Liars, Inc.

by Paula Stokes

I thought about Preston’s comments about really knowing people. Something had to be going on with his family. Hopefully this Violet chick could mellow him out the way Parvati did me. Again, I wished I could text her. No, screw that. I wished she could be next to me, looking up at the same night sky. She would love this: the wind off the water, the occasional shriek of a gull or a raven outside the tent, the sky glittering like diamonds on black velvet.

  I closed my eyes and imagined her curled against me, my lips relaxing into a smile. I had no idea what she saw in me most of the time, but maybe weird girls just have weird taste. Or maybe she was my cosmic reward for surviving my crap childhood and emerging as a mostly decent guy.

  SEVEN

  December 4th

  SUN FILTERED THROUGH THE NYLON the next morning. The breeze blew snarls of seaweed up against the side of my tent. I unzipped the flap just far enough to peek through. High tide was coming again. I must have slept a long time. I checked my phone; it was almost 10:00 a.m.

  Yawning, I rubbed my eyes and then rolled up my sleeping bag. Crawling out of the tent, I turned my face to avoid being pelted with clouds of sand that the wind had loosened. I pulled up the stakes and stuffed my tent inside its nylon carrying bag. As I headed up to my car for my board, I rattled off a quick text message to Preston. He didn’t answer. Knowing him, he had probably just gone to sleep.

  I tossed my camping gear in the trunk and unhooked my surfboard from the top of my car. As I made my way back down to the beach, I could see the Jacobsen brothers out at the lineup where the waves were breaking. The twins, Jasper and Jared, were seniors with me. Their older brother, Jonas, worked at a seafood restaurant just down the street from my parents’ shop. He was also Vista P’s unofficial bookie. Jasper waved as I started to paddle out, which was surprising. I didn’t think any of the brothers liked me. I was a sellout who made money teaching tourists to surf. The Jacobsens thought of the ocean as their private play area. They didn’t want to share their waves with outsiders.

  Giving the brothers a wide berth, I sat on my board and let my feet dangle into the water, watching each of the Jacobsens ride a wave into the shore. By the time Jared cruised to a stop in the shallow surf, Jonas was already paddling back to the lineup.

  “You gonna ride?” he hollered over at me. “Or are you just here to fangirl for us?”

  “Funny.” I dropped down to my belly and felt the water pitch and roll beneath me. I heard the wave before I felt it. The roaring filled my ears and I paddled as fast as I could, popping up into a crouch at just the right moment.

  I leaned into the wind, cutting left and then right across the shoulder of the wave as the water carried me to the shore. Jared and Jasper were on the beach, watching my approach.

  “Not bad,” Jared said. “Where’s your douchebag friend Preston today?”

  Did I mention the Jacobsens were the only kids at Vista Palisades who didn’t like Preston? That’s because a few years ago Senator DeWitt helped green-light a deal for Covington Construction to build a small resort on the last pristine strip of Vista Palisades Beach. The hotel couldn’t deny access to the public, but its existence meant more people in the water and more trash on the sand. It did kind of suck, but it wasn’t like Preston had personally brokered the deal.

  “He’s not a douchebag,” I said.

  “Sure he’s not.” Jared snorted. He turned toward the ocean. “Race you back out there.”

  I followed Jared and Jasper into the foam, paddling after them as they headed out to where Jonas bobbed leisurely in the water. The four of us fell into a sort of rhythm, each taking our turn as the waves rolled in, riding left or right so as not to drop in on each other. The sun slowly moved across the sky.

  When the sets started to turn choppy, I returned to the beach and went for a walk at the water’s edge. Pres and I were supposed to be together all day, so I didn’t want to return home too early. It was probably a mistake to let the Jacobsens see me without him, but it wasn’t like they’d tell his parents.

  Later, I packed up the rest of my gear and started for the trail. The Jacobsens were busy cooking something over one of the fire pits. “Hey, brah,” Jonas called after me. “You want a tofu burger?”

  “No thanks,” I said. Those things barely even counted as food.

  “Well, if you ever want to ride again, you know where to find us.”

