Liars, Inc.

by Paula Stokes

  “You should get some help for that gambling problem,” I say, trying to get in position to attack him with the table leg. I curl my legs around so I’m on my knees. Now at least I can get up without putting weight on my injured arm.

  “Your death will devastate poor Darla. That’s what she gets for changing her mind.”

  Rage surges through me. My whole body tenses into a coil. “Don’t bring her into this. You could’ve gotten adopted too if you’d stayed at Rosewood. You made the choice to become Preston DeWitt. You made the choice to stay Preston DeWitt.”

  “And now I’m making the choice to kill you. It’s perfect, really. No one will suspect a dead man of murder.” Adam’s finger curls around the trigger once more. “Good-bye, Maximus.”

  FORTY

  I WISH I COULD SAY my life passed before my eyes or that I found enlightenment in the moment when I knew I was going to die. But all I see is my sister Amanda’s smile when she gave me the painted mug for my birthday. All I think about is Darla, and how she’ll somehow blame herself for this.

  And then I see a whirl of white and blood lunge toward Adam.

  Parvati.

  The side of her hand slams into the back of his knee. He stumbles. Just enough so that the gun barrel angles toward the ground.

  It’s all the opening I need. I swing my table leg like a baseball bat. Wood collides with Adam’s hand and the gun goes flying. He screams, but before he can even turn on me, I swing the leg again, this time at his head. I hear the sickening crunch of bone. Adam falls to his knees.

  I drop the table leg and race to Parvati’s side. She’s lying atop the remnants of the coffee table, her ankles still bound with tape. There’s bits of wood in her hair, and her ripped sari hangs crookedly on her body

  Her skin is so pale. Almost gray.

  “Hang on.” I’m trying not to stare at the great blooming flower in her chest.

  “Get the gun,” she chokes out. Blood froths between her lips.

  I glance wildly around the room. The gun lies next to the TV stand. Adam is sprawled out just inside the front door of the cabin. His phone is half buried in broken coffee table. I reach for it.

  “The gun,” Parvati repeats. “Not safe.”

  I get the gun and set it next to me. Then I put the phone on speaker and call 911. Keeping Adam in my sight, I press my palms to the bloody wound in Parvati’s chest. Her heart beats in my hands.

  The phone rings once. “You’re going to be okay,” I tell her.

  Her lips twitch, almost a smile. “You’re lying to me, aren’t you?”

  The phone rings again. “No,” I assure her. “I’m done lying, to everyone.”

  The call connects. “Nine-one-one. What is your emergency?” the dispatcher asks.

  “Someone’s been shot,” I say. “We need an ambulance.”

  “What is your location?”

  “I. Shit—I’m not sure. A cabin in the Angeles National Forest. Parvati, can you—”

  But she can’t give me the address. Her eyelashes have feathered shut and her body is still. All I have to cling to are the faintest breaths escaping from her pursed lips.

  “Hold while we triangulate your position,” the dispatcher says soothingly. “Got it. Help is on the way. Stay on the line.”

  “Okay. Please hurry.” My hands are still sealed to the wound in Parvati’s chest. Her pale skin grows paler.

  “You are not allowed to die on me,” I tell her.

  She doesn’t answer. I try to imagine what she’d say, a smart-ass Parvati response, but my brain comes up empty. My stomach clenches. I put my ear to her lips to make sure she’s still breathing.

  She is.

  Barely.

  A few minutes later, a cavalry of sirens and flashing lights pull up outside the cabin. Ambulances, cops, and feds.

  The paramedics take Parvati.

  The police take Adam.

  The FBI agents take me.

  “Sorry I didn’t get your message sooner,” McGhee says.

  I barely hear him. As I duck down to slide into the back of the unmarked sedan, I see the paramedics load Parvati into the ambulance. One of her arms dangles limply over the side of the stretcher.

  For only the second time in my life, I pray.

  FORTY-ONE

  I END UP BACK IN the same bleach-smelling interrogation room. Things have come full circle, except for the fact that Parvati is apparently in surgery and the doctors don’t know if she’s going to make it.

