Tell Me No Lies (3 page)

Luka. What did you do? What did they do to you?

A man's voice came on the line. Alex opened her mouth to speak, then realized the voice was recorded. A message. The man wasn't there. A wail sounded deep in her head.

What should she do?

Outside, someone knocked on the bedroom door.
Not now, please, not now.
Alex checked her watch. Past seven. No time to think. Too dangerous to leave a message. She ended the call and bolted from her hiding place to open the door.

A woman in a black maid's uniform stood there. "Your guests are beginning to arrive."

Alex nodded. "Thank you."

The maid left, and Alex closed the door. It was time. Luka Kholodov was dead, and if she wasn't careful, she could join him.

But first, she would clear her father's name. And have her revenge.

Grimly, she marched to the dresser, where she'd left the jewelry box open. A brightly colored necklace sparkled up at her from its blue velvet nest. She lifted it and fingered the tiny cloisonne' locket. Designed in the round shape of a jolly peasant woman, it was a matryoshka, a replica in silver and jewel tones of the wooden nesting dolls so famous in Russian folk art. This one had been designed to hold two even tinier women, one inside the other. Three smiling sisters, her father had said as he'd placed the necklace around her.

She closed her eyes briefly, remembering, and tried not to let the sadness clog her throat.

She sealed the clasp around her, and if her hands shook, she pretended otherwise. Just as she pretended that the happy colors of the little sister shimmering against her skin meant everything would be all right.

Without warning tears prickled, and for an instant she felt lost, brittle with loneliness. It was all up to her now. Her alone.

Quickly, she forced the tears back before she ruined her makeup. She couldn't show up downstairs with red, swollen eyes.

She sat deadly still until she'd regained control. Then rising, shoulders back, she glided to the door. Lightly, she brushed the locket.

For you, Papa. You and Luka. For you both.

Then she swept into the hallway and made her way toward her guests.

2

Hank pulled out of the Baker drive, turned left and followed the road to Route 9 and home. Not to his own home, the house he'd bought in downtown Sokanan, but to Apple House, the Bonner farm. He'd promised himself a few rounds of basketball with his twelve-year-old nephew, Trey. A sop, Hank knew, but one in an ongoing campaign for forgiveness from himself as well as the boy. A campaign they both knew wasn't going well.

Trey's face rose in Hank's mind, the angry set to the mouth, the sullen look in the eyes and, as always, that sinking feeling settled in the pit of Hank's stomach. Better to think about Alexandra Jane Baker.

Not that she would be any easier to handle. The world she inhabited of wealth and connection was a world away from Hank's tiny neck of the woods. Odd that they should collide today of all days, on the eve of the party that was supposed to kick off a better future for his hometown and the surrounding county.

The highway took him past the gated entrance to the old General Electric plant. A fenced-in ghost town, the place was gloomy and deserted and had been for years. A. J. Baker's deal with the Russians could change all that

A lot was riding on the shindig tonight. Is that what was going on behind Alexandra Jane's cool gray eyes? Was she annoyed or upset that he'd brought murder into the picture on her big night?

He turned on to Route 30, the familiar road that had once been the only ihroughway in Van Dekker County. Now there were any number of choices to zip you through, the Taconic, two Interstates. But the two-lane highway was tree-lined and quiet, an oasis in a desert of concrete overpasses and car exhaust. When he and his sister Maureen were kids, they used to go on long walks down the highway, him tugging his little sister behind and protecting her from the cars.

Lot of good it did.

He focused on the road, staring hard at the stripe separating the two lanes.

Fifteen minutes later, the Apple House Farm sign appeared around a bend. Hank pulled into the winding orchard drive, passing the roadside farm stand and gift shop, which were closed for the day. He could have taken the route that led directly to the house, but that would have meant passing the white clapboard cape cod that Maureen and her husband Tom Stiller used to own. A quarter mile away from the farmhouse, it had been built by his parents as a wedding present. Hank still couldn't drive by without remorse shifting inside him like sand.

