Perfect Lies

  “Don’t worry. Your secret is safe with me. We never met.”

  I reach across the table, find her hand, squeeze it in mine. I should be screaming at her, telling her to do anything else, but the vision of her sticks in my head. Now I wish I knew how it ended. “My real name is Annie. I’m dead. Will you watch out for her? Fia? She’s so alone. I can’t—I hate that I can’t be there for her. I don’t care why she’s still with them. I just want her to be happy and safe. But be careful. She can be . . . dangerous.”

  Mae squeezes my hand back. Her voice is softer, kinder. “Okay. I think she and I will get along really well.”

  I laugh, letting go and sitting back, suddenly exhausted. “You’re certainly both crazy enough.”

  I hear her stand. “Good luck, Annie.”

  Did I mess this up? Could I have changed her mind? Fia could have. Fia would have known exactly what to do, what to say, heck, what to think. I messed everything up. But a small part of me is hopeful that maybe I’m sending a friend Fia’s way.

  Please, please let me not have sent Mae into even more danger by putting her onto Fia’s path.

  “Good luck, Mae.” You’re going to need it.

  She laughs brightly. “I make my luck. I pull it out of the brains of everyone I meet.”

  A few minutes later someone else sits across from me. “How did it go?” Cole asks.

  “I was brilliant. Anyone else you want me to drive straight into Keane’s employ?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I—” A familiar voice asking for a table for one registers and I freeze. It’s a man. How do I know his voice? “Crap,” I hiss, ducking and crawling on the floor until I’m under the table.

  “What are you doing?” Cole asks.

  “Shut up!” I hiss. “There’s a man here. He’s a recruiter for the school. If he sees me, I’m dead.” Actually dead, as opposed to fictionally dead.

  “What does he look like?”

  I punch Cole’s thigh so hard my hand stings.

  “Sorry! Sorry. There’s a guy in a suit by himself. He’s watching Mae. I think it’s him. We’ll wait it out.”

  I sit with my back against the wall, knees bumping his, head craned at a horrible angle beneath the table. Cole orders food, acting casual.

  “This is why I wanted you gone,” he says, voice so low I can barely hear it over the hum of conversations and the clinking of silverware.

  “Because I screw everything up?”

  “Because sending you on a collision course with Keane is the worst possible thing we can do.”

  My aching neck agrees with him. I have to figure out a way to be better. This was not enough.

  I was not enough.

  FIA

  Thirty-six Hours Before

  I PLAY IT OVER AND OVER AGAIN IN MY HEAD, TRYING to unstick whatever got stuck and made me do something so stupid.

  She walked by. I knew I needed to stop her.

  I knew I needed to stop her. There was no doubt. I have so much doubt these days, but there was no doubt then.

  I tap tap tap tap on my stomach, the polished oval table I’m lying on hard beneath the back of my head and the base of my spine. The chandelier overhead, understated and elegantly modern, burns funny patterns of light on my eyes. The sun has long since gone down, but no one has bothered coming in, telling me I can go or I can stay or anything.

  I saved his life. Saved it so I can destroy it? Wouldn’t everything be better if he were dead now? And I wouldn’t even have had to be the one to do it.

  Someone opens the door and walks into the empty conference room James left me in with a caution not to go anywhere. I don’t look over. I’m too busy tap tap tap tapping, trying to puzzle out the why of all this.

  “Sedatives,” Pixie says, matter-of-factly. “Apparently she’s been taking massive doses of sedatives for the last few weeks to get by all the Feeler check-ins. No wonder her thoughts were so sleepy.”

  She walked by. She needed to be stopped. Why? Why did she need to be stopped? “It was Mr. Keane, right? She was there to kill him. Not James or someone else.” Maybe she was going to kill James. It would be right for me to stop that. I would need to stop that, because I need James.

  Pixie sits on the table next to me. “Yup. Kill order for El Presidente. No one else, as far as I could tell. They had me pull what I could from her thoughts, but she was pretty good.”

  Pixie isn’t telling me everything. She got more than that. I need to know what else she got. Don’t think about it.

