Dare You to Lie

by Amber Lynn Natusch

  “Not really any of your business,” I replied, checking my phone to see what time it was. “I just need to talk to him about something personal. That’s all.”

  He shook his head in disbelief at me. “And you think you’re going to solve your daddy’s case? It’s just sad, really.…”

  “Don’t you have some asses to kiss this morning? I’m sure that’s why you’re here, isn’t it? Someone is bound to need a coffee refill any minute now.” I turned to look at Bill, the security officer, and smiled. “Hey Bill! Could you use some coffee? Dawson here is buying—”

  “It’s called hard work, Ms. Danners. Not something your family knows much about, I’m sure. That’s why I’m here—to work hard and get ahead.”

  “I know more about hard work than you can possibly imagine. That’s why I’m here and why I want to talk to Jim. So, if you don’t mind,” I said, turning to walk away. But Dawson’s grip on my arm halted me. In a flash, his voice was low and threatening and his body was way too close.

  “Jim from cybercrime can’t help you with whatever it is you need help with—your father made sure of that.” He let me go and I wheeled around to see his implication plain in his hateful stare.

  “Jim Reider…” I whispered before realizing the words had escaped. Throughout the trial, he’d always been referred to as Agent Reider. I’d never met him before and had no way of knowing that they were one and the same. The fact that I didn’t seemed to please Agent Kiss-ass more than words could say.

  “Dawson,” Striker called from the far side of the room. I jumped at the sound of his voice, moving away from Dawson a bit. “Don’t make me tell you this again: she’s only seventeen.”

  I looked up to find Agent Dawson smiling at his superior in an apologetic way.

  “It was completely innocent, sir. I swear.”

  Striker stared him down before cracking a smile in return.

  “Better be.” Striker gave me a hug. “You ready to go to lunch?”

  “Yeah. Let’s go. See you around, Agent Dawson.”

  “Goodbye, Ms. Danners.”

  Striker and I walked down the street to his usual haunt, making small talk. But as we did, my brain was working overtime. Agent Reider, the man responsible for Dawson becoming an FBI agent and the reason for my father’s incarceration, had been the one to review the circumstances of my case two and a half years earlier. Something about that was unnerving, if not beyond coincidence. I couldn’t believe that there wasn’t a connection of some kind. That the man who had helped get my father transferred to the FBI in Columbus, then later launched an investigation into him also happened to have been the one to look into whether or not those pictures could be conclusively linked to AJ—or any of the rest of them, for that matter.

  Nope. My brain just wasn’t having it.

  “Kylene? Are you all right? You seem distracted.”

  “I just … There’s just a lot going on.”

  “Your father said that to me once,” Striker said, pinning dark brown eyes on me. “I wonder if he had confided in me if he wouldn’t be in prison right now. So spill it, kid. What’s going on?”

  Well when you put it like that …

  “So, I’m still digging around in my case, trying to find the truth behind that night so I can clear my name.”

  ‘Yeah…”

  “Well … I got another threat delivered to my door last night.” I explained all the details about the file and the car chase and the copies of my naked pics with the threat written all over them. By the time I was done, Striker looked like he was ready to turn green and Hulk smash the shit out of the restaurant.

  “What does the sheriff have to say about it all?” he asked, doing his best to calm himself. He defaulted to fact mode when he needed to bring it down a notch. Unfortunately for him, answering his question wasn’t likely to help.

  “There hasn’t been any real evidence to help tie anyone to the crime.”

  “This is the same asshole that botched your investigation in the first place, right?”

  “Yeah. My mom’s friend Meg—the lawyer—she’s got some PI looking into things for me. I don’t think she trusts the sheriff to handle this with any amount of competence.”

  “I like her already. Now, about these threats—any potential suspects?”

  “I thought so for a second, but not anymore. I’ve definitely been pushing some buttons with kids at school when I ask about that night. Could be a parent of The Six.”

  “Maybe, but that seems risky.”

