Perfect Lies
Page 12

James's arms come around me, hold me close, hold me together. He holds me together.
If it weren't for his arms, I don't know what I'd do.
"Nobody actually lives in North Dakota," I say, drinking coffee even though it's early enough I should go back to bed. I'm sitting on the floor next to the couch. Hotel furniture is creepy.
I texted Pixie that I was safe, but fell asleep waiting for James to get back. I don't want to fall asleep again, not if James is leaving.
I can't think about Rafael, about what I found out tonight. Or I can. I forget that thoughts are safe around James. Thoughts never feel safe anymore. But-oh, what did I do? What did I do, giving Annie to Lerner?
"Have you ever met someone from North Dakota?" I ask, trying to distract myself.
James laughs, neatly folding a pair of slacks before setting them in his luggage. "No, I haven't."
"No one has. That's because it's not a real place."
"I'll be gone two days, tops."
I stand and run my fingers along his clothes, each placed perfectly in the luggage. "Why do you have to go?"
"Because, pet, it's important."
I pick up his slacks, wrinkle them into a ball, and shove them back in. "I'm not your pet."
"Fia." He puts his arms around my waist, pulls me close, kisses my forehead with his lips pulled back into a smile. "You don't get it. He trusts me. He trusts you. This is it. Any hesitation he had about us is gone after what you did. Just play it safe and do whatever anyone tells you to. And if anyone asks, you don't know where I am and you're annoyed because I never tell you enough about what's going on."
"Gee, that will be hard to fake." I glare at him, and he looks hurt. He does it to protect me-in case things go wrong, in case he messes up, he hopes maybe I'll get out okay. But sometimes I wonder, if he spends all his time at work thinking that he doesn't really care about me, that I'm just a tool he's crafted . . .
How many lies can a brain tell itself before they become truths?
I soften my look and his shoulders relax from the tension nearly always written there. "We're close," he says. "Closer than we've ever been."
Close. Closer. Rafael's words bounce around in my skull, making my head hurt. I hate that he has space in my skull now. I don't believe him about James-I don't-but I can't stop thinking it. Does Rafael have Annie, or does he just know she's alive? If he's Lerner, and Lerner are the good guys, is Rafael a good guy?
No.
James is my good. "Tell me," I say. "Tell me what we're going to do. Tell me what getting closer to your father has brought us. I want a timeline."
He strokes my back. "Remember our deal? We don't talk about it. We don't think about it. We don't plan it."
"Of course I remember," I snarl. I have been not thinking and not planning and not not not not for so long I don't know if I could think and plan anymore if my life depended on it.
"It's important." The line appears between his eyebrows, and I smooth it away with my thumb. He is so beautiful, this fierce, manipulative, calculating boy of mine. He is a liar. I chose him, I love him, I couldn't love him if it wasn't right. He takes care of me. He saves me from myself.
"Have you ditched the Reader yet?"
I shrug, dropping my hand. I thought about killing her tonight. I saved her, instead. "I like her."
"You can't afford to like her. What if you thought the wrong thing? What if you thought about Annie?"
I rub my own forehead, tap tap tap tap against it. "I am so sick of hearing about Annie."
"Where else did you hear about her?" His voice is sharp and tight with suspicion. He does not suspect enough. Never enough about me.
I should tell him about Rafael. If I trusted him, I would ask him about Rafael. I would bring him in on this problem, and I would let him help me fix it. Instead I smile. "In my head, all the time, I have to sing the I killed Annie song. It's a very repetitive tune."
Sometimes I forget it's not true. Sometimes, like tonight, I wake up and see the blood on her hand, and I can't remember whether or not I actually killed her. It scares me more than anything.
Maybe I did kill her.
No. I know I didn't. I saved her. I killed for her.
"Do you have any way of contacting her?"
"Nope." Annie is mine. My secret. My sister. Mine. I add this to the secrets I keep from James. I don't even know why I keep the ones I do, why I hide the things I do. I can't stop.
He slams his suitcase shut, zips it up. "Did you really have to leave her with Lerner?"
I roll my eyes. "The foster care system denied my application." It was right to leave her there. I know it was. I remember what it felt like. I have to trust that, or I'll lose my mind.
Well, lose it more.
He picks up his bag and leans in to kiss me, but I turn my face away. "Did I do the right thing?" I whisper.
He drops the bag, pulls me into his arms, tries to get me to look at him. "You always do. Which thing are we talking about?"
I am talking about so many things. So many things. I look him in the eyes, try to see myself reflected back, but I can't. There's nothing there. "Your father would have died. I stopped it."
The lines around his eyes tighten, and without moving he's gotten farther away from me.
"Doesn't he deserve to die?" I ask.
He closes his eyes and then leans his head against mine. "I don't know, Fia. When I realized what would have happened, I . . . was relieved. I was glad he wasn't dead. Maybe I should want him dead, but I don't. I want to destroy him, I want him ruined and behind bars, but I can't want him dead. He's all I have left."