  I saved him. The man who destroyed me. The man who would have hurt Annie, done anything, to control me. Saving him was the right thing to do.

  I laugh so hard I have to wipe the tears away from where they trace down the corners of my eyes and tunnel into my hair. “So I really did save his life.” Spinning and spinning and landing on this. This?

  “You really did.” Pixie leans into my field of vision, eyebrows knit. “You okay in there?”

  “What are they doing with the woman?”

  “Casey? I didn’t ask.”

  I sit up. Suddenly Pixie is very intent on avoiding my eyes. “You don’t have to ask. What are they doing with her?”

  Pixie shrugs, tugs on the bar piercing her lower lip. “Women who cross him end up overdosing. Every time. It’s a strange coincidence, how they all overdose and die.”

  Sarah saw that. Did she see Casey? Was that one of the faces that drove her to . . .

  “Who is Sarah?”

  I glare at Pixie, then shrug. “Someone I used to know.”

  Tap tap tap tap. I didn’t kill Casey. I didn’t. Not my fault. Not my problem. I did what I was supposed to. She’s not mine. If I hadn’t stopped her, she would have killed Mr. Keane. Would I have blamed myself for that death? Do I want that death?

  “Wanna go dancing?” I ask.

  “Hells yes.”

  Pixie shrugs into her leather coat and we walk together toward the lobby. The lobby I was so desperate to get past this morning. Will I be stuck there again? Mr. Keane is nowhere to be seen, but we pass an open door and I look in to see James listening as two other men talk. He’s pale, obviously troubled by today’s events, but gives me a ghost of a smile and a hint of a nod.

  Guess I did something right after all. I don’t think access will be a problem again.

  All it took was foiling one murder and causing another.

  I drag Pixie onto the dance floor with me, try to help her forget everything, turn it off, stop listening. She whines that she can’t stop hearing things.

  “Let it be static,” I say. “Don’t tune in.”

  I also give her drinks stronger than Shirley Temples. A lot of them. I tip my own drinks back and think how buzzed I am getting, how I really shouldn’t have any more to drink but, hey, why not.

  Meanwhile, I don’t actually drink anything.

  I smile at Pixie as she nods her head in time to the music. Or rather, not actually at all in time to the music. Her eyelids droop and she sways into my shoulder, resting her head there. Sleepy drunk. Sleepy drunks are adorable. Angry drunks are less so. Funnier, though.

  “So,” I say. “Are you loyal to Mr. Keane?”

  “I am loyal to myself. Whatever gets me where I want to go.”

  “And right now?”

  “Right now that’s my big fat paychecks.”

  At least I can tell James she’s cleared for loyalty. It makes me sad. But, then again, I’m here, doing bad things, because I am trying to get to where I want to go.

  But I lost where that was. I can’t find it anymore. I saved his life. That can’t have been right. There is no world in which sacrificing that woman for Mr. Keane is right. And if I can’t feel right anymore . . .

  I poke Pixie to make sure she’s still awake. “The crazy woman was plotting to kill Mr. Keane. How long do you think she was working toward it?”

  “Casey. Her name was Casey. And she’s planned it for months.”

  “By herself
?”

  Pixie shakes her head. “No. She thought of a few other names.”

  “And they were?”

  “Lerner. That’s the one I told them. She also thought about James.”

  I frown. “Well, she knows him, obviously.”

  “It didn’t feel like that kind of thinking about him. But I didn’t mention that.”

  “You didn’t?” She isn’t totally loyal, then? Does she keep things from Keane?

  “Of course I don’t tell them everything,” she says. The tears pooling in her eyes catch the light, glinting more than the studs in her eyebrow. “Is it our fault? That she’s going to die?”

  I shake my head. Then I shrug. “Her fault. She got caught.”

  “Because of us.” Pixie looks like her heart is breaking, and I know what that feels like, how deep those fissures go, how much of your soul cracks off and disappears.

  “No. Look at me. Look at me, Pixie. You wouldn’t have caught her. I did. You have no blame in this. Understand?”

  She shakes her head, so I grab her chin and force her face up, right next to mine. “This is not your fault. Say it.”

