Down to the Liar (3 page)

I take a left into the alley where I confronted Mike for following me. I stop for coffee at the diner I took him to afterward to hear his story. I pass my dad’s favorite Italian restaurant and almost go in to say hi to Mr. Vacini, the proprietor. In the end, I decide against it. He’d have too many questions I don’t have the answers for right now.

I close the loop of memory lane back at the front door of our moldering apartment building. Across the street, the Chevelle cools its tires in the exact same spot it sat in six months ago when I’d gotten my first glimpse of Dani. She’s there as well, leaning against the car and watching me.

She comes over to me, her expression unreadable. “It is raining,” she says.

“Is it?”

She leads me back to the Chevelle, and I follow without argument. When we get in, she doesn’t start the ignition.

“Would you like to talk about it?” she says.

I must be bad off if Dani is offering to talk. “It looks worse than it is,” I say, feeling the familiar anger stirring again.

She fiddles with the steering wheel. She’d probably rather be facing Petrov again than having this conversation.

“I know how it is to lose everything,” she says.

“I didn’t lose everything,” I say, fidgeting with my sweater cuffs. It’s a technicality I’m trying to hide behind, but it doesn’t fool her any more than it does me. I can tell by her expression when she turns to really look at me.

“You con yourself into believing you are fine, but it is okay if you are not.”

I frown at her. “You’d never let yourself admit weakness, but you’re encouraging me to?”

“It is not a weakness to ask for help.”

The anger wants me to snap at her—to throw the double standard in her face, to tell her to mind her own damn business. But then I think of the tattoos hidden beneath her coat and wonder which ones represent which losses she had no help processing. She had no one. I at least have her. That’s what she’s saying, and I can’t pretend I don’t hear it.

The anger recedes. She is the only person who’s managed that particular miracle. And as much as I crave the anger, I’m relieved that I can let it go—at least when I’m with her.

“You’re right. I’m not fine,” I say, swallowing against the boulder in my throat that’s making my eyes water. I drop my gaze to my lap. “But that doesn’t change the fact that I have a job to do.”

She nods. “What can I do?”

But that’s the problem, isn’t it? Letting people help me comes with a cost. It’s why I’m not okay in the first place. Tyler’s death is on me. Sam’s exile is my fault as well. Both of them just wanted to help. But before I recover my voice enough to point that out, Murphy calls.

I clear my throat and press Answer. “Did you find anything?” I ask without preamble.

“No. Nobody we hacked has logged in to those Facebook accounts.”

Damn. I was hoping we could have this wrapped up in a day or two.

“But I did find something interesting. I was looking back through the date-time stamps of the hate posts to see if I could pick up a pattern.”

“There was a pattern?”

“None of the posts were uploaded at the same time.”

“So? They were probably posting from different places randomly.”

“That’s what I thought at first, but when I looked closer, the posts
weren’t
uploaded randomly. They were added linearly, one post moments after the previous one, over different accounts. All the accounts. And each series of posts was always uploaded to each of the accounts in the same order.”

“Murphy, what are you saying?”

“I’m saying I don’t think it’s a group. I think it’s just one person.”

Valerie Updike. Notorious gossip and cattiest person alive. Also my current conversational companion. She gets up to go to the bathroom, and I pantomime hanging myself. Yaji smiles and shakes his head at me.

So far, I’ve haven’t managed to get very much out of our good friend the gossip. No one knows who’s pranking Skyla or why. Skyla is universally liked and respected. She’s not the best player on the tennis team, but not the worst, either. She has pretty good grades, but she’s not in the top ten percent, which means she’s not a threat to any wannabe valedictorians, not that she’s a senior anyway, so even if she were in the top ten percent, the valedictorian theory would be a stretch.

She doesn’t have any siblings, jealous or otherwise. She’s squeaky clean, but not so squeaky as to be obnoxious. At this point, the only person with an axe to grind against Skyla is
me
for making it so hard to pin down who her enemies are.

