Читать книгу The Trouble with Truth - Kathy Krevat - Страница 10

Chapter 2

I waited until Mira was busy sautéing shrimp for the Seafood Surprise before sneaking away to call Lani. When I pulled out my phone, I saw that Elliott had texted me, hopefully not during an actual class. He wrote that his English teacher “must be cool” because she had admired Elliott’s Toxic Avenger T-shirt.

I filled Lani in on what happened in the parking lot. “They waited at her job to attack her?” she asked. “That’s horrible!”

“It was,” I said. “I didn’t move fast enough.”

“Aren’t there security cameras there?” she asked. “You can show the recording to your detective buddy yourself and get her to scare them off.”

My “detective buddy” was Detective Norma Chiron. We’d somehow become friends despite her investigating me for a murder a few months before. She was a very by-the-book officer and would never “scare someone off” as a favor.

“You know Norma wouldn’t do that,” I said. “And anyway, I’d be really uncomfortable going behind Mira’s back.” Although telling Lani from the dry goods store room might qualify as exactly that.

I heard whirring through the phone. Lani must be in her studio, sewing something new.

“I don’t like it,” Lani said. “Her apartment is out in the boonies. It would be easy for them to do something to her there.”

“She has roommates and there’s safety in numbers. She’s also hardly there between her jobs and the play,” I said. “But maybe you can convince her that staying with you will make it easier for you and Piper to get her to rehearsals or something like that.”

“Like she’s doing us the favor? I’ll try,” she said.

“What happened with that family anyway?” I asked, even though I worried about invading Mira’s privacy.

The sewing machine stopped. “I’m not able to share all the details, but some of it is public knowledge. Her foster parents, Dennis and Sybil Franklin, were abusive toward her.” She sounded disgusted. “He’s that big condo developer who’s building anywhere he can find land. Anyway, Mira ran away from their home and was hiding in the homeless community for a while. When they found her, they put her in a group home until she aged out.”

“What’s the deal with the brothers?” I asked. “The older one was out of control.”

“That’s Will,” she said. “Mira said he was always a jerk, but that Rocky was nicer.”

“Well, Rocky wasn’t actually nice. He stayed quiet, but he didn’t do anything to stop it,” I said.

She was silent for a moment. “I’m worried. What if Mira’s wrong and they don’t leave her alone? What if they do something worse?”

Oh man. It was so hard to know what to do. “Then we’ll get Norma involved.”

“That’ll have to do.” Lani started up the machine again. “How’s Elliott’s first day?”

I smiled. “So far, so good. His English teacher liked his Toxic Avenger shirt.”

She laughed. “Anyone who knows a musical that obscure is a winner.”

* * * *

The rest of the morning passed uneventfully. I asked the owner of the kitchen to hold onto the security tapes, just in case. On the way back to Sunnyside, both Mira and I avoided talking about the incident, but I checked my rearview mirror often, just to make sure the freaky Franklins weren’t following us.

My phone dinged with a text, and I handed it to Mira to read.

“I like the new cover,” she said. Elliott had found a place online that made personalized phone covers. It was thinner than my normal one and had the Meowio logo on it.

Mira entered my security code and read. “It’s from your dad,” she said. “He bought burritos for lunch.”

I glanced over and saw her smile. “What?”

“He said he picked up a chicken one for me,” she said.

“Can’t say no to Pico’s Burritos,” I said.

She handed me back the phone. It slipped out of my hand into the slot between the console and my seat. “Damn. That keeps happening with the new case.”

She peered into the slot. “Want me to get it?”

“It’s okay. I have to move the seat back when we stop,” I said. “Where are you working this afternoon? I have some shopping to do and can drop you off.”

Mira had a complicated schedule, dividing her working hours between four part-time jobs. She was seriously thrifty, sharing her apartment with three other girls and eating lots of ramen noodles. I’d only known her a couple of months, but had never seen her in new clothes. She was determined to become self-sufficient. Buying a used car was the next big goal, so that she could drive to her college classes.

