Beautiful Lies (30 page)

“But you keep going, don't you? You don't give in and you don't give up. In my book, that's what courage looks like, Lee.”

Her eyes misted. She wasn't used to receiving praise for her worst flaw.

He didn't take his eyes off the road, but he reached over and covered her hand.

 

Simon Van Valkenburg lived on the ground floor of a Russian Hill apartment building that had nothing to recommend it except the address. Despite that, Liana knew someone had anted up big time for the unrenovated space.

The young man who greeted them had shoulder-length brown hair, murky brown eyes and a beard that barely covered his chin. Obviously Simon's genius did not extend to personal presentation.

Cullen introduced himself, standing close enough to the door to stop Simon from closing it in their faces. “We're here to talk about Matthew.”

“He's back from camping?”

Liana stepped forward to discourage Cullen from answering. “May we come in?”

Simon was still trying to decide when Cullen took matters into his own hands and moved past him. Liana smiled and murmured thanks, as if their entry had been Simon's idea.

“I guess we can go in the living room,” Simon said.

“Do you live with your parents?” Liana asked.

“My dad. When he's home.”

The living room was sparsely furnished in sixties avocado green. Balls of fur dotting the wood floor announced the presence of a dog even before Liana got to the sofa and found it occupied by a snoozing Border collie.

She took a chair in the corner, first setting the books that covered it on the floor. She read the top title out loud.
“The Computer Revolution—How to Bring the World to its Knees on Your Lunch Break.”
She looked up. “Pretty scary stuff.”

“It's stupid. Anybody with a catchy title gets published.”

“You're interested in computers?”

Simon shrugged. “Some.”

“We hear you and Matthew are Internet mates,” Cullen said. He seated himself beside Simon on a fading loveseat, slinging his arm over the back with his hand parallel to Simon's collar.

“We chat sometimes. Yeah.”

“Are you good enough mates to trade your passwords?”

“I'd never give anybody my password. Do you know what could happen?”

“Did he give you his?”

“Why would he? I don't need it.”

Liana was glad Cullen had checked with the boy to see if he might have logged on to Matthew's account last night. “Matthew's missing, and we found several messages with your screen name. One of them was addressed to me.” She leaned forward. “We have to know where he is, Simon. And obviously you know something.”

“If Matthew wanted you to know, he'd tell you, wouldn't he?”

“Fourteen-year-old boys don't always make the best decisions. How much older than him are you?”

“A little.”

“Tell the lady how old you are,” Cullen said quietly.

Simon glanced at Cullen; then he wriggled back farther into the corner of his seat. “Eighteen.”

“That could be a problem for you.” Liana shook her head as if she were concerned for him. “Matthew's a minor. There are laws about contributing to the delinquency of a minor.”

“Delinquency?” Simon gave a nervous laugh. “Matthew's not a delinquent. And he'll be back. Then you can find out where he's been.”

“We're going to find out now,” Cullen said, in the same quiet voice.

Simon looked uncomfortable. “I let him use my computer to write an E-mail. And I posted it for him. That's all.”

“Where is he?” Cullen asked.

Simon was silent.

“Look,” Liana said, “is this worth going to jail over, Simon? Matthew made a mistake by involving you. You don't owe him anything. And we think he might be in some danger. You don't want that on your conscience, do you?”

“Matthew can take care of himself. He's a lot older than fourteen inside.” He touched his narrow chest. “Matthew's an old soul.”

“We don't bloody care if he was King Tut in a former life,” Cullen said. “We're going to find our son, and you're going to help us.”

“Please.” Liana pleaded with Simon with her eyes, good cop to Cullen's bad. “He's all we have.”

“If you cared about him, why did you make it so hard for him to love you both? You divided him up like a Thanksgiving turkey.” He looked at Liana. “You get the drumstick…” He inclined his head toward Cullen. “He gets the wing. Maybe Matthew was just tired of it.”

Liana frowned. Had they really made the divorce so difficult that Matthew had finally given up and run away? Guilt, which was as much the aftermath of divorce as alimony and child support, stabbed at her.

But Cullen shook his head. “Good on ya. You're fast on your feet, I'll give you that, though I haven't seen any signs of genius yet. But think about this, mate. In one minute I'm going to show you bang on how we carve a turkey where I come from.”

“Oh, come on! This is my house. You can't threaten me.”

Liana stood and moved closer. “Now look, we don't have time to linger over the niceties. I'm sorry we're meeting this way. When this is over, you can come to my apartment and we'll start again. But for now, you'd better tell us where our son is.”

Since he appeared to be considering, she stopped just in front of him and folded her arms.

“Matthew's going to be furious at me,” he said at last.

