Liars, Inc.

by Paula Stokes

  “Nope.” I flick a glance at the parking lot. Mrs. Amos’s car is gone. I duck out of the ER and start walking toward home. I check the time on my phone: it’s almost six o’clock. Parvati seemed hell-bent on talking to me after the funeral. That half smile she gave me—she was going to head in my direction before she got distracted by something in the woods. She wouldn’t disappear like that and stay gone for no reason. I consider a pair of possibilities, one grimmer than the other: 1. Whoever killed Preston lured Parvati into the woods and snatched her. 2. Parvati saw something suspicious in the woods and ran off on her own to investigate. The probability of each feels about equal.

  The sun is dropping in the sky, and the breeze is picking up. The cool air clears some of the haze from my brain. As I turn the corner onto my street, I debate calling Langston. I bet he and Marcus were at the funeral somewhere. Maybe they lured Parvati into the woods for a little extra debriefing. It’s not any weirder than Langston pretending to be my uncle and bailing me out of jail, is it? I try to make that possibility seem real. Then I see the dark sedan parked in front of my house. McGhee and Gonzalez are walking up my driveway as I approach.

  McGhee kneels down and puts his cigarette out against the cement porch. “Got a minute?” he asks, slipping the butt into his pocket.

  “Can I say no?”

  “We can do this somewhere else if you’d prefer.”

  “Might as well get it over with.” I hold the door open for McGhee but let it bang shut on Gonzalez as he tries to enter. He swears under his breath.

  My sisters are all parked on the sofa watching television. The sagging upholstery is threatening to swallow Ji and Jo whole.

  Darla enters from the kitchen, her face red from standing over the stove. Her lips flatten into a hard line when she sees me with the agents. She bends down and gathers one twin under each arm protectively, as if she thinks FBI agents eat babies for snacks. “It’s almost dinnertime,” she says.

  “We’ll only be a few minutes, ma’am.” McGhee nods to her.

  “Don’t you think your lawyer should be present for this, Max?” Darla asks nervously.

  My lawyer. Right. Probably, but who knows how long it’d be before she could get here?

  “It’ll be okay,” I say. “I’ll just tell the truth like you said.” Once again, I pray that my hair is doing a good job of hiding my head wound. Darla will freak if I start dripping blood onto the carpet.

  “If you’re sure . . .” She trails off. Ji and Jo squirm in her arms. “Come on, Amanda.”

  “I want to stay and watch,” my sister says. She mutes the TV volume and stares at the agents in fascination.

  “Trust me, they’re boring.” I reach out and ruffle her scraggly hair. “I’ll tell you the story later and it’ll be way cooler.”

  “Promise?” she says, looking reluctantly at McGhee and Gonzalez.

  “Promise.”

  “Okay.” Amanda clambers down off the sofa and follows Darla into the kitchen.

  McGhee clears his throat. “Mind if we take a seat, Max?”

  “Go for it.” I sit in the old recliner and let the agents share the sofa. McGhee ends up on the sagging side, and I almost feel bad for him. His knees are approaching his chin, and it looks like he’s going to need help getting up.

  He grimaces and adjusts his weight, pulling a plastic dinosaur out from underneath his thigh. He sets the toy gently on the ground. “We’ve spoken to a few people who were present at the funeral today. Did Colonel Amos assault you?”

  “He grabbed me,” I say. “But a tree did most of the damage.”

  “Are you going to press charges?” McGhee pulls his mini notebook out of the pocket of his shirt.

  “Nah.” Tempting, but what good would it do? It won’t bring back Parvati, and I get why he did it. I probably would have attacked him too if our roles had been reversed.

  “Due to her relationship with Preston DeWitt and the ripped fabric recovered at the scene, we’re treating Ms. Amos’s disappearance as possibly related to Preston’s murder until proven otherwise.”

  “Are you guys here to blame me for her too?” I ask.

  “Should we?” Gonzalez smirks. “Want to make a full confession?”

  I resist the urge to give him the finger. “Here’s what I have to confess. I showed up at the funeral around four. I stayed away from everyone and watched. It was about four thirty when I saw her go into the woods. I tried to stop her, but once she decides to do something it’s pointless to intervene.”