  “Cool. I’ll see you around.” I ran a hand through my hair. Sand rained down on my shoulders. I wasn’t good at approaching people, making friends, whatever. But you could surf without talking, and Preston would be going off to college somewhere next year. It made sense for me to get to know the local guys.

  I sent Pres another text to tell him I was heading home. Still no answer. Either he had let his phone battery die or he and Violet were having too much fun to be bothered.

  Back at the car, I clipped my board to the roof. There was a gray SUV that I had never seen at the overlook before parked in the corner spot. It reminded me of the car I had almost hit across the street from my house. The sun was reflecting off the windshield. I shaded my eyes with one hand, but I couldn’t tell if there was anyone inside.

  The engine sputtered a little as I started my car. The latest from Kittens of Mass Destruction, “Burst into Flames,” was on the radio. I cranked up the volume as I turned out of the parking lot and headed for home.

  I didn’t realize how starving I was until I pulled into my driveway ten minutes later. I left the gear in the car and took the porch steps in a single leap. My whole family was at the table, throwing back bacon-wrapped chicken nuggets and green beans. Amanda was going through a vegetarian phase, something probably inspired by Parvati, so Darla had cooked her a veggie burger in addition to the beans.

  I grabbed a clean plate from the dishwasher and helped myself to the chicken nuggets. “You know those veggie burgers are glued together with horse’s hooves,” I said.

  “They are not.” Amanda rolled her eyes at me.

  Normally I would have screwed with her some more—I mean, come on, an eleven-year-old vegetarian?—but the long day of surfing had worn me out.

  “Hey, Max,” she said. “Where’s your shark’s tooth?”

  I reached up to where it usually hung, right at the top of my breastbone, but the pendant wasn’t there. Had I forgotten to take it off before I went in the water? I couldn’t remember. Hopefully it was tangled up with my tent or sleeping bag. If it had come off while I was surfing, it was gone for good.

  My phone buzzed and I fished it out of my pocket. It was a number I didn’t recognize. Darla gave me a disappointed look as I answered, but she didn’t say anything.

  “Max?” The voice was familiar, but I couldn’t place it.

  “Yeah?” I said. “Who is this?”

  “It’s Quinn, from school . . . from the football team?” He said it like maybe I knew seven or eight guys named Quinn. “I need your help with something.”

  “Yeah, just a second.” I pushed my chair back from the table. “I’ll be back. I need to take this in my room.”

  Darla’s face drooped even further.

  “Sorry.” Holding the phone with my neck, I grabbed my plate of chicken nuggets. “School project stuff.”

  Once I was safely inside my room with the door shut, I flopped down on my bed. “Okay. What’s up?”

  Quinn didn’t answer right away. I could hear him talking to a girl in the background—probably Amy.

  “Hey,” I said sharply. “You there?”

  “I’m here,” Quinn said. “Preston was supposed to write me a note that says I have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow so I can leave school after second hour. But he’s not answering his phone. Do you know how to reach him?”

  “He’s actually . . . busy tonight,” I said. “But he’s supposed to be back later. Maybe try him around midnight?” I took a quick bite of a chicken nugget.

  “I can’t get out of the house that late.”

  I swallowed before replying. “S
o then just get it from him tomorrow morning at school.”

  “Yeah, but what if he forgot or he’s absent or something?” Quinn lowered his voice. “Is there any way you could write it? I can come pick it up.” He paused. “Amy and I have lunch reservations downtown tomorrow. It’s our one-year anniversary, and she wanted to go to Troff. I tried to get a dinner reservation, but that place is booked for months.”

  I made a face. Troff was one of those places that put feta cheese and seaweed on a burger and charged forty bucks for it. Thank God Parvati wasn’t into fancy restaurants like that.

  “Fine. But I don’t have any parental-looking letterhead or anything. Pres probably made something on the computer.”

  “I’ll snag some of my dad’s legal stationery from his study,” Quinn said.

  “Okay.” I gave him directions to my house. “Come on by and I’ll take care of you.”

  I waited outside on the porch. I wasn’t sure what Quinn drove, but I had a feeling I’d know it when I saw it. Sure enough, about ten minutes later a black Lincoln Navigator slowed to a stop in front of my house.

