her paycheck and give the whole thing to Trace to give to the men. She and Trace could get by somehow, even if she had to root through the trash at McDonald’s to find food. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d done it. Amazing the stuff people threw away!
Problem was, her paycheck didn’t amount to much. Certainly not enough to give the men confidence that the rest of the money would be coming soon. It would be much better if she could sweeten the deal a little.
She didn’t want to sue anybody, but Diana had urged her to visit the doctor about her knee, promising to cover the cost. Surely if Chloe asked for money for a doctor’s visit, Diana would give it to her.
Chloe tried calling Trace to tell him she’d be late, but he didn’t answer. She decided against leaving a message because she wanted to explain her plan in person. Besides, she wasn’t sure she’d have the nerve to go through with it.
Without debating further, she climbed on the bus that would take her to Diana’s neighborhood.
As she walked from the bus stop to Diana’s street, she was enchanted once again by the majesty of the houses and the rich greenery of the surroundings. There was no freeway noise, no squeal of truck brakes. It was so quiet, in fact, you could actually hear birds chirping in the trees.
She stood on the corner, eyeing Diana’s house, building her courage. She’d be doing it for Trace, she reminded herself. For Trace and the life they’d have together after the baby was born. Just as she approached the house, she saw Diana’s car back down the long driveway. She caught sight of Jeremy in the back passenger seat as the car drove off.
Chloe’s heart sank. She’d missed her chance. If only she hadn’t wasted time admiring the neighborhood.
Lying With Strangers Page 13