Chasing Truth

by Julie Cross

  Why does it seem like I’ll combust if I don’t get more of him?

  Lucky for me, Miles is a mind reader. He slides both hands beneath the T-shirt he loaned me, his fingertips gliding up my back, and then he presses us together. His tongue slips into my mouth, and I’m fumbling around in the dark for the hem of his shirt, for skin I can touch. Miles Beckett skin.

  Eventually, after what feels like nothing and forever at the same time, we break apart, both of us breathless, both of us startled by…well, by that. All of that.

  He adjusts my T-shirt, smoothing it down, and then mumbles, “Sorry.”

  And it’s like that day in the grocery store when he checked out my boobs. An impulse. A completely out-of-control impulse. I work hard not to smile and end up looking down at my thighs so he can’t see my face. “That was… It was—”

  Miles sits up straight, his body stiff again. “I didn’t mean to do it.”

  “But you did,” I point out. You so did.

  “So did you. And I know why. It’s because of what I told you.”

  “What you told me?” I repeat stupidly. That kiss has definitely filled my head with fog.

  “The power of a good story, right?” He lifts an eyebrow and stays like that. Waiting. Waiting more.

  Wait…

  “A story—” The answer rolls its way toward me, a fuzzy indistinct ball floating above my head.

  “How does it feel to fall for someone’s fake sob story?” Miles says, his voice flat and lacking the emotion from minutes ago. “Poor Ellie and her overbearing, judgmental preacher father. You sure sold that one to me good.”

  My jaw drops. “What… Why… H-How?” I sputter.

  “Which question would you like me to answer?” He stands, walks over to the desk, and proceeds to empty his pockets like we didn’t just cry and make out over his murdered parents.

  “Your parents aren’t dead?” I watch him move, confident and sure, and I’m still completely floored. I’ve seen him change colors a few times, but I didn’t know he had that in him. “You played me.”

  “I did,” he says, unashamed. “But to my credit, you started it. It’s your game.”

  “And what game would that be?” It’s a weak attempt at holding on to my lie.

  “Fishing,” he says simply.

  My forehead bunches up. “Fishing?”

  “Lure. Hook. Reel.” He mimes holding a fishing pole, winding the reel. “Isn’t that what you did to me?”

  A normal person would be pissed as hell, offended, hurt. But me? I’m impressed. I mean, how can I not be? Because he’s right. That is my game. “You murdered your parents just to get back at me?”

  I think back on all the cons I’ve pulled, trying to remember if I’ve ever killed off my parents… Maybe once. In Birmingham. But that was with total strangers. Not someone who just pulled me from the ocean after nearly drowning.

  “Fictional murder,” he corrects. “But not to get back at you. To show you what it feels like to have someone take advantage of your kindness. And to show you that just because you can lie and get away with it doesn’t mean you should. Doesn’t mean it’s right.”

  I guess I’m lucky everyone I’ve conned doesn’t use the same tactics as Miles, because I’d be in hell. I jump to my feet. I may have been outsmarted, but I won’t sit here gaping like an idiot any longer. “Thanks for that valuable life lesson, Miles. I hope to visit your statue someday after you’re dead and voted into sainthood.”

  He gives a little bow. “You’re welcome. Consider it my civic duty.”

  I set my hands on my hips and narrow my eyes at him. “When exactly did you decide that I fed you a sob story?” He bought it that night on the yacht. I know he did. But the day after, he turned icy toward me.

  Miles cracks a smile. “That would be right now.”

  My mouth falls open again. “Uh-uh. Not true.”

  “It’s partially true,” he admits. “I got Harper to lead me halfway there. Asked her a couple innocent questions—”

  “Harper would never give you anything to use,” I huff.

  He does that one-brow-up thing again and I know what he’s thinking. I’m a little bit better at this than Harper, and if he can fool me…

  I shake my head and then point a finger at him. “You made out with me! I never manipulated you into kissing me. What kind of lesson is that?”

  He lifts his hands. “I already told you I didn’t plan that part.”

  “Well, I didn’t hate it,” I admit. I look him over carefully. He’s different now. More dangerous. More interesting. God, what is wrong with me? “Maybe you should not plan more often. Seems to work for you. Definitely worked for me.”

