Forgiving Lies

“Waitress or waiter remember anything?”

“Ryder told me we couldn’t question her. She’d served too many people that night, and it’d raise flags if we started questioning staff. What about your bar?”

“I check things when I get there early to see if his card was used and we just missed it. He hasn’t been at my bar in weeks. There’ve been three times we’ve had people leave without paying. First was a homeless guy I see all the time. Next was this ancient woman who comes in almost every day. I don’t think she even realized she hadn’t paid when she left, because she always does. Last was a man in a business suit who took off running out of the bar when he got a phone call. But he came in the next day and paid what was owed. Other than that, I keep a record of the table, date, and time when people pay cash. Every Wednesday I check them on our cameras. Never seen Camden.”

“Shit. This whole two-meals thing is something to worry about, though. And I think that’s why Ryder is calling us in today. Now that Camden might be closing in on someone, I’m sure he’ll want all of us working a lot more.”

“Good, we need to until he’s found.”

Mason lifted his left hand, curled into a fist. “Anything to bring the fuckers down, right?”

We’d been saying that since our first undercover assignment. I smiled and pounded his fist. “Always.”

Rachel

“SO WE NEED to go out and celebrate.”

I rolled over on Candice’s bed and watched as she held up different shirts and studied herself in her full-length mirror. “Oh really? And what is it we’re celebrating?”

“You getting a job. Duh.”

“Candice.” I laughed softly. “Is it really so exciting that I got a job that we need to go out and celebrate? It’s waitressing. It isn’t like I made partner at a firm or—” I broke off quickly when I realized what I’d just said.

Candice was quiet for a second and her eyes lifted to look at me through the mirror. “Are we going to go back to California for the anniversary?”

“I don’t—I don’t think so.” Every year Candice’s family went to my parents’ graves on the anniversary of their death. But I hadn’t. I couldn’t. I wasn’t even there when they were lowered into the ground. I couldn’t stand the thought of watching them go six feet into the earth. And by staying away from the grave, it kept it not as real for me.

“Are you ever going to go, Rach?”

Swallowing audibly, I dropped my head and studied the details of Candice’s comforter instead. “Someday, maybe. I just can’t yet . . . can we not talk about this?”

“Yeah,” she said softly, then more resolutely, “Yeah! Waitress or not, we need to celebrate!”

I loved Candice so much for being able to get us out of uncomfortable conversations so easily. “Candice, we can go out for drinks anytime. We don’t need a reason, especially not this one.”

“Don’t be lame, Rach. I want to celebrate you getting a job. So we’re going to do it. Are the boys home?”

I grunted what I thought sounded like an affirmation.

“Maybe they can—” She cut herself off when her phone rang beside me on the bed.

“It’s Eli.” I answered it for her and put it on speaker.

“Hey, big brother!” we said in unison, and he laughed.

“How are my favorite girls?”

“Good, but Rachel’s being lame. She got a job and I want to go celebrate. She thinks it’s stupid.”

“Ah, well, we have to celebrate that.” What “we”? I thought. “But can we please take my rental? Because it looks so much better than Rach’s Liberty; don’t you ever wash this thing?”

Candice gasped and hurried to get dressed, but I was already running out of her room and out the front door. I didn’t spare a glance at Kash’s place as I turned and literally squealed when I saw Eli standing in front of my Jeep.

“Eli!” I screamed, and ran full speed at him. He caught me and just barely kept us from falling over as he laughed and hugged me close.

“Good to see you too, sis.”

“I can’t believe you’re here!”

He kissed my cheek and turned me to walk back toward the apartment with an arm slung around my shoulders. “Figured I’d surprise you girls.”

“How long are you staying?”

“Just until tomorrow evening. I’m only here on business.”

I pouted but didn’t have time to say anything else, because as soon as we were in the apartment, Candice launched herself at him much the same way I had. She said my words verbatim and I couldn’t help but laugh. Candice and I were so different but at the same time so similar it scared me.

“Well, now we definitely have to go celebrate,” Candice said as she bounced up and down on her toes. “Do you have any more meetings today?”

“Nope, done until the morning.” He patted his flat stomach and looked at his watch. “I’m starving, though, and I heard the Mexican food here is completely different than what we have in California.”

