We Lie Here: A Thriller, page 17
I motion toward the clear mirror. “I was taking a shower, right? And it was all steamy in here and I stepped out and . . .”
Dominique waits for me to continue. When I don’t, she says, “And what?”
“You tell me.”
“Tell you what?”
Hot tears lick the backs of my eyes. “I’m not crazy, Dom.”
Dominique grins. “Debatable.”
A teardrop tumbles down my cheek. “A message was right there. I swear it.”
“Yara, I haven’t done anything. I haven’t written any message.” She glances at the mirror. “What did it say?”
I whisper, “Surrender.” I turn the knob of the hot water.
“What are you doing?” Dominique’s earlier amusement drains from her face.
“If it was there before,” I say, “it will still be there. And you’ll see for yourself.”
Dominique stares at me.
I stare at the mirror.
Steam billows from the shower and licks at the edge of the mirror but doesn’t stick.
Dominique claps her hands once. “Okay, so I’m done standing here waiting for steamy Bloody Mary to appear.”
“Wait!”
The steam tries to grab hold, but it evaporates a second after contact with the surface.
“Deuces.” Dominique throws up two fingers and leaves the bathroom, closing the door behind her.
I don’t move. I did see “surrender” written in steam . . . right? Maybe I didn’t. Maybe it was my anxiety, my overactive imagination. Maybe I should return to therapy. I haven’t popped an Ativan since . . . since . . .
The women on Mom’s side of the family . . . All touched. All extreme. Manic. Violent. Not right in the head. And I am a member of the sorority. Anxious. Prone to sleepwalking and night terrors. Forgetful. Delusional.
Steam from the shower clouds all around me. Once again, my head clears. I take in the vaporized air, closing my eyes and breathing deeply.
It’s okay, Yara. We all go a little mad sometimes.
I open my eyes.
There it is.
SURRENDER.
30.
Maybe this word has been on the mirror forever, and I’ve never noticed it until now.
I pluck and pluck the rubber band on my wrist.
SURRENDER.
Maybe it’s a . . . a diet message that Mom wrote spontaneously days, months, years ago?
Maybe this message—is it even a message?—wasn’t meant for me. And who’s to say that it’s threatening?
No one was in the house with me to sneak in and write it as I showered.
Dominique and her friends looked at me as though I were moments away from licking all the doorknobs at the Red Roof Inn. While my heart had lifted seeing that one word again, it sank knowing that my little sister thinks I’ve lost my mind. Again.
My mouth waters. I want a cigarette. I need a cigarette.
Pluck.
No, I don’t.
I hate this place.
This place hates me.
Even though it’s just minutes after six o’clock, I wobble over to the nightstand to pop an Ativan and then climb into bed. Reset—I need to reset.
I aim the remote control at the television and find The Bachelorette. Who will Hannah choose? The pilot, the air force vet, the douche canoe . . . ?
By the first break, the Ativan has kicked in and my eyelids flutter . . .
My eyes pop open.
LaRain is standing over me, her breath ripe with tobacco, her bug eyes lined with black kohl like Cleopatra.
I startle and shift away from her. “What’s wrong?”
She clutches her neck and hops away from my bed.
The clock says that it’s six forty-five. Shadows smudge the ceiling of my bedroom. The Bachelorette still plays on the television.
“I heard you screaming,” LaRain says. Her many-ringed fingers shake and tug at her clingy fuchsia tank top. “I was going to the bathroom downstairs and . . . Are you okay?”
“Screaming?” I say. “I don’t remember . . .” I shake my head.
She pats her moist cheeks. “Your mom used to tell me, back when I babysat you and Dom, to never wake you up if you’re having one of them nightmare-things. So when I heard you . . .” She flaps her face. “That shit’s scary.”
I blink at her. My throat feels raw, the only indicator that my nap wasn’t peaceful.
“You don’t take medication for that?” She side-eyes me and wanders around my room.
I grab a water bottle. “I do, which is why I’m confused right now.” I take a sip of water and watch her slink toward the door.
