Beautiful Lies

by Lisa Unger

  “Ridley Jones?” Gruff voice, older man. I recognized the voice but couldn’t place it.

  “Yes?”

  “It’s Detective Salvo.” Crap.

  “How’d you get this number?”

  “You called me, remember? I saved the number on my cell phone.”

  “Oh.” Another reason not to have a cellular phone.

  “Listen, Ridley. I’ve got some bad news for you. We found the rifle that we believe killed Christian Luna,” he said. My heart started thumping. Why was he telling me this?

  “We found it up in the parking lot beside Fort Tryon Park in the Bronx. It was registered to your friend, Harley Jacobsen.”

  My mind started racing as I thought back to that night. Jake rushing from the darkness, pulling me from Christian Luna. I remembered his arm around me, ushering me quickly to the car. I remembered him driving to Fort Tryon Park and parking in the deserted lot, letting me sob into his shoulder. I didn’t remember a rifle. I would have seen it. Wouldn’t I?

  “I just want to make sure you stay away from him tonight. We’re going to be taking him in. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

  “I told you I don’t—”

  “Spare me, Ms. Jones.”

  He was right. It seemed kind of silly to keep insisting that I didn’t know him when it was obvious that I did. Still, I felt the need to stick to my story.

  “If you think I’m his friend, why would you warn me that you’re taking him in and risk my tipping him off?”

  He paused for a second and I heard him release a breath. “Because I think you’re a good person who has put her trust in someone that doesn’t deserve it. And frankly, I don’t want you caught in the crossfire. Don’t make me regret giving you this break,” he said, and hung up the phone.

  Jake entered the apartment then and closed the door behind him.

  “He took off,” he said, shedding his jacket and throwing it over the chair. “He wasn’t there when I reached the street.”

  I stood there with the cell phone still in my hand, not sure what to say or do. “Did you get a look at him when he ran?” I’d forgotten all about Ace. I must have looked strange staring at him, my mind rushing to process the information Detective Salvo had given me.

  “What?” he said, his brow knitting.

  Then I thought I could hear the sirens faintly, off in the distance. He didn’t really seem to notice. It’s not as though it’s an unusual sound in the city night. “They’re coming for you, Jake,” I said.

  “Who?”

  “Detective Salvo just called me,” I said, buttoning my jeans and looking at him now.

  “He called you?” he said, looking at me hard. “How?”

  “On my cell phone. He had the number from when I called him yesterday.” I moved closer to him. “That’s not important. They say they found the rifle that killed Christian Luna.”

  “Okay, good,” he said with a shrug. “What does that have to do with me?”

  “They say it’s registered to you, Jake.”

  He paused as the weight of my words hit him. “Oh, shit,” he said, reaching for the nearby chair. “That’s bullshit, Ridley.”

  “They’re coming for you right now.” I was putting on my tennis shoes and tying the laces. I could hear the sirens growing louder now. I put on my coat.

  “No,” he said, shaking his head. “That’s not my gun. And there’s no way they can prove it is.”

  What can I tell you about how I was feeling at that moment? I could hear that odd rushing sound in my right ear; my hands were shaking a little. I wasn’t sure what I believed about Jake. I guess mostly I was just in shock. I had no frame of reference for this kind of situation, so I was flying blind.

  “That shot. They say it came from the trees where you were hiding, not from the rooftop,” I said.

  He looked down at the floor and then back at me. “I don’t know where the shot came from, Ridley. But it didn’t come from me.”

  Jake looked scared, as scared as I felt. He grabbed his jacket and started moving toward the door.

  “Ridley, I want you to get yourself someplace safe. Right now.”

  His words made me go cold inside. “What are you saying?”

  I moved to follow him. His face was pale as he came close to me, put his hand gently on my arms.

  “Listen to me carefully, Ridley. I want you to go back to your apartment, get some things, and check into a hotel. Don’t tell anyone where you are. No one. Not your parents, not your friend Zack. Do you understand me?”