I drop my hands as his words echo through me. He looks up, a heartbeat too late, and shakes his head. "No, no, I didn't mean that. I mean he's all the family I have left. Like Annie. Would it matter to you if Annie did the worst thing in the world, if she took away everything you loved, if she was a terrible person? Would you want her dead?"
"No." The word drops from my lips, but it has no soul, no passion behind it. Do I want Phillip Keane dead? Would I ever do that to James?
Well, obviously not. I saved the monster's life. "What happens to the woman?" I ask.
James clears his throat, checks his pockets for his keys or his cell phone. I know before he opens his mouth he will lie to me. "I'm not sure."
My brain is exploding with all the wrongs clashing against each other-she'll die, or she's dead, or she's been dead for months, she just didn't know it yet. And it's my fault. I traded Phillip Keane's life for hers.
But then James kisses me and his lips are soft and warm and they push it away, they push everything away, as always.
We are both of us made of the things we have lost. I want to find those things together. "Tell me about your mother," I whisper.
He freezes against me, then with a sigh that travels through his whole body, he sits on the couch, pulling me onto his lap.
"She told the worst jokes in the world. She loved a good pun."
"No such thing."
His smile is the saddest thing I've ever seen. "She was a terrible cook. Burned everything."
"Did she love your father?" How could a woman who could see the future-who could know what was coming-fall in love with a man like Phillip Keane?
James leans his head back, closes his eyes. There is something painfully innocent about the curve of his thick, dark lashes against his face. "She told me only people we love the most can destroy us, because no one else has that kind of power."
"So she knew."
He nods. "She knew. Do you know what else she always said?" He's quiet and still for so long I wonder if he's fallen asleep. Then, his voice barely above a whisper, he says, "She'd hold me close and say, 'James, my darling boy, you are going to break my heart.' And I'd promise I wouldn't, and she'd look at me and I could see in her face that she knew. She knew I would. And when I got older, it made me so mad that I did exactly what she said. She gave me the same power she gave my father, and we destroyed her."
I bury my face in the space between his neck and shoulder, breathe him in, wish my cursed instincts could tell me what to say to him, how to pull him back to me. "It wasn't your fault."
"Nothing ever is." His laugh rattles something broken free in his chest, a bitter exhalation of weight that I cannot carry for him.
If we are defined by what we have lost, James and I will never really be found.
I wink at the security guard, then put on my best bored mood for the Feeler in the corner of the room. She's here to monitor me while I do stock-picking duties. Can't feel anything I want to feel. Not about James, not about Rafael, not about Annie. What else is new.
I'm three floors beneath Pixie. Three floors beneath Phillip Keane.
Humming to myself, I sit down at a desk and flip through the Dow and NASDAQ. I pick at random, whatever strikes my fancy. Sell this. Buy that. Tra-la-la-la. They are all imaginary numbers anyway. They don't give me account information and computers here, not like James gives me. So I can't change things, can't hide things. Oh well.
I finish, stretching my arms above my head and yawning. Saved the boss's life yesterday. What to do today? Maybe I'll rescue a deposed Middle Eastern dictator. Who knows what my instincts will decide is right!
The Feeler sets a stack of folders on my desk, watching me way too intently. "More stocks?" I ask. I am not curious, but I don't need to feel curious for this. I still feel bored. And hungry. "Can empaths feel when I'm hungry?"
She doesn't look amused. Maybe because her hair is pulled back into a ponytail so tight, the corners of her hazel eyes are tugged out. I'm glad I can't feel what her scalp must feel like. Feelers have the worst skills of all.
Or maybe Pixie does. I don't want to know what everyone thinks of me.
Or maybe James's mom did. If the people I love are going to destroy me, at least I don't have to live with it every day until it happens.
The Feeler snaps her fingers in front of my face. My eyes meet hers and I don't bother hiding the violent feelings that flare up. "Mr. Keane wants you to go over these old notes. You aren't the only one working on them." She says that last like a threat and I'm confused by her hostility. And then I wonder.
"You didn't happen to know Clarice, did you?"
Her eyes narrow.
"Ah, okay. Well, sorry about that. But look!" I raise both hands in the air and smile at her. "No chairs!"
I tap tap tap tap my foot on the floor. Calm. I am calm. I am calm and bored. I am the ocean. I am the yacht in the middle of the ocean. I am nothing.
I am flames.
Not yet. Not yet.
"Get to work," she snarls.
The first sheet is handwritten, dated almost three years ago. Something about the writing feels familiar.
"What is this?" I ask, trying to buy time, needing to calm myself down. The ocean. The ocean. The ocean. Nothing.
"We found them cleaning out storage bins at the school." The Feeler smiles, and I am glad I can't feel what she is feeling right now. "Clarice's notes on visions she had for potential students. A bit of a treasure trove."
I let a giddy burst of something twisted flare up as I laugh, my smile broken glass. "Awesome. How great. Clarice comes back from the dead to help us out! That's just like her. She was always so thoughtful."
I tap tap tap tap, tap tap tap tap, tap tap tap tap on the paper. James says it's okay to give them reactions they expect. It'd be okay for me to feel disturbed, or guilty, or sad about this reminder of Clarice.
If I start that, I can never, ever stop.