The Lies That Bind

by Lisa Roecker

  “Well, this place still has the strangest echoes, doesn’t it, Kate?” Mr. Farrow wrapped his strong fingers around my elbow and started to drag me toward the main doors of the school.

  I nodded mutely. Unable to think of anything except the words I’d heard behind the lockers.

  “Some people even say it’s haunted. What do you think, Kate? Do you think the school is haunted?”

  “Maybe.” I finally found my voice. “But something tells me there are scarier things than ghosts at this school.”

  Mr. Farrow laughed and Bradley joined in, but his voice was an octave higher than it normally was.

  “Ah, well, you might be right, Kate.” Mr. Farrow patted me fondly on the back. “After all, ghosts can’t tell secrets.”

  To: GraceLee@pemberlybrown.edu

  Sent: Fri 1/16 7:11 PM

  From: KateLowry@pemberlybrown.edu

  Subject: (no subject)

  Grace,

  I’m so sorry. I feel like I’m letting you down all over again. Our slam book showed up in History. It was like opening a time machine. All I could talk about then was Bradley freaking Farrow. Yeah, the same guy who distracted me from saving your life and kidnapped Bethany. What a charmer. And now I’ve somehow managed to become his beard or whatever it is they call fake girlfriends for guys who have an unhealthy amount of fear for their fathers.

  Bradley is like this walking, talking reminder of the Kate I used to be. The girl who followed boys around school and doodled their names in her notebooks. And I hate that girl. Or maybe I just want to hate her because I can’t. Not totally. I mean, that was the girl who was your best friend. She couldn’t have been all bad, right?

  Chapter 32

  As a result of my unfortunate encounter with the Farrows, I was in no position to be spending my evening anywhere but in my room, where I could work through everything that had gone down. I had a hate hangover. I couldn’t stop thinking about Bradley texting Bethany those horrible things and then turning around and trying to save me (or himself) from his father. And then there were the notes from Grace and her belongings slowly finding their way back into my life. Something just wasn’t adding up.

  Maybe that’s why I kept screening Liam’s calls. I’m not sure why I didn’t feel like talking. It’s not like Liam did anything. Things had been almost normal between us the other night, but I just couldn’t bring myself to answer.

  Instead, I lingered over the email I’d just written to Grace, deleting and retyping lines, watching the cursor eat letter after letter and then resurrecting each word, one by one. It was therapeutic somehow, filling the space and then emptying it, addicting. I considered who I’d be in ten years if the strange obsession continued, possibly featured on some messed-up documentary with girls who ate their own hair or guys who collected toenail clippings. Kate: the girl who typed and deleted the same one hundred words around the clock. Just another head case.

  So it was no wonder I didn’t feel his presence until too late. By the time I turned around, he was hunched over a few inches behind me, his eyes narrowed, taking in every letter I’d typed to Grace. Every private Bradley-doused letter.

  “Oh my God, you scared me!” I threw my hand over my heart to demonstrate, but the action was wasted as Liam continued to stare at my computer, his face all scrunched up. I quickly minimized the email. If I didn’t look guilty before, that action pretty much sealed the deal.

  Liam stood straighter then, his lips pinched together in a line. I wished he would talk, because the longer the silence lingered, the more time I had to think about my course of action—and at a time like this, thinking was the enemy. I determined the need to take one of two possible avenues: get pissed at Liam for snooping in my private business or play dumb.

  “Are you hungry? I’m starving. We have no food in the house. Let’s go out!” If that wasn’t dumb, I’m not sure what is. The smile I’d managed to swipe across my face threatened to consume the rest of my features in one gigantic bite.

  “When were you planning on telling me that you are now dating Bradley Farrow?”

  I briefly considered playing super-dumb and suggesting a restaurant, but the hurt in Liam’s eyes stopped me in my tracks. “It’s not what you think.”

  “Which part? That you used to be obsessed with him or that you’re talking to him again?” Liam flinched as though the words burned coming out. If only he knew how much they hurt on my end too. The worst part was that in these types of situations, no amount of explaining could ever fix things. Everything was out there, displayed on some billboard situated right where the only person I’d ever want to hide it from was standing. I was screwed.

