Liars, Inc. (19 page)

December 10th

I DECIDE TO GO TO
Preston's funeral after all. The cemetery is on the other side of Vista Palisades, a ten-minute bus ride or a thirty-five-minute walk. I loiter at the closest bus stop, but when the bus pulls up, it is full of people I know: classmates, teachers, the guy who rents kayaks in front of The Triple S. Their faces are ghostly white circles pressed close to the windows, monsters with blurry features distorted by the smudgy glass.

I decide to walk.

Cars line one side of the road leading into the cemetery, and both parking lots are full. Mrs. Amos's Honda is parked in the north lot, right inside the gates. I suddenly remember the restraining order. I hope the Colonel won't freak out
and attack me in the middle of the service—I don't want to do that to Preston's friends and family. But at the same time, Pres was one of my closest friends, regardless of the secrets he kept. I deserve a chance to grieve for him.

The gravesite is on the far side of the grounds, near the south parking lot. I hang back along the fence, away from the crowd, so I can say good-bye without causing Parvati's dad to have a meltdown. I inch closer until I can see clearly. A mix of high school students and important political types stand gathered around a gaping hole in the earth. A priest gestures with one hand as he speaks. There are faces in the crowd I don't recognize—private security guards for DeWitt and his political friends, students from Bristol Academy. I look around for Langston and Marcus, but if they're here then they're keeping a low profile.

Astrid and the other All-Stars are huddled together at one end of the crowd. Quinn and Amy stand off to the side with some of the student council and a handful of Vista P teachers. Even David Nephew, the kid Preston cheated with in calculus class, is here, although he's standing at the very back of the mourners, as if he thinks the popular kids might push him into the grave if he gets too close.

The coffin is made of dark wood with shining trim that occasionally catches the sun and sends light bouncing around the pale tree branches.
Preston would like it.
What a
weird thought. There are flowers piled on top. Lilies, maybe, or orchids. Some kind of blossom with big floppy petals.

Looking at that rectangular box of death makes it all feel real for the very first time. Preston is gone. We will never go surfing together again. He will never throw another New Year's Eve party. I will never get to confront him about his past with Parvati or about him spying on us.

My eyes move from the coffin back to the mourners. Parvati is standing between her parents. It's easy to pick her out because she's wearing white. It's tradition in India to do this at a funeral. I don't know how I know that, but I do. The wind billows the loose fabric of her sari around her like wings. She looks like an angel floating in a dead gray sky.

The coffin begins to descend into the ground. All of the women in the front row are holding roses. They drop them into the open grave one at a time, starting with Preston's mom. Parvati is last. I watch the red rose fall from her fingertips, like a single drop of blood.

The pallbearers begin to scoop dirt onto the coffin. The crowd starts to disperse. Half of the people head for the south parking lot, where their drivers are waiting. The students break apart into smaller clusters, some following the politicians, some heading in my direction. I retreat farther, toward the strip of woods that forms the western boundary of the graveyard, away from the winding stone
path that connects both parking lots.

My breath catches in my throat as I peek through a layer of branches. I know what happens next. After everyone leaves, the graveyard caretaker will dump the rest of the soil on top of Preston's coffin with a backhoe. It just seems so undignified. Like he's nothing more than a hole to be filled in by a construction team.

I lean up against a tree trunk and wait for Parvati and her parents to pass by. I just want one tiny glance. I'm nervous about seeing her later. She needs to say something huge, something that will make me think I can learn to trust her again. Otherwise our relationship is over.

I don't want it to be over.

Everyone who passes by is wearing black. A lot of the girls look more like they're dressed for a fancy night out than for a funeral, their tiny velvet dresses looking strangely formal next to their mothers' frumpy suits and skirts. I crane my neck to see through the milling herd. No one in white. No Parvati. Maybe that wasn't her mom's Honda just inside the gates. Maybe her parents parked over at the south parking lot, with the politicians. I creep back through the trees and duck behind a tall obelisk monument. I peek around it, at the gravesite. Parvati is still standing in front of the hole in the ground. Her parents are nowhere to be seen. She must have asked for a moment alone.

I wonder if I can make it to her side before her mom or the Colonel notice. I maneuver closer, ducking between the tall gravestones to hide myself from anyone in either parking lot.

Parvati spins around as if she can sense me. The tail of her sari flaps in the breeze. She smiles tentatively.

But then something severs the connection between us. She flicks her head over at the woods. Her back arches as her neck cranes forward. I follow her gaze. A shadow moves among the trees.

Danger.
The feeling comes out of nowhere, a fly slamming into a spider's web.

