Lizzie stopped going to work after a while. The hot water was turned off, but since she didn't shower anymore, she didn't notice.
She hadn't packed a lunch for Jordan in almost a week, but he never complained of hunger. The attendants at Pine Ridge probably fed him.
The lady had started to move.
Microscopic twitches had turned into slow, gentle stirrings. Lizzie imagined what the lady looked like underneath her shroud, made up stories for her. She was the exiled queen of a kingdom on the moon. She was an ancient sorceress, who commanded the instant worship of everyone who saw her. She was a dead goddess, lovely and terrible, who had been enshrined by her worshippers.
Jordan came into the room sometimes and asked for food. He had to ask quite a few times to get his mother's attention. She told him to kindly fuck off.
One day, she realized that she had not seen him in some time. She called listlessly around the apartment for him before realizing that he was probably at Pine Ridge. She managed to peel herself away from the lady on the bed and looked for her car keys. Funny, she hadn't noticed time passing this fast. It was almost evening by the time she made it outdoors.
Her car juddered to a start, the needle hovering on "E". She drove slowly and clumsily, her limbs did not want to move.
Pine Ridge's parking lot was nearly empty of cars. Good, she hated talking to the other parents.
The door was unlocked, though the lights were off and it seemed like no one was there.
"Jordan?" she called through the glass. "Jordie?"
No answer. She pushed groggily on the door for a minute until remembering that it opened the other way. She chuckled at her mistake.
Inside was dark, cold, and silent. The AC hissed gently as Lizzie floated dreamily over the floor, her feet barely touching the ground.
"Jordie," she called. Nothing by the blocks.
"Jordie," she called. No one in storybook corner.
"Jordie," she called. A small mound covered by Jordie's jacket lay inside the big world play area. Lizzie smiled triumphantly and drifted over to her son. She took hold of her son and shook his shoulder.
"I know you," said someone behind her.
Back at the precinct, Leon scowled and scratched furiously at his five o' clock shadow.
"Well, where the hell does this put us?" he groused. Jill poured herself another cup of coffee and sighed.
"Back to square one, I guess."
D handed her a small sweet on a square of paper. "Now, now, all you have to do is look at the evidence in new light."
Leon's scowl deepened. "Oh, is that all?"
D smiled and handed him a sweet. "Really, detective, you must try. Look at caterpillars."
Leon looked blankly at the Count, then at the sweet. "Caterpillars? Is that what's in that thing?"
D sighed and lowered the sweet. "No, but I suppose the word amaretto means nothings to you. Take the caterpillar. What images does that word bring up to you?"
Leon furrowed his brow. "Sticks, leaves, cocoons, butterflies-"
"Ah." The Count raised a finger. "But other insects have larvae, too. Other larvae can build pupae, sometimes almost identical to the order Lepidoptera. "
"Oh fabulous," Leon said, "You've cleared it up nicely, thanks."
The Count smile, not unkindly, and took Leon's hand. "Have you even found a chrysalis, perhaps in your own backyard?"
"Sure I have. What kid hasn't?"
"Then," the Count's smile widened, "has it ever hatched into something you didn't expect?"
The girl, Kyra, stood by the bookshelves. Lizzie wasn't sure how she hadn't noticed her.
"I know who you are," she said again, "and I don't think I like you."
Lizzie bristled. "Don't pretend you know me, little girl. I'm sure someone like you could never—"
"Elizabeth Greenwood."
"What?"
"Elizabeth Greenwood. She's a mystery writer. In Wales. I looked her up the other day. She's fifty-eight, has five kids, and a small series of mystery novels." Kyra stepped out of the shadows.
Lizzie felt a small panic build. "So? It's- it's a pretty common name!"
Kyra smiled patronizingly. "I'm sure. But that's not you. I know the real you. I've seen your face."
Jordan stirred at her feet. Lizzie prepared to run, leave his things behind.
"Yes, that face," Kyra continued, "the face you make whenever someone asks how your ex…husband, was it? Or boyfriend? I could never keep it straight."
Lizzie snarled. "Bitch, I'll tell you about my ex!"
Kyra looked at her calmly. "Oh, please, please do."