  “Not if you think the sheriff can’t make charges stick.”

  “True. What else?”

  “Honestly? Nothing. Oh wait, there was the message written on the brick thrown through Gramps’ window, but—”

  His sharp stare cut me off, demanding the details of that event. I filled him in on that and where it fit into the timeline. I threw in Donovan and the steroids and the sketchy town-doctor-turned-potential-drug-dealer to boot, just for the sake of transparency. By the time I finished, he looked baffled.

  “And you’ve only been back for one week, right?” he asked, disbelief in his tone. I nodded. “I don’t even know what to say about that.”

  “Say you can help me,” I replied. His expression sobered at my words.

  “I can’t do anything on-book, but off-book…” I leaned forward, excited to hear what he had planned. “We’re investigating something down in your neck of the woods right now. I’m going to call in a favor and see if I can get one of the agents to do some sniffing around on his own time.”

  “That would be amazing!”

  “But you have to keep me in the loop.”

  “Of course.”

  “And you need to let Meg and her guy do the rest, okay? I know you want that vindication—hell, I want it for you—but these threats … they might not just be a scare tactic, Kylene. We need to take them seriously.”

  “I know.”

  “Good.”

  We ate our lunch, peppering our serious conversation with stories of better times. By the time I left, I felt no closer to finding the answers I needed, but I felt lighter. Happier. Maybe just being somewhere other than Jasperville was enough for that, but I was pretty sure Striker was the reason. He was like the uncle I never had. I missed having him around.

  He gave me a hug goodbye and left me to my long drive home and careening thoughts. So many separate mysteries running in parallel were starting to jumble my mind. I needed to clear at least one of them off my plate so I could focus on the others. If I didn’t, I’d never have the time or mental fortitude to solve my father’s case.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  I was halfway home when my cell phone started ringing. I hated to pick it up while driving, but it was Garrett, and I knew he’d want to know how things went. With a sigh, I grabbed it and hit TALK, immediately starting in before he could chew me out.

  “—Striker knows everything now—except about your dad. I left that out for obvious reasons.”

  “Your ability to tell almost the whole truth has come in handy yet again.”

  “I’m gifted. Deal with it, Higgins.”

  He laughed.

  “Can you stop by my place on the way home? Give me the details?”

  “Yep. I’ll see you in about forty-five minutes, providing you let me off the phone so I can drive.”

  He hung up immediately.

  “You could have at least said goodbye,” I said to myself, tossing my phone onto the passenger seat.

  The rest of the ride to Jasperville, I couldn’t stop playing my conversation with Agent Dawson over in my mind, trying to figure out how Reider factored into everything. Of course, I’d never get to know because he was dead. That fact raised the hairs on the back of my neck. My father had been convicted of killing Reider—of luring him to an abandoned building downtown and shooting him in cold blood. When Dad was arrested and charged, they claimed he’d done it to get rid of Reider because he was about to blow the whistle on some alleg
ed criminal activity of my father’s. Embezzlement, tampering with evidence—the list went on and on. To the feds, it was the ultimate betrayal—an abuse of power that led to the death of a fellow agent.

  They said killing Reider was a convenient way to silence the man about to bring my father down. To me, though, his death wasn’t convenient at all—unless someone had wanted to frame my father. Then Reider’s death was the perfect tool.

  My mind wandered as I drove, meandering through possibilities and far-fetched ideas until something struck me. If Reider had been the only one to investigate my father to that degree, then it was plausible that he had been the one doing sketchy things—not my father. It was clearly a matter of he said/he said, which I was all too familiar with. A standoff had been created between the two men that knew the truth, and now one of them was dead. Could Reider have manufactured all that evidence against my dad? Could he have been as dirty as Sheriff Higgins? If so, Reider’s death could have been just as manufactured—a way to kill two birds with one stone. But not by Reider himself, of course. Had he been a pawn in someone else’s game, like Garrett’s dad? If so, the question was why?