“Parvati,” I say. It's just a whisper. I start running. She moves toward the tree line, clearly in pursuit of someone or something.

I can't see what she sees. She takes another step. And then another. My feet are flying across grass and graves. I want to call out to her, but I'm afraid her father will hear me if I do.

She moves with purpose. No looking back. The fir trees begin to swallow her.

She's half a girl.

One-quarter.

She's just a ribbon of white flying through the woods.

“PARVATI,” I YELL. “WAIT.”

She doesn't wait. The white of her sari disappears completely into the foliage. I veer off the path and head toward the tree line. Boots thud on the hard ground behind me.

It's the Colonel. “Cantrell, you little shit! You're not supposed to be anywhere near my daughter.”

I duck through the first layer of branches just as he catches up to me. He grabs my shoulder and spins me around. My feet get tangled up and I stumble. I fall backward, my head slamming against a knot on the nearest tree trunk. I end up on the damp ground.

“What did you say to her?” the Colonel thunders. “Where
did she go?” Typical overprotective dad—attack first, ask questions later.

I clamber back to my feet. “Nothing. I don't know.” I suddenly have the urge to vomit. I double over and then stagger to the side. Reaching out for the tree that assaulted me, I collapse against the trunk. My skull feels like it got hit by a rocket-propelled grenade.

The Colonel advances on me. “If something happens to her, I'll kill you myself.” His face contorts into a snarl.

Now there are two of him, dancing before me like a pair of prizefighters. Blinking spots float lazily through my field of vision. Yellow-black-yellow-black. “Not me,” I say. It takes everything just to point in the direction that Parvati went. “Someone else. She went after someone. Go find her.”

The Colonel turns away from me and crashes through the brush like a wild animal. He's probably carrying at least two loaded guns. I don't know what Parvati saw in the trees, but if whoever killed Preston lured her into the woods, right now her father is my best chance to get her back.

I want to go after him. I want to help too, but it's not just the spots that are blinking before my eyes now. The trees are blinking in and out, and so is the sky. From somewhere far away, I hear Parvati's mom say, “Oh, Max. Why does trouble seem to follow you everywhere you go?”

I try to answer her, but my tongue is thick and the words come out slow and garbled. I feel the rough tree bark pressing through my T-shirt. It scrapes its way up my back as I slide down the front of the trunk. My legs fold under me as I slump to the hard grass.

Rough hands shake me awake. My mouth is still dry and my whole skull is throbbing. When I reach up and touch the back of my head, my fingers come away red. Parvati's dad is looking down at me. His expression is bleak. Broken. Something pale flutters in the breeze. A torn triangle of white fabric embroidered with a repeating pattern hangs from the Colonel's right hand. It's a piece of Parvati's sari. She's gone.

I want to go look for her, but when the Colonel hauls me to my feet, my wobbly legs can barely support my weight. The ground spins slowly and yellow circles float in front of me like amoebas on a microscope slide. I think that bastard gave me a concussion. Well, him and the tree. Talk about a lethal tag team. I scan the shrubbery for any sign of movement, once again fighting the urge to throw up.

Nothing.

“Did you see which way she went at least?” There is a raw, animal-like quality to my voice that I have never heard before.

The Colonel shakes his head. “I didn't see her at all.” He
holds up the scrap of white fabric. “I found this hanging from a bush. It looks like she was moving fast and it just got caught.”

The fluttering cloth reminds me of all things bad—surrender flags, ghosts, burial shrouds. “Call up your goons,” I say. “Combat guys. Navy SEALs. Whoever. They need to tear these woods apart today, now, before it's too late.”

“It doesn't work like that, Max,” he says. “First we need to call the police.”

What the hell happened to the guy who grabbed me? Where is the animal-like desperation in the Colonel's voice? He is all coolness and collectedness now, like he activated some sort of mission switch in his brain. I am shaking, sweating, on the edge of losing it completely. “The police are idiots,” I protest. “So are the feds.”

Parvati's mom has appeared from somewhere behind me. “He needs to go to the hospital,” she tells her husband. “He might have a concussion.” Mrs. Amos's lilting accent reminds me of the day Parvati called herself in sick.

“Idiots or not, they're going to want a statement,” the Colonel says. “Do you want to wait here or should I tell them to find you at the hospital?”

I imagine hanging out here with Parvati's dad, the two of us standing next to each other, awkwardly making small talk about sports and the weather. The cops would arrive and
start doing their insanely slow cop things. Marking off the area with yellow tape, dusting tree trunks for fingerprints, collecting invisible fibers in plastic bags. No thanks. I'll go insane.

