The Second Lie (8 page)

"Yeah?"

"That WT woman's on line one."

WT?
What was with Deb lately? "Excuse me?" I knew what the acronym stood for--white trash. You couldn't grow up in a redneck county without hearing the terminology. But that didn't mean it was or had ever been acceptable. And certainly not in my office.

"Lori Winston."

Maggie's mom.

"Okay, I'll take it... And...Deb?"

"Yeah?"

"I don't ever want to hear
WT
again. Ever."

"Sorry."

I should have hung up. But, come on, this was me. And my receptionist had just acted out of character.

"Is everything okay with you?"

"I'm not sure."

"You want to talk about it?"

"Maybe. Not today."

"I'm here, you know that. Any time of the day or night..."

"I know. Now get the phone before that woman hangs up and comes down here and I have to tell her that you're with a client."

I picked up the phone.

Lori Winston was--how had Maggie put it--
cranky.
It was the way she got when she didn't understand things, her daughter had explained.

I was leaning more toward the idea that fear prompted Ms. Winston's raised voice.

"Calm down," I said softly. "I want to help."

"Don't tell me what to do. I'll calm down when I'm good and ready."

"Okay." I could live with that.

"I want to know why there's a different condom in my daughter's purse."

I didn't ask why she'd been in her daughter's purse. Or if Maggie knew. The answer to both questions was pretty obvious. Lori Winston was a mother worried about her only child.

And no, Maggie didn't know. Otherwise, she would have been on the receiving end of this tirade instead of me.

"Maggie went for her high school orientation this week, right?"

"Yes."

"It's a new school year. Maybe they give the girls an opportunity to pick up a condom to protect themselves. Just in case."

I knew they did. Though I didn't agree with the practice. But that was another issue. One I didn't have time for today.

The outer bell sounded. My nine o'clock was here.

"I just want to know what you know." I didn't appreciate Lori's tone, but recognized the panic underlying it. The woman was a single working mom who was afraid she was losing control of her teenager.

I could hear Deb speaking with Marc Snyder. A young man who'd done two tours in Iraq and was having trouble finding a place for himself back home in Chandler. Chances were, he wouldn't wait long. Marc couldn't stand to be anywhere for very long right now.

"What I know is that Maggie's a good kid," I assured Ms. Winston. She'd called me to speak about her child. She was Maggie's legal guardian. I could, ethically, tell her anything I knew. "Like you, I worry about her, not because of Maggie, but because of her age and society...." And her home life, which was the best Lori Winston could make it, but still not great. "Just to be safe, I had a friend of mine check up on her and--"

"A friend? Who?"

"A female deputy with the county who--"

"You had the cops watching Maggie?" I had to hold the phone away from my ear. Even at arm's length, I could make out every word. "I didn't say you could do that. You put watchdogs on my house? How could you?"

"That's not what I said." I had no idea if Sam had checked out Maggie's trailer park, but I suspected she had. Sam was thorough.

"Just call them off, you hear?" the woman screamed. "Great. This is just great. Next thing you know, somethin's gonna go wrong out here, or somewhere, and Maggie'll be blamed. I can't believe you did this."

"Ms. Winston, I assure you, I didn't do anything." I got firm, something I didn't often do, but could if I had to. "Maggie's not on any list. No one but my friend knows about this. It wasn't an official thing. I just wanted to make certain Maggie was safe. And so far, she is. I thought you'd be glad to hear that. The most Maggie has done besides her paper route is look for a babysitting job."

"Really?"

"Really."

"You're sure?"

"As sure as I can be. This is a small town. If Maggie were in trouble, I think we'd know. But she's at a vulnerable age. I can't promise that trouble won't come. I'd really like it if you could talk her into coming back to see me...."

I rang off just as the bell attached to the front door sounded again. I hadn't been quick enough. My client had left. I had to chase Marc a block to get him to come back for his appointment.

And was glad I did. The soldier had a bottle of pills in his pocket that he'd been tempted to take. He left them with me.

