We Lie Here: A Thriller, page 10
The tire is flat, the rubber jagged.
The front passenger-side tire is flat, the rubber jagged.
The rear right tire . . . The rear left . . .
All four of my tires . . .
Flat. Jagged. Slashed.
18.
Click-clack.
I know that sound.
A hunting rifle getting ready to do what it does.
My hands shoot high in the air.
“What do you want?” The woman’s voice comes from behind me. High-pitched and haughty, she sounds old, like she owns all of Angeles National Forest.
My throat closes and I want to cry, but I’m too scared to cry.
Feet crunch the gravel. It must be the other woman, because I haven’t moved.
“You hear me, gal?” She creeps to the other side of the Jeep. Weathered skin, short gray hair, jowls. The rifle is nearly as tall as she is, and it’s trained on my torso, not bobbing, not swaying. The old bird has done this before.
“I’m visiting. I was invited here. Someone slashed my tires.” My voice sounds stronger than I feel.
She squints at me. “This your car?”
I nod but just barely. Sweat drips into my eye, but I dare not blink.
“What’s the license plate number?” she demands.
I recite it.
Her eyes dart to the license plate. She confirms with a nod that I’m correct, uncocks the rifle, and lowers it to her side. She tugs at her red-and-black striped T-shirt, then pushes out a breath. “All right, then. Good luck with that.” She nods toward the tires.
As tears slip down my face, I slowly lower my arms. I turn away from her to dry my cheeks with my sleeves.
“Didn’t mean to scare you,” she says, sounding sad now. “I heard whoever it was fiddling with your car. I peeked out, saw you in a black hoodie, and I thought . . .” She shrugs and comes to the front of the Jeep. “We don’t have time to wait for the deputies to get here. And we only got one for Lake Paz, so we handle criminals ourselves.”
I’m still crying, but I wanna say so much, including you crazy old bitch. She still holds that rifle, though.
The woman steps closer to me. “Come on now. Relax, gal.”
I step back. “Don’t call me ‘gal.’”
Her smile crumples. “Well, I don’t know your name, young lady.”
“Cuz you didn’t ask,” I spit. “You decided to hold a gun on me, instead. Felicia Campbell invited me to come here.”
The woman frowns. “I don’t know any Felicia Campbell. Far as I know, this cabin still belongs to the Marshes.”
I shake out the tension in my arms, then pluck my phone from my pocket to show her an internet picture of my cousin.
The old woman’s face brightens. “Oh, I know her. Real polite. Big Mercedes. She’s been here a lot lately, twice a month or so. She pays the bills, flushes the toilets, keeps the cabin alive. She rolled up here back on Wednesday and stayed overnight. Left yesterday morning.”
Ready to confront me in the Holiday Inn parking lot.
“Where are the Marshes?” I ask. “I need to ask them a few questions.”
She clucks her tongue. “That’ll be hard to do. The parents are dead. The daughter disappeared maybe twenty years or so ago. Last time I saw her, there’d been some big fight over there. Sheriff’s deputies came, asked me a bunch of questions, took some pictures. Wrapped that yellow tape around the trees, and then . . . I don’t think anything happened after all that.”
“Ah.”
“I’m Birdie,” the old woman says.
“I’m Yara, hi.” My eyes don’t smile, but my lips manage the task. My soul isn’t interested in letting bygones be bygones.
Birdie smiles as well. “The Marshes didn’t live here full-time, though. This was their second home, you see. He was a musician. Composed scores for a buncha films. A very handsome man. His wife, I can’t remember her name, but she was a real beauty, too. She danced in a few of those race movies with Cab Calloway and the Nicholas Brothers, Dorothy Dandridge . . . Guess that’s why they could afford this cabin.”
“And their daughter?” I asked.
“She kept the cabin, brought her family here a bunch of times. They’d invite us over, but my husband, Donald . . . Well, he . . . umm . . . Anyway, they were good people. Quiet except for that last time. But we all have arguments that spin out of control sometimes. I asked them to keep it down, or else I’d have to call the deputy.”
