The Perfect Lie

by Cheryl Bradshaw

  His gloved hands were shaking.

  Her bare hands were too.

  Thinking of the ordeal she’d just had with Lester, a single thought crossed her mind: not this shit again.

  “I believe you have the wrong restroom,” she said. “This is the ladies’.”

  He grunted a laugh, took a step forward.

  She took two steps back.

  He stepped forward again. The two continued the dance until Alexandra’s back was against the wall. There was no place left to go.

  “I’m going to have to ask you to back away,” she said. “Right now. Or—”

  Her mouth snapped shut when the silver tip of a knife’s blade was pressed to the center of her neck.

  Stay calm. Stay strong. No need to panic. He’s a crazed fan. You’ve dealt with them before. You’ll deal with them again. Give him what he wants, and he’ll leave.

  “Who are you?” she demanded.

  Her attacker didn’t move, remained silent.

  “Why are you doing this?” she continued. “What do you want? Money? I never carry cash with me at these things. If you think you can—”

  “Do you regret it?”

  His voice was monotone.

  Robotic.

  It didn’t sound real.

  “Do I regret what?” Alexandra asked. “How could I possibly answer that when I have no idea who you are or what I’m supposed to be regretting.”

  “You know exactly what I mean. Apologize for all the lives you’ve ruined. Say you’re sorry.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Is this a joke? Is it funny to you?!”

  She gnawed on her lower lip, blinked the tears away, composed herself, tried again. “I’m ... I’m ... sorry. Truly, I am. I never meant to offend you. Please, you must believe me. I didn’t mean to offend you ... or anyone.”

  “And your regrets? What about your regrets?”

  “Of course. I have many regrets. A lifetime of them. Who doesn’t?”

  “A lifetime of lies is what you have. Lies and secrets.”

  The tip of the blade poked at her throat, piercing the skin. It wasn’t much. No more than a sixteenth of an inch. Just enough for a single line of blood to trail down her neck, staining her shirt.

  “Tell me what you want me to do, and I’ll do it,” she pleaded.

  The man leaned forward, his steamy breath pulsing a wave of goose bumps along Alexandra’s milky skin. The closeness between them sparked an air of familiarity.

  “You think I’m stupid?” he said. “You don’t even know what you’re apologizing for, do you?”

  She didn’t. And it wasn’t like she could cater an apology specifically for him. How could she without knowing what she’d done to offend him in the first place?

  Unless ...

  No.

  It couldn’t be.

  Hardly anyone knew about the book.

  And yet ...

  “Put the knife down,” she said. “I’m sure we can work something out. Let’s talk about this. Please. I’ll do anything. I have a family.”

  Why did I just mention my family?

  “I know.”

  “Don’t you touch them! Don’t you dare touch them! You hear me?”

  The nausea pulsed through her in a quick, unstoppable wave, followed by a complete loss of control. The man jerked the knife away from her neck, and she slumped to the floor, unscathed. He wasn’t going to stab her.

  Everything made sense now.

  The nausea.

  The shaking.

  Her attacker’s fake voice.

  She hadn’t been stabbed. She’d been poisoned.

  Lying on the filthy bathroom floor, feeling the last few moments of her life ebbing away, she stole one last glance at her attacker.

  He wasn’t just vaguely familiar.

  She knew him.

  CHAPTER 3

  The Next Morning

  New Orleans was one of those places I knew I’d never fully appreciate until I experienced it firsthand. No amount of personal stories or episodes of Treme could convey the flavor of a city so rich in historic culture as seeing it in person could.

  I was staying at an upscale hotel in the French Quarter, which could only be described as interesting. The area, not the hotel. I use the word interesting because, at certain times of the day, Bourbon Street and its adjoining cross streets emitted a distinct odor, a foul smell, like someone had just taken a giant piss in a frying pan and set it on a stove over high heat.

  Foul smell aside, the city drew me in, pumping a healthy dose of nostalgia through my veins from the moment the plane touched down, and it was easy to see why the Big Easy was a tourist phenomenon. The jubilant jazz music wafting through the streets was unparalleled to anything I’d experienced before. And I’d seen and heard plenty in my thirty-eight years.

  I was kicked back on the bed, scouring through a magazine for freefall skydiving companies, when Finch walked in. Finch was actually his surname. His first name was Gregory, but when I’d read his full name aloud two years earlier during his job interview, he’d corrected me saying, “It’s not Gregory. It’s Greg.” I preferred Gregory, so now he was Finch.

  Finch could be described as the Clark Kent of the military. Or retired military, I should say. On the outside, his forty-five-year-old schoolboy charm and simple, understated style made him appear sweet and amiable. Beneath the façade, however, was a trim, toned man who was loyal, perceptive, and didn’t screw around. After twenty years of faithful service in a special ops unit in the military, he’d returned home to find his not-so-loving wife six-months pregnant. Only problem? He hadn’t seen her in nine. Broken and lost, he filed for divorce and walked out of her life forever. Three weeks later, he walked into mine.

  Finch plopped down on the bed next to me, pressing a crooked finger to the middle of his eyeglasses, centering them on the bridge of his nose again.