  I opened my mouth to say something, even though I wasn’t quite sure what it was going to be yet, and the Amicus private-message tone sounded on my computer. I squeezed my eyes shut as Liam looked beyond me, intercepting the message before I could do a thing about it. I spun around and opened one eye, praying, “Please be from Seth, please be from Seth, please be from Seth,” and saw Bradley’s name in the message box. Naturally.

  Meet me at the club in 30. We need to talk.

  “I’m out of here.” Four words. It only took four words from Liam to break my heart. It was official. Bradley Farrow was destroying my life for the second time.

  “Liam. Wait! I swear I can explain. I hate him! He’s awful and I hate him.” Tears welled in my eyes as I said the words to Liam’s back.

  “I thought something was wrong. You weren’t answering your phone. But it makes sense now.”

  “Liam, it’s not like that. I ran into Bradley at school and…”

  “Oh, when you were supposed to be with Seth? Yeah, I saw him at the McDonald’s drive-through. Without you.”

  “Just let me explain. I heard him talking…from a locker.” I said this as though it would explain everything, defend my email to Grace, and justify Bradley’s private message about the country club.

  But Liam was already halfway out the door.

  “Liam!” I jumped up, cursing my computer, the message, Bradley, Taylor, even Bethany. “Liam, wait!” I ran to the top of the stairs.

  Liam opened the front door and then, without turning around, said, “I’m not going to watch you self-destruct. I just won’t do it. You want to hang out with assholes who kidnap girls in the name of some lame-ass secret society, go for it. But don’t expect me to be there for you when everything falls apart.” He turned around then and met my eyes, his own a steel gray. “Grace is dead, Kate. She’s gone. You’re not keeping her memory alive. You’re following in her footsteps.”

  The door slammed and my mom’s voice trailed up the stairs. “Kate?”

  She was the absolute last person I wanted to talk to right now. We didn’t exactly have the sort of mother-daughter relationship where she knocked quietly on my bedroom door wielding a pint of Ben & Jerry’s and offering a soft, understanding smile.

  I stood at the top of the stairs, Liam’s words hanging in the air like black smoke, burning my lungs and stinging my eyes. Maybe it was clear that he cared about me, that he couldn’t handle the risk, but in that moment the only thing that made any sense was my anger. I might have even hated him a little bit for what he said about Grace, because hating him was so much easier than understanding him. He obviously felt the same way.

  I wasn’t going to apologize for confronting Bradley on my own. As much as Liam and Seth loved our whole Mod Squad routine, did they honestly think that Bradley Farrow would tell them anything? It was up to me to get him talking. And I definitely wasn’t going to apologize for working out my feelings through an email to Grace. It was practically prescribed by Dr. Prozac, and Liam had no right to take that away from me. Even if he didn’t like what I had to say.

  When my phone vibrated on my duvet, I cursed myself for hoping to see Liam’s name on the screen. He didn’t deserve that hope right now.

  But instead of Liam it was a text from a number I didn’t recognize.

  R u coming or wha
t?

  My powers of deductive reasoning led me to one name.

  Bradley.

  At this point, all the valued relationships in my life were total crap, so I might as well make it worth it. I wondered if blue hair was against the club’s dress code. Probably.

  On my way.

  The moment I sent the text, I regretted it. Then again, it’s not like I had anything to lose.

  Chapter 33

  I’d only been to Bradley’s country club once, for Camille Youngblood’s eleventh birthday party in lower school. My parents claimed that they didn’t subscribe to the culture of exclusivity that country clubs perpetuated. Their words, not mine. Personally, I think they probably just couldn’t get in.

  Either way, no one ever turned down an invitation to the country club, no matter who was doing the inviting. And tonight the invitation came with the added bonus of a “we need to talk,” which clearly meant Bradley had something to say.