She picked up her phone to check her schedule. “I’m at the farm this afternoon,” she said. “Packing boxes.” She gave me a sly look. “Maybe you should walk over with me to see your boyfriend.”

Calling the farm’s owner, Joss Delaney, my boyfriend felt like a little much. We had a few dates, and then everything was put on hold when his ex-wife gave in on the custody battle over their ten-year-old daughter, Kai. He was allowed to have her for a whole month.

I’d totally understood that Joss had to focus completely on his daughter to make up for all the time he hadn’t been able to see her. Even when the month was over, it had been hard to fit in dates between the demands of our families and businesses, but we’d managed.

I pulled into the driveway and noticed someone sitting in a car across the street. It was a beige Honda, definitely not the SUV that Mira’s nasty foster family had used, but I kept an eye on it anyway. I paused on the porch and looked right at the car. An older man in a baseball cap was taking photos of Mira and me. “What the hell?”

“What is it?” Mira asked, looking around.

“Go inside,” I told her and marched across the street.

The man seemed to get a few photos off (probably of me with my fuming face) before he set the camera down, put the car in gear and drove off. I memorized his license number and then texted it to myself before I forgot.

Mira had stayed on the porch, phone in hand. “Who was that?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“I got photos of him,” she said.

“Oh good,” I said. “You thought fast.” I ran up the steps to look over her shoulder as she scrolled through the couple she captured while he drove away. “Can you send them to me? It’s probably nothing to worry about, but I’m going to have my friend look to see what she can find out.” I tried to reassure her but it came out wrong.

“Nothing?” she asked. “He was taking photos of us! He must work for the Franklins.”

I’d suspected the same thing and was pretty creeped out. “What do they hope to gain by taking photos here? It doesn’t make sense.”

My dad opened the door, a root beer in his hand. “What’s taking you so long? Food’s getting cold.”

We followed him into the kitchen, where he’d already set the table and poured ice water for me and Coke with lime for Mira—her favorite. Even the spicy scent of the burritos couldn’t help my uneasiness.

I took my seat. “Hey, Dad, did you notice a beige Honda outside?”

He looked at me. “An Accord?” His voice sounded sharp.

“Yeah,” I said.

“There was one behind me on the way to Pico’s,” he said. “He almost rear-ended me when I slowed down to pull in.”

I bit my lip, not wanting to upset him. He was fully recovered, but I still worried about a relapse.

“Spill it,” he said.

I gave him a quick overview of what had happened at the kitchen and outside the house. Mira looked embarrassed.

He pointed a finger at her. “This is not your fault,” he said emphatically. “They’re a bunch of…jackasses.”

We both laughed at his obvious change from what he wanted to call them.

“As soon as lunch is over, you’re calling Norma,” he said.

“No,” Mira said. “You can’t tell the police about the Franklins.”

My dad jutted out his chin, ready to argue.

“How about if I tell her about the guy taking photos?” I said. “I’ll hold off on the other thing.”

My dad and Mira looked at each other for a moment.

“Okay,” Mira said and my dad nodded.

* * * *

While my dad and Mira cleaned up after lunch, I went into the living room to call Detective Norma Chiron. She didn’t pick up, so I left a message. I decided not to text Mira’s photos or the license number until I talked to her. She was such a rule follower that I had to be careful not to put anything in writing.

Mira stuck her head in while I was hanging up. “Thank you for lunch. I’m off to the farm.” She smiled. “You coming with me?”

“You should go with her and make sure the Honda Guy isn’t out there,” my dad yelled from the kitchen.

He might’ve just been matchmaking but I decided to follow his advice.

My dad’s neighbor, Annie Quinn, was speed-walking down the street. She wore a pink sparkling baseball cap that had a Buffy the Vampire Slayer logo on it, bright pink camouflage exercise pants, and a long tank top. Her little arms pumped in unison with her legs. She came to a halt in front of us, pulling out her earbuds.