  Quinn started to get out of the car. I strode across the grass and met him at the curb. “Let’s go somewhere,” I said, “so Dar—so my mom doesn’t wonder what we’re doing out here.”

  Quinn shrugged but let me in the back of the Navigator. Amy smiled at me from the passenger seat. I nodded to her as Quinn pulled away from the curb. We turned into the parking lot of a Burger Barn a few blocks away, and he parked the car in a corner spot. He cut off the engine and coached me on his dad’s signature until I had it close enough.

  Quinn pocketed the piece of off-white stationery after I signed it and then removed a crisp fifty-dollar bill from his wallet. “Thanks again,” he said.

  “You’re a lifesaver,” Amy added. She tossed her reddish-brown hair back behind her shoulders.

  “Pleasure doing business with you.” I slipped the money in my pocket. “Have a nice lunch.”

  Quinn fired up the engine and I tapped him on the shoulder. “It’s cool. I’ll just walk home.” I hopped out of the Navigator before he could reply.

  “You sure?” Quinn asked through his open window.

  “Yeah. It’s a nice night.” With a little wave, I loped toward the sidewalk. As I turned and headed for home, I wondered where Preston was, if he had the windows down on the Beamer as he headed back to Vista P. I debated if I should keep his share of Quinn’s money since I had to cover his ass, not that he would care one way or the other. I was pretty sure Pres was only doing Liars, Inc. for the potential thrills.

  EIGHT

  December 5th

  THE NEXT DAY I AWOKE to someone gently shaking my shoulder.

  “Max.” I opened one eye. Darla was standing over me, her hair hanging down in tangled clumps. She smelled like baby wipes as usual. My eyes flicked over to my alarm clock. Jesus Christ, it was only five forty-five. I didn’t need to be up for an hour.

  “What?” I asked, not bothering to cover up the hostility.

  “It’s Preston.”

  Okay. Now I was awake. Had he gotten stuck in Vegas? Had he done something stupid and gotten arrested?

  The side of my mouth was wet with drool. I wiped at it with the sleeve of my T-shirt. “What about him?” I rubbed my eyes.

  “You saw him yesterday, right?” Darla’s voice sounded uncertain, the way it did when she was having trouble telling the twins apart.

  “Yeah.” Hopefully. I was going to have one hell of a time explaining how Preston and I were surfing together if it turned out he spent the night in a Las Vegas jail.

  “Claudia DeWitt is on the phone. She wants to talk to you. Apparently, Preston never came home.”

  NINE

  AND THAT’S HOW I ENDED up in one of those rooms like you see on TV. An interrogation room. Plain metal table, folding chairs, two-way mirror cut into the upper half of one wall. The air reeked of chlorine, which made me wonder what kind of mess they’d needed bleach to clean up. I plunked down in a chair at the far end of the table, leaving as much space between me and the detectives as possible. No, not detectives. FBI agents. Apparently when the kid of a senator goes missing they bring in the top dogs.

  The taller one went by Gonzalez, but he had pale skin and green eyes and couldn’t have looked less Latino if he’d tried. He was skinny and square-faced, with hair that stuck straight up in places. He paced back and forth, muttering to himself and doing nervous things with his hands.

  Gonzo’s partner had introduced himself out in the lobby, but I had already forgotten his name. He was bigger, with shoulders like a linebacker and a belly that had seen a few too many cheeseburgers.

  “So take us through your camping trip with Preston, from the beginning.” The big guy’s voice was low, gravelly, like he should be outside chain-smoking instead of sitting here busting my balls. Man, Preston was going to owe me big-time whenever he crawled back into town. I could only imagine what sort of debauchery he had gotten up to in Vegas that made him decide coming home was optional.

  Big Guy loosened his tie and apologized for the room temperature, which was somewhere between sweltering and broiling. I leaned in to catch the name on his ID badge. Special Agent James McGhee.

  “When did you and Preston DeWitt arrive at the—” He mopped his forehead with the cuff of his dress shirt as he glanced down at his notepad. “Ravens’ Cliff Overlook?”