  I’m not too proud to admit that he isn’t a bad kisser. Quite the opposite. Under different circumstances, I could totally do that again.

  Miles surprises me with one of his scowls. I had been expecting a Smooth Guy Miles joke. “You don’t get it, do you?”

  “Get what?”

  “It was fake. All of it,” he snaps. “It doesn’t mean anything to me if it’s fake. That’s where you and I are different.”

  Here we go again with my type. I let his words sink in and realization hits. A slow grin spreads over my face. “You’re forgetting something very important.”

  “Enlighten me.”

  I step past him and head for the door. It’s time for me to go home. “I believed your story. I bought it. Hard. The only fake person in that kiss was you.”

  The scowl on his face disappears and is replaced by a blank stare. Yeah, I know. It sucks, right? Maybe he outsmarted me this time, but how many tricks like that could he pull? I’m a professional liar. I’ll beat him in endurance any day.

  I turn my back to him and head out. “Thanks again for saving me.”

  As I’m taking a step into the hall, two things occur to me: 1) I still don’t know why Miles is here at Holden for a semester if his parents aren’t dead and that tuition story was bogus, and 2) I may have just admitted that I’m into him. Somehow that doesn’t feel like the win I wanted to exit with.

  The door at the end of the hallway has me pausing a beat. I glance over my shoulder and catch Miles swinging his bedroom door shut. I hadn’t noticed the complicated lock on this third bedroom door earlier. Is it really Clyde’s junk hiding in there? Why the extra security? Unfortunately, I can’t attempt to pick the lock and peek inside the room with Miles close by, so I head out.

  My apartment is dark when I walk inside, but a lamp is on in Aidan and Harper’s room. I peek in the open door.

  My sister is lying on her back, snoring softly, a cookbook spread open on her chest. I walk over and carefully lift the book, but her eyes open.

  She stretches and then smiles when she sees it’s me. “Hey, my beautiful sister…how was the beach club?”

  “Fine.” Except the part where I almost drowned. “Nothing exciting.”

  “Well, tell me the whole story tomorrow. I’m beat. Those little monsters ran me into the ground today.” She pats the empty spot beside her. “Aidan’s working night shift.”

  Harper doesn’t like to sleep by herself. She and I shared a bed in our camper for years, and she never had a chance to get used to sleeping alone. But I have. She was gone for years and I was alone in the back of that camper.

  I flop onto Aidan’s side of the bed, and my eyes close the second Harper shuts off the lamp. I bury myself in the pillows, exhausted. But soon I’m rocking back and forth, the mattress floating in water. Waves crash over my head, smothering me.

  I shoot upright, gasping.

  Beside me, Harper sits up almost as quickly as I had. “What’s wrong?”

  “I think…” I clutch a hand to my chest. “Maybe I’ll watch TV for a little while.”

  “’Kay,” Harper mumbles. She rolls onto her side and closes her eyes. “’Night, Ellie.”

  I turn on the living room TV and find the most boring show possible, hoping it will send me off to sleep. But an
hour later, I’m still awake and able to receive the text Jacob sends me.

  JACOB: Pic of the mistress’s application

  ME: thx. Has ur dad ever hired a personal assistant before?

  JACOB: no

  ME: Send me a pic of your credit card, front and back

  Of course he does it. Idiot. Not that I’m planning on abusing it, but seriously? All that money and no effort to keep it safe?

  JACOB: guess ur ok?

  ME: I’m fine. But no more drinking then swimming for me

  JACOB: I hear ya. Good thing our boy Miles was there to save the day

  Yeah, good thing. But “our boy”? He’s all yours, Jacob.

  I grab my laptop and get to work.

  Turns out Rosa Lipman, age thirty-six (I’d have guessed twenty-five tops from that video), has a squeaky-clean criminal record. Last known address is in Maryland, nothing too weird about that, close enough to have taken a job here. She’s been divorced once, went to court over the house, vehicles, and alimony. Still nothing useful there.

