All the Little Liars (12 page)

I didn't know how to respond to that, so I didn't. Instead, I got up to put dinner on the table, and I called Robin to eat. My father washed his hands and took his place at one end. After a long silence, my father decided to make conversation. “So you're going to have a baby, you and Robin.”

“Yep,” Robin said.

“When is it due?”

We talked about that, and Dad said he'd like to come for the baptism. I gave that the weight it was due. He hadn't even come to my first wedding.

I found I was actually hungry. The lasagna was warm and bubbling from the oven, and the salad balanced out the heaviness of the noodles and cheese. My father told us he'd never had lasagna like that. He thought the meat sauce tasted “funny.” Neither Robin nor I responded to this.

As a long and unpleasant day drew to a close, I felt something close to despair. And I admit there was a little resentment mixed in. The week had started out so happy, with the confirmation of my pregnancy and the excitement of telling my family and Robin's. We should be discussing bottle vs. breast, and debating whether the nursery would be themed Winnie the Pooh or Jungle Creatures. We should be thinking of where we were going to register—Babies R Us? Target?—since we needed everything. I had a vision of soft baby blankets and diaper bags, plastic rattles and pacifiers.

I knew how selfish my resentment was, and I didn't think it meant I loved my brother the less. I was just clinging to my hope, instead of to my despair.

At least I got to be alone with Robin after dinner, though it was already late. Dad retired to the guest bedroom without offering to help with the dishes or clearing the table, and in about thirty seconds I heard the little television come on.

The day had been so emotionally exhausting that I climbed into bed with profound relief, and I was asleep within a few seconds. I didn't dream about anything more frightening than a bake sale.

 

Chapter Nine

In the morning, Dad reemerged from his room to ask directions to the alley behind Shear Delight where Tammy's body had been found. I told him the route. I don't know what he hoped to find, since the police had searched it very thoroughly, but I would love having him out of the house. Besides, he was too fidgety to sit still for long. He borrowed my car again. I reminded him to check the gas level.

When he'd left, I told Robin everything I hadn't been able to tell him the day before about Clayton's abduction. Robin was as baffled as everyone else. How could anyone take so many people hostage?

It was a puzzle we couldn't solve. We talked about it while we ate and showered and dressed.

Every theory we came up with had a snag. The Harrisons said they'd sent Marlea off to her grandmother. But if Clayton had stopped by the field, and Marlea had been there, surely she would have something interesting to tell the investigators? If Clayton had been snatched, his car was missing, too. And what about Connie Bell? What had she seen? Where were the two cars? Why hadn't they been found? Clayton's red Trans Am was hardly anonymous.

“If Connie Bell is gone, too, why haven't her parents said anything?” Robin said. “They surely wouldn't let Karina Harrison persuade them to keep it quiet. Not if their child was missing.”

“I don't know, and I can't think of a reason in the world to call her house. I don't know the Bells at all.”

“Well, let's settle that.” Robin looked in the Lawrenceton phone book and tapped a number on his cell phone. It rang. When someone answered, he said, “Hello. This is Robin. May I speak to Connie?”

In a few seconds he said, “Sorry, I just realized I called the wrong Connie,” and hung up.

“That was Connie's mother,” he said. “She called Connie to the phone. Evidently, the girlfriend is fine. But if she was with Clayton, how come she hasn't told anyone what she knows?”

“Maybe the Harrisons asked her not to?”

“If they did, she must know something. Why didn't they take her to the police? Or even … would the FBI be involved? In a kidnapping?”

“I think it depends on the age of the child,” I said. “And I'm pretty sure Clayton is almost eighteen, since he's a senior. Could Phillip be considered kidnapped, rather than vanished? Because we don't know what happened?”

“I have no idea. I wish we could kidnap Connie and make her talk,” Robin said morosely. “I wonder what she's told her family.”

“If no one knows that Clayton is gone, she wouldn't have to tell them anything.”

“True.”

“She can just sit on her hands and hope everything will be all right.”

“Would she?” Robin asked incredulously.

