Liars' Club: Chapter Three

Mickey, the bass player was sitting in the living area working on a tune while Pete sat beside him contributing ridiculous lyrics. It was just the kind of fun atmosphere that would have had Joe jumping to join in but not today.

"Guys, I need a favor," Joe said and they were both instantly captivated by the serious tone of his voice. "We've known each other a long time and I need you guys to trust me and let me do something you normally wouldn't agree to."

"Okay," Mickey answered for both of them. "What's up?"

"I need to search this house."

"For what?" Mickey asked, but before Joe could respond Pete cut in.

"Look, if it's about your stuff getting stolen, I'm pretty sure I know where you can find it."

This was news to Mickey. His gaze bobbed from Joe to Pete then back to Joe again. "We've got a thief in our midst?"

"Barbie," Pete admitted with a shrug. "She's kind of a klepto. I thought she was over it but I've heard the rumblings about stuff going missing. . . "

Joe could hardly believe his ears. "You knew about that and you didn't say anything?"

"I was supposed to rat her out to her friends? She's sick, man and she's trying to get over it. She's got daddy issues."

And I've got brother issues, Joe thought. "See, that's the problem. Secrets. Lies." He was getting off track. "I need to search the house now, with or without your permission."

"Looking for what?" Mickey asked, more perplexed than angry.

"For a killer." Joe headed straight for the bedroom and the nearest dresser drawers.

"Are you nuts?" Pete exclaimed as both boys followed. At least they weren't trying to stop him.

"Someone poisoned Frank. Probably last night at the party. I got a note saying that one of our friends is hiding a big secret. I have to find out what it is or Frank dies."

Joe tore through the first drawer, found nothing of interest then moved to the next.

"This is a joke, right?" Mickey asked, forcing out an unnatural laugh. "A prank."

"I wish. But Frank's lying in bed in so much pain he can't even breathe. Go see if I'm joking."

Second drawer held nothing but clothes. He moved on to the next as Mickey stepped into his line of vision. "Hey, man, really. This is on the level?"

Joe nodded. "I've already checked out the others and I'm not finding what I'm supposed to find. This is the last place I can look."

"You think one of us poisoned Frank?" Pete asked.

Joe slammed the last drawer shut but it got stuck on a t-shirt that wasn't flat. He shoved again and again until Mickey pulled him away and did it for him.

"No. I think one of you has the secret. One of you has to be hiding something so bad. . . " He moved to the nearest bed then sat down so he could go through the nightstand. "It's personal. It has to be. It's not petty theft or drugs. . . it has to mean something to me. Why else would the killer choose me?"

"Because everyone knows that the Hardy boys are master detectives," said Mickey. "You want to solve a mystery, you go to them."

"You go to Frank!" Joe yanked the drawer out of the nightstand and spilled the contents on the bed. "Frank's the smart one. He's the one who spots the clues. Not me. Why didn't they poison me?"

"Hey," Mickey dropped to one knee in front of Joe like he was going to propose. Any other time it would have been funny. "Listen to me, man. You're as smart as he is, just in a whole different way. If this lunatic singled you out, it was for a reason. Like maybe Frank's the one with something to hide."

Joe wanted to reject that theory instantly but logic and desperation made him give it a second thought. What if Frank wasn't just a pawn? What if Frank was being punished?

"Can't be," said Pete. "No secrets between brothers, right?"

Joe said, "right," but there wasn't a lot of conviction behind it.

"Sure," Mickey said as he gave Joe's shoulder a slap. "That's why I'm no detective. Gotta stick with my guitar. Stick with what I know." He was trying to back pedal but the seed had already been planted. "Search away, buddy. I got nothing to hide. None of us do."

And Joe really wanted to believe that, but if no one had anything big to hide then Frank was doomed and Joe might not ever know why.

BR BR BR

Joe spent more than an hour going through the house and except for a stash of porn magazines; he didn't find anything worth hiding.

Going back to square one, he confronted Evelyn Scripps and her husband. He saw the fear in the woman's eyes when he told her he knew her real identity. He heard the anguish in her husband's voice when he begged Joe not to tell. Ekaterina was a Russian athlete, who had defected during a competition in England. They were in love. And he had spent every dime he had to buy her a new identity, a new life.

It was a big secret, but somehow Joe knew it wasn't the answer.

With nowhere else to turn, Joe went back to the beach house.

Frank was asleep when he got there, which was good because he didn't think he could look him in the eye and admit defeat.

