Pretty Ugly Lies: a gripping and chilling domestic noir Read online

  The playhouse and its multitude of colorful hidden compartments were mere feet away, so I figured Abby had left Amelia inside to wait for her. I stooped to peek under and through every nook, expecting to find a chubby three-year-old with a curly ponytail tucked inside as she hid, giggling.

  While I came face to face with toddlers galore, none matched my blond-haired, blue-eyed, hot-pink-adorned daughter. After the last section of playhouse turned up empty, panic officially overtook me. I felt my world shifting, quaking beneath weak knees that threatened to toss me to the ground.

  “Where is the person who had the puppies, Abby?” This time the question came out in a loud, off-key warble as my lungs clenched up. I couldn’t breathe.

  “The man over there asked if we wanted to hold them …” Abby pointed an unsteady finger at an empty park bench. “He was right there on that bench. I swear.”

  A strange man with puppies.

  My baby girl missing.

  Every mother’s worst nightmare come to fruition.

  I began freaking out.

  Adrenaline kicked in. My body launched into a frantic headlong dash over every square inch of shaded green expanse that led to the parking lot, but still no Amelia.

  I heard my heart thrumming in my ears. Strange, because it felt like it was in my throat.

  “Amelia!” I screamed as loudly as my parched lungs would allow. Then to Abby I ordered, “You stay put and don’t talk to anyone. Just stand here and keep an eye out for your sister, okay?”

  She numbly nodded, tears wetting her eyes. But I had no time to comfort her.

  “Amelia!” I called again, drawing the attention of several other mothers ambling around as their children played, recognition and fear ghosting their features with traces of relief as they quickly took inventory of their own progeny.

  By now too many minutes had passed, and the longer it took me to find her, the more trouble she could be in. I sprinted for the parking lot, glancing back to make sure Abby hadn’t disobeyed. As I neared the curb, I couldn’t decide which way to start looking. There were too many cars coming and going, too many people, too many children.

  I picked the more congested side of the parking lot, figuring my daughter’s abductor would have wanted to slip in among the masses.

  As I ran, the word sank in: abductor.

  My daughter—abducted. Kidnapped. Murdered?

  The sequence of thoughts was a train rumbling full-steam, unable to stop in time before it smashed into me.

  The sobs and screams for her blended into one frightening, pain-struck chorus. I choked on her name, praying at every car I passed that it’d all been an overreaction. I’d see her chubby little arms wrapped around a squeaky puppy as its tongue lapped at her ruddy cheek.

  But as I neared the end of the parking lot with no sign of Amelia, my hope for a happy ending was all but dead.

  I needed to call the police. I reached for my cell phone, but my pocket was empty. I must have left it on the bench back at the soccer field. Circling back through the parking lot from the other direction, every empty car turned up more fear.

  No Amelia.

  And no way to find out who took her.

  By now my heart spasmed from the intense workout I hadn’t trained for. My lungs felt like they were ripping apart in my chest as each breath grew more constricted. I needed to stop running, try breathing, pull myself off the brink of a panic attack, but my daughter’s life depended on me, and the adrenaline pushed my legs forward.

  I made it back to Abby and yelled at her to follow me, then sprinted to the bench where I found my cell phone. Punching in the three digits I had never in my life expected to use, the operator answered and through my tears and hysteria I was able to push out the words no mother should ever have to utter:

  “My name is Jo Trubeau and my daughter has been kidnapped.”

  Chapter 3

  Ellie Harper

  I’m not a suspicious woman. I’ve never been the jealous type. I have trusted everyone with the naivety of a child, and blissfully so. Well, at least until now. Today, however, I became someone I didn’t recognize.

  The chill of the gray tile permeated through the pockets of my jeans and deep into my marrow as I sat cross-legged on the laundry room floor. The scent of fresh linen wafted around me, offering a cheerful refreshment masking the sweaty-meets-worn-socks odor of overflowing piles of dirty clothes that I had no time to deal with.

  Stay-at-home moms don’t own the luxury of free time.