7

S
am was at her desk early again Friday morning. Sharing doughnuts and coffee with Chuck.

"You make the best damned coffee of anyone I've ever known," Chuck said. "I swear, Sam, you should open a shop. They'd be lined up out the door."

She'd brought two thermoses into work with her and, as usual, shared them with Chuck.

He was looking at his computer screen and Sam at hers, trying to find some common connection between recent drug busts. Area. Method. Packaging. Bills used. Age of dealers. Time of day.

Any pattern at all.

Sam chuckled. "Right. If I opened a coffee shop, I'd be crazy with boredom in a day. And bouncing off the ceiling with a caffeine high from drinking too much product."

"Would be kinda like an alcoholic opening a bar, huh?"

"Kinda."

"Well, I'll be damned." Chuck sat back, staring. He started jotting notes on the pad in front of him.

"What?" Sam wheeled her chair close enough to see his screen. He was looking at a profile from a recent arrest. "Sherry Mahon? You know her?"

Sam read the screen. Thirty-five. The dishwater blonde looked ten years older. She was divorced. Had a couple of priors for solicitation. And was currently a guest of the county for possession of enough methamphetamine to keep an average-size client base high for a week.

"Yeah, I know her."

"She from around here?" Sam had never seen her before.

"Trotwood."

"Who is she?"

"Kyle didn't tell you?"

Sam froze, coffee cup halfway to her lips. "Kyle? My Kyle?"

"Yes, Deputy, your Kyle," Chuck said. "Though I still don't know why you won't just admit that you guys are in a rut and get over him and give me a chance."

"You're getting your chance, buster," Sam said, handling the comment as she always did--like Chuck didn't mean it. The man's heart belonged to the wife who'd left him for a man who worked a desk job. Everyone at the station knew that. "Tell me what Kyle has to do with this woman."

Chuck closed the screen. Moved on to another.

"Chuck."

Sitting up straighter, he turned his back to her.

"It has nothing to do with this," he said.

"Tell me, Sewell, or you've had your last cup of my coffee. Ever."

He turned, the compassionate look in his eyes scaring her.

"Tell me," she repeated.

"I never would have said anything if I'd thought for one second that you didn't know."

"Know what, dammit?" He was trying her patience. And after another mostly sleepless night, she didn't have a lot to spare.

"It was a long time ago, Sam."

"How long ago?"

"Fifteen years."

"And?"

"You'd just given Kyle his walking papers."

"Which time?"

Chuck's grin was only half-convincing. "Yeah, well, at the time, Kyle really thought it was over."

Sam thought back. She'd been eighteen. "It was right after I'd told him I was joining the academy," she guessed. She'd given him her ring back. And come begging for it two days later, knowing she couldn't live without him. He'd said the same about her and the next few weeks had been perfect. But looking back, she was able to see that that first break had been the beginning of the end. They'd broken up a few times over the next two years while Sam had been training to be a cop--until the final time when they were twenty.

"That was the time," Chuck said. "A bunch of us took pity on him and hauled him out on the town. Our goal--get him so drunk he couldn't feel the pain."

"I'm guessing you didn't have to work real hard to get him to cooperate."

Kyle had always loved his beer. And in their younger days, he hadn't had the maturity to drink in moderation.

But then, neither had she.

But this wasn't about alcohol consumption. "Where does this Mahon woman come in?"

"She and a friend of hers were all over us. All night. We blew them off to the point of being rude, but a couple of days later Kyle came to me, telling me he'd slept with her. He was a little worried he'd caught something. But mostly, he was petrified that you'd find out. Especially after the two of you patched things up."

"He never told me."

"It wasn't something he was proud of."

"I can't believe he didn't tell me."

"I thought he would have, Sam. I guess he didn't want to risk losing you all over again. You guys were already on thin ground. I heard she came after him later, claiming she was pregnant, or some such thing, but he never said anything to me about it. And even if she was, there was no way to pin that on Kyle. The woman was a professional. Who knew how many men she'd been with?"

Coffee had never made her feel sick to her stomach before.

