Lies I Told (15 page)

I was on my way out of the house the next morning when I spotted Parker through the crack in his bedroom door. He was sprawled facedown across his bed, still dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. It was after ten. Usually he would be up, sitting at the kitchen table and reading the business section. He must have been out late.

I nudged the door open a little more with my foot and peered around the room, eager for clues about his whereabouts the night before. His jacket was tossed haphazardly on the chair near the bed, the carpet covered in muddy boot prints. They led to his boots, which looked like they'd been pulled off in a hurry, tossed so that they landed a few feet apart, half under the bed.

I hesitated, torn between wanting answers and wanting to put off another confrontation. The idea wasn't appealing,
especially since Rachel had texted early this morning asking if I was up for working on our AP Euro project. The thought of spending time alone with her tied my stomach in knots, but the saying “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer” was a cornerstone of every con. Besides, if Rachel had picked up the ID in AP Euro, she would have confronted me with it. And even if she hadn't, the ID wasn't proof of anything. We could have been in Arizona before San Francisco. People moved all the time.

I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself down, and pulled Parker's door closed.

Rachel lived a couple of miles away, farther up the peninsula on a bluff overlooking the sea. Her house was bigger than Logan's. Unlike the aged bronze of Logan's gate, the one outside Rachel's property was buffed silver. The house was newer, too, although I'd guess a lot of money had gone into making it look like the houses that were original to the peninsula, most of them built in the 1960s and 1970s.

Rachel buzzed me in at the gate, and I continued up the driveway. The house stood in the middle of a gigantic stretch of lawn. Other than a few well-placed palm trees, there was no foliage. Nothing to create shadow or mystery. It was a diamond, glittering under the showroom lights, carefully positioned to look as shiny as possible.

I parked the car and made my way to the door. The bell echoed throughout the house in a long series of rings. A few seconds later, footsteps sounded on the other side of the door just before it was opened by a youngish woman with
dark luminous skin and deep brown eyes.

“Miss Fontaine?” the woman asked.

“Yes.”

She opened the door wider. “Please, come in. Miss Mercer is waiting for you in the kitchen. I'll show you the way.”

Miss Fontaine? Miss Mercer? Did Rachel's family seriously have a maid? It was hard to tell. The woman wore plain black pants and a white shirt, and while it wasn't everyday wear for most of the people on the peninsula, it wasn't exactly traditional maid attire either.

I followed her down a hallway lined with terra-cotta tile to the back of the house. Like most of the houses I'd seen in Playa Hermosa, the kitchen looked out onto a backyard with a pool and enough patio furniture to outfit an entire living room. At the doorway, the woman turned to me with a smile.

“Here you go,” she said, turning to leave.

“Thanks, Graciella,” Rachel said. She was standing at the kitchen island, her laptop open in front of her as she poured two glasses of what looked like lemonade. “Thirsty?”

“Sure.” I walked into the room, careful not to look around. The slate countertops, custom tile backsplash, and commercial-grade appliances were standard for the rich. Even noticing them could be a red flag for someone like Rachel, who would expect me to be used to it.

She pushed one of the glasses my way and took a drink of her own, eyeing me over the top of it. The silence was like a vacuum, sucking all the air outside the room. It got under
my skin, and I had to remind myself who I was, what I'd spent the last few years doing. It's not like I was an amateur.

“Want to work outside?” she finally asked. “We can turn on the patio heaters if it gets cold.”

“Sounds good.”

She picked up her laptop and we headed for the patio just outside the French doors. She dropped casually into one of the wicker chairs, setting her drink and computer on the coffee table in the middle of the seating group. I chose the love seat across from her and pulled my laptop out of my bag.

“Any ideas for the board game?” she asked.

“A few,” I said. “The instructions say we should pattern it off a game we know. I was thinking maybe Monopoly? Depending on the era we decide to work with, we could have players buy different commodities?”

She picked up her computer. “True. Or different pieces of land.”

We tossed ideas back and forth, finally agreeing to focus on the Reformation. She was surprisingly agreeable. Not exactly friendly, but minus the super-icy vibe I'd gotten used to. I wondered if she'd finally given up on freezing me out. Maybe she realized how futile it was now that Logan and I were official and I was in with the rest of the group.

We'd been working for about an hour and a half when Graciella came out with a plate of gourmet cupcakes. Rachel closed her laptop and reached for one of the cupcakes, her hand hovering over the plate until she finally chose what looked like red velvet.

“So how are you liking it here?” She glanced down at Selena's bracelet on my hand. “You seem to have settled in quickly.”

I set my computer aside and chose a vanilla cupcake with lilac-colored frosting. I didn't really want it. I just wanted to keep my hands busy. I was still a little off-balance, still wondering if this was really Rachel being friendly or if she was just on some kind of bipolar upswing.