Besides, he liked the orchard road for its own sake. It cut through acres of ancient apple trees, all planted by generations of Bonners. It was too dim to see clearly, but he knew the trees were blossoming. He rolled down the window and inhaled the sweet fragrance. A stab of something went through him, pride or ownership, or maybe just belonging. All undercut by an uneasy shimmer. Maureen had inherited the Bonner green thumb, but now carrying on the tradition would be up to him. He pushed the thought away. Ten more days until he had to face that.

Pulling up to the house, he saw Trey in his usual place outside dribbling and shooting by the glow of the light over the garage. The boy looked up as Hank's car approached, his long narrow face so like the face in all of Hank's nightmares. Thank God the hair was Bonner blond and the eyes his mother's cornflower blue.

Hank got out of the car and held his hands chest high for Trey to pass the ball. Today was the first day in two weeks that he hadn't received a call from Trey's principal about the boy's behavior. "How about a game of Horse?"

Instead of throwing title ball, Trey dribbled and shot. The ball hit the rim and bounced off. "No thanks."

Trey went after the ball, but Hank got there first. "Afraid I'll beat you?"

A thin smile crossed his nephew's face. "Afraid you'll think it's another 'bonding' opportunity." The adult phrase pounded funny coming out of the kid's mouth, and Hank might have laughed except he knew Trey wouldn't appreciate it.

And as if Hank needed further persuasion, Trey said, "I like my game question-free."

Hank nodded. "Fair enough. No questions. Just dribble and shoot."

Trey sighed and shrugged. "Whatever."

Hank passed the ball back to Trey, then took off his sport coat and tossed it onto the car's hood. He loosened his tie. Trey eyed him, one leg thrust forward in a surly stance. Bony legs stuck out of the oversized basketball shorts, and the arms holding the ball were long and thin, with knobby elbows and shoulders that hadn't filled out yet. Christ, the kid was skinny.

"Did you have dinner?"

A grimace flashed across Trey's face. "You can't stop even for thirty seconds, can you?"

"Stop what?"

"Being a cop. Interrogating people. Yeah, I had dinner." With a brutal jerk, he slammed the ball in Hank's direction, pivoted, and walked away.

Hank sighed; he never seemed to get it right with Trey. Christ, he remembered
giving
Trey that basketball two years ago. The kid had been so excited, not even birthday cake had kept him from running outside to try it out.

The memory came back, sharp and painful. How they'd all watched through the window, and how Mo had joked bitterly. "I have two men an alcoholic and a balloholic."

Hank had put an arm around her shoulders and given her a squeeze.

Gone. All gone now.

He looked toward the house. Trey had disappeared inside. Well, at least the kid was eating again. Unlike the first few weeks, when he'd barely touched a thing.

Hank swerved his thoughts away from that time, and from that awful day that had defined all their lives since, as though it were a great chasm with before on one side and after on the other. Automatically, his hand went to his chest again. His heart was still there, strong and healthy.

He found his mother in the kitchen, wearing an apron with Apple House Farms stenciled on it. Her shoulder-length hair, once honey brown but now dulled and stippled with gray, was caught by a rubber band in the no-nonsense ponytail she usually wore around the farm. The girlish style, which hadn't changed since he was a boy, emphasized the strong planes of her face, scraped clean of makeup and artifice.

She smiled when she saw him, but the lines around her mouth were deep, and her eyes looked tired.

"Saw you out there with the boy. Good of you to pay him attention. He needs it."

Hank kissed her cheek, wanned by her support even if it was misplaced. "Try telling him that."

She clucked her tongue. "He's angry and confused. He wants to blame someone, and you're it. Doesn't mean it's your fault, Henry."

Doesn't mean it wasn't either.
"Boy's got no parents. Somebody's got to take the blame for that." He grabbed a piece of tomato from the leftover salad sitting in a bowl on the counter. It tasted like sawdust.

