Poisonous: A Novel (21 page)

“Tommy wrote me a letter,” Max said clearly.

Jenny opened her mouth, then closed it. “You are either lying or mistaken.”

Max reached into her briefcase and extracted a copy of the letter that Tommy had written. “Austin helped him, but Tommy told me the thoughts were his own.”

Hand shaking, she took the paper from Max, then spent several minutes reading it over and over. She sat heavily on a leather chair next to her desk. Max took a seat on the couch across from her.

“I don’t understand,” Jenny said quietly. “How—he doesn’t think like this.”

“Jenny,” Max said softly, “Tommy is hurting because he feels like half his family has been taken from him.”

“He told me he couldn’t see Bella, but I didn’t know it was this bad.”

“He told you what exactly?”

“That Paula didn’t want him at the house anymore, that she didn’t want him playing with Bella. He never said that she thought he killed Ivy. That—it’s absurd. Bill would have told me.”

“I came to California from New York because Tommy wrote me this letter. He doesn’t deserve to be ostracized from his stepbrother and half sister. I know this situation is difficult for you, but I need your help. I planned to interview Paula, but she and I had a fundamental disagreement over how the interview would proceed.”

Jenny shook her head. “Watch yourself with her. She’s vicious.”

“I can handle Paula Wallace,” Max said. “But without Ivy’s mother, it’s going to be more challenging to engage my viewership. I have a seven-minute slot. Me talking and showing B-roll isn’t going to cut it. I want to put Tommy on camera.”

“No.”

“I promise you I’ll treat him with respect and will edit the program to make sure it puts the best possible light on him.”

Still staring at Tommy’s letter, Jenny seemed lost in thought. Max had to get through to her. “When I was in high school,” Max said, “my best friend was murdered. Her ex-boyfriend—another friend of mine—was arrested. But without any evidence, the police couldn’t make the case. Still, the accusation stuck with Kevin his entire life, until he killed himself after spiraling into a life of drug addiction. He was innocent, but everyone in town thought he was guilty.”

Max paused and waited, but Jenny didn’t respond. Max said, “I know you don’t want that for Tommy.”

“All he wants is to be a family,” Jenny said, sorrow shaking her voice. “My divorce from Bill—it set Tommy back. The only thing that helped was, truly, Austin. He’s no angel. He has a mouth on him, and I’ve had to make sure Tommy doesn’t pick up Austin’s bad habits. And Austin has been lying to Paula about how much time he spends at my house.” She paused. “And I let him. It was a small way I could get back at Paula for destroying my family.”

“She didn’t destroy your family,” Max said. “You have two children who love and need you.”

“You’ve talked to Amanda, too?”

“No, but I’d like to.”

“Amanda, though she was only nine, understood that her father left us for another family. It was that family that bothered her more than the divorce. Ivy was only a year older than her, and once Amanda told me that she thought Bill wanted a normal son. I lost it with her—I didn’t mean to—but I won’t have Tommy thinking he’s anything but wonderful. He’s not so severely mentally challenged that he can’t learn or go to school. I let him ride his bike everywhere he wants—he’s responsible and trustworthy. But he also understands when people tease him for stuttering or saying the wrong word or not understanding something. And that’s why I’m nervous about letting him speak on television. People won’t understand. They can be cruel.”

“It won’t be live. This will work because I have this very moving letter from Tommy.”

“You’re going to read this on the air?”

“I wasn’t going to—until Paula Wallace cut me out.”

“She won’t like that—it might make the situation worse. She’ll never let Tommy see Bella. He’s already devastated.”

“Maybe it’s time you have a heart-to-heart with your ex-husband about what is going on with his son.”

“Bill and I—we haven’t been able to have a civil conversation since the divorce. I just stay away. We are cordial when the kids are around, but that’s it.”

Max was treading into unfamiliar territory. Just like Nick and his ex-wife Nancy, she didn’t understand why Jenny didn’t just tell Bill exactly what she thought and how he had affected their children. Why walk on eggshells? Tell Bill he’s an asshole and fix it.