“I like it.” I laughed. “It's a lot warmer than San Francisco.”

She nodded. “How long did you live there?”

“Not long.”

She finished the cupcake and set the wrapper down on one of the dessert plates Graciella had left. “Sounds like you move around a lot.”

“You could say that.”

“Where did you live before San Fran?”

“Atlanta,” I answered. We'd never worked in Atlanta, which was kind of the point.

“How was that?” she asked.

I smiled. “Sticky.” Not hard. The whole South was hot and humid.

She nodded. “Where else have you lived?”

I recited a few of the cities we'd never lived in, then laughed with a shrug. “I can hardly remember them all.”

Winging it wasn't exactly protocol. Our backstory was airtight, rehearsed both individually and as a group when we'd been in Palm Springs prepping for the Playa Hermosa job. But that was before Rachel. Before I'd lost the Chandler
ID card. I'd broken a big rule by keeping it and carrying it around. I didn't want to make it worse by handing her any of the cities we'd worked in, but if she had picked up the ID, I didn't want to rule it out and look like an outright liar either. Better to be vague, hedge my bets.

“Crazy,” she said. “It must be kind of exciting, though. To be able to reinvent yourself so often.”

I smiled. “Not really. I mean, this is me. It doesn't really matter where we live. It just sucks having to make new friends all the time.”

“I wouldn't know. I've only ever lived here.” She stood. “I'm running to the ladies' room. Can I get you anything while I'm up?”

“No, thanks.”

She headed back inside, shutting the French doors behind her. I sat there, feeling like a rock was lodged in the pit of my stomach. There was nothing overtly suspicious about her line of questioning. In fact, it was less intense, more conversational than the questions she'd lobbed my way when we first met.

Somehow the thought didn't comfort me. I couldn't help feeling like she was up to something, like her newly pleasant demeanor was a facade for the suspicion she'd been so open about until now. If I could play the game—working to win Rachel over for my own agenda—it stood to reason that she could, too. And if I wanted to know something about someone, wanted them to slip up because I suspected them of lying, I'd have a better chance of getting information by being nice than by alienating them.

I stared at Rachel's laptop on the outdoor coffee table. If she was suspicious, would there be something on her computer? Something that would tell me if she had anything substantial?

Glancing back at the doors off the patio, I confirmed that the kitchen was empty. I guessed she'd been gone about a minute, and I looked at the clock on my computer to mark the time before I set it aside and reached for Rachel's laptop.

I opened it, waiting a few seconds for it to reconnect to the house's Wi-Fi before clicking on her open tabs. There were several shopping sites, a Wikipedia page for Martin Luther, YouTube, Spotify, and email.

I looked behind me to make sure I was still in the clear before scrolling through her emails. There weren't many. A couple from teachers about school, something from the volleyball coach about tryouts, a link from her mother about a sample sale in the garment district, and a few others that were obviously spam.

I ran through my options. I could check her browsing history, but that would take time, and she had already been gone four minutes. It would have to wait.

Skimming the tabs again, I clicked on the open Wikipedia page. Then I hit the Back button. It returned me to the browser page, and my attention was immediately pulled to the name flashing in the search bar.

Grace Rollins. The name I'd used at Chandler High School.

The name on my old ID card.

Logan picked me up at five and we headed to Santa Monica. I was almost manic with anxiety, my nerves crackling like a live wire. I'd made a point to stay at Rachel's, discussing our project, after she'd come back outside, but all I could think about was the fact that she had my old ID card.

And now she knew about my alias.

“You okay?”

Logan's voice pulled me from my thoughts, and I looked over, trying to smile.

“Fine. I was just thinking about the project Rachel and I are working on for AP Euro.”

“How's that going?” he asked.

“Not bad, actually. I think she might be warming up to me.”

“By which you mean she's a number four on the bitch scale instead of a ten.”

“Well, maybe a five.”

He laughed, and I couldn't help but smile. His laugh was deep and warm, as genuine as everything else about him. My pulse quickened a little as I looked at him, his faded jeans and button-down shirt fitting him just closely enough that I could make out his athletic legs, his muscular arms and shoulders.

He navigated the car up the Pacific Coast Highway toward the Santa Monica Pier. The windows were down, the sunroof open on the BMW. The setting sun streamed in from the beach on our left, casting everything golden as it reflected off the water in the distance. I tried to focus on the moment, to be present. But I felt Rachel's suspicion like hot breath on my neck.

I had no one to thank but myself. The rules were in place for a reason. My mom and dad had been on the grift long before Parker and I came along. They'd established the rules to protect us, and I'd put us all at risk for some kind of childish reassurance, for the kind of false security people like us couldn't afford to believe in.

