Someone Knows

by Lisa Scottoline

  “I don’t know what happened. I wasn’t home. I can’t really talk, I have to speak with the police and I . . . I feel . . . so upset.” Julian softened his voice with ersatz grief. “I’ve known Sasha my whole life, you know? It’s so sad this happened in my house, my home, and it was just so awful finding her.”

  “You found her?” Allie’s voice broke. “Oh my God, you must be beside yourself!”

  “I am,” Julian said hoarsely. “Coming after David’s funeral, I just—”

  “I don’t know if you saw, earlier, when her purse fell over? The pill bottle fell out, and I wish I had asked her about them, said something, stopped her.”

  “I know, I saw them, too. I feel the same way.”

  “Don’t you think it was accidental? It had to be, right? She was fine—”

  “Excuse me, I have to answer a question for one of the crime techs.” Julian covered the receiver, though no one else was in the kitchen, then came back on the phone. “Allie, sorry, I have to go. The police need me.”

  “But when can we talk? I want to know what happened.”

  “Sorry, I have to go. I can’t stay here tonight. I gave my statement to the police, and I’m going to my place in Jersey.”

  “Where in Jersey? When are you leaving?”

  “As soon as I can, after a meeting with my dad.” Julian changed his plan on the fly. He could hear Allie wanting to ask to come to his house. She was so transparent.

  “Where’s your house in New Jersey? Is it far?”

  “No, it’s in the Pine Barrens, less than two hours away.”

  “Can I come and see you there? I need to talk to you. I mean . . . there are things you need to know. I’ve been to Connemara Road. I went to see a lawyer.”

  “A lawyer?” Julian asked as lightly as he could.

  “I didn’t tell him about you or Sasha, but you should hear what he told me.”

  “Okay, let’s meet at my house in Jersey.” Julian realized Allie was even stupider and more dangerous than he thought, but this was working out beautifully. She was walking into a trap. He would meet with his father and Mac, setting everything in motion.

  “What’s the address? And is this your cell?”

  “Yes. My house is on a country road. Look for the painted rock with the flags on 539. It’s a landmark on the left.”

  “Got it.”

  “Come around nine o’clock, after my meeting with my dad. You can stay over, if you like. Spend the weekend. It’ll give us a chance to talk. You’re the only person left who understands.”

  “I know.” Allie sniffled, sounding touched. “I’ll see you then.”

  CHAPTER 69

  Larry Rucci

  Larry came out of the shower to a ringing cell phone. It lay faceup on the nightstand, and the screen showed it was Allie calling. He was getting a divorce and had already had sex with an acrobat, but even so answered after one ring.

  “Hello? Larry, it’s me.”

  “I know,” Larry said, his heart beginning to pound. Allie sounded upset, but he knew what she would do next because she had done it many times before. Every time they fought, she would apologize, but nothing would ever change. This time would be no different.

  “Larry, listen, I know what you said this morning, but I’m really sorry.”

  “I don’t want to hear it,” Larry heard himself say, his heart speaking. “You say that every time.”

  “No, but this time I mean it, this is going to be different, it really is, I’m really going to change things, and it will heal us—”

  “No. Just no.” Larry heard the pain in his tone, and the finality.

  “Larry, we don’t need to get a divorce, and if you just hear me out, we can talk about it—”

  “I don’t want to talk about anything anymore.”

  Allie sighed deeply. “I’ll call you later, I just want you to know that I’m really feeling good, and it’s not your fault, none of it was your fault. It’s always been my fault, I know that.”

  “That’s what you always say, but nothing changes, and I finally figured it out.”

  “Larry, really, I love you, I have to go.”

  “What do you have to do? Where do you have to go?”

  “I can’t explain it to you—”

  “Oh, no, more mysteries, more lies.” Larry’s bitterness welled up, and he decided to unload on her. “Do you ever stop lying? Hiding things? You’ve been taking birth control pills, for a year. I found them.”

