NORA ROBERTS
Hot Ice
Sacred Sins
Brazen Virtue
Sweet Revenge
Public Secrets
Genuine Lies
Carnal Innocence
Divine Evil
Honest Illusions
Private Scandals
Hidden Riches
True Betrayals
Montana Sky
Sanctuary
Homeport
The Reef
River’s End
Carolina Moon
The Villa
Midnight Bayou
Three Fates
Birthright
Northern Lights
Blue Smoke
Angels Fall
High Noon
Tribute
Black Hills
The Search
Chasing Fire
The Witness
Whiskey Beach
Tonight and Always
The Collector
SERIES
IRISH BORN TRILOGY
Born in Fire
Born in Ice
Born in Shame
DREAM TRILOGY
Daring to Dream
Holding the Dream
Finding the Dream
CHESAPEAKE BAY SAGA
Sea Swept
Rising Tides
Inner Harbor
Chesapeake Blue
GALLAGHERS OF ARDMORE TRILOGY
Jewels of the Sun
Tears of the Moon
Heart of the Sea
THREE SISTERS ISLAND TRILOGY
Dance Upon the Air
Heaven and Earth
Face the Fire
KEY TRILOGY
Key of Light
Key of Knowledge
Key of Valor
IN THE GARDEN TRILOGY
Blue Dahlia
Black Rose
Red Lily
CIRCLE TRILOGY
Morrigan’s Cross
Dance of the Gods
Valley of Silence
SIGN OF SEVEN TRILOGY
Blood Brothers
The Hollow
The Pagan Stone
BRIDE QUARTET
Vision in White
Bed of Roses
Savor the Moment
Happy Ever After
THE INN BOONSBORO TRILOGY
The Next Always
The Last Boyfriend
The Perfect Hope
THE COUSINS O’DWYER TRILOGY
Dark Witch
Shadow Spell
Blood Magick
eBOOKS BY NORA ROBERTS
CORDINA’S ROYAL FAMILY
Affaire Royale
Command Performance
The Playboy Prince
Cordina’s Crown Jewel
THE DONOVAN LEGACY
Captivated
Entranced
Charmed
Enchanted
THE O’HURLEYS
The Last Honest Woman
Dance to the Piper
Skin Deep
Without a Trace
NIGHT TALES
Night Shift
Night Shadow
Nightshade
Night Smoke
Night Shield
THE MACGREGORS
The Winning Hand
The Perfect Neighbor
All the Possibilities
One Man’s Art
Tempting Fate
Playing the Odds
The MacGregor Brides
The MacGregor Grooms
Rebellion/In from the Cold
For Now, Forever
THE CALHOUNS
Suzanna’s Surrender
Megan’s Mate
Courting Catherine
A Man for Amanda
For the Love of Lilah
IRISH LEGACY
Irish Rose
Irish Rebel
Irish Thoroughbred
Best Laid Plans
Loving Jack
Lawless
Summer Love
Boundary Lines
Dual Image
First Impressions
The Law Is a Lady
Local Hero
This Magic Moment
The Name of the Game
Partners
Temptation
The Welcoming
Opposites Attract
Time Was
Times Change
Gabriel’s Angel
Holiday Wishes
The Heart’s Victory
The Right Path
Rules of the Game
Search for Love
Blithe Images
From This Day
Song of the West
Island of Flowers
Her Mother’s Keeper
Untamed
Sullivan’s Woman
Less of a Stranger
Reflections
Dance of Dreams
Storm Warning
Once More With Feeling
Endings and Beginnings
A Matter of Choice
NORA ROBERTS & J. D. ROBB
Remember When
J. D. ROBB
Naked in Death
Glory in Death
Immortal in Death
Rapture in Death
Ceremony in Death
Vengeance in Death
Holiday in Death
Conspiracy in Death
Loyalty in Death
Witness in Death
Judgment in Death
Betrayal in Death
Seduction in Death
Reunion in Death
Purity in Death
Portrait in Death
Imitation in Death
Divided in Death
Visions in Death
Survivor in Death
Origin in Death
Memory in Death
Born in Death
Innocent in Death
Creation in Death
Strangers in Death
Salvation in Death
Promises in Death
Kindred in Death
Fantasy in Death
Indulgence in Death
Treachery in Death
New York to Dallas
Celebrity in Death
Delusion in Death
Calculated in Death
Thankless in Death
Concealed in Death
Festive in Death
Obsession in Death
ANTHOLOGIES
From the Heart
A Little Magic
A Little Fate
Moon Shadows
(with Jill Gregory, Ruth Ryan Langan, and Marianne Willman)
THE ONCE UPON SERIES
