A Perfect Lie

by Lisa Renee Jones

  Suddenly I’m in a full flashback, sitting at that table, the darkness of the room suffocating, the music louder now, vibrating through me. I stare down at the phone in my hand and I start to scroll through the messages but before I can Danielle returns. I straighten and shove the phone inside my purse. “I’m going to the bathroom.” I stand, and my eyes meet Drew’s. He smirks, knowledge in his eyes. He’s seen what I’ve done. He stands up. I turn away, aware that he’s following me.

  My cellphone rings and I all but jump out of my own skin, my fist balling over my racing heart. “Calm down,” I hiss at myself, my lack of control quickly becoming a real problem and I know it. It’s that spiral and I was lying to myself. I do know where this lands, and it is never good.

  I cross the room and grab my phone, some small, stupid, part of me expecting to find Danielle’s number but instead, I find Jake calling. Proof that a one-night fling with an FBI agent, or any man with the power of a badge, is also stupid. Jake would be a perfect tool in my father’s chest; a man I can’t easily tell no.

  “Hello,” I say, not about to give him the power that knowing I recognize his number would surely give him.

  “Miss me?”

  “Who is this?”

  He laughs. “Should I replay a few of the more intimate places I kissed you to remind you?”

  “That’s not necessary,” I reply tartly.

  “Then I’m back to: Did you miss me?”

  “Every second of every day,” I say dryly.

  “And while you miss me, other people are missing you.”

  “News to me,” I reply, and afraid I’m in the press in some way I do not yet know, I sit down on the barstool in front of my MacBook and quickly scan for mentions of my name.

  “I hear you haven’t been back to Washington,” he comments.

  “Sounds like you’re now working for the press and digging for information.”

  “You really are a politician’s daughter,” he says dryly. “Able to talk in circles and say nothing.”

  “You’re really are an FBI agent,” I reply just as dryly, abandoning my fruitless internet search. Finding my name in the news is framed with nothing I do not expect. “Able to talk in circles and say nothing.”

  “Sharp-witted, too,” he comments.

  “Why are you calling me, Jake?”

  “Do I need a reason?”

  “No,” I say, for no reason other than to lead into my next statement. “But since we both know you’re working for my father, we both know you have one.”

  “I’m not working for your father, Hailey. I hate politicians.”

  So says Logan as well. It’s a theme. I hate themes. “I’m the daughter of a politician,” I point out.

  “I’m crystal clear on that fact but you aren’t your father.”

  I’m not my father. It’s the first time anyone has said that to me in years. “Why are you calling me, Jake?” I repeat again.

  “I’m in Washington. Where are you?”

  “Is that a question in an official capacity or a personal one?”

  “Easy, sweetheart. Let down that guard. I get it. Your friend is dead. Everyone is coming at you, but I’m not one of those people. I’m the guy that helped clear your name.”

  “What? What does that mean?”

  “I saw you leave the bar. I gave a statement to that effect.”

  “If you were this certain I was innocent,” I say cautiously, “why did you show up at my hotel in Austin?”

  “I didn’t know if you had gone back to the bar. I didn’t know when Danielle left.”

  “But you helped clear my name?”

  “Yes, Hailey,” he says. “I helped clear your name.”

  “And you want what in return?”

  “To be friends. That’s all.”

  There is that word again: friends. Translation: This for that. Quid pro quo. It is the world I live in. I think now that my father called him, he is supposed to remind me of just what it is that my father is managing outside of my drunken stupor. “Understood,” I say tightly.

  “I don’t think you do,” he says.

  “Yes,” I assure him. “I do.”

  He’s silent a beat. “When do you come back to Washington?”

  “I never confirmed I wasn’t in Washington,” I counter.

  “I accessed your flights. I know you’re in Denver.”

  “Of course you did and do. And of course, you pretended you didn’t.”

  “I just wanted to get it honestly from you.”

  “Then ask.”

  “I did,” he says. “You didn’t answer. I have to go but, Hailey? I am a friend. The best one you have right now.”

  He hangs up and ice slides down my spine. Did he just tell me he knows what really happened the night Danielle disappeared? I believe he did. Of course, my father will use him, and the details of Danielle’s disappearance, to control me. The problem for him is that I know, as well as he knows, that he won’t allow anything that could hurt him, or his campaign, to go public. It’s cold comfort considering I don’t, in fact, know what happened that night, but still, it’s comfort.

  He threatened me and there is no empty place. There is no fear. I won’t be my mother. I’m angry and I don’t want to draw or paint to control it. I’ll just stay angry. It works for me and against everyone else. That’s a proven fact.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  One can have no greater or smaller mastery than the mastery of oneself,

  —Leonardo Da Vinci

  THE PAST…

  I paint all night and sleep until noon, expelling my anger, controlling my emotions. I do not remember anything else about the night Danielle disappeared, but I now possess a collage of sketches that tell stories I will use to trigger memories; images that come from my mind, my subconscious, that I will try to understand and craft into the story of that night in Austin.