“If you prefer, I won’t read the entire letter,” Max said, capitulating in part. “I’ll leave out the part where Tommy says Paula believes he killed his stepsister. Truthfully, Ivy wasn’t a well-liked person and I don’t see any viewer reaching out to help if I recite all of the sordid details. I need someone on camera that people will respond to, and I think—I
know
—that they’ll respond to Tommy. He’s a terrific young man.”

“I don’t like it.” Jenny stared at the letter, her brows turned in. “If Tommy wants to do it, I won’t stop him. But I’m not going to encourage him either.”

It was the best Max would get. “Thank you. I’m going to ask Austin as well, which should help Tommy feel comfortable.”

“Paula will never allow it.”

“I wasn’t planning on asking her permission.” Max glanced at her watch. It was getting late, and she needed to meet Graham at the crime scene. “I was hoping I could meet your daughter later tonight or tomorrow morning—she was Ivy’s peer, she might have some insight.”

“Ivy and Amanda didn’t get along. You’re aware of the lawsuit, the civil suit filed on behalf of Heather Brock?”

“Yes.”

“Amanda didn’t know Heather well, but after the poor girl’s death, Amanda told me that Ivy had posted all sorts of things about people on the Internet. True things, but embarrassing. Amanda said she didn’t want to go to her dad’s house because she didn’t want Ivy to embarrass her online. That was one talk I did have with Bill and Paula, and it did not go well.” She hesitated then asked, “Do you think Ivy was killed because of something she posted on the Internet?”

“I don’t know,” Max said truthfully, “but I think her behavior may have created the situation she found herself in, and someone snapped. The manner of Ivy’s death suggests it was spontaneous. But I still believe that Ivy deserves justice. Tommy deserves to get his family back. And a killer needs to be punished.”

Jenny nodded, but still looked troubled. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

“I do,” Max said. “I’m not leaving until I find the truth.”

“What if you don’t?”

“I will. I may not be able to prove it to the police, but I will know what happened.”

Jenny glanced away for a moment, then said, “Come by the house tonight after seven. That will give me time to talk to Tommy and Amanda. But if they don’t want to go through with it, that’s that.”

*   *   *

When Travis grabbed his shit from his locker at lunch, he’d found another text message on that stupid burn phone. He was sick and tired of all the game-playing. The bitch wanted to meet at
midnight
in the preserve!

Are you fucking kidding me? Where Ivy died? No way.

No response.

Bailey, I know it’s you. I’ll come to your house. Now. I’m out until practice.

He was 95 percent certain it was Bailey who’d been communicating with him through ChatMe for more than a year. Last summer he’d been 100 percent certain, but after talking to her yesterday, he had a small, niggling doubt.

Finally, an answer.

You can’t come to my house.

Gotcha, bitch.

I’m not going anywhere near the preserve. We have to talk. Today.

It took her a few minutes but she replied.

I can’t do anything until late tonight.

Well, he was done taking orders.

Tomorrow morning, the coffeehouse on Main, 7
A.M.

She didn’t respond.

Well, screw her. This was out of control. Two reporters, that article, everyone at school looking at him, talking behind his back … he couldn’t live like this. They had to do
something.
He wasn’t going to lose his football scholarship over this.

Meet with me or I’m telling that reporter everything.

Nothing. Fine, if that’s the way she wanted to do it, he’d do it.

He hesitated.

He wasn’t about to lose everything he’d gained this last year. He hadn’t even been up there when Ivy died. It was an accident, plain and simple, but how could Travis convince the reporter of that? He had no archives of the messages he and Bailey had exchanged because he’d used the phone she’d left for him last year. And she wasn’t like a cop who could get a search warrant or anything. He didn’t even think the ChatMe program kept an archive of old messages, it’s why everyone used it.

Except he’d read about how some data could never be erased.

Would he be in trouble because he didn’t tell the police he knew Ivy was going up to the preserve? Why should Travis get in trouble when he wasn’t even there?

He rubbed his head. He felt sick. Really, like he was going to puke.

But he had this phone. He could use that, it would be something. Maybe he could tell someone anonymously to talk to Bailey Fairstein. Like the reporter.

Right.
Which
reporter? The one from New York or the guy? The guy of course … he really believes that Ivy’s death was an accident. Because it was.

It had to be.

He was about to call the reporter when the bitch finally got back to him.

Fine. I’ll be there.

