Gathering Lies

by Meg O'Brien

  “Your father would know, though, if he really was Ian MacDonald’s partner?”

  “Your former lover’s partner?” Luke softened it with a smile.

  “Whatever.” Luke and his father certainly had been delving into my life.

  “Well, no one’s found a connection yet between Gabe and MacDonald. If he told you he was Ian Mac-Donald’s partner, he probably lied.”

  “One more question, then. Why were you so reluctant to let me call back my mother?”

  He shook his head. “There are some things you’ve just got to trust me on.”

  “Like hell, I will. What’s going on with my mother? Is she involved in this mess somehow?”

  “Not really. That is—” He broke off. “She wasn’t.”

  “But she is now?”

  “Look—”

  I grabbed him by the front of his jacket. “If you and your father have gotten my mom into trouble somehow, I swear to God, Luke, I’ll kill you both!”

  “She’s not in trouble,” he said, grabbing my wrists. “Not now.”

  “But she was? Tell me, or I swear—”

  “All right, dammit! Yes, she was in trouble—for a while. After you called Mike Murty that night, he and his friends paid a little visit to your mother. They threatened her life if she didn’t get you to back off. She was supposed to tell you that, so you’d drop the case against them.”

  I was aghast. “But she never said a word!”

  “I know. She talked to my father, instead.”

  “She talked to your father—instead of me?”

  “Sarah, I told you how close they’d been when they were young. Your mother didn’t want to trouble you with the Five’s threats because she thought you had enough to worry about. So she talked to my dad.”

  “And then what?”

  “Then he had her whisked off to Florida in the middle of the night. He put both her and your aunt—so your mom would have company—in a safe house in Tampa, far away from Miami. That’s where they are now.”

  “Not in Bermuda? In Tampa?” I pulled away from Luke and rubbed my temple. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me that? Never mind, I know. You didn’t trust me with the truth because I might have told Gabe. My God.”

  I couldn’t believe this had happened to my mother, and that she hadn’t even told me. She’d turned to someone else, instead.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Luke said gently. “But she loved you too much to come to you. You’d already been arrested and you’d lost your job. How could she lay that burden on you? She’s your mother, Sarah.”

  A mother I’d been thinking I hardly knew. And I guess that was true, because I never in a million years dreamed she would do something like that to protect me.

  But could I trust that she was all right, even now? That would mean trusting Luke—and his father. Not just with a story this time, but with my mother’s life.

  I had to get off the fence.

  “I want to talk to my mother,” I said. “Now.”

  Luke tried to argue the low remaining juice in the cell phone’s batteries again, but I wouldn’t hear it.

  “No more putting me off,” I said firmly. “You want that evidence? Hell, I’ll give it to you. It’s all yours, Luke. After you let me talk to my mom.”

  When we came to the middle, cross-island path, we veered off in the direction of Ransford and Luke’s cabin. I have to admit I felt a certain amount of fear, walking by his side through the dark forest. If I’d been wrong yet again about a man—if Luke had in fact been lying to me—he could have killed me right then and there. But he didn’t, and when we came to the cabin he took a key from the pocket of his jeans and opened the padlock. Inside, he closed the door and locked it again before lighting the candle.

  He had hidden the cell phone this time, and pulled it out from under a loose floorboard under the cot by the wall.

  “If anybody managed to get in here,” he explained, “I didn’t want them to find it.”

  I didn’t tell him Gabe knew about the cabin, and the phone. First I’d call my mother.

  He trusted me to dial the number myself, standing beside me and feeding it to me as I punched it in. This reassured me somewhat, but I socked that number away in my memory banks for future use, just in case.

  A man’s voice answered. I held the phone out a bit so Luke could hear, and gave him a questioning look.

  “FBI,” he said in an undertone. “He’s guarding them. Tell him who you are.”

  “I…this is Sarah Lansing,” I said. “I want to talk to my mom.”

  He asked me for a code name. Again, I looked at Luke.