"He-"
"He promised to leave his wife, right? Oh, I'm sorry, he knocked you up before you were eighteen. No, wait, he was a violent trucker who hit you and your baby." Kyra's stare was arctic. "Please tell me when I get near the truth."
Lizzie swallowed, suddenly her throat felt ragged. "They're…he…"
"Just make sure it doesn't contradict the stories I got from the others, though how that could be possible I don't know."
Kyra came to a stop just in front of her. "That wasn't what tipped me off, though. You know what did?"
Lizzie couldn't answer. Instinct screamed at her to grab Jordan and get out, or at least get out.
Leon sat silent at his desk, hunger and regret gnawing at his insides. The woman was gone, along with her little boy, younger than Chris, and he sat here with nothing to show for it.
D had become the office fairy, passing out sweets and snacks to his fellow officers. Leon cringed when he heard Jim Nayart, twenty-year veteran and captain of the precinct's baseball team, squeal like a little girl when handed a fancy éclair.
D handed out his last sweet and drifted over to Leon's desk. "Still stumped, detective?"
"Yeah," he sighed morosely, "and I'm not doing any good for that kid either. I figure he's got the worst of it, either way."
D patted his arm. "Have a sandwich. You'll think better on a full stomach."
Leon growled, but bit into a stuffed pastry. At least he would have one less pain distracting him.
He thought of the girl at the bar, her testimony had thrown them off completely.
"Yeah," the girl said, "we're a lot better off without her working here. I was actually pretty glad when she left."
Jill's face mirrored his own shock. "You're…happy she's gone?"
Sandi shrugged. "More relieved, I guess. I'll get a lot more tips without her here, I know that much."
Jill's shock turned to outrage, but Leon felt oddly curious. "More tips?"
"Without her stealing them, yeah." Sandi cocked one hip and partially sat on the table. "But stealing money wasn't the half of it, man. That girl was poison. She tried to turn everyone against each other, even Sam and me. I lost my best friend since I was six to that bitch, not that it lasted. I guess in the end she just couldn't stop lying, and it all collapsed on her."
The two detectives gaped at her. Sandi drew herself up tall. "What? It's the truth. Ask Sam."
Sam, the owner, was behind the bar Counter. He confirmed Sandi's story, upping the ante with "I hope she never comes back, either."
"She really took money that didn't belong to her?"
"Wellll," Sam drawled, "there's lying to people so they'll give you money, and then there's just flat-out stealing. She did both. She hit up everyone for gas fare, food money, always sobbin' her little eyes out. She 'almost' had her gas shut off ten times in the same week before we got wise to her. She'd short people on change and skim the till, and it'd take forever to untangle who did what. I was just getting ready to kick her to the curb when she stopped coming in."
"Not that we were that worried," Sandi cut in, "she never worked her assigned shift, and sometimes she wouldn't come in for days on end. It was a while before we noticed, we were all at each other's throats."
Jill cleared her throat. "So, was there a man in the picture?"
"Sure," Sam chuckled, "a ton of 'em. She picked up customers all the time."
"What about an ex?" Leon asked.
"Oh yeah," Sandi replied, "plenty of those, but we never saw any of 'em. She'd come back from a few days off with these wild tales about her ex kidnapping her kid and trying to make her do drugs, crazy shit like that. We finally caught her one day after she said her ex took her car keys, so she couldn't come to work. Tracy saw her at a salon, getting her hair streaked. That's about the time we started putting two and two together."
Jill nodded. "Thank you for your time."
They had a silent ride back to the precinct.
"If she was really that bad," Leon mused, "why didn't anyone else notice? The sweet old ladies at the preschool swore up and down that her ex had kidnapped her and the kid when they called us."
D had pulled up a chair beside him. "Yes, but which ex? Did you ask their individual stories? They might have conflicted with each other."
Leon ground his face into his hand. Now he was simply tired, grouchy, frustrated, and hot. The hunger, however, had vanished.
"So a poor, innocent working mom turns out to be not so innocent and poor, and I'm still nowhere on this case. This is going to drag on for months, I know it."
"Actually," replied a timid voice "I might be able to help."
An older woman had appeared behind D, looking nervous.