“I'll go to the hospital,” I say, even though I have no intention of doing so. Five hours in the ER? Worse than waiting for the police to finish their slow-ass procedures. Even if I do have a concussion, it won't magically fix itself because I see a doctor. Preston got plenty of concussions on the football field.
You just have to wait it out
, he always said.
Don't go to sleep.

I can wait out a head injury, just not Parvati's disappearance. I've got to do something about that right this second. I don't know what, but something. I'll figure it out on the way home. “Tell the cops not to screw around.” I turn toward the parking area. My legs buckle slightly.

“If you're going to the hospital I'll drive you, of course.” Parvati's mom steers me in the direction of her car.

“Okay.” The hospital is on the way back to my house, at least. I let her tuck me into the passenger seat and sit hunched over and mute as she pulls out of the cemetery parking lot. How can she be so calm? Why is she not flipping out?

Mrs. Amos glances over at me. “Her father and I, we taught her to take care of herself, Max,” she says. “The universe will bring her back. You just have to have faith.”

I nod, but don't answer. Faith seems to be something people develop when their lives are going good. It's always been in short supply for me.

When Mrs. Amos pulls into the ER parking lot, an ambulance is there unloading a gurney. Even though we both know it can't be Parvati, we don't say anything until the wheels hit the pavement and we see the pasty, wrinkled body of an old man, his face partially obscured by an oxygen mask.

“Would you like for me to wait with you?” Mrs. Amos asks. “Or call your parents while you check in?”

“I'll call them,” I say. Man, the lies are really rolling off my tongue today. “You should go back to the cemetery.”

She looks dubiously at the back of the open ambulance, at the big glass doors that slide open to admit the paramedics and the man on the gurney. “You're sure you'll be all right?”

“Absolutely,” I say. One more lie.

I PASS THROUGH THE SLIDING
glass doors and pretend like I'm heading up to the front desk of the ER. Instead, I turn toward the waiting area, hoping my head wound isn't totally obvious. I grab a magazine from a low metal table and flip through it.

“Can I help you?” the girl behind the counter asks in a chirpy voice. She's wearing black scrubs with gold embroidery on the pocket. It's probably supposed to look staid and official, but it just makes her look like an undertaker.

“Nope.” I flick a glance at the parking lot. Mrs. Amos's car is gone. I duck out of the ER and start walking toward home. I check the time on my phone: it's almost six o'clock. Parvati
seemed hell-bent on talking to me after the funeral. That half smile she gave me—she was going to head in my direction before she got distracted by something in the woods. She wouldn't disappear like that and stay gone for no reason. I consider a pair of possibilities, one grimmer than the other: 1. Whoever killed Preston lured Parvati into the woods and snatched her. 2. Parvati saw something suspicious in the woods and ran off on her own to investigate. The probability of each feels about equal.

The sun is dropping in the sky, and the breeze is picking up. The cool air clears some of the haze from my brain. As I turn the corner onto my street, I debate calling Langston. I bet he and Marcus were at the funeral somewhere. Maybe
they
lured Parvati into the woods for a little extra debriefing. It's not any weirder than Langston pretending to be my uncle and bailing me out of jail, is it? I try to make that possibility seem real. Then I see the dark sedan parked in front of my house. McGhee and Gonzalez are walking up my driveway as I approach.

McGhee kneels down and puts his cigarette out against the cement porch. “Got a minute?” he asks, slipping the butt into his pocket.

“Can I say no?”

“We can do this somewhere else if you'd prefer.”

“Might as well get it over with.” I hold the door open for McGhee but let it bang shut on Gonzalez as he tries to enter. He swears under his breath.

My sisters are all parked on the sofa watching television. The sagging upholstery is threatening to swallow Ji and Jo whole.

Darla enters from the kitchen, her face red from standing over the stove. Her lips flatten into a hard line when she sees me with the agents. She bends down and gathers one twin under each arm protectively, as if she thinks FBI agents eat babies for snacks. “It's almost dinnertime,” she says.

“We'll only be a few minutes, ma'am.” McGhee nods to her.

“Don't you think your lawyer should be present for this, Max?” Darla asks nervously.

My lawyer. Right. Probably, but who knows how long it'd be before she could get here?

“It'll be okay,” I say. “I'll just tell the truth like you said.” Once again, I pray that my hair is doing a good job of hiding my head wound. Darla will freak if I start dripping blood onto the carpet.

“If you're sure . . .” She trails off. Ji and Jo squirm in her arms. “Come on, Amanda.”

“I want to stay and watch,” my sister says. She mutes the TV volume and stares at the agents in fascination.

“Trust me, they're boring.” I reach out and ruffle her
scraggly hair. “I'll tell you the story later and it'll be way cooler.”