“I don't know Connie personally, but maybe so. All the kids seem to think that where Clayton went, Connie was with him. She must know something. But as long as she stays silent, it didn't happen. No one is asking her questions, or angry at her.”

I brooded over ethics and morality. I balanced Connie's rights against my desire to see my brother again. And I decided,
To hell with her rights.
I would have interrogated the girl if I could have thought of a way to do it without getting accused of terrorizing her. I wondered if the Harrisons had paid the ransom yet, and I wondered how much the kidnappers had asked for.

Late in the morning, the phone rang, and Robin reached out to answer it. “Hello? Oh, hi, Perry.”

Then he said, “Where?” At the tension in his voice, I sat up, and my heart thumped.

“We'll be there.” He hung up. “Perry Allison was listening to his mom's police scanner. They've found Josh's car.”

“Where?”

“Not too far from your last house.”

Robin meant the Julius house, where I'd lived during my marriage to Martin Bartell. It would never be called the Bartell house; the Julius family had greater claim. They had been killed while they lived there.

“Let me go to the bathroom, and then we'll leave,” I said. “Would you call my dad and tell him? He should know.”

Robin nodded without enthusiasm.

“I know you're doing all the heavy lifting with Dad,” I said. “I'm grateful. I realize he's a pain in the butt. And he seems to be getting worse.”

“He is,” Robin said, smiling just a little. “At least he lives all the way across the country. I have that to be thankful for.”

In a few minutes I was bundling up again, and we were on our way in Robin's car.

As we took a familiar route, I tried not to think of all the times I'd driven from work to the Julius house during my first marriage. Memories flickered, no longer vivid. I'd loved Martin, I had no doubt about that. And I was sure he'd loved me. I'd sunk into a miasma of grief when he'd died.

But it was also true that we hadn't had a trouble-free relationship. Martin had been a man with a lot of secrets.

I sighed, and put that behind me. The present was painful enough.

After we passed my former home and went another half mile, we saw all the police cars. We pulled over at a discreet distance, and got out to walk the remaining yards in the bright clear light. The wind blew across the open fields, which stretched over the rolling hills around us. There was a grove of trees in the middle of a field, around a tiny old cemetery; and in that grove I caught a flash of light, glinting off something shiny. Josh's car. The black Camaro.

I felt as if I could hear a bell tolling in my head. Robin put his arm around me as my steps faltered.

We got up to a highway patrol officer, a woman I didn't know. She said, “You have to stop here. No farther, please.”

“My brother Phillip is missing,” I said, forcing the words out of my throat, which felt constricted. My eyes burned with unshed tears. “Is there … anyone … in the car?”

She hesitated. Finally, she said, “There's no one in the front or back seats. They're opening the trunk now. Why don't you go home and let someone call you?”

There was no way I was going to leave this spot. I glanced up at my husband.

“Who found it?” Robin asked, taking my cue to stall. We were going to stay until the trunk was opened. I had to know.

“I did.” Trooper Allen didn't mind telling us that. “I was returning from an accident site at an intersection two miles north, and I caught the sun bouncing off the hood. When I went to investigate, I recognized the license number. We've been looking for it.”

“Was there anything inside?” I held my breath before she answered.

She hesitated. Then, out of mercy, Trooper Allen said, “There were just a few spots of blood in the car, if that's what you're asking. Nothing significant.”

I sagged against Robin. I closed my eyes and said a silent prayer. This was beyond terrible. We stepped to the right of Allen so we could see more clearly, though with the car in the grove, and the weeds that had been allowed to choke up the ground, it was hard to tell what was happening.

“The trunk is opening,” Robin said quietly. “No one's jumping back or … anything. I think we're okay.”

There were both Lawrenceton deputies and highway patrol clustered around the car. “It's empty,” called one of the uniforms.

I deflated with relief. “Whose land is this?” I asked Allen, who had turned to look.

“I don't know that,” she said, turning back. She looked almost as relieved as I felt.

Aubrey and Emily ran from their car to join us.

“It's empty,” Robin told them instantly.

