Liar Liar Read online

  Vada led me to a thick beam supporting the heavy trusses above us and cut the cable tie from my wrists, yanking me into position with my arms behind me around the beam. She slipped another tie around my wrists.

  I watched Regan as Vada secured me. He was leaner than I had anticipated, his body probably worn from the chase and his injury in the Georges River. His hair was longer. Even with a face that had been windswept and hardened, his eyes were a little too big, too blank, like those of a man reminiscing and not really focusing. I thought of those cold eyes gazing over Eloise Jansen as he worked on her, or staring down the hallway at little Isobel Parish as she ran desperately from him.

  Regan didn’t look at Vada as she stepped away from me. Those dead eyes were only for me.

  “Did she give you any trouble?” he asked.

  “No,” Vada said. “She was fine.”

  “He was talking to me, you idiot,” I snapped at Vada. Anything I could do to undermine her confidence in him. To try to warn her about what was coming. I turned back to Regan. “No, she was fine. Now let her go. Let her turn herself in. She might be able to convince a prosecutor that you brainwashed her, threatened her, maybe. Stockholm syndrome. I’m sure you could come up with something, Vada. You’re a shrink. You could get parole in fifty years if you play your cards right.”

  “She’s convinced you’re going to kill me.” Vada gave a little laugh, coming to Regan’s side.

  He put an arm out, and she slipped under it, curling against him.

  “I tried to explain to her that you need me for what comes next. Your new life. Our new life. But I’m not sure she understands.”

  Vada looked me up and down, and there was a flicker of pity in her eyes. But the light was soon gone, and her eyes were taking on a blankness now that was almost as complete as his. She was dehumanizing me in her mind, the way he’d taught her to. Detaching herself from the idea that I didn’t deserve what I was about to get.

  She sneered. “She said that now I’ve done my job, I’m no good to you.”

  “You have done a very good job, Vada,” Regan said gently. He gave her a squeeze and let her go, taking a step away from her.

  Suddenly free of his embrace, she looked impossibly small. Childlike. Her features were twitching with sudden confusion. She could see in his eyes the same thing I had seen in her—detachment forming. The false warmth dissipating.

  I opened my mouth to tell Vada to run, but I knew it was hopeless.

  Her eyes flicked to me. We could both feel it. The change in him. The switch flipped. The mask fallen away.

  She didn’t even have time to voice her surprise. Her heartache.

  Regan lifted the arm that held the gun and shot her point blank in the face.

  Chapter 99

  I WATCHED VADA RESKIT jolt as though shocked with electricity, her head snapping back. She staggered once and then crumpled to the floor, her head hitting the ground hard. Regan’s gun was small and silenced. He looked at Vada’s body, her head and shoulders lying in the shadow of the rickety old work table, and then turned to me like her death had been of only passing interest.

  “She thought you loved her,” I said. “What did you tell her? That you were going to run away together? Assume new identities? Two broken, misunderstood souls finally united?”

  “I didn’t have to tell her much,” Regan said, refusing to look at her. “Vada had plenty of experience piecing together fantasies. I just told her that if she did what I said, I’d give her everything she wanted. Isn’t that what all women want to hear?”

  “Not me,” I said. “I want to hear the noise you make when I feed you into a woodchipper.”

  The words were coming, but I wasn’t paying attention to them. I was focused on the cable tie around my wrist. Vada had pulled it tight, but I was sweating, so there was some lubrication. I tried to shift the thick plastic locking mechanism sideways from the back of my right hand to the gap between my wrists. The edges of the plastic were cutting, scratching my flesh.

  Regan was approaching me. Moving cautiously, as though trying to corner a bird he planned to pounce on. As he came nearer, I found myself pressing against the beam, trying with all my might to shift the taut plastic.

  “Vada was very different from you,” Regan said. “Some people, they need someone to save. The more damaged and unwanted, the better they feel. I’m sure you saw it a thousand times as a child, the way I did.”