  “I’m coming with you.” I couldn’t even believe the words had left my mouth. Was I really considering joining him in his flight from the authorities? The answer is yes. I was so unrooted from my life, so disconnected from my former version of reality, that it seemed like an actual option.

  The sound of the sirens was louder still. I could start to see the flashing red lights reflecting on the building across the street. He kissed me lightly on the lips and looked at me with that expression I couldn’t read.

  “I won’t do that to your life, Ridley.”

  “Jake…”

  “Just promise me you’ll do what I say. Swear you won’t tell anyone where you are, and pay for the room with cash. That’s important. Cash only.”

  “Why, Jake?” I wasn’t sure what was happening, but I was realizing, maybe since I’d talked to Linda McNaughton, that there was something much darker, much bigger, at work here than the manipulations of Christian Luna.

  “You’re in danger, Ridley. We both are. So promise me.”

  “Jake, I don’t understand. What are you talking about?”

  “Ridley, I’ll explain everything. You have no reason to trust me, but I’m asking you to do that now. Just tell me you’re going to do what I say.”

  I could hear the banging on the metal door downstairs. “I promise,” I said.

  “I’ll find you. Don’t worry.”

  I nodded and he moved toward the door. I felt my stomach twist with the fear that I was never going to see him again.

  “I didn’t kill Christian Luna. I want you to know that, Ridley.”

  And then he was gone. I waited a second and listened to the police shaking the door downstairs. When I entered the hallway, I could hear Zelda yelling downstairs and Jake was nowhere in sight.

  “Hold on, hold on!” Zelda’s voice carried up the stairs. I heard the creaking of the door and pounding footsteps on the stairs. I ran up one more flight and pushed out onto the roof. The cold air hit me hard and I stood in the dark, wondering what the hell I was going to do up here. I half expected to see Jake racing across the rooftops. But I didn’t see him anywhere. I wasn’t sure how, or if, he’d made it out of the building.

  I threw my leg over the back ledge and stepped down onto the fire escape. The dogs were going crazy below me, barking their heads off as I climbed down to my floor. With a little bit of rattling, the window opened and I climbed into my apartment. It was dark and I tried to be as quiet as possible.

  I heard loud voices in the hallway, the sound of police radios crackling and beeping, the heavy footsteps of big men wearing hard boots. I heard Zelda yelling, “Hey, you gotta warrant to come in here? Are you listening to me?” I looked out of my peephole and didn’t see anyone on my floor, so I opened the door a crack. I wondered briefly if I could just walk down the stairs and exit through the rear of the building. But I’d seen enough cop shows to know they’d be crazy not to have covered both the front and back entrance. As I was about to retreat, I noticed Victoria’s door was ajar and I could see her eye, wide with terror, peering back at me. I felt bad for her, thinking how terrified she must be, but I also wasn’t in any position to help her. I closed the door quickly and quietly, sat with my back against it. I was breathing hard, thinking, I’m hiding from the police right now. I have officially walked off the edge of my life. I am falling, limbs flailing, into the dark unknown.

  I heard footsteps on the stairs. “She’s not here.
I told you. She went out before and she didn’t come back.” It was Zelda barking at someone.

  “Where’d she go?” Detective Salvo. I could hear their footfalls on the tiles outside my door, their voices getting closer.

  “Hey, whatdoIlooklike, her mother?”

  Detective Salvo banged hard on the door and I braced myself because I was still leaning against it. “Whatareyou, deaf?” yelled Zelda. I held my breath in the silence that followed and then he banged again.

  “Ridley. Do yourself a favor if you’re in there and come out. Talk to me. Don’t make me issue a warrant for your arrest. Aiding and abetting, failure to cooperate with a police investigation. I don’t want to fuck up your life, Ridley. But I will.”

  I sat as still and solid as a stone. I couldn’t go out there now. I’d tipped off Jake; I’d fled the apartment and I’d been hiding from the police. I had no choice but to hold my ground. The phone in my apartment started ringing and I held my breath. The machine picked up after two rings and I heard my father’s voice.

