Sweet Water(17)

The temperature is dropping. Her parents are probably worried sick.

“Martin, has someone at least taken her by now?” I whisper, thinking of Alton’s men at the scene. “To the hospital, so her parents can . . .” I cover my mouth and stifle a cry, trying not to imagine my own son on one of those awful pullout metal slabs in the morgue, a paper tag attached to his toe.

“It’s being taken care of,” Martin says.

“What does that mean?” What does any of this mean?

“Do you remember what you’re supposed to say in case there’s company waiting for us at home?”

As much as we practiced our alibi with Alton before we left, for the life of me, I can remember only bits and pieces. The fact that we’ve done something like this before somehow softened our scripted dialogues this time, but it shouldn’t have, because it isn’t the same thing. No one died in Livvy’s accident.

Martin grabs my hand. “Look at me.”

I do, and my supportive, warm husband is back in a flash. The mercurial way he does this frightens me. It reminds me how he lied about the doctor to get me to do what he wanted. “You can do this. For Finn.” He keeps hammering this fact, that it’s for our son. That I need to do this for him, but it’s hard to justify.

I try to remember what we practiced.

Finn and Yazmin got into a fight (true). But, according to Alton, Finn walked home upset afterward, went straight up to his bedroom, and fell asleep (lie). I was at the women’s shelter, but Martin was home to confirm Finn’s return. This works for everyone involved, because I was neither home nor comfortable fabricating the truth, whereas Martin was home and apparently fine with it.

I swallow the thoughts burning on my tongue. What else is Martin comfortable lying about? It’s not an entirely new thought but one that hasn’t reared its ugly head in some time.

I remember what Martin said to me with such exuberance the day he surprised me with Stonehenge, about paying for the house himself with the windfall from his new backers.

That was a complete and utter lie. Turned out he’d only had enough for half and pulled the rest from his trust. The only reason I’d found out is because I was cleaning his office a year into our marriage and found the paperwork. I confronted Martin, and he tried to use the excuse that the money in the trust was his, so what was the difference? But to me it made all the difference in the world. Especially since I’d told my dad that Martin bought Stonehenge the old-fashioned way, with his own hard-earned money.

One lie runs into the next.

I’ve made peace with it, because he was just trying to make me happy, but I’ve come to understand that a lie is a lie and should not be discounted. Accepting the old lies makes the new ones seem less significant. William stood right there and heard Martin say he’d paid for the house himself and didn’t correct him. They are a family of liars. And I’m tethered to them because of the secrets we share—and no better than they are in this case.

Martin pulls the car up close to the driveway and then stops short of pulling in. I can see our house illuminated by brilliant outdoor spotlights, our welcome-home halo. Martin loved the large lot, the property itself a treasure because of the privacy. But now I’m wondering if he purchased it because he thought it might make a good place to hide. Before I can fully postulate the disturbing thought, I realize Martin has stopped the car because there’s something moving in our driveway.

Brake lights. A black sedan, long enough to be a limousine, is pulling out at rapid speed. “Who is that, Martin?” My voice is scratchy with stress, but I’m worried the car is the real police (not Alton) or the FBI.

“They’re okay,” Martin explains, a totally unsatisfactory answer, much like his comment about the man who went around collecting bags of blood in the middle of the night. He’s one of the good guys.

I look at Martin for more information, but he won’t acknowledge me. It’s like I’ve been invisible all night, a completely foreign feeling in my husband’s presence. My doting husband is treating me like I’m not even here, and I’m waiting for him to flip that switch and turn back on. Who is the real Martin?

Maybe the police have found her. That would be a blessing, actually. Once Yazmin’s body is discovered, Alton said it will be determined that she went for a walk in the woods to experiment with drugs and somehow fell and hit her head. Alton explained that when deaths of teenagers are associated with drugs, there tends to be a lot fewer questions and less sympathy from the community and much quicker closure.

It could be what really happened.

But what if it isn’t? The nail marks suggest otherwise. I feel my body involuntarily shudder.

Hopefully Finn will wake up soon and tell us what happened to his girlfriend.

I can’t remember the tiny things Alton said that I know are important, like if the kids did alcohol or drugs in the past or what Finn’s friends thought of Yazmin. It’s either that they liked her or they didn’t, and these details are important, but they’re escaping me right now.

“Martin?” I ask, but I’ve lost him. It’s as if we’re still beneath the canopy of trees in the woods and I can’t find him. We might as well be—we’re so far apart in the front of this car right now. “Tell me who those people are.”

I’m impressed by the driving skills of the man in the black car, because we have a very long, winding driveway and he’s navigating it entirely in reverse. Martin waves as they back out around the stone pillars that mark our lot. The two men in the driver and passenger seat wave back quickly, as if they know Martin, but not well enough to roll down the window and chat.