  “Do you think what happened is connected to Preston’s death?” McGhee asks.

  “Duh.”

  “Why are you so sure?”

  “Preston disappears. Someone tries to frame me. Preston turns up dead. And now Parvati is missing too? The three of us hung out together. Is anyone else dead or missing? How could all of this not be connected?”

  “Violet Cain is dead,” Gonzalez says. “How does she fit in?”

  I shrug. I’m not ready to tell them I think Violet and Senator DeWitt had an affair, that somewhere out there she has a son who is Pres’s half brother. They won’t believe me without proof. “What do you guys think?”

  “Do you know anyone who has it in for you?” McGhee asks.

  I shake my head, which disorients me a little. Gingerly, I reach up and touch the back of my scalp. There’s still a damp spot, but it feels like my blood has clotted at least. “That part blew my mind at first. Who could possibly hate me enough to screw me over in such an epic way? Then I realized maybe it had nothing to do with me, maybe whoever decided to set me up just picked the most convenient target. Preston’s poorer, less popular friend. How could you go wrong?”

  McGhee scribbles something in his notebook. “What about Ms. Amos? Enemies?”

  “Only the dudes she beats up in karate class.”

  “And Preston?”

  “Rich guys always have enemies. I’m sure plenty of people were jealous of him.”

  “Jealous enough to kill?”

  Jealous enough to burn down a house? That’d be pretty jealous, all right. “Who knows?” I say.

  “Why exactly do you think Ms. Amos went into the woods?”

  “I think she went to pick fucking blueberries.” This is what I mean about cops. Why does everything have to be as drawn out as possible? I sigh. “Come on, guys. Obviously she saw something suspicious.”

  McGhee scribbles in his notebook again. “What or who do you think she was looking at?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe Preston’s killer.”

  “But then why would she go after him and put herself in danger?” Gonzalez asks.

  I snort. “Did you even talk to her parents? Parvati lives for danger. Nothing scares her.”

  “Preston was a bit like that too, wasn’t he?” McGhee asks. “I saw him on the gridiron at homecoming.”

  “Missed it,” I say tersely. “I’m not into football.”

  “Not even to support your best pal?” Gonzalez stretches one arm out along the back of the sofa and rests his other on the armrest. I’m pretty sure it’s a ploy to look bigger and more menacing. It’s not working. He just looks like he’s trying to put the moves on McGhee.

  “Preston owned the school,” I say. “He had plenty of support without me.” I look down at the carpet, focusing on a dot of color that looks like the remnants of a stepped-on crayon.

  “Was it intimidating, having two best friends who were both popular and fearless?” McGhee asks.

  “What? No. It was cool.” I don’t even bother to hide my frustration. “Look, I didn’t hurt either one of them. Why can’t you guys see that?”

  McGhee flips his notebook closed. “Thanks for your information. We’ll be in touch.” He leans against the armrest of the sofa as he gets to his feet. Gonzalez bounds up after him, still moving with a weird feral energy.

  “Just find her,” I say. “She thinks she’s invincible.”

  What I don’t say is that I can’t handle the tho
ught of losing her too.

  After the feds show themselves out, I poke my head in the kitchen to let Darla know I’m okay. The twins are sitting in their high chairs playing with a batch of her famous edible clay. Amanda is leaning over the counter slicing carrots. Her face is a mask of concentration, her fingers gripping the knife so tightly that her knuckles are blanching white.

  “Dinner in fifteen minutes, okay?” Darla says.

  “Sure.” I duck into the bathroom and use a hand mirror to look at the back of my head. It’s hard to see through my hair, but the bloody spot on my scalp looks like it’s only a couple of inches long. I probe the area gently with my fingertips to make sure it’s not still bleeding and then shake out my hair. Time to make a quick phone call.

  I slip out onto the front porch and call Langston. A car drives by while I wait for him to pick up. A girl wearing sunglasses and a baseball cap yells, “You’re going to burn, murderer!” I don’t think I’ve ever seen her before. Whoever is in the passenger seat bursts into applause. They honk the horn twice, and then the car screeches off in a cloud of smoke.

  “Langston here.”