Liz hugged him tight and kissed his cheek then left them alone. She was in tears, but Joe didn't have the strength to bolster her spirits, not with his own tears threatening to fall.

Night was approaching and with it, a burst of cool sea air. It felt good at first, but Joe worried when he saw Frank shivering in his sleep. He unfurled another blanket over his brother, then went to close the sliding door.

Some of the guys had started a fire pit on the beach and he could hear soft strains of guitar music. A gathering away from the group caught his eye. It was dark and shadowy but Logan's build made him easy to pick out. But who was he talking to? Joe peered through the darkness and decided on Liz and Pete.

They were probably filling Logan in on all that had happened. He couldn't hear them but he could see Pete wrap a comforting arm around Liz then they walked back toward the fire pit.

No comfort here.

Joe went back to the bed then set his hand on Frank's forehead. His skin was cold and damp. Even in sleep, the pain was evident on his face.

One last shot.

Joe left the house then walked down the beach, keeping to the shadows so he wouldn't be noticed by the group. He dragged himself down to the water's edge then stood there and screamed into the air.

"Tell me what you want! Tell me what I can do to fix this! Please!"

"Joe."

He whirled, hoping to find the answers he needed but instead he found his brother. "What are you doing out of bed? You need to rest."

"Won't help." Frank took a step toward him, stumbled and ended up falling into Joe's arms.

Joe considered helping right him, then decided to just let go and together they dropped into the sand. Frank tried to say something but his words were washed away on a moan and the rest was covered by the heavy pounding of the surf.

"I did the best I could, Frank. I did the best I could." Joe pulled his brother into his lap and then there was no stopping the tears. The reality of what was happening was too much to bear. Second thoughts about the hospital, about the police, about taking Frank home ripped Joe's insides to shreds. He couldn't share his brother's physical pain, but the mental and emotional anguish was just as bad. With one difference. Joe was going to survive, Frank wasn't.

"I don't know what else I can do. I've looked everywhere. I've talked to everyone."

"Not everyone."

Joe's head shot up and he saw Ryan standing there, framed in the distant firelight.

"You didn't ask the one person closest to you. You didn't ask Frank about his secrets."

Frank unfolded himself and took a breath so he could speak. "You did this to me? How could you? After what we did?"

"Poisoning you was easy. Blood was rushing through your body so hard, you never even felt it. Letting you touch me was the hard part. Knowing what you'd done. It's different when the girl's pretty. Isn't it? It's no joke unless she's fat. And you tell yourself she wants it, so it's not really rape, is it?"

"What are you talking about?" Joe asked, anger slowly simmering away the tears. "Frank would never force himself on anyone."

"Says the little brother who idolizes his big brother. The truth is, he's a pig. He ruined Mandy's life and didn't give it a second thought. Him and his cool friends. Humiliating her like that. Destroying any chance she had of being happy."

"The picture." Frank struggled up to his hands and knees but he couldn't get up from there. "In her drawer. Mandy."

Joe flashed back to the photo they'd found. Ryan with a chubby young woman.

"Haven't seen her since I was fifteen," Frank folded again and landed flat on his back in the sand. "Never touched her."

"You did!" Ryan reached into her pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. "She kept the note. Can you believe it? Even after you and your friends raped her and humiliated her, she kept it because it was the only connection she'd ever have to you." She threw the paper at Frank. It landed on his shoulder then the wind caught it but Joe plucked it from the air.

Mandy,

Meet me under the pier at midnight. I can't wait to touch you, kiss you. It will be our night.

Frank

"This isn't his handwriting. He didn't write this note."

"He was fifteen and horny and his friends were laughing while he wrote it out. I imagine that might have affected his handwriting, don't you think? He lured her out to the pier and they took turns with her. Him and another guy and a girl. Can you believe that? A girl helped him do this."

"I didn't." Frank cried out as his body convulsed with a new level of pain. "I swear. I didn't touch her. I wouldn't ever –"

"Liar!" Ryan ran at him so fast Joe barely had time to catch her and still she bucked and kicked at her target. "You bastard!"

"Do you have the antidote?" Joe screamed in her ear.

"Yes! But he's not getting it unless he confesses."

"And if he does, you'll give it to him?"

"Yes!"

"Why?" Frank ground out. "Why save me?"

"Because living with the truth is much worse than dying. Your friends, your brother, they'll never be able to look you in the eye again. And maybe when you get tired of being shunned and alone, you'll kill yourself like Mandy did. Bastard!"

