Every Single Lie

by Rachel Vincent

  “What was that?” she asks, and even from back here—from over the heads of all these people—I can see the dread and disappointment wash over her. She looks like someone just crashed her third-grade sleepover.

  “Lullaby Doe is the victim of an epidemic sweeping the world!” that same voice yells, followed by that same staticky echo. “The criminal devaluation of human life! The moral decay of—”

  “Shut up, you fanatic nutjob!” another voice shouts before I can spot the woman with the bullhorn. I can’t tell who this new voice belongs to either, but as I stare into the crowd—as people turn, looking for the source of the disruption—I notice an orderly pattern of movement within the emerging chaos.

  Pink shirts. People wearing short-sleeved pink tees over their normal, season-appropriate long-sleeved shirts are moving quietly through the crowd, converging on a point I haven’t identified yet. And they’re all carrying signs.

  A flurry of movement to my left draws my attention. One of the reporters is frantically directing her cameraman to zoom in on something. She’s found the bullhorn. But she’s only a few seconds ahead of the rest of us, because suddenly the crowd starts moving. It splits, people bouncing off one another in the chaos like bumper cars, trying to figure out where they belong, until finally a group of around twenty men and women wearing pink shirts stand on the left. Holding up signs.

  Their signs have drawings of a dead baby. And calls for the #babykiller to be arrested, or otherwise—and ominously—“held responsible.”

  Across from the pink shirt wearers, facing them down from the other side of the divide that has split the crowd in half, is another group of protesters. They don’t have matching shirts, but they do have signs of their own, and I don’t recognize a single one of their faces.

  None of these protesters are from Clifford.

  I catch Penn’s eye and toss my head toward the street, telling him to take Landry home. He nods and starts ushering our sister and his girlfriend away from the crowd.

  “Go protest a clinic!” the woman in front of the right-hand protesters yells at the people in pink shirts. “This is a memorial. You don’t belong here.”

  “We’re here for Lullaby Doe!” a man in a pink shirt shouts. “She didn’t have to die. The baby killer should pay!”

  “The baby was stillborn!” someone from the other side shouts.

  “She didn’t have to be!” that same man yells back.

  The woman behind him shoves her sign into the air. “Fetal neglect is child abuse!”

  “The only thing criminal going on around here is the criminal lack of quality sex education classes and the availability of birth control,” a woman from the other side returns. “Ignorance is a disease—”

  “Moral decay is an epidemic!”

  And suddenly everyone’s shouting.

  My mother appears out of nowhere, with Doug Chalmers and John Trent, the patrol supervisor, at her side. “Okay, everybody, let’s just—”

  “We have a right to peaceably assemble!” one of the ladies in pink shouts.

  “Yes. With emphasis on the word ‘peaceably,’ ” my mother tells her. “So I want to make sure everyone understands—”

  “Do your job!” one of the pink-clad men yells. “Arrest the mother for child neglect.”

  “For manslaughter!” another voice calls. “Where is she? Where’s the baby killer? Is she here?”

  “Come on.” Amira tugs on my arm, pulling me out of the shock that has frozen me in place. “Beckett, come on,” she whispers. “They’re looking for you. It’s going to turn into a mob.”

  I lurch after her, numb. As I stumble away from the crowd, the light from the streetlamps streaks across my vision, and on my left, one of the television cameras swings my way.

  “There she is!” someone calls out. Behind me, the gates of hell give way, and the crowd surges forth. I swear, torchlight casts shadows in the shapes of pitchforks on the ground ahead of me.

  Amira and I race from the park into the street, and I can’t tell if people are actually following us, or if those footsteps are the sound of my demons chasing me. In the end, it doesn’t matter.

  “Through here!” Amira pulls me into an alley, and we keep running, my shoes pounding the cracked pavement, my lungs burning with every breath.

  I’m crying, and I don’t even know when that started.

  In the parking lot behind the yogurt shop, we stumble to a halt next to my car, bent over to catch our breath. There’s no one else here, but I can hear the roar of chaos still echoing from the park.