  “Well, I had to babysit until six thirty,” I said slowly, staring at the sweat stains underneath his armpits. “So it was about seven when we met up.”

  McGhee jotted something down on his notepad. I couldn’t read it from where I was sitting. “And then what?”

  I glanced around. Were Ben and Darla watching from the other side of the two-way mirror? They had insisted on coming in the room with me, but the agents assured them I “was in no trouble” and “not under suspicion of anything” and “would feel more comfortable speaking freely without parents around.” It had made sense at the time, but now the walls felt like they were closing in. The second hand on the clock seemed to accelerate before my eyes, ticking faster and faster—like a bomb eager to detonate.

  “And then we pitched the tent, built a fire, and sat around bullshitting until we got tired and went to sleep,” I said.

  “Bullshitting,” Gonzalez repeated, as if I’d slipped up and given something away. He slid into the chair across from me, tapping one foot repeatedly under the table. “Did that involve drinking?”

  “Maybe. Big deal.” It hadn’t actually, but one thing I learned when I was homeless was that you had to give authority figures a little bit of what they were expecting. Otherwise they wouldn’t believe anything you said, even the stuff that was true. Plenty of adults had seen me wandering the beach by myself and pegged me as a homeless kid. I always admitted it and told them my mom was standing in line to get us a bed at the shelter and had sent me looking for something to eat. That kept do-gooder types from calling social services, and it usually scored me a few bucks or some free food too.

  McGhee nodded to himself and waited for me to say more.

  I didn’t.

  That would have been the time for the whole truth—Liars, Inc., the alibi, Violet, Las Vegas—but I couldn’t do it. For one, both agents were looking at me like I was some delinquent who accidentally killed his best friend in an alcohol-induced rage and dumped the body in the ocean. I didn’t know how much they knew about my past, but if they’d already made up their minds that I was guilty of something, explaining that I headed up a shady business selling lies to my classmates probably wouldn’t have persuaded them to cut me a break. Not to mention, if I’d told them about Liars, Inc., they would have shown up at school and started interrogating the students. And then discovered that Parvati was involved.

  My parents would have sighed and looked disappointed if they found out I was forging permission slips and providing cover stories. Her parents would have sent her to military school several thousand mi
les away.

  What I should have done was just confess to the alibi. Tell them my buddy wanted to go hook up with a girl and needed someone to cover. I could have done that without ever mentioning Liars, Inc. or Parvati. But when you put someone in a small stuffy room that’s eighty-five degrees and reeks of bleach, they stop thinking clearly. I panicked. Everything became black or white. Lie or tell the truth. Keep to the alibi and assume Preston was fine or confess the whole fucking deal.

  “So you make a fire, have a little booze. Then what?” Gonzalez prompted.

  “Then we went to sleep.”

  “Alone?” McGhee asked.

  “Huh? We were in the same tent, if that’s what you mean.”

  “He means was it just you two or were there girls there too?” Gonzalez said, his hands twitching.

  “Just us.”

  “What happened when you woke up?” McGhee asked.

  “I went surfing,” I said.

  McGhee raised an eyebrow. “And Preston?”

  Shit. My first screwup.

  “I mean, we went surfing.”

  “Did anyone see you guys?”

  “I don’t know.” I faked a cough. “Can I get some water?”

  McGhee gave Gonzalez a look. “Grab a pitcher for all of us, would you?”

  Gonzalez swore under his breath but rose up from the table. He stormed through the wooden door, letting it slam behind him.

  “Sorry about him,” McGhee said. “He’s tightly wound.”

  And there it was. The whole good cop–bad cop routine. “No shit,” I said.

  “What did you and Preston do after you went surfing?”

  I didn’t know if it was the tiny break or just the absence of Gonzalez that calmed me down, but I sensed an opening to squeeze in a little bit of the truth and took it. “He split early, actually. Said he wasn’t feeling well.”

  “About what time was that?”

  I shrugged. “Didn’t look at my phone. Maybe nineish.”

  Gonzalez came back with a pitcher of water and three glossy paper cups. I accepted my drink with a polite thank-you and then guzzled down half of it in one swallow.