The Perfect Liar

by Brenda Novak

  “Thanks, Ava. You won’t regret it.”

  “Just tell me one more time that you’re not lying to me. Because if I get involved in this and we put an innocent man behind bars…”

  “Luke isn’t innocent. I’m telling you God’s honest truth, Ava. I swear it on my life.”

  “Okay. I’ll move forward, for now. Meanwhile, you’d better return to the base as soon as you can. Desertion is a serious offense, and we’ll need you to look repentant. That’s our only intelligent approach to this. Everyone can sympathize with a desire to reform, even strict military personnel—if we’re lucky.”

  “Is Sunday night soon enough? There’s no point in returning earlier. I couldn’t get back before the weekend, anyway.”

  “If it won’t make a difference.”

  “It won’t make a difference. Thank you. Thank you so much.” After she hung up, Kalyna crouched and gave her sister’s shoulders a squeeze. “I knew you wouldn’t fail me.”

  11

  Ava set down her phone and leaned her head against the back of the chair. Why did she just agree to keep working on this case? She didn’t have any more proof of Kalyna’s veracity now than she’d had fifteen minutes earlier. Not really. Who was to say Tatiana was any more credible than Kalyna? Or that the woman she’d spoken to on the phone was even Kalyna’s sister?

  Ava hadn’t wanted to say yes, but it was so difficult to resist those tearful entreaties. She couldn’t stand the thought of turning away someone who might really need her. She kept asking herself, “What if I was that lost soul? What if something like this had happened to me and no one believed it?”

  That empathy made her a good caseworker—but she could see how it might also make her too gullible. Was she being conned? Maybe…

  The television suddenly sounded far too loud. Irritated by the noise, she got up to switch it off and noticed the picture of her and Geoffrey propped on her bookshelf. It’d been taken when they visited San Francisco a year ago. Twelve months had passed and they weren’t seeing any more of each other than they had then. No wonder Jonathan made fun of their relationship.

  But she missed Geoffrey tonight. Didn’t she?

  She couldn’t decide if she missed him or if she was just lonely, but she picked up the phone to call him.

  “Hey, I was wondering what you were up to,” he said when he heard her voice.

  He could’ve checked in with her just as easily, but she didn’t complain. At least he was always congenial. That was one of the traits she liked about him.

  “How’s work?” she asked, carrying her empty sandwich plate into the kitchen.

  “Busy.” While she cleaned up the small mess she’d made preparing her dinner, they talked about a big meeting he had on Monday with another wealthy developer who wanted to do a joint venture in the Natomas area.

  “I could make a quarter mil on that deal alone,” he said.

  “That’s great.” They talked about some of his other projects and a recent acquisition of a hundred acres in Roseville, where he hoped to do some commercial development. She was just starting the dishwasher when the conversation turned to her.

  “What about you?” he asked. “What’s going on at TLS? Anything new?”

  “A strange case I’m not quite sure what to do with,” she said.

  “What’s strange about it?”

  She finished wiping the counters. “One minute I think my client’s lying and I’m determined to dump her. The next I think she’s one of the most tragic victims I’ve ever met.” My mother used to lock us in the cooler with the dead bodies….

  Ava shivered. How would that affect a young mind?

  “So what are you going to do?” Geoffrey asked. “Take it—or let it go?”

  “Give her the benefit of the doubt, I guess, and do what I can for her. Trust in the due process of law to take care of the rest.”

  “Do you want me to talk you out of it?”

  “No, I want you to come over.” She’d said it on impulse, but after the invitation was out, she realized it was true. She wanted his company, his reassuring presence.

  “Now?”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s ten o’clock.”

  “So?”

  “So…why would I come over this late? Just to say good-night?”

  “You don’t want to drive out unless you know up front that you’re going to get laid?”

  Obviously aware that didn’t paint him in the best light, he tried to backpedal. “I didn’t mean it that way. It’s not like you have to reward me for the drive or anything. It’s just…I’m tired and I have to get up early in the morning.”