Sam sat there, afraid if she moved she'd throw up. Kyle. Her Kyle. The fact that he'd slept with another woman and not told her hurt. A lot. But she could understand. Sort of. While she'd been home after their breakup, devastated, unable to go on, an emotional mess, he'd been out fucking another woman.

He might have a child out there somewhere....

And he'd never told her.

She told Kyle everything. He claimed that he did the same with her.

But he hadn't.

"Hey, Sam, like I said, it was a long time ago."

"I know, Chuck." Gingerly pushing her chair back to her computer she added, "It's no big deal. I'm just surprised."

Shocked. She felt as if she'd just lost her best friend. All this time, she'd thought Kyle was her soul mate, when she didn't know him at all.

He'd screwed a woman who'd grown up to become a prostitute and a possible meth dealer. Sam had never figured she'd find a lover of Kyle's on the Fort County inmate list.

"If it makes things any better," Chuck said, "I've never seen or heard of the woman until right now. It's not like she hung around or anything."

That didn't make Sam feel any better.

Sam went home. Showered. And with a fresh cup of coffee in hand, she signed on to the Internet from the laptop on her kitchen counter.

Sherry Mahon was in the past. Fifteen years past. She couldn't hold Kyle responsible for something he'd done as a kid. Something he'd done after she'd broken up with him.

Of course, then she'd gone back and blubbered all over him and begged him to return her ring and he'd never said a word. Not even later, when the woman had told him they were going to be parents.

Kyle and Sherry Mahon.

Not Kyle and Samantha Jones. And then there was his wife. Amy--the young girl he'd married just months after that final breakup, just months after Sam got her uniform and badge. He'd been twenty, on the rebound, and determined to have the type of life he wanted. A farm life. With a farm wife.

In her entire life, Samantha had slept with only one man. Kyle Evans. He, on the other hand, had screwed multiple women. Maybe he still did. How would she know? Hell, she'd practically lived in his back pocket before his marriage and she hadn't known what was going on then. How in the hell would she know what he did with his penis these days?

Anhydrous ammonia. Concentrate, Sam. Focus. You're looking for methamphetamine ingredients. Mostly household chemicals like phosphorous and anhydrous ammonia, substances common to particular trades. Like truck driving. And farming. Both were prevalent in Ohio.

Logging on to a secure site, she found what she was looking for. A listing of all purchases of anhydrous ammonia in Ohio over the past year. The list was long. Mostly farms. Or farmers. Some names she recognized. Quantities were all in line with farm acreages, which were listed. Except...

Sam stopped. Blinked. She was certain she'd transposed numbers for one particular name that was making her see red at the moment. Kyle Evans.

She refocused. The numbers didn't change.

She moved on to other chemicals--to methanol. She saw the name again. And dropped her head onto the breakfast bar.

But she couldn't stay there.

Uh-uh.

Not now.

Not when she was finding it hard to believe anything about the man.

She was too furious at the coincidence and the lies and deceit to think straight about the link between Kyle and a woman who'd just been arrested for possessing large quantities of methamphetamine.

Sam grabbed her car keys and slammed out the door.

Thank goodness she'd showered. Pulled on jeans and a clean blouse with her police-issue black walking boots. At least Kyle wasn't getting the old sweats she'd worn to the station that morning.

"What in the hell has happened to this world?" she asked the Mustang--partially because it didn't talk back to her. Was this what happened when you left your twenties behind? Nothing made sense anymore?

She'd thought that as she grew older, she'd get smarter. So why had she had things all figured out in her twenties, but couldn't understand life anymore?

She was not going to cry.

Crying was for sissies.

And women who'd just found out a man had betrayed them. Sam had broken up with Kyle more than a decade ago.

Still...she'd trusted him. Would have bet her life that he had her back.

But did he really? He hated her career. Hated her uniform.

Yet those things pretty much summed up Samantha. Her career was her life.

How could you say you were there for someone when you didn't even like what the person did? She thought he was her best friend, but a friend would never lie that way.