  And why would someone want to frame my father that badly?

  Something about it all didn’t sit well with me. I needed to write it down and start brainstorming motives with Meg. She’d know what to do with that information. Maybe Luke would help us. He was a defense attorney. Surely he’d know how to flesh it out.

  I pulled into town, trying to focus my mind on something other than Agent Douchecanoe and his mentor. I had other things that needed to be dealt with first, one of which was the fallout of the bonfire showdown. I drove another mile or so to the far side of town, where the houses were more spread out and properties were surrounded by trees instead of open land. Garrett’s place was tucked back into a heavily wooded area, high up on top of a hill. It was a gorgeous piece of land, one that I’d spent so much of my childhood running around on. The smell of pine trees assaulted my senses as I pulled up the steep gravel driveway, the crunch of the rocks underneath Heidi announcing our arrival. Garrett was waiting on the front porch for me when I reached the top and parked the car.

  “You hungry?” he asked, arms folded over his chest while he leaned against the front door.

  “Always.”

  “I made lunch.”

  “Then I’ll have more lunch.” I winked at him and he smiled. “Where’s your dad?”

  “At work.”

  “Busy questionably upholding the law?”

  “Something like that…”

  I climbed the porch steps to join him and head inside. But instead of going in, he just stood in front of me, blocking the way.

  “So … are we eating that invisible lunch out here?”

  “No,” he said with a shake of his head. His hair fell into his eyes slightly, hiding them from me. “I want to talk to you about last night.”

  “Garrett, I understand why you went after AJ—”

  “He wasn’t entirely wrong in what he said.”

  I felt my heart plummet into my stomach. The last thing I was prepared for that morning was for Garrett Higgins to tell me he loved me.

  “Which part was he not wrong about, Garrett?”

  He took a deep breath, raking his hair back away from his face. He stood up straighter, looking as though he were ready to face the music—whatever music that was.

  “I did pine for you when you left. I had no idea how large a hole your absence would cause in my life. I tried to play that off last night, but he was right. I was a mess.…”

  “Was he right about anything else?” I cautiously asked, not certain I wanted to know the answer.

  He looked at me for a moment, his expression unchanging.

  “If you’re asking about the love accusation, the answer is no. I don’t love you like he did—or still does. I’ve told you a million times, Danners: I don’t do blondes.”

  “There’s something else though, isn’t there? AJ acted like you weren’t honest about where you’d been or done or something.”

  Garrett exhaled hard and stuffed his hands in his pockets.

  “Because I wasn’t.” My heart stopped for a moment. “I didn’t tell the truth that night because I didn’t want to get someone in trouble. But that lie in no way affected your case. I was alone with someone else. I didn’t see anything—and, God, I wish I had, Ky. I wish I hadn’t left you out there. I thought you were okay with the others. If I’d known—”

  I took a deep breath.

  “You couldn’t have known, Garrett. It’s not your fault any more than it’s mine. But why didn’t you tell me this before I left?” I asked, my tone soft and beseeching.

  He looked down at me through that shaggy veil of hair, his eyes full of sadness.

  “I just couldn’t, Ky. Whenever I thought maybe the time was right, I’d see you flinch if I startled you by accident, or cringe if I reached out to touch you. Then I remembered the first time I saw you after that night, all curled up in the corner of your room crying, and I knew I could never tell you if it brought back an ounce of that pain. That I couldn’t be selfish and absolve myself of my guilt at your expense. So I kept my mouth shut.” He looked away from me and dragged his arm across his face. “I’m sorry, Ky. You know I’d never intentionally hurt you.”

  “I know that,” I said, wrapping my arms around his waist. “Except for that time you chucked an iceball at my head in sixth grade. I’m pretty sure you did mean to hurt me that day.…”

  He laughed, and his chest shook beneath my cheek. It made me smile.

  “You told Laura Jones I liked her. You broke bro code hardcore on that one.”

  “… Because I’m a girl, Garrett.”