“Well, girl, I gotta bounce.” Val springs back to our table with a boundless energy incongruous with her tiny frame. She dashes bejeweled fingers through her pixie cut as she scoops up her purse and kisses me on the cheek. “Red 7 waits for no woman.”

Pretty sure Red 7 is a salon, but I couldn’t swear to it. In any case, that was an hour wasted. I text Murphy, who’s upstairs in the office, running background checks on Skyla’s closest friends.

“Oh, there is something, actually,” Val says just before walking out the door. “One of the tech geeks is in love with her. What’s his name? Carlton? Carlisle?”

“Carter?” My hand tightens around my phone.

“That’s it,” she says. “Carter. Hope that helps.”

Valerie takes her leave as a thousand angry hornets zoom around in my head.
Carter.
Murphy’s tech-club buddy. There’s no way Murphy didn’t know about Carter’s crush. Which means either he’s a complete idiot, or his loyalty to Carter is greater than his loyalty to me. Murphy’s been working with me long enough now to know better, which means it’s a loyalty issue. That boy is so dead.

I stomp all the way upstairs to the office and slam the door behind me. Murphy jumps.

He takes one look at my face and sighs. “Someone told you about Carter?”

I can feel steam coming out of my ears. “The point is,
you
should have told me about Carter.”

“It isn’t relevant. Carter would never—”

“He had his greasy, weasel hands on my
laptop
, Murphy! My laptop! He could have done anything to it.”

“I’m sure he didn’t.” Uncertainty flickers across his face. “I’m pretty sure he didn’t.”

“Well, thanks. I feel so much better now.” The level of incompetence I put up with is staggering sometimes.

Murphy frowns at me. “Having a crush on a popular girl does not make you a sociopath.”

Ah, I get it. This isn’t a loyalty problem. It’s actually a Bryn thing. Carter is the Murphy from last October—hopeless nerd pining after the popular girl. Only Murphy paid me and Sam to help him out. Now Murphy’s dating the popular girl, and he’s happy. But Bryn’s still popular and Murphy’s still a nerd, so at heart, he still identifies with Carter.

Knowing all this, I should let him off easy. But will I? Mmmm, no.

“The problem is
not
that Carter has a crush on Skyla, Murphy. The problem is that
you knew
and you didn’t tell me.” My anger seems to be stuck at volcanic. “From now on, if you know something that connects in any way to a job we’re working,
you tell me.
Is that clear?”

“Crystal.” He turns his back on me.

My phone rings. I answer without looking at the caller ID.

“What?” I snarl.

“Whoa, Dupree. What’s got you in a snit?” Mike says.

“I’m not in a snit. I’m smacking down one of my minions.”

“You know I hate it when you call me that,” Murphy says.

I ignore him. “What do you want, Mike?”

“I need your help on a case,” Mike says.

“Right now?” I mouth the words
Text me his address
at Murphy, who shoots a glare at me but still picks up his phone to find Carter’s info. “What kind of case?”

“I’ll tell you when we get there.”

I sigh. “I don’t have time to play criminal informant with you at the moment. I’m engaged in some serious damage control on my own job.”

“Guessing that has something to do with why you’re being unduly harsh to Murphy.”

“I’m not being harsh.” I glance through the window and see Mike’s Honda parked on the street. “Wait, you’re here?”

“I told you I need your help. Come on. Should only take an hour or so.”

I rub my face. “Fine. I’ll be down in a minute.”

I hang up and grab my coat and bag.

“He didn’t do it, Julep.”

“I don’t care if he did it or not. I care that you hid it from me.”

“Not telling you is not the same as hiding it.”

“Can you honestly say that it didn’t once occur to you that telling me about Carter’s crush on Skyla might change my approach to the job?”

Murphy doesn’t answer, which is all the answer I need.

“You have to trust me, Murphy, or this partnership is never going to work.”

He doesn’t argue, but his frown is as firm as ever. I suspect this is not going to be our last discussion on this issue.