“Hey, Annie,” I said. “You’re working hard.”

She laughed, flexing her arms. “Gotta keep these things from flapping.”

“You want to see my dad?” I asked. “He’s inside.”

“Oh, not looking like this,” she said, turning even more pink.

My dad and Annie’s friendship had taken an unexpected twist following his serious illness. Annie had confessed soon after he fully recovered that she’d discovered how much she liked him, romantically liked him, when she thought she might lose him. And he admitted to liking her for years but not wanting to mess with what they had. They’d been dating ever since.

Now every time Annie said his name, she blushed. It was adorable.

My father and I had a difficult relationship the first twelve years of Elliott’s life—he was not happy that I’d gotten pregnant and dropped out of college. All that changed when Annie talked me into moving in to help take care of him over the summer. Now my dad and I both regretted the lost years and were working hard to make up for it, and we were both grateful that Annie had made the whole thing happen.

Annie turned to Mira. “I’m so excited to see your play.”

“Aw, thanks,” Mira said.

“We’re picking you up at six sharp,” I reminded Annie.

We said our goodbyes and Annie power-walked up the stairs into her house, looking at her watch and pressing two fingers to her neck to check her pulse.

A few doors down, we passed Horace sitting on his porch. He waved from his rocking chair. “It’s a scorcher,” he said and held up his glass of iced tea. I knew from experience that it was sweet enough to cause an immediate cavity. We waved back.

“It’s nice here,” Mira said. “You know all these people.”

“Yeah,” I said. “It’s a good community.” I nudged her with my shoulder. “And you’re part of it.”

She looked at me under her lashes, as if she didn’t believe me, and then we arrived at Joss’s farm. He was in his front yard, setting up long folding tables. Seeing him in his tank top and weathered jeans got my heart pounding.

He smiled when he saw us. “Ready to work?” he asked Mira.

She nodded. “Boxes inside?”

“Mud room, as always,” he said.

She went in with a little smirk.

Then he pulled his sunglasses on top of his head and I got to see his blue eyes crinkle at me. “Are you helping today?”

“Sorry, no,” I said. “I just walked Mira down.”

“So it’s my lucky day.” He looked over his shoulder to make sure Mira was inside before drawing me close and giving me a thorough kiss. “I missed you.”

I melted a little, not just from the heat, and slid my arms up around his neck.

We jumped apart at the sound of the door opening. Mira backed out, dragging a stack of folded boxes and trying to look like she hadn’t seen us making out.

“I better go,” I said. “Cat food to cook and all.” My phone rang. It was Norma. “I gotta take this.”

I kept my voice low and moved away. “Hello, Detective Chiron.”

“What’s up?” she asked. It sounded like she was using her speaker phone.

I looked over my shoulder to make sure Joss and Mira were busy. “A weird thing happened in front of our house about forty minutes ago.” I smiled at Horace as I passed him on the way home. “I don’t want to, I don’t know, submit an official report or anything yet.”

“Why don’t you tell me what happened and I’ll let you know my recommendation.” She sounded friendly, but I could sense the steel underneath. Even though we were friends, she was going to handle whatever I told her by the book.

I paused a minute. Did I want to make this a big deal?

“Colbie,” she said. “Just tell me.”

“Okay.” I told her about the man taking photos in front of our house.

“You got the license?” she asked.

“Yes.” I let her think it through.

“Okay,” she said. “Give me the number. I’ll check it out. If I find something we should be concerned about, you’ll have to file an official report.”

I gave her the information on the car and went into my house. My dad was in his favorite chair, with a soda in one hand and the remote in the other, focused on the Red Sox game. Trouble was in his lap. She raised her head and stared at me. Can’t you tell him to put on Animal Planet?

“Still on for Wednesday?” Norma asked. We had started a Wednesday Margaritas get-together with Lani a couple of months ago.

“Of course,” I said.

