Everyone Here Is Lying(61)

Erin makes a face that seems to indicate that she doesn’t think much of the police. “I’m going to every house on this street to find out who called in that tip,” Erin says. “And when I find them, I’ll know if they’re lying.”

“How will you know?” Alice asks doubtfully.

But Erin doesn’t answer. Instead, she says, “The police questioned Derek, didn’t they?”

Alice bristles. “Yes, but it was just routine,” she says defensively.

Erin looks her straight in the eyes. “They think he might have been inappropriate with my daughter.”

“No. He wasn’t,” Alice says with heat.

“I can understand how that upsets you,” Erin says, with heat of her own. “Imagine how I feel.” She rises from the sofa. “We don’t know our own children as well as we think we do. We don’t know what they’re doing every minute of the day.” Her face is bleak. “We can’t.”

Alice stands up herself. “Derek never touched her,” she insists, her voice low. She shows Erin to the door, and then watches as she goes down the sidewalk to her left, and up the driveway to the next house. She really means to find this witness, Alice thinks. She means to find the truth.



* * *



? ? ?

    William Wooler paces his small hotel room, weighed down with grief and guilt. He’s trapped in an unimaginable situation. He wants to make things better, but it seems impossible.

His standing in the community is ruined. Even if Ryan is convicted, he will always be the infamous Dr. Wooler, who lied to the police when his daughter was missing. And if Ryan isn’t convicted, what does that mean for William? There will be a permanent cloud over his head for the rest of his life. A significant number of people will always believe he killed his little girl.

His marriage is over. Even worse, his relationship with his son is probably damaged beyond repair. William collapses onto the bed and weeps for the loss of his daughter, his son—and his wife too.

Things will never be all right again with Erin. But he must try to mend things with Michael. He wishes he could go to the house, talk to him, but he doesn’t want to face Erin, and he doesn’t think she’ll let him in. But he can call Michael’s cell. He texts him first, to tell him he’s going to call him from a new number.

He’s nervous as his son’s phone rings. It rings a few times. William is about to hang up in despair when Michael picks up. He doesn’t say anything.

“Michael?” William says.

“Yeah.”

William finds himself at a loss for words. “Are you okay?” he asks at last.

“Yeah.”

He doesn’t sound okay. He sounds lost, like he’s hurting. And William knows he shoulders a lot of the blame for that.

“I’m sorry, Michael,” William says. “I’m sorry for everything.” His voice catches on a sob. “You know I love you, right? I love all of you.” Michael is silent. “I’ve made mistakes. I know that. But I want—I hope—I can be there for you, Michael. I’m your dad.”

The line goes dead. His son has hung up on him.



* * *



? ? ?

The burger and fries that Gully wolfed down sit in a lump in her stomach. That’s the thing with cases like these, she thinks—it’s all junk food and no sleep. No time for proper exercise either. It’s hard to keep your mind sharp. She recalls her telephone conversation with Erin Wooler earlier that evening and sighs, exhausted. It’s critical to know whether Marion Cooke is telling the truth. Is this just some wild-goose chase? Is the boy down in the cells innocent? Are they wasting precious time while the real culprit gets away?

She pulls up to the computer. She looks more closely into Marion Cooke. She’s divorced. No children. She looks into her ex-husband. Greg Kleig. She runs a search on him. He still lives in Boston and has not remarried. He has a job in IT. And he has two assault convictions from charges against him brought by his ex-wife. She looks a little deeper and finds a record of the restraining order she got against him. It looks like Marion Cooke is telling the truth—about that, at least.



* * *



? ? ?

Nora sits alone in the dark house, thinking about her son, alone in a cell. Faith is staying over at her friend Samantha’s for the night—she’d again arranged for Samantha’s mom to pick her up when they followed Ryan to the police station that afternoon. How dark the world has turned. She’s frightened for Ryan. She’s frightened for herself, afraid of her husband. Her face aches where he hit her.

Will he come back tonight?

And if he does, what will happen to her?

She wants to believe that everything is going to be all right, but she hasn’t believed that for a while now. Not since Avery Wooler went missing. That’s what started everything. If only she hadn’t been sent home that day, none of this would have happened.

Nora could have decided to end her unhappy marriage, like millions of other women had before her. She could have divorced her husband, William could have divorced his wife, and they could have been together. They could have been happy. They could have made it work. Blended families are hardly unusual. But now . . .

She can’t think of William without despair. Her guilt overwhelms her. She thinks that somehow their actions are at the core of all this horror. The last time she spoke to him, on the phone, he’d sounded like he was falling apart. He’d said he loved her. Now her son is in jail, suspected of murdering his child. What if William can’t think of her now without revulsion? What if her husband is to blame?