  “Don’t come near me,” I warned. The locking mechanism was between my wrists now. I gripped the loose end of the tie and started tightening the band, pulling as hard as I could. My fingers and hands were numb almost instantly. I yanked hard on the tie, cutting the plastic into my flesh.

  “You don’t need to feel sorry for Vada, Harry. I gave her what she wanted. She thought she was helping me, and that made her happy.”

  “Come any closer to me and I’ll fucking kick you,” I snapped.

  He kept approaching, and with his every step, my body hardened, shook with rage and fear.

  “I will bite your fingers off, I swear to God.”

  He was pressed against me suddenly, my jaw in his hard, warm hand.

  We both knew I wasn’t going to kick him. I was having enough trouble standing upright. His breath was on my face. I bared my teeth, prepared to bite him if he tried to kiss me. A smile fluttered at the corners of his mouth.

  “You wouldn’t really hurt me, would you, Harry?” he asked.

  “You wanna make a bet?” I thought about spitting at him, but my mouth was too dry. He squeezed my face so that my cheekbones ached, seemed to want to give in to his desire to hurt me. But this wasn’t the time. He’d brought me to this place, at this time, for a reason. He would play this out slowly, so that he could enjoy it. He had been waiting a long time for this. In a dark, awful way, I had too.

  “You need to understand what happened here,” Regan said.

  Chapter 100

  THEY WERE ALL fresh starts for her. Fantastic adventures. Regan saw his mother’s face change with every new house they entered, as though she was actually taking on the features of the people who lived there. Heather Banks found the house-sitting jobs in the newspapers and arrived at the city apartment or country estate or isolated cabin ready to enjoy a little escape from reality. For a weekend, a couple of weeks, a few months, she would adventure through the lives of the people who owned the homes, caring for their pets and rearranging their bookshelves, while her husband, Ron, worked out in the fields or walked the streets, preferring to admire the different landscapes alone. Little Regan had been to every corner of the country, minding the houses of strangers he almost never met. Heather told other adults it was good for Regan to travel. He’d not fit in, the first time they’d enrolled him in school.

  “He’s very intelligent,” she explained. “He gets bored.”

  Regan was indeed always bored, but he was also aware that removing him from school and taking him on the road was his mother’s way of trying to make him a “good boy.” There were no other little boys and girls to bite and scratch and tug at here, no one to hear his screaming, squealing, convulsing tantrums that sometimes carried on for hours. They would arrive at a cheery farm and unpack their bags at the homestead, and she would turn him by the shoulders toward the fields and give him an encouraging shove, saying, “Now, be a good boy.” Would this be the place that brought out the goodness in him? Or would they have to keep searching? Highway by highway and house by house they searched, Regan curled in the back seat of the car sleeping as eucalypts rolled by the windows.

  Bellbird Valley was no different. Regan had wandered the bushland around the house, determined to find a way to be a good boy. And he had found nothing but miles of tangled bush and animals that were afraid of him, birds that took flight before he could line them up in his slingshot and kangaroos that bounced away at the sound of his footsteps. He assumed that goodness was something he would feel, something that would make him smile the way his father smiled at h
is mother sometimes. Regan would watch the two of them as his father put his arm around her waist, and he’d hear him say, “Gee, you’re a good woman.”

  The day that it happened, Heather had taken Regan out on the porch and sat with him, as she had every morning. They would watch the sun rise through the hole in the little stone formation on the top of the valley, making for a moment the shape of a warm little dwelling with a lit window. Heather had discovered the lighthouse the first morning they’d been there, sitting on the cane lounge with a steaming coffee in her hand. “We should go up there,” she’d suggested, and they had, Regan following her begrudgingly up the slope, whipping bushes with a stick. They’d stood at the rock and she’d smoothed the slope with her hand, and then sat, giggling, in the wind-worn hole like a girl on a swing.

