Little Girls(31)

“That stuff in the back office?”

“Yes.” Laurie turned back to her daughter. “Susan, I want you to tell me the truth.”

“I didn’t.” The girl’s lower lip trembled. “I didn’t take it.”

“Please don’t lie to me.”

“I’m not lying! I didn’t take it!”

“Is that so?” Laurie said. “Should we go into the study and see if those cuff links are still in the box?”

“I didn’t do anything!” A tear streaked down Susan’s cheek.

“All right,” Ted said. He dropped the cuff link back into Laurie’s hand. “First of all, you’re not walking anywhere with your ankle like that,” he said to Laurie.

“Those cuff links were in one of the boxes with my father’s stuff,” Laurie said. “I saw them the day we got here. I even picked one up and looked at it. But when I went through the boxes earlier today, they were gone. I hadn’t even realized it until just now.”

“Did you take them?” Ted asked Susan. His voice was much steadier than Laurie’s.

Susan shook her head, though not immediately.

“I thought you knew better,” Laurie said. “I thought we taught you better than that.”

More sternly, Ted said, “Susan?”

“We taught you better than to lie to us like that,” Laurie said.

“Okay. Enough,” said Ted. To Susan, he said, “I think you should go upstairs and get ready for bed now.”

“And first thing tomorrow, I want you to fill in that hole,” Laurie added. “Am I understood?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

So now I’m getting the “ma’am” treatment, Laurie thought.

Ted waved a hand at the girl. “Go on,” he said. “Go.”

Susan pivoted around and stalked across the room to her father. She hugged him around the hips and, after a moment, he bent down and kissed the top of her head. “Okay. Good night. Now get going.”

A moment later, listening to the sounds of her daughter brushing her teeth in the upstairs bathroom, Laurie reclined in the chair and felt her ankle throb. Ted went into the kitchen and filled up a Ziploc bag with ice. When he returned, he placed the bag of ice carefully across her swollen ankle.

“How’s that?”

“Throbs,” she huffed. “You know, it’s important we show a united front.”

“She was playing with some cuff links. She didn’t steal them.”

“She knows better than to go through someone else’s stuff like that.”

“She was probably just bored.”

“Don’t make excuses for her.”

“It’s not an excuse.”

“And it’s not just the stealing. I understand that she’s stuck in this house and that she’s bored, and just looking for stuff to do, things to play with. But since when does she lie to us like that?”

He held up one hand and swiveled away to the liquor cabinet. He poured himself a glass of cognac. “Maybe you just caught her off guard and she didn’t know what to say.”

“You give her too much latitude,” Laurie said.

“You’re right. I should go up there and beat her unconscious with my belt. How’s that?”

“Don’t be an ass, Ted. You spoil her. I’m the only one doling out any discipline, and I’m starting to feel like the bad guy because of it.”

“She’s ten years old, Laurie—”

“And she’ll be eleven next month, and an adult before we know it. She needs boundaries now.”

There was something on the tip of his tongue, Laurie could tell. Yet he swallowed it. His lips remained firm, as if whatever words he had swallowed had tasted bitter, but he refused to give in to it.

“Is there something else?” he asked. This time, his voice was even and steady, though not without care.

“Something else what? What do you mean?”

“Is there something else bothering you?” he clarified.

All of a sudden, she thought his eyes betrayed the distrust he had of her mental stability. One look at him and she could tell he was thinking about her little episode on the highway last year. Those looks came more and more frequently, like she was slowly losing her mind, yet she was the only person oblivious to the fact.

“No,” she said, turning away from him, too embarrassed to continue looking him in the eyes. “There’s nothing else. I’m just exhausted.”

He sighed. “I’m sorry. I’ll talk with her about it tomorrow. Okay?”

“Okay. Thank you.”

“How ’bout some fresh tunes?”

She smiled wanly up at him.

Ted set his drink down, then selected another album from the box. He slid the record out and was halfway to the phonograph when he paused.

“That’s strange,” he said.

“What’s strange?”

He turned to show her. In one hand, he held the record and the cardboard sleeve. In his other hand he held a folded piece of paper, thick and yellow like parchment, the edges quite visibly frayed. He unfolded the paper and stared at it, the expression on his face pure incomprehension.

“What is it?” she repeated.