Lies That Bind

by Diana Rodriguez Wallach

  I had a feeling I didn’t want to know.

  But I was going to find out. We were leaving again tomorrow.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Two Weeks Later…

  “This house is insane!”

  “Bigger than Urban’s.”

  “Shh! We dare not speak his name.”

  “Why? It’s their parents who are trying to kill us.”

  “I thought the Phoenixes were dead?”

  “Uh huh, so is Tupac.”

  “Screw it. Let’s go swimming!”

  “Anyone have a wine opener?”

  Our historic English mansion in East Sussex, less than a mile from Paul McCartney’s country estate, was turning into a dirty frat house. Over the course of two weeks, the teams of Marcus and Antonio, and Keira and I had packed the place with teens whose families were annihilated by the work of Department D. Twelve in total. All names were supplied by Allen Cross, and so far all pointed fingers in the same direction. At my parents. All of them.

  For example, Meghan Teller’s father supposedly developed a “heart attack gun” that could shoot a dissolving dart into a human chest, causing cardiac arrest. He hadn’t been seen in more than a decade, placed in isolation by Department D, out of fear of losing their best scientist to a competitor. His last known handler was my mother.

  There was also Patrick O’Reilly, whose grandfather was convicted of kidnapping the most famous racehorse in Irish history, then accidentally killing it. Only he swore until his deathbed that the real culprits were Department D, specifically a man who looked just like, you guessed it, my father.

  Benjamin Green, the first kid Marcus brought back, finally got the answers he wanted on the evidence left at his great aunt’s crime scene. Charlotte linked the two sets of mysterious DNA to both of my parents.

  What was worse was that not all of the evidence was pointing to crimes committed before my parents’ supposed deaths. Some disturbingly occurred after.

  Like Claudette West, whose mother died tragically in a mysterious plane crash last year over the Pacific Ocean. The plane was never recovered, and Claudette swore her mother’s bosses were a reclusive husband-and-wife duo working out of Cuba, the last known place Allen Cross said my parents had lived. Claudette wasn’t alone. Two other kids told identical stories of reclusive bosses working on the tiny communist island. That left all of us to wonder if my parents were running operations all this time—maybe they still even ran Department D?

  “Okay, Marcello, I think that’s it,” Julian said as he turned off the red light on his video camera.

  Julian had elevated the video depositions to include professional lighting, sound equipment, and HD cameras. The “studio” was now based in the mansion’s former study, which housed floor-to-ceiling shelves of antique books that rivaled the size of most community libraries, making it one of the smaller rooms in the house. He wasn’t lying when he said we’d have more space in his family’s “country home.” The East Sussex “Compound,” as it came to be known, looked like how most people imagine the Palace of Versailles—loads of museum-quality art and furniture you were afraid to sit on. The walls were papered with fabric that looked hand painted, and the grounds were large enough to host a cross-country race that never left the property. True to his word, Julian hired men in black suits with secret-service-looking earpieces to stand watch outside every entrance. They swept for bugs daily. His father was never mentioned, nor did he stop by. Everyone felt safe, physically, from Department D’s Boogiemen. They just didn’t feel safe with my sister and me.

  It was getting awkward.

  A crowd would be gathered around a pool table taking bets on the next shot, then a Phoenix girl would enter and all chuckling ceased. When we sat down to eat lunch, the meal fell silent. Then when we got up to clear our plates, conversations resumed. I tried to talk to our guests, show them that I wasn’t my parents, that I wasn’t evil, that I was one of them. But either they were too scared to listen or too unforgiving. Eyes pierced me whenever I passed, including Dani’s. He seemed to only grow more suspicious as each kid showed up pointing yet another finger at our parents. Still, they stayed at the compound, appreciating Charlotte’s computer skills and Julian’s over-the-top hospitality. They believed we were trying to bring down Department D, which they wanted, but they lacked a desire to spend time with the daughters of the people who created it.

  “Hi, Marcello!” I waved at the latest Dresden Kid giving his video statement in the study. His father was a politician who mysteriously dropped dead right before a pivotal election. My mother was a campaign worker who served him his final meal.

