Liars, Inc.

by Paula Stokes

  Slouching down on the sofa, I flipped through the channels. I heard Senator DeWitt’s name mentioned on a local news show and paused, thinking maybe people were finally talking about Pres. Nope. It was just a couple of analysts speculating about who the new president would appoint to his cabinet.

  I sent Preston another text—Seriously dude. Please call or text someone—and when that went unanswered I tried to call him. The phone rang four times before going to voicemail. I didn’t leave a message. As I clicked the red disconnect button on my phone, I thought of something. Preston’s phone couldn’t be dead. If it was, it would have gone straight to voicemail with no ringing.

  My stomach churned. Pres and his phone were never separated. To my knowledge, he had never lost it. For the first time, I thought that maybe the feds were right. Maybe something terrible had happened, and I was making it worse by covering things up.

  TWELVE

  I DOZED OFF FOR A couple of hours, and when I woke up I flipped through our measly fifteen channels again, but every show seemed to be about kidnappings or disappearances. I flicked off the TV with a sigh of disgust. Then I slapped together a salami sandwich and plunked down at the kitchen table. My stomach was growling, but my mouth was dry, my throat closing up as I tried to choke down bites of bread and meat.

  It was hopeless. I needed to just get dressed, call McGhee, and get it over with. Otherwise I was going to sit around all day and worry about what he and Gonzalez wanted. I pushed my hair out of my face and headed for my bedroom. As I turned the corner into the living room, I skidded to a stop on the rug.

  Parvati was sitting cross-legged on the sofa. I hadn’t even heard the front door open or close.

  “Jesus.” I swiped at my mouth quickly, hoping there weren’t any breadcrumbs stuck to my lips. “Ninja much?”

  “Well, I didn’t want any of your neighbors to see me loitering on the porch, just in case they know my parents.”

  Not likely. My street was full of blue-collar types. Waiters, retail workers, the occasional mechanic or plumber. Maybe her pool man lived in the neighborhood. “Much better for my neighbors to see a strange girl walking in like she owns the place,” I said. “Aren’t you supposed to be playing office assistant?”

  “Aren’t you supposed to be dressed?” she fired back, taking in my plaid pajama bottoms with an amused glance. “What is going on?”

  “Preston still hasn’t come home.”

  “I gathered that much. I get to school and there’s no you and no Preston and then there’s suits busting open both of your lockers and interviewing people—”

  “Wait, what?” Shit. Maybe lying to the FBI had done no good at all. There were so many people who might blab about Liars, Inc. if McGhee or Gonzalez asked. “What did you tell them?” I asked, trying not to panic.

  “Nothing. They didn’t talk to me.” She sounded a little bit hurt that she hadn’t been interrogated. “They only talked to the teachers. And they tried to be slick about opening the lockers. They waited until everyone was in class. No dogs or anything. Just two guys in plain clothes. I saw them when I was sneaking out.”

  It sounded like McGhee and Gonzalez were still keeping things quiet for now. “They’ll probably ask you stuff eventually. What if they’re right and something bad happened, P?”

  Parvati glanced around. Her eyes zeroed in on the front window. The sky had gone from clear to white. Thick, fluffy clouds obscured the sun. She dropped her voice slightly. “You think he’s really missing? Like kidnapped?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “If Pres got arrested or something he would have called one of us, right? Maybe his phone got lost or stolen, and then his car broke down on the way back from Vegas. Maybe I should go look for him.”

  “But if he had car trouble he’d just flag down someone else or walk to town, wouldn’t he?” Parvati tugged at the ends of her hair, something she only did when she was anxious. “Let’s go by his house and see if Esmeralda will let us in his room. Maybe we can find this girl’s address or phone number, figure out for sure where he went.”

  I had only been in Preston’s bedroom a couple of times. We always hung out in the basement. I got the feeling he was really private about his stuff. Even when he had parties, people stayed downstairs or out by the pool.

  I checked the time on my phone. I still had almost four hours before I had to pick up Amanda. Plenty of time to run by the DeWitts’ and call McGhee afterward. “Okay. Good idea.” I traded my pajama bottoms for a pair of black cargo pants and pulled a hoodie over my T-shirt.