  After a grocery run in the morning—checking out a brimming cart full of all-organic fruits and veggies and healthy meals planned for the week, while nine-year-old Logan whined for candy as I dragged him from aisle to aisle—I came home to wash, dry, and fold laundry during a DVR’d episode of The Bachelor, while Denny watched SportsCenter in the bedroom and the kids stayed out of my hair. SportsCenter was the reason our sex life dried up. Just the sound bite of the theme song of that show made my libido as arid as the Sahara and made me feel homicidal.

  Perhaps I didn’t really know what homicidal felt like until today.

  Today it felt real.

  Today it scalded my brain with thoughts of stabbing Denny, poisoning him, shooting him, burning him, watching him beg for mercy. I wanted him to share the pain he was putting me through—misery, a hateful emotion I had never experienced before.

  I’ve always been the last to admit that I harbor a shallow pool of resentment for giving up my career as a speech therapist so that Denny’s dreams could come true—birthing and raising Darla and Logan, now my reasons for living and breathing. Children and homemaking took over my life, were my reason for breathing, leaving little room for myself. And I was okay with that. I loved my family, even if they didn’t always show it back. Deep down, they had to love me in return, right? I didn’t need a career, though sometimes I wondered why I couldn’t have it all.

  All that work for my PhD made worthless, except when a telemarketer would call, addressing me as Miss Harper and I’d correct them to call me Doctor Harper just for fun. My doctorate was laughable really, since I’d never done anything with it after Denny. We’d barely breached the threshold of the honeymoon suite before he started negotiations about having kids. And in my compliance and sense of obligation, I had agreed we’d start trying right away. Anything to make my husband happy. In fact, it was likely we conceived that very night. As my aspirations of a career fizzled out, I had figured out a new place for me in this world—world’s best wife and mommy—and I was okay with it. Well, okay enough.

  But today I was no longer okay.

  Today I poured out what was left of my heart into a puddle of tears on this damn ceramic floor.

  I clutched my husband’s shirt, analyzing through watery eyes the oxblood stain of lipstick that I knew wasn’t mine. I hadn’t kissed his neck since too long to remember, and domesticated moms like me didn’t wear this shade of whore red, anyway. If that wasn’t enough, I could taste the overpowering floral perfume only a tramp would wear that clung to the collar.

  I couldn’t remember the last time Denny had told me I was beautiful, or that he loved me. Weeks, maybe months had gone by without a hug or passionate kiss, though God knows I had tried to make the moves, since I had needs too. An off-to-work peck on the cheek was all I got these days. Years of marriage had watered down his interest in me, and years of neglect had watered down my hope for rekindled romance.

  For about a year we were spiraling headlong into becoming another divorce statistic. And now this—lipstick stains and perfume remnants, the proverbial nail in the coffin.

  The evidence was too obvious, carelessly tossed on top of the laundry basket. It was almost as if he wanted me to find this to hurt me.

  Or maybe it was too obvious to be anything at all.

  It didn’t make sense that Denny wouldn’t have hidden his secret—his marriage-destroying, life-upheaving secret. Unless he wanted to destroy the life we’d built for the past twelve years?

/>   Perhaps I was overthinking the stain. It could have been a saucy spill from dinner. Hadn’t we had spaghetti bolognese a couple days ago? Or maybe Logan had dropped one of his markers in the laundry basket, which bled on Denny’s shirt.

  No matter what excuses I conjured up, my mind circled back to the same inescapable conclusion.

  Those were lip prints.

  The end was near.

  I should have seen it coming. The signs were everywhere. We hadn’t gone on a date night in months. Our love life had dwindled into bland missionary-style humping a couple times a month that lasted just as long as it would take him to finish and an occasional birthday blowjob. I imagined a blond, big-haired bimbo’s head bobbing up and down as she pleasured my husband in ways I hadn’t for far too long.

  Did this mean it was my fault?

  Where did it go wrong? I remember how in love we were, how he rubbed my back every night as we nestled on the couch, how when we first bought our house, we christened every room, even the laundry room—my personal favorite as the dryer drummed in the background—how we couldn’t keep our hands off each other. Now those hands were on another.

  Was this the fate of every modern-day marriage?