“He'll get over it.”

Cullen edged closer to the boy and touched his collar. Simon sighed. “Matthew's been participating in an on-line chat room. I'm the one who told him about it. He spends a lot of time there, and he met a girl.”

“Go on….” Cullen said.

“Well, she's in some trouble. Matthew's been trying to help her, but he got worried because he was leaving for a month. He knew you wouldn't let him go and see her, and he was afraid if he didn't, she might do something to herself.”

“Like what?” Liana asked.

Simon shrugged. “She was talking crazy.”

“And that's where he went? To see her?”

Liana was skeptical. Simon was the kind of kid who enjoyed outsmarting adults. Still, the pieces fit. If Matthew thought someone needed him, he would risk almost anything. And she knew he participated in several chat rooms. They had talked about standards and rules, but she had trusted him to enforce them.

“Matthew felt like he didn't have much of a choice, you know? He was afraid if he didn't go…” Simon let the sentence hang.

“Where does this girl live?” Cullen said.

“He'll be okay. Can't you just leave him alone?”

“We can't,” Liana said.

Simon released a long breath. “Her name is Brittany Saunders. She lives in a place called Tillman, in Arizona. He planned to get off the plane in Denver and take a bus or another plane to see her.”

“Can you E-mail Brittany to see if he made it?”

“She doesn't have her own computer. Her family's like poor white trash or something. She uses a friend's whenever she can.”

“Obviously Matthew had her address.”

“Maybe, but he never gave it to me. The town's not much more than a gas station. It wouldn't be hard to find her.”

Cullen and Liana locked gazes. There had been a time when they were so close that often words had been unnecessary. Apparently it was still true, because she saw her own thoughts mirrored in Cullen's eyes.

Neither of them trusted Simon, but the story was plausible. Too plausible to ignore.

“How far is this Tillman?” Cullen asked her.

“We're going to have to look at the map. I've never heard of it.”

His lips twisted in a half smile. He didn't take his eyes off hers. “Simon, lad, if you're pissing in my pocket, you won't like the consequences. Understand? We're going to have you watched, and if we come back without our son, we'll know exactly where to find you. Do you want to have a go at changing your story?”

Simon looked sad. “No, but when you find Matthew, please tell him I'm sorry.”

“L
ee, I can go without you. I'll bring him back to San Francisco. We'll confront him together before we make any decisions about what happens next.” Cullen glanced at Liana's chalk white cheeks. He could only imagine what she was feeling.

“We don't have any reason to believe Simon. We don't know Matthew's really there.”

“If he's not there, I'll come back. We'll decide what to do next.”

“No, I have to go with you.”

Cullen debated. They could drive to Tillman, which had turned out to be a speck of desert just over the Arizona border, but if Matthew was there, he might vanish again by the time they arrived. Their best bet was to fly into the closest airport and take a rental car to Tillman as fast as possible.

But flying terrified Liana.

“You can do this?” Cullen didn't look at her again. The fear in her eyes made his stomach roil. She had looked like
a doe in the crosshairs of a rifle since they'd called the airlines to arrange this flight to Yuma.

“I
will
do this.”

He knew men and women who weren't afraid of anything. But who was more courageous? The person who never experienced fear? Or the one who faced it, eyeball to eyeball?

“I'll be right beside you,” he promised.

She didn't answer. He supposed his presence was less a prize than a curse, but, in the last hours, her attitude toward him
had
changed. They were working together. Over the years, he had learned to be grateful for every victory.

He turned into the airport parking lot, following signs until he was able to turn off the ignition. “You can sit on my lap. We can kiss and cuddle.”

“You really know how to make things worse, don't you?”

He laid his palm against her cheek and turned her face to his. “Would a good stiff drink help? A blow to the head?”

Despite everything, she smiled weakly. “You always teased me when you didn't know what else to do.”

“Every bloke's born with a gaping hole where his good sense ought to be. He needs a smart woman to fill it.”

“I did my best.”

“I reckon at the time my hole was more like a crater.”

“And now?”

“Now, I'd give my right arm if I could just make this easier on you.”

“Why do you care? Do you see this as some sort of opportunity to make up to me for everything that happened all those years ago? Are you really wallowing in guilt?”

“I don't know.” For a moment, anyway, he had succeeded in his intention. He had managed to divert her attention from the impending flight. Her frown had deepened, but it wasn't aimed at him.

“There were two of us in that marriage,” she said. “I made mistakes, too.”

“We had some good times, though, didn't we?”

“You're just trying to take my mind off flying, aren't you?”

He opened his door and came around to open hers. “Is it working?”

