Everyone Here Is Lying(46)

“No. I followed you myself.”

Her stomach lurches. The thought of it, of Al following her to the motel, of him watching, seeing her with William. She never noticed him. And they thought they were unobserved. What fools they were.

“When?” she asks, finally looking at him. She wants to know how long he’s known.

“Every Tuesday for the last couple of months.”

That astounds her. She feels her mouth drop open.

“That surprises you, does it?” he says, turning to face her. “That I can pretend as well as you can?” He leans closer to her so that his face is just inches from hers—as if he’s leaning in for a kiss—and hisses, “I parked there, behind the dumpster in the back, every Tuesday afternoon and waited for you to come out of that sleazy motel with your lover and back to your car. And do you know what I did while I sat there, while you were in there with him? Breaking your marriage vows? Destroying our life together? Let me tell you,” he spits. “I imagined what you were doing in that room, in that bed—all those things you won’t do with me. I imagined you naked with him, enjoying yourself, enjoying your sin.”

She looks back at him, mesmerized. He’s not so detached now, he’s fully present. He seems so different, so angry, so menacing. She wonders how she ever married him, how she ever loved him. “I’m sorry,” she whispers. “It was wrong,” she admits, her voice breaking. It was a sin. Her mind flits to thoughts of hellfire and damnation. She doesn’t want to believe in hell, and she doesn’t, not really, not most of the time. But sometimes she fears hell really does exist, and she is going there. Maybe Al will be there with her. Maybe that’s what hell is, other people, she thinks as she stares at him for a long moment. “What now?” she asks finally.

“I should throw you out,” he says viciously.

She recoils. Then she asks, “How long were you going to pretend you didn’t know?” She wonders, if the disappearance of Avery hadn’t brought all this about, whether he would have gone on pretending for the rest of their lives. But now he can’t pretend; other people know. The police know. The news media will find out somehow, and then everyone will know. There’s nowhere to hide. She feels sick to her stomach.

“I don’t know,” he says, and covers his face with his hands and begins to sob.

She watches in pity, but she can’t bring herself to comfort him. Not now. It sickens her to think of him hiding behind the dumpster every week while she was making love to William, and then coming home and pretending he had no idea. But who is she to judge, considering what she has done? “We have to think of the kids,” she says finally, when he has pulled himself together. He nods. She has to ask him. “Does Ryan know? Did you tell him?”

He turns to her then, the disgust he feels for her plain on his contorted face. “Why the hell would I do that?” He narrows his eyes. “And why would you ask me that?”

And now it’s her turn to fall apart. She gives in all at once to her reeling emotions. They overwhelm her. “This is my punishment, mine and William’s, for what we did. His daughter is missing, and we’ve been found out.” She feels her voice rise with her hysteria. “The police think Avery got into Ryan’s car, that he took her.” She stares back at her husband—he is the only one she can say this to. She lowers her voice to a whisper. “What if he did?”

“How can you even suggest that?” he whispers back harshly.

“If he knew, and he wanted to hurt William—”

“No! He didn’t know. And he wouldn’t do that,” Al insists.

No, she can’t believe that her son would ever want that kind of vengeance. He doesn’t have it in him. But she wonders again if Al might. What if Al took Avery, in an act of revenge, and this is his punishment, the police thinking his son is guilty of the father’s crime? Oh God—is she losing her mind? They are churchgoers. Al is devout, but she is unsure—sometimes she believes, and sometimes she doesn’t. But she knows that if God does exist, He is not always benevolent, and He works in mysterious ways.





Twenty-nine


Gully drives back to the station in the dark, drained by the events of the last two days. She’d like nothing better than to go home and get some much-needed sleep. But Avery is still out there. The ticking clock inside Gully’s head allows her no rest. She thinks about her interactions with William Wooler, the Blanchards, and now Derek. Everyone here is lying, she thinks.

She’s troubled by her conversation with Derek Seton. She doesn’t know what to make of him. He was rattled. He might have done something to Avery in that tree house. He could be the older boyfriend. But she doesn’t think he took Avery Wooler. How could he have? Even if he’d seen her on the street after her father had left the house, and lured her into his own empty house and assaulted her, what would he have done with the body?

She almost goes through a red light. What would he have done with the body? If he was molesting her, and no one was home, could he have invited her in? He was right across the street. Might he have strangled her, if she threatened to tell? Avery could be in the house. He could have panicked and shoved her in a crawl space until he got the chance to move her, later, perhaps into the woods, or the river, after the searches were called off. It’s a large house, it probably has hiding places. His mother didn’t get home with Jenna until shortly after five.