  “So it’s too much trouble.” Gee, maybe she’d be more tempted to sleep with him if he wasn’t so practical, if he was willing to be impulsive now and then.

  “Do you have to put it like that?”

  “Isn’t it what you’re saying?”

  “You haven’t slept with me in months. Why would tonight be any different? And if tonight isn’t any different, we could hang out on the weekend.”

  “I thought you were going to the Bay Area to be with your kids on the Fourth.”

  “Is it the Fourth already?”

  “Day after tomorrow. It’s on Saturday.”

  “Damn, you’re right.” He hesitated. “Okay, what about next weekend?”

  “That’s fine. If it won’t put you out too much.”

  He didn’t seem to pick up on her sarcasm. “It won’t put me out at all. Let’s grab a movie.”

  She nearly burst into laughter. With him, it was sex or a movie, and she always chose the movie. “Sure, give me a call.”

  The ringing of his cell phone woke Luke from a fitful sleep. He blinked, realized he was bound by blankets and not iron bars as he’d just dreamt, and breathed a sigh of relief. Then he checked the alarm clock on his nightstand. It was three in the morning. Who’d be calling him at this hour?

  His mind immediately went to his younger sister and the trouble she’d managed to find lately, and the relief at being awakened from such a terrible dream disappeared. Was it his family? Had Jenny been hurt?

  His arm shot out before the call could transfer to voice mail. Once he had the phone, the glowing LED screen enabled him to read his caller ID despite the dark room. It said Restricted but that did little to calm him. His parents weren’t very conversant with recent technology. He’d given them a cell phone for Christmas and shown them how to use it, but they still hadn’t incorporated it into their daily lives. Knowing them, they could be calling from a pay phone in the lobby of some hospital because they’d forgotten to charge it.

  Swinging his legs over the bed to sit up, he punched the Talk button. “Hello?”

  “Luke?”

  It was a female. But he didn’t recognize the voice.

  “Yes?”

  “It’s Kalyna.”

  A surge of righteous indignation made him clench his jaw. But he didn’t hang up. He couldn’t help hoping she wanted to apologize, to fix the mess she’d created. Before he’d hired his attorney and been told in no uncertain terms that he was not to contact her, he’d tried to reach her several times. He’d been convinced that having a conversation would solve everything. He’d never meant her any harm. But she wouldn’t pick up or return his calls.

  Until now. At last he had a chance to figure out what went so terribly wrong the night of June 6.

  “What do you want?” he asked cautiously.

  “To hear your voice.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I miss you.”

  After what she’d done to him? Where the hell was this coming from? “Kalyna, how can you say that?”

  “Because it’s true. I want to feel you inside me again. I want your hands on my body and—”

  “You’re trying to ruin my life!”

  His outburst caused a sulky silence. He was afraid she’d hang up if he didn’t calm down, so he took a deep breath, fighting for control. He had to thi
nk, be careful. “I don’t understand why you’re going after me,” he said, his voice as level as he could make it.

  She responded as if any idiot would understand. “So we can be together.”

  “You’ve got to be joking.” He had too much adrenaline flowing through his blood; he couldn’t stay seated. Getting to his feet, he began pacing the length of the room. “If you don’t stop, I’ll be in prison, Kalyna. How does that enable us to be together?”

  “It doesn’t have to end with you in prison,” she said.

  He froze. This whole time, he’d held on to the remote possibility that someone else might’ve broken into Kalyna’s apartment and beat her up after he left, that she’d been confused and didn’t know it wasn’t him or else blamed him for not being there to protect her. But the truth, and all its staggering implications, hit him with the force of kick to the gut. She knew he was innocent. She was trying to hurt him.

  “What is it you want?” he breathed.

  “I told you—”

  “I didn’t rape you, Kalyna. You and I both know that.”

  “You raped my soul, Luke. You hurt me worse than anyone ever has.”

  “How?”

  “You know how.”