  The first thing I do is hand over the phone with the videos on it. I explain what’s going on in the clips Adam showed me, looking away when they get to the one with Parvati. McGhee and Gonzalez excuse themselves to deal with “official business” and promise to return with coffee.

  I almost ask them to bring some whiskey too. My arm is swollen at the elbow and pulsing with its own heartbeat. It feels like someone put it in a blender on high speed.

  I should have gone to the hospital before being questioned, but the pain had dulled on the ride back to Vista Palisades—adrenaline maybe—and I just wanted to get it over with. “My arm is killing me,” I mumble when they finally return like an hour later.

  “Your parents are in the lobby. They’ll take you to the hospital once we’re done here.”

  Ben and Darla are probably freaking out, but I’m glad someone called them. I don’t want to be alone tonight.

  McGhee hands me a cup of coffee. “But you have to stay away from Ms. Amos. There’s still a restraining order against you, Max.”

  “I don’t care. You guys can arrest me. I just want to be there in case—” My voice cracks. I can’t finish the sentence. As hurt as I am by what Parvati did to me, it doesn’t change the fact that my feelings for her were real. They are real. When you care about someone, you can’t just turn that off because you learn they betrayed you.

  “Why don’t you begin at the beginning? We need to hear everything.” For once there’s no judgment or accusation in Gonzalez’s voice.

  “Okay.” I take a deep breath. “So it all started the day I tried to get detention.” I remind them about Liars, Inc. and the alibi. Then I tell them about the pictures I found in the trigonometry book, about going to Rosewood, about being adopted when I was ten. At one point, Gonzalez steps out in the hallway to take a phone call and McGhee has me wait until he returns before I continue. I rest my head on the cool metal table until he ducks back into the room. Then I tell them about Adam showing me the video clips and drugging me. As the lies multiply and the story gets more tangled and convoluted, I expect the agents to scoff at me and act all incredulous—well, Gonzalez, anyway. But when I finish my tale about accidental shootings, planted evidence, fake adoptions, and one very psychotic kid named Adam Lyons, all McGhee says is, “Thanks, Max. You should probably get that arm looked at now.”

  Then his cell phone rings. He answers it, says “I see” a couple of times, and then gets up to leave. “Thanks for coming down,” he says. “We’ll be in touch.”

  “Wait. What?” My voice rises in pitch. “What about Parvati and me? Are you going to tell people where you got the videos? Are you going to put us in some kind of witness protection program? Senator DeWitt will kill us if he finds out we handed those over.”

  “The judge is issuing an arrest warrant for Remington DeWitt as we speak.” McGhee fiddles with his tie. “You won’t have to worry about him.”

  “Already? How? I thought hidden videos weren’t admissible evidence.”

  “They’re not usually,” he says. “But when we confronted Claudia DeWitt with that footage, she cracked and confessed everything. That’s what took us so long to get back to you. We were next door, interrogating her.”

  I remembered Adam saying Claudia had always been the tortured one, the guilty one. Maybe all this time she had been waiting for a chance to make things right—as right as they could be, anyway. “So then it’s over?” I ask. “Just like that?”

  “I’m sure DeWitt will make b
ail, so if you feel threatened at any time you can contact the local police for protection. But we have no immediate plans to tell him you were the one who gave us the phone. As far as he knows, it was Adam that turned it in.”

  “And what happens to Adam?”

  “Two counts of murder, plus kidnapping plus attempted murder? I’d say he’s going away for a long time, but I’m sure he’ll try to get off on an insanity defense.” McGhee yawns. “Either way, he won’t be bothering you or your girlfriend for a while.”

  “Speaking of Ms. Amos,” Gonzalez says. “That call I got was an update on her condition. She’s out of surgery. Her condition is still critical, but the doctors think she’ll pull through.”

  I exhale deeply, my body slumping back in the chair as the air leaves my lungs. A knot forms in my chest. “That’s good,” I say. “Thanks for telling me.”

