Little White Lies

by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

  decided it was in my best interest to get out of the house. I told myself I was leaving to avoid further questions, but the truth was that my conversation with Lillian—and seeing my mom the night before—had shaken me. I needed something to dig my teeth into, to puzzle over, to obsess about.

  Say, for instance, whether or not the key we’d stolen from ­Campbell’s locker fit in the senator’s safe.

  If Campbell kept her promise to hand over the tablet, we wouldn’t need the leverage, but I wasn’t feeling particularly trusting, and hanging out in the vicinity of people with the last name Ames also seemed like as good a way as any to figure out what had brought the police out the night before.

  What we’d helped Campbell do.

  There were only two people at the senator’s office when I arrived—Walker and his father’s assistant, a woman not much older than the two of us. Leah. My memory supplied the name, which turned out to be a waste, because Leah-in-the-red-heels headed out practically the moment I stepped in the door.

  “Working on the weekend?” I asked Walker, resisting the urge to grill him about the police cars at his grandfather’s house the night before.

  “You know what they say about idle hands, Sawyer Taft. Devil’s play­ground, et cetera, et cetera.” Sensing I wasn’t impressed with that explanation, Walker elaborated. “I needed to get out of the house.”

  I let myself wonder, just for a moment, what the Ames household was like—what growing up there had been like.

  “I hear you had a scandalous night last night.” Walker was smooth, but the abrupt subject change did not go unnoticed. “Campbell and I talk,” he told me. For a split second, I thought his sister might have told him the truth, then he continued, “Dare I hope that the monotony of a day of envelope stuffing will be broken up with tales of your debauchery on the outskirts of civilization?”

  “Classy,” I told him. “I can see why you’re the favorite child.”

  “I’m not the favorite,” he said, quietly enough to tell me that he didn’t really believe that.

  I love my brother, Campbell’s voice echoed in my head. Everyone does. They always have.

  I wondered for a split second if that was what all of this was about—some desperate cry for attention. But I didn’t stay thinking about Campbell for long. Instead, I remembered why I’d gone rogue the night before in the first place.

  Walker Ames had made my cousin promises, then torn out her heart.

  “Why does the look on your face make me think that you’re planning my immediate demise?” Walker asked pleasantly, leaning toward me.

  He’d broken Lily’s heart, and now he was flirting with me. “I don’t know,” I returned. “Maybe you’re not as stupid as you look.”

  • • •

  Walker Ames and I spent the next two hours stuffing envelopes. I bided my time until he took it upon himself to make a coffee run, then headed straight for the senator’s office. I didn’t anticipate any problems breaking in.

  If Sterling Ames didn’t want people picking the lock, he shouldn’t have opted for a lever-handle lock. And if he had…

  He should have gone with one with a clutch, I thought as the lock gave way. Unsure how much time I had, I took one glance over my shoulder, then went for the safe.

  The key didn’t fit.

  “I got you a coffee,” a voice said behind me.

  I turned to face the door to the office, pocketing the key.

  “Black,” Walker continued. “Like my soul.”

  If he wasn’t going to ask what I was doing in here, I wasn’t going to volunteer the information. Instead, I crossed the room and plucked the coffee from his hands. The name that Walker had given the barista to scrawl on the side was Walker-Immune.

  I almost laughed at that one.

  “You don’t like me.” Walker seemed to find that strangely satisfying.

  “I’d classify my feelings more as apathetic,” I said.

  “You can’t be apathetic,” the senator’s son replied immediately. “That’s my thing.”

  Once upon a time, Walker Ames had been his parents’ golden boy, the type to take his girlfriend on romantic dates, to make promises and give rings.

  “So, what is this?” I asked, for Lily’s benefit as much as to prevent Walker from working his way up to asking why I was in his father’s office. “Pointless rebellion? Quarter-life crisis?”

  Based on the expression on his face, I inferred that people usually took Walker’s fall from grace a little more seriously.

  “Quarter-life crisis?” he repeated. “I’m not that old.”

  I cocked an eyebrow at him. “Planning to live past seventy-six?”