  But when I run her credit report, I do find something useful. Eight lines of credit opened this past year but then closed within a month. Her tax returns, even post-divorce, reveal a six-figure income—a bit high for a personal assistant. Surely she hadn’t taken a pay cut to come and work for Jacob’s dad.

  Rosa Lipman appears to be a victim of identity theft.

  When my eyes begin to burn, I set aside my laptop and try to focus on the boring TV show, hoping it will lure me to sleep. But dozing off, I bounce from memories of waves knocking me under to Miles’s lips on mine, his fingers sliding through my hair. That feeling of him touching me, it’s under my skin. It’s not going anywhere, but I welcome those thoughts over the ocean waves.

  Though neither bring me any sleep.

  I open my laptop again and go back to the Rosa stuff. This impersonator obviously has skills, but she’s made it too easy to figure her out. Maybe I should have a chat with her, offer some tips in exchange for half of whatever she’s stolen from Jacob’s family. But that’s something the old Eleanor would do.

  I’ll just have to settle for ruining her con and earning a thousand bucks.

  CHAPTER 19

  After several days of spying on Rosa Lipman, the distraction of having a new obsession hasn’t done anything to help the drowning-in-the-ocean flashbacks. One second I’m following Ms. Swanson’s calculations on the Smart Board and then her droning voice grows more distant as if at the end of a tunnel.

  I’m standing in the middle of Robertson Bank and Trust in Charleston, waiting for my father. A man in a suit walks past me. His eyes stay on me while he continues to move toward the information desk. I smile at him, wait for the reaction. He bumps into the desk, turns bright red, and looks away from me. I roll my eyes, cool and calm. But under my pressed skirt and top, I’m sweating bullets, my pulse racing. Eyes off the security camera, Ellie. Calm down. Keep your heart rate under control.

  And just when I manage to get myself in check, my mother walks through the revolving door of the bank. Her hair is swept up on her head, displaying her long neck and beautiful profile. She’s wearing a gray suit, heels, a briefcase in one hand. My newly calm demeanor goes out the window. She can’t be here. This can’t be happening.

  I glance around, looking for someone, anyone. My chest rises and falls too rapidly. And they’re watching me. The pen tucked into my skirt pocket brushes my thigh. I look down, expecting it to glow bright, to give me away. I catch my mother’s eye. If only I were telepathic. Get out! Abort! I try, but she looks away, giving the tiniest shake of her head, telling me to calm down, to go with this new plan she and Dad made without me. A plan that ruins everything.

  Mom turns her back to me, revealing something big and metal with brightly colored wires strapped to her. A bomb? What the hell is going on?

  She turns to face me, lifts her hand, revealing what looks like a controller of some kind. She lays her thumb over the trigger and before I can stop her, she presses the button in a deliberate motion. I dive for the floor, squeezing my eyes shut, expecting an explosion. Instead, the building rumbles, the floor shaking. People all around scream and run. I glance out the glass windows. A giant wave rushes toward us. I stand staring at it, frozen in fear. The wave hits the glass, shattering it. Water floods in, filling the bank lobby from the floor up. Desks float beside me. I tread and tread, but the moment my head rises above the water, a wave knocks me over again.

  “Nice, Kelsey…good use of the distance formula.”

  I jerk awake, stifling a gasp. I glance around, expecting to see a tidal wave coming from somewhere, ready to knock me over. A few nearby classmates give me that are-you-on-something look.

  My hand shoots in the air. “Bathroom break?”

  Ms. Swanson gives me a nod, and I grab the wooden calculator prop we use as a hall pass and head out the door. I walk through several hallways, needing to move, needing freedom before confining myself in a bathroom or back in the classroom.

  I pass an open classroom door and see my homeroom teacher, Mr. Chin, giving an animated lesson at the front of the room. He’s speaking Mandarin, writing Chinese characters on the board. He says something that makes the class laugh, but then he prompts one student to answer a question. Her eyes widen, and she shakes her head. This happens with two more kids. Mr. Chin calls on someone else and I pause in the hallway, scanning the room. Near the back, slumped down in his seat, eyes fluttering shut, is Miles.