  “I have no idea how you see out of those things,” I said.

  “What do you mean?” he replied. “I see just fine.”

  I set the magazine I was perusing on my lap and leaned forward, sweeping a few of his stick-straight, blond locks to the side with my finger. “Your bangs almost touch the tip of your nose. It’s like hair gone wild. I know you wanted a change from the military cut, but this is getting a bit extreme, don’t you think? I can’t even see your eyes sometimes when you’re talking to me.”

  He frowned, which I suspected had little to do with my comment and more to do with something else.

  “What’s bugging you?” I asked.

  “What?”

  “The look on your face. Something’s wrong.”

  “Your mother called.”

  “Again?”

  He nodded. “Third time this week. If you’d call her back, maybe she’d stop calling me.”

  “It’s easier if she calls you. Then I don’t have to talk to her.”

  “I’m your bodyguard, not your personal assistant.”

  I laughed. “She doesn’t see the difference.”

  “Can you just call her?”

  “I will.”

  “When?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. Soon.”

  Finch raised a brow. “I don’t believe you.”

  Truth was, I didn’t believe me either. I’d avoided her calls for two weeks. I knew what she wanted. The same thing she’d wanted for the past month. My answer was the same as the last time I talked to her. I didn’t see the point in rehashing it. “I’ll call her. I just haven’t made a decision yet.”

  “You’re running out of time.”

  I sighed. “I know. I know. Can we talk about something else? Anything else?”

  “Sure, if you promise to call her.”

  “I’ll call her,” I said. “Tomorrow.”

  He crossed his arms. “Today, Joss.”

  “Fine. Today.”

  “And don’t ditch out on me again, okay?”

  “You mean last night? I wore a hat.”r />
  “A hat doesn’t protect you.”

  “It does if I’m not recognized.”

  He sighed. “You need to let me do what I was hired to do. Otherwise, there’s no point in me being on this trip.”

  “I asked you if you wanted time off. You didn’t.”

  I’d grown so used to his shadow I’d forgotten how it felt not having him around. The night before, when I’d heard about Alexandra’s book signing, he was asleep. I decided I was fine on my own, and I slipped out. I arrived back at the room an hour later and found him awake and unhappy. Very unhappy.

  My attention shifted to a newswoman on TV. I swore she’d just uttered something about Alexandra Weston being found dead in a bookstore bathroom. Frantic to learn more, I smoothed a hand across the bedspread, fishing for the remote. “Where’s the control for the TV? Have you seen it?”

  Finch glanced around, then lifted his right butt cheek. He reached down, grabbed the remote control, and handed it to me. A wide grin spread across his face. “Guess I sat on it. Brings a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘pain in the ass,’ doesn’t it?”

  He laughed. I shook my head, smacked him on the arm with the remote, and increased the volume on the television just in time to hear the news anchor say, “Today the world is reeling from the loss of bestselling true-crime author Alexandra Weston, who was found dead inside a restroom last night at Bienville Street Bookstore. We’re still waiting on more information from the police.”

  CHAPTER 4

  A heavy rapping sounded from the opposite side of my hotel room door.

  “I’ll get it,” Finch said.

  I rose from the bed. “It’s okay. I got it.”

  He grimaced, racing me to the door.

  I glanced out the peephole at two uniformed officers in the hallway. One male, one female. The female glared straight at the hole like she was keenly aware of my eyeball peering at her from the opposite side. I cracked the door just enough to wedge my body into the opening and directed my attention to the woman. Her chestnut-colored hair was pulled back into a taut ponytail. And when I say taut, the ponytail was so tight it looked like her face had just been nipped and tucked. She was a few inches shorter than I was, around five foot seven, and had an interesting shape—chicken legs from the knee down and thunder thighs on top, giving her lower half the appearance of a human candy corn.

  She frowned, her plain, dull eyes boring into mine.

  “Can I help you?” I asked.

  “Joss Jax?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m Officer Blunt, and this is Officer Parks.”

  Officer Blunt.

  The shoe fit perfectly.

  I switched my gaze to Parks. He was tall and bald. Lanky. He looked young and green, like it was his first week on the job. He extended a hand toward me. Blunt swatted it away.

  “You don’t need to shake the woman’s hand, Parks,” she scolded. “We’re here to ask questions, not to get better acquainted.”

  “Oh,” he said, his eyes darting to the floor. “Sorry. It’s just ... I’m a big fan. A big, big fan. I’ve never missed an episode of your show, Miss Jax. And I’ve read most of your books.”

  I stuck my hand out to him, and he accepted it. “Call me Joss.”

  He beamed. Officer Blunt rolled her eyes and tried to push the hotel room door forward, expecting me to allow her access just because she was in uniform and wanted in. I maintained my position. Golden tickets didn’t come this easily. Not with me.

  “Can we come in?” she asked.

  It was more of an expectation than a query.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “We need to talk to you about Alexandra Weston.”

  “So go ahead and talk.”

  “Are you aware of what’s happened?”

  “Vaguely,” I said. “I just saw the story on the news.”