  “Oh, uh, hello,” he replied, not meeting my eyes. He shot a quick peek at Charlotte and Julian. “Am I done here?”

  “Yeah,” Charlotte answered, fingers on her laptop. “If we have more questions, we’ll let you know.”

  “Okay.” He practically ran to the door, ensuring he kept as far away from me as possible—the girl with lethal cooties.

  “I’ll talk to you later!” I called after him.

  I missed my friends. I now further appreciated the strength of character Tyson and Regina had to befriend a girl when no one else would. God, Tyson… My mind drifted to him and Regina every night before bed. I pictured him in that alley, fighting for his life, almost winning, until the knife went in. I imagined Regina crying into her pillow, alone in her bedroom, without any friends to comfort her, petrified that murderers were going to kill her family. She’d watched Tyson die. For thirty-seven dollars and a twisted message to me.

  I was the most dangerous friend in the world. Maybe these Dresden Kids were right to stay away.

  “They’ll come around,” Charlotte said, as if hearing my thoughts.

  “They hate me,” I replied.

  “They can’t hate you, when they don’t even know you.” She should have that printed on a button.

  “They know my parents.” I thudded my head against the wall.

  “I’ll admit the evidence against them is mounting.” Charlotte always straddled the razor-sharp line between making me feel better and not lying to my face.

  “I’m starting to understand what it must feel like to be the daughter of a serial killer. Do you think Jeffrey Dahmer’s family changed their names? So people wouldn’t be afraid they’d stick their heads in freezers?”

  “It’s not that bad.” Julian glanced up from his laptop.

  “You mean because my parents didn’t eat them?”

  “Exactly. Things could always be worse.”

  “Julian, you’re not helping,” Charlotte droned, before giving me a smile so fake a politician would be proud. “The good news is the evidence we’ve acquired is substantial. We have collected video footage, eye witness positive IDs, and DNA linking Department D—or more specifically your parents—to multiple unsolved, or incorrectly solved, cases worldwide. I think we might be ready to take this to Martin Bittman and the CIA.”

  “Or go public,” Julian suggested, his tone casual, as if this weren’t the millionth time he’d brought this up.

  “Are you really going there again?” I groaned.

  He wasn’t even trying to hide his personal agenda. I knew Julian deserved a big payout for helping us—the story of a lifetime that would lift him from laughing stock tabloid journalist to the second coming of Walter Cronkite. But it sometimes felt like he was so eager to pitch our story to the networks, he didn’t fully consider what it would mean for Keira and me. No matter how often I told him.

  “Hear me out, one more time!” Julian held up his hands, pleading for reason. “I know our plan has been to gather this evidence and bring it to the authorities, and I still think we should do that. But these are conspiracy theories.” Julian said the words like they held magic (or ratings gold). “Who knows how deep these cover ups go? What if we hand over this evidence and the authorities don’t act on it, because it somehow implicates the CIA’s involvement? We already know that Martin Bittman was in that or
iginal photo you found in Tuscany, of your parents with Aldo Moro, the one that was doctored to remove all of them. We can assume that the CIA would not want that evidence to surface.”

  “Maybe they don’t. Who cares? As long as they take down Department D and everyone associated with it.” I shrugged.

  “What if that’s not what they do?” Julian rose to his feet. “Allen Cross, an admitted card-carrying spy for Department D, called Martin Bittman, the Deputy Director of the CIA, when your sister was kidnapped and asked for his help.” Julian pulled at his finger, emphasizing his point. “Then Bittman showed up in Venice and helped.”

  Of course, I’d considered this. It was one of my arguments when Keira first tried to insist we leave everything to the CIA. Maybe the government group wasn’t on our side? But at the end of the day, Keira was right—none of us were spies equipped to deal with this. So we agreed to gather evidence and trust the authorities would take them down. We had to, because the alternative was too dismal—me fighting assassins myself while wearing a tinfoil hat believing my government was out to get me. Even I could see the flaws in that. Besides, our plan did not rely entirely on blind faith. “Are you trying to tell me you and Charlotte haven’t backed up every piece of evidence on a million different servers worldwide?” I cocked my head. “If the authorities don’t do anything, we still have all the work we’ve done saved somewhere.”