“What are you doing up here?” My mother’s voice zings from down the hall.
LaRain straightens, turns to her. “Your girl was having one of her sleeping fits.”
Mom pops into my doorway, a scowl on her face. “They’re not fits.”
“Terrors,” LaRain says, hands up.
“You didn’t wake her up, did you?” Mom asks, frown deepening.
“No,” I say, a reminder that I, an adult woman, am still in the room. “I’m okay, Mom.”
Mom peels her eyes from LaRain, then flicks them at me. “I think you should start back on your meds. Too much is happening, and I can’t be everywhere to watch over you.”
My pulse pops. “You don’t need to . . . I don’t need . . .” I blink and blink. “I’m okay. I’m fine when I’m down in LA.”
Mom squints at me, then grunts.
LaRain snickers.
Mom glares at her.
LaRain’s face flushes.
I gape at the duo. “What?”
Mom gives me doe eyes. “Nothing. You got it all under control. Go ’head on with your bad self.” One last smirk, and she dips out of my room with LaRain behind her.
31.
On a Friday morning during my sophomore year of high school, I attended cross-country track practice at Tejon Park. With my janky lungs, I didn’t run, but because my mother was the school’s running coach, sometimes I joined her on these outdoor trainings. With all the forests and hillsides burning around Southern California, the trails weren’t crowded. Even though it was early morning, the air already smelled of fire, burning brush, and horse sweat.
Tall and thin, Cayden Decker had dark, wavy hair and a strong jaw. In some pictures, he looked bright-eyed, wholesome, and totally over it. The older we got, though, the more stoned and out of it he looked, with scraggly face hair and a droopy, bloodshot gaze. But not on that morning in Tejon Park. That morning, I’d walked behind the runners, earbuds in, listening to Drake and Rihanna on my iPhone. Cayden had lingered on the trail until I caught up with him.
“You’re gonna get in trouble,” I said. “Coach Bee’s gonna break your back.”
He’d been the king of cross-country at our school. “I’ll claim charley horse,” he said, golden in that early-morning sunshine. “I had fun at the movies last night.”
“Me too.” We’d seen Resident Evil: Afterlife with a group of friends, and Cayden and I had held hands for half of the movie.
Mom’s whistle sounded in the distance.
Cayden startled.
“You better get going,” I said.
We grinned at each other. He leaned forward and pecked me on the lips. I giggled. He leaned forward again, and we kissed a second time. His lips parted. So did mine. So très français. All of me burned, and I thought I’d spontaneously combust.
And that was it.
We didn’t kiss again.
We didn’t go out on any other group dates or even a first date alone.
His parents shut us down immediately. They loved him being trained by a Black woman, but didn’t want him holding hands with or kissing that Black woman’s daughter. I’d heard them say those exact words in the school’s parking lot.
I didn’t kiss someone again until college.
And now, here I am, nine years later, watching Cayden Decker stroll from the trap range to the gated entrance. His dark, wavy hair now hits his collar, and he’s clean-shaven. A runner’s body still burbles beneath camo pants and a green T-shirt.
My phone vibrates with a text from Dominique.
Still out on your errand?
Bring me back a McFlurry
Cayden throws the lock and pushes open the gate. “Hey, stranger.”
“What’s up?”
We hug.
He smells of gunpowder and Skoal, and he probably tastes like Mountain Dew.
His eyes flick all around my body. “You look incredible.”
“Thank you,” I say, flushing. The catnap and the Ativan have smoothed me out. “Kayla told me that you asked about me. I saw on the website that y’all were open until nine, so I thought I’d drop by on this lovely Sunday night.” I take his left hand and raise my eyebrows at his gold wedding band.
He smirks. “You live in the complete opposite direction. This ain’t a drop by.”
“The woman found in the lake yesterday?”
He shoves his hands in his pockets. “Yeah?”
“She was my cousin.”
His jaw drops. “No way.”
I give him a sad smile. “For real. So I came to the lake to, you know, see it for myself. And since it’s gated most times, I thought maybe you or whoever’s in charge could let me take a walk around the shore. Or you can join me. Let’s catch up.”