  He let out a snort. “As much as I’d like to go for Live fast, die young, we Ames men do tend to be long-lived.”

  “Speaking of long-lived Ames men…” I walked past him, leading the way out of the senator’s office. “Is your grandfather okay? We saw all of the police cars at his place last night.”

  Walker closed the door behind us. “My grandfather will outlive us all and lecture our graves about how disappointed he is in our lack of grit.”

  Given the one time I’d met Davis Ames, that was actually fairly easy to imagine.

  “There was a break-in,” Walker continued. “But the old man wasn’t home at the time. Someone tripped the alarm and broke into his safe.”

  My breath caught in my throat, and my hand found its way to my pocket, to the key—the copy I’d made before returning the original to Campbell.

  “You okay?” Walker asked me. “You haven’t insulted me in at least three minutes.”

  Someone broke into your grandfather’s safe.

  “I’m sorry to hear about the break-in,” I said, trying to mask the way my mind was reeling. “And also: I think you’re an idiot of colossal proportions for dumping Lily, and you have a very smug face.”

  “Thank you,” Walker replied graciously. “But I can assure you that Lily is better off without me. And you don’t need to worry about my grandfather. He has insurance.”

  “Oh, yeah?” I said, trying to sound casual. “What was stolen?”

  Walker must have heard a little too much interest in my voice, because he smirked. “Say thank you for the coffee, and I’ll tell you.”

  If I gave in too easily, he might start questioning why I wanted to know.

  “I would,” I replied, “but apathy is kind of my thing.”

  He looked at me. “Maybe,” he said, his tone as offhanded as his expression was intense, “not caring is just what ordinary people see when they can’t process what it looks like when someone cares too damn much.”

  I thanked him for the coffee.

  “You’re welcome, Sawyer Taft—and since a gentleman always keeps his word, I’ll let you in on a little secret: There was only one thing taken from my grandfather’s safe last night. Your ­grandmother’s pearls.”

  ackie had known that this situation could be

  sticky. The girls were wearing gloves. But he could handle this.

  “I hate to break it to you,” the boy, who sounded like he was enjoying breaking it to Mackie, said, “but if you have Sawyer Taft back there, and she’s not alone…”

  He gave a brief shake of his head.

  Mackie did not like the look of that head shake. “State your name and your business here.” He would not lose the upper hand.

  The boy did not state his name. The boy did not state his business. Instead, he leaned forward. “There’s four of them, aren’t there?”

  Mackie didn’t answer. He refused to answer. “There might be four of them.”

  “In that case,” the boy said, “you’ve locked up both of Lillian Taft’s granddaughters. Also: a senator’s daughter and the beloved only child of the wealthiest man in the state.”

  Mackie was going to kill O’Connell and Rodriguez.

  The boy shook his head again. “Bless your heart.”

  he stole Mim’s pearls.” Lily furiously sew
ed a white feather boa onto the bodice of a strapless dress. “Campbell. Ames. Stole. Mim’s. Pearls.”

  That had been Lily’s mantra for the last month.

  She’d said it the day Aunt Olivia had heard about the theft and gone into a forty-eight-hour frenzy of pissed-off baking that culminated in a fit-to-be-tied pie she’d delivered to Davis Ames herself.

  She’d said it the night after the police had come to interview Lillian about the pearls—and left with a dozen of Aunt Olivia’s indignantly delicious brownies apiece.

  Lily had repeated that mantra every day after school when Campbell had kept her word again and again to stop playing power games, proving, at least in my mind, that neither petty revenge nor messing with Lily had ever been her real goal.

  And now Lily was issuing the complaint apropos of nothing at all.

  “Technically,” I told my cousin, knowing I was poking a bear, but unable to help myself, “the pearls weren’t Mim’s when Campbell took them.”

  Lily looked up from the dress in her hands. “Do you want to sew your own costume?” she demanded.

  “That’s my costume?” I asked.

  “Of course it’s yours,” Lily replied with exaggerated patience. “I’m going in Renaissance garb.”

