A Secondhand Lie Read online

  A

  SECOND

  HAND

  LIE

  A

  SECOND

  HAND

  LIE

  A Short Story Thriller

  Pamela Crane

  Tabella House

  Hillsborough, North Carolina

  Copyright © 2015 by Pamela Crane

  Tabella House

  Hillsborough, NC

  www.tabellahouse.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without written permission.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  www.pamelacrane.com

  Cover Design: Vanessa Maynard

  Other books by Pamela Crane:

  The Admirer’s Secret

  A Fatal Affair

  A Secondhand Life

  To my family.

  Although it isn’t perfect, it’s mine.

  History is a set of lies agreed upon.

  – Napoléon Bonaparte

  Man is not what he thinks he is. He is what he hides.

  – André Malraux

  Prologue

  1992

  On the day that Ruby Parker was shot, someone got away with murder. Not the pop-culture type of murder that the media fixates on with macabre fascination as gory details permeate the news, but the loss of a life, nonetheless. A loss that would cause a domino effect of misery in an endless wake of suffering. A loss that would galvanize a heart to stop feeling, cementing the true victim’s emotions in a state of perpetual sadness.

  That victim was me, Landon Worthington, and this is my story of loss and redemption.

  At age sixteen I’m already a byproduct of bad luck—a couple of battered souls that never should have hooked up to produce spawn. Alcoholic parents who never understood the value of the dollar wasted on... well, getting wasted. A ramshackle house in a neighborhood that bred poverty. A sister dragged into a serial killer’s twisted desire to “help” her, which took her life far too soon.

  Maybe it was tragedy. Or maybe she escaped. I wasn’t sure which.

  I’ll never erase my first memory. Age three. I had grabbed the carton of milk from the fridge, wrestling the too-heavy container to the floor where I proceeded to feebly drain it into an unwashed cup I had found on the table. My weak arms couldn’t sustain it, and as expected, the milk ended up in a puddle at my feet. Normal childhood mistake, right? Not to my father. Based on the beating I got, you would’ve thought I’d totaled the car. The wounds from my whipping bled through the seat of my pants for days. After that, I learned how to retreat. I’ve been doing it ever since.

  In the pregnant pause between my birth and death, life had become little more than a series of cruel jokes, and I was always the punch line.

  My father, Dan Worthington, was convicted for the robbery and attempted homicide of Ruby Parker, a lonely widow with too much money and not enough sense to get a home security system. While my father claims he didn’t do it, who can believe him? He’s spent a lifetime as a broke drunk. His word is as good as the gold backing up the American dollar. And I’m pretty sure the United States Treasury is bankrupt.

  So many thoughts pour through my head. A mixture of hatred and pity. It tastes bittersweet as I bite down on the reality that Dad is probably gone for good. Not because he’ll be in the Durham County Detention Facility for the foreseeable future, but because of his own personal prison that he’ll never escape. He never even tried to be a father as he drank his life away, and now we’ll both grow older and further apart.

  I cling to a subtle sense of realization that I will miss bygone days, as crappy as they were, but I put that nostalgia on the backburner.

  A thought haunts me. What will my life become? What is my finish line? I didn’t crouch at the same starting line as everyone else. I’m a mess. I need a father. I want to be happy, to be at peace. I want to stop loving, stop needing, stop reaching for something to hold me above water and instead tread for myself. Yet I’m too tired to keep paddling against the current.

  I watched my father break down at the conclusion of his trial. Tears streamed down his face and convulsions shook his thick body as I watched his soul shatter. It was the epitome of hopelessness. I will always remember that moment because it touched me so deeply in a way I’ve never experienced. Raw emotion. Perhaps it was the culmination of my sister’s murder and Dad’s conviction—desperation at its darkest.

  I fear that with Dad’s sentencing I will become a blip on Fate’s screen, much like many who come and go in our lives, passing life by in a haze. Will Dad even think of me while he’s gone? I’m his only son, his firstborn, and somehow I’ve already been forgotten—a father-son connection that lasted a fleeting moment at my birth, then grew too tiresome for him to maintain. It hurts so much to love another person and then let them go. Suffering—is it inevitable with all relationships in life? The constant sifting of people, an ever-changing tide of hopeless relationships…?

  Perhaps everything is pointless and bleak. If my father indeed didn’t do the crime as he claims, justice is a farce. And if he did, trust is worthless. What is there to live for if nothing and no one can be counted on?

  Maybe one day I’ll find out. But today isn’t that day.

  Chapter 1

  2014

  The day that Mia Germaine ambled into my wreck of a life stretched into the most beautiful tragedy I would ever experience—if only it hadn’t required a blood sacrifice. The life of one I loved murdered at the hands of one I hated.

  My own sister, a too-young life snuffed out before her time. No prom dress shopping to max out Mom’s credit card. No getting wasted at her high school graduation party and regretting it. No “finding herself” at college. No husband to fight with. No kids to spoil. No regrets to enjoy and survive.

