Behind Every Lie

by Christina McDonald

  I blew out a breath I didn’t know I was holding. Shit. Andrew was right. This was not a guy who would let things go easily.

  I closed the website and e-mailed a picture of my sketch to Jackson, then downloaded the Skype app so he wouldn’t be able to track my location and used it to dial the number on his business card.

  “Detective Jackson? This is Eva Hansen.”

  “Hello, Eva.” The sound of a door, then the creak of a chair came through the phone. “You received the toxicology report?”

  “Yes, did you get the sketch I e-mailed you?”

  “I’ll check it now.”

  “I don’t understand. My mom didn’t have heart disease.”

  “You’re right, she didn’t. We found no prescription bottles containing digoxin, and when I checked her medical records, there was no history of it.”

  “So why was it in her blood?”

  “We think your mom was poisoned. Likely over the course of a week, possibly longer. Somebody switched the leaves in her tea canister with dried foxglove. The official cause of death is digoxin toxicity compounded by a sudden loss of blood, which produced a massive heart attack.”

  I put my hand on my head and sank back against the couch. I stared at the dark TV, gripping the phone so hard my fingers ached. The scab from the cut on my palm pulsed viciously.

  I felt like Alice in Wonderland, stumbling and falling down a hole in the ground. I tried to map everything out like a jigsaw puzzle, but nothing made sense. None of the important pieces were there.

  “Poisoned.” My voice sounded very far away. Stabbed and poisoned. Somebody had slowly and deliberately killed her.

  Who would do that? She didn’t have any enemies. At least, that I knew of. She was loyal, steadfast. She always did the right thing in that stoic, practical English way. It had to be someone who had access to her house, to something as ordinary as her tea canister.

  “You know,” Jackson’s voice elbowed into my thoughts, “women are seven times more likely than men to choose poison as their murder weapon. Daughters are most likely to die from being poisoned, but obviously Kat’s mother didn’t murder her. I mean, you said you’ve never even met her, right?”

  “Yes. I mean, no, I never met her.” The thundering in my head made my voice sound hollow.

  “The thing is, Eva, the fingerprints on the mug Kat drank from, the one that poisoned her? Those fingerprints are yours.”

  twenty

  eva

  DREAD OOZED OVER ME like black ink across a white cloth.

  “You think I poisoned her?” I exclaimed. “I didn’t even know what digoxin was until Andrew told me!”

  “What medications do you take, Eva?” Jackson asked.

  “E-excuse me?” I stuttered, trying to keep up with his sudden change of direction.

  “Your fiancé mentioned you went to bed with a migraine the night your mother was murdered, that you’d taken your ‘meds.’ Plural. What other medication do you take?”

  I shook my head, confused. “None.”

  “I saw on your chart at the hospital you’d been prescribed pills for anxiety in the past. Are they the same ones you took after you were assaulted?”

  I frowned. I vaguely remembered Liam mentioning getting my medication, but I hadn’t taken any. Had I? I had no idea if they were the same pills I took two years ago.

  “Did you take anxiety pills at the same time as the migraine pills?”

  “I don’t …” I was so confused, doubt thumping in my chest. I didn’t know what was true, what to say, what to believe.

  “Are you aware that taking migraine and anxiety pills together increases the risk of serotonin syndrome? That’s a potentially serious negative drug reaction. You could have hallucinations, agitation, and even—listen closely to this one—memory loss.”

  The white walls of Jacob’s flat pressed around me, fear contracting around my chest.

  “Are you suggesting I combined a bunch of pills and then murdered someone while I was blacked out?” A sudden, surprising anger coiled between my ribs. “Or maybe I just faked getting struck by lightning so I wouldn’t remember what happened? How did I do that exactly? Did I stand directly in the path of the lightning holding up a metal hanger to make sure it hit me?”

  A memory flashed like a fish’s fin, an image of my mom falling to the ground, blood smeared across her throat.