  The minute I wake up, I scramble out of bed, gather my work, and pin each sketch on a wall in an upstairs office. It’s then that I realize that seventy percent of my sketches are of two people: my father and Danielle. I’ve actually plastered an entire wall with nothing but the two of them together. I scan them and home in on one partial drawing. This particular creation is a depiction of what could have been one of a dozen moments between them, that I ignored at the time, but could have seen as too intimate; my father is leaning toward Danielle, his hand on her waist, his mouth near her ear. Acid burns my throat and I force away denial. Those intimate moments I captured were just that, intimate. They were in a relationship. She was sleeping with him, maybe even spying on me, even without knowing that’s what she was doing. He’d use her like that. I get that now. No. I admit that now.

  “What happened to you, Danielle?” I whisper, but nothing follows. Nothing comes to me but one certainty: That night is drowning in lies, and for once, the lies are not mine.

  In the hours that follow, I shower, dress, and study my work; I study Danielle and obviously that is messing with my mind, as I randomly check my phone for text messages, expecting her number, her smart remarks. I can’t stop expecting to hear from Danielle. I can’t accept her death and I will never believe that homeless man killed her. When it’s finally time to leave for my class, I do so with my hair braided, my make up heavy, and a need for an escape burning in my belly. Of course, escaping my father is a task that requires herculean powers that I fail at miserably considering he inserts himself into my walk to work.

  I’m a few blocks from the coffee shop, passing a small café with an open patio when my gaze catches on a television, my breath hitching when I find my father speaking to a reporter in a sit-down interview. There is a flash across the lower screen that reads: Claim of infidelity are lies that have hurt my family deeply.

  Tension slides down my spine and I put space between me and a newscast that might flash my image while wondering how step-mother dearest would feel about Danielle and my father
right about now. At least that’s one area where I owe Danielle appreciation; she played me, but she also dished out a little payback on behalf of my mother. A memory picks at my brain, halting my steps, but when I step to the wall, my mind going elsewhere. I’m in a sea of sharks, and I am a little fish about to be eaten. I can’t be the little fish about to be eaten which is why I have to be my father’s daughter, which means a master manipulator. I pull my phone from my pocket and punch the call back for Jake, a man who might just know how to fill in all my blank spaces, or at least a few. He answers on the first ring. “Trying to prove you miss me?

  “You want something from me,” I say, getting right to the point.

  “Maybe I just want you.” His voice is both velvet and promise but I am so damn tired of being used that I cut right past it.

  “I’m way too seasoned of a politician’s daughter for that approach to work on me,” I say. “We used each other that night. Let’s do it again. I’m a double-edged sword for you. The one that can cut you and the one that can cut him if he becomes your boss.”

  I don’t have to tell him that “him” is my father. We both know. “Since there’s obviously much we need to clarify,” he says. “I’d say we should talk. In person. I’ll come to you.”

  “When?” I ask, my tone flat, unreadable by choice.

  “When I do,” he says, just as flatly.

  He disconnects with that little power play, but that’s just fine by me. I have what I want. Jake, who has proclaimed he will protect my secret, will come to me. Of course, he’s working for my father, and of course, that means he’ll paint the visit as one to contain and control me. But I have far more experience in this world, far too much understanding of the people in it than I wish I did. I am that double-edged sword and he knows it, while my father never gives me the credit where credit is due. If Jake won’t help me then I’ll use Jake to scare Tobey into believing that night will soon haunt us all. He’ll tell me what really happened.

  It’s a plan of necessity. It’s me taking control.

  No fear. I think that my earlier thought was wrong. My mother would approve.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  If you paint a lie in a million glorious colors, is it still a lie? Or is it, or rather, am I Pandora’s Box filled with so many lies that the lid will burst open and destruction and pain will follow?

  That’s where this is leading so I’ll just tell you the answer. It’s yes. I am indeed Pandora’s Box, and the lid did indeed burst open. I was so busy worrying about what I didn’t know, that I didn’t feel it happening. I was focused in all the wrong places, outsmarted really, which I blame on one thing: I didn’t embrace me. I was still her. I was obsessed with who she was and could be. Angry about what she couldn’t be. That girl still thought she could change things, change herself even. Everyone was trying. Why couldn’t she?

  The me of now is different. I’d have done everything differently, but it wasn’t supposed to be that way. That box had to open and someone, more than one someone, had to die. I know that now. That I can even say that from this calm, cool place, is real growth. It’s me, helping you. Because remember: That’s why I’m telling this story. It’s not about me. It’s about you. Don’t kill yourself over what you can’t change. And the truth is, I couldn’t tell this if they’d all lived.

  ***

  THE PAST…

  I step inside the coffee shop, and the acid that has settled in my throat evaporates with the flare of my nostrils, and I inhale the rich aroma of coffee beans and chocolate, the tables filled here and there, several repeat students calling my name. This place feels like the cloth of my soul, a place where I can breathe, without asking permission, at least, until my connection to my father steals that away. The minute that happens, and if I stay long enough, it inevitably will, this place will be punished with the press, and then suddenly I’m on the outside looking down on this place from a pedestal of my father’s creation. I won’t be one of them, as I am now. I’ll be her. Which is exactly why I am going to guard myself and this place for as long as possible.