  Regan had looked at her that morning and tried to feel the goodness. Tried to think of her as a good woman, and him as a good boy. But there was nothing in him. No goodness. Just a hollow cage in his chest, a place waiting to be filled with life.

  His father had crossed the valley to the adjacent stretch of land where the owners had a well and a barn for horses. From where they stood, Regan and his mother could see the sun gleaming on the animals’ coats as they lingered in the clearing. A thick rope was tied around the tree nearest the well, disappearing into the blackness of the stone structure.

  “What’s he doing down there?” Regan had asked.

  “The owners think the well might be leaking. They’ve asked Daddy to take a look,” she had said, curling a finger in the hair at the back of his head. “Regan, I want to talk to you about something. I’ve got some special news to tell you. I think it’s going to make you very happy.”

  She explained about the baby, her hand now withdrawn from his hair and unconsciously smoothing the gentle curve of her belly. Regan watched the horses and listened.

  “Having a little brother or sister is going to be great, isn’t it?” She smiled, rubbing his shoulder encouragingly when he didn’t answer. “Isn’t it, love?”

  “Let’s go see Daddy,” he said, and started walking down the incline.

  Heather followed her son down the hill, not knowing she was heading toward the place where she would die.

  Chapter 101

  THEY ARRIVED AT the well, Regan and his mother and the baby inside her that was not only good but great. Regan stood on his father’s toolbox and leaned over the edge of the well and looked down. Twenty meters below him he could see the top of Ron Banks’s head as he stacked heavy stones on one side of the empty well.

  “Hello, Daddy!” Regan called down, and his father looked up, squinting in the light, a gloved hand held against the sun.

  “We’ve come to see how you’re doing down there.” Heather leaned over the edge of the well, too, and cast a shadow on her husband. “Can you see the trouble?”

  “I think so,” Ron said, brushing off his muddy gloves. He explained to Heather about the crack in the concrete casing, the clay at the bottom of the well. Regan watched his mother leaning over the stone ledge, her skirt fluttering gently in the wind.

  She had only a moment to scream when he grabbed her leg and lifted it. No time to twist or clutch at the wall under her hands. Regan was so fast, so perfect in his aim, that he counterbalanced her before she could steady herself and pitched her into the well.

  There was a thump, the sound of screams. Regan jumped back onto the toolbox and looked down into the well, where his parents were collapsed together in the mud. His mother’s head and mouth were bleeding. It was funny, the two of them writhing together, trying to untangle themselves. A pair of pigs in mud. His father was groaning, gasping, trying to grip the wall to pull himself up.

  Regan laughed down at them.

  “Are you okay? Are you okay? How did you fall?”

  “I didn’t fall! He…he…”

  She couldn’t say it. There was blood pouring down her face from a deep gash in her forehead. The two of them looked up at the grinning boy, dumbfounded.

  Regan wondered if the great baby was inside her looking up at him, too.

  “Re—Regan?” Heather stammered. “Honey, why did you—”

  He stepped down from the toolbox and flipped open the lid. He could hear their voices still, bouncing off the stone walls of the deep well.

  “Try to stay still. You’ve hurt your head badly.”

  “Why would he…Why would he…?”

  “Jesus, I think my arm is broken.”

  Regan took the box cutter from the top shelf of the toolbox and pushed the blade out with a series of clicks. He went to the rope hanging over the side of the well.

  “Heather, you might have to try to climb up. I can’t use my arm. Honey? Honey, are you okay?”

  Regan set the blade to the rope and started sawing.

  “What’s that sound?” Heather’s voice was thin and high. “Ron? What’s that sound?”

  Chapter 102

  REGAN SAT WHERE he had been sitting when I arrived, like a man lounging with a beer in his hand rather than a gun. He was watching me as his tale unfolded, those empty eyes examining my reaction.