"Tom Stiller's to blame for that, and you know it."

Hank blew out a breath. His chest felt as though it were filled with lead. "Look, can we talk about something else?"

"Sure. How about your decision to quit your job and become a farmer?"

Jesus. "How about warming up some of whatever you made for dinner while I change? I'm starving."

He headed down the hallway toward his room. His mother's voice followed him. "You just want a free meal ticket, Henry Bonner."

He grinned. Rose Bonner always did know how to break the tension. And God, she was so good at letting him off the hook.

Truth was, unloading his job would probably be a relief. Who in his right mind wanted to be a cop anyway? All that stress, the crazy hours, the things you see.

The things you do.

He cut down the hallway and peeked into what his grandmother had called the back parlor. Nine-year-old Amanda was exactly where she usually was, in front of the television, "Hey, Uncle Hank." She had Tom Seller's dark hair and eyes, but they were alleviated enough by the square-jawed Bonner face that somehow she never reminded him of Tom.

"Hey, Mandy." He stopped to rub her head. "How was school today?"

"Okay." She fixed on the flickering pictures on the tube in front of her. "We made a lanyard." From a pocket, she fished out a two-inch piece of leatherette braid. "Want it? You can put your keys on it."

Hank's heart squeezed. "Sure. That'd be great. I needed a new key chain. How'd you know?"

She grinned at him. "I'm psychic."

"Oh. Well, that explains it."

"Uh-huh."

"Well, thanks."

She went back to watching her show, a sitcom about twin sisters where everyone loved everyone and all problems came complete with happy endings.

He backed out and proceeded up the stairs to his room, knowing Mandy's was far from assured. But he'd do what he could to mend the hole he'd made in the lives of his sister's two kids. Leaving the force was the first step.

He'd been divorced for far longer than he'd been married, so there was no wife to pick up the slack when call-outs came at two in the morning or when he couldn't make it home for days at a time. Now that Tom and Maureen were gone, his mother's load at the farm was three times what it used to be. Oh, she'd jump in, no questions asked, but he saw the weariness etched into her face. He couldn't ask her to take on more.

That left him to do the parent-teacher meetings, pick up the kids, go to basketball games. School would be over in a month, then the long, slow summer stretched in front of them. Amanda would go to camp, but Trey... Hank didn't know what he was going to do about Trey. For the thousandth time, regret seared him. He and Trey used to be such good friends.

Inside his room, he flipped on the portable TV he'd brought over last week along with half his clothes. The room made him feel awkward, a giant in a place built for a dwarf. His mother had never gotten around to throwing away his trophies, so they still stood on a shelf, all his high school achievements displayed as though they were the pinnacle of his success.

Maybe they were. Maybe he should have done what his father had always wanted. Stayed here, grown apples, run the fruit stand. If he'd done that, maybe things would have turned out differently for everyone.

His hand shook as he pulled off the tie and unbuttoned the white shirt. The local newscaster was. foaming at the mouth about the Renaissance Oil party that night, and Hank turned up the volume, glad for the distraction. Looked like Alexandra Jane was throwing quite a bash. The governor was expected, and some State Department hack from DC was supposed to be there, too. A picture of the Renaissance Oil logo, a huge "R" with a long, sweeping descender, filled the screen, then Sokanan mayor Benton Bonner was talking.

"This is an exciting moment for our city and for the world." Hank's older brother had that officious look on his face, as if he himself had made the deal with Miki Petrov. "Economic cooperation is the way to peace among nations. Sokanan is proud to be part of this historic agreement between the United States and Russia."

Proud was an understatement. Sokanan was desperate. After GE closed its plant, the town began a long, slow downward spiral. The Russian deal would bring the boom back. Petrov had bought the plant and was retrofitting it to become the new headquarters of Renaissance Oil. It would provide distribution, administration, marketing, and sales tor what everyone hoped would become a global company.