  Parvati and I hopped in my car and headed across town to the exclusive neighborhood where Preston lived. This whole area was done up in Christmas decorations. Swags of evergreen twisted their way down lampposts, and picture windows glistened with fake snow.

  “Duck down,” I told her as we drove through an ivy-covered stone archway wrapped in white lights. There was a much greater chance people who lived in this neighborhood might know her parents.

  I slowed my car to a stop a block away from Preston’s three-story house. There were two black Lincoln Town Cars parked in front that might have been FBI, as well as a couple of smaller sedans I didn’t recognize.

  Parvati stared at the line of cars. “It looks like they’ve got a whole command center set up already.”

  “I asked about that. Apparently, the fact that Preston is a senator’s kid means everything gets expedited. They have to assume this could be a political thing until they know otherwise.”

  “But Preston is eighteen. He can legally vanish anytime he wants. This doesn’t make any sense.” She turned to face me. “How long has it been since you’ve tried to call him?”

  “A couple of hours.”

  “Let me try,” Parvati said. “If he did just decide to bail for a while, he’d tell me.”

  Was she insinuating that he wouldn’t tell me? I was the one he asked for the alibi, after all. I waited while Parvati found Preston’s name in her contacts menu and pressed call. She put the phone on speaker, and I swear it took an eternity before it started to ring.

  And then “Burst into Flames” started playing, ever so faintly. “Did you call me accidentally?” I asked. I pulled my phone out of the side pocket of my cargo pants, but the screen was black. What the hell? “Call him again,” I said.

  Parvati called Preston again. Once more, Alexis Destroyer, the lead singer for Kittens of Mass Destruction, started shrieking about how she was going to make me catch fire. It was almost like . . .

  Both Parvati and I turned toward the backseat. It was empty except for a crumpled fast food bag and a couple of soda cans. “The trunk,” we said simultaneously.

  I reached for my key fob and popped the trunk. I slid out of the car, casting a wary glance at the vehicles down the street. As usual, no one was paying me any attention. Thunder rumbled in the distance. The sky had gone from white to gray. The breeze off the ocean was cool, but a heaviness hung in the air, a thick blanket of humidity that signaled an oncoming storm. You know how fast things can change around here. Had Preston been talking about more than just the weather?

  I pawed through the camping gear that was still in my trunk. Parvati materialized at my side. She called Preston again. This time the music was louder. I shook the long nylon bag that his fancy tent was in. Nothing. Next I undid the top of my gear bag that was full of cooking equipment. Nothing. I pushed both bags to the side. Nestled at the very bottom of my trunk was a phone.

  Preston’s phone.

  I didn’t even know we had the same ringtone.

  Parvati’s pretty face looked up at us from the screen. It was a picture from when her hair was still long. Above her left shoulder, a red rectangle flashed a low battery warning. Without thinking, I reached for the phone, my fingers closing around it just as Parvati said, “Don’t touch it.” Her almond skin paled slightly. “You might mess up any fingerprints.”

  “It must have gotten mixed up with his camp stuff and he forgot it,” I said. �
��No wonder we haven’t heard from him. I’m surprised he even made it to Vegas without his cell.”

  Parvati was staring at my hand. She didn’t seem to have heard a word I had said. “Max,” she started. “Look at your fingers.”

  I looked down. My right hand was smeared with flecks of reddish brown. Something that looked like rust.

  I transferred Pres’s phone to my left hand as Parvati took my right hand in hers, bringing my fingertips close enough to her face so that she could smell them. Before I could stop her, she touched my index finger to her lips.

  “It’s blood,” she said.

  THIRTEEN

  I PULLED MY HAND FREE from Parvati’s and gave it a fierce wipe against the safe darkness of my pants. My fingers came away clean. “Blood? How could you possibly know that?”

  “I tasted it,” she replied. “Salty. Metallic.”

  “Gross,” I said. “And not exactly scientific.” My voice was sharp with doubt, but there was a part of me that believed her. She was usually right about weird things. Hell, she was usually right about everything.