He didn’t know why he was so relieved. He didn’t want to ruin anyone’s life, not Bailey’s or his, but he wasn’t going to lose his scholarship or worse—go to prison—for something he didn’t do. They could finally talk about what really happened when Ivy fell off the cliff.

If Bailey came clean, what’s the worse they’d do to her? She wasn’t even eighteen, it had been an accident, and her family had a fortune. It wasn’t like she needed a scholarship like he did, or that she had meant for anything to happen to Ivy. Lawyers would get her off or maybe she’d do community service, something like that.

But with two reporters digging around, Travis could no longer risk keeping quiet. If Bailey didn’t tell the truth, he’d leave an anonymous tip for the police and if they were halfway good at their jobs, they’d figure it out.

Chapter Eighteen

After ten years in the Army Rangers, two years working as a bodyguard, and nearly two years working with Max—who seemed to have a knack for finding trouble—David Kane’s instincts were sharp.

Lance Lorenzo was up to something.

David also knew that Max had good instincts. She could practically smell a lie, which sometimes surprised David. She had a knack for pushing the right buttons, usually making someone so angry that they spilled the truth. Her hunches paid off virtually every time, and David enjoyed seeing her proven right over and over again.

But her instincts about danger were pathetic.

Someone had wanted to get to Max last June, and they were willing to kill her driver to do it. It had taught David the uneasy lesson that even with the best-laid plans and procedures, if a bad person really wanted to hurt somebody else, they could—with enough time, money, patience, and cunning.

David didn’t yet know if Lorenzo was dangerous, but he was certainly acting suspiciously. The newspaper he worked for managed several local weekly and daily newspapers with dwindling circulation. The Web site was clean and functional, and that evidently funded the business. Looking at the stats, David noted that Lorenzo was neither the most popular or least popular reporter or blogger, but he was the most prolific. Max had read everything he wrote regarding Ivy Lake and the Brock family, but David spent more time combing through his other blogs to figure out what made him tick.

Lorenzo was a rabble-rouser—creating controversy where there was none. Not that he wrote anything patently untrue, it was how he shaped his arguments, casting blame or aspersions on the motives of others. He was the consummate devil’s advocate on various issues, taking first one side then the other, as if he got points for pointing out the flaws in every position. He had a deep disdain for anyone in a position of authority; as if simply by being in authority, they were either corrupt or corruptible. But he viewed authority as virtually anyone who had control over other people, from cops to teachers.

The comments on his blog fanned the flames but, surprisingly, Lorenzo stayed out of that end. Yet the anger and animosity in the uncivil debates in the comment section seemed to egg him on. Bitter and vindictive comments fueled more articles on that topic.

How was Lorenzo different than Ivy Lake? Under the guise of reporting news from all sides of an issue in the most confrontational way possible, he generated heated opinions from the community—similar to how Ivy’s photos of her peers generated extensive comments from her smaller community.

David’s disdain for the political process had only grown during his time in the army. Too often, elected officials made decisions that had affected his unit—and they had no idea nor did they appear to care about the negative repercussions. Most who made the decisions didn’t listen to those in the field or even commanding officers, but instead often made choices that jeopardized the lives of soldiers and innocent civilians. It made David angry, but he had always been an angry man. He understood anger, and didn’t know if he could live without it. Controlling it was the victory, and David controlled himself exceptionally well.

Lance Lorenzo’s anger seemed manufactured. David couldn’t put his finger on it, maybe because he didn’t understand why someone would
try
to be angry. As David watched him that afternoon, it seemed clear Lorenzo was more excited than angry, as if controversy pushed him forward. This bastard would play both sides, then watch from the balcony with popcorn as opponents battled.

David tracked Lorenzo from a coffee shop. He followed the reporter as he drove to the Brocks’ house. Mrs. Brock opened the door but didn’t invite him in. They spoke for several minutes before Lorenzo left and drove to the police station. He parked on the edge of the parking lot. He didn’t go inside but seemed to be waiting, on his phone most of the time. Ten minutes later, he pulled out and drove two blocks away, where he parked in a half-empty grocery store lot. Five minutes later, a patrol car pulled parallel to Lorenzo, so their driver’s windows faced each other.