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13

Still at La C Reme, Megan fingered the “Celeb Experience: Paparazzi for Hire” card. She flipped it over and read “Weak Signal Bar and Grill.” A text buzzed her phone. She checked it and saw that it was from Dave:

WHERE ARE YOU???

She debated ignoring it, but really, how long could she do that? In the long run, it would cause more problems. She wondered about what to do here, what she should say now-and what she would be forced to tell him in the next few days. That facade she had created all those years ago had become over the years more her than, uh, her. But that didn’t mean Dave would understand.

She looked at his simple message again: Where are you???

Facade, Megan knew, was really just a politically correct term for lie. She had lied to Dave the first time they met, at the hotel bar in Boston, a scant four months after she had run away from Atlantic City. She was alone and scared and badly in need of cash. With no prospects and afraid to even work at one of the local clubs, Megan survived by rolling guys. She’d dress in the casual jeans look of a co-ed (“I’m a senior at Emerson,” she’d claim), hang out at hotel bars, get guys (preferably married ones) drunk or sometimes slip something into their drink, take them upstairs to their rooms, rob them, and disappear into the night.

On that particular night, she decided to try the Loews downtown hotel for the first time. The pickings in the married category had been slim. A group of Harvard boys stumbled their way in, whooping and hollering. She tried not to hate them with their smug faces and soft hands.

She figured that this would be easy money, though she knew college kids rarely carried cash, and then something surprising happened. Who knew what? Call it fate or destiny or whatever, but she started talking to one of them, a shy, sweet guy named Dave Pierce. Something about him simply drew her. He made her feel warm and comfortable. It wasn’t like with Ray. There was no immediate thunder crack. That would come later. But there was something else, something deep and strong and real.

So she lied to him. What choice did she have?

They talked all night, and it was wonderful. He was graduating from Harvard. She claimed to be graduating from Emerson. When they got together for their first real date a week later, she even told him to meet her at the Emerson College library. This was in the days before you needed student IDs to get into every building. She simply stacked a bunch of books on a table and waited for him.

The lies just continued.

She knew plenty about the campus. She told him that she lived in the Colonial Residence Hall but claimed that he couldn’t stop by because she had a difficult roommate who hated company. In terms of family, she told him the truth-she was an only child and her parents had died young. She made up a fake, normal, boring childhood in Muncie, Indiana, and acted as though the memories of losing her parents made talking about it too much to bear. Dave was sympathetic. If there were holes in her story-and there were-Dave never looked too closely at them. He was both a trusting soul and in love. If she chose to keep things from him, well, that added to the mystery and maybe even the attraction. In his naive world, it couldn’t be anything major. What difference could a few contradictory life details make anyway?

Plus Maygin-Cassie-Megan was an awfully good liar.

But now the facade-read: lies-were in serious jeopardy of crumbling. After all the years, after all the hard work, she had chosen to risk it all. And for what? Righting the past? A little excitement? Or subconsciously, did she want to get caught? Was the mask simply too heavy to wear for the rest of her life?

How would Dave react to the truth?

Megan took a deep breath and texted back:

THE PRESIERS ARE DRIVING KAYLIE’S CARPOOL TODAY.

JORDAN HAS MATH TEST. MAKE SURE HE STUDIES.

There was a brief pause and then another text from Dave:

WHERE ARE YOU?!?!?

Megan stared at the small screen for a moment. Then she typed:

I HAVE SOMETHING I HAVE TO DO. NOT SURE WHEN I’LL BE HOME. LOVE YOU.

Another pause. Megan waited for the phone to ring. It didn’t. Instead she received another text from her husband:

I DON’T UNDERSTAND.

She quickly replied.

IT WILL BE OKAY. JUST TRUST ME.

Ha. She meant it and really, when you thought about it, what a joke. Trust me. Talk about irony. She didn’t wait for a reply. Time to visit Broome again.

She closed up her phone and started to rise from the barstool. The crowd was picking up, and Lorraine was busy. She nodded a good-bye at her old friend, and Lorraine arched an eyebrow in return. She headed to the door, threading through men who openly stared at her. In normal society, men want to stare like this, but we force them to be surreptitious. In here, the cover charge gives them the right to put such pretenses away.

She wondered for a brief second whether Dave had ever been to a place like this. If he had, he hadn’t told her, but as she knew too well, most married men don’t. Had he been to a club like this before? Would he too enjoy openly ogling or having a lap dance or what? Did it matter?

Fifteen minutes later, Megan entered the Heritage Diner. The place was wonderfully old-school. The booths still held those small jukeboxes, though she doubted that they worked. A man with thick clumps of ear hair worked the cash register. Pastries aged under glass covers. The wall had signed photographs of local news anchors. The waitresses wore uniforms and attitudes.