We hung up and I checked my website for recent orders. I scheduled their production time, making sure not to interfere with what was needed for Take Your Cat to Shop Day.

Then I got curious about Mira’s foster family and decided to do a quick Google search. When I lived in the city, I’d heard about Dennis Franklin but didn’t realize he was originally from Sunnyside. Soon after he finished college, he started a construction business that grew rapidly. He moved his family to downtown San Diego when he’d become A Big Deal. He made a ton of money churning out housing developments that stuck as many houses as possible onto any property he could buy. The local paper had done a big piece on how he was returning to his roots when he bought acres of farmland right outside Sunnyside and began developing it with million-dollar mansions—unheard of this far from the city—as part of a resort community with a golf course, pools, and community center.

What was even more astonishing was that Dennis had no problem selling the huge homes. He even moved his family into one of the first ones completed, although they still spent plenty of time in their downtown penthouse apartment overlooking the Coronado Bridge. The remaining houses were currently being built and seemed to be living up to their lavish reputation.

I dove deep, searching the internet for everything I could find on him and his family, including YouTube videos of him at charity events and professional pieces produced by his company. He looked like a normal, mid-fifties rich guy. I watched an interview where he complimented his kids and his employees while receiving plenty of pats on the back for his visionary leadership.

Recent videos were much more “happening,” with short segments designed for social media. Most of them consisted of a woman behind the camera asking different company employees questions. The employees gave fun, snappy answers, which could have been rehearsed. There were also shots of construction workers on site—carrying lumber, installing drywall, and connecting plumbing. Maybe the only reason I noticed the difference was because I was now working with a publicist on my product launch.

There were several articles about a class-action lawsuit against Franklin Development by Dennis’s employees. They alleged unfair business practices, creating a hostile environment, hiring undocumented workers; the list went on. The lawsuit made it sound like Mr. Franklin was a bad guy all around, the exact opposite of the videos I’d seen on his website. But considering his mistreatment of Mira, I was inclined to side with his employees.

Then I got to the article about Mira’s play that the Franklins were angry about. Someone interviewed each of the four playwrights who won the Playwrights Project contest.

Mira snagged the most attention in the article. In spite of her childhood history, she’d written a winning play that, according to the executive director, “exhibited not only a mastery of the genre, but also an insight not often found in someone her age.” She’d responded to a question from the reporter asking if it was based on her life.

“In a way, yes,” she’d said. “But it’s really a compilation of many stories I’ve heard from the foster teens in my group home.”

The reporter complimented her on the bits of unexpected humor in the play and its upbeat message.

“Thanks,” Mira had said. “I worked hard on that, because it’s all true. Yes, some parts of our lives suck, but we laugh and have fun too. And it’s just the beginning chapters—not any kind of road map or fate we can’t avoid. We all have a long way to go to write our stories. And I believe they’ll have happy endings, just like the play.”

I blinked away tears, just as my dad walked into the kitchen. “You okay?”

I nodded. “I’m just reading about Mira’s play,” I said. “She’s amazing.”

He came to read over my shoulder and I let him have my chair and the computer. Trouble followed to stare at him reproachfully. Come back to the living room where it’s more comfortable.

“Pretty cool,” he said when he was finished reading the article. “Can’t wait till Friday.”

Then Norma called me back. “Any reason you can think of for a private investigator to follow you?” she asked.

“What?” I covered the phone and spoke to my dad. “That Honda guy is a private investigator!”

He gave me a you-gotta-be-kidding-me look.

“That doesn’t make any sense at all,” I said. “What should we do?”

“I’d like you to file a complaint and we’ll take it from there,” she said. “Come into the office as soon as you can.”

I hung up feeling very uneasy. “Who would hire a private investigator to follow us?”

“Maybe he had the wrong person,” my dad suggested.

I looked at the clock. “Time to pick up Elliott. Want to come? We’re stopping for ice cream.”

