She Told a Lie

by P. D. Workman

  Madison made a noise of protest. She looked at Noah, her face lined with anxiety and pain. “Noah… I don’t understand this. I don’t believe it. Tell me it’s not true. You’re just teasing. You just want me to go home.”

  “It’s too late to go home. I want you to be safe, and you won’t be safe there.”

  “This doesn’t make sense. I love you, Noah.”

  “No, you don’t. You’ve just been… conditioned. It’s what we do. It’s how we get people to do what we say.” Noah cleared his throat, but his voice was still unsteady. “Praise and love when they do what they’re supposed to. Consequences and punishment when they don’t.” He turned away from her to look out the window. “You think you’re making your own choices, but you’re not. You’re doing what they want you to do. Whenever they want something, they tell me, and it’s my job to get you to do it. Whatever it takes. If I can’t, there’s a consequence.”

  There was a long silence. Zachary glanced over at Rhys, who was playing with his phone, listening to the others.

  “Where are we going to go, then?” Madison asked. “One of my friends from school? I know they’re not mixed up in this.”

  “They’ll look for you at the school. And if you’re not with your parents, they’ll start checking out your friends at school. You can’t stay here, Mad. It has to be somewhere else.”

  “What do you mean, somewhere else? Where?”

  Noah looked at Zachary in the rear-view mirror. “Did you have any kind of plan? Or were you just going to take her home?”

  “We were still working that out. Your message took me by surprise.”

  “Where then?” Madison asked in frustration. “We can’t just drive around all night.”

  “A hotel?” Zachary suggested. “Somewhere we can stop and regroup and figure it out? They’re not going to find you if it isn’t somewhere you have been connected with before.”

  “What hotel?” Noah grumbled. “We have people at hotels. They’ll be on the lookout. She’ll be seen.”

  “They can’t have people at all of the hotels all of the time. We’ll pick somewhere they’re not watching.”

  Noah shook his head, but didn’t argue it any further.

  37

  Zachary breathed a sigh of relief when they were all in the hotel room. He had watched carefully for a tail and was pretty sure that they couldn’t have been followed. Every now and then, his ability to drive fast came in handy. He had a good eye for detail and noticed things in an instant.

  The kids all seemed to be relieved too. Noah had been vigilant as they approached the hotel and looked around the lobby, watching for anyone that he knew or anyone that might be looking at them the wrong way. But he had gradually relaxed and, by the time they got into the room and closed the door, he was ready to crash. He went into the bathroom, and when he came back out, he lay down on one of the beds and buried his head.

  Madison still hadn’t been able to reconcile herself to the fact that Noah was not her boyfriend and had not necessarily had her welfare in mind for the past few months. She sat down and put her arm around him and, after rubbing his back for a few minutes, curled up against him and closed her eyes. Zachary wasn’t sure whether either of them was asleep, so he tried to be careful what he said. He sat down on the one chair, beside the other bed where Rhys was sitting. Rhys slid closer to him. He pointed at Noah, raising his brows.

  Zachary knew there was more to explain than he could manage there, especially right in front of Noah and Madison. He considered what to tell Rhys. “I’ll have to explain it all to you later,” he said softly. “But… he was the one who messaged you. He was the one who wanted out.”

  Rhys’s eyes widened and he raised his brows. He hadn’t been expecting that. More likely, he had figured that Madison had refused to leave without her boyfriend and, rather than trying to fight it, Zachary had just agreed to bring him along.

  Rhys looked at Noah, pondering this. He pointed at Noah, looking at Zachary again. He did?

  Zachary nodded. “Yeah. He’s got a good story. But… we can’t trust him. Not yet.” He was mindful of what the cop had said, warning Zachary not to take Noah with him.

  Rhys nodded his agreement with the sentiment. Zachary still had Madison’s and Noah’s phones, and he took them out and laid them down on the desk. They were both locked, of course. He hadn’t expected otherwise. He pressed the button to bring up the lock screen on Madison’s. It was set for a four-digit numeric passcode. Zachary looked sideways at Rhys. “What do you think her unlock code is?”