He pushes the hair back from his face. “Absolutely. I may not be able to walk all the way,” he says. “I need to start shutting things down soon.”
I move past him and watch as he locks the gate.
Mountains formed by the San Andreas Fault ring us. The air is cold and crisp, and my cheeks sting from the icy breeze coming off the water. With the quacking ducks, the water lapping against the shore, and the clicking fishing reels, Lake Palmdale is almost tranquil.
Cayden’s happily married to a woman named Hailee. They have two boys and a girl—Keller, Bryce, and Reagan—and a yellow Lab named Nell. And now, he points at the lakeshore by the first parking lot. “They found your cousin around there.”
Nothing to mark the spot. No flowers left in memoriam. Like nothing had been discovered in those waters other than trout, catfish, and bluegill.
“The detectives are trying to figure out how she got in,” he says. “I’m thinking from the Park N Ride.”
We crunch across the gravel and move closer to the shore. He points at the dirt. “They found her phone around here.”
Nothing to mark this spot, either. Like Felicia Campbell was never here.
“And that second set of footprints,” he says, “was here.”
The Park N Ride is directly behind us.
Second set of footprints?
The fencing that separates the lot from the lake has been knocked down. By the wind or by people? Or a car? A purple Mercedes-Benz sedan perhaps?
“How do they know Felicia didn’t make those prints?” I ask.
“The tread’s bigger than your cousin’s feet,” he says. “At least that’s what I was told.”
I grin at him. “And who told you?”
He blushes, then clears his throat. “Just picked up snippets here and there.”
I side-eye him and say nothing.
We move on, our feet tapping against packed earth.
“Have they looked at any video from the security cameras?” I ask.
He pauses in his step. “Umm . . . Hmm.”
“There aren’t cameras at the club or around the lake?”
He nods but looks perplexed. “There are, but they haven’t asked.”
“Why not?”
“Cuz they think it’s a suicide.”
“Even with that second set of prints?” I ask.
He gives a quick nod, then looks at his watch. “We should head back.”
My eyes roam the landscape. Downed fencing. Tall grass, perfect circles trembling across the lake’s surface. “Would you mind if I looked at the tape?”
“I gotta start shutting—”
“Just fifteen minutes. You won’t even have to walk me back. Do it for a friend, for an almost-girlfriend who’d been the wrong color.”
His blush turns a darker pink. “Sorry about all that.”
I tense, and flickers of old anger light my scalp. “What could you do? You were a kid.”
“Yeah.” His head falls back. “Fifteen minutes.”
His phone rings. No picture with that number, but it says “Palmdale Sheriff.” I can guess who’s calling. What an interesting brunch Kayla and I will have tomorrow.
Minutes later, Cayden leads me to the club office and provides a quick tutorial on keying up the video. He selects the camera closest to the lot where the Benz was found.
After Cayden leaves, I pull out my phone to record the recording. Cars go in and out. At 10:50, car headlights brighten the screen. That car is followed by a second set of headlights.
The Benz parks in a space closest to the lake.
My heart bangs in my chest.
This is Felicia’s car.
The door opens on the driver’s side.
The cabin brightens. There’s someone sitting in the front passenger seat.
Felicia stumbles to the hood of the Benz.
The front passenger door opens. The passenger wears an oversize hoodie that hides their face and is holding something in their gloved hand. That passenger joins Felicia at the car hood.
Felicia’s left duster pocket glows. Must be her cell phone.
Felicia steps forward, and the passenger follows her out of frame.
That second set of footprints.
I keep watching . . . watching . . . Nerves twist beneath my skin like fishing line.
No one leaves that second car, a lighter-colored compact.
The video’s too blurry to see if it’s a Toyota, a Honda, a Kia . . . or a Mazda. There are no other distinguishing marks.
The passenger is back on-screen, face still hidden by the hoodie. Alone now. Ten minutes have passed since Felicia left the frame.