  Without warning, Alexis Destroyer started singing again, the tinny ringtone surprising me so much that I dropped Preston’s phone. Parvati and I both watched as it landed facedown in the trunk next to a larger smear of brown on the upholstery.

  More blood.

  She wrapped her hand in her sleeve and reached out for the phone.

  “Wait,” I said. “It’s mine this time.” I fished around in my pocket, but the caller had hung up. The icon for a new voicemail message appeared. It was from Special Agent McGhee. He and Gonzo were on their way over to my house. One of my teachers had probably told them I skipped school. “The feds are looking for me. I have to get home.”

  “No,” Parvati said. “You can’t go home.” She headed back toward the passenger seat.

  “What? Why not?” The world blurred in front of my eyes. My brain felt like it was barely functioning, like someone had put me on frame-by-frame advance while Parvati was operating on fast-forward.

  “Because they have something on you, or they wouldn’t be so hell-bent on questioning you again. Maybe they GPS’d this phone while your car was parked at home.”

  “Yeah, but I didn’t put it in my trunk,” I protested.

  “I know,” Parvati said. “But what makes you think the feds will believe you?”

  “You’re being paranoid. They’ve been waiting for me to call them all day. Maybe they just have new information,” I said. “Or someone at school blabbed about Liars, Inc. and they figured out what happened. Anyway, I should fess up about Pres going to Vegas to meet Violet, just in case she’s some crazy stalker who has him chained up in her basement.” It had been stupid not to tell them earlier, but they had treated me like a criminal from the second they saw me—especially Gonzalez—and I didn’t want to give them the satisfaction of admitting any wrongdoing. Plus, back then I still thought Preston was going to show up any second and have a good laugh at my expense.

  But what about now?

  The phone. The blood. Parvati could be wrong—it didn’t have to be blood. The trail leading down to the beach had clay mixed in the dirt. It could be that. Or it could be rust from my camp stove. Or maybe it was blood but Preston just had chapped lips or a cut on his hand. It wasn’t a big pool of red, after all. Just a couple of brownish smudges. Somehow Pres’s phone had gotten mixed up with the camp stuff he brought for me, and that’s how it got in my trunk. He was probably fine, just sleeping off a sex-and-alcohol hangover.

  Still, it would be shitty of me to let his parents worry. I could tell the FBI about the alibi without mentioning Parvati or Liars, Inc. That way they could make some calls, check out Violet, and see if Preston’s car broke down or he got arrested for underage gambling.

  “Don’t worry, I won’t bring up your name.” I headed back to the driver’s seat.

  “I’m not worried about me,” she said. “If you’re going home, I’m coming with you. I want to hear what they say.”

  “We’re supposed to be broken up, P. They could tell your dad—”

  “They don’t have to know I’m there. I’ll hide in the kitchen or a closet or whatever.”

  “What about the Grape?”

  “My car’s still at school. I walked to your house.”

  I knew her well enough to know that when she got an idea like this into her head I wasn’t going to be able to change her mind. “Fine,” I said. “We’d better get going or they’re going to beat us there.”

  Parvati slipped her tiny frame into our overstuffed living room coat closet, adeptly straddling a bouncy seat and other assorted baby stuff. The feds showed up a few minutes later. Gonzalez let the door slam shut behind him, and I twitched at the sharp noise.

  “What’s the matter, kid?” Gonzalez asked. “Awfully jumpy.”

  “I guess I’ve been a little on edge since my friend disappeared, jackass.”

  “Watch your mouth,” Gonzalez barked.

  I rolled my eyes at him. I was pretty sure calling an FBI agent a jackass wasn’t against the law. Especially since it was true.

  McGhee eyed the seating options and selected the overstuffed armchair. That left the sofa and the rocking chair. Gonzalez sat on the side of the sofa nearest to McGhee, and I plunked down in the rocker.

  No one said anything for a moment. I swore I could hear Parvati’s breathing, slow and steady, from the closet. Then McGhee flipped open his notebook and pulled a nubby pencil from the pocket of his shirt. My heart started pounding, getting bigger with each beat, crowding out my lungs so it was hard to breathe. What the hell was going on?