  Rhys rolled his eyes and pointed to Noah.

  Zachary tapped in 6-6-2-4. The phone unlocked. Zachary chuckled. He wasn’t bad at guessing passcodes, but he didn’t usually get them the very first try.

  He poked through a few screens, checking out Madison’s call log and most recent messages and texts. She had a number of social networks set up on it, some of them with accounts that Zachary had been able to find, and others that he had not. The racier ones did not include her picture on the account summary or public feed. There were plenty of pictures on private feeds, but Zachary didn’t have any desire to see them and quickly switched back out of them.

  Rhys picked up Noah’s phone and tried a couple of unlock codes on it before he put it back down again. He watched Zachary. After a few minutes, he tapped Zachary’s knee.

  Zachary looked up to see what he wanted. “Yeah?”

  Rhys held up his phone, showing Zachary the gif he had sent earlier, the rotating police light.

  Zachary nodded. “Yeah, thanks for the heads-up. We managed to avoid Peggy Ann and Jorge going into the building because of your warning.”

  Rhys raised his eyebrows and put his head forward. Huh? Who?

  Zachary frowned. “Peggy Ann and Jorge. The people who were coming after Noah and Madison. To take care of things.”

  Rhys shook his head. He pointed at the police light again.

  Zachary realized all at once that Rhys hadn’t been warning him about the approach of Peggy Ann and Jorge at all, but had been telling him about the policeman standing outside the car, trying to talk to him. “Oh. Of course. You didn’t even know about them. You were just warning me about the cop.”

  Rhys nodded. He raised his brows again, looking for more information.

  “Your timing couldn’t have been better. Because you messaged me, I looked out in time to see Peggy Ann—that’s Noah’s boss—was coming into the building. And Jorge, some kind of enforcer. ‘Troubleshooter,’ Noah called him. So we ducked into another hallway so they wouldn’t see us and, once they were going up the stairs, we came out. I was trying to get away before they could come back down and see us. But the cop wouldn’t let me go.”

  Rhys nodded slowly. He held up two fingers.

  “Two? Two what?”

  Rhys made a curvy shape with both hands.

  “Two people. A woman and a man. Peggy Ann and Jorge.”

  Rhys pinched a lock of hair between his fingers and showed it to Zachary. Then he pointed to his eyes. Then ran a finger over his skin.

  “Hair, eyes—oh. What they looked like?”

  Noah nodded.

  Zachary did his best to describe the couple to Rhys. He had only seen them briefly, but he was observant and had trained himself to notice people and to be able to describe and remember them for later.

  Rhys leaned back a little. He pointed at himself, then pointed two fingers at his eyes.

  “You saw them? Before they went into the building?”

  Rhys nodded.

  It made sense that he had seen them. There were only two directions that Zachary would have expected them to approach from, so it was fifty-fifty that they would walk by Zachary’s car where Rhys could see them.

  Rhys showed Zachary his phone again.

  “The cop?”

  Rhys nodded.

  “What about the cop?”

  Rhys held up two fingers again.

  “Peggy Ann and Jorge.”
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br />   Rhys made a duckbill motion with his hand, opening and closing it.

  “Talking?”

  Rhys held up the phone.

  “The cop.”

  Rhys waited. Zachary put it together.

  “Peggy Ann and Jorge were talking… to the cop?”

  Rhys pointed at Zachary, nodding. You got it.

  Zachary breathed out slowly, juggling the pieces in his mind. But he didn’t have enough information yet. “They were talking to the cop… how? Did he confront them? He said that he recognized Noah. Did he recognize them as troublemakers? People he didn’t want around his neighborhood?”

  Rhys shook his head.

  “Why was he talking to them? Was it just casual?”

  He shook his head again, insistent.

  Zachary didn’t like where the conversation was going. He swallowed. “He was friendly with them? He knew them?”

  Rhys nodded and pointed at Zachary.

  The cop had known Peggy Ann and Jorge. Maybe that was why he had detained Zachary and his group. He had been waiting for them to come back down. To come out and see who he had cornered.