  “Remember. You can go to the ER, but you’re not allowed near the ICU where she’s staying, okay?” McGhee says. “And technically the nurses can’t give you any information about how she’s doing.”

  “I’m just glad she’s hanging in there.”

  “If she’s still your girlfriend, maybe her parents will be willing to update you,” Gonzalez offers. “Give them a phone call. The restraining order doesn’t extend to them.” It’s probably the nicest thing he’s ever said to me.

  “I don’t even know what she is to me anymore,” I admit. “It’s complicated.”

  My whole life went from simple to complicated because of one little lie.

  I’m ready for things to be easy again.

  EPILOGUE

  December 17th

  IT’S A WEEK LATER WHEN I finally get my birthday dinner.

  The FBI kept their promise, and so far no one has gotten wind of the fact that Parvati and I were involved in Senator DeWitt’s arrest. Still, I had to tell Darla who Adam really was. I didn’t want her to read about the kid she almost adopted going crazy in the newspaper. She took it like I expected, blaming herself for everything that happened. I reminded her she did what she thought was right for her family at the time, and that a lot of other factors contributed to the person Adam became.

  Then I told her I was really glad she made the choice she did. She got a little teary-eyed at that.

  The LA Times broke the whole story, from the accidental shooting of Preston DeWitt to the fake adoption to everything Adam Lyons did. The senator resigned from politics and DeWitt Firearms. Claudia DeWitt took a deal from the DA to testify against him. I don’t know where Adam ended up. McGhee told me he was transferred to a lockdown psychiatric facility and that Parvati and I would be notified if his status changed.

  “Table for four?” The Steak Shack waitress smiles down at Amanda. “Do you want a kids’ menu?”

  “I’m a vegetarian,” my sister informs her.

  The waitress laughs. “I’ll take that as a no.” She seats us at a long table next to a giant plastic Christmas tree covered in fake snow and silver tinsel. Amanda immediately begins to speculate if the wrapped boxes arranged around it have real presents in them. The waitress gives us each a plastic menu shaped like a cow and disappears into the back.

  I ball up my straw wrapper and launch it across the red-and-white-checked plastic tablecloth at Amanda. She giggles and takes aim at me with her own wrapper. The crumpled ball pings directly off the center of my chest.

  “Nice shot,” I say. She flashes me a grin before building a catapult out of a salt shaker and a spoon. The waitress returns with glasses of water and a fake smile. She tries not to stare at the remnants of our wrapper war.

  “Settle down, guys,” Ben says. “Time to order.” We end up with three steaks and one spinach salad. Ben digs right in, but Darla seems more interested in cutting her prime rib into teensy tiny pieces than in actually eating it.

  “If you cut that any smaller it’s going to be a liquid,” I say. “Are you planning on taking some home for the twins?”

  Darla laughs nervously. She blots her mouth with her paper napkin, even though I’m pretty sure she hasn’t taken a single bite. “So, Max. We have a couple of things to discuss with you since you’re now eighteen.”

  Uh-oh. Hopefully they just want me to start thinking about what I’m going to do after high school or something. It’s a discussion I’ve been expecting for a while, but, jeez, you’d think it could wait until after my birthday dinner.

  “What’s up?” I ask.

  “Your da—um, Ben and I made some calls. If you’re interested in changing your last name back to Keller, we can help you fill out the paperwork.”

  That’s what this is about? I’ve never even thought about changing my name.

  “Don’t do it.” Amanda kicks me under the table. “I want you to stay my brother.”

  I see her smile in my head, the one she gave me with my birthday mug, the one I flashed back to when I thought I was going to die. “Mandy, I will always be your brother.”

  She plucks a slice of tomato out from under a mountain of spinach and holds it up for closer inspection. “Promise?”

  “Fork please,” Darla says.

  I snatch the tomato out of Amanda’s hand and pretend to take a bite out of it. She smiles, but it’s a fake smile, mouth only.

  “I swear on, uh, this tomato.” I make the sign of the cross on it and pitch it back onto the top of her salad. She stabs the tomato with her fork.

