Lie, Lie Again(33)

Sliding her laptop to the table’s edge, she brought it to life. It was time to do some investigating. Using one finger, she typed the name Hugh Martin into the search bar. The profile for a dead composer popped up. Huh. How sad. Hugh Martin is dead, she thought with a smirk. Scrolling down, she searched further, skimming the results.

Nothing.

“Oh yeah, Hugh? You can’t hide from me,” she whispered to the screen.

What had Lily said his company name was? Global something. Think, Sylvia. Global Imaging? No, that couldn’t be it. He was a consultant of sorts. At least, so he’d claimed. That was it! She chuckled to herself. Global Consulting. She typed the name, and the company website appeared. There, in the top left-hand corner, was the employee directory tab. Here goes. She clicked on it and scrolled down until she saw his picture next to his name. Hugh M. Pacheco. So it appeared he’d used his middle name as his last. Clever. He wore a crooked smile in his photo, as though someone had said something funny to encourage him to laugh. His eyes were warm and friendly. Oh, Hugh, she thought. Why did you have to do this? He looked so affable in his picture. Reliable. Well, this was one more bit of evidence that not everything was as it seemed. Hugh had created an alternative persona for himself for the sole purpose of getting what he wanted. Sure, she had adapted her likes to his, but where was the harm in that? No one suffered by her pretending to enjoy the Sunday paper. And she really had come to like the powdered creamer, strangely enough.

Reading the company address from the website, she copied it down on a sheet of paper. Next, she googled his full name. Just as she suspected, a different address from the one she knew appeared. If she was calculating correctly, it was less than a mile from her apartment. How terribly convenient. It would make her first visit that much easier.





CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Sunday, March 12

Embry was off to do the weekly shopping despite the fact that it was pouring rain and despite the fact that they should be at church. She flicked on her turn signal as the wipers screeched and squealed across the windshield. The noise made her want to cover her ears and scream. She couldn’t help but feel annoyed that Brandon hadn’t changed them even though it hadn’t rained in ages. It was his job to deal with the cars and the yard, and it was her job to do the cleaning and shopping. It was how they’d decided to split up the work. She was doing her part, sweeping crumbs from the corners of the kitchen and scrubbing the bathroom faucets to a shine. But there was nothing she could do about the smell coming from the broken garbage disposal. She gripped the wheel and told herself she was being petty. “Breathe, Embry,” she whispered.

She inhaled and exhaled. Better. Getting angry about things beyond her control was fruitless. But honestly! Sometimes she wished she could fall to the floor and bang her fists like a toddler. A good old-fashioned tantrum would do wonders. All this mindfulness crap was only making her shove down her feelings. One day she’d explode.

No, no, the angels whispered. Inhale, exhale. It took practice. She could do this.

A feeling crept around inside her, darting this way and that, making it so she couldn’t pin it down. What is it? She focused on the road ahead, wishing she had someone to talk to. She couldn’t call her friends back home because they’d faded into watercolor renditions of close friends. Time and distance had washed away the vibrancy. She’d tried to make some friends at the Mommy and Me class she’d joined when Kylie was first born, but that had been flat-out bizarre. They’d made her feel like a freak of nature, being that she was the only twenty-one-year-old mother in a sea of thirtysomethings. You got married at twenty? I didn’t even know who I was at that age. Or one of her favorites, Must’ve been a cinch for you to lose the baby weight. I was a rail in my twenties. Now it takes a lot of hard work.

She knew the other moms didn’t mean to make her feel like an outcast, but after months of being the token zoo animal, she’d stopped going to the meetings.

The feeling she’d had earlier banged its way to the front of her mind. Thinking about the other moms had made it reappear. She remembered the conversations where they’d openly shared their fears about losing their identity. They were no longer Janelle or Jodi or Christine; they were only so-and-so’s mom. Was that happening to her? She didn’t bother answering. The knowledge sat inside her like a stone. All that she had been was slipping from her grasp, and her own husband, the man who loved her for her spunk and spirit and spontaneity, hadn’t seemed to notice.

She shook her head, trying to dislodge the guilt she suddenly felt. Goodness, she loved being a mom. Mommy. Mama. All of it. She wouldn’t trade that for the world. Becoming a mother was the best thing she’d ever done in her life.

But was there room for more?

She pulled into one of the many open parking spots. Knowing it would be impossible to remain dry while getting the kids from the car, she slid an arm through her baby carrier and fastened Carson into it before helping Kylie unbuckle from her car seat.

Flipping up the hood on Kylie’s pink slicker, she took her hand. They’d gone no more than five steps before Kylie found a puddle to stomp in.

“Kylie! Don’t do that. You got my jeans all wet.”

She looked up at her with big blue eyes. “Sorry, Mama. I dry you off?” She brushed her hand along Embry’s leg, not aware it wasn’t helping.

Embry sighed. “It’s okay. Let’s get inside. I’ll let you pick the cereal.” She moved as fast as she could, keeping a hand pressed to Carson’s back so he wouldn’t get too jostled.