  The last thing that he had done before Zachary left was to try to convince him to leave Noah behind. He had said that Noah would betray him, which was probably true, and that Zachary should leave him behind so he couldn’t expose them.

  But he was friends with Peggy Ann and Jorge. Maybe not friends, but he knew them and was on speaking terms with them. So he hadn’t wanted Zachary to leave Noah there so that he wouldn’t be able to tell them where Zachary took Madison.

  He wanted Noah there to hand him over to Peggy Ann and Jorge. He wanted Noah to have to face his boss and the enforcer. To face the music. They could torture him, withhold his drugs, force him to tell them who had come for Madison and where to look for her.

  Zachary swore under his breath. He looked at Noah and Madison, apparently asleep on the bed. On one hand, it was strange that they would be able to settle down and sleep when they were in so much danger. But Zachary had experienced the same phenomenon before, when his brain and his body would want to shut down in times of stress. Rather than melting down, like he had at Dr. Boyle’s office when he had forced himself to stay and deal with his anxiety, he would just turn off. And there was nothing that he could do to stop it. Madison and Noah weren’t sleeping because they felt safe to do so, but because they had been on high alert for too long and couldn’t deal with it anymore. The body enforced rest sooner or later.

  If they were really asleep, and not just watching and listening to see what he was planning.

  There was no reason for Madison to turn on Zachary and Rhys. They had only done what they had to protect her, and she wouldn’t turn them in to the organization.

  Noah was another story. Despite the fact that the cop had been trying to mislead Zachary, what he had said was true, and Zachary had recognized it from the start. Once Noah was away from the criminals he was used to associating with, he would start to regret what he had done. He would realize that burning his bridges was a bad idea if he wanted to survive. He would remember he needed them. Like Madison, he had been conditioned to obey. He knew there would be consequences if he did not. He had suffered through their torture and punishments before. He knew that Peggy Ann and Jorge would not hesitate to hurt him or to hurt Madison. He would want drugs and easy money and, after five or six years, he had learned only one way to get it.

  That’s what Joss had tried to tell him. That it didn’t matter what Zachary did and whether he managed to get Madison out or not. There would be people who would not stop at anything to get her back. Her friends would betray her, including her Romeo. That was Noah’s job. To make sure Madison did whatever the bosses told him.

  38

  Zachary got up off of his chair and walked around the bed that Noah and Madison were lying on, so that he was standing behind Noah. The two were spooning. Zachary watched Noah’s profile, the skin around his eyes and mouth, especially. He listened to the even inhalations and exhalations. If Noah was awake, he was a pretty good actor.

  “Noah,” Zachary said softly.

  Noah didn’t move.

  “Noah.”

  The boy still didn’t move. He looked very young, asleep there like that. Closer than ever to Madison’s age. Tricking since he was twelve or thirteen? Under the control of a criminal enterprise for that long? He acted like an adult. He’d been forced to mature much faster than Rhys, who was still mostly boy rather than man. He had been on his own dealing with horrific people who put him through all kinds of abuse. Zachary’s chest was tight. He felt for the boy.

  He couldn’t help it.

  Ignoring the emotions, Zachary reached out and touched Noah’s neck gently. He half expected Noah to stir or to strike out at him. Either pretending that he had been asleep, or actually startled out of sleep. But Noah didn’t move. Zachary felt for his pulse, settling two fingers over the spot.

  If Noah were awake, then his pulse would be racing, despite his pantomime of sleep. He could calm his outward body functions, making himself look relaxed and breathing slowly, but he couldn’t control his heart. Not that well, anyway.

  His pulse was slow, not fast. Like he was in a deep sleep.

  Madison shifted. She didn’t uncurl or get up, but Zachary thought that she might be awake. He kept his fingers over Noah’s pulse, waiting for a burst of speed as Noah too woke up and remembered the situation he was in.

  Madison turned over. She opened her eyes and looked at Zachary. A frown quickly replaced the relaxed, slightly parted lips. “What are you doing?”