  “Larry, I can explain that—”

  “You told me we were trying! The ovulation, the mucus—it was all lies. No wonder you put off the testing. You lied to me, Allie.”

  “No, but I can’t say more, I have to go. I’ll call you later tonight. I love you.” Allie hung up.

  Larry looked out the window. She’d sounded different, or was he telling himself that? She sounded clear, like something was new in her voice, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. Her tone sounded stronger, charged up. Determined. Driven.

  Larry looked down at his phone. He realized he had a way to know where Allie was, without asking her.

  CHAPTER 70

  Allie Garvey

  Allie hung up with Larry, speeding along the turnpike. The traffic was congested, but she kept switching lanes, her nerves pushing her to keep going.

  Julian had sounded so sad on the phone. He’d adored Sasha, and it had to have been awful for him to come home and find her dead. Allie thought of how brokenhearted Ryan had been at David’s graveside. She couldn’t imagine anything worse than coming home to find someone you loved dead. She had been there when Jill died, but the Garveys had lived in fear of that moment for years.

  Allie’s thoughts raced. Her stomach knotted. She tried to stay in the moment. She’d heard the wounded, angry note in Larry’s voice, and she could imagine how heartbroken he’d felt finding the pills. There was so much she’d kept from him. She should’ve come clean with him. She should’ve said what she felt in her heart, that she didn’t deserve a baby, that she wasn’t worthy of being a mother, that she had killed another mother’s child and so she had forfeited her own right to become one.

  Barton had been right, she had been in exile from herself. She needed to find a new way to live, in which she could acknowledge that she was responsible for Kyle’s death, but at the same time not let it destroy her life. She would explain it to Larry, and all she could do was pray that he’d give her another chance.

  Allie accelerated behind a tractor-trailer, watching the terrain change but remain the same, a Jersey strip mall instead of a Pennsylvania one, a New Jersey development instead of a Pennsylvania one. Brandywine Hunt would always be with her, and that was part of her responsibility, too, but she had to move past it. She was truly her father’s daughter, because he had stayed in the same house since her mother had passed. He lived within his grief, never moving past it, taking on the responsibility himself, and she couldn’t do that to herself anymore.

  Allie flashed on Sasha, picking up her pill bottles from the ground. Sasha had lived in her pain, too. Sasha’s choice had been to self-medicate, to numb the pain. Drugs couldn’t make a City of Refuge, and Sasha had succumbed just as David had, in a different way but for the same reason.

  Allie’s eyes filled with tears, wishing it had all been different. Wishing she could go back twenty years ago and make it better.

  Allie thought unaccountably of Jill, feeling her sister’s spirit with her, for the first time in a long time. Jill would’ve wanted to know the truth, too. Jill would’ve gotten in the car and driven to meet Julian. Jill would have taken her life into her own hands, if only she’d had the time. Allie couldn’t let her sister down.

  And suddenly Allie didn’t feel trapped in her grief any longer, but felt her sister inspiring her, filling her with breath and purpose. Allie could feel the full measure of the love within her suffuse her, fill her from the center of her being to her very skin. She could love her husband the way he deserved to
be loved. She had so much love to give, and now it could be free.

  CHAPTER 71

  Larry Rucci

  Larry scrolled to his Find My Friends app, opened it, and watched the map come to life on his phone. He and Allie had gotten the app two years ago, when he got sick of calling around for her.

  LOCATING ALLIE’S PHONE read the screen, on top of a map, and then it showed a blue line heading north.

  Larry didn’t get it. Where would Allie be going? Anywhere in Pennsylvania, but why? She could be going beyond, further north. New York? But she hated New York, said it was too crazy. New Jersey? But she hated the beach, said it was too sandy. Further north?

  Larry hurried to get dressed. He wanted to see what his wife was up to, once and for all.

  CHAPTER 72

  Julian Browne

  Julian sped along the turnpike in the fast lane. The needle climbed from seventy to eighty, and the car wasn’t even breaking a sweat. It was simply the most stable vehicle he had ever owned, at any speed. He reflected that he himself was the same way. No matter how high the stakes, Julian kept his cool. As he’d told Allie, it was why he made the big bucks.