She looked up from her seat, but she made no move to get out. “Do you know how many times Matthew pleaded with me to get on a plane? We never went on a vacation unless it was some place in easy range. He wanted to go to Hawaii.” She shook her head in disgust. “We ended up in Malibu.”

“Put your hand on my arm and stand up.”

“Let me apologize in advance. I'm going to embarrass you.”

“As much as I embarrassed you at the race meeting when I bet our ute on the wrong horse and we had no way to get home?”

“Not that much.”

He wondered that she could still think. From the pallor of her cheeks, he guessed all the blood had drained from the top half of her body. He squatted in front of her. “Let me take care of you, Lee. Bugger it, I can't wait for you to embarrass me. It'll be a brand-new memory.”

“Let's do it, then.” She got to her feet, but she swayed. He grabbed her hand and found it was ice-cold. He tucked it into his and put his other arm around her waist. “We're going to find our son.”

“We'd better,” she said through clenched teeth. “I'm not doing this for the scenery.”

 

Liana hadn't opened her eyes since settling in her seat. She could feel Cullen beside her, the long length of his
thigh warm and secure against hers. Under any circumstance but this, she would have pushed him away, but now she was pathetically grateful for his support.

She knew where her fear of flying had originated. Her first panic attack had sent her running to therapists—of which there were an overabundance in the Bay Area. She'd had her pick of Rolfers, EST enthusiasts, Gestalt gurus, as well as every casual acquaintance who had ever read a self-help tome. One hypnotherapist had suggested regression to the moment she emerged from her mother's womb. Another wanted to begin even earlier, with a hypothetical past life, most probably on Atlantis.

She had gotten her first real help from a kind old man who took few patients and made no promises except that he would listen. He had done more, of course. Skillfully, he had guided her to the source of her fear, to the memories that were the hardest to bear. One of those was with her now. She felt Cullen's hand steal over hers, warm and strong.

And as the airplane began to taxi down the runway and her heart skidded with terror, she remembered.

 

Thomas Robeson hadn't married until he was fifty-seven. Now, of course, Liana understood why. Thomas's entire life had been a lie. He had denied Willow's heritage until it had become a festering sore inside him, and the possibility that an heir's Asian eyes might give away his secret had forced him to remain a bachelor.

But aging bachelors suffered their own forms of prejudice. Faced with rumors that he preferred men in his bed, Thomas had taken a frosty-eyed survey of the young women in his social class, and his gaze had fallen on Hope Lynch, the daughter of a senior partner in one of the city's oldest law firms.

Hope was nineteen, with a pale blond beauty that needed years and confidence to bring it into focus. She had no particular direction for her life, no career she wanted to pursue, no strong opinions. She had been a surprise gift to aging parents who had given up hope of having children, and they had been busy with other things by the time she made her appearance. Hope was a fairy child who could stare out a window for hours. She was happiest in the shadows of life, and that made her perfect for Thomas.

Hope's quiet ways had never made her popular with men, and Thomas's interest gave the young woman a new status with her mother and father. Although Thomas was certainly too old, the Lynches saw him as her savior. An older man could guide and mold their daughter as a younger man might not. And if Hope could not be molded, at least she would be well taken care of.

On their wedding day, Thomas presented Hope with the Pearl of Great Price, set just for that event in a sheer golden web that wouldn't mar its beauty. Afterwards she noted that the photographer had not taken any pictures of her that did not feature the pearl. As she changed into a pink suit after the hotel reception, Thomas retrieved the pearl and personally escorted it back to his office to be locked in his safe.

A year after the elaborate society wedding and three months after her parents' death in an automobile accident, Hope attempted to take her own life. She botched her death, as she had botched her future, and after four weeks in a plush psychiatric hospital, she returned to the Pacific Heights mansion to take her place behind the husband she had grown to fear and despise.

But her four weeks' escape away from Thomas's demands had given her new strength, and for the next year Hope nurtured that tiny flicker and waited for the moment
when she could leave him. She knew she wasn't strong enough to live by her wits, but at age twenty-one she was to inherit her parents' estate, which had been put in trust. And that was the moment when she would never look back.

On the day she signed the papers to receive the trust, Hope vanished. The young woman, whose intelligence had never been noted or appreciated, had worked out a complex scheme guaranteed to thwart Thomas's best efforts at finding her. She took nothing from his home. She changed her appearance, cutting and dyeing her hair an attractive strawberry blond and affecting a more casual manner of dress. She converted a portion of her trust into cash and bought a used car and a fake driver's license. Then she set off to hide herself in the burgeoning counterculture, a still innocent, idealistic world of folk music and coffeehouses.

Two months later, on the other side of the country, she saw a doctor to confirm what she strongly suspected. She had left Thomas Robeson, but Thomas had not exactly left her. She was pregnant with his child.