"I know Lizzie," she said, "I happen to be her mother."
"It was that look you get, when someone asks about your ex. Or when someone talks about your relationship with your son. I used to see it on my father's face when he swore up and down that my mother had tripped…" she took a step closer, "or run into a door…" another step, "or fell down the stairs…"
Kyra stood too close, staring her right in the eye. Though she barely exceeded Lizzie in height, the preschool worker seemed to tower over her.
"It's the look of a bad liar who is afraid that someone will catch them out, that this lie is the one they will see through. It is the look of a coward, panicking, because they might have to face someone who can fight back."
Lizzie swallowed. The door to the outside was just in the periphery of her vision, she just needed a chance.
"It's funny," Kyra said, crossing her arms, "but when she finally went to court to divorce him, he swore up and down that she'd done it to herself, that she'd cheated on him, that he was really the one who deserved my sister and I…and that's what I really can't stand, Ms. Greenwood or whatever your name is, when someone like you pretends to be a victim—"
Lizzie's purse sailed through the air; Kyra caught it just as Lizzie wrenched her son up from the ground and bolted for the door. With the few second's head start, she was out the door before Kyra was halfway across the floor, starting her car as the other woman flung the door open and raced after them. Her car peeled out of the parking lot, ran a stop sign, and roared into the night.
Jordan huddled in the passenger's seat, staring at his mother. "Where are we going?"
Lizzie smiled. "Home," she whispered, "home."
"Hello, Mrs. Greenwood?"
The woman's brow crumpled in confusion. "Who?"
Leon coughed into his hand. "I'm sorry, have a seat. Your name, please?"
The woman smiled and gently lowered herself into the chair unoccupied by Count D. "Rachel Graham. I think you might know my daughter."
Jill scrambled to find a notepad. "We might. Have you heard from your daughter lately?"
"No, not in four years."
The pen stopped before it hit paper. "Excuse me?"
"I haven't heard from her in four years. Her landlord found my number on some old forms and called me, apparently she's missed out on quite a bit of rent."
"So, you don't know what your daughter's been up to?"
"I was hoping you could tell me that." the older woman smiled joylessly. "We ended on…less than friendly terms. I never stopped worrying about her, though."
Jill began writing. "It might help us if you could tell me what she was like. How did she grow up?"
"Poor." The older woman sighed. "But I worked hard so that she could have the same things that other children could. My husband died when she was two, and Lizzie became my world. I did everything for her, to make her feel that she was loved…and special."
She shook her head. "I think that was part of the problem. She was always telling me about the horrible things the other children did to her, and I would go off on their parents, the teachers, anyone. It got worse as she got older, and I almost took her out of school a few times. Then one day the police showed up. Apparently I had been reported as a severe child abuser, depriving the daughter I had worked my hands to the bone for of food, locking her in our basement, things like that. What had I done?" she laughed miserably. "I had told her that we didn't have the money for a set of clothes she wanted to buy, and when she stole money from me to buy it, I made her sit in her room for an hour."
Jill's pen scribbled furiously on the paper. "She called the police on her own mother?"
"Yes, though it wasn't the last time. I began to notice that whenever she accused the other children of doing something, the other children accused her of doing it herself and blaming them. I finally caught her out when she blamed another girl in her class for taking a piece of jewelry. The other girl said that Lizzie had stolen a ring from her, the only thing she had left to remember her grandmother. I…found it in my daughter's things. When I confronted Lizzie with it, she just looked and me and said," The old woman leaned forward and put her head in her hands, "she said, 'but mom, I deserve it' and burst into tears."
D patted her hand, and she started. The enigmatic man gave her a comforting smile.
"So you're saying she's a compulsive liar?" Leon confirmed.
"Yes, among other things. She took my wedding dress; I'm not sure what she did with it because I never saw it again. Once I stopped believing everything she said, we stopped being friends and she became my enemy. She began to tell her boyfriends that I would hit her, take her money, do drugs. She would have somewhere else to sleep for a while, until it fell through and she would drag herself back home. It was this vicious cycle that just went on and on….until she got pregnant."
Author's note: man this was a talky chapter. I'll try not to be the exposition fairy in the future, sorry. Final chapter is next!