“Then Mexican it is,” I said with a huge smile. “Let me go change, I’ll be ready in two seconds!”

I felt lighter than I had in a long time. Eli had always had a calming effect on me and I was so thankful for it now. He’d seemed to be more mature than other guys his age when we were growing up, and he had this silent intensity about him that I had clung to after my parents had died. He knew words wouldn’t help in those hard times and his presence alone had helped me more than anyone else could have until I was given my journal. But even in times that were happy, like now, that intensity rolled off him and washed over me, making it feel like a huge weight had been lifted. The anniversary of my parents’ death and the Blake situation were forgotten. Complete peace.

Until three hours into our drinking and eating, anyway.

“Hey, so I heard Blake was in Austin.”

I froze and Candice eyed me warily before downing the rest of her margarita. I grabbed my beer and followed suit.

“Got in touch with him this afternoon. I’m supposed to go meet up with him in about half an hour. I told him I’d bring you two with me.”

This wasn’t happening. “Um . . .”

“I’m game!” Candice said, and nudged Eli’s side. “I haven’t seen him since school let out anyway. I miss him.”

Eli laughed and drained his beer. “I haven’t seen him since all that shit went down with Jenn. He left for the air force right after.”

My heart rate had kicked up, but at the mention of Blake’s girlfriend before he moved away, it halted. I hadn’t known anything bad happened between the two of them. I just remembered hating her for being with Blake. She’d been tall, with long, dark hair and blue eyes. I remembered not understanding why he would like her and not me; the only thing she had that I didn’t was boobs. “What—um . . .” I cleared my voice and tried to sound as uninterested as I could in my questioning. “What went down between Blake and Jenn? I thought they were happy before he left.”

Candice’s eyes narrowed at me. She knew I was searching. Eli shook his head and stretched his arms over his head before responding. “They had been happy. Jenn was attacked by some guys walking home from a party one night, ended up in the hospital . . . she was really fucked up. I went with Blake to wait for her to wake up, and when she did she didn’t want to talk to him. It tore him up. He kept trying to talk to her and see her, and she refused to. She and her family moved away the week after she got out of the hospital. Blake had to leave for boot camp right after.”

I’d officially stopped breathing.

Was Blake the one who attacked her? Is that why she didn’t want to see him? I glanced over to Candice to see her shaking her head at me. She wasn’t glaring anymore, but she looked disappointed in me. Like she knew exactly where my train of thought had gone and was upset I was still putting the blame on her cousin who could do no wrong.

Eli handed his card to our waiter and drummed his hands against the tabletop. “So does that sound good? We’re gonna meet him in the bar of the hotel I’m staying in. I can get you girls a room.”

“No.”

“Rach”—Eli smirked—“I’m not gonna be able to drive the two of you back to your place after. Unless you want him to meet us at your apartment?”

“No!” I said too loudly, and people at the surrounding tables looked awkwardly at us. “I don’t want to go. I’ll just go back to the apartment.”

“What? Rachel, why?”

Candice cleared her throat and straightened her spine. “Rachel can’t stand Blake.”

Eli laughed softly. “Right. You only had the biggest crush on him growing up.”

My eyebrows shot up. “You knew about that?”

“Who didn’t know about that? You weren’t exactly subtle about your feelings for him.” His expression darkened suddenly. “I could’ve killed him for that.”

Wait . . . What?! “Killed him for what? For me having a crush on him? It’s not like it was his fault.” Oh my God, was I really sitting here defending Blake West for anything?

“No,” he snorted. “I was making fun of him because he never dated or hooked up with anyone. He told me he was just waiting for you to get older, that he was going to marry you someday. I thought he was joking at first, but I was wrong. Do you remember when Blake got in that fight and his nose got broken?” When Candice and I both nodded, he continued. “That was because of that. Dad had to pull me off him.”

“You beat him up because he wanted to be with me?” I wanted to pull Eli away and tell him everything that had happened. Candice didn’t believe me, but Eli would.

“Of course I did. You were like my sister, but it wasn’t just that. You were only twelve at the time and he was . . . what, seventeen? It was fucking disgusting.”