  “She was found dead last night at the bookstore on Bienville,” Parks said. “Looks like she may have been murdered.”

  Blunt gave him a sharp sideways glance, and he resumed staring at the floor.

  “You witnessed a scuff-up last night between Alexandra Weston and Lester Barnes, right?” Blunt asked.

  “I did. What about it?”

  She moved a hand to her hip. “What is it with you, responding to all of my questions with questions?”

  “I’m just trying to move this along.”

  “There’s no need to get snippy.”

  “I’m not getting snippy,” I said. “If I was, you’d have no problem understanding the difference.”

  She glared at me like she wanted to put a bullet between my eyes.

  “Look, I’d like to ask you a few questions,” she said. “And I’d rather do it inside your room instead of in the hallway where any Joe Blow with nothing better to do is privy to our conversation. If that isn’t to your liking, you can come with me, and we’ll have this conversation elsewhere.”

  I assumed “elsewhere” was code for the police department, or whatever they called it here. Technically, she had no warrant, which meant I had every right to slam the door in her face if I wanted. She wasn’t taking me anywhere. I was a person of interest, not a suspect. She needed me, not the other way around.

  Still, I had to admit, I was curious. I wondered what other information might slip from Officer Parks’s mouth if I let them in. I pulled the door all the way open, allowing both officers inside. In the far corner, next to a window overlooking a courtyard with a fifteen-foot marble fountain in the middle, the four of us sat down.

  Blunt thumbed at Finch. “Who’s this, your boyfriend?”

  Finch cupped a hand over his month, half-coughed, half-laughed. “Uh, no.”

  “He works for me,” I said.

  “In what capacity?”

  “Why does it matter?” I asked.

  “I’m her bodyguard,” Finch offered.

  Thinking it was a joke, Blunt snapped her head back, snorted.

  Parks nudged her. “I told you. She’s on TV. Hosts a homicide show. Murderous Minds. She’s famous. Famous people have bodyguards all the time.”

  Blunt clicked the top of her ballpoint pen, unfazed. “Huh. Well, I’ve never seen the show. I don’t need to watch things like that. I deal with homicide in real life. What time did you arrive at the bookstore last night?”

  I told her.

  “And what time did you leave?”

  I told her that too.

  “Who else was present while you were there?”

  “A few employees, Lester Barnes, Alexandra Weston, and a security guy named Louis.”

  “Are you sure you didn’t see anyone else lurking around?”

  I shook my head. “The store was about to close.”

  “I read what you said about Lester in the statement you gave to police. You restrained him. Why didn’t you let the security guard handle the situation?”

  I grinned. “The guy moved like his feet were stuck in blocks of cement. He was in no hurry to come to her aid.”

  “Interesting. Why not?”

  “Probably because his considerable girth would have made him exert more energy than he thought it was worth, and because it was a crappy, hourly paid job. How would I know? I could see she was in trouble. I was close, so I stepped in. I thought I was doing her a favor. The guy was nuts.”

  “Funny.”

  “What is?” I asked.

  “Lester said the same thing about you.”

  “Of course he did,” I snapped.

  “You’re not surprised?”

  “Should I be?”

  “Maybe.”

  I leaned back, crossed one leg over the other. “I’d like to help you. I’m a big fan of Alexandra Weston and her books. With the exception of the one she signed for me last night, I’ve read everything she’s written.”

  “How nice. After Lester was escorted from the store, did you talk with her?”

  “Briefly.”

  “What about?”

  “Her book,
” I said. “Writing. My job.”

  “Why would you talk about your job?”

  I sighed. This was getting ridiculous. “Alexandra Weston is a fellow author who writes in the same genre I do.”

  Blunt nodded. “So you ... know her.”

  “I know who she is, yes. We aren’t buddies. Last night was the first time we’ve met.”

  “Did she say anything significant to you when you saw her?”

  “No.”

  “Did she seem agitated or worried about anything?”

  I mulled the question over for a moment. There were pros and cons involved with gratuitous oversharing with police. “She told me Lester wasn’t the first person who’d ever harassed her.”

  Blunt leaned in. “What were her exact words?”

  “She said a woman had followed her back to her hotel room after a signing once. The woman was harmless, just a fan obsessed with a book she’d written.”

  “And?”

  “She said she’d run into a few creeps like Lester over the years.”

  “She give you any names? Locations where she may have been harassed?”

  I shook my head. “Honestly, she talked about it like it was no big deal.”

  “How did the visit end?”

  “She signed my book, invited me to stop by her house while I was here so I could meet her daughter.”

  “Then what?”

  “I left,” I said.

  “Where did you go?”

  “If you’re asking where I was at the time Alexandra Weston died, I’d need to know the exact time her death occurred.”

  I knew Blunt wouldn’t give it to me, and any hope I had of Parks blurting out the answer was dashed when Blunt glared at him like she’d saw his head off if he spoke a word.

  “After you left the bookstore, where did you go?”

  “I returned back here,” I said.

  “Can anyone confirm it?”

  “I don’t need anyone to confirm it. That’s what happened.”