  McGhee cleared his throat. “I just have a couple follow-up questions for you, Max.”

  “Yeah?” My voice actually squeaked. I wanted to kick myself. Or better yet, kick Gonzalez. I could see him fighting a smile. I raked a hand forward and then backward through my hair, leaving one of my eyes obscured by bangs.

  “Did you and Preston argue the night of your camping trip?”

  This again? I shook my head. “The answer is still no. Why?”

  Gonzalez started to say something, but McGhee cut him off. “We received a call from someone who says they saw two boys arguing at the top of Ravens’ Cliff Saturday night.”

  “Bullshit. We were walking along the cliff and Preston got too close to the edge for me. I told him to stop freaking me out. I wouldn’t call that arguing.”

  “So there was no physical struggle? No pushing and shoving?”

  “Preston outweighs me by at least sixty pounds. If there had been pushing or shoving, my broken ass would be floating out to sea right now.”

  McGhee abruptly changed the subject. “Did Preston take your ex-girlfriend to homecoming?”

  I almost blurted out that Parvati and I were still together. “Yeah. So what? They went as friends. We’re all friends.”

  “So Ms. Amos isn’t dating Preston?” he asked.

  “Nope,” I said. “They’ve never dated.”

  McGhee nodded. “And Preston’s car. You said he parked it next to you in the overlook parking lot?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s a problem, Max,” McGhee said. “We have multiple witnesses that swear Preston’s car wasn’t at the beach parking lot on Sunday morning.”

  “Well, yeah, not after he went home.”

  McGhee flipped back in his notebook. “According to you, Preston left about nineish.”

  “Uh—” A wave was brewing inside my stomach. McGhee had set me up when I was leaving the station with Darla and Ben. He waited until my guard was down to ask about the parking. “I might have been a little off.”

  “According to multiple eyewitnesses, Preston’s car wasn’t there at six, when the sun came up.” Gonzalez leaned forward for emphasis.

  Fucking Jacobsen brothers. It had to be. No one else was there. I bet one of them was the mysterious eyewitness who saw Pres and me “arguing” too.

  “Can you explain how
Preston’s car was parked at the overlook parking lot Sunday morning and also not parked there?” McGhee asked.

  “Isn’t eyewitness testimony wrong a lot?” I asked. “My little sister is always watching detective shows, and it seems like I’ve heard that over and over.”

  “Sometimes.” McGhee chewed on the end of his pencil. He sighed. “Look, I want to believe you, Max, but I know you’re not being straight with me. I can help you if you tell me the truth.”

  “Or,” Gonzalez said, “we can arrest you for obstruction of a criminal investigation if you keep lying to us.”

  I looked back and forth from McGhee to Gonzalez and didn’t say anything for a few seconds. Then I blurted out, “Here’s the deal. The camping trip was just a cover.”

  Gonzalez’s eyebrows shot up, but he kept quiet for once.

  “What do you mean?” McGhee had a knack for keeping his face perfectly expressionless. It was a little creepy.

  I told him how Preston had asked me to cover for him so that he could go to Vegas to meet a girl. As I talked, McGhee made notes and Gonzalez made faces. Snarls and sneers, the kinds of looks you give to someone you think is totally full of shit.

  I finished my story and McGhee sat in silence for a moment, looking at me, but not really. More like looking through me at the living room wall. He nodded to himself. “Got a last name for this Violet?” he asked.

  “No,” I said.

  Gonzalez laughed. A brittle sound, like breaking glass.

  “Something funny?” I asked him.

  “What’s funny is how often the stories start to change once we catch someone in a lie.” He reached up to scratch the side of his neck. “Although you think quick on your feet, I’ll give you that, kid.”

  “It’s the truth,” I said.

  “Why wasn’t it the truth yesterday?” McGhee asked, nibbling on his pencil again.

  I shrugged. I still didn’t want to tell them about Liars, Inc. It wasn’t like any of our classmates had kidnapped Preston. “I thought everything was fine. I told him I would cover for him, so I didn’t want to screw it up and get him in trouble.”