  I had that feeling you get when you’re a kid and you’re chasing a squirrel, the wind of its tail dancing across your palm, and you’re sure, so absolutely certain you’re going to catch it any second. I closed my eyes, straining to pull aside the veil and see the rest of the memory. But it was gone, leaving my head feeling hot, tingly.

  Jackson’s voice cut through my thoughts. “Eva, you are now a person of interest in what is a very serious murder investigation. I suggest you get home before I issue an arrest warrant to Interpol.”

  “No, wait!” I exclaimed. “There’s something—I remembered something. I think you’re right, I was there, but I wasn’t alone. Check the sketch I e-mailed you. The guy’s name is Sebastian Clarke, and I think he was there too. You must’ve found other fingerprints at Mom’s house, not just mine. They’re his. He was my mom’s husband before she moved to America. He must’ve done it.”

  “Why would this Sebastian want to kill your mom?” Jackson sounded irritated.

  “I have no idea, I swear!”

  Jackson sighed.

  “Listen, I’ll come in to the police station, and you can ask me anything you want. I just need two or three more days.”

  “That isn’t how this works,” he warned.

  “I know this looks bad, Detective, but I’m sure Sebastian Clarke has something to do with this. He killed my mom. You need to find him!”

  “No, what I need to do is formally question you, Eva. You need to come back right now, today, or I’m going to issue that arrest warrant with Interpol.”

  “Two days,” I replied. Then I hung up.

  * * *

  I awoke with a start as morning dawned over London in soft shades of misty gray. Rain ticked against the windows, sent down from a cotton-wool sky. Crumpled leaves twisted in the wind, falling past the windows like teardrops.

  My eyes roamed Jacob’s bedroom, a masculine space with white-painted brick walls and a small IKEA desk. Travel photos he’d taken filled the walls. The bedside table was a cluttered mess of phone chargers, electrical converters, and loose change. A Dan Brown book had been left facedown on the dresser. This room felt more like the Jacob I’d grown up with than the rest of the flat.

  I was too awake to go back to sleep, so I dinked around on my phone, checking my e-mail and Instagram. I knew social media was like standing in front of a crowd screaming into a microphone: “Look at me! See how great I am! Be jealous of my life!” We had twenty-four-hour access to the worst things happening in the world, and twenty-four-hour access to other people’s apparently perfect lives. It was simultaneously disturbing and confusing, and yet I continued using it. Maybe something inside me needed to feel worthy of others’ approval. But weren’t we all like that?

  The story of my mom’s death was obviously making the rounds now—I had twelve messages on Instagram, including three from my college roommate, Holly: one congratulating me on my engagement, one asking if I was okay, and another asking me to call her.

  Fortunately nobody seemed to know the police were questioning me. I replied to each message, then scrolled through my feed. Jacob had posted a picture of his travel backpack perched against his pillow like a lover. “Hanging this bad boy up for a while!” he’d commented.

  I summoned Jacob’s number from a long-locked vault in my mind and reached for my phone.

  “Jake, it’s me.”

  “Eva. Hi.” He sounded pleased to hear from me. “How’s it going? Did you talk to David Ashford?”

  I told him about finding out that David Ashford was in the hospital and what I’d learned at the British Library.


  “Mom’s real daughter was a little girl called Eva Clarke, who died in a tragic accident,” I said. “Mom raised me as Eva Clarke, but I have no idea why, or who I really am, and if I can’t find David Ashford, I won’t be able to find out.”

  I got up, peering through the wooden blinds. On the street below, a garbage truck cruised along, stopping every once in a while for the trash collector to toss black bags into the back.

  “Why don’t you just visit him in the hospital?” Jacob suggested.

  “I don’t know which one he’s at.”

  “There aren’t that many in central London. Just call them and ask to be transferred to David Ashford’s room. You’ll eventually find the one he’s at.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe I should just come home. I’m not finding anything, and the detective is probably going to issue an arrest warrant soon. Even my fiancé thinks I’m acting like a lunatic.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. You’re so close to finding out the truth about Kat’s past. Your past.” His voice softened. “You can’t run away from this, Eva.”