  Everything was falling into place. He’d go down to the police station whenever and reiterate his statement. When the toxicology screens came in, they would confirm his story. The case would be closed in days. That left only Allie, who was driving into a trap, naïve enough to trust him.

  Julian loosened his tie. So she’d consulted a lawyer, but at least she hadn’t used his name. When she ended up dead, there would be no connection to him whatsoever. They hadn’t even attended the funeral together. They barely knew each other, way back when.

  Julian zoomed along, switching lanes to maintain his speed. Two cars up was a yellow Lambo, and he could take it but it wasn’t the time to risk getting pulled over. There were cameras everywhere on the highway, and he didn’t want to give the police any reason to track him or his travels. He wanted to preserve the randomness of it all—after all, it had begun randomly.

  Julian thought back to the day they had buried the gun. It was random that Sasha and Allie had stumbled upon him and David in the woods, which had set in motion this chain of events. As soon as he got rid of Allie, he wouldn’t worry anymore. He’d managed to forget about Kyle for twenty years, but it had all come back when David died and Allie resurfaced. He’d expected she might come back for the funeral, but he hadn’t been certain, that had been random, too. Now the loose ends were about to be tied up.

  Julian checked the clock on the dashboard, making good time. He remembered the way there, having gone with his father so many times when he was younger. He’d never realized that Mac was one of his father’s guys, even when Julian sneaked the bullets from the job trailer. Mac had told him that he had the gun there to prevent theft, but Julian wondered now if that was a lie, or the truth, or if it was random. Not that it mattered.

  Julian accelerated. He thought of Sasha, slipping away on his bed. He wished he could have filmed it, then he could’ve watched it over and over. But that would’ve been far too risky. He wasn’t crazy.

  He inhaled deeply, enjoying the cool and the stillness of the Mercedes sedan, motionless even at speed.

  CHAPTER 73

  Larry Rucci

  Larry propped his phone up on the dashboard, keeping an eye on the dot that was his wife’s car. She was about half an hour ahead of him, and he couldn’t imagine where she was going.

  He hit the gas, changing lanes, not wanting to lose ground. He couldn’t help feeling like an idiot all over again, like he was in denial about Allie, always chasing her around. Now, literally. Was there any better example of everything wrong with their marriage? What the hell was he doing? What the hell was he thinking? Why couldn’t she talk to him before?

  Larry felt his teeth grinding. He was so tired of being put off by her. It was even ridiculous that he had to have a stupid app to know where his wife was. He picked up his phone, scrolled to the phone function, and pressed in Allie’s number. It rang and rang, then she picked up.

  “Hello, Larry?”

  “Allie, where are you?” Larry asked, wondering if she would tell him the truth.

  “I’m driving. I can’t tell you anything more than that, I don’t want to tell you now. I told you—”

  “But you didn’t tell me anything. Where, exactly, are you?”

  “Please, Larry,” Allie said, her tone turning firm. “I don’t want to explain on the phone, and I can’t tell you a little without telling you the whole thing. I want to tell you everything, but I want to do it face-to-face.”

  “What do you have to tell me? You mean it’s a secret?” Larry only half-believed her, but Allie sounded so strong.

  “Yes, it is a secret. It’s a secret I’ve had for a long time, and it’s the reason everything’s wrong with us, because I’ve kept it in my whole life and I don’t wanna keep it in anymore.”

  “Are you serious?” Larry rolled his eyes.

  “I really am, and once I tell you, you’ll understand why I kept it to myself, and also why I am telling you, finally now, after all this time.”

  “How long has this been a secret?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “It does to me. Was it during our marriage? Like the birth control pills?” Larry couldn’t resist the dig.

  “No.”

  “From before you knew me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Like when? College?”

  “No, high school.”

  “A secret from high school?” Larry burst into laughter. She had to be jerking him around. “Did you cheat in French II? Come on. Don’t play games, Allie. Haven’t you played enough games?”