  Alexis Worthington’s life boiled down to a meager turnout at a poor man’s funeral where even the post-ceremony snacks came out of a generic Ritz Crackers box. After twenty-two years being six feet under in the funeral home’s cheapest box, Alexis was a rag-shrouded pile of dust by now. Meanwhile, my own perpetual rot continued daily.

  Worms of regret wriggled through my core. Parasites of depression bit at my flesh. I was always a moment away from becoming a soulless carcass—until Mia Germaine came along.

  Nothing could quell the devastation that shattered me into pieces of a man I no longer recognized… except for love.

  Me, Landon Worthington—a man who survived without love my entire childhood—would come to know love with such intimacy even Shakespeare couldn’t find words to describe it. I never understood it until Mia’s arrival on my doorstep. It was not a romantic infatuation with something shiny and pretty dangling in front of my face, lingering at my fingertips. Not a burning passion that sets sheets on fire. No, it was something so much deeper, much purer. A familiar embrace from someone whose heart you possess, and who possesses your own for eternity.

  Few ever experience this kind of love. It takes more than a grand gesture to feel it.

  It takes something extraordinary. Something bigger than me, bigger than you, bigger than life.

  It’s salvation.

  Mia did save my life, after all.

  It was a shame she couldn’t save every part of me, the worst parts of me.

  Some people leave footprints that wash away from the ebb and flow of life, while others cement them as a permanent reminder that they touched you in some meaningful way
. Mia’s tracks, while heavy and burdened with her own suffering, welcomingly stomped all over me, leaving in their prints puddles of hope where before there was none.

  I had witnessed too much death, too much pain for one soul to bear, but Mia washed it all away with a question that spurred an investigation that would not only capture a killer, but also free an innocent:

  “Do you think he really did it?”

  The query about my father’s conviction from two decades earlier challenged my own beliefs to the core. Was my father innocent of his crimes?

  Until Mia came along, I never had the balls to find out. She gave me the heart I needed to press for answers.

  But this isn’t a love story. Not the conventional kind, anyway. This is a story of friendship. Only the beginning of one, for now. It’s a story of recovering from loss, finding yourself amid tragedy, and clinging to that lifesaver when it’s tossed to you in the storm.

  I never gave up, even though I did eventually give in. Give in to what, you ask? Give in to the gift that Mia gave me. Together we would conquer our demons and rise from the wreckage of our mutual suffering. A father and son reconciled, and a victim’s eternal silence broken at last.

  I’ll warn you now that you aren’t going to get all the answers about my sister’s murder here. Not yet, at least. That’s a different tale, one that only Mia can tell.

  But you will get answers about how it all started, and how the bigger picture ends.

  While my brokenness started after Alexis’s murder in March of 1992, salvation was only twenty-two years behind it…

  Chapter 2

  1992

  Durham, North Carolina

  Wednesday, February 5

  5:03 p.m.

  Whoever says crime doesn’t pay has never been on the receiving end of the barrel of a gun. For Derek Worthington, crime was his only salvation today—his escape from certain death. He needed cash, and he needed it yesterday. And no one in his position came by that kind of cash without some kind of criminal activity.

  As the face of the man holding the weapon blurred into a hazy shadow beyond, all Derek could focus on was the black muzzle eyeing him, daring him to move.

  Luckily he wasn’t willing to take that dare.

  With 250 pounds of force behind him, Fivehead—his nickname on the streets, but never to his face, due to the long slope of his forehead that you could project a movie on—had barged through Derek’s front door only moments ago with a thirst for blood. Specifically Derek’s blood. Derek had only seen Fivehead’s face once before, and he had hoped to never see it again.

  That hope had proved promising… until today.

  “So da boss tells me to come down here and shake some sense into ya, Worthington. But from what I see, I don’t think ya got none.” Fivehead scowled at the shambles that Derek called a home. A draft from the kitchen reeked of molding leftovers, and the floors looked like they hadn’t seen a vacuum this century. “I’m wondering if you’re worth more dead than alive.”

  “Please… don’t kill me,” Derek begged.

  Images of his brains splattered across the peeling dandelion-yellow wallpaper flashed across his mind. In this horrific vision, a jagged hole gaped across the back of his head, edged by blood-matted brown hair and chunks of dandruff. The puke-green carpet sprinkled with red, the corduroy sofa stained with gray matter, his body in a lifeless heap on the floor.

  The visuals were too much to stomach.

  Derek felt a wetness slither down his leg, puddling at his feet. Not his proudest moment.

  Apparently the expanding damp spot on his trousers caught Fivehead’s eye as he cruelly smirked, then laughed.

  “Man up, Derek. Afraid of a piece of metal?” Fivehead waved the gun at Derek, then resumed his steady aim.

  “I don’t wanna die!” Derek sobbed.

  “Ya know why I’m here,” Fivehead’s gravelly voice continued, not an inkling of mercy tingeing his words. “Tell me why I shouldn’t kill ya right now.”