  And I was willing to bet that that “something” was related to a certain missing someone. An image of Bethany wrapped in a blanket and being led to safety by yours truly flashed in my mind. If I saved Bethany, Liam would see how stupid he was being about the email. He’d see that I was just using Bradley for information.

  The club was exactly how I remembered it. The black sign with gold engraved lettering hung on a wrought-iron post, lightly dusted with snow. Trees hugged the property and were lit individually with spotlights, the snow sparkling like a collection of diamonds. Add a horse and carriage and some kid rolling snowballs, and I’d be staring at a Norman Rockwell painting.

  When the clubhouse came into view, I pulled the hood of my winter jacket tighter around my chin, tucking a stray lock of blue hair behind my ear. As much as I loved my whole rebel-with-a-cause vibe, a tiny part of me wished I could walk into the club as a boring brunette wearing ballet flats and an A-line skirt. It was the kind of place that made you want to fit in. Desperately.

  I walked into the lobby and kept my eyes trained on the green carpeting, praying my scuffed riding boots screamed “Vintage!” instead of “Charity case!” But after only a second, I felt a pair of rheumy eyes fall to the top of my head, work their way down past my perfectly broken-in jeans, and finally land on the salt stains lining the toes of my “vintage” boots. No. Such. Luck.

  “May I help you, dear? You look lost.” Her voice was laced with disgust.

  Enough of this crap.

  I yanked off my hood and revealed my bright blue ponytail in all its glory. It felt a little like giving her the middle finger. The old biddy gasped and my lips twitched up in a smile.

  “I’m here to see Bradley Farrow.” I did my best to match her haughty tone.

  “I believe you’ll find him downstairs in the café next to the gym. That’s where all the young people seem to congregate.” She sniffed once, pulled her long fur coat tighter around her shoulders, and paraded out the front door.

  “Friendly here, aren’t they?” I whirled around to see Naomi Farrow smiling at me from one of the couches surrounding the massive fireplace, textbooks and papers spread all around her.

  “Just lovely. Think she’ll write me into her will?”

  “Doubtful. Rumor has it she’s leaving everything she’s got to her horrible little dog.”

  “Of course she is.”

  Naomi gathered up a few notebooks and gestured for me to sit.

  I glanced down at my phone and shook my head. “I’m actually meeting someone…” That someone being your brother, who I once had a socially crippling crush on and who most recently appears to be hiding missing girls in lockers.

  “Interesting.” The word was heavy with judgment. “He’s downstairs. As usual.”

  “Thanks, Naomi.” I made my way toward the huge spiral staircase to the left of the sitting room.

  “Kate?”

  I swiveled my head back to look at her again. Her hair fell down her back in soft waves; her honey-brown skin glowed in the firelight; and her fingers twisted the Sisterhood’s crest around her necklace. “Be careful.”

  I nodded. I had no way of knowing how much Naomi knew or whose side she was on, but I couldn’t exactly argue with that little piece of advice.

  I found Bradley sitting at a café table with a coffee. He raised his eyebrows in greeting.

  “Took you long enough.”

  “Yeah, well, I wasn’t sure whether I should come.” The words were out before I could stop them.

  “Why?” His golden eyes burned into me. It was kind of a loaded question. There was no way I was going to admit he’d caused a rift between Liam and me.

  “Where is Bethany?” Always answer a question with a question. Wasn’t that an old detective trick? Or maybe it was just a really annoying habit I’d picked up after spending too much time with Seth. Too close to call.

  He eyed my phone on the table and his smile evaporated, his eyes clouding over and losing their signature shine.

  “Do you really think I kidnapped Bethany?”

  I had to hand it to him; Bradley Farrow did not mess around.

  “Yes.” Honesty had to be the best policy at this point.

  “How do you even know she’s missing? I thought she was at some yoga retreat.”

  I started picking the remaining polish from my nails underneath the table. I wanted to bite them so badly, but there was no way I was going there in front of Bradley. “Well, her house was ransacked and I got a text of her all tied up. And I found her phone in your closet and there are all these crazy texts from you. Just tell me where she is before I go back to the police.”