  “This isn’t a game. It’s a terrible thing that happened. When I tell it to you, I’m not sure you’ll want to be married to me anymore.”

  “Honey, I don’t want to be married to you anymore.” Larry couldn’t resist that dig, either.

  “Please, I’ll tell you everything as soon as I can, I promise. Now let me go. I love you, goodbye.”

  “Okay, I’ll let you go,” Larry said, but Allie had already hung up.

  CHAPTER 74

  Allie Garvey

  Allie picked up speed, feeling more tense after she’d hung up with Larry. She hated the way he’d said, I don’t want to be married to you anymore. Her stomach had done a backflip at the new notes in his voice, of disgust, anger, and emotional fatigue. She wanted to tell him about Kyle, but she didn’t want to do it over the phone. She would do it later, after she had met with Julian.

  She passed a sleek charter bus, its smoked plastic windows impossible to see in through the darkness, except for the small TV screens flickering on the backs of the bus seats. Night was coming on, dense and cloudy, blocking the moon, as she’d already crossed the bridge into New Jersey. She had only an hour until she got to Julian’s, so she focused on the plan. She hoped Julian would agree with her that they should tell Kyle’s mother.

  Allie let the idea sit a moment, allowing it to settle into her bones. After wondering about it for so long, it seemed incredible that she was finally at this point, but she was. Even telling Larry that she’d kept a secret for so long, for twenty years, had allowed a sliver of light to illuminate the darkness in her soul. Telling Larry the whole truth would be awful, but it would also set her free.

  Allie had remembered Barton’s question, if you were Kyle’s mother, would you want to know? It didn’t take her long to answer that, in her own mind. Allie would feel comforted if she knew that her son’s death wasn’t intentional, but a prank that had gone horribly wrong. Even if Allie could never know how it had gone wrong, if she were his mother, she would feel better knowing the truth. At least a tiny part of her burden would be lifted.

  Allie drove ahead, picking up speed because the traffic lessened at this hour. The very prospect of sitting down with Kyle’s mother made her sick to her stomach, but Allie would make herself do it. It had to be done. Mayb
e Julian would come with her. She would tell him that even if Kyle’s mother went to the police, the police wouldn’t charge them, and they couldn’t be sued, either. Julian’s grief over Sasha’s death might have already changed his mind about keeping the secret. He’d sounded so upset on the phone.

  Allie clenched the wheel, determined. She didn’t need Julian’s permission to tell Kyle’s mother, and she wasn’t asking for it. She was going to tell her whether Julian came with her or not. If need be, Allie would keep his name out of it, like she had with Barton.

  There was no going back, there was only going forward, and Allie hit the gas.

  CHAPTER 75

  Julian Browne

  Twilight darkened the sky, and Julian zoomed on back roads through a rural area of New Jersey, which produced tomatoes, peaches, and corn. The homes were middle-class, well-maintained, if far apart. Most of the residents were crop farmers, but others were people who preferred privacy, like Mac.

  Julian spotted Mac’s house behind a cornfield that was bisected by a narrow, paved road, and he turned left and drove between the tall cornstalks. It grew darker and cooler, and the big Mercedes stirred up grasshoppers, gnats, and moths. The bugs died on the windshield, and Julian flashed on a memory of that happening before. Of him coming here with his father, when he was very young. His parents were still married at the time. It had been fun. Being alone with his father, which was unusual enough, and going somewhere strange. His father had told him they were in New Jersey, and Julian had thought, It’s new!

  Suddenly he remembered being inside Mac’s house, maybe for his first time ever, and there had been women with his father, Mac, and other men. There had been music, too. His father had parked him in front of the TV while they all went in Mac’s bedroom. But Julian didn’t watch TV. He’d gone to the bedroom, opened the door, and watched them. They hadn’t noticed him. They’d been busy. Everybody had been naked, hugging. It had been strange but it had excited him, and he’d never had that feeling before. He remembered the sensation. It had been thrilling. He realized that was when it started. The watching.