  I hope my mom’s okay.

  I hope Penn got Landry out before she saw any of that.

  “Are you all right?” Amira asks, one hand on my shoulder, and even through a film of my own tears, I recognize the guilt on her face.

  “No.” I stand up straight and swipe tears from my cheeks. “No, I am not okay. Threats from strangers online are one thing, but this has gone way, way too far.”

  “I know. That was crazy.”

  “I can’t take any more of this. You have to tell me the truth, Amira.”

  “I . . .” She frowns. “What truth?”

  “All of it! Did you sleep with my brother? Are you Lullaby Doe’s mother? Did I find your baby—my own niece—on the locker room floor?”

  “What? No!” Amira looks around the parking lot, obviously worried, suddenly, that we aren’t really alone.

  And that’s a valid fear, considering how many strangers with cameras are in town. How many of them have called my phone or chased me down the sidewalk.

  “Then why do you suddenly want to be my friend again? Why did you get so involved with the funeral fundraising and planning the vigil? Why did you disappear from my life in the first place?”

  “Because—” She bites off whatever she was going to say, and light from the only pole in this parking lot reflects on the tears standing in her eyes. “It’s complicated, Beckett.”

  “How complicated can it possibly be?” I’m shouting now, and this wasn’t my plan. I was going to try to get to the truth without driving someone else from my life. But suddenly I have to know. “Is this because of you?” I throw one arm out in the direction of the park. Of the potentially violent mob we’ve just run from. “Are you the reason reporters keep calling my phone? The reason people are demanding my arrest and strangers are threatening to kill me?”

  “No! It’s not my baby, Beckett!”

  “No one believes me when I say that. Why should I believe you? The pieces all fit.”

  A tear rolls down her cheek. “I’m telling you the truth. I’ve never been pregnant.”

  “They took Penn’s DNA. For a paternity test,” I tell her. “We’ll know the truth soon, so you might as well just tell me.”

  “Oh my god, Beck!” She looks pale, even in what little light is shining on us both. “Even if the baby is Penn’s, that doesn’t make it mine! Why aren’t you accusing Daniela?”

  “I already tried that. She sent him a selfie two days before the baby was born, and she definitely wasn’t pregnant. She also may not have eaten anything in the past . . . ever.”

  “Well, that doesn’t make the baby mine!”

  “Lullaby Doe was wrapped in Penn’s shirt, Amira.”

  I tick the points off on my fingers as I shout them at her, beyond fed up with not knowing. With being unable to defend myself. And—I’ll just say it—with being unable to deflect the blame.

  “The baby was at thirty weeks’ gestation, and you slept with my brother approximately thirty weeks ago. After which you basically disappeared from my life. Then, as soon as I found the baby, you came back, like you wanted to help me. And the worse everything got, the guiltier you looked. Like you wanted to apologize for everything that was happening to me. As if it were all your fault.

  “And then you got super involved with the fundraiser and planning the vigil. I thought you were being nice at first, but aren’t those all exactly the things the baby’s mother would
do if she wanted to be there for her child, but she couldn’t tell anyone about it?”

  “Well, probably!” Amira admits. “And I can see why you might think that. But you’re wrong. I thought you were the mother!”

  I blink at her, surprised for a second. Is that the truth, or is she just trying to shock me away from what I’ve uncovered? “Why would you think that? Just because everyone else does?”

  “No! I didn’t think that before. Not really. Not until tonight, when you started talking about the community failing Lullaby Doe’s mother. About how someone should have noticed that a friend was pregnant. I thought you were talking to me. About what a crappy friend I’ve been, because I didn’t notice you were pregnant.” She exhales. “Because I wasn’t paying attention. Because I was being selfish.”

  “I was talking about me,” I tell her. “I was the crappy friend who didn’t notice that you were pregnant. With Penn’s child.”