  I looked at the glittery mound of fabric in her hands. The beading was so intricate—and so dense—that a person practically needed sunglasses to stare directly at it. “And I’m going as… ?”

  Lily finished sewing the feathers into place. “An angel.” As if that fact were obvious.

  “An angel,” I repeated. “Have you met me?”

  “You, as in the girl who threw herself into the line of fire on my behalf after having known me less than a day?” Lily asked innocently. “Or the one who spends hours discussing zombie-related military tactics with my younger brother?” She paused. “Or maybe the one who can’t even let herself be angry that her mother’s a piece of work who’s been refusing her calls all month?”

  Ouch. Lily usually didn’t go quite so clearly for the jugular.

  “I don’t want to talk about my mom.”

  Lily shook the dress out and laid it on the bed. “All I’m saying is that I’m fairly certain you’ve earned your wings.”

  Yeah, I thought, setting aside the various crimes I’ve been an accessory to in recent months, I’m a regular Mother Teresa. Knowing that argument wouldn’t persuade Lily, I fell back on a different line of reasoning.

  “I went barefoot at Pearls of Wisdom,” I reminded her. The horror. “And I dared John David to lick that ice sculpture last week at brunch.”

  Lily gasped. “That was you?”

  I shrugged. “Still think I’m halo-ready?”

  Lily Taft Easterling was not the type to admit defeat. “I think,” she said pointedly, “that Mama’s going to want to sign off on both of our costumes, and there is no way she will let you walk out of this house wearing one that consists only of a clever pun written on a piece of cardboard that you wear around your neck.”

  That was accurate, both with respect to the level of planning I generally put into my Halloween costume and in terms of Aunt Olivia’s likely response. Since our unauthorized trip to my old stomping grounds, Lily’s mother had been keeping a closer eye on us, like she thought that next time, I might drag her daughter off to perdition itself.

  I suspected that had less to do with where we’d gone than the person Lily had met there.

  “Fine,” I capitulated, knowing that any attempt at resistance would be about as effective as spitting into the wind. “I’m going to the Symphony Ball Masquerade as an angel. I’m sure it will be lovely.”

  “It will be,” Lily promised—or possibly commanded. She managed not to say anything else for all of four seconds, during which she produced a delicate pair of wings and a white-feathered masquerade mask.

  And then she hit her limit and burst out, “I cannot believe that witch stole Mim’s pearls.”

  Lily’s words proved oddly prophetic. That night—the night that Campbell had promised she would surrender Lily’s tablet and the security footage—the senator’s daughter showed up dressed like a witch.

  Her ball gown was black, made of a fabric that shimmered when she moved. The skirt was full, but the bodice was tight, and the threadwork—in a fine, hand-stitched silver—looked like a spider’s artfully spun web. Her mask was plain black and covered only half of her face. The other half was made up to the nines, her eyes accented by tiny black and white jewels, affixed to her face and arranged in elaborate swirls.

  “It was nice of my grandfather to offer to host tonight,” Campbell commented when I cornered her. “Wasn’t it?”

  Living with Aunt Olivia meant that I heard far more Symphony Ball gossip than I cared to, so I had pretty much gotten a play-by-play on the travesty that was Northern Ridge double-booking tonight’s event with a member wedding. From what Sadie-Grace had said, her stepmother had tried everything short of ritual sacrifice to come out on top of that fight, but ultimately, the wedding had prevailed, and the masquerade had been ousted.

  It had the makings of a tragedy, or what passed for one in Deb World, until Davis Ames had stepped up. He’d voluntarily opened his home to this evening’s event, bringing Campbell—not to mention Lily, Sadie-Grace, Boone, and me—right to the scene of the crime.

  I wonder where he keeps the safe.

  My gaze went to the necklace Campbell was wearing tonight: a single blood-red teardrop—doubtlessly, a ruby—that hung from her neck, a visceral reminder that Campbell Ames had no need of stolen jewels. Whatever game she was playing, I deeply suspected it had less to do with the monetary value of the pearls than Ames family dynamics.

