The Good Liar(74)

“I’ll figure something out.”

“You’re going to run away again, aren’t you?”

“I’d like to say I won’t, but I don’t seem to be in control of what I do these days. Not reliably.”

“Another impossible choice.”

“What’s that?”

“You keep presenting me with these terrible decisions. Take you into my home or hurt your family. Help you expose Franny or hurt your family. Let you leave or hurt your family.”

“You’re right. I’m horrible.”

“Don’t do that. Don’t agree with me.”

“I’m going to go.”

“No. You have to finish what you came here to do. And I’m going to help you.”

“You don’t have to.”

Cecily looked grim. “Yeah, I do. Besides, it’s the only way I can guarantee that you go away and never come back again.”

“Is that what’s going to happen?”

“If I help you, then yes. Do we have a deal?”

Kaitlyn struggled for a moment. Was she actually going to agree to never see her children again? But hadn’t that been the plan all along? Wasn’t that why she hadn’t gone right to Joshua? She wasn’t going to see her girls again. She’d known that back in the bus station a year ago. At least she could save them from a worse mother than her.

“Deal.”





Interview Transcript

TJ: Go ahead, Franny. In your own words.

FM: Well, it’s like Sherrie told you. I got into some trouble at home, you know?

TJ: What kind of trouble?

FM: Just stupid things that girls do sometimes. Like wanting to be tougher than the boys to get their attention. I started making up these stories, at first, about how badass I was. I stole drinks from my parents’ liquor cabinet. I lifted this necklace from the store. I snuck out late at night, and they didn’t even know I was gone. But I could tell they didn’t believe me, so I had to show them, right? I had to prove it.

TJ: Why?

FM: It sounds dumb, but I felt like I had to, okay? Like, no one was going to accept me for who I was if I didn’t have some extra tricks up my sleeve. So I started doing stuff. Stealing liquor. Taking stupid things from stores. Sneaking out of the house and going to hang with the guys in this parking lot they all hung out in. I became the cool girl, the girl who could bring the good stuff no one else could get.

TJ: That sounds dangerous.

FM: It wasn’t, until it was, you know? Like this one time, I was convincing this older guy, like maybe twenty-five, to buy me a bottle at Vic Pierce, this liquor store, and he was acting all nice, but then he expected me to do something for it. I grabbed the bottle, and he ran after me, but I was yelling at him, “I’m fourteen! My dad’s a cop! I’m fourteen!” And he let me go. [Laughter]

TJ: What’s funny about that?

FM: I was sixteen, and my dad wasn’t a cop.

TJ: Still, that doesn’t sound like a funny story.

FM: Nothing’s funny when it’s happening. But when it’s over, it can be sometimes.

TJ: Perhaps.

FM: Anyway, it was all mostly fun until my parents realized what I was doing and sent me to this teenager boot camp thing.

TJ: What’s that?

FM: You know, like one of the therapy places where they basically kidnap you and take you out into the wilderness until you straighten up and fly right.

TJ: What was that like?

FM: It was hell. Nothing funny about it at all. They made us get up at six and do drills and clean the latrines, and all that shit you see in the movies about people yelling in your face and making you climb walls and stuff? That’s exactly what it was like. Only worse. Because I was sixteen years old, and I hadn’t done anything to deserve it. Like, there were girls I knew who were doing way worse things than me.

TJ: I’m sure your parents just wanted to help you.

FM: Yeah, but that’s an extreme way of doing it. And it doesn’t work, you know. There’s no science behind those programs at all. You’re not more or less likely to succeed if you attend one.

TJ: I’ve heard that.

FM: I looked it up. After I got out of there and I had to do summer school to make up for the classes I missed. I researched these places, and I put together this big file to show my parents it doesn’t work. It can even make things worse.

TJ: What did they say?

FM: All the stuff you’d expect. They were sorry. They didn’t know what to do. Wah, wah, wah. And then they died. My sister told you about that, right? I bet she did.

TJ: She did.

FM: She’s the one who went to the police, you know. Can you believe it? She always had it in for me.





Chapter 33


My Turn


Cecily

When Tom and I got back from New York, we didn’t speak about what had happened. I’m not sure why. It wasn’t as if we came to an agreement or anything, only every time he tried to bring it up, I’d stop him. I couldn’t stand to hear about it. I almost couldn’t stand to be around him. So we made up some excuse to the kids about why we’d come home a day early, and then I concocted another story about how Tom had to go on a long business trip. Tom got the message and packed a bag and went to live in a hotel near his office.