Thomas hadn't wanted children. Hope's first moment of marital disillusionment had come on their wedding night, when he had rigorously protected himself before making love to her. She had always liked babies, and she had assumed Thomas liked them, too. But this was just one of many assumptions that were wrong.

Now she had a new life to consider. If she had harbored any thoughts of going back to San Francisco to obtain a divorce, they disappeared forever. Although Thomas had been adamant about not wanting a child, the child, whose will was stronger than Thomas's condom, existed anyway. Thomas was equally capable of insisting on an immediate abortion, or later, when that was impossible, insisting that the child belonged to him alone. Better than anyone, Hope
knew he was a coldhearted, calculating man who was capable of turning every hand into a winner.

But Hope had a trump card. She could not imagine a life spent looking over her shoulder, wondering if Thomas would find her, wondering if he would steal their child out of spite or some new scheme that required an heir. She wrote him one letter, a short one with all the necessary punch.

“Dear Thomas, as I made my plans to leave you, I searched through all your papers to find a weapon. Your birth certificate was all I needed. Please eliminate me from your life as thoroughly as you have eliminated your Chinese mother. Like her, my only shame is that I once loved you. I will keep your secret, Thomas, unless you try to find me or contest a divorce.”

By then, Hope was living in Ann Arbor with a houseful of college students. Although she didn't need the income, she took a job at a bookstore to fill her days. The baby inside her grew, and so did the new circle of friends who haunted the bookshelves. The shy young woman who called herself Nancy Starke was always good for a loan or a listening ear, and for the first time in her life, Hope felt accepted.

The birth of her daughter was a cause for celebration. Perhaps if the baby had been a boy Hope might have seen Thomas in him. But the tiny girl with the mop of black hair looked like neither of her parents. She was a product of her Eurasian heritage, the best of everyone who had come before her. Hope named her Liana after Thomas's mother, whose very existence had given Hope a way to keep her daughter safe.

Liana grew up surrounded by Hope's friends, who played with her, then left her to fend for herself when they tired. The fresh new start that had energized Hope had not
turned out the way she had imagined. Students graduated or dropped out, and the small world she had created for herself and her daughter was constantly changing. The times grew increasingly more difficult, too, as drugs took up space in the life of her friends and eventually in her own.

By the time Liana was old enough to remember what she saw, Hope was tripping frequently. The woman who had always been a little fey was now decidedly so. She had quit the bookstore when Liana was still in diapers to travel through New England with friends who wanted to find land for a commune. “Nancy” had promised to pay the bills if everyone would plow the fields. But the city kids, with nothing but idealism binding them, quickly tired of the chores that were necessary to make a minimal living off the rocky Vermont acres. They drifted away, one by one, as other disillusioned youths drifted in. Only Hope, tied to the land by a mortgage and a debilitating drug habit, stayed on.

By the time she was three, Liana had learned to take care of herself. By the time she was four, she was caring for Hope. By the time she was five, Liana and her mother were back on the road. One evening Hope had surfaced from a drug-induced haze long enough to notice that there wasn't any food in the house or one adult capable of replenishing supplies. She had taken a sober look at Liana's thin frame and pinched cheeks and realized that if anyone reported her, she would lose her daughter.

Over the next years, Hope did her best to make a life for Liana. The little girl knew her mother adored her, but it was rare for her to wake up two mornings in the same place or to find the same man in Hope's bed. They lived in motels or with people they met along the way. Hope promised they would find a place to settle, but the search for the right lo
cation never ended. Liana started school in so many towns that she felt uneasy if a teacher remembered her name.

By the time Liana was seven, Hope had given up again. They moved into a furnished room in a small town in western New York, a village of small white houses and emerald green pastures. Lakes dotted the countryside, and children rode bicycles along winding country roads. The old woman who owned the rambling Victorian was as friendly as a grandmother, and she baked sugar cookies and helped with Liana's homework while Hope slept away the nights and days.

Then, one day, Hope never woke up.

In later years Liana learned that her mother had taken too many pills, and they had quietly eased her from a world she hadn't been suited for. She doubted Hope had set out to kill herself, but the result was the same. The grandmotherly landlord helped Liana lay her mother to rest and cared for her as the local social services agency attempted to trace her closest relative. Then, one day nearly a month later, Thomas Robeson came to town.

Liana had just turned eight when Thomas entered her life. He was sixty-nine, and the years hadn't mellowed him. While other men his age were spending hours at the golf course or building furniture in their garage workshops, Thomas was working on his next million. Two years after his divorce from Hope, he had married a woman nearly as ruthless as he, and with Sammy Wesley beside him, his wealth and status had increased.