Broome stood when she entered and approached.

“Thanks for agreeing to see me,” he said.

“Where’s Harry?”

“Not here yet.” They slid into the booth. “Would you like something to eat?”

“No, thank you.”

Broome pointed to his own cup. “I’m having coffee. Would you like some?”

Megan shook her head, glanced back at the door. “Harry should be here any second.”

“Do you mind if we get started?” Broome asked. “I’m a little pressed for time.”

“Without my lawyer?”

“You don’t need a lawyer. I don’t suspect you of anything, and the clock is really ticking. So is it okay?”

When she didn’t reply, Broome just dived in.

“Does Mardi Gras mean anything to you?” he asked.

“I thought you were going to show me a picture.”

“I will in a second. But I wanted to ask about Mardi Gras first.”

“If it means something to me?”

“Yes.”

“You know it does.”

“Do you mind telling me what?”

“I thought you were in a rush.”

“Just bear with me, okay?”

Megan sighed. “The night I told you about, when I ran away. It was Mardi Gras.”

Broome seemed satisfied. “Anything else?”

“Like?”

“Like anything. Like, do you remember anything odd happening on other Mardi Gras? Do you remember any creepy guys hanging around the club on Mardi Gras? Anything.”

She thought about it. “No.”

Broome had a manila folder in front of him. He tapped it with his index finger. Megan waited for him to open it. The waitress came over with a coffeepot. “Hot top on that, hon?” she asked, working a piece of gum the size of a kitchen sponge. Broome shook her off.

When she left, Broome stopped the finger tap and flipped open the folder. He slid the photograph across the table to her. Megan figured she had nothing to hide-at least, that was what she had told herself-so she hadn’t prepared herself for any kind of deception or, well, facade.

When her eyes landed on the photograph, her entire body jolted.

There was no time to cover it up. He saw it. No question. Megan slowly reached out and pulled the photograph closer.

“Do you recognize the picture?” he asked.

Buy time, she thought. Get control. “If you’re asking if I’ve seen this picture before, the answer is no.”

“But you recognize the location, right?”

Megan nodded slowly.

“Do you mind telling me from where?”

She swallowed. “This is the part of the park I told you about earlier. The iron-ore ruins.”

“Where you found Stewart Green bleeding?”

“Yes.”

Silence.

“Do you recognize the man in the photograph?”

There was a man with blond tips and a tight T-shirt in the upper-left-hand corner. Broome probably surmised that Megan had recognized the man and that was what had thrown her. “I really can’t see his face,” she said.

“No idea who it is?”

“No, none.”

“But this is definitely the spot where you last saw Stewart Green?”

She pretended to look again, even though there was no doubt. “Yes.”

Broome put both hands on the table, palms down. “Anything else you can tell me about the picture?”

The fact that Broome had a picture of that path in the Pine Barrens was surprising, yes, but not shocking or stunning. What had stunned her-what was making it hard to move or talk or function-wasn’t the locale or the man with the frosted tips.

It was the photograph itself.

“Where did you get this?” she asked.

“Why?”

She had to be careful here. She shrugged with as much nonchalance as she could muster and told yet another lie. “I was just wondering how you got a photograph of the exact spot I told you about.”

He studied her face. She tried to meet his eye.

“It was mailed to the precinct anonymously. In fact, someone went through quite a bit of trouble to make sure I didn’t know who sent it.”

Megan felt the tremor run straight down her spine. “Why?”

“I don’t know. You have a thought?”

She did. When Megan had first fallen for Ray Levine, she had known nothing of photography. But he taught her. He taught her about light and angle and aperture and composition and focus. He had taken her to his favorite spots to shoot. He constantly took photographs of the woman-her-he purportedly loved.

Over the years, Megan had Googled Ray’s name, hoping to see new photographs by him, but there was only the stuff from before they met, when he was still a big-time photojournalist. Nothing after. But she still remembered his work. She knew what he liked to do with a camera-angles, composition, lighting, aperture, whatever-and so now, even after all these years, there was very little doubt in her mind:

Ray Levine had taken this photograph.

“No,” Megan said to Broome. “No thought.”

Under his breath, she heard Broome say, “Oh, damn, not now.”

She turned, figuring to see Harry Sutton, but no, that wasn’t the case. Two men had just entered the diner. One had older cop written all over him-steel-wool gray hair, badge hanging from his belt, thumbs hitching up his pants as though the task was somehow grand and full of importance. The other man wore a ridiculously bright Hawaiian shirt. The top three buttons were opened, thereby displaying gold chains and medallions enmeshed in ample chest hair. He was probably mid-fifties, maybe older, and looked dazed and disoriented. The older cop grabbed a booth and slid in. Hawaiian Shirt shuffled behind him and collapsed into his seat like a marionette with his strings cut.

