The Perfect Liar (Last Stand #5)(22)
Author: Brenda Novak

"Give them another chance," Tati coaxed. "They’l be nicer. You’ve driven all this way."

And she didn’t have the money yet to get herself home. Maybe she’d been wrong to let her parents upset her. Norma and Dewayne had never liked her, not from the beginning, so nothing had changed. She’d come mostly to see her sister.

So she should stay for the weekend, as originally planned.

"Okay," she relented.

Tati smiled and clasped her in a quick embrace. "Let’s go," she said, but Kalyna stayed behind long enough to slip Luke’s picture back into her purse.

Chapter 10

When Kalyna’s phone rang, she was with her sister at their favorite Mexican restaurant on Main Street, enjoying an after-dinner margarita. Her parents hadn’t joined them because they’d bought some fast food when they dropped off the hearse, or so they said. Kalyna didn’t believe them.

She knew they didn’t want to be around her. It was a miracle they’d agreed to let Tati have dinner with her at all. Chances were they wouldn’t have if Tati hadn’t pulled them aside for a whispered conference.

"Don’t you want to answer that?" Tatiana asked when Kalyna merely silenced the ringer.

"Not right now." Caller ID showed a Sacramento area code, and Kalyna wasn’t sure she wanted to talk to anyone in California. Why deal with the backlash of leaving just when she was finally beginning to have some fun? But when the call came in again fifteen minutes later, she reconsidered. It didn’t matter who found out she was gone. Her disappearance from the base wouldn’t remain a secret for long. Major Ogitani had probably already been notified that she hadn’t reported for work today.

She pressed the Talk button. "Hello?"

"Kalyna? It’s Ava Bixby from The Last Stand."

Kalyna had suspected it had to do with the case. She didn’t know very many people in Sacramento, other than a few guys she’d met at various dance places and bars.

Taking another sip of her margarita, she relaxed. There wasn’t as much at stake with Ava as Ogitani. "What can I do for you, Ava?" she said.

"Who is it?" Tati wanted to know.

Kalyna covered the mouthpiece. "My caseworker at the victim’s charity in California."

"Did I catch you at a bad time?" Ava asked.

"No, it’s fine."

"Good, because I think we need to talk."

Something was up. Kalyna could tell by Ava’s tone. In case this developed into a conversation she didn’t want Tatiana overhearing, she started to get out of the booth. "Hang on a sec." She covered the mouthpiece again. "It’s about the rape," she explained. "I’l just be a few minutes."

She felt Tati’s gaze follow her as she walked through the restaurant.

It wasn’t until she stepped outside and the door closed behind her that she had the privacy she needed. "I’m back." She picked a spot at the corner of the building, under the eaves, where she had a clear view of the door and the walkway from the parking lot.

"I got off the phone with your mother a little while ago," Ava announced.

A surge of anger made Kalyna grip her phone tighter. She hadn’t expected this. Not from Ava. "You called my mother? Why?"

"To be honest, I’m a little confused."

"About what?"

"I’m getting conflicting stories, Kalyna."

Kalyna’s stomach knotted painfully. "Then why didn’t you come to me?"

"Because I wanted her perspective."

"Do you always investigate the victim instead of the perpetrator?"

"I investigate both. I can’t look at a crime separately from the people involved–on both sides. That’d be like taking a controversial comment out of context. And a man’s freedom could be at stake. We can’t get this wrong."

Kalyna smashed a beetle scurrying across the concrete near her foot.

"I stil don’t understand why you had to talk to my mother. If you’d asked me, I could’ve told you she hates me."

"So far, all I have is your account of what happened on June 6, Kalyna. What I need is another witness, some evidence, something to corroborate it. Can you help me out with that?"

"It’s not just my account," Kalyna argued. "What about Luke’s se**n?

They swabbed my–"

"That proves you had sex," she interrupted, "not that he forced you."

"And the pictures? They prove force. You saw what he did to me."

"Again, we have only your word that he’s the one who gave you those injuries."

"There wasn’t time for anyone else to come in. You said so yourself."

"Your mother suggested another scenario."

Kalyna wrapped her free arm around her middle to control the nervous feeling in her stomach. Her mother had betrayed her once again.

From the time Kalyna had moved in she could remember her mother pulling her father aside to complain about her. That child’s not right, Dewayne, she’d say, and he’d click his tongue against his teeth and shake his head as if he agreed. "My mother wasn’t there. How would she know what happened?"

"She raised you. She knows your history."

"You can’t listen to her! Do you have any idea what it was like growing up with her as my mother?"

Ava’s slight hesitation encouraged her.

"She kept us locked up in that morgue, day and night. If we did anything wrong, left a smidgeon of food on our plates or…or forgot to pick up a toy, she’d put us in the cooler with the dead bodies and turn off the lights."

"Do you have any proof of that?" Ava’s voice was less strident.

Kalyna had managed to evoke some doubt. But how could she prove her words? She couldn’t.

"No, of course not. We didn’t dare tell anyone or she’d do worse."

"When you say we, you’re talking about your twin sister?"

"Yes, Tatiana."

"Wil she corroborate these events?"

Kalyna began to chew on the ends of her hair like she used to do as a child. She wasn’t completely certain of her sister anymore; maybe it hadn’t been smart to drag Tati into this. "I don’t know," she muttered. "She might have blocked it all out. Besides, it wasn’t quite as bad for her."

"Why not?" Ava sounded doubtful again.

"My parents liked her better. They stil do."

"Do you have any other siblings?"

The heat was causing her clothes to stick to her. It was nearly nine o’clock but it didn’t cool off in Arizona the way it did in California. "No. My adoptive parents had fertility problems. They did have one son, but he was only two when he drowned in a neighbor’s pool."

"I’m sorry to hear that."