Lie to Me Read online

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  From Ashes

  Needing Her (novella)

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  Taking Chances

  Stealing Harper (novella)

  Trusting Liam

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  I See You

  Copyright © 2021 Molly McAdams

  Published by Jester Creations, LLC.

  First Edition

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior permission of the publisher.

  Please protect this art form by not pirating.

  Molly McAdams

  www.mollysmcadams.com

  Cover Design by RBA Designs

  Photo by © Eric Battershell Photography

  Editing by Unicorn Editing

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Names, characters, places, and plots are a product of the author’s imagination. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Print ISBN: 9781950048014

  eBook ISBN: 9781950048007

  Contents

  Dedication

  Prologue

  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

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Epilogue

  The End

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Lie to Me is written as a standalone. However, if you’ve read the Forgiving Lies series, you know the brother disappeared in Trusting Liam because I sort of forgot all about him—yikes. But a group of readers and I came up with this amazing idea that he was overseas on a super-secret mission to make up for my forgetting him, and I’ve stuck to that story.

  Ever since, #HesOverseas has remained a fantastic constant with my readers, but I thought it was time to bring him home.

  So, Monsters, for the Facebook thread that started it all . . . this book is for you.

  He’s no longer overseas.

  When the woman at the ticket counter asked me where I was headed, I wanted to say, ‘anywhere.’

  Get me a ticket anywhere. Just get me away from here.

  Words I never thought I’d say.

  Not when it came to Manhattan—the one place I’d chosen for myself and had fallen in love with. Not when I’d vowed years before that I would never turn into her.

  Yet, there I was, weighed down with suitcases that made up my life, leaving everything behind. No better than she’d ever been.

  I’d grown up bouncing around from place to place in an RV with my mom. It could’ve been fun, sure. When I was just a child, I’d pretended we were on grand adventures, always headed to the next. Really, Mom was always running away. From men, collectors, responsibilities, dealers . . . reminding me with each place we left that she and the road were all I had.

  Warning me that family would try to take both from me.

  But there was always some new man she met at a diner or gas station that had us settling down for a few months, if we were lucky. There was always an addiction that had me caring for her and had us on the run after she ran out of money . . . or stole it. And there was always her mom, who we ran to every year when money and food had been absent for too long.

  The last time I saw my grandma, I was sixteen—ten years ago.

  “Told you she’d try to take you from me,” my mom had hissed once we were back in the RV, repeating the same words I’d heard every time we’d left my grandma’s home.

  Except, that time had been different. That time, before Lala had tried to take me in—the way she always did—she’d told Momma she wouldn’t give her another dime. That time . . . it had all gone so wrong.

  Momma had smacked the thin wall, bitterness falling from her lips as she’d continued. “Go to her askin’ for help and look what she did. Tried to take everything I have away from me.”

  Anywhere had been on the tip of my tongue when that memory flitted through my mind. I sputtered out, “South Carolina,” as I reached for my wallet and began tearing through it, taking out every card and looking in every slot.

  Just as I was about to give up, I found a small, folded up paper in a zippered compartment. When I opened it and saw Lala’s address in my adolescent scrawl, I sighed in relief.

  “South Carolina—Colby. I want to go there,” I said on a rush, suddenly wanting nothing more than to find the only person who had ever been a comfort. No longer caring just how horrifically similar I was to my mother at that moment. “Get me a ticket as close to there as you can.”

  Within a handful of hours of purchasing the ticket, I was on a plane and leaving everything behind. But as we lifted off the runway and the city I loved disappeared beneath the clouds, something cracked inside me . . .

  A month before my eighteenth birthday, I’d woken in Ohio to a note from my mom, saying she’d gone to Vegas with her new boyfriend to get married. Be back in a week, the note had said.

  They’d never come back.

  So, when I’d finally saved up enough to move to New York City, I hadn’t had any plans. I’d just known the bustling city was a place we’d never made it to in all our travels, and anywhere far away from my childhood sounded like a good way to avoid repeating my mother’s life.

  I’d walked for hours and took countless subways until I found a place in the worst location imaginable. But it had running water and four walls, and I was able to afford it . . . for a couple months.

  I applied for jobs any and everywhere and worked at a restaurant just below my tiny apartment until I’d landed a position as an assistant in a high-rise in Lower Manhattan. I’d worked my ass off, eager to find my way and gain the respect I’d never had.

  I’d reinvented myself there. I’d found myself in Manhattan and had wanted to call it home for the rest of my life.

  In the end, none of
it had mattered. Because one night had brought back dozens of memories and made me feel like a helpless, worthless girl in an RV all over again. And suddenly, all of Manhattan’s loud and noisy comforts had become suffocating.

  So, there I was, pulling up to the familiar, Victorian-style home in Colby, South Carolina just as the sun was setting on the day.

  No longer employed. Desperate for someone to lean against.

  Hoping my grandmother was still there.

  Vowing to never let my guard down around a man again.

  I shouldn’t have come back to Colby.

  That had been painfully obvious right about the minute Lala had opened the door the night before. My relief at seeing her—at her still being in the same place—hadn’t lasted more than a second before she’d staggered away and screamed.

  Trembling hands out in front of her. Looking at me like she was seeing a ghost.

  And then a little girl had come running into the entryway to see what was happening. A little girl with my eyes . . .

  “How are you here?” Lala had asked, sounding terrified and dumbfounded.

  “I . . .” I’d slowly dragged my gaze from the little girl who was studying me, my stomach twisting uneasily for some reason. “I still had your address.”

  Lala’s head and hands had quickly shaken. “How? Joslin said—” She’d glanced down at the girl and pressed her hands to the girl’s shoulders. “Get ready for bed, Nora.”