  “Checking on him.”

  Madison looked at Noah, then at Zachary’s face. “Why?”

  “I was surprised he was asleep. His pulse is very slow.”

  “He’s sleeping,” Madison said with a shrug.

  “Why?”

  “Because… neither of us has slept very much the past few days. With you coming around, and the cops, and dealing with everything else from his… well, from other people in the organization, I guess… it’s been very stressful. Neither of us has slept very well.”

  “But he shouldn’t be that much more deeply asleep than you. You’re still worried about someone finding you, right? You’re still feeling threatened. Like you need to be alert.”

  Madison rubbed her forehead, frowning. Eventually, she shrugged. “Yeah, I guess. But he’s more tired.”

  “Why isn’t he waking up with us talking over him?” Zachary gave Noah’s shoulder a shake, then put his fingers back over Noah’s pulse again. No increase in speed. Noah’s heart still plodded away, too slow. Way too slow. “What did he take?”

  Madison shook her head. “I don’t know. How would I know if he took anything? I don’t know that.”

  “Look at him. You know he did. And he’s depressed. Giving up. Feeling people closing in behind him. What does he use?”

  “Little of everything,” Madison admitted. “It just depends. I don’t know what he had on him. I don’t know what he might have taken. I thought… he just needed to sleep. I need to sleep.”

  “I don’t think you’re going to get much sleep tonight. We’re not here to sleep; we’re here to talk strategy, somewhere we won’t be seen.”

  Madison rubbed her eyes, smearing her mascara. “Come on. Just let us sleep tonight. We can figure it all out tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow, you might change your mind. And he might be dead.”

  Madison’s eyes widened in alarm. “Dead? What are you talking about?”

  Zachary was looking at Noah’s face. “His lips are getting blue. Do you know what that means?”

  “He’s not… Noah’s always careful. He wouldn’t overdose. He always knows how much he can take. He said…”

  Zachary waited, brows up, for Madison to complete the thought. “What did he say?”

  “He said you can always take more later, if you need it. That you can’t take it back once you’ve taken it. There’s no backing up.�
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  “Do you have Narcan?”

  “Umm…” Madison trailed off, shaking her head. “I don’t need to. Noah always said, if you’re careful, you don’t need it.”

  “Then it wasn’t an accident.”

  “No!” Madison shook her head. “He wouldn’t do that. He was always careful. He told me what to do. He would never just… he would never just overdose like that on purpose.”

  “I think he did. Either way, it doesn’t matter.” Zachary pulled out his phone and started to dial emergency.

  Rhys threw his school backpack down on the bed next to Noah. He unzipped one of the front pockets quickly, and handed Zachary a small black kit. Zachary opened it, knowing what he was going to find.

  There wasn’t time to ask Rhys why he was carrying Narcan. It was a nasal inhaler, and it was several doses. Maybe enough to keep Noah alive until the paramedics could get there. Zachary tossed his phone to Madison. “Get an ambulance here.”

  “But you’ve got the Narcan.”

  “It might not be enough. Get them.”

  Zachary positioned the inhaler inside one of Noah’s nostrils and squeezed. He heard it puff, and waited for a reaction from Noah. He lay there still, breaths coming in very slowly. Lips dusky.

  Zachary switched nostrils and tried another puff. Noah made a noise and pulled back. Zachary watched him, hoping that would be enough. But Noah remained still.

  Madison babbled into the phone, trying to describe the situation and to tell the paramedics where they were. Rhys grabbed one of the keycard folders that they had been given on check-in and held it in front of Madison’s face. She told them what hotel they were in, the address listed on the folder, and the room number handwritten in the blank. Her eyes on Noah’s face, she sobbed and explained that they thought he might have overdosed. The dispatcher spoke to her reassuringly, and Madison nodded and answered the dispatcher’s questions every now and then.

  Zachary gave Noah another dose. And another. He shook the dispenser, but it was empty. Noah stirred and complained. Zachary felt his pulse. It had picked up a little bit and his face was pinker than it had been.