  “That’s exactly my point!” Julian started pacing, his voice high and excited. “Let’s do both, right now. Give the CIA the evidence and go public with all of it. Once your story is out there, everything will be under public scrutiny, Dresden, Department D…”

  “Us.” I glared at him.

  He shut his mouth.

  “Our lives will be over, Julian. Don’t you get that? They may not physically kill us if you put us in the spotlight, but we’ll never be able to walk down the street again. We’ll never be able to—”

  The sound of a muffled phone ringing cut through the room. Charlotte dove into the brown leather sofa cushions, searching wildly, until she pulled out a silver burner phone.

  “It’s Cross,” she told us, looking at the screen.

  She tucked her curly hair behind an ear, pressing the phone to it. “Hello. Yup, I have it right here.” Charlotte stretched for the laptop that served as her fifth limb. “Omigod. Wow.” She gave me a look that made a sickening wave break in my belly. “Okay, wow. Yeah, um, I’ll show her.”

  What now? What other truth bomb could this man throw at my life? I fought the urge to sprint from the room and hide under my bed with the dust bunnies, but before I could, Charlotte turned her laptop toward me and mouthed the word, “Sorry.”

  I stared at the screen.

  “What is this?” I asked, blinking at a JPEG of me standing in the lobby of Dresden’s corporate offices. It was clearly a still image taken from surveillance footage the day of Tyson’s memorial. I was standing next to Marcus’s parents in my black funeral dress and coat. “Why does Cross have this?”

  “He intercepted it online.” Charlotte shifted the phone from her mouth as she spoke to me. “He thinks it was sent to your parents, and he wants me to track down the IP addresses of everyone who opened it. He thinks it’s some sort of threat.”

  “Why? What? Let me talk to him.” I reached for the phone, snatching it from her hand. “What’s going on?” I barked into the receiver.

  “Hello, Anastasia. I take it you’ve seen the photo,” Cross replied.

  “Obviously, but why do you think it was sent to my parents?” In the image, the Reys and I appear to be having a friendly chat; Marcus’s dad is touching my shoulder, likely offering condolences for Tyson’s death.

  “What did I tell you that day?” he asked. “That everything Department D is doing is in service of drawing out your parents. Broadcasting a photo of you and the Reys, with them close enough to touch you, will make your mother and father very angry. Especially given the threatening message that was delivered to your friend Regina. Remember, I told you that your parents were staging a hostile takeover before their ‘accident’ and that most of the staff was loyal to them?”

  “Uh huh.” I nodded, trying to decipher where his thoughts were headed.

  “Well, back then, there were two very important people unshakably loyal to Randolph Urban. Rosario and Carlos Rey.”

  “You’re saying they wanted my parents dead?”

  “There’s only so much room at the top of the pyramid.”

  “So this photo is a threat? They’re threatening to kill me?” I still couldn’t believe I lived in a world where I had to ask these types of questions—of my boyfriend’s parents. I felt my hand start to shake as it held the phone, my pulse accelerating. As much as I tried to act tough, a death threat was still a death threat.

  “I recommend you be careful,” he said. As if we aren’t already? “And ask Miss Conner to get back to me once she has the IP addresses. I think it’s in our best interest to locate your parents before they do.”

  He sounded like he was ready to hang up, and I jerked at the thought. “Wait! Don’t!” I blurted. “Do you know about all the evidence we’ve collected?”

  “Yes,” he confirmed. “Miss Conner has kept me apprised of where you stand.”

  “It’s pointing to my parents. All of it.” I clutched the phone tighter, my hand growing clammy.

  “I told you, your parents were on the ground. So the evidence is going to connect to them more than Urban or the Reys.”