  “Tell him, ‘Bluebird.’”

  “Bluebird,” I said, feeling a bit foolish.

  “One moment,” he answered.

  My mother came to the phone immediately. “Sarah? Oh, honey, it’s so good to hear your voice! I’ve been worried about you.”

  “Mom, are you all right?”

  “Yes, I’m fine. Is everything all right there?”

  “Yes,” I said, “it’s fine. Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “Honey, I haven’t been better. Randell found us this wonderful little house, right on the bay. And we’ve got the nicest FBI men staying with us. Two of them, and they watch the house like hawks. I…oh—” she said uncertainly, “I suppose you must know by now what happened.”

  “Someone threatened you, right, Mom?”

  “Yes, dear. I’m sorry, I didn’t want you to know. Who told you?”

  “Luke,” I said. “He told me you didn’t want to burden me with it. I wish you hadn’t felt that way, Mom. I’d have taken care of you.”

  But as much as I might have wanted to, could I have? I frankly doubted it. If they’d gotten to Angel, they could just as easily have gotten to Mom.

  “Well, you don’t have to worry about me, dear. I’m here with your aunt Rinna, and we’re safe as two peas in a pod.”

  I smiled. “Isn’t it ‘close’ as two peas in a pod?”

  “That, too.” She laughed.

  My mom had always gotten her sayings a bit twisted. It reassured me to hear her do this now.

  “And what about you, dear? And Luke?”

  “I told you, we’re fine.”

  “I’m sure you are,” she said, “but that isn’t what I meant. You are on Esme Island together. Have you finally found the man of your dreams?”

  I smiled. “Look, if you’re sure you’re all right, Mom, I’m signing off now.”

  “So you’re not going to answer that one,” she said. “Well, take care, then. Sarah…I’ll be so glad when all this is over with. I really do worry about you. But I know if Luke is with you, you’ll be just fine. Randell says Luke would never let anything happen to you.”

  I hung up and looked at the man in question. “She sounds okay. Actually, she sounds pretty good.”

  “So do you believe me now?”

  “I…yes. I believe you now. Unfortunately, there’s just one problem. You shouldn’t have believed me.”

  He frowned. “What does that mean?”

  “Luke, I’m sorry, but I lied. About giving you the evidence, that is. I don’t know where it is.”

  His face cleared, and he smiled. “Oh, that. Not to worry. I’ve already got it.”

  He knelt and pried up another floorboard, sticking in a hand, then holding up the Allegra case. “I found this on the path the other day, when you sent Grace and me on that wild-goose chase looking for Jane’s locket.”

  My eyes widened. “You had this all the time? And you never told me?”

  He stood and faced me. “I was going to, but like I said, you seemed to be getting pretty close to Gabe. I was already suspicious of him, and I was afraid that if he convinced you to trust him you might tell him where this was.”

  “For God’s sake, Luke! And you? What exactly did you plan to do with it?”

  He grinned. “I planned, my suspicious little wench, to give it to you—when the moment was
right.”

  He put the Allegra case in my hands. “I guess that would be now,” he said.

  18

  We got back to Thornberry an hour or so later, and Kim had returned. She was mute, huddled by the stove in a blanket as if trying to get warm. Salt streaked her face from tears that had dried there. Timmy and Amelia sat at the table, talking softly and looking worried. Grace sat silently across from them, watching Kim.

  Luke went to join Grace, speaking in a soft voice that didn’t carry.

  “I’m really worried about Kim,” Dana said in an aside to me. “She won’t even look at us. I don’t know what happened to her.”

  “I think I do,” I said.

  I went over to Kim and said gently, “Come outside with me. Let’s talk.”

  She didn’t move or respond.

  I tugged lightly at her arm. “Kim? We have to talk about this. I’m going after Gabe. I’ll get him for you—and I’ll get him for me, too.”

  She stirred. Turning her pale face to me, she said in a voice just above a whisper, “Can you do that?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I can, and I will.”