  In the living room down the hall, the television blared an annoying childish melody as the kids laughed at the show. Somehow they had managed to take over the living room television, even though they had their own playroom. Once again my wants, my needs fell to the bottom of the list. I needed to think, but the shrill voices drowned out the monologue that rampaged through my head.

  Wiping the salty tear and snot mixture from my heated face with my husband’s shirtsleeve, I blinked my eyes dry and rose weakly to my feet. My stomach lurched at the unwanted upright posture and I feared I was going to be sick, but I knew if I didn’t make an appearance, the kids would come looking for me. Not because they cared, of course. But because they’d want a snack or a drink, or just to disrupt any peace I might have. God forbid I take a moment to myself to digest losing my husband to another woman.

  Right now I didn’t feel up to explaining that Mommy was hiding and sobbing in the laundry room because Daddy was a cheating bastard.

  I snuck past the children, searching for Denny. After peeking into my empty bedroom, I rounded the corner that opened up into the living room, where afternoon sun flooded through the windows, illuminating a sea of floating dust particles in the air.

  “Did you finish your homework?” I asked Darla, as if my world hadn’t toppled off its axis and cast me into a perpetually suffocating outer space.

  “Shut up,” she spat. “You’re interrupting the good part.”

  Normally I’d accept defeat and retreat. I know, it was the worst possible thing a parent could do, letting the child talk that way, grabbing the upper hand. But I’d spent years fighting back, only to have Denny take the kids’ side. So my go-to move was robotic compliance. Until now.

  “Don’t speak to me like that. I’m your mother. Now answer my question or I’ll beat it out of you.”

  With wide green eyes she looked up at me, the shock apparent in the crinkles of her worried brow.

  “Geez, what’s your problem?” she mumbled. “It’s already done and in my book bag.”

  I thanked her stiffly. Darla, my responsible but bratty eleven-year-old. So organized and on top of things … including her little brother. On more than one occasion I’d found her with her knees pinned against his back, grinding his head into the carpet. When they fought, they fought hard. Hair-pulling, nails-scratching, feet-kicking hard.

  I couldn’t remember the last time I had fought with Denny. I wondered if it would be tonight.

  “Any tests you need to study for?”

  “Already done,” Darla replied mechanically.

  “Good girl,” I praised in a mournful monotone. I wasn’t doing such a good job of masking my feelings and I didn’t care.

  In fact, I wanted Darla to ask what was wrong. I wanted someone to notice my pain. In my life, the world was colorblind and I was the color red. No one saw me for who I really was.

  But Darla didn’t ask, and I didn’t tell. She hadn’t even offered another glance as her eyes remained fixed on the show in front of her.

  “Do you know where Daddy is?” I asked.

  “Nope.” Then she went back to numb TV watching as if her monosyllabic answer was enough.

  “Darla!” I barked.

  She started, glaring at me. “What?” I hated the way her voice rose with a teenage annoyance that she was too young to know about yet.

  “You didn’t answer me. Where’s your father?”

  “Am I supposed to keep track of where everyone is all the time?” And there it was again—the insolence, like a sixteen-year-old trapped in an eleven-year-old’s body. How did it start so soon with girls?

  “I just need to find him. It’s important, Darla. Please.”

  “Sorry, Mommy.” Then once again I was reminded that nope, she hadn’t quite grown up yet. I was still her mommy. A memory lingered of the platinum blond little girl who loved wearing pigtails and splashing in puddles after a storm.

  “It’s okay. So where’s Daddy?”

  “He went out on the porch,” she blurted, returning to her television entrancement.

  I ambled to the back porch, wondering how to act, what to say. I’d been married to the man for twelve years and yet I suddenly had no idea how to be around him.

  Through the sliding glass door I went, making sure to shut it all the way behind me. Sitting under the veranda nursing a Heineken was Denny, fiddling with his phone, or maybe typing a text to his lover.

  I wondered what she looked like. I already knew what she smelled like and what lipstick color she wore while screwing my husband, but other than those vague details, was she prettier than me? Blond? Younger than me? Skinnier than me?