(with Jill Gregory, Ruth Ryan Langan, and Marianne Willman)
Once Upon a Castle
Once Upon a Star
Once Upon a Dream
Once Upon a Rose
Once Upon a Kiss
Once Upon a Midnight
Silent Night
(with Susan Plunkett, Dee Holmes, and Claire Cross)
Out of This World
(with Laurell K. Hamilton, Susan Krinard, and Maggie
Shayne)
Bump in the Night
(with Mary Blayney, Ruth Ryan Langan, and Mary Kay McComas)
Dead of Night
(with Mary Blayney, Ruth Ryan Langan, and Mary Kay McComas)
Three in Death
Suite 606
(with Mary Blayney, Ruth Ryan Langan, and Mary Kay McComas)
In Death
The Lost
(with Patricia Gaffney, Mary Blayney, and Ruth Ryan Langan)
The Other Side
(with Mary Blayney, Patricia Gaffney, Ruth Ryan Langan, and Mary Kay McComas)
Time of Death
The Unquiet
(with Mary Blayney, Patricia Gaffney, Ruth Ryan Langan, and Mary Kay McComas)
Mirror, Mirror
(with Mary Blayney, Elaine Fox, Mary Kay McComas, and R. C. Ryan)
ALSO AVAILABLE . . .
The Official Nora Roberts Companion
(edited by Denise Little and Laura Hayden)
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Roberts, Nora.
The liar / Nora Roberts.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-698-16135-1
I. Title.
PS3568.O243L53 2015 2014040678
813'.54—dc23
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Version_1
For JoAnne,
the amazing forever friend
Contents
Other Titles by Nora Roberts
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
PART I | THE FALSE
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
PART II | THE ROOTS
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
PART III | THE REAL
Chapter 30
Epilogue
1
In the big house—and Shelby would always think of it as the big house—she sat in her husband’s big leather chair at his big, important desk. The color of the chair was espresso. Not brown. Richard had been very exact about that sort of thing. The desk itself, so sleek and shiny, was African zebra wood, and custom-made for him in Italy.
When she’d said—just a joke—that she didn’t know they had zebras in Italy, he’d given her that look. The look that told her despite the big house, the fancy clothes and the fat diamond on the fourth finger of her left hand, she’d always be Shelby Anne Pomeroy, two steps out of the bumpkin town in Tennessee where she was born and raised.
He’d have laughed once, she thought now, he’d have known she was joking and laughed as if she were the sparkle in his life. But oh God, she’d dulled in his eyes, and so fast, too.
The man she’d met nearly five years before on a starry summer night had swept her off her feet, away from everything she’d known, into worlds she’d barely imagined.
He’d treated her like a princess, shown her places she’d only read about in books or seen in movies. And he’d loved her once—hadn’t he? It was important to remember that. He’d loved her, wanted her, given her all any woman could ask for.
Provided. That was a word he’d often used. He’d provided for her.
Maybe he’d been upset when she got pregnant, maybe she’d been afraid—just for a minute—of the look in his eyes when she told him. But he’d married her, hadn’t he? Whisked her off to Las Vegas like they were having the adventure of a lifetime.
They’d been happy then. It was important to remember that now, too. She had to remember that, to hold tight the memories of the good times.
A woman widowed at twenty-four needed memories.
A woman who learned she’d been living a lie, was not only broke but in terrible, breathtaking debt, needed reminders of the good times.