The passenger hurries past the Benz and climbs into the back seat of the lighter-colored compact. Someone else was driving that light-colored car? There were two people with Felicia that night?
The light-colored car reverses and leaves the lot in the same direction it came.
My lungs pinch as I watch and wait . . . watch and wait . . . even though I know how this episode will end. Felicia never makes it out of that lake alive.
I still watch and wait, though . . . and hope for the best.
Could the passenger who followed Felicia to Lake Palmdale be Will Harraway? Could the driver be the man who watched our house from the green Mazda?
I can’t tell, no matter how many times I watch my recording of a recording.
But I now know this: Felicia didn’t walk into that lake because she wanted to.
She was forced.
Murdered.
And Kayla needs to know that.
32.
This morning, the sun plays peekaboo behind banks of clouds. There’s bright-white sky one minute, shadow and wind the next. The kitchen is dark, too, and doesn’t smell of brewed coffee. Everyone’s busy except for me. I spend too much time choosing an outfit and putting on makeup, as though I’m meeting Omari Hardwick for breakfast at Terranea Resort instead of having brunch with the Kozlowskis in East Palmdale.
I’ve neglected to pre-eat before this brunch with the Kozlowski family, and my stomach growls. I find a random bag of peanut M&M’s in the Jeep’s console, but the seven candies in the fun-size pack can’t take off the edge.
Lord, let them prepare something edible.
Elise and Randy Kozlowski live eighteen minutes east of my parents’ home. Randy, a fan of the New Orleans Saints, has a man cave (and a MAN CAVE sign designates the left side of the house’s second level as such). The walls are plastered with pennants, helmets, signed jerseys, and a large-screen television. The sports theme competes against the framed pictures of Kayla in every stage of her life hanging in every other piece of wall space.
Randy manages the town’s Food 4 Less grocery store. Elise works as a massage therapist and yoga instructor and believes sugar is a sin against the body. Most times, she walks barefoot so that electrons from the earth can neutralize her free radicals. She believes that Jeb Bush would’ve made an awesome president. She also makes the best cauliflower Wellington.
Today, she’s prepared that dish, along with a vegan frittata; this thing with cut bananas, cantaloupe, strawberries, and yogurt over bread; Green Goddess vegan grilled cheese sandwiches; and crispy tofu nuggets that are too big to be nuggets and too wet-looking to be crispy.
Compared to Elise and Randy, my parents haven’t aged in the last ten years. A strand of gray hair here and there for Mom, those softening muscles for Dad. Kayla’s parents, though, have pruned—they’re overtanned and withered from desert living and a fat-free diet.
“I don’t know how we’re gonna eat and digest all that fancy country club food on Saturday night.” Randy hands me the fruity vegan-yogurt french bread, then runs his large hand over his balding head.
There’s more fat in a pine cone than in this entire meal.
Elise winks at him with her crinkly blue eyes. “We’ll drive down to Topanga and do a megacleanse.”
“I’m looking forward to all that fancy food.” Kayla piles tofu nuggets on her plate. With her filled-out face, she’s not surviving solely on cauliflower Wellington.
Elise sprinkles salt across her food, then tosses salt over her shoulder. “Lemme tell ya: I bought a gown from Dress Barn and some strappy heels from DSW and I tried ’em on and it was like I’d been wearing camouflage. ‘Who’s that woman?’ That’s what I said to the mirror. ‘Where’d she go?’ Ha! Love it! So exciting to celebrate, especially since it has been rough for them. And now with her cousin dying . . . Please offer Barbie our condolences.”
“I will. Thank you.” My fork slows from the plate to my mouth. “And you know, every marriage has its rough patches.”
Randy says, “Heh. Forgive me, Yara, for saying that being married to Barbie is more like a rough planet.”
Elise slaps Randy’s hands, then offers me an apologetic smile. “The old ball-and-chain routine. You both will hear it one day. Men complain about their wives, but let us leave ’em alone for a week without instructions. They’ll be stuck in the house, not knowing where the hell they put their dicks. ‘Where’s my dick? I just put it right there!’ Ha! Love it!”