  She hiccups a sob, then nods. “This is not my fault.”

  “Good.” I lean back against the bench, pull her so her head is nestled between my neck and my shoulder. She’s so young. So young.

  “I’m only two years younger than you. You can trust me, you know.”

  I laugh. I trust no one and no one trusts me. Not even James. I know he hides things from me, but I let him, because it’s the only way to make things work.

  “There was another name the woman thought. I didn’t tell them.”

  “What?” I whisper, my stomach clenching with that roller-coaster anticipation of falling. Bad. This is bad.

  “Annie.”

  No. No no no no. NO NO NO NO. ANNIE IS DEAD. ANNIE IS DEAD. ANNIE IS DEAD I KILLED HER I KILLED HER I KILLED HER SHE’S DEAD.

  Pixie sits up and looks at me, trying to smile, but holding her head like it’s in pain. “It’s okay. I met her a couple months ago. She’s okay, Fia. No one knows. She asked me to keep an eye out for you.”

  My thoughts are frozen with shock. Pixie met Annie. And she’s never let it slip. “Because Annie is dead. No one knows because she is dead.” I watch Pixie, every sense trained on her for her reaction.

  She nods, slowly, solemnly. “Yes. I know. Annie is dead.”

  “And she stays dead.” Or I’ll kill you. I will, I will. You wouldn’t be the first person I killed to protect her. Or even the second.

  Her shoulders fall and she looks hurt. “You don’t have to do that. I wouldn’t. We’re friends. Aren’t we?” She stands and stumbles away from me.

  I swear under my breath. How can I keep her quiet? She can’t know about Annie. That isn’t safe. I have to keep Annie safe.

  Whatever it takes.

  I chase after her, grabbing her arm, my beer bottle still clutched in my other hand. “Listen, Pixie, I’m sorry. You have to understand—”

  “Run,” she says.

  “What?”

  “Run! They’re thinking your name! All of them! Too many of them!”

  I look up, around the room, dark and filled with bodies, packed with them. And then I realize that the fear I felt, still feel, the warning, had nothing to do with Pixie. I have no weapons on me, and I lost my security tail on the way here as a matter of habit.

  “He wants you unharmed,” Pixie whispers, her lips against my ear. I have my arm around her waist as I steer her toward the main exit. Our best bet is a crowd. They’ve already seen us, so sneaking out the back would only work to their advantage. “Do you know someone named Rafael?”

  I clench my jaw against the flood of memories. Rafael on a beach in Greece. Rafael’s lips on mine in my first kiss. Rafael’s hands all over me. Rafael’s unknown score to settle with James. This is bad.

  Then again, I still owe him for that kiss. I smash the bottom off my bottle to leave a jagged edge.

  Time to meet an old friend.

  ANNIE

  Nine Weeks Before

  I SLAM THE DOOR, SLUMPING IN THE PASSENGER SEAT while Cole loads the grocery bags.

  When he gets in, he doesn’t start the car. “What’s wrong?”

  “What do you think?” I fold my arms, scowling.

  “Look, you did your best. No reason to feel sorry.”

  “Really? Then why is it that in the last week since I failed with Mae, I’ve done nothing except sit around the house? Adam’s off to do fancy research, Sarah’s in and out, Rafael’s gone, you’re not here most of the time. Everyone else is busy, and I’m lucky if I get to make a grocery run.”

  “What do you want to do?”

  “Help!”

  “Annie, no one would have recognized that man as being from Keane. If anyone else had been sent to contact Mae, they would have been caught. Probably killed. If you hadn’t been paying attention, you would have been snatched. And Fia would have been in trouble, too, for lying about killing you. It’s not worth risking that.”

  “Fia would be fine,” I mutter, putting my feet up on the dash. “She always figures it out.”

  “I don’t blame you for what happened with Mae.”

  “Really? Because I blame me.”

  “She had a choice, and she made the wrong one. But you gave her options. No one did that for you.”

  “That’s not true. Fia told me not to go to the school, and I didn’t listen.”

  “Again, not your fault.”