Logan parked in one of the lots near the beach and we walked up to the Third Street Promenade. He'd made a reservation at a seafood place, and we settled into a plush booth. We were halfway through a meal of stuffed snapper and grilled vegetables when he surprised me by reaching across the table and taking my hand.

He smiled into my eyes. “I'm happy you're here, Grace.”

“I'm happy, too,” I said softly, suddenly shy.

“Mostly, I'm happy you're with me.”

I smiled. “Me too.”

He sighed a little and looked down at the table.

“What is it?” I asked.

He shook his head. “I don't think I knew how lonely I was until I met you.”

“Lonely?” I'd imagined Logan a lot of things. Lonely hadn't been one of them. “But . . . you have so many friends. And your mom and dad . . .”

“Yeah, but the guys and I talk mostly about surfing. And girls.” He blushed a little. “We don't really talk about serious stuff.”

“And your parents?”

He took a deep breath. “I guess you could say they are the serious stuff.”

“How do you mean?” He had no way of knowing that I was fully aware of his dad's condition. My question was just one more lie between us.

He fidgeted with his water glass. “My dad's kind of . . . sick.”

“Sick?” I hesitated, giving it time to seem like it was sinking in. “With what?”

His laugh was a little sad. “A lot of things, actually. Bipolar disorder, paranoid schizophrenia . . .”

I could see the pain in his eyes. Worse, I saw shame there, and I knew it was because he was worried about me. About
what I would think of him and his family.

I squeezed his hand. “I'm sorry, Logan. Is it . . . manageable?”

“More or less. He's been institutionalized a couple of times, but he's been home for over two years now. This course of meds seems to be doing the trick. So far, at least.”

“That's good,” I said. “But it still must be hard for you and your mom.”

He nodded. “Even when he's good, I think we're both always wondering when the tide is going to turn, you know?”

“Yeah.” Parker hadn't been diagnosed with anything, but I knew what it was like to watch and wait. To wonder if something small would set him back, maybe take him from us for good.

“Because of Parker?” Logan asked, as if reading my mind.

My nod was slow.

Logan laughed a little. “Sucks to be the normal ones, right?”

“Definitely.” I laughed with him, surprised either of us could find any humor in the situation.

“Well, now we have each other,” he said, his eyes never leaving mine.

I'd never wanted something to be more true.

He paid the bill and we wandered down to the pier. It was cold and dark, the lights from the boardwalk and Ferris wheel reflecting off the water, making it look like the sea
was strung with thousands of Christmas lights.

Logan looked up. “How do you feel about Ferris wheels?”

“I've never been on one,” I admitted.

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

“Well, we have to fix that right now,” he said, pulling me toward the ticket booth.

We got our tickets and stood in line. Logan put his arms around me from behind, pulling me close while we waited our turn. Surrounded by flashing carnival lights and squealing children, Logan's warm body against mine, I almost felt normal. When it was our turn, we ascended a small flight of stairs to a metal platform under an empty Ferris wheel seat. A man with a scraggly gray beard and clear blue eyes lifted the safety bar, and Logan took my hand as I climbed into the seat. It rocked slightly as I sat down, and I had a moment of vertigo where the sky and sea tilted. I clutched the side of the seat, fighting a wave of panic. Then Logan was next to me, his arms around my shoulders, and everything seemed to steady.

The bearded man smiled his encouragement and lowered the safety bar before putting his hand on a big metal lever. My stomach lurched as we were swung backward. We stopped a second later as the man assisted passengers into the next seat, a step that was repeated several more times, each one taking us higher and higher into the night sky, the sea receding farther and farther below us.

Finally, the Ferris wheel lurched to life and stayed that
way, swinging us up and up, closer to the top. I clutched the side of the seat with one hand and grabbed Logan's knee with the other, terrified to look beyond the safety of our little bucket.

“Grace,” Logan whispered in my ear.

I dared a glance up at him.

He smiled. “It's okay. I've got you. Look around.”

But I couldn't tear my eyes away from his. Secure in the safety of his gaze, the way he looked at me that said everything would be okay, I was too scared to look anywhere else. I shivered, and he kissed the top of my head, pulling me close. Heat seeped from his body into mine.

“Look, Grace,” he said softly. “It's all for you.”

And that time I did. I saw the sweep of beach, a smudge against the darkness of the sea, as it curved in and out, all the way to the cliffs of Playa Hermosa in the distance. The lights on the water from the pier gave way to the mystery of open sea that went on and on. And far below, people laughed and shrieked, lost in their own wondrous moments.

“It's beautiful, isn't it?” Logan said in my ear.

I looked up at him with a smile.

It was. And so was he.