His eyebrows rose. Even though we’d been living with him for two months, he still seemed surprised to be included in our day-to-day lives. Maybe because I’d kept him out of it for so many years. “Sure. That’d be fun,” he said.

I texted Elliott to meet us a block from the school to avoid some of the pick-up traffic and he texted back a thumbs up emoji.

“You ready for the big day?” my dad asked. He tried hard not to offer advice on running my business, but was excited as well as curious.

“We’re getting there,” I said.

Annie had told me that he talked about my “up-and-coming” business all the time. I was still unfamiliar with the idea that my dad was proud of me after so many years of just getting by. In some ways, it added extra pressure to make my new relationship with Twomey’s a success. If that was possible.

I’d raised Elliott on jobs that kept us housed and fed, but didn’t allow for a lot of extras. Moving back in with my dad while he was sick had given me some breathing room to focus on increasing my business and actually growing my savings.

Elliott was twelve now and I was far behind on saving for his college. Getting Meowio cat food in every Twomey’s store was just the beginning of gaining the kind of financial stability he deserved.

“Whew!” Elliott said as he opened the back door and jumped in. “Glad that’s over. Hey, Grandpa! Oh, and Mom,” he added.

“How was the first day?” my dad asked.

“Great, well except I already have homework,” he answered.

“How are your teachers?” I asked.

“My English teacher is so cool!” he said. “She’s also my drama teacher and the sponsor for the drama club.” He chattered on about his day, and I relaxed. I should’ve known that he would adjust well given half a chance.

“I’m going to run for vice president of the drama club, so I can help choose the fall musical. Someone wants Lion King but I’m going to push for Hairspray. Nice!” he said when we turned into the What’s the Scoop? parking lot.

We sat at a picnic table to eat our treats and then drove to the local Target for another round of school supplies.

When I grumbled, my dad said, “Do I need to remind you of the year of the purple backpack?”

“No!” I said.

“Yes!” Elliott insisted. “Tell me.”

I pretended to sigh and give in, and my dad told Elliott about my first year in middle school when we went to four different stores in search of the right kind of purple backpack. When I made it to school the first day, I was the only one with a purple backpack in the whole school. Somehow I’d missed the memo of what colors were now cool. I came home from school in tears demanding a new backpack, but of course, I was forced to use it until Christmas, when Santa brought me a new blue one.

At the checkout, my dad insisted on paying. “Grandpa’s treat.” He looked so delighted that I agreed without fussing.

Elliott casually linked arms with my dad as we walked out. “Hey, Grandpa, can I get another guitar lesson when we get home?”

Life was good.

* * * *

My cell phone rang in the dark, jarring me from a deep sleep. I glanced at the alarm clock beside my bed. It was 12:04 in the morning.

Still not awake, I looked at the screen of my cell phone and saw it was Lani.

“Hello?” My voice cracked.

“Colbie. It’s an emergency. Are you awake?” Lani’s tone was something I didn’t remember ever hearing from her. Scared.

I sat up, instantly alert. “Yes. What is it?”

“Mira called. She said the police are looking for her and she doesn’t know why.” I heard a faint car tire screech through the phone. “Can you come with me to pick her up?”

I was already out of bed. “On my way.”

It took me less than a minute to throw on clothes and get outside. It was a cool, clear night and the stars sparkled. Soon I heard Lani’s car turn onto the street. She pulled up and I jumped in. She took off before I buckled my seatbelt. I remembered to text my dad to tell him that I was handling something with Lani and would be back soon. At least I hoped so.

“What’s this about?” I asked, pulling a bundle of fabric out from under my leg and tossing it in the backseat.

“I don’t know for sure,” she said. She wore a hoodie over her pajamas and flip-flops on her feet. “Mira said she got a call from her roommate that the police were searching her apartment and looking for her.”

“Why?”

She looked over at me for a second before turning her attention back to the road. “I heard something disturbing on the radio.”

“What?” I asked.

“Dennis Franklin is dead.”

“Oh.”

“He was murdered,” she said.