Emily collapsed, sobbing, and Aubrey was crying, too. I expected the Finstermeyers to show up any second. But the Harrisons could hardly show an interest, since they were harboring such a great secret. I thought about Tammy's parents, whom I only knew by sight. They knew where their child was: lying on a cold metal table. Uncertainty was better than that.

I called my father myself, and told him not to come out to the site. There was nothing to see or discover, at least nothing we'd have access to.

“Did you see the front of the car?” he demanded.

“No, it was facing the other way,” I said.

“See if you can have a look at it.”

“Why?”

“To check if there's anything that indicates that was the car that hit the girl.”

I felt the cold to my bones. Robin and I began walking back to his car. When we were out of earshot, I told Robin what my father had suggested. Robin was disparaging. “We're not standing out there in the cold to see if there's any damage to the front of the car,” he said firmly. “We don't know how long it'll take for them to be ready to move it. How would we know what any damage came from? For all we know, the car hit a tree in the grove, or an old headstone.”

“True.” I was relieved to be talked out of that chore.

“Home?” he asked, as he maneuvered the car into a U-turn.

“I want to stop at Shear Delight on the way.”

“Again? Why?”

“I need to go inside,” I said. “And I think I'd better go alone.”

The parking lot of Shear Delight was not crowded. Robin pulled out an
Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine
to while away his wait in the car. I went in through the front door, and a bell chimed to announce my arrival. A quick glance around told me the place was like almost all the other hair salons in Lawrenceton. Walk-ins were welcome, a sign told me. There was a rack of hair products and one of bright flowered handbags for sale. A little Christmas tree was up in one corner. Carols were playing on the sound system.

I had almost forgotten about Christmas.

A middle-aged woman was getting highlights put in her hair by a slim, pretty girl in a smock decorated with poinsettia appliqués. Another hairdresser was sweeping the floor around her station. A woman in her sixties was sitting at the reception desk filing her nails. She looked up inquiringly. “Did you need to make an appointment?” she asked. “With Laurel or Debra?”

“No,” I said. “My brother is one of the kids who is missing.”

I had the undivided attention of all four women after the words left my mouth. “I'm so sorry for your trouble,” said the sweeping woman, and they all nodded. Suddenly, tears stung my eyes. I hadn't braced myself for compassion.

“I just wanted to know what happened in here, since the police haven't told me anything. I know Joss had an appointment. Was Tammy here long, waiting for her? I'm Aurora Teagarden,” I added belatedly.

“I'm Laurel,” said the girl giving the highlights. “Joss had an appointment with me. Like we told the police, she didn't come in the shop. Her friend Tammy was here. Someone had dropped Tammy off, I don't know who. Tammy got a haircut and highlights just a week ago from Debra, there.” Laurel nodded toward the woman with the broom. “It looked so cute, short.”

Debra said, “Tammy was just waiting for Joss to show. She was supposed to go home with Joss afterward. She was telling me how much she was enjoying having short hair. Most girls can't wear it that way.” A tear rolled down Debra's cheek, and she pulled a tissue out of a pink box and dabbed at her face.

The woman behind the desk nodded. “Short, but feminine,” she said. “I'm Daisy. I do manicures and pedicures.”

I nodded at her. “So she went out the back door?” I asked.

“She was texting,” Laurel said. “And she started laughing. She told us, ‘They're behind the shop, I need to go out and rescue them,' but not like anything was really wrong. I swear! If I'd thought something was really wrong, I would have called the police.”

I nodded again. I believed Laurel. “But she didn't come back,” I said, nudging the narrative along.

“No,” Daisy said, shaking her head. “She never came back.”

There was a moment of silence.

“The cops wanted to know why we didn't go outside to look for her,” Laurel said. “Honestly, after five minutes, I got kind of peeved with the girls. I thought Joss had called Tammy outside because she was going to blow off her appointment. I was steamed. It wouldn't have cost her but a minute to come in and tell me she didn't want to get her hair cut. Actually, it would have been a relief, because she was my last appointment and I could have gone home.” Laurel shook her head sadly. “Now I feel so bad about that. If I'd had any idea what had happened, you can bet I'd have done something. Maybe … maybe she was alive, and if I'd gone to look, I could have helped her.”