  And I deeply did not care.

  “You promised,” I started to say, but Campbell looped her arm through mine and cut me off.

  “Tonight,” she pledged, walking me toward a cupcake station that had been set up on the far side of the room. “As soon as the scavenger hunt winners are announced and I have what I need, I’ll give you what I promised.”

  What you need? That was ominous.

  “I may be Lucifer,” Campbell continued, “but I keep my word. Cupcake?”

  I almost turned her down, but it was chocolate. As I did my best not to stain my costume and earn the wrath of Lily, I found myself scanning the room for my cousin. She’d agreed to let me handle Campbell, but under a nearby archway, she and Sadie-Grace kept shooting nervous looks in our direction.

  To my surprise, when I turned back to Campbell, I caught her shooting a similar look at the person tending bar opposite the cupcake station.

  Nick.

  I’d seen him in the past months, parking cars at Sunday brunch, but he hadn’t said a word to me. After a moment’s hesitation, Campbell tossed her red hair over her shoulder and made her way to the bar. I followed.

  “I don’t suppose I could talk you into trading mocktails for ­cocktails, if I provide the oomph?” Campbell asked Nick.

  “No oomph.” Nick was calm, cool, professional. “And,” he said, lowering his voice, “no interest.”

  I expected Campbell to lash back at him, but she didn’t. Instead, she plucked a toothpick off the bar and speared a cherry out of a nearby bowl. “You aren’t still mad about last month, are you?”

  “Of course not.” Nick used the exact same tone I’d heard him implementing with Walker in the alleyway weeks earlier. “I’m just not masochistic enough to let you stand me up twice.” Without another word to her, Nick turned to me. “Good or evil?” he asked.

  It took me a second to realize he was referring to the drinks he’d been mixing. The crystal martini glass on the left held a white liquid; the one on the right was red.

  I glanced down at my dress: blindingly white, a perfect match for the feathers on my mask, not to mention the delicate wings at my back.

  “Give me the red one,” I said.

  Nick managed a very—very—small smile.

  “I’m sorry,” Campbe
ll told him suddenly. If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought I’d heard a note of genuine remorse in her voice.

  “You’re not sorry,” Nick corrected. “You’re bored.”

  “And you’re, what?” Campbell retorted. “My hobby?”

  Nick shrugged. Clearly, when it came to his relationship with the senator’s daughter, he’d never deluded himself into thinking he was more than a slightly forbidden, well-muscled distraction.

  “I am sorry,” Campbell said quietly, “that this is the way it had to be.” Without waiting for a reply, she grabbed a white drink for herself and turned to wave someone over. “Boone!”

  As Campbell’s cousin scurried over, I took in the outfit he’d chosen for this evening: a bright purple tuxedo. With matching bow tie.

  “What are you supposed to be?” I asked him.

  “This is my offended face,” Boone replied, pointing to the scowl on his lips.

  “You’re not wearing a mask,” I observed.

  “And cover my offended face?”

  “Boone, be a darling and keep Sawyer entertained for me, would you?” Campbell didn’t wait for a response before she turned to leave. I sidestepped, blocking her path.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’ll be back,” she said. “And then you’ll get what you want. Scout’s honor.” She pushed her cousin toward me. “Dance with Sawyer.”

  “I don’t dance,” I said flatly at the exact second that he executed an elaborate bow and held out his hand for mine. “Milady?”

  s Boone led me to the dance floor, I lost track of Campbell in the crowd. Davis Ames’s house looked more like a museum than a home. The ground floor had an open plan and the tallest ceilings I’d ever seen. The wood floors were dark, polished to the point that they were nearly reflective.

  I suddenly had a very uneasy feeling about the fact that Campbell had slipped from view.

  “I got you a present.” Boone began to lead me in what I guessed was suposed to be a waltz.

  “A present,” I repeated.

  He nodded, and then he lifted his right hand off of mine and reached forward. For one horrific moment, I thought he was going to gingerly touch the side of my face, but instead, he pinched a piece of my hair between his thumb and his forefinger and yanked.