Dirty Secrets

Part 42

Screeching brakes and raucous voices in the driveway woke Lyla. In the dark, through the groggy fog of half-sleep, she saw her dad slip out of his room and creep slowly toward the stairway. Bewildered, she grabbed her phone.

2:47.

A car door slammed.

What the hell?

The doorbell chimed followed closely by pounding on the door. Ryan poked his head into her room. "You stay right there," he said with authority.

"What's going on?"

"Stay there." He gripped the neck of a baseball bat.

"Lyla!... Hey! Lyla!" A woman's gravelly voice shouted. "Come on outta there."

A baritone voice called from the car. "Rose!... Rose!"

She ignored him. "Open this door, goddammit!"

The ghastly familiar voice jolted Lyla from her bed.

That's Keenan's crazy mother!

Lyla zipped across the hallway to her dad's bedroom and peeked out the window. An old dull gray Cadillac blocked the driveway, it's engine chugging like a locomotive. An enormous man emerged from the car wearing a denim jacket and a long ponytail.

"Rose! Get in this car. Now!" His husky voice meant business.

The neighbor's porch light came on.

"Get out of here or I'm calling the cops," Ryan growled through the door.

"Your daughter's a fuckin' murderer! You know that?" Her speech was sloppy with liquor. "Both my boys are gone! Both of 'em." Emotion, delayed by alcohol, caught up with Rose's words. The painful bite of a broken heart cracked her voice. "You ain't getting away with this."

Lyla stepped away from the window, cringing.

Dad, whatever you do, do NOT open that door.

"Rose!" the hulking man hollered.

When the snooping neighbor poked her head out her front door, Rose screeched, "Mind your fuckin' business!" Her warning spilled together like one multi-syllabic word. The woman darted inside her home and slammed the door closed.

"Goddamn, it, Rose," his deep voice hissed.

She hammered the Perry's front door with both fists. "Where's my JoJo?"

POUND. POUND. POUND.

"What did you do to my JoJo, you bitch?"

Hiding in the shadows, Lyla surveyed the street from her second-floor perch. The drunken woman rambled down the porch steps into the front yard stumbling around. She crossed the driveway, seized a rock from the neighbor's yard, wobbled back to the Perry's house, and cocked her arm, taking aim at a first-floor window.

Oh, my God! Don't!

Rose reconsidered when blue and red alternating lights swept the sidewalk and a police cruiser rolled up to the house.

The ponytailed man raised his hands and Rose dropped the rock as two uniformed police officers approached with flashlights in hand. While one officer patted down her companion, the other walked the driveway to Rose.

"There's a murderer in that house," she growled.

"Have a few too many this evening?" the officer asked. 

"Arrest that bitch," Rose croaked.

"Why don't you sit down before you fall down?" the officer replied.

"I ain't gonna--"

"Sit down!" he ordered. She plopped onto the driveway. He pointed to Lyla's neighbor's house. "Did you threaten that woman?"

The neighbor poked her head out of the door and said, "That's her."

"Fuck you!" Rose's eyes narrowed.

"Keep your mouth shut." The officer directed his flashlight at Rose who squinted against the bright beam.

When Lyla heard her dad unlocking the front door, she crept down the stairs while eavesdropping. He leaned his baseball bat against the wall, then stepped out onto the porch. 

"Do you know this woman?" the officer asked.

Ryan shook his head.

With a raspy voice, she slurred, "His daughter and her boyfriend killed my boy. Drug his body out into the woods somewhere's, then they come back later to bury him."

The officer pointed his flashlight at Ryan who responded, "I have no clue what she's talking about."

"Who told you that, ma'am?" the cop asked.

"My boy."

"Thought you said your boy was dead."

Lyla shuddered against the wall.

"What did you do to my JoJo?" she screeched toward the house. "I know you're in there."

"Keep your voice down and put your hands behind your back," the police officer commanded.

"She's a killer--"

"I told you to shut your mouth." He shoved her down onto the pavement.

"Hey! You ain't got any call..." The remainder of her sentence was incomprehensible.

The officer rolled her onto her stomach and cuffed her. "Nothing good happens when we overindulge." Lifting her by the tattooed arm he said, "Come on. Let's go."

The large man was permitted to get into his Cadillac and drive off.

"Keenan told me what you done." Rose shouted over her shoulder en route to the police cruiser. She lost her footing but the officer held her upright. "You ain't gonna get away with this," she grumbled. The policeman folded Rose into the back seat of the cruiser.

Lyla watched from the entryway as the police car drove off. Ryan came back into the house and locked the door. "Keenan's parents?" he asked.

"He told me his dad died in a car wreck a couple years ago. But yeah. That was definitely his mother."

"So, she lost her husband and her two boys?"

"I knew about Keenan but..." She averted her eyes.

"No wonder she drinks."

"She was pretty much like that before Keenan."

Her dad let out a long sigh. "Where did she get a bat-shit idea like that?"

"She's insane."

Ryan rubbed his eyes. "Glad tomorrow's Saturday. Actually, it's already Saturday. I'm going back to bed."

She placed a palm over her beating heart and said, "That scared me."

He rested a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "Well, she's gone now. See if you can get some sleep."

"I'll try."

"Good night," he said and kissed her forehead.

She turned off the hallway light and headed for bed.