Broome kept his head low, near his coffee, clearly trying to hide. It was a no-go. Older Cop’s eyes narrowed. He rose and said something to Hawaiian Shirt. If Hawaiian heard, his face didn’t show it. He just sat there staring at the table as though it held some deep, dark secret.

Older Cop started toward them. Broome quickly put the photograph back into the folder, so his approaching comrade couldn’t see it.

“Broome,” Older said with a curt nod.

“Chief.”

There was a tension there. Goldberg let his eyes walk on over to Megan. “And who might this be?”

“This is Jane,” Broome said. “An old friend.”

“She doesn’t look old,” Goldberg said, leaning into her personal space and giving her the eye.

“What a charmer,” Megan said in pure monotone.

Goldberg didn’t like that. “You a cop?” he asked her.

Man, Megan thought, she really had changed over the years. “Just a friend.”

“Friend, right.” Goldberg smirked and turned back to Broome. “What are you doing here?”

“Having a cup of coffee with an old friend.”

“You see who I’m with?”

Broome nodded.

“What should I tell him?”

“We’re getting closer,” he said.

“Anything more specific?”

“Not right now.”

Goldberg frowned and turned away. When he left, Megan looked a question at him. Broome said, “The man with him is Del Flynn, Carlton’s father.”

Megan turned and looked at him. The father’s gold chain glistened off his exposed chest. His horrible Hawaiian shirt was so orange, so bright-almost in defiance of what he was going through-another facade, though in this case, a totally pointless one. Even a blind man could see the devastation. It consumed everything around Del Flynn. It made his shoulders slump. His face, badly in need of a shave, sagged. There was the dazed look, the thousand-yard stare.

It is every parent’s nightmare-what had happened to this man. Megan thought now of her own kids, her stupidly cavalier comment about hating that she lived for their smile, and then she looked back at Carlton Flynn’s father.

“Scary, right?” Broome said.

She said nothing.

“You see what I’m trying to do now?”

She still said nothing.

“Stewart Green had parents too,” he went on. “He had a wife and kids. Look at the guy over there. Now imagine his sleepless night. Imagine him waiting to find an answer. Imagine that agony stretching out for a few days. Then weeks. Then months and even years. Imagine that torment.”

“I got it,” Megan said with a snap. “You’re the master of the subtle, Broome.”

“Just trying to make you understand.” He signaled for the check. “Anything else you can tell me about that photograph?”

Ray, she thought, but there was no way she could tell him that. She shook her head. “No, nothing.”

“Anything else about anything?”

Broome looked at her hard. She had come here prepared to tell him something important. Now she wasn’t so sure if she should. Her head spun. She wanted it to settle, give herself a chance to think it through clearly.

Broome waited.

“A person who shall remain nameless,” Megan began, “maybe-and I stress the word maybe-saw Stewart Green recently.”

Now it was Broome’s turn to be stunned. “Are you serious?”

“No, I just made it up. Of course, I’m serious. But the source wasn’t sure. It could have just been a guy who looked like Stewart. It’s been seventeen years, remember?”

“And you won’t tell me the source’s name?”

“I won’t, no.”

Broome made a face. “You want me to show you that grieving father again?”

“Only if you want me to get up and leave right now.”

“Okay, okay.” He put his hands up in mock surrender. “When did your source see Stewart?”

“In the past few weeks.”

“Where?”

“In town.”

“Where in town?”

“La Creme. And it’s dark in there.” Megan opened her mouth and almost said the word she, but she held it back at the last moment. “The source said it was only for a second and it might not have even been him.”

“This source,” he said. “Is he or she reliable?”

“Yes.”

“Do you think he or she saw Stewart Green?”

“I don’t know.”

“And again I ask, anything else you can tell me?”

Megan shook her head. “That’s it.”

“Okay, then we’re done here.” Broome rose. “I got to hurry to the crime scene.”

“Wait, hold up.”

He looked down at her.

“What crime scene?”

“The iron-ore ruins, remember?”

She frowned. “Do you really think, what, there might still be blood or fibers or something after all this time?”

“Blood or fibers?” he repeated with a shake of his head. “You watch too much CSI.”

“Then what?”

“Sometimes history repeats itself.”

“What do you mean?”

“The man in the photograph I showed you.”

She waited, but she already knew. His eyes drifted back to the booth in the corner.

“It’s Carlton Flynn.”