  I decide to skip all the bullshit formalities. “Do you know where she is?”

  “Max? You sound agitated. Where who is?”

  “Parvati disappeared right from Preston’s funeral. I’m sure you guys were skulking around somewhere. Did you see anything?”

  “Marcus was watching the ceremony, but I was handling something . . . off-site. So Ms. Amos has gone missing? That is most unfortunate.”

  “Hell yeah, it’s unfortunate. So if you or one of your thugs took her somewhere for more debriefing, just tell me. Don’t let me freak out over nothing.”

  “It wasn’t us, Max,” he says. “I’ll look into it. But the people we’re investigating don’t have any connections to Parvati Amos. She’s kind of a wild girl, isn’t she? And I’m sure she was upset by Preston’s death. Maybe she’s just acting out, looking for a little extra attention.”

  Acting out? That was definitely Parvati’s style, but not to get attention, at least not from her parents. She preferred it when they ignored her. Plus she’s been trying to get me to talk to her for days. She wouldn’t skip out on that meeting unless she had no choice.

  I humor Darla and spend five minutes sitting at the dinner table picking at what is probably really delicious fried chicken. I can’t eat, though. All I can do is worry about Parvati. “I’m going for a walk,” I say suddenly, pushing my chair back and bolting to my feet.

  Darla looks up from feeding tiny spoonfuls of mashed potatoes to the twins. More is ending up on the floor than in their mouths. “Be careful, Max,” she says.

  I head back to the cemetery. It’s the only thing I can think of to do. By the time I get there, it’s a little after eight o’clock and the cops are gone. The wind is cool, but not cold. The sky is overcast, only the brightest stars managing to penetrate the thick layer of clouds. The high wrought-iron fence glints in the shrouded moonlight, and the elaborately carved headstones cast deformed shadows across the lawn. I’ve never been in a cemetery at night, and now I know why. This place is seriously scary.

  Something rustles in the high grass in front of me, and I flick on the small emergency flashlight I snagged from Ben’s truck. I scan the grounds and see the golden eyes of a possum looking back at me. Creepy, but not a killer.

  I don’t know where to start, so I opt for the stretch of woods that makes up the graveyard’s western border. It’s slow going in the dark. I walk straight lines, up and down from one end of the trees to the other, scanning for footprints, fabric, for any sign of Parvati. Leaves slap me in the face and branches claw at my skin. “This is crazy,” I mutter, pushing my way through another layer of foliage. But I keep going.

  It takes over an hour to search the woods, and I come up empty. Next, I trace the perimeter of the cemetery, looking for anything unusual or out of place. Bats swoop low overhead. A few dry leaves flip end over end across the grass. Behind me, the graveyard gates clank in the breeze. I find a hole beneath the southeast corner of the fence where some kind of animal has been tunneling in and out of the grounds.

  But there are no clues; there’s nothing that doesn’t belong here. Except for me. My flashlight starts to go dead and I almost give up. But there’s one more place I feel compelled to check out: Preston’s grave.

  I stand in front of the mound of dirt, watching as the wind scatters the top layer of soil across neighboring graves. The number of flowers here is astounding—there must be at least a hundred arrangements. I think about Preston, in a box, below the ground. About Parvati missing. About how just a few weeks ago we were hanging out and everything was normal. “How did we get here?” I ask.

  It’s tempting to blame it on Liars, Inc., but I would’ve provided that alibi for Pres no matter what. I wanted him to go to Vegas and hang out with Violet so things would stop being weird between Parvati and him. I remember when I finally admitted that I liked her. He had seemed so nonchalant.

  It was back in May, a few weeks after Parvati transferred to Vista P. Pres and I were hanging out in his basement, eating Megaburgers and watching some crappy reality-TV show full of college kids who were clearly addicted to drama.

  “So that girl Parvati from your party is in my English class,” I started.

  “Oh yeah?” Pres took a bite of his burger. “She get in trouble yet?”

  I laughed. “No. She doesn’t say much. Is she really that bad?”

  “She’s pretty bad.” Preston smiled to himself. “In a good way.”

  I finished my burger and crumpled the foil sleeve into a ball. “You guys aren’t, like, hooking up, right? You’re just friends?”