  “No, I don’t. You’re not making any sense. We were never close enough for our souls to be involved. And I’m not the one who hit you. I don’t know where you got those injuries, but it sure as hell wasn’t from me!” Damn, he wished he had a tape recorder, some way to capture her words, her tone of voice, her…weirdness.

  Just in case he did have such a device and had forgotten about it, he strode to his dresser and pulled out the top drawer. Shoving his M9 to one side, he pawed through his gun license, extra bullets, his iPod, pocket change, checkbook and earplugs but found no recorder. Shit!

  “Please, Luke. I don’t want to argue.”

  “So why did you call?” He dashed into the living room and replayed the messages on his answering machine. He needed Ava Bixby’s number.

  “Why do you think?”

  His chest rising and falling with each breath as if he’d run five miles, he turned down the volume so she wouldn’t be able to hear what he was doing. “I don’t want to play games. Will you drop this, Kalyna? Will you tell the truth?”

  No answer.

  “Kalyna, talk to me. Please, stop what you’re doing. There’s no point in it. I don’t know what you’ve conjured up in your mind, but June 6 was a one-night stand, nothing more, and you knew it when you took me home with you.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Yes, you did!” He pushed the fast-forward button to skip a message from his mother. Ava had called after that, hadn’t she? He was so frantic it was hard to remember.

  “How could you make me feel like that and then say it means nothing?” she said.

  “It was a climax, Kalyna. A physiological reaction to stimulation. I was trying hard not to be the selfish jerk you’re accusing me of being. But that’s different from love.” Where was it? Why couldn’t he find it?

  “You just don’t get it.”

  He skipped another message, this one from a friend wanting him to play racquetball. “You’re the one who doesn’t get it,” he said. “I was an idiot to go home with you.”

  “So now you regret it.”

  Could she expect anything less? “Of course!”

  “All you care about is yourself!”

  Finally! Here it was. As Ava’s voice came softly into the living room, he jiggled his leg, waiting for the number, then jotted it down. “I hope that’s not true,” he said, still trying to maintain the conversation, “but if it is, I’m sorry. I’m not asking for a lot here. I just want this to go away. I just want you out of my life. So what’s it going to take? Money?”

  There was a lengthy pause during which he grabbed his landline and dialed Ava. If only she could hear Kalyna. If only someone could hear this…

  Never had it seemed to take so long for a connection to go through, but eventually her phone started ringing.

  “Money?” Kalyna repeated. “Do you think I’m stupid? You’re not going to get off that easily.”

  “Why not? You have to want something,” he said, “or you wouldn’t be doing this.”

  Answer, damn it. Answer the phone. He’d been in such a hurry, he wasn’t sure if he’d written down the number correctly. When he got a voice-mail response at The Last Stand, he realized he’d called the office instead of her cell, and it was asking him for an extension, which he didn’t have. Son of a bitch!

  “You’re nothing but a selfish bastard, you know that?” Kalyna was saying.

  “Maybe that would upset me if it wasn’t coming from a deranged, vindictive bitch.” He knew he shouldn’t let her incite him, that it would only make matters worse. But he was so focused on trying to get the right number, he wasn’t completely sure of what he was saying. Nothing he said or did seemed to improve the situation, anyway.

  “You’re going to pay for that,” she said.

  He ignored the threat. “If you don’t want to work this out, why are you calling?” he asked. “To gloat? To rub my nose in the fact that I can’t work because of you? That I have to worry about how this is reflecting on my parents, who don’t deserve the humiliation? That I have to suffer strange glances from my female friends, knowing that they’re wondering if I’m dangerous—if I’d hurt them if we were ever alone?”

  While he talked, he listened to Ava’s message with one ear. Now he had the right number.

  “That’s what you’re worried about?” Kalyna screeched. “How this looks to other women?”

  How had she isolated that from everything else he’d said? “I want my life back!” he shouted.

  “Well, you can forget it! You’re obviously not ready.”