  If Gabe was working with the Five, that meant he was responsible for the threat on my mother’s life. I was just as sure, now, that he was responsible for Angel’s death, too, and for attacking me at my cottage.

  With my help, Kim managed to get to her feet. It was as if she’d become old and arthritic, or as if her spirit had flown so far away, it was no longer there to help her move.

  Outside, I built up the fire from coals that still burned from dinner. After heating water in a pot, I fixed us each a cup of hot tea.

  “Here, drink this—” I said, pulling her blanket around her. Her teeth were chattering, her lips blue, as if she were chilled clear through. We both sat on tree stumps, close to the fire.

  Kim wrapped her hands around the heavy mug, one of the few that had survived the quakes. Holding it to her lips, she didn’t drink. Instead, she seemed to be letting the rising steam warm her.

  I sipped from my own mug, then said, “You didn’t look all that happy back there in the cabin. What happened?”

  Tears filled her eyes, and she wiped them away. “What the hell,” she said, her voice coming out between rough, indrawn sobs. “He’s going to tell everyone, anyway.”

  “Tell them what?” I urged. “Kim, we may not have much time.”

  “About my past.” She flicked a glance at me. “Oh, it’s not all that new a story. Struggling young actress, broke, making porn movies out in the Valley to pay the rent. You know how many of us there were at the time? I could name you names—all working actors now in the legitimate sector. But I wouldn’t. We all know how that could damage our careers now.”

  “But, Kim, you’re right, it’s not a new story. Look at Marilyn Monroe with the nude calendar photos—pretty shocking back in those days. That didn’t hurt her career.”

  She laughed, a bitter, caustic sound. “We’re not talking nude calendars here, Sarah. We’re talking hard-core porn. With men, with women, with…” She gave a shudder. “With animals. God, I can’t believe some of the things I did.”

  I couldn’t help it. A sound of shock escaped my lips. America’s new Sweetheart? With a past like that? She was right. Even in a so-called enlightened age, something like this could destroy her career.

  “What about denying it?” I said, though without much hope.

  “He knows too much,” she said, confirming my worst fears. “I guess he’s got contacts on the LAPD. Sarah, some of those videos can still be found, if you know where to look. He wouldn’t even have to have the tapes—he could just tell the tabloids the names of them and anyone could dig them up. Not only that, he’s going to put stills from them on the Internet. That’s what he said. Unless—”

  “Unless what?”

  “Unless I help him get something he wants from you,” Kim said softly, not meeting my eyes.

  “Ahh.” The pieces were coming together.

  She ran her fingers through her hair, and as the blanket slipped from her shoulders, I saw bruises on her pale skin: an imprint of Gabe’s hands. My anger rose.

  “God, Sarah,” she said, “he seemed so nice at first. There aren’t a lot of guys like that left. Most of them are into their own careers, and they run from any kind of commitment—”

  She broke off and, following my gaze, pulled the blanket up around her again.

  “I don’t mean to make excuses. There are some good men left, I guess. Maybe they’re just intimidated by me. Anyway, I really liked Gabe at first. He just seemed so attentive, so helpful…kind of sweet, you know?”

  I nodded. “Yes. We all thought that, Kim.”

  “Well, then he made me start doing…things to him. He said that was part of the deal. Either I serviced him, gave him everything he wanted, just the way he wanted it—and got this thing from you—or he’d tell the world about those tapes.”

  “Did he tell you what this ‘thing’ was?” I asked.

  “He was going to, I think. But then you walked in on us tonight.”

  “Kim, do you know where Gabe is? Did the two of you leave the cabin together?”

  “No. Right after you left, we heard an air horn, and Gabe figured you were calling for everybody to come out to the cabin, that you were going to tell them what you’d seen. Whatever, he took off. You know what he said? ‘Cheerio, little darlin’. Don’t think it hasn’t been fun.’” She grimaced. “I ran, too, but I didn’t go the same way he did. I was trying to get away from him.”