The lawyers and accountants and tax people explained it all to her, but they might as well have been speaking Greek when they went on about leveraging and hedge funds and foreclosures. The big house, one that had intimidated her since she’d walked in the door, wasn’t hers—or not enough hers to matter—but the mortgage company’s. The cars, leased not bought, and with the payments overdue, not hers, either.
The furniture? Bought on credit, and those payments overdue.
And the taxes. She couldn’t bear to think about the taxes. It terrified her to think of them.
In the two months and eight days since Richard’s death, it seemed all she did was think about matters he’d told her not to worry about, matters that weren’t her concern. Matters, when he’d give her that look, that were none of her business.
Now it was all her concern, and all her business, because she owed creditors, a mortgage company and the United States government so much money it paralyzed her.
She couldn’t afford to be paralyzed. She had a child, she had a daughter. Callie was all that mattered now. She was only three, Shelby thought, and wanted to lay her head down on that slick, shiny desk and weep.
“But you won’t. You’re what she’s got now, so you’ll do whatever has to be done.”
She opened one of the boxes, the one marked “Personal Papers.” The lawyers and tax people had taken everything, gone through everything, copied everything, she supposed.
Now she would go through everything, and see what could be salvaged. For Callie.
She needed to find enough, somewhere, to provide for her child after she’d paid off all the debt. She’d get work, of course, but it wouldn’t be enough.
She didn’t care about the money, she thought as she began going through receipts for suits and shoes and restaurants and hotels. For private planes. She’d learned she didn’t care about the money after the first whirlwind year, after Callie.
After Callie all she’d wanted was a home.
She stopped, looked around Richard’s office. The harsh colors of the modern art he’d preferred, the stark white walls he said best showed off that art, and the dark woods and leathers.
This wouldn’t be home, and hadn’t been. Would never be, she thought, if she lived here eighty years instead of the scant three months since the
y’d moved in.
He’d bought it without consulting her, furnished it without asking what she’d like. A surprise, he’d said, throwing open the doors to this monster house in Villanova, this echoing building in what he’d claimed was the best of the Philadelphia suburbs.
And she’d pretended to love it, hadn’t she? Grateful for a settled place, however much the hard colors and towering ceilings intimidated. Callie would have a home, go to good schools, play in a safe neighborhood.
Make friends. She’d make friends, too—that had been her hope.
But there hadn’t been time.
Just as there wasn’t a ten-million-dollar life insurance policy. He’d lied about that, too. Lied about the college fund for Callie.
Why?
She put that question aside. She’d never know the answer, so why ask why?
She could take his suits and shoes and ties and his sports equipment, the golf clubs and skis. Take all those to consignment shops. Take what she could get there.
Take whatever they didn’t repossess and sell it. On damn eBay if she had to. Or Craigslist. Or a pawnshop, it didn’t matter.
Plenty in her own closet to sell. And jewelry, too.
She looked at the diamond, the ring he’d slipped on her finger when they got to Vegas. The wedding ring, she’d keep, but the diamond, she’d sell. There was plenty of her own to sell.
For Callie.
She went through files, one by one. They’d taken all the computers, and those she didn’t have back yet. But the actual paper was tangible.
She opened his medical file.
He’d taken good care of himself, she thought—which reminded her to cancel the memberships at the country club, at the fitness center. That had gone out of her mind. He’d been a healthy man, one who kept his body in tune, who never missed a checkup.
She needed to toss out all those vitamins and supplements he’d taken daily, she decided as she turned over another paper.
No reason to keep those, no reason to keep these records, either. The healthy man had drowned in the Atlantic, just a few miles off the South Carolina coast, at the age of thirty-three.
She should just shred all this. Richard had been big on shredding and had his own machine right there in the office. Creditors didn’t need to see the results of his last routine blood work or the confirmation of his flu shot from two years ago, paperwork from the emergency room from when he’d dislocated his finger playing basketball.
For God’s sake, that had been three years ago. For a man who’d shred enough paperwork to make a mountain range, he’d sure been possessive about his medical receipts.
The Liar Page 1