  I turn back to Ben and Darla. They’re both smiling at us, even though Darla’s trying to look stern. I feel horrible for the way I’ve held them at a distance all these years, for the way I never even gave them a chance to be my parents. I could have missed out on so many things because I was afraid to trust them.

  You know what, though? I don’t think I did. They loved me too much to let me sabotage our relationship. Even though I did my best to keep them locked outside, they found their own ways into my life. When Adam pointed that gun at me, all I thought about was them—my family.

  Ben, Darla, and Amanda are my family. And, okay, even the twins, though I can’t wait until they outgrow their insane screaming phase. Still, it’s a pretty amazing package, and I’m not ever letting anyone—least of all myself—take it away from me.

  “Actually, I kind of like being a Cantrell,” I say. As I reach out and pat Darla on the hand, I try to squeeze out the word “Mom,” but I can’t quite make it happen. But just because I can’t say it, doesn’t mean I don’t feel it.

  Darla sniffles and I keep talking so that she doesn’t break down right here at the Steak Shack. “Well, then,” I continue. “If all the boring stuff is out of the way, let’s go back to having fun.” I launch a packet of sugar at Amanda with her salt shaker catapult. She drops her fork and catches it.

  Ben clears his throat. “There is one other order of business.”

  Oh boy. He sounds very serious. I fiddle with the edge of my cast. Maybe this is the part where I get the lecture. “Yeah?”

  Ben hands me a white box with a blue ribbon. “This is for you.”

  Everyone watches as I untie the ribbon and lift up the top. Inside it are a manila envelope and a birthday card shaped like a drum. The card looks like it’s for an eight-year-old, but at least Darla didn’t get one of those ones with poetry verses and people holding hands around a lake.

  I flip open the card and the keys to Ben’s truck fall out. I almost don’t recognize them without his ginormous work key chain attached. “I don’t understand,” I say.

  “We didn’t know what your plans were regarding college,” Darla says. “But we figured that no matter what you were going to need something to drive.” Her face brightens into a smile. “The car seats fit better in my car, anyway.”

  I am, literally, speechless. I broke down and told Ben and Darla the whole story after most of the charges were dropped, including how Langston and Marcus got rid of my car. They were less than thrilled. I never expected them to give me 50 percent of their wheels.

  “Thank you,” I finally manage
to choke out. A lump forms in my throat, but I swallow it down. Now I’m the one in danger of losing it at Vista Palisades’s numero uno family restaurant. I blink hard as I turn my attention to the manila envelope.

  I undo the clasp, figuring my birth certificate or some other legal junk they felt compelled to give me is inside. I peek inside and see a letter and what looks like a bank statement. I can’t help it—I look at the bank stuff first. The statement’s in my name. My jaw drops. I glance over at Ben. “This can’t be right.”

  “We didn’t read that,” he says. “Straight from the lawyer. It’s not our business what your dad left you.”

  My fingers shake a little as I read the letter.

  Dear Max,

  Enclosed you will find information regarding Alexander Keller’s assets at the time of death, 100 percent of which was bequeathed to you, Max Alexander Keller, now Max Alexander Cantrell. This amount is payable in full on or after your eighteenth birthday.

  Please contact my office at your convenience for more information.

  Sincerely,

  Roy Tanner, Attorney at Law

  “Holy sh—crap,” I say. Darla clucks her tongue. Amanda looks at me curiously. I slide the paperwork back in the envelope and put the envelope back in the box. I never really thought about my real dad’s estate. It’s going to feel weird having money. “Dinner is on me,” I say with a grin.

  “Absolutely not.” Ben grins back at me. “But we’ll let you buy dessert from the Cupcakery if you insist.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” I say, but I’m already plotting one more purchase. If they can give me Ben’s truck, I can replace it with a better vehicle for them—a nice one, like my family deserves.

  As Darla pulls her car into the driveway, the sun hovers just above the horizon, painting the sky a mix of pinks and oranges. Wind sends a cloud of the neighbor’s grass clippings spinning across the lawn. It’s a beautiful Southern California evening.