  Without straightening up in his seat or even looking awake, he answers Mr. Chin, speaking in Chinese. Despite looking a bit like Cody Smith in my lit class, Miles seems to please Mr. Chin, and he even claps for Miles.

  At the sudden sound, Miles jolts upright, suddenly looking alert. I scoot quickly down the hall, away from the open door. So Miles Beckett speaks fluent Mandarin. Figures. Harper and I are both whizzes when it comes to foreign languages, especially accents, but neither of us knows a language as complex as Mandarin. That one would take years of learning.

  Like Miles, I’ve become a bit of a teacher’s pet in most of my classes—lots of hard work and false enthusiasm—so I decide Ms. Swanson probably won’t mind if I take a long time in the bathroom.

  I head out the front doors, toward the athletic fields, and take out my phone to dial the school office number.

  “This is Judge Cohen… My son, Jacob, left this morning without taking his meds,” I say. “You know how he gets without them. I’m two minutes away… Mind sending him out front to meet me? I’m due in court soon.”

  “Of course,” she says. “I’ll page him in class.”

  After hanging up, it only takes about three minutes for Jacob to appear outside. He looks around, probably expecting his mom’s car, probably panicking because she’s supposed to be out of town. I wave him over, and we duck under an awning, out of range of the school’s security cameras trained on both the parking lot and the athletic fields.

  “You called me?” Jacob asks, startled.

  I shrug. “Indirectly.”

  “What’s up?”

  I take out my phone again and flip through the photos from the other night. “So, Rosa Lipman?”

  “Yeah?” he says eagerly.

  “She’s a victim of identity theft.”

  He frowns. “I’m supposed to feel sorry for her now? Not happening.”

  I lean against the school building, my arms folded across my chest. “Rosa Lipman is a thirty-two-year-old woman who lives in Maryland, works as a CPA, divorced six years ago, and recently had her identity stolen by someone who keeps opening lines of credit in the Fredricksburg, Virginia, and D.C. areas.”

  Jacob’s eyes widen. “So you mean that she—that—”

  “That your dad’s under-the-desk gal pal is not Rosa Lipman? No, she’s not. But she’s definitely making Rosa’s life hell.”

  He leans against the wall, still in shock. Then skepticism fills his face. “Are you sure? There has to be more than one Rosa Lip
man on the East Coast.”

  “With the same Social Security number?” I shake my head. “It’s not a mistake.”

  He doesn’t argue but also doesn’t look completely convinced.

  “I can prove it to you, but when I do, she’ll be gone,” I warn him.

  “Gone? Doing what?”

  “A phone call,” I say. “But maybe it would be better to take this to your dad and let the grown-ups deal with it?”

  “That won’t work. He’s fucking lovesick.” Jacob hesitates then says firmly, “Do it.”

  “Pull up that application on your phone and give me her number.” When he does, I dial, put it on speakerphone, and wait for Fake Rosa to answer. It takes three rings.

  “Hello, is this Rosa Lipman?”

  “Yes, it is,” she says all breathy and genuine. She’s definitely a professional.

  “My name is Betty Summers. I work for the Internal Revenue Service’s identity theft department. I have some good news about the claim you filed last month.”

  “Oh, you do?” Some of the pro in her tone fades and there’s a hint of nerves.

  “We’ve traced the perpetrator to an address in Fredericksburg, Virginia.” I glance at Jacob and then spit out his address from memory. “Fourteen Germantown Lane… We’re sending the local authorities out there now to make the arrest. Our surveillance shows the fake Rosa Lipman on the premises—”

  The line goes dead, and Jacob and I stand there for a moment staring at the words call ended on my screen.

  Then Jacob lifts his hands in the air and gives a yell. “Dude, that was awesome!”

  I reach up and slap a hand over his mouth, nodding toward the classroom on the other side of the wall. I give him about ten seconds to celebrate because hell, I kind of want to celebrate, too. I haven’t done anything like this in forever. Then I turn businesslike. I find a pic I took on the beach the other night, one involving him snorting something from Bret’s or Dominic’s stash. “I heard you’re hoping to go to Columbia, like your mom. Law school, too…”

  He looks at the picture and takes a few steps back, away from me. “Damn…that stings.”