Behind Every Lie(16)

The next message was from my dad. We hadn’t spoken much since he’d remarried a few years ago, but the sound of his voice brought tears to my eyes.

“Hi, sweetie. I’ve just heard.…” His voice cracked. “Is there anything I can do? Call me. I love you.”

Just as I hung up, the slate-gray sky unleashed a flurry of raindrops. I hurried down the alley to the gallery. Inside, Melissa was bent over the desk at the back poring over reports from the cash register. She looked up, surprised to see me.

“Holy shitballs!” She gawked at the lump on my forehead. “What the hell happened to you? Liam said you were sick!”

She pulled me in for a tight hug, smelling of hairspray and chocolate chip cookies. I winced and she let go.

“Christ, you look horrible! Liam start hittin’ you or somethin’?” She laughed at her own joke.

“I got struck by lightning.”

She burst out laughing. “No way!”

“Seriously.”

Her smile faded. “Seriously? Are you okay?”

I bit my lip. “I don’t … actually know,” I said slowly.



* * *



As soon as I told Melissa what had happened, she locked up the gallery and brought me to the café across the street. We were huddled at a corner table overlooking the harbor. A thick mist crept slowly across the water, fingers of pale gray shrouding Puget Sound in a dewy cloak.

“The police think you might have murdered your mom? Christ.” Melissa sat back heavily in her chair. “Do they have any evidence?”

“I don’t know. But my fingerprints and DNA would be at her house anyway, so I don’t know how to explain that it wasn’t me, especially because I can’t remember.”

Melissa stared at me, appalled, the same way she’d stared at me the first time we met. We were both waiting to get our hair cut, and I’d told my stylist I wanted my hair chopped to my scalp. Melissa’s gaze had jerked up from the magazine she was reading.

“Honey, you don’t want to do that,” she’d said. She flipped to a page in the magazine and held it out to me. “Look here.” She tapped a manicured fingernail on a picture of a woman with a small, pointy face and a carefully mussed pixie cut.

A few days later I saw a now hiring sign on the door of the Crafted Artisan gallery. Turned out Melissa was the owner. She’d hired me on the spot.

“You gotta find yourself a lawyer, hon.” She shook her head, her dark curls dancing around her face.

“Liam set up an appointment with one tomorrow,” I said. “He’s going to come with me to be interviewed by the detective.”

“That’s good, right?” Melissa’s phone rang, but she pressed End and ignored it. “Right?”

“I don’t want Liam to come with me.”

“Why?”

I didn’t answer at first. I lifted my teaspoon and stirred my tea, watching the milky liquid swirl dizzyingly. I felt like I was looking down from a very great height, about to jump but not sure where I would land.

“A few years ago, before I moved here, I was raped. It was a … really difficult time for me. I never told Liam. I don’t want him to find out.”

“Oh, honey …”

I didn’t want her pity. I didn’t want her to think of me any differently. I just wanted to say it out loud, to have someone understand how I was feeling.

“The thing is, I can’t really remember that either,” I said. I pushed my fingertips into my sinuses to keep the tears away. “I mean, I know it happened, I know it. But the police … I don’t know, they didn’t really believe me.”

“What? Why not?”

“I was just so stupid. I was out drinking with a friend, and we were taking shots, like idiots, and I was drunk, but then I was soo drunk and …”

“It was not your fault!”

“When I woke up the next day, I took a shower. I wasn’t thinking about evidence, but I guess I washed all of it away, so I couldn’t prove anything. When I reported it, the cops put the pieces together and they built this picture of me as a slut, not a victim. They didn’t believe me. And I couldn’t remember it, exactly, so how could I prove it? The police didn’t believe me, why should Liam? Why should I, for that matter?”

“Look, those cops were asshats!” Melissa was practically spluttering with fury. “You can’t listen to them! You know what happened and you have to trust that. You could’ve filed a complaint against them. What a fucking shitshow!”

I smiled. I wished I had just a sliver of her confidence.

“I know Liam. He’ll believe you and love you no matter what.”

Melissa’s phone rang again, and I waved at her to answer it. She hesitated, but snatched it up and walked a few feet away, speaking in low, angry tones. I checked my phone, scrolling through a handful of texts and missed calls from Andrew, my dad, Aunt Lily.

Shit. Lily. Mom was her best friend. Her only real one that I knew of. Lily’d always seemed a little lonely to me, despite a constant parade of unsuitable younger men. Maybe she’d needed Mom’s unflappable nature and unswerving loyalty to counteract her fun, sometimes manic ways. She must be devastated.

“Sorry.” Melissa slid back into her seat. “I’ve had to suspend Scott’s weekend visits with Claire. She caught him looking at porn last time she was there! Porn! Poor kid’s scarred for life. Plus he forgot to pay child support this month. He just sits in his basement jerking off and playing video games. Anyway.” She slashed a hand through the air. “Enough about him. I was thinking, maybe you should go back there. To your mom’s house.”