  Preston grabbed the remote and flicked off the TV. His lips twitched. “You want to hit that shit, don’t you?”

  “I mean, she’s really hot. But she seems cool too. I just . . .” I trailed off.

  Preston laughed. “Oh, it’s like that, huh? Maximus has a crush.”

  “Screw you,” I said, tossing my foil ball at him. “I should have just asked her out without saying anything.”

  Preston snorted. “She would have told me. She tells me everything. Blah blah blah, girls.” He grinned. “But you don’t have to ask my permission. Parv and I aren’t like that. Friend zone, you know?”

  I believed him at the time. Maybe because he was convincing, or maybe just because it was what I wanted to hear.

  I reach down, my fingers closing around a handful of loose dirt. I let it trickle out of my fist like sand from an hourglass. “Where is she, Pres?” I ask. “I know you felt the same way about her as I do.”

  My phone buzzes sharply and I almost drop my flashlight. For a second I’m afraid to answer it, positive that if I do it’ll be a dead guy on the other end of the line.

  THIRTY-SIX

  THE PHONE RINGS AGAIN. I force myself to look at the screen. The caller’s number shows up as UNKNOWN. My eyes flick nervously around the darkened graveyard. Suddenly, I am not alone anymore. The gravestones are eyes; the night bulges inward, like ears struggling to hear.

  Exhaling deeply, I answer the call. “Hello?”

  “Max?” It’s only a tiny whisper.

  Parvati.

  “Where are you?” I try not to yell.

  “I’m at the cabin.”

  “Why?” I ask, my voice still louder than it should be.

  “He says you have to come here. Alone.”

  “Who?”

  I hear the crunch of static that means someone is covering the phone speaker. Then, a muffled voice in the background. Male, I think. I can’t make it out.

  “Parvati. Are you okay?”

  “You have until midnight to get here,” someone whispers, low and growly. It’s a man, but he’s purposely distorting his voice. “If you call the cops, she dies.”

  “What do you want from us?” I ask. “Why are you doing this?”

  The phone disconnects, leaving a silence a
s still as death.

  If you call the cops, she dies. “And if I don’t call the cops, we probably both die,” I mutter. “This is too much for me.” I slip McGhee’s business card out of my wallet and dial the number on it with shaking fingers. When the call connects, I dial his extension.

  And get his voicemail.

  In his gravelly voice, McGhee invites me to leave a message or to call 911 if I’m “experiencing an emergency situation.” 911 won’t help. They’ll think I’m some crackpot lunatic if I try to explain what’s happening. Even if the dispatcher believed me, the local cops would probably show up in uniform and knock calmly on the front door of the cabin. I can’t risk Parvati getting hurt. I don’t want anyone else’s death on my conscience.

  I leave McGhee a semi-coherent message informing him Parvati is being held at her dad’s cabin and that I’m on the way up there. Hopefully he’s the kind of guy who stays up late and checks his voicemail after hours. If not, it looks like I’m on my own.

  I check the time. Midnight is less than two hours away, and it’ll take me close to thirty minutes to walk home. Man, I miss my car. Abandoning the cemetery, I break into a jog and make it home in record time. I creep inside and snag Ben’s keys, which are thankfully in plain view on the coffee table. I grab my black hoodie from the back of the sofa and slip it over my head, pulling the hood up around my face. Quietly, I slink back out into the night.

  It takes multiple tries to get Ben’s pickup to start. “Come on come on come on!” The clock on the dash reads 10:47. I turn the key again, and pray. The truck lurches forward as I shift into drive, and my knees ram into the console. I turn out of the driveway and onto the street. I figure there’s about a 50 percent chance I’ll make it up to the Colonel’s cabin without the engine falling out.

  My breath whistles in my throat and I realize I’m gripping the steering wheel so tightly that my fingers are going numb. I need music. Music keeps me calm. I flip on the radio. There’s a commercial on my favorite station. I make my way through Ben’s presets. Classic rock. Talk radio. Static. My finger is hovering over preset number four when I hear the word “DeWitt.” The signal is weak, so the speaker’s voice is broken up by bursts of static, but he’s definitely talking about Senator DeWitt.