  “I’m not running away,” I said defensively. “I don’t run away.”

  Jacob didn’t reply, and a long silence stretched between us. I tried to twist my ring, forgetting that nothing was there.

  I hadn’t meant to sound so bitter. I didn’t want him to know that being left with just a note after our night together had hurt. Time had only calcified my resentment the way a kiln hardens clay. Now it was chipping off, fragments scattering, spilling out and slicing those who loved me.

  “Is that what you thought?” Jacob finally said. “That I ran away?”

  “No …”

  “I wasn’t running away, Eva. I just needed some time to figure things out. I was scared shitless, okay? We went from best friends to sleeping together, and I didn’t want to fuck it up. You were worth more to me than that. But when I came back, you wouldn’t answer my calls. I had to find out what happened to you from Holly.”

  Horror and shame slid through me. “She told you?” I whispered, aghast. I didn’t think he knew.

  “She was worried about you. You moved back into your mom’s house and you wouldn’t talk to anybody.”

  The hurt in his voice wrenched my heart tight with guilt. I didn’t want to think about it, to remember it, but there it was. The night I was attacked, my identity as a valuable, thinking person had been crushed because I couldn’t even remember it. I didn’t want anybody to know, because who would possibly want to step into that new world with me?

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.” Tears sprang to my eyes, but I blinked them away. “I was scared and ashamed. I was afraid it was my fault, like maybe I was flirting with him or I drank too much. I don’t know what happened, really, because I don’t remember.”

  “Don’t you know?” Jacob said gently. “You don’t have to remember it to know you weren’t to blame for it.”

  For so long I’d been trying to move past it, around it. I’d moved all the way to Whidbey Island to get away from it. But it hadn’t worked. It was always there, tearing me up, breaking me to pieces.

  Only now did I see—it didn’t matter how far I went; I couldn’t outrun myself.

  twenty-one

  kat

  25 years before

  “ROSE!” ADRENALINE PULSED WILDLY in my chest as I lunged for the gate Rose and Laura had disappeared behind. I rattled the locked handle. “Rose, please! Listen to me! Seb’s hired someone to kill you!”

  I pressed my forehead to the gate, breathing heavily.

  After a second the gate clicked open. I stepped back as Rose peered out at me uncertainly, Laura half hidden behind her legs. I tried to see myself through her eyes: a wild woman, dirty and disheveled hair, glazed eyes.

  “You must be mistaken.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Then change his mind!”

  I snorted in a distinctly unladylike fashion. Changing Seb’s mind when it was made up was a bit like negotiating one’s way up a cow’s arse. He would never stop until he got revenge.

  “I truly wish I could. But he already has a man working on it. There’s a hit on you and Laura.”

  Rose looked stricken, her face the color of damp chalk. In fact, she looked quite ill. Her eyes glittered madly, her cheekbones sharp and skeletal. The skin under her eyes sagged, her lips cracked in angry, raw patches.

  She looked down at Laura, wrapped like a barnacle around her leg. “The police—”

  “—are in Seb’s pocket,” I cut her off. “Look.” I lifted my top to show her the kidney-shaped bruise under my ribs. “Seb hits me, and I can’t go to the police because they won’t do anything about it. They know he’s involved in drugs, extortion, money laundering. They don’t do anything about it because he pays them not to.” I glanced over my shoulder. “Where is David? You mustn’t stay. Leave London for a while. I’ll send word when it’s safe to return.”

  “David’s out of town!” Rose’s eyes filled with tears. “He had to get a piece for a client. He won’t be home until next week.”

  “Take Laura and go without him. This is important, Rose. You must listen to me.”

  “Go where? How?” Rose was panicking, dragging in tiny sips of air too fast.

  I handed her an envelope. “It’s Eva’s birth certificate. Use it for Laura. Nobody will ever question it. My passport is in there too, for you to use. They won’t look if you go to France. Just get out of the country. You can send word to David later.”