  I hurry down the steps and scan the bar, looking for trouble, and yes, looking for Logan, and I tell myself that this is necessary, not hopeful. After all, if he’s working for my father, he most certainly is trouble. He’s also not here, at least not in plain sight, but that means nothing. Watching me doesn’t require standing in front of me. Manipulating me, attempting to use me, that’s another story and one perhaps, he’s given up on.

  “Hailey!”

  I turn toward the bar to find Michelle holding up a hand and offering a smile, before waving me forward. I cross the room, weaving through tables, and greeting several familiar faces, before settling onto a barstool in front of her.

  “Coffee?” she asks, resting her hands on the wooden counter, her long brown hair squeezed into a clip at the back of her head.

  “Yes, please,” I say, and she calls out the order to a tall, dark-haired man behind the bar that I have never seen before. “Eddie! Skinny white mocha.”

  “Is he new?” I ask when she returns her attention to me. “Or am I just too new to know everyone?”

  “He’s a college student that’s been here a year,” she says. “He’s only here two nights a week.” In other words, he’s not a spy inserted to watch over me, just a potential target that could become one, as is everyone, Michelle included. “How are you feeling about things?” she asks, studying me intently.

  “Great,” I say. “I love it. Why?”

  “But you like it here? There are no problems?”

  My brows knit together. “What am I missing?”

  “It’s what I’m missing I’m worried about,” she says. “You left abruptly yesterday. Like Logan upset you.”

  I’m reminded of her watching me yesterday and it hits me that she wasn’t watching me at all. She was watching Logan with me. Are they a thing? Have they been? Is that why he is here so often? “I had a work situation,” I say, managing not to lie. My life, or rather my father’s life, is my eternal employment.

  “Are you sure? Because he’s a regular here, and in case you’ve heard, we are old friends, but if there’s a problem, I’ll handle it right away. I can’t have him running off my art instructor. I’ve seen his doodling and it amounts to stick people.”

  “Old friends?” I query, sideswiped by this news for reasons I’ll analyze later.

  “We grew up in this neighborhood,” she says. “But—”

  Eddie, who looks to be twenty or so, chooses that moment, to set my cup of coffee down in front of me, moving away without a greeting or look in my direction. No greeting. No recognition. No problem. Which reminds me of her staring at me yesterday.

  “Back to Logan,” she says.

  “I saw you watching us yesterday,” I say, getting right to the point. “Are you two—”

  “No,” she says, holding up her hands. “Not at all. Never. Logan is a good guy, but we’ve just never had a spark.” She narrows her eyes on me. “You’re asking because you saw me watching you yesterday.”

  “Yes,” I say flatly. “I am.”

  “Sorry about that. Honestly, I was trying to figure you out. Not many people would do what you’re doing and I just—”

  Eddie shouts out a question and she answers.

  “You just what?” I press, pulling her attention back to me.

  “I just keep thinking I know you from somewhere,” she says. “It’s been driving me crazy.”

  Driving her crazy. That is not good. “I get that a lot,” I say. “All my life.” I laugh. “The good part of that is that I’m an inherently private person, and no one remembers me for trying to remember someone else.” I grab my cup and stand up. “But you did remember my drink. Thank you.” I turn and walk away with the irony of my words. Inherently private. I am and yet my life is always being watched over and prodded by those I don’t invite inside. Which is exactly why no one really knows me but me. It�
�s safer that way.

  I hurry across the room to the art studio area where random people have started to gather and my mind goes to Logan and I’m thinking again about him not following me. I think—maybe he’s really a good guy, and I just—I got up and left. Maybe he’s real and I’m so used to fake that I don’t even know what real is anymore. I need real. I really, really need real in my life right now. I inhale and let it out, grabbing my phone and keying to my email. No email from Logan and it knifes through me. This should please me. He’s not here watching me too closely. If I’m lucky it stays that way only it doesn’t feel like luck at all. I shove my phone back in my pocket and focus on the only thing that is real: Art.

  I glance up and Megan is standing in the doorway. I narrow my eyes on her and take a step in her direction, but she turns and walks away. I fully intend to follow her, but Ashley appears in her spot and rushes my way. “Oh good I caught you,” she says. “Tomorrow is Michelle’s birthday.” She holds up a card. “Do you want to sign and contribute? We’re having cake and champagne at closing tomorrow night. It’s a surprise since her Special Forces boyfriend is out of the country and her parents are I guess not around or something.”

  I blink, willing myself to focus on her, not Megan, but something about Megan is bothering me. Actually, everything about her is bothering me. “Of course,” I manage, accepting the card. “Let me grab my purse.” I hurry to the front of the room, and when I would return with a hundred-dollar bill, to be generous, of course, it hits me that might not be smart. I grab a twenty instead and when I turn around Ashley is waiting. “Is twenty good?”

  “It’s perfect,” she says, accepting it.