“And?”
“The noise stopped, but then she disappeared after that.”
I place my hands on my hips. “So, my tires. You said you saw the person’s back. Was it a man? A woman?” Maybe they were the same person who keyed my car?
Birdie scratches her temple. “No clue. Wore a black hoodie like yours—aren’t you hot in that? It’s a million degrees out—”
A girl shrieks.
I yelp and spin back to my car.
Birdie laughs. “It’s just silly kids out on the lake. Sound travels out here—they’re probably way down the shore. No kids around here in a long time.”
More shrieks and some woo-hoos and lots of splashing. The smell of dying things—insects, plants, loose liquid earth—and the lightest breeze slip around the evergreens. For a moment, with that rifle in my life, I’d forgotten that I was less than twenty yards from the beautiful shores of Lake Paz, my someday place.
“You okay?” Birdie asks.
I chuckle. “No, ma’am. It’s been a long twenty-four hours.” I lift my face to the sky.
Breathe . . . Breathe . . .
“Well, I’m gonna head back in,” Birdie says. “I was watching some Forensic Files when I heard the suspect killing your tires.”
An old gray pickup truck rumbles up Stardust Way.
Birdie’s gaze darts to the truck, then back to me. Worry bobbles in her eyes like tiny blue buoys. “My husband, Donald, he likes strangers less than I do. That can be a problem since we own the only store in town.”
The Ford pulls into the driveway next door. The old man who’d sat in the swing now climbs from the driver’s seat. The truck creaks and groans with relief.
“Hey, Bud,” Birdie calls out with forced cheer.
“Why the hell you got the rifle?” Bud’s beady blue eyes burn into me as he pulls the sweaty, short-sleeved shirt away from his chest. “Who are you,” he asks me, “and why are you here?” He points at the Jeep’s slashed tires. “You goin’ around vandalizing the cars of hardworking, honest people?”
“It’s her car, Donald,” Birdie says.
“I’m the hardworking, honest people,” I say, eyebrow high. “Sir, you were on the porch when I arrived.”
He swipes his forehead, then swipes at the stars and bars tattoo on his leathery, liver-spotted forearm. “Gets dark out here. You better figure that out.” He snatches the rifle from his wife, then turns to his cabin. “What’s for dinner, Roberta?”
“Meatloaf and brussels sprouts,” she shouts at his back.
I glare at him.
My reaction bounces off his shoulder, and he gives his wife a thumbs-up before trudging into the house.
Why is someone vandalizing my car?
My eyes skip around the forest. The tall trees, grass, and bushes are thick and high enough to hide behind. There is someone here watching me. I can feel it.
“Who knows that you’re here?” Birdie asks. “We’re well off the main road.”
I shrug, shake my head.
Donald is the only person who cares that I’m here, and by the looks of his tattoo . . .
Oh—the shady-looking man in the green Mazda! Maybe he did follow me after all.
I push out a breath, then push the hair back from my forehead. “I don’t know what to do.”
Birdie ambles to her porch. “Stay right here. I’ll make a call to a fella down the road.”
“I’ll let my family know that I’m here. They’re expecting me.” Just so that Birdie knows that folks will come looking if I were to disappear. Donald thinks life is awful with just one of me in the forest? He decides to fuck around, he’s gonna find out how bad life can be with a bunch of pissed-off Black people in the woods without reliable 4G reception.
I tap a quick message to Mom.
Flat tires
Don’t worry
Figuring it out now
And before you say it
Yes you told me so
And no I didn’t piss anybody off!!
19.
The rifle-totin’ senior citizen did a nice thing for me and called a tow truck company. Josh, the driver of said tow truck, arrived at the cabin forty minutes later with four new tires. It cost me $1,200, along with a lot of mumbled thank yous and I appreciate its to the red-faced man with the strawberry-blond mullet and Odin forearm tattoo.
“They sure as hell didn’t want you leaving,” Josh says, kicking a new tire. “Couldn’t have been old grand dragon Bud doin’ the slashin’ cuz you stayin’ would be the last thing he’d want. Heh.”