  “Yeah, well, sixth-grade me didn’t understand that at the time.”

  We stood there for a moment in silence. The niggling sensation at the back of my mind finally broke when the realization struck me. Garrett’s reason for lying about that night became clear.

  “You were with Maribel that night,” I whispered against his chest.

  “Yeah…”

  “Afraid your dad wouldn’t approve?”

  “I’m sure he wouldn’t, but no. That’s not why. I didn’t want her name dragged through the mud, too. She had such a hard time fitting in at school when they moved—Jaime too. I just … it seemed pointless admitting what we were doing when it wasn’t going to help your case, you know?”

  “I do. I’m glad you didn’t say anything about it.” I looked up at him to see his face. “What happened to you two after that?”

  “Nothing,” he replied. He opened the door to his house and stepped back to let me in. “That was over before it began, really. Once it was clear that I was on your side and she was on Jaime’s, it just died.”

  “I’m sorry, Garrett.”

  He forced a playful smile.

  “Don’t feel too bad about it. I told you the rocker look has paid off with the ladies. I wasn’t kidding.”

  I shook my head and laughed as I walked past him.

  “Really, because I don’t see girls falling all over you now.”

  “You’re kinda cockblocking me, Ky.”

  “What? Do not blame this on me, Higgins. You’re the one clinging to Tabby and me like a sad puppy.”

  He simply shrugged and led the way to the kitchen as though I’d forgotten where it was. It looked exactly how I remembered it.

  “So,” he said, grabbing two plates from the counter, “tell me about your meeting today.”

  I quickly filled him in on the basics and explained that Striker was going to have one of his buddies look into the threats for me. He looked relieved at that and leaned back in his seat, chewing his mouthful of food.

  “There’s something else,” I said, trying to figure out how best to explain the Reider situation when I wasn’t even sure there was one to explain. But in order to do that, I needed to introduce Agent Dawson into the story. My expression soured at the thought.


  By the time I was done rehashing both our first and second encounters, minus the Reider bomb drop, Garrett’s brow was furrowed with anger. He remained silent for a moment, as though he wasn’t sure exactly what to say. He really just looked like he wanted to punch something rather than talk.

  “He’s a total douche, right?” I asked, trying to coax a response from him.

  “Total douche,” he agreed. “You should tell Striker about what he said. If he’s still tight with your dad, like you say he is, I’m sure he won’t take that well. Agent Kiss-ass won’t get too far with him once he learns that little detail.”

  “Speaking of little details, Kiss-ass dumped one on me before Striker saved me today.”

  “How so?” he asked before taking another bite.

  “Meg told me that someone in cybercrimes had looked into the photos that AJ took—how they were distributed and all that mess—to see if they could find anything conclusive to press charges with. I asked if I could speak to this John or Jim guy when I went there this morning, but Agent Dawson intercepted me and, long story short, informed me that the man is Agent Jim Reider—the man my dad shot.”

  Garrett stopped chewing.

  “Holy shit. That’s one hell of a coincidence.…”

  “I’m not sure it is one.”

  “How do you figure?”

  “I don’t know yet.… Call it one of my gut feelings.”

  “Did you tell Striker about it?”

  “No. I want him focused on the threats. I’ll talk to Meg about it and see what she wants to do with that information.”

  “And this dipshit rookie? What about him? You think you could make him useful somehow?”

  “Dawson?” I asked, choking on my food. “Yeah, no. Definitely not. He might be easy on the eyes, but that’s about all he’s good for, as far as I’m concerned.”

  “You think he’s good-looking?”

  “I did. For about one minute—the minute before he found out who I was. I did think he was pretty damn hot. But as much as I enjoy a little eye candy, he ruins that the moment he opens his mouth.”

  “You do have impossibly high standards, Ky,” he said, baiting me.

  “Yes, it is a lot to expect a man not to sexually exploit you at a party or insult both you and your family the second you meet him. I should probably start collecting a menagerie of cats now for my later years.”