She threw herself forward at Frank and Joe countered tossing her back into the sand. "Frank. Tell her what she wants to hear." He dropped to his brother's side. "Tell her you did it and she'll stop it."

"No! I didn't do it!" Frank folded in on himself, arms wrapped tightly around his cramping stomach. "I won't lie just to live."

"That's stupid! God damn it! Frank, just tell her! Say you raped that girl!"

"No! I didn't do it!"

"I did it." Joe whipped around and saw Pete, Logan and Liz. "We did it," Pete continued. "It wasn't supposed to . . . we weren't supposed to go so far but we were high and it got out of control."

Ryan stumbled back as if she'd been punched. She looked at the group then back at Frank and Joe in the sand. "No. He was in on it. He wrote the note."

"I wrote the note," said Pete. "I signed Frank's name because we knew she had a crush on him. It was a big joke, that she thought someone like him could want her. Even back then, we kinda looked alike so in the dark, she probably thought it was him. But it was me."

"It was all of us," Liz said through a new torrent of tears. "And I've hated myself for it every day since. I swear. If I could do that day over, I would have stopped the boys. I swear, I would have. Now please, please don't let Frank die for what we did."

Ryan stared at the group for a moment, probably wondering who to believe.

"Meet me under the pier at midnight. It will be our night," said Pete, repeating the words from the note. "There was a little more, but that's most of it. I'm telling you, Frank wasn't involved. That was all me."

Ryan moaned softly, then she reached her hand down inside her shirt and pulled out a small liquor bottle like you get on a plane. She tossed it in the sand in front of Joe. "That'll help. The poison is in a small perfume bottle in my nightstand."

A bottle Joe had touched while searching Ryan's things. He snatched up the liquor bottle, twisted off the cap then helped Frank drink what was inside.

"Tell the doctors to give him Pralodixime, 30 milligrams."

"I'll call an ambulance," said Liz then she ran back toward the houses.

Logan stepped forward to help with Frank but Joe waved him away. "I can take care of him myself." Joe got his arm under Frank's shoulder then lifted him to his feet. Moving slowly, they made their way back up the beach.

In the back of his mind, Joe knew he should do something about Ryan and maybe even his three friends, but he couldn't bring himself to care. Getting Frank back to normal was all that mattered. Until then, he wasn't going to think about anything else.

Joe paused outside of his brother's hospital room and pushed back the wave of emotion that threatened to overtake him, again. Frank was on his way to a full recovery but the close call was still playing on his nerves. He sucked in a deep breath, then pushed open the door.

Frank was sitting up in bed, hooked up with too many wires and tubes to be comfortable, but still he smiled at the sight of his brother.

"Where have you been?"

"I had to go to down to the police station to help sort out this mess." Joe stepped up to the side of the bed and gripped the raised metal railing. "They've got Ryan in custody and the Sheriff said he'd come by to take your statement tomorrow, when you're feeling better."

Frank's smile faded into a thin-lipped frown. "She was quite the little actress. I really thought she cared about me, but I guess that was the point. What about Liz and the guys?"

"The Sheriff interviewed them and then let them go. It'll be up to the DA if he wants to press charges but it's tough. They were juveniles, Mandy's gone. If they decide to change their story there's not much the DA can do."

"I guess. It's weird. They're our friends and I don't want to see them go to jail but . . . "

"I know. Liz told me that she considered reporting what they'd done a dozen times after that day. It's part of the reason she started popping pills, to erase the guilt. She's going to talk to her dad about rehab."

"Wow, that'll be a tough conversation."

"Yeah, but I think she's ready to go there." Joe set his hand on Frank's shoulder then just as quickly pulled it away. "I was really scared, Frank. I kept thinking that I'd made a mistake. That I should have forced you to go to the hospital or that I should have called the police. I thought—" Joe leaned forward to hug his brother but the railing and the IV line made it awkward at best. "I thought you were going to die. I don't know what I would have done if—"

"Hey, you did good. Better than good." Frank lifted his hand and weakly took hold of Joe's arm. "I never doubted you'd get me through this. But there is one thing I'd like to know. The truth."

"About what?"

"When Ryan showed you the note and told you what happened to Mandy. Did you ever, even for an instant, think I did it?"

"No. Never. You would never hurt someone like that and besides, we're brothers and brothers don't keep secrets from each other." Joe believed it to be true and he hoped it always would be, but in the back of his mind he couldn't help wondering if someday, sometime, even he and Frank would become members of the Liars' Club.

The End