  “Ridley,” he said, sounding stern and worried. “Your mother and I have had a disturbing call from Alexander Harriman. We’re extremely concerned and need to speak with you right away. Call us.” The line went dead.

  So much for attorney-client privilege. He couldn’t do that, could he? Call my parents? How much had he told them? I wondered. Shit.

  “You got a key for this apartment?” Detective Salvo asked Zelda outside. I closed my eyes and said a prayer.

  “You got a warrant?”

  “Don’t make this difficult for yourself, Mrs. Impecciate.”

  “You got a warrant?” she repeated levelly. I loved her so much right then.

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Then I don’t got a key.” Zelda was lying for me and protecting me. She knew I was in the building. I think she knew I was sitting behind that door. For someone who’d barely spoken a civil word to me, she was really going to the mat for me. I wondered if it was because she’d secretly really liked me all these years, or because she really hated the police.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m calling her cell phone,” he said. “I just talked to her.”

  I fumbled in my pocket for the phone. I heard the long beep as he pressed Send to make his call. I felt around in the dark for the power button and managed to turn it off before it rang.

  “Voice mail,” he said, half to himself. “Goddammit, Ridley.” They walked off without any further conversation. I’m not sure how much longer I sat there. I just listened until the chaos upstairs melted away, listened as heavy footfalls disappeared down the stairs and out onto the street, until I didn’t hear the police radios and the booming voices. I sat there for so long that after a while, I think I might have dozed a bit. My phone kept ringing, but whoever was calling hung up on the machine. I still hadn’t moved from my crouch by the door when I heard the softest knock.

  “Ridley,” came a whisper at the doorjamb. I jumped slightly and became aware that both of my legs were painfully asleep. I held my breath, not sure what to do. “Ridley,” the whisper came again. “It’s Zelda.”

  “Zelda?”

  I opened the door a bit. “Come on,” she said. “I show you the way out of here so the police don’t see. They’re waiting outside for you to come back. That cop said he was getting a warrant for your apartment.”

  I didn’t know why Zelda was helping me and there wasn’t time to ask. I followed her down the three flights of stairs, through the restaurant kitchen, out into the courtyard. We walked through the crowd of barking dogs, who jumped at us in greeting. Zelda bent down and, with a heave, swung open a pair of metal doors in the ground that led to the basement. I followed her down the stairs, ducking my head to keep it from banging on the low ceiling. She led me through dark rows of shelving that held bottles of olive oil and cans of crushed tomatoes, huge containers of spices, paper plates and napkins, crates of garlic. The aromas of these things mixed with the musty smell of the underground space, and the effect was not unpleasant.

  At the far corner of the room, she unbolted another metal door. It led into pitch darkness. Zelda disappeared through the door and I followed her, feeling my way along the wall. We were in some kind of a tunnel. It was damp and cold and the air was so moldy there, my sinuses started to swell.

  “This tunnel lets out on Eleventh Street,” Zelda’s voice sounded through the dark. “I don’t know why it’s here, but it runs along the back of the Black Forest Pastry Shop. There’s a door that leads into their basement, too.” Just as she said that my hands touched what felt like a metal doorway. The whole situation had taken on another layer of nonreality to me and I felt laughter rising in my throat, a punchy, hysterical laughter that I knew, if released, would immediately turn to sobbing. I quashed it and kept moving. After another few minutes, I heard Zelda unhinge some bolts and then a door opened onto Eleventh Street, the crisp, fresh air feeling good on my skin. The night sky seemed as bright as day compared to the pitch-dark tunnel. I walked past Zelda and turned to her from the street.

  “Thanks, Zelda.” She looked at me and seemed to consider saying something but then clamped her mouth shut.

  “Be careful,” she responded. Her mouth tried a smile but it didn’t take. Something unidentifiable glittered in her eyes. She closed the door with a heavy clang.

  twenty-three

  Was he smirking? It was hard to tell in the darkened room, which smelled faintly of beer and garbage. Ace hadn’t been happy to see me when I showed up at his door.

