Page 3 of Everyone Here Is Lying
He walks home alone, hurrying, head down, knowing that everyone is going to be in a bad mood tonight. No one will care that the coach thought he was playing great. It’s usually a twenty-minute walk with Avery, but he does it in fifteen. When he gets home, the front door is locked, which is unexpected. He uses his key and throws open the door. His mother will be home soon, at about 5:30. It occurs to him then that he and Avery can say they came home together. Or just say nothing at all. His mom doesn’t have to know that Avery got in trouble and that she walked home without him. It’s tempting. But what if Ms. Burke calls his mother? Should he risk it? They’d be furious if they found out and he hadn’t told them. He’s never lied to them before.
Michael automatically heads to the kitchen, calling for his sister. “Avery! Where are you?” He stops inside the kitchen, but there’s no sign of her. If Avery was home, her backpack would be on the floor. Worried now, he walks through the first floor of the house, looking for her. “Shit,” he mutters. Then, raising his voice, “Avery, where areyou?” He mounts the stairs to the second floor two at a time and looks in her bedroom. She’s not there. He looks in his own room—she’s been known to snoop through his things—but she’s not there either. He’s really starting to worry. She’s not in his parents’ bedroom, the office, or either of the bathrooms, or in the empty garage either. She’s not in the basement. Now his heart is pounding from rushing around the house and from fear. He’s responsible for her, and he doesn’t know where she is. He opens the back sliding doors off the dining room onto the patio and calls her name in the backyard. But no one answers. He goes farther into the backyard toward the back fence and turns around and looks up at the roof. She’s climbed onto the roof before. But he doesn’t see her. He’s scared now. She didn’t come home. Where the hell is she? She could be playing in the woods behind the house. She could be anywhere.
He pulls his cell phone out of the pocket of his sweats. Avery is only nine, she doesn’t have a cell phone. He calls his mother.
“Yes, honey, what is it?” His mother sounds like she’s busy. When isn’t she?
He swallows. “Um, Avery’s not here.”
“What do you mean she’s not there?” His mother’s voice is sharp. “Where are you?”
He has to tell her the truth now.
•••
Erin Wooler closesher eyes as she listens to her son. A moment later, she’s making her way as fast as she can toward the office’s exit. She’d mouthedfamily emergencyto her boss and got the nod that it was okay to leave. “Let’s not panic,” she says to her twelve-year-old. “She’s probably gone to Jenna’s. I’m on my wayhome. Can you go to Jenna’s house and see if she’s there? Call me as soon as you find her. I’ll be home in fifteen minutes.”
She makes her way to the parking lot, gets into her car, and puts the phone down on the console where she can reach for it quickly. She’s worried, naturally, but she’s not afraid, not yet. She loves her daughter, but Avery is a challenge. Always pushing the boundaries.Why can’t she just do what she’s told?Erin thinks, in frustration more than fear. When they find her, they will have to decide how to handle it. How can they get Avery to learn from this rather than becoming more oppositional? That’s what usually happens when they try to rein her in.
Erin thinks of her son, Michael, and the quiver in his voice just now. He’s such a good kid. He’s going to feel responsible; she will have to reassure him that this is Avery, not him—that he is not to blame for his sister’s behavior. He’s so sensitive, so worried about displeasing anyone, especially his parents. She drives a little faster. No one ever tells you how complicated it is being a parent. How much energy it sucks out of you. The toll it takes on a marriage. Somehow simply growing up in a family isn’t such great preparation for having your own.
As Erin drives, it begins to rain. She keeps glancing at her cell phone, expecting a call any minute, that he’s found her. She’s at her friend Jenna’s, across the street, she must be. But then she remembers that Jenna is in choir, too, and she didn’t get sent home. The woods then. Avery likes to play in the woods behind their house, in that tree house. She’s pulling into the driveway when her cell rings. She picks it up quickly.
“No one answered the door at Jenna’s. I’m at the tree house, and she’s not here either,” Michael says.
He’s obviously thinking along the same lines that she is. Her son is breathing heavily, and she can hear the alarm in his voice. It immediately infects her with panic too. But she’s the adult, she must remain calm. “Okay, Michael, come home. Wherever she is, she’ll probably show up now that it’s raining. If not, we’ll search for her. I’ll call your father.” She disconnects and gets out of the car.
The front door has been left unlocked, and she hurries into the house. She kicks off her pumps by the door and quickly searches, calling Avery’s name; maybe she came home while Michael was out looking for her. She runs up and down stairs, fans out around the house. Maybe Avery’s hiding, playing a trick on them. She searches under beds and behind clothes in the closets, everywhere she can think of. Avery isn’t here. She shouts her name again and again. No answer.
As she returns to the kitchen, Michael comes down the hall from the front door and meets her. He’s drenched, and he looks shaken, his face pale even though he’s obviously been running.
“I’m going to call your father,” she says. “And then I’m going to call the police.”
Three
William arrives home at 5:40, after the call from Erin. He’d heard the distress in her voice, although it was clear that she was trying to keep a lid on it in front of Michael.Avery is missing, she’d told him.I’m going to call the police. There is a police cruiser parked on the street outside their house. He feels his stomach lurch at the sight of it.
He parks his car in the garage and takes a deep breath. He must keep it together. He must be the rock in a crisis that everyone expects him to be. He’s the man of the family, a doctor. He must call on his training—he can’t let himself fall apart. His wife’s strained voice echoes in his mind.Avery is missing. I’m going to call the police.
When he gets inside, he finds his wife and son sitting in the living room at the front of the house with two uniformed police officers. The female cop is older, and the male police officer—he seems impossibly young, barely out of his teens—is taking notes.
Erin looks up at him, her face drawn. And it hits him, what’shappening. It hits him so hard he can’t breathe. His wife doesn’t get up and come to him for a hug. Nor does he go to her.
The female officer rises and says, “Mr. Wooler?”
“It’s Dr. Wooler,” he manages.
She nods. “I’m Officer Hollis, and this is Officer Rosales. Your wife reported your daughter missing a few minutes ago. We just got here. We’ll take particulars and get a search started. The detectives will be here shortly.”
He nods and sits down in another armchair. He watches the sudden rain hammering against the glass doors of the dining room that look out onto the backyard. It’s been such a strange day.
“Do you have any recent photographs of Avery?” Hollis asks.
“They’re all on my phone,” Erin says. She reaches for it and thumbs through and shows her photos of Avery. Her hand is shaking.
Hollis says, “May I?” and tags and sends several of them to her own cell. “Blond, blue eyes,” Hollis says, studying the photos. “Height? Weight?”
Erin answers. “She’s four foot two, maybe sixty pounds.”