  “I can get the money. Ya know I’m good for it. I just need time.”

  “Good for it?” Fivehead snorted. “You’re good for nothin’, man. Boss ain’t happy to find out you’re late paying up again. If you ain’t gonna pay, you ain’t gonna play, my friend. You know the rules.”

  “I’ll get ya your money plus interest. I swear. I gotta plan.” Derek’s vow came out hoarse and trembly, a clear sign of weakness to an enforcer like Fivehead. But then again, the business end of the gun was inching closer to Derek’s temple than was comfortable.

  Fivehead tapped his chin with his thick index finger, his smile a riddle that Derek couldn’t solve. Either Fivehead would give him a second chance or kill him, and he was taking his time deciding. It was a psychological game of Russian roulette, but unfortunately Derek wasn’t holding the gun. Fivehead was.

  “I’ll tell ya what. I’m a nice guy. I’ll give you one week. One week,” Fivehead emphasized. “But if you have another excuse for me, I’m first goin’ after ya family so you can watch, then you’re next. And I assure you, my friend, no excuse will cut it.”

  “I gotcha, man. You won’t be sorry. I’ll have it all for ya.”

  “You better, or this will be the last thing you see.” Fivehead jabbed his pistol into Derek’s forehead, leaving a circular brand on his skin in case Derek questioned his sincerity.

  Derek believed the threat with all his cowardly heart. He knew Fivehead had killed before and would do it again without batting an eyelash. The only question was who would go first—his brother Dan? His sister-in-law Jennifer? His niece Alexis? His nephew Landon? That was the only family he had, and while he didn’t want to die at Fivehead’s hand, if he put his family in harm’s way, his brother would do a lot worse to him.

  Just as Fivehead turned to leave, he swung back around, his arm outstretched and aimed right at Derek’s head. Suddenly Derek felt the crack of metal against his skull, then blackness.

  What seemed like moments later, Derek blinked back to consciousness on the threadbare living room carpet in a prostrate heap of achy joints. As his eyes adjusted to the dim light of a 40-watt bulb perched crookedly in a shade-less lamp, he rubbed his throbbing temples. Then total recall kicked in.

  He had one week to come up with ten thousand dollars, or else he was a dead man walking.

  Chapter 3

  2014

  Thursday, May 8

  Restless nights are some of the most eloquent nights. Although ruthless, it is in the darkness where the soul murmurs sweet nothings to our fears, quelling them if only for a moment, then rousing them with new vigor. Nightfall is a time of reflection, of mourning, of yearning, of hoping, of seething. It’s in those loneliest of eves when truth reveals itself, showing its face from behind a mask of lies.

  I had lived my fair share of lies. But there was only one person I trusted enough with the truth.

  Mia.

  I knew I could tell her everything, and would tell her everything. In due time.

  Only, I had spoken what I felt today and now regretted the aftermath. It started with a phone call… and ended with an argument.

  “I don’t have proof or anything, but I’m not so sure your dad’s the one who should be behind bars,” Mia had speculated over the phone earlier that day. And for some reason her defense of my jerk father pissed me off.

  Why, you may ask? Because he abandoned our family, emotionally abused us for years, and may as well have left us for dead. He was the reason my sister was killed, and he was the reason my life could never be resurrected from the ashes. Thanks to Dad, I stopped believing in phoenixes years ago.

  As the recall of my conversation with Mia replayed in my head, my thoughts turned more grisly. Suffering hadn’t only preyed on my family, but on all of humanity. Doom circled above, like a vulture zeroing in on a carcass, delighting in its decay.

  Lying on my bed, I closed my eyes, still envisioning that vulture’s descent. Perhaps sleep had descended as well, because when
my cell phone chirped me awake, it was 5:53 a.m.

  I instantly knew who was calling. But I didn’t know why.

  “Mia Germaine… two calls in one night. What now?” I grumbled, letting my voice convey just how perturbed I was over the abrupt way our last conversation had ended.

  Silence. Then a meek voice rose across the vacant space. “I wanted to apologize… for everything. How can I make it up to you?”

  “You know my answer to that,” I stated matter-of-factly, a crooked grin creasing my lips.

  Our phone call not even an hour earlier had concluded on a sour note and a hang-up, so when Mia offered the peace pipe, I was ready to smoke it.

  “Beer and pizza?” she gambled tentatively.

  “You know me so well,” I replied.

  After she arrived at my house a few minutes later, we talked toppings and brews for several minutes, until the topic meandered to what caused our earlier dissension—whether my father had indeed robbed a house and wounded the resident, a crime he vehemently denied committing. I led the way down this conversational path.

  “I’ve been thinking a lot about it, and I’m starting to wonder about my dad’s involvement.”

  “So do you think he did it?” she asked point-blank, her hazel eyes wide and penetrating.

  It was an unvoiced question I had pondered many times over the years, eventually leading me to the conclusion that of course he did. He was a selfish ass, so why wouldn’t he have done it? But today my convictions swept that logic aside. I just didn’t know anymore.