  “But what about the recent stuff? Kids are claiming their parents were taking orders from a couple in Cuba.” The vice on my stomach twisted further as I asked my next question. “Do you think it’s them? Do you think my parents have been running things, like secret missions, this whole time?”

  “I’m as surprised as you are about the mention of Cuba.”

  “Is it true?”

  “A few months ago, I would have said it was completely impossible, but I fear I may be a poor judge of what your parents are capable of.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” My face wrinkled. This was not a time for vague accusations. “Is it possible that they are still running Department D, and Urban and the Reys are completely innocent?”

  “No, absolutely not. Your boyfriend may want to believe that fantasy, but I assure you that is not the case.”

  “But we have no evidence against anyone else!” My voice squeaked, sounding like a whiny teenager, but that was exactly how I felt. This wasn’t going how I’d expected. The Phoenixes were burning, all of us. Alone. “I thought we were going to take down Urban. Because I know my parents did not kidnap my sister or kill Tyson. Whoever is coming after us, whoever gave Regina that message, is looking for my parents. You need to give me more, proof that Urban is behind this.”

  A lull fell over the line, and I could hear Cross breathing. “Fine,” he finally replied. “I have some theories about what might be happening. All of the arrows pointing to your parents is far too convenient. Tell Miss Conner I will be in touch shortly with a new list of names, and be assured, at least one will point directly to Urban.”

  He hung up abruptly, and relief washed over me. Finally. We’d get him. No more baby pictures, no more confusion. I’d have proof that Urban was the bad guy. He’d get locked up, far away from Keira and me, unable to hurt us, and any genetic link we had would be meaningless.

  I spun around to face Charlotte and Julian, feeling mildly satisfied, until I spied the collective looks of panic in their enlarged eyes. I dropped the phone. “What? Is it the photo? Of me in Dresden’s lobby?” Only I knew it wasn’t. Their faces wore the expression of those watching a live execution, my execution, utterly stunned and serious. Still, I played dumb, praying it wasn’t as bad as it looked.

  “Anastasia, I’m sorry,” Charlotte muttered.

  Blood roared in my ears as sweat broke on my forehead. What more could there be?

  “It’s everywhere,” Julian replied.

  The
n he turned his laptop my way, and I saw it.

  Chapter Nineteen

  BOSTON TATTLER, gossip magazine

  December 8th

  Phoenixes Rise from the Ashes, Literally

  BROOKLINE, MA—Is Keira Phoenix really dead? That is the question being asked by those closest to the mysterious family.

  You may remember the case. Last year, on Mother’s Day, twenty-four-year-old Keira Phoenix disappeared from her Brookline brownstone. The prior evening, she had hosted a party, alcohol was consumed, and Keira was last seen in the company of a man no one could identify beyond the first name of “Craig.” The next morning, her seventeen-year-old sister, Anastasia Phoenix, found Keira missing and their bathtub full of her blood. No body was ever recovered. The case remains cold.

  Until now.

  Questions have recently arisen about the circumstances surrounding Keira Phoenix’s disappearance, which was ruled a “probable homicide” by Boston Police. Regina Villanueva, friend of Anastasia’s and girlfriend of recently murdered Brookline Academy student Tyson Westbrook, has made a new statement to police claiming that Westbrook’s mugging-gone-wrong was not accidental and was, in fact, connected to Keira Phoenix. Police have reopened both investigations, and sources tell us that authorities have uncovered a photo of Keira Phoenix holding a church bulletin, from Venice, Italy, displaying a date from after she disappeared. Requests to obtain a copy of this image from police were denied.

  Does the photo exist? Is it a proof of life? Was Keira Phoenix really kidnapped and not killed?

  And if so, was her sister, Anastasia, behind it?

  After Keira’s mysterious disappearance, Anastasia Phoenix dropped out of Brookline Academy and left for a “study abroad experience” in Italy, according to her legal guardians, Colleen and Sean Conner of Worcester, MA. Allegedly, their twenty-four-year-old daughter, Charlotte Conner, assumed control of Anastasia’s homeschooling overseas. But recently, Anastasia sold her family home with all proceeds going directly to her.