“I have to go,” I say. “Try not to flush the entire job down the toilet while I’m gone.”

Okay,
that
might have been a little harsh, but I’m still too mad to take it back. I stomp back down the stairs and out into the street without so much as a wave to Yaji.

“Nice to see you, too,” Mike says when I slam into the front seat of his car.

“You’re welcome,” I snap for his missing thank-you.

He drives us to the Water Tower Place mall. I follow him into the atrium without comment, still fuming over Murphy’s complete lack of professionalism. But once we infiltrate the food court, I get tired of flying blind.

“What exactly are we doing here, Mike? Is one of these storekeepers secretly laundering money or something?”

“Not exactly.” He leads me to the nearest jewelry store.

“Is it a jewel heist? You think it’s an inside job? I can probably squeeze the salespeople to—”

Mike shakes his head. “I need you to help me pick out an anniversary present for Angela.”

My jaw drops. “Are you on
drugs
? I thought you said you needed my help on a case.”

“I do.” He looks at the glass cases like they’re full of sphinx riddles. “You know how to read people. You’ve been living with Angela for several months now. I figure if anyone can tell me which of these dangly, sparkly things she likes, you can.”

“Oh, for crying out loud, Mike.” I take one look at the case and point at a three-strand-twist Tahitian pearl necklace with matching earrings.

He wears a relieved, satisfied smile as he pays the clerk far too much money for the set. I purposefully wait until we’re out of the mall before I say, “Of course, if you wanted to get her something she’d really love, you’d have bought her that outdoor pizza oven she’s been drooling over for weeks now.”

Mike winces. “Ouch. You are ruthless when somebody crosses you.”

I have never been accused of an overabundance of ruth, that is true. But I still don’t have to dignify this rude observation with a response.

“Come on, it’s not just me and Murphy. What’s really bothering you?”

Tyler’s dead. Because of me. And I can’t fix it. And none of this—none of it—is fair.

But I can’t say any of that. It sticks to my tongue like cement. So instead I say something else equally true. “It’s this whole job. It irks me.”

“That’s not like you. You’re the only person I know who never lets a case get personal. Well, except…”

He wisely trails off. We don’t speak of the Night That Shall Not Be Named. I still have some issues with him over how that all went down. Besides, it’s too close to the truth of why I’m so angry all the time. I don’t need a shrink to tell me that I’m not over what happened to Tyler. And I’m not encouraging Mike to send me to more therapy by admitting as much.

“I know it’s not like me, but there it is. It irks me.”

“Do you know why?”

“Something about it is just off.” Which is truth enough. Something
is
off about this job, and it’s bugging the crap out of me.

“Is it the nature of the crime? Sometimes that can affect even the most hardened agent.”

“A: I’m not an agent. B: While I think the slimeball responsible for those posts deserves to be slow-roasted over a bed of burning napalm, it’s not the worst thing I’ve ever seen. I mean, words can kill faster than bullets—nobody knows that better than a grifter. But the crime isn’t what’s bothering me. It’s something else. Something I missed.”

“Would it help to go over the facts?”

“I don’t know. Not yet.”

“Well, I’m here when you’re ready.”

My inner grifter winces at the deeper meaning. I don’t want his fatherlike support. I never asked for it, and I don’t deserve it. I want to say that he can take his offer to talk and shove it, but I remember my heart-to-heart with Dani last night, and my anger ebbs to a low simmer.

I know it’s not Mike’s fault I’m so messed up. And honestly, it’s not Murphy’s fault, either. I should probably apologize. To all of them, really. But instead of saying anything, I stare out the window, watching in silence as we exit onto the freeway.

“What are we looking for?” Dani asks. It’s a few minutes shy of eight-thirty, and she’s just boosted me up over the wall surrounding Carter’s house and dropped down next to me on the other side.

“I don’t know.” I can barely see her outline in the darkness. “Anything related to Skyla or the Facebook accounts, I guess. A tell-all diary wouldn’t hurt.”