  “But that’s not true! I’ve never been pregnant. I’ve only ever . . . ​I mean, it was just that one time, with Penn—that one time ever, actually—and it shouldn’t have happened. He gave me a ride home, and we were both upset, and I’d always kind of had a crush on him, so . . .” She shrugs. “And afterward, it was so awkward. I thought you knew, and you were mad at me. Or, if you didn’t know, I didn’t know how to tell you. And then the next week he got together with Daniela, and he basically never spoke to me again, and I was so embarrassed. So I just kind of . . .”

  “You disappeared.”

  She nods. “I didn’t know how much you knew. Or what to say to you. Or how to be around him. Then you found that poor baby, and all this happened, and I thought . . . ​I thought maybe everybody was right. Maybe she was yours, and I disappeared from your life right when you needed me most, and this whole thing was my fault, because if you’d been able to tell someone . . .” She shrugs. “That’s why I feel guilty. Because I abandoned you to deal with all this on your own.” Another shrug. “That’s what I thought, anyway. I mean, I did disappear when you needed me most, even if you weren’t pregnant. Right after your dad—”

  “Don’t. Just . . .” I dig my keys from my pocket and click the fob. “Just get in the car.”

  As I slide behind the wheel, something occurs to me. “Were you in school last Friday?” If she was in class all day—in front of witnesses—then there’s no way she could have been giving birth in the locker room.

  Amira groans. “I went home in the middle of first hour. I was having a really bad period.”

  I blink at her as I start the car. So much for her alibi.

  “You don’t believe me, do you?” she asks as I pull out of the parking lot through the narrow rear exit. Away from Main Street. Away from the park and the protesters.

  “I don’t know what to believe anymore.”

  My father may have been a thief.

  My mother may be a dirty cop.

  My brother and my best friend may be the parents of a dead baby.

  “I just . . . ​I need to think.” And based on the way she stares out her window on the drive to her house, I think she knows what I really mean by that.

  This time, I need to disappear from her life. At least until I know for sure what’s going on.

  FIFTEEN

  “Hey. It’s two in the morning. What are you still doing up?” My mother drops her keys into the bowl on the coffee table and sinks onto the couch next to me. She looks half-dead.

  “Waiting for you. How bad did it get?” I saw part of it on television, but they didn’t allow any filming inside the police department.

  “Twelve arrests. Four people sent to the hospital, but no one admitted. Just bumps and bruises. One idiot got pepper-sprayed. Chief Stoddard’s pretty pleased, considering.” She shrugs. “If we’d known about the protesters in enough time, we would have called in assistance from the Daley PD, or from Jackson. As it was, we had to handle it all ourselves. But we managed.”

  Despite the Clifford PD’s solid demonstration of competency, Jake’s parents are feeling pretty smug about their decision to keep him as far away from the vigil—from anything concerning Lullaby Doe—as possible. Which I know from his frantic texts, once he saw footage of the protests.

  If he weren’t on lockdown—for real, this time—he’d have come over hours ago.

  Mom glances at the darkened hallway. “Penn and Landry are asleep?”

  “Probably not.” Today was the last school day of the semester. We get to stay up late and sleep in for two straight weeks.

  “Did your sister see any of it?”

  “Penn took her home when the protest started. By the time I got here, they were watching recaps on the news. I think she missed the worst of it.”

  “Good. The last thing she needs is to worry about me getting hurt in the line of duty, after . . .” She shrugs.

  After Dad’s injury basically ruined all our lives.

  “She’s fine,” I tell my mother. And I hope it’s true. I hope at least one member of this family is mostly untouched by all this. “She was FaceTimeing Norah when I checked on her. Talking about the ‘riot.’ A characterization she clearly got from reading the Crimson Cryer’s tweets.”

  “Well, I guess that could have been worse.”

  “I don’t understand what they wanted. The people in the pink shirts. Why protest a vigil for a stillborn baby? Don’t they usually target clinics and—”

  “This wasn’t about Lullaby Doe,” my mother says. “Those people were fanatics who saw an opportunity to twist a tragedy for their own purposes.”

  “Yeah.” I exhale. “Hey, any idea when they’re going to release Lullaby Doe’s remains? We’ve raised more than enough money in Key Club to pay for a funeral, so . . .”