“Promise?” she says, looking reluctantly at McGhee and Gonzalez.

“Promise.”

“Okay.” Amanda clambers down off the sofa and follows Darla into the kitchen.

McGhee clears his throat. “Mind if we take a seat, Max?”

“Go for it.” I sit in the old recliner and let the agents share the sofa. McGhee ends up on the sagging side, and I almost feel bad for him. His knees are approaching his chin, and it looks like he's going to need help getting up.

He grimaces and adjusts his weight, pulling a plastic dinosaur out from underneath his thigh. He sets the toy gently on the ground. “We've spoken to a few people who were present at the funeral today. Did Colonel Amos assault you?”

“He grabbed me,” I say. “But a tree did most of the damage.”

“Are you going to press charges?” McGhee pulls his mini notebook out of the pocket of his shirt.

“Nah.” Tempting, but what good would it do? It won't bring back Parvati, and I get why he did it. I probably would have attacked him too if our roles had been reversed.

“Due to her relationship with Preston DeWitt and the ripped fabric recovered at the scene, we're treating Ms.
Amos's disappearance as possibly related to Preston's murder until proven otherwise.”

“Are you guys here to blame me for her too?” I ask.

“Should we?” Gonzalez smirks. “Want to make a full confession?”

I resist the urge to give him the finger. “Here's what I have to
confess
. I showed up at the funeral around four. I stayed away from everyone and watched. It was about four thirty when I saw her go into the woods. I tried to stop her, but once she decides to do something it's pointless to intervene.”

“Do you think what happened is connected to Preston's death?” McGhee asks.

“Duh.”

“Why are you so sure?”

“Preston disappears. Someone tries to frame me. Preston turns up dead. And now Parvati is missing too? The three of us hung out together. Is anyone
else
dead or missing? How could all of this not be connected?”

“Violet Cain is dead,” Gonzalez says. “How does she fit in?”

I shrug. I'm not ready to tell them I think Violet and Senator DeWitt had an affair, that somewhere out there she has a son who is Pres's half brother. They won't believe me without proof. “What do you guys think?”

“Do you know anyone who has it in for you?” McGhee asks.

I shake my head, which disorients me a little. Gingerly, I reach up and touch the back of my scalp. There's still a damp spot, but it feels like my blood has clotted at least. “That part blew my mind at first. Who could possibly hate me enough to screw me over in such an epic way? Then I realized maybe it had nothing to do with me, maybe whoever decided to set me up just picked the most convenient target. Preston's poorer, less popular friend. How could you go wrong?”

McGhee scribbles something in his notebook. “What about Ms. Amos? Enemies?”

“Only the dudes she beats up in karate class.”

“And Preston?”

“Rich guys always have enemies. I'm sure plenty of people were jealous of him.”

“Jealous enough to kill?”

Jealous enough to burn down a house?
That'd be pretty jealous, all right. “Who knows?” I say.

“Why exactly do you think Ms. Amos went into the woods?”

“I think she went to pick fucking blueberries.” This is what I mean about cops. Why does everything have to be as drawn out as possible? I sigh. “Come on, guys. Obviously she saw something suspicious.”

McGhee scribbles in his notebook again. “What or who do you think she was looking at?”

“I don't know. Maybe Preston's killer.”

“But then why would she go after him and put herself in danger?” Gonzalez asks.

I snort. “Did you even
talk
to her parents? Parvati
lives
for danger. Nothing scares her.”

“Preston was a bit like that too, wasn't he?” McGhee asks. “I saw him on the gridiron at homecoming.”

“Missed it,” I say tersely. “I'm not into football.”

“Not even to support your best pal?” Gonzalez stretches one arm out along the back of the sofa and rests his other on the armrest. I'm pretty sure it's a ploy to look bigger and more menacing. It's not working. He just looks like he's trying to put the moves on McGhee.

“Preston owned the school,” I say. “He had plenty of support without me.” I look down at the carpet, focusing on a dot of color that looks like the remnants of a stepped-on crayon.

“Was it intimidating, having two best friends who were both popular and fearless?” McGhee asks.

“What? No. It was cool.” I don't even bother to hide my frustration. “Look, I didn't hurt either one of them. Why can't you guys see that?”

McGhee flips his notebook closed. “Thanks for your information. We'll be in touch.” He leans against the armrest of the sofa as he gets to his feet. Gonzalez bounds up after him, still moving with a weird feral energy.

“Just find her,” I say. “She thinks she's invincible.”

What I don't say is that I can't handle the thought of losing her too.