  “What are you doing here?” he’d asked through the same crack I’d spoken to Ruby through a couple of days ago. I’d just stood there, not knowing how to answer, not having an answer, anyway. Where else could I have gone? Not to my parents, certainly. It was only a matter of time before the police got in touch with them, if they hadn’t already. Not to Alexander Harriman. He was scary, and there was something about him I didn’t trust (and hadn’t even before he ratted me out to my parents). Part of me had the urge to go to Zack but I quashed it. It was selfish to go running to him when I was in trouble, especially after everything that had passed between us over the last few days. Finally, after an uncomfortable thirty seconds of silence, Ace had opened the door. I’d followed him inside. It was as filthy and awful as you would imagine it to be. Ruby lay akimbo on a tattered old chair with a faded floral pattern and its stuffing coming out. I’d have thought she was dead if I’d seen her on the street. The tiniest line of drool traveled from the corner of her mouth down her chin.

  “Is she all right?” I asked.

  “As right as she could be,” he answered coldly. “Now tell me what’s going on.”

  I had butterflies in my stomach and my throat was dry.

  “Why are you always such an asshole?” I asked him. “Do you think I’d come here if I didn’t need to?” I started to cry then. Not that same sobbing I experienced after Christian Luna died, but close. I sat on the bed and he sat beside me, let me have it out with his hand on my back. When I was calmer, wiping tears and snot on a deli napkin he happened to find on a nearby pile of junk, he said, “Just tell me what’s going on, Ridley. I’ll do what I can for you.” Which isn’t much, he didn’t say, but was the implied ending to his sentence. I told him everything that had happened since we last saw each other.

  “Ben and Grace must be wigging out,” he said with a light laugh. “Perfect little Ridley on the run from the law. They’re probably having a conference with Zack and Esme right now about what to do about it.”

  There was so much bitterness in his voice, it would have hurt less if he’d slapped me. I could see it now, the jealousy, the resentment. I’d never really seen it uncloaked like that before. I thought about what my father had said, and what Jake had implied, that maybe Ace had something to do with this. I saw my brother for a second the way everyone else in my life seemed to see him: low, untrustworthy, someone willing to hurt me. It made me so sad. How can I tell you?
So, so sad.

  “I saw you,” I said. “Waiting outside my building a little while ago. What were you doing there?”

  He shrugged, leaned back on his elbows. Looked at the wall behind me.

  When I first moved to New York and started seeing my brother, I used to have this fantasy about him, that he was secretly watching out for me, shadowing me, in case I ever got into any trouble. I had these elaborate daydreams about my being mugged in some alley somewhere and my brother leaping out from behind garbage cans to save me. He’d take me back to my dorm room and take care of me until I felt better. Then he’d go back to his life and I could go on with mine, secure in the knowledge that he’d always have my back, always be watching out for me. In another daydream, we’d go home to our parents and there would be this tearful reunion and everyone would live happily ever after. Pretty sad, I know. But little girls are raised on fairy tales. Is it any wonder we all crave the happy endings to the dark things in our lives? No one ever tells you that sad things stay sad, some people die angry and unforgiven, and some things are lost and never found.

  “Are you going to answer me?” I asked.

  “I was waiting for you. I needed money. But your goon came down after me. I bolted.”

  “My goon?”

  “Your new boyfriend or whatever. You better watch out for that guy. I bet he’s not who you think he is.”

  He looked at me, smug and unkind. I wanted to slap his stupid face.

  “What do you know about him? What do you know about anything?”

  He shrugged again, didn’t answer me.

  “You didn’t always hate me, did you?” I asked him. “I remember you loving me when we were kids.”

  The smirk (yes, he was smirking) fell from his face and he looked at me with surprise. “I don’t hate you, Rid. I’ve never hated you.”

  I held his eyes until he looked away.

  “There’s so much you don’t understand,” he said, shaking his head slowly.

  “I think I do understand,” I said. A terrible anger was simmering in my chest. “It’s about Max, right?”