  “The coroner will release her tomorrow. Just let him know which funeral home to send her to.”

  There are only five thousand people in Clifford, but we manage to support two funeral homes.

  “Thanks. I’ll let Sophia know.”

  Sophia, who messaged me an apology three hours ago, admitting I was right about a vigil bringing out the crazies. I left her on read, because I’m feeling pretty bitter about being chased from the park by an angry mob, but I’ll reply tomorrow.

  The funeral is still a good idea, even if the vigil wasn’t.

  The funeral was my idea.

  My mother heaves herself off the couch and double-checks the lock on the front door. “I’m gonna crash. I have to go in early to help process all the arrests. Don’t stay up too late, okay?”

  “I won’t.”

  Fact-Check Rating: Abjectly false.

  I will stay up until nearly four a.m. watching footage online and reading the Crimson Cryer’s account of the disastrous Lullaby Doe candlelight vigil.

  The only upside to a bomb threat during midterms is that the school board decided to cancel all the tests. Or, more accurately, to make them optional. They didn’t think it was fair to force students to perform under such stressful conditions. Also, I don’t think the teachers wanted to grade tests any more than we wanted to take them.

  Those who want to take midterms for a chance of raising their grades will be allowed to when school’s back in session after the holiday. (Of course, that small group includes my brother.) The rest of us just got lucky.

  That midterm exemption may be the only stroke of luck I’ve had in two weeks, and I have to say, it’s a hell of a way to kick off the winter break. Violent protests and negative news coverage of Clifford notwithstanding.

  Mom has already left for work by the time I get up around eleven a.m., so I wake Landry by caressing her cheek with a bag of chocolate chips. She blinks up at me, squinting while she waits for my face to come into focus. “What’s going on?”

  “Mom’s at work. Penn’s out, probably trying to deadlift single-wides at Dogwood Village to impress the West Point admissions committee. You and I are going to make cookies.”

  She sits up, a grin splitting her face wide open. �
�Really?”

  “Yes. The butter’s already softening. Do you want to invite Norah?”

  “No.” Landry frowns. “She’s kinda being a bitch right now.”

  “Language.”

  “Fine. She’s kinda being a pain right now. And she definitely doesn’t deserve cookies.”

  “Fair enough. Get dressed.”

  My little sister might be in charge of the actual cooking—and she might force an unnatural number of vegetables upon us in that endeavor—but I am the cookie connoisseur of the family. I mean, it’s not like I do anything fancy. But I’m incredibly adequate at turning a bunch of flour and sugar into pretty much any drop cookie you can imagine.

  “What’s the plan?” Landry asks as she pads into the kitchen barefoot half an hour later, in one of my baggy sweaters. I’m wearing her apron, so I decide to call us even on the clothes-borrowing front.

  “Chocolate chip and salted caramel.” I hold up a canister of large-grain salt and a bag of caramel chips. “We’re going to consume our weight in sugar today.”

  She sits on her knees on one of the bar stools. “Can we skip the baking and just eat the dough?”

  “No. Raw eggs. But we can eat the cookies right out of the oven. While they’re all melty and gooey.”

  Landry laughs. “Clearly those are technical culinary terms.”

  For the next hour and a half, everything feels normal. Penn comes home, sweaty from his run, as we’re pulling the second baking sheet out of the oven, and he joins us at the island, eating cookies straight off the pan. Gasping because they’re way too hot, as chocolate drips down our chins.

  I want to live in this moment forever. I want to scoop us up, kitchen and all, and slap a glass globe over us and store us on the shelf in some museum of perfect moments. Because we deserve this one.

  We eat fresh cookies for lunch.

  That afternoon, with the taste of chocolate still sweet on my tongue, Sophia Nelson and I head over to Dunley’s Funeral Home and do the most depressing thing in the entire world.

  We select a casket for a baby.

  Landry wanted to come, but I drew the line at letting her help plan the funeral. Instead, Penn took her to pick out a Christmas tree from the lot set up in front of the Walmart in Daley.