After the feds show themselves out, I poke my head in the kitchen to let Darla know I'm okay. The twins are sitting in their high chairs playing with a batch of her famous edible clay. Amanda is leaning over the counter slicing carrots. Her face is a mask of concentration, her fingers gripping the knife so tightly that her knuckles are blanching white.

“Dinner in fifteen minutes, okay?” Darla says.

“Sure.” I duck into the bathroom and use a hand mirror to look at the back of my head. It's hard to see through my hair, but the bloody spot on my scalp looks like it's only a couple of inches long. I probe the area gently with my fingertips to make sure it's not still bleeding and then shake out my hair. Time to make a quick phone call.

I slip out onto the front porch and call Langston. A car drives by while I wait for him to pick up. A girl wearing sunglasses and a baseball cap yells, “You're going to burn, murderer!” I don't think I've ever seen her before. Whoever is in the passenger seat bursts into applause. They honk the horn twice, and then the car screeches off in a cloud of smoke.

“Langston here.”

I decide to skip all the bullshit formalities. “Do you know where she is?”

“Max? You sound agitated. Where who is?”

“Parvati disappeared right from Preston's funeral. I'm sure you guys were skulking around somewhere. Did you see anything?”

“Marcus was watching the ceremony, but I was handling something . . . off-site. So Ms. Amos has gone missing? That is most unfortunate.”

“Hell yeah, it's unfortunate. So if you or one of your thugs took her somewhere for more
debriefing
, just tell me. Don't let me freak out over nothing.”

“It wasn't us, Max,” he says. “I'll look into it. But the people we're investigating don't have any connections to Parvati Amos. She's kind of a wild girl, isn't she? And I'm sure she was upset by Preston's death. Maybe she's just acting out, looking for a little extra attention.”

Acting out? That was definitely Parvati's style, but not to get attention, at least not from her parents. She preferred it when they ignored her. Plus she's been trying to get me to talk to her for days. She wouldn't skip out on that meeting unless she had no choice.

I humor Darla and spend five minutes sitting at the dinner table picking at what is probably really delicious fried chicken. I can't eat, though. All I can do is worry about Parvati. “I'm going for a walk,” I say suddenly, pushing my chair
back and bolting to my feet.

Darla looks up from feeding tiny spoonfuls of mashed potatoes to the twins. More is ending up on the floor than in their mouths. “Be careful, Max,” she says.

I head back to the cemetery. It's the only thing I can think of to do. By the time I get there, it's a little after eight o'clock and the cops are gone. The wind is cool, but not cold. The sky is overcast, only the brightest stars managing to penetrate the thick layer of clouds. The high wrought-iron fence glints in the shrouded moonlight, and the elaborately carved headstones cast deformed shadows across the lawn. I've never been in a cemetery at night, and now I know why. This place is seriously scary.

Something rustles in the high grass in front of me, and I flick on the small emergency flashlight I snagged from Ben's truck. I scan the grounds and see the golden eyes of a possum looking back at me. Creepy, but not a killer.

I don't know where to start, so I opt for the stretch of woods that makes up the graveyard's western border. It's slow going in the dark. I walk straight lines, up and down from one end of the trees to the other, scanning for footprints, fabric, for any sign of Parvati. Leaves slap me in the face and branches claw at my skin. “This is crazy,” I mutter, pushing my way through another layer of foliage. But I keep going.

It takes over an hour to search the woods, and I come up
empty. Next, I trace the perimeter of the cemetery, looking for anything unusual or out of place. Bats swoop low overhead. A few dry leaves flip end over end across the grass. Behind me, the graveyard gates clank in the breeze. I find a hole beneath the southeast corner of the fence where some kind of animal has been tunneling in and out of the grounds.

But there are no clues; there's nothing that doesn't belong here. Except for me. My flashlight starts to go dead and I almost give up. But there's one more place I feel compelled to check out: Preston's grave.

I stand in front of the mound of dirt, watching as the wind scatters the top layer of soil across neighboring graves. The number of flowers here is astounding—there must be at least a hundred arrangements. I think about Preston, in a box, below the ground. About Parvati missing. About how just a few weeks ago we were hanging out and everything was normal. “How did we get here?” I ask.

It's tempting to blame it on Liars, Inc., but I would've provided that alibi for Pres no matter what. I wanted him to go to Vegas and hang out with Violet so things would stop being weird between Parvati and him. I remember when I finally admitted that I liked her. He had seemed so nonchalant.

It was back in May, a few weeks after Parvati transferred to Vista P. Pres and I were hanging out in his basement, eating
Megaburgers and watching some crappy reality-TV show full of college kids who were clearly addicted to drama.

“So that girl Parvati from your party is in my English class,” I started.