  I rub my forehead, the beginnings of a headache pulsing behind my eyes. I haven’t had so much as a hint of a vision since the one with Mae. Maybe my own brain has decided I’m worthless, too.

  “I was thinking,” he says. “If you wanted to learn some self-defense, I’d be happy to teach you.”

  “What good will that do?”

  “More than you think. We’d play to your strengths.”

  “In case you haven’t been paying attention, I’m a scrawny blind girl.”

  “Exactly. Let other people underestimate you, and then use that to your advantage.”

  “So basically you’re saying my strength is that I have no strengths.”

  His staccato laugh rings through the car and I smile in spite of myself.

  “Okay, fine,” I say. “You can teach me some things. After tea. I need some tea like nobody’s business.”

  He pulls to a stop. I get out of the car and try to decide what kind of tea day today is while he gets the bags.

  “Looks like Rafael is here,” Cole says, not sounding particularly enthused. I, on the other hand, have missed the sexy sounds of Rafael’s voice. Nobody reads a menu like him. I can’t help but feel a little giddy knowing I’ll get to hang out with him. It’s just mindless flirting—curse his not-right hands—but a little mindless flirting makes me feel real and normal in the most comforting way.

  “I hope he brought Sarah!” I hurry up the stairs and throw open the door. “Hey,” I call. “Who’s back?”

  I take a few steps, then the groceries drop to the floor with a shattering of glass jars as Cole grabs me and shoves me to the closed door. His back presses against me, blocking my whole body. “What the—”

  That’s when the unfamiliar but instantly recognizable sound of a gun being cocked fills the air. “Well now,” says a voice I never expected to hear again. The phantom smell of mustard and the memory of a thousand times walking past him overcomes me. Hallway Darren. “You look good for being dead, Annie. Come on in.”

  Cole takes my arm, keeping me behind him as we walk forward slowly. Then Cole is roughly pulled away. I hear him pushed to the floor, a low grunt his only protest.

  “Don’t bother with this one.” Hallway Darren shoves me onto the couch. “She’s not any trouble without her sister. Finish tying him up and put him next to the other guy.” He must be talking about Rafael.

  “I got it,” another man says.

  “Anyone else in the house? I’l
l know if you’re lying.” A woman, speaking from across the room. I don’t know if she’s a Reader or a Feeler, but either way, we’re screwed.

  My heart races and I’m overcome with despair. This was all for nothing. If I go back, I am as good as dead. I hang my head, letting the fear wash over me, radiate out. I concentrate on feeling that, and that alone. I don’t let myself think anything.

  “There’s no one else,” Sarah says. She sounds like she’s on the couch, too. Darren and the other man are directly in front of me. The woman is near the kitchen. Cole is . . .

  “Don’t move,” the other man says, and I hear someone get pushed against the wall. Okay. Cole and Rafael must be near the sliding glass door to the patio.

  I am worthless. I am less than worthless. I can’t do anything.

  “She’s not lying,” the woman says. “This is everyone. Want me to figure out who those two are?”

  “Nah, only the girls matter.” Darren sounds positively gleeful. “I can’t believe Annie’s alive. I’d better call this one in right now.”

  Without thinking, I lunge forward, head ducked. My shoulder slams into Darren’s stomach and I throw my arms around his waist and push. We fall to the ground together; I sink my teeth into his bicep and scramble to find his hand.

  The side of the gun connects with my head, and everything explodes in brilliant pain. Dazed, I grab for his gun, but he flips me off and onto my stomach, his knee digging into my back.

  A loud pop, followed by another.

  I brace myself for the pain, but it doesn’t come. Instead the pressure on my back disappears and Darren falls onto my arm. I jerk it out from under him and scramble away.

  “It’s all right,” Cole says, putting his tied-together hands on my shoulder. “They’re down.”

  Rafael speaks for the first time. “Are you okay, Casey?”

  The woman takes a shuddering breath. “Yeah. Thanks.”

  “What just happened?” Sarah asks. “Who are you?”

  “I’m sorry,” Casey says. “I tried to warn you we were coming, but I was never alone.”

  “Casey’s been working with me for months,” Rafael explains. “She’s in deep at Keane.”