I say, “Heh,” as Josh tries to cover his tat with his cap. “He seems . . . particular.”
“Just stay away from him.” Josh leans toward me and drops his voice. “Every summer, he was always messing around with the cars of the family that used to live here.”
My mouth goes dry. “What do you mean, messing around?”
Josh colors, and his eyes dart over to Bud and Birdie’s cabin. “Just rumors. You need a Coke or something? I got some Bacardi back at the shop.”
Although rum and Coke would be lit right now, I say, “No, thank you.” I continue to express my gratitude as I climb into the Jeep.
An hour later, I pull into my parents’ empty driveway. No dust-storm sky. Just a bright, glossy blue crisscrossed with white plumes from jets. Also, no green Mazda parked at the curb.
A blue Crown Victoria is parked closest to our silver maple tree. The woman sitting on its hood is still too fair-skinned to live in the desert. Kayla Kozlowski, my former high school best friend, looks almost the same as she did when I last saw her six years ago. After high school graduation, Kayla told me that she needed space. I gave it to her. We haven’t talked since.
Her face has filled out since graduation, and she’s bulked up only because of the ballistics vest and shoulder holster she’s wearing beneath a blazer with frayed seams. Kayla has chopped off her long auburn hair and now wears it in a boy cut.
Grinning wide, she slides off the car. “I thought I saw you drive away earlier today.”
We hug.
“You’ve been waiting here that long?” I ask.
“Nope. I’ve been popping in and out all day. Remember, Palmdale is the size of a postage stamp compared to LA.”
“Look at you,” I say, waving my hand at her. “Miss LEO.”
“That’s detective law enforcement officer. And look at you, Miss Hollywood.”
I snort because my nailbeds are caked with dirt and I smell like horse. “Yep, I’m as fancy as Mariah. What can I say?”
We cackle.
Kayla tells me that she’s been with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department since earning her associate’s degree. “Three years on patrol, and this year, I made detective.”
We high-five.
“Married?” I ask.
“Nope,” she says.
“Same. Kids?”
“Nope.”
“Same.”
She blushes. “Unlike you, though, I still live with my parents.”
“And yet, the sheriff lets you carry a weapon,” I say, eyes filled with wonder. “Wanna grab a drink? I know you need it.”
Her smile fades. “I’m actually here on business.”
I cock my head. “Oh! Is this about my tires? About someone keying my car last night? I didn’t see who slashed—”
“Tires? Keying?”
I tell her about the scratches on my Jeep and my trip to Lake Paz. “And right before I left from here,” I say, “there was a strange man parked right over there.” I point to the spot across the street. “A green Mazda. I wrote down the license plate number . . .” I show her the note I tapped into my phone, and Kayla writes it down.
“The freaks are so after you,” she says. “But I’m actually here about Felicia Campbell.” She plucks a pad from her sports coat pocket. “She’s dead, but I think you know that.”
I squint into the sun. “Rumors only. My mom was gonna call and confirm with family this morning, but then . . .”
“Well,” Kayla says, “I’m confirming. A patrol deputy spotted a purple Benz at Lake Palmdale early this morning. No one occupied the car, and because the lake has become a”—she clears her throat—“destination for final acts like this, he called it in. We got there and ran the plates. Car belonged to Felicia Campbell from El Segundo. We didn’t see anyone on the surface of the lake, so we did a shore search and then sent in fire department lifeguards to swim around. Luckily, we found her not too far out.”
My eyes bubble with hot tears. My sadness is like a cloud that comes out of nowhere, suddenly blocking the sun.
Poor lady. Poor Cece.
“You okay?” Kayla asks.
“I was hoping for the best.” I shake my head and look back to the house. What will Mom’s reaction be when she finds out? I clear my throat. “Autopsy?”
“Ongoing.” Kayla waits a beat, then says, “You knew her.”
“Not really. Just knew that she was our cousin. We met for the first time yesterday.” I dab at my eyes with my knuckles. Dread eels through me and I shiver.