  “I went back a lot,” Regan said. “I kept checking on them, seeing what they were up to. They had all these plans to get out, to scream, to signal for help. They would try to talk me into helping them. Promise me the whole world. And then they’d be screaming up at me viciously, promising punishments. I’d never experienced such awesome power before.”

  He looked at his hands spread open before him, as though he were holding the power itself.

  “The sound of the begging and pleading and bargaining. It was addictive.”

  I said nothing. There were no words. I braced my body against the beam and listened.

  “It couldn’t last forever, of course. I got bored of the games and left them for a day. When I went back, they were begging for water. My father went first,” Regan said. “A combination of things, probably. Septic shock from the broken arm. Dehydration. Exhaustion. It was an unusually hot summer. On the third morning, I went to check on them and he was dead. She tried to climb out a few times, I think, but every time she fell back in, it took a lot of the strength out of her. It was the seventh or maybe the eighth day, I went back and she was lying there making strange noises. So I got a few big rocks from the forest and came back and just kept dropping them in until I got her.”

  I breathed evenly, trying to control the sickness that had been rising in me while he told his story.

  “People started calling the house,” Regan said. “I didn’t answer. The day before the owners were due to come back, I found a packet of matches and lit a curtain on fire. Bored again, I guess.” He smirked. “That brought an end to it all.”

  “You’re evil,” I said. “Your file wasn’t sealed because of what your parents did to you. It was because of what you did to them. You’re just…You’re just…”

  Regan looked at me. “I’m bad,” he said. He put his gun on the pallet beside him and came toward me. “I was born bad. My parents were great people. They never did anything to me to make me behave the way I did. It was just in my nature.”

  I shook my head.

  “She kept asking me while she was in the hole,” Regan said. “She kept saying, ‘Don’t you love me?’ and I kept saying no. I was just telling the truth. That’s what this is all about, Harry. Bringing you here, showing you who I really am. Throughout my life, I’ve been taught to try to hide that badness. Layer upon layer, covering myself up. They tried to help me in the system. Cover up the badness with friends, with activities, with pretend families.”

  He tried to touch the side of my face, but I twisted away from him. The movement sent a spark of rage through his features, just a flash that was gone before I could really be sure it was there. His big hand took my jaw again and pinned my head against the beam.

  “I’ve stripped layer upon layer away from you,” he said. “Just like I was doing with Sam. I took away your silly ideas about be
ing a good cop, a good kid, a good friend. I’m showing you the truth here. Giving you a gift. You probably think there’s going to be a good little Harry inside there, when I finally get done with you.”

  He took hold of the zipper tab on the front of my jacket and started pulling it down.

  “But you’re bad, Harry,” he said. “You’re just like me.”

  “What are you doing?” I flattened against the beam, tried to twist away from his hands.

  “What’s the last thing I could take away from you, Harry?”

  He ripped the zipper down.

  Chapter 103

  I STOOD SHIVERING as Regan took a knife from the back pocket of his jeans, shoved my jacket open and cut my shirt right up the middle, stripping the cloth off in a furious tug. He returned the knife to his pocket and leaned in, grabbing my breast hard. I needed to let him forget himself. To sink deep into his fantasy, the one he’d been playing and replaying in his head since my brother’s death. The one in which he took the very last layer of me, the only thing protecting my soul, the worst thing he could possibly do to me.

  Rage was rising in me. I was shaking with it under his hands, my lips drawn over my teeth.

  “We’re the same,” Regan said. “Are you starting to feel it?”

  He came within range. I had been waiting.

  I jutted my head forward and grabbed his bottom lip in my teeth, snapped my jaws shut. His gasp and then howl sent my blood rushing hot and wild through my body. Regan tore himself away, and I spat his blood on the ground.

  While he was distracted, I made my move, backing into the beam with my arms out behind me as far as they would stretch. In one swift, hard motion, I leaped forward, tugging my arms forward against the beam. It didn’t work the first time. My wrists banged against the corner of the beam, the cable tie holding fast.