  Dial, come on. He was trying to go too fast. As a result he’d made a mistake and had to hang up, start again. Damn it! “For what?” he said, trying to keep her talking.

  “You’ll see. You’ll come crawling to me on your hands and knees before I’m done with you, Luke Trussell,” she said. And then she was gone.

  Ava’s cell phone was finally ringing, but it was too late. Calling her now would prove nothing.

  With a curse, Luke slumped onto the couch and hung up.

  12

  “Why are you still awake?” Tati mumbled, yawning loudly.

  Kalyna felt the pressure of Luke’s watch against her, held tightly to her body by her underwear. But the excitement of placing it in such a sensitive spot had long since disappeared.

  “Kalyna?” Tati persisted.

  She’d just returned to the bedroom, after calling Luke from the bathroom, and sat on the floor, rocking back and forth. “I can’t sleep.”

  Her sister punched her pillow but sounded just as drowsy as before. “What’s wrong?”

  Kalyna dug her nails into her palms so deeply that she almost drew blood. But it wasn’t enough. She needed to do more, do something to punish herself for being so stupid. So she’d remember. So she’d learn.

  It’s my fault. I blew it. I called him too soon because I couldn’t wait. I’m so stupid. She forced her nails deeper. I’m so stupid!

  “Kalyna!”

  It took her a moment to realize that her sister had called her name yet again. “What? What do you want?”

  The snarl in her response made Tati hesitate. “Can’t you go to bed? I’d like to get some sleep. I have to work in the morning.”

  Jumping to her feet, she whirled on her sister. “Sorry if I’m keeping you up. I wouldn’t want to inconvenience you just because I’m dying inside!”

  Tati propped up her head. “Dying inside? Kalyna, what are you talking about?”

  “Never mind. You don’t care.”

  “Of course I care,” her sister said, but her carefully engineered tolerance grated on Kalyna’s nerves.

  “No, you don’t. You’ve been mad at me all night, ever since I asked you to talk to my caseworker. Don’t try and pre
tend otherwise.”

  “I haven’t been mad. It’s just—” She blew out a long sigh. “Kalyna, I don’t agree with some of the things you do. And I don’t like getting dragged into them. Surely you can understand that.”

  “You’d rather take Mom and Dad’s side? You make me sick! You’re as much of a weakling now as when we were kids!”

  Tatiana didn’t answer right away. When she did, her voice was barely audible. “Whatever you think of me, I’d rather not lie for you again.”

  “When did I make you lie? Mom was horrible to us while we were growing up. Have you forgotten, Tati? Have you forgotten how she shut us in the cooler for hours at a time? How she’d tell us the dead bodies in there were zombies that were going to come to life and eat us for being bad little girls?”

  “There were those times,” Tati conceded. “But they didn’t happen often. And there were decent times, too. She kept us and fed us and took care of us. That’s more than our birth mother did, or Mrs. Robertson, either. Aren’t you the least bit grateful?”

  Kalyna couldn’t believe Tati had used that word in association with the Harters. “Grateful?” she echoed. “Did you just say grateful? She used us to work in this damn mortuary so she wouldn’t have to. So Dad would have someone to help him because she couldn’t stomach the thought of death. So she could lie in bed all day, mourning her poor little Robert.”

  “She lost a child, Kalyna.”

  “We were children, too!”

  “It could’ve been worse.”

  “And it could’ve been a lot better. If she’d cared half as much about us as she did Robert.”

  “It wasn’t all her. Let’s face it, Kalyna, you provoked her. You did anything and everything you could to torment and upset her.”

  Kalyna started laughing. “Because I hated them both from the beginning.”

  “See? Why? It wasn’t their fault our real mom gave us up!”

  “Don’t talk about our birth mother! As far as I’m concerned she doesn’t even exist.”

  “I’m just saying Mom had her own issues to deal with. And things are better now, a lot better.”

  “For you! And that’s all you care about. I don’t mean anything to you anymore.”