She flips pages in her pad. “She texted, I have information that will change your life, and you texted, What are you talking about Felicia . . . So you knew her?” She cocks an eyebrow.
“No. Well, she texted me, but I didn’t know her. And when she texted me today—”
“That was me texting you earlier today. And then I tried to call, but—”
“The call kept dropping? That was you?”
“Yep, and Felicia was already dead by then. Those texts are why I knew to come here.”
Oh.
Kayla’s pen scratches across the pad. “The Holiday Inn’s parking lot security cameras have video of you and Dom talking to Campbell yesterday. It looks like she confronted you. Dom looked like she was about to beat the crap out of her.”
“Yeah,” I say, and then I tell her about Felicia reaching for my necklace and breaking it. “That’s gotta be on the security camera footage, too.”
Kayla nods.
“After that, she kept trying to talk to me even after I’d asked her to stop. Like I said, she and my mom are cousins. They went to high school together, but she acted totally cringey and they were no longer friends by the time they graduated. Felicia sent me on some wild-goose chase to Lake Paz, I don’t know why, and someone slashed my tires, and now, you’re here.”
Kayla writes all of this down. “So not only do you know her, not only are you family, there’s contention there.”
My eyes bug. “And if you do six degrees of separation, I’m also somehow related to the king of Sweden, and I’m pretty sure we’d piss him off during Christmas dinner, too.”
Kayla looks up from her pad. She isn’t smiling.
The air feels hot, crisp, close to combusting. Kayla’s inferences are flints, searching, striking.
“C’mon, Kay,” I say. “What’s going on?”
“Just doing my job. Detecting, you could say.”
“Is it because she didn’t die by drowning but was actually shot first and then dumped?” When she blinks at me, I shrug. “Don’t forget, I write for Tough Cookie.”
She taps her pen against the pad. “Anything else I should know?”
“Nope.” I lean against the police sedan. “How do you like being Da Man?”
“Drug overdoses, gang murder, and sexual assaults on Tuesdays. Meth-house explosions and wife beatings on Fridays. Juvenile crime in between.” She gives me the up and down. “Nothing like your life. I see you on Instagram and Snap, living your best life. All those parties and interesting people who, like, do shit.”
“It’s not perfect,” I say.
“Better than threatening some kid with taking away his mom’s Section 8 vouchers if he doesn’t give up his homie, wouldn’t you say?”
I nod, laugh. “True. So, hey. One of the lady-cop consultants on the show—”
“Yes,” she shouts. “I’ll do it. Please let me do something cool!”
“You don’t even know what I’m about to ask.”
She takes a deep breath and holds it, and her eyes glitter as I tell her that one of our law enforcement consultants went out on maternity leave and that we need a replacement. “It’s not full-time, nothing close to it, but you’d get to advise on set and enjoy craft services.”
“I’d love to.”
“I’ll have to run it by the executive producer, but that shouldn’t be a problem. You just have to remember that it won’t be total reality. You’re focusing on big things being right. Some small stuff, too, but . . .”
She’s nodding and almost crying from joy. “I’m glad you’re here.”
“Y’all coming to the party next week?”
“Of course,” she says. “Before then, though, my parents want you to come for brunch.”
I screw up my face. “Are they off that raw food diet?”
She laughs. “Yes, but they’re on macrobiotics now. So eat beforehand.”
The front door bangs open and I yelp, caught off guard.
Mom bounces down the porch steps holding a tray of chips and guacamole. No longer in her tracksuit, she now wears faded blue jeans and a white tank top. Her honeybee pendant shines bright above her cleavage.
I clutch my chest as she brings the tray over to Kayla’s car. “You scared me. I didn’t see the Cherokee parked in the driveway, so I didn’t think you were home.”
Mom smirks. “We have a garage, you know. And I was taking a shower. Doing okay out here?”
“We are.” Kayla snags a tortilla chip.
Mom ruffles my already-wild hair. “One day you’ll listen to me.”
I blush all the way down to my prickling scalp. “Yes, Mother.”
“You done, Dora the Explorer?” she asks, her eyes weary, her tone brusque.
