All the Beautiful Lies(64)

She walked the rest of the way back to her motel room, and once she was there, before she did anything else, she sent him a text: What’s the cat’s name in your father’s bookstore? I saw him this morning.

When she got out of the shower, he’d texted back: Lew. You leaving today?

No. Tomorrow.

Can I see you?

I’d like that.

They made plans to meet that afternoon for a drink at the Livery bar in the Kennewick Inn. Caitlin was happy that she wouldn’t have to spend the entire day alone. She got dressed, then called her mother.



They started on a second round of drinks, and Harry said, “Can I tell you something?”

“Of course you can.”

“It might freak you out.”

“Okay,” she said, suddenly fearful.

They’d met at three in the afternoon in the basement bar, long and narrow and decorated to look like the sleek interior of a yacht. Harry had ordered a bourbon with ginger ale, and she’d gotten a pint of Harpoon. They’d brought the drinks to an alcove near an unlit fireplace. She’d told him about her decision to accompany Grace’s body back to Michigan, and he’d told her all about the bookstore, and how it seemed as though his stepmother, Alice, and the man who worked at the store, John, wanted Harry to take over the business. They’d finished their drinks, and then Harry had gotten two more, paying for them at the bar and bringing them over. Caitlin had just been realizing how much you could read on Harry’s face, his anxiety, his sadness, and then she’d seen indecision flit across his features right before he asked her if he could tell her something.

“No, maybe I shouldn’t,” he said.

“You can trust me,” she said.

“Okay,” he said, taking a sip of his drink, then rubbing at the edge of his lip with a finger. “Alice, my stepmother, is interested in me, romantically, sexually, whatever you want to call it.”

“Oh,” Caitlin said. It was not what she had expected to hear.

“I think it’s the way she’s processing grief, or something like that.”

“Oh,” Caitlin said again. “It’s strange. Is it new? I mean, did she act this way before your father died?”

“No, but I also didn’t know her all that well.”

“Is she coming on to you?”

Harry rubbed at his jawline. There was a little more stubble there than the day before. “Yeah, it’s pretty obvious, and now, with what happened with Grace, she’s convinced she’s in danger, and that I’m in danger, and she wants me to be in the house all the time, or else down at the bookstore. She made me promise that I wouldn’t leave her.”

“What do you mean, wouldn’t leave her?”

“That I won’t leave right away. She doesn’t want to be alone.”

“You can’t be with her forever. Even if she was your actual mother. You need to have your own life.”

“I know that. I get it. But that doesn’t mean that I should just up and leave before the police figure out what happened to my father and your sister. I owe something to her.”

“No, I understand,” Caitlin said. “I wasn’t talking about now, I was talking about long-term.”

“I won’t be here forever, although I have no idea where I’ll go. It’s not like I have somewhere to return to. College is over, and my friends are all going to different cities. At least here I have some purpose. I can take care of the things my father left behind. Alice and books.”

“Do you like books?”

“I do, but not like my father did. But no one liked books as much as he did.”

“You don’t need to take over his business.”

“I know.”

“And I don’t know why I’m about to tell you this, but I think that Alice is manipulating you. I don’t know why. It might just be because she’s scared of being alone, and that makes sense, but it might be for other reasons. You said you didn’t really know her that well.”

“She was my father’s wife, but no, I don’t.”

“Was she married before? Does she have her own kids?”

“No. She was my father’s real estate agent when he decided to move to Maine. She doesn’t have family, or if she does, she doesn’t see them.”

“Your father chose her. You didn’t. I don’t know if you owe her anything beyond what you’ve done already.”

Harry didn’t immediately say anything, and Caitlin felt bad about what she’d said. It had sounded callous, like she was the type of person who figured out who she owed and who she didn’t. She was about to apologize when Harry said, “I don’t know what to do or think.”

“Tell me about this other person your father was having an affair with.”

“Annie Callahan. I saw her at the police station. It was the day I found your sister. I was in the station all that morning, and I watched her being brought into one of the interview rooms to be questioned. She looked terrified, and when she was being led out of the station, she looked over at me where I was sitting and stared. I think it was because I look like my father.”

“How did you know it was her?”

“I just knew, somehow. Later, I asked Detective Dixon about it and he said that it was, and that they’d be questioning her husband as well, but he was out of town.”