  Bradley raised an eyebrow and I sighed. He knew as well as I did that the police weren’t an option.

  “Where’s the phone?”

  I made the mistake of looking down at my bag on the ground. I’d thrown the phone in at the last minute. It sounds stupid, but I’d thought I might need proof. Before I could even process what was happening, Bradley’s arm shot out and snagged my bag. He had Bethany’s phone in his hands before I could even manage to string together a decent curse.

  I jumped up from my chair and tried to grab the phone back, but Bradley was too fast for me. He had already moved across the café and was scrolling quickly through the texts.

  “These aren’t from me.” He shook his head. “I mean, they have my name on them, but they’re not…” His fingers danced and slid across the screen of the phone until he looked up at me with triumph in his eyes. “I didn’t send these texts.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Whatever, Bradley. Just give it back, okay?”

  “No, seriously.” He tossed the phone in my direction. I watched it spiral through the air, hoping against all reason that this was one of those slow-motion moments where I’d extend my arm and revel in the moment of electronic-to-palm contact, even if it meant sliding on the floor on my belly. Unfortunately, when the phone struck the shiny, hardwood floor, it made the type of sound that can only be described as “broken.”

  “Shit!” Dropping the phone felt exactly like missing a fly ball after being exiled to right field for an entire softball game. Crappy with a heavy dose of humiliation.

  I scrambled to put the phone back together and held my breath waiting for it to power on. I was such an idiot for coming here. For practically handing my prime suspect my only piece of evidence. What was wrong with me? Where was my judgment? Why did Bradley Farrow always manage to turn me into some kind of half-witted idiot?

  The screen of Bethany’s phone lit up, and the breath I’d been holding came out in a big whoosh. I grabbed my bag, tossed the phone in the side pocket, and booked it toward the stairs.

  “Hey! Where’re you going?”

  I ignored Bradley completely and kept moving. Time to cut my losses.

  “Wait up!”

  I was halfway up the stairs.

  “Kate!” I felt an arm on my shoulder. Bradley whirled me around.

  “I didn’t send those texts.”

  “Super. Thanks f
or sharing. I totally believe you.” I turned around and started walking back up the stairs.

  My phone vibrated in my pocket and I pulled it out. A new text.

  The #s don’t match

  I froze. Bradley had texted me from this number earlier, and based on the fact that he was standing two stairs down from me with his phone in his hands, he had just texted me again now.

  I clawed around in my bag for Bethany’s phone and quickly pulled up Bradley’s texts. I clicked on his name, bringing up the cell number he’d been texting from. It was a completely different number from the one on my phone.

  Either Bradley had a super-secret cell phone he used to send threatening texts to missing girls or he was actually telling the truth.

  Chapter 34

  “But how…”

  I looked down the stairs at Bradley and he just shrugged. “Someone’s setting us up.”

  Us. The way he said it sent a chill up and down my spine, which subsequently triggered goose bumps, as usual. I promptly rubbed them away. I promised myself that it was just the idea of being in it with someone else, that it had nothing to do with Bradley and his smoothly shaved head, his golden-brown skin, his straight teeth and soft lips. Because I already had the boy of my dreams; he just happened to be beyond pissed at me again at the moment.

  “You’re freezing. Let’s sit in the parlor. There’s a fireplace, and after you warm up, I’ll drive you home.”

  We walked back into the Norman Rockwell painting that doubled as the clubhouse lobby, but I barely felt the warmth of the roaring fire. Something wasn’t right. Somehow I wasn’t entirely convinced of Bradley’s innocence. A few minutes by the fire with him might reveal something interesting.

  I ran my fingers along the wall as we walked. The wallpaper would have been tacky anywhere else, but somehow the random collection of horses and dogs and mallards and trees seemed perfect, even stylish, at the country club. Because the club was so exclusive, you naturally assumed that all of the furnishings were rare and expensive. A tattered sofa transformed into an elegant antique, and tacky wallpaper became a statement instead of an eyesore.