She nods, tersely, which is exactly what I need right now. Silent obedience. I’m still wrestling with my anger issues, and the less anyone talks around me right now, the better.

“I’ll distract Carter as long as I can,” I continue. “You sneak in and get the goods.”

“I do not read as well as you do.”

“Maybe not, but you don’t have a legitimate reason for ringing the doorbell, either.”

“Which one is his room?”

“No idea. Good luck.”

I peel off from Dani, who dutifully circles the house in search of Carter’s room. I walk boldly up to the front door and push the intercom button. I technically should have buzzed from the front gate and been let in properly, but I wanted to get the lay of the land with Dani before forging ahead with the plan.

“Julep?” Carter says from the intercom. “How did you get in here?”

“I jumped the fence. Look, Carter, I’ve got a bone to pick with you.”

I hear a staticky sigh. “All right. Give me a second.”

Dead bolts, chains, and locks click open one after the other. Seriously, you’d think this guy lived in Compton or something. My dad’s and my apartment in the west-side slums didn’t have nearly as many locks.

“What’s up with the crazy security?” I ask, mostly because I’m stalling. I don’t really care why his parents are paranoid.

“Mom’s a federal judge. And a single parent.”

“I suppose that makes sense. Can I come in?”

He pulls the door back just wide enough to admit me and shuts it directly after. If he tries to lock anything, I’ll kick his geeky butt. But he doesn’t.

“I know why you’re here,” he says.

“Murphy called you?” I’m going to kill that nerd.

“No, but I knew it was only a matter of time before you figured it out.”

Oh. Well, Murphy can live on another day, I guess.

“Why didn’t you come clean about crushing on Skyla at the beginning?”

He ducks his greasy head. “Because it’s embarrassing. And I know I’m not the one doing it, so I thought I didn’t need to tell you. I realize how stupid that sounds, especially since I was sure you’d find out on your own anyway.”

“You realize that you’re now my number-one draft pick for cyberjerk, right? Had you told me on your own, you might have been just a possibility. Now you’re the probability.”

“Well, I’m not the one harassing Skyla. And if you don’t believe me, then the person who is harassing her will keep going. I don’t want that for her.”

My gut says he’s telling the truth, but then, my gut has been wrong before. Like Mike, for example—my gut was all kinds of wrong about him. Guts are notoriously unreliable, and every good con artist takes his gut feeling with a grain of salt. But a grifter is, by nature, a gut-follower, and after all, there is no such thing as a safe bet.

“Murphy’s already scanned every device I own,” he continues. “What else can I do to prove it to you?”

I pull out my phone and swipe through a few screens to bring up my case notes. “You can alibi out.”

“How?”

“Prove to me that you were nowhere near an electronic device at eight-thirteen last Tuesday night, or seven-thirty-four the Saturday night before that, or—”

As I watch, I get Facebook notifications that the abusive accounts are posting more vitriol against Skyla.

“What the—?”

Carter crosses his arms. “Even if I could prove I was swimming the English Channel Tuesday night, I could have easily scheduled those posts ahead of time.”

I give him a sour look. “So much for alibi-ing out.”

“Look, I don’t mind being a suspect.”

“Mark.”

“Whatever, I don’t care. I just want you to catch whoever it is and make them wish they were never born. So as long as you don’t rule out everyone else, I’m fine with it. Investigate me all you want.”

“It is not him,” Dani says, coming up from behind Carter.

Carter yelps in surprise and turns too quickly, smacking into the wall.

“H-how did you get into my house?” he splutters.

“Through your bathroom window. You will need a new screen, by the way.”

Carter gapes at her. “I changed my mind. I don’t want you investigating me.”

“What do you mean, it’s not him?” I ask Dani.

She hands me a sketchbook flipped open to about halfway through. Carter makes a grab for it, but Dani blocks him with a warning look. She gets antsy when people move too fast.