  “Well, you don’t have to worry about him anymore,” I said, squeezing her hand. “The thing he wanted you to get from me is in a safe place, and there’s no way I’m telling anyone where it is. If he comes back, I’ll make sure he knows that.”

  Her eyes widened. “Sarah, you can’t do that! You don’t know what else he did!”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “He said…he said he killed some woman because she wouldn’t tell him where this thing was. He said he killed her right on this island. I think he must have meant Jane.”

  I wanted to cry. Not Jane—though he might have killed her, too. It was Angel he’d murdered because she wouldn’t tell him where the Allegra case was. Angel, who had been loyal to the end.

  I leaned forward and rested my head on my bent knees, closing my eyes. I would get Gabe, if it was the last thing I did. And I wouldn’t leave it up to the law to punish him. I knew all too well how that worked, in these days of “not enough evidence.” Even if he were charged and convicted, there was always that blasted court of appeals.

  No…I would settle things with Gabe myself. Scum like that shouldn’t be allowed to live.

  I didn’t realize I’d said it aloud, until Kim said, “I want to help. Whatever you do, I want to help get him, Sarah.”

  I looked up.

  “Me, too,” Dana said from behind us. “That filthy son of a bitch.”

  We turned in surprise.

  “Oh, I didn’t fall for him or anything like that,” Dana said. “But I liked him. What’s not to like with somebody that friendly and charming? So one day I told him about my plan—how I was leaving my husband and meeting another man in Vancouver. He asked me all kinds of questions about this other man, and, foolish me, I told him everything. What a blabbermouth I’ve gotten to be. Anyway, he said if I didn’t help him get something from you, Sarah, he’d tell my husband where to find us when he got back to the mainland.”

  “What did you say?” Kim asked.

  Dana’s chin went up. “I told him to go to hell. I told him my friend and I would be out of the country by then, and Gabe himself would never find us. What’s more, I told him if he ever talked to my husband, I’d turn him in to the authorities. I didn’t know what he wanted from you, Sarah. But I knew it couldn’t be good. I told him to leave you alone, too.”

  Both women looked at me, a question in their eyes.

  “He did leave me alone,” I said.
“At least, he didn’t try to force me into telling him anything. Instead, he tried to seduce me into it.”

  “That man deserves a dose of his own medicine,” Grace said angrily. Only then did we realize she’d come up and was standing several feet beyond the fire’s light.

  “He needs to feel absolutely vulnerable,” she said. “Helpless. Without power. Actually, what he really needs is to die.”

  I met her angry gaze, and thought about the brother she had lost. I thought about Angel, her life cut short, and my mother, who should never have had to endure the fear she must be feeling now. I thought of Lonnie Mae, who had trusted me to keep her safe, and of Jane—poor Jane—who hadn’t lived long enough to see her children again.

  “What do you have in mind?” I said.

  “I’m not sure yet,” Grace answered. “But we’re not letting him go. And we’re not just turning him over to the law, either. Not yet.”

  “I agree,” I said, standing. It felt good in that moment, having her support my own anger.

  Dana stood next to me, and then Kim. We all linked hands around the fire, gazing into the flames as if casting a witch’s curse. I don’t honestly know what the others were thinking—but for me, it was all about revenge.

  After a few moments we squatted by the fire and, putting our heads together, came up with a plan.

  It was a hideous plan—one that could only have come out of minds that had been pushed too far and endured too much. But we all agreed to it. We wouldn’t really kill him, we told ourselves, much as we might want to. We only wanted to scare him. Teach him a lesson.

  The problem was that none of us fully understood our own motives. Or our rage. And that’s how it happened…our descent into hell.

  19

  None of us slept much that night. I could hear the others tossing and turning, just as I was. Once, I heard Kim cry out. A soft cry, but to me it seemed there was a world of pain in it.

  We left the farmhouse early in the morning, each of us carrying a backpack. Luke was at his cabin using the cell phone to talk to his father. He had told me the night before that our rescue was imminent, and would come about in the next forty-eight hours.