  I’d already drafted a picture in my head of a tight-tummied, big-boobed twenty-something slut who could afford those abs because she’d never had children, and whose breasts remained full and perky because she’d never nursed a baby, and whose skin was flawless and tan because she’d never spent sleepless nights tending to sick kids or early mornings rushing around hauling them off to school and on errands. I bet she didn’t spend her evenings buying mountains of groceries that her disgruntled children would complain about the next day, then come home to fold countless tiny superhero shirts and glittery shorts and days-of-the-week underwear and mismatched socks while mindlessly watching television alone.

  No, Denny’s mistress was above all of that, I was sure.

  I was dirty laundry and stress lines and gray hairs. She was forbidden passion and sultry breaths and flirty whispers. She was everything I wasn’t, everything I couldn’t be.

  Denny glanced up at me as a pocket of air followed me out of the house. If I were to describe Denny in one word, it’d be distinguished. Although his brown hair was peppered with gray, none of his other features evidenced any indication of his years. It was unfair how men became distinguished and women just became old. He’d maintained a desirable charm with his effervescent smile and sparkling green eyes that I couldn’t look away from. As if a tiny finger had molded its imprint on his chin, I found his chin dimple—or chimple, as I liked to tease him with—sexy. Darla inherited his eyes, but Logan inherited his smile.

  “Hey, babe. What’s up?” he asked me.

  I know what you’ve been doing when you say you’re working late, I wanted to reply. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. Not yet.

  “Nothing much,” I said instead. “Mind if I join you?”

  “Sure.” He pulled out a seat next to him, patting the striped navy and white cushion on the mocha wicker patio set. The overhead tropical ceiling fan lazily wafted a light breeze over us, the palm blades mesmerizing as they circled.

  “What are you up to hiding out here all alone?” I made an attempt at playful, but it sounded forced, stilted. Accusing.

  “Just playing on my phone.” He flashe
d me a glimpse of his screen where little colorful objects were flying in all directions. Every few seconds it buzzed or dinged at him. “What’s for dinner?”

  “Chicken parmesan,” I stated with a lift of my lips.

  “Sounds great, babe, just be sure not to overcook the pasta again,” he said with his eyes fixed on his phone. I couldn’t remember the last time he actually looked at me, saw me. Something was always in the way, it seemed.

  “I bought you that Belgium beer you like—Chimay.” I wanted so badly for him to notice me standing there, desperate for his attention. Why was it such a struggle?

  “Thanks. You’re a doll.”

  And thus concluded our standard conversation as I grew weary faking it, standing there like an idiot while he ignored and belittled me. I headed back inside, toward the master bedroom where I had picked out every color, every accent piece to portray what I thought our marriage represented back when we first moved in. Deep teals and fuscias, colors of passion. Subtle floral accents and wispy curtains, a Bohemian den of relaxation. Soft chenille blankets to caress our skin to sleep. I wanted our bedroom to be a place of serenity and feverish lovemaking. Time had worn away those emotions for Denny, but not for me. Maybe I loved him too much.

  Opening my bedside table, I picked up my worn leather journal and the pen tucked next to it. I needed my outlet. Denny often teased me that it was adolescent to keep a diary, but some thoughts were too dark, too fragile to share with any human, and yet they still needed to be expressed. I wondered if Denny ever picked it up to secretly read, but I doubted it. I wouldn’t have minded—in fact, I wanted him to yearn for a peek into my riddled brain, into my secrets, but he didn’t care enough to be curious.

  It hurts—my heart, my soul. I think I’m losing Denny. Maybe I already lost him altogether …

  I scribbled. My eyes grew heavy with tears as the words I couldn’t speak flowed through my pen.

  How can a marriage survive unrequited love? I want to reach him, but he’s so distant. He never touches me anymore. He never asks how I am. He’s so consumed with work and his phone that he doesn’t see me or the kids. I know the kids sense it too—that we’re losing him. But they don’t seem to care. He isn’t their life after all, like he is mine. He’s just their for-now, but he’s my forever. All they do is fight and complain. They act like they hate me. Is this normal? It can’t be.