  Rose stroked a hand down Laura’s hair, a burst of color against her pale, bony fingers. A streetlight shimmered on, casting a golden glow onto the street. I looked around, expecting to see someone, anyone, but the street was quiet, empty as a wish.

  “David’s never around,” she said. “He can’t keep her safe!” Then she reached for my hand, her eyes aglow. “Come with us.”

  “Don’t be daft.” I snatched my hand away. “I can’t leave.”

  “Come with us,” she repeated, more forcefully this time. “Did you think I hadn’t seen your bruises, Katherine? Of course I know your husband beats you. You will suffer horribly if he learns you warned me. Do you really want that for the rest of your life? Would Eva want that for you?”

  I inhaled sharply at the sound of her name.

  My memories of my daughter were already slipping away. When I pressed my face to her sheets, I no longer smelled the mango scent of her hair. The exact sound of her laughter, too, was already fading. Her laughter was contagious, and now I couldn’t even remember it. But her name, the daughter I’d loved and lived for, she was still here, in my heart.

  Rose wrapped her arms around me and pulled me tight to her. I dropped my face to the soft skin at her throat, the familiar scent of lemons coiling around me.

  “We’ll start over together,” she whispered. “Without David or Sebastian. We’ll live the way we want. Come with us.”

  I teetered there on the brink of a momentous decision that I knew would take my life in one of two polar-opposite directions. Stay or escape. I was like Schrödinger’s cat, sealed in a box of my own making, both alive and dead. Until I decided, both realities were equally possible.

  My daughter was dead. There was nothing tying me to Seb except fear and lies. I let myself imagine what it would be like to be free.

  “Yes,” I breathed. “Yes, I’ll go with you.”

  “Oh, thank God.” Rose closed her eyes in relief. “What do we do now?”

  I racked my mind, trying to form an escape plan. “We need money. Clothes. Your passport.”

  She nodded and handed me back the envelope I’d brought. “Take Laura with you,” she said. “I’ll get my passport. I have to wait for the bank to open tomorrow, but I’ll meet you after. Where should we meet?”

  I thought fast. “Ibis Hotel near Heathrow Airport. After you arrive, we’ll fly to America.”

  “Mummy?” Laura tugged on Rose’s hand. “Where are we going? Is Eva coming?”


  “Not today, Laura-loo.” Rose knelt and tucked a lock of hair behind Laura’s ear. “I need you to go with Katherine now.”

  “I don’t want to.” She scowled. “I want to stay with you.”

  Rose pushed her gently toward me, and I grabbed her arm.

  “Mummy!” Laura tried to squirm out of my grasp, her fingers clutching onto Rose’s coat.

  I threw the envelope with my passport into the car and used both hands to tug her off Rose. She screamed, a sound that ripped through the quiet street like a banshee’s cry.

  “Laura, stop it!” I said sharply. “We will see Mummy soon.”

  “Muu-mmy!”

  Rose took a step away, her hand over her mouth, tears streaming down her face.

  “Katherine, I’m so sorry,” she sobbed.

  I covered Laura’s mouth as she opened it to scream again and hoisted her into the car. She flailed against me, her tiny fists hitting me like little hammers. I strapped her into the backseat, then got in and started the car. I rolled my window down, and Rose reached in through the open window and hugged me hard, her face wet and hot.

  “Keep our girl safe,” she said.

  * * *

  We waited for Rose at the hotel for two days. I fretted constantly, growing increasingly worried when Rose didn’t arrive as planned. On the second day, the hotel receptionist flagged me down and handed me a letter that had arrived in the post. Inside was a slip of paper with a series of numbers. A bank account number and sort code.

  We took the lift to our room, and I settled Laura with a coloring book and crayons while I called the bank. The account was in Eva’s name, matching the birth certificate I had, with me as the co–account holder. It held enough money to get the three of us to America and settled somewhere new.