  I’d watched her go, that unease growing and growing when she’d glanced over her shoulder to look at me one last time as she climbed the stairs.

  Once she was on the second floor and out of hearing distance, a soft cry had left Lala as she studied me. “I just can’t believe what I’m seeing.”

  “It’s been a long time, I know. I’m sorry.”

  Her hand gripped her chest, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Emma, your momma told me you were dead.”

  Suicide.

  That’s what my mom had told Lala the last time she’d shown up, begging for money. What’s funny about that? I would’ve been eighteen—meaning, I was still living in the RV at the time, saving up for New York. The RV my mom had never come back to.

  The next time she’d come back to Colby had been two years later. She hadn’t asked for money, just dropped off a quiet, watchful baby and said, “Ain’t going through this shit again,” and left. She hadn’t been back since.

  Which meant, for nearly six years, Lala had been raising my little sister. For even longer, she’d thought I was dead. And my mom was truly staying away because she didn’t want the responsibility of a child.

  For whatever reason, she’d chosen to spare Nora the life she’d dragged me through—used me to achieve.

  I pushed my legs harder and harder as I crossed the street on the way back to Lala’s house. As if I could outrun the sliver of resentment that had formed in my chest when I’d learned the truth about Nora.

  But it remained, making me feel like the worst kind of human.

  Not that I ever would’ve wished my life on anyone—especially not another child. But why did I have to go through that life at all? What was it about me that made her decide to keep me close and ruin me over and over again? What was it about Nora that allowed her to let that daughter go—to give her a chance at a real life?

  I bit out a shamed curse as I slowed in front of Lala’s house, my gaze automatically sweeping to where I could feel eyes on me.

  Two old women were sitting on the front porch across the street, shamelessly whispering to each other as they stared at me. As they had been when I’d left earlier.

  When one of them pointed at me and said something I didn’t fully catch, I called out, “I’m sorry?”

  “You’re here because you got caught, aren’t you?” she yelled.

  I paced a little to keep my body moving, my head listing as I wondered if this was normal for them. They’d asked if I was in the CIA as I was leaving for the run. “Got caught?”

  “You know what you did,” the other said loudly. “Laundering money.”

  A bemused huff burst from me. “I’m just visiting,” I said, repeating what I’d told them earlier.

  They nodded in sync. “We’ll figure it out,” the second said. “Whatever the real reason is.”

  “So weird,” I mumbled as I turned and hurried up the porch and inside the house, abruptly stopping when a man in a Colby Fire Department shirt came walking toward me with a grin and a plate full of food.

  “Mornin’.”

  My lips parted on impulse, but my confusion left me unable to say anything as I followed him with my eyes alone to a table filled with three other men in similar shirts.

  Next to them, a table with two police officers.

  If it weren’t for the busybody neighbors behind me and the staircase that haunted my dreams in front of me, I would’ve wondered if I’d stepped into the wrong house.

  I hurried to the kitchen, where I could hear Lala banging around, and dropped my voice to a whisper when I neared her. “Lala, there are people in your house.”

  Police, I mentally added. There are police in your house.

  Instead of seeming surprised, she asked, “Didn’t you see all the cars outside?”

  My mouth slowly opened to respond only to close because I hadn’t. I’d been too focused on the gossiping women across the street. And that’s when I finally noticed everything scattered around the kitchen.

  The food.

  The dishes.

  The pots and pans.

  “What . . . what is all this?”

  Lala gave a little laugh as though it should’ve been obvious. “It’s Thursday.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “First Responder Day here in the Wade house.” She sent me a warm smile. “All first responders are welcome in my home on Thursdays for any meal of the day.”

  “That must cost—why would you do that?”

  Her features hardened into a look that made me shrink inside. It was pure disappointment and frustration wrapped in blood-bound love.

  It brought back memories of my childhood—of watching my mother beg and lie for some cash. I’d never felt more like her than I did then.

  “Just tell me why the hell shouldn’t I? If you don’t approve of my hospitality, you are free to find another place to stay.”

  I stumbled over incoherent words before I finally managed to spit out, “I just don’t understand why you choose to do this every week by yourself without help for the funding or cooking. That’s all I meant.”

  She regarded me silently for a few moments before focusing on the stove. “I think New York changed you. Or your mother did. Either way, I’ll pray for the girl I knew to come back.”

  “I haven’t—”

  A wooden spoon was suddenly inches from my face, effectively shutting me up. “The Emma I saw last would’ve asked who else we could feed. Not why I feed them.”

  She might’ve been right. I couldn’t remember what I was like ten years before. But if Lala had ever truly known me at all, she would know I’d never willingly put myself anywhere near law enforcement.

  When I didn’t respond, she explained, “I’ve had plenty of help from the first responders in this city over the years. Even for things that aren’t their jobs and they don’t get paid for. They’ve become my and Nora’s family. The least I can do is offer them a meal. Besides, this is the only way I’ve been able to help them in return.”

  “I understand,” I said, then glanced around the kitchen. “Is there anything I can help you with?”

  “You can go find Nora,” she began in a tone that said she was done with this conversation. “Tell her to come eat. Get you a plate too.”

  That unwarranted resentment sliced through my chest, and my eyelids fluttered shut for a moment as I tried to force it away. When it only lingered and mocked me with its presence, I started heading out of the kitchen, murmuring, “Yes, ma’am.”

  My stare darted over the men
and women filling the living room as I climbed the stairs, hand tight on the railing, breaths shallow as their loud voices seemed to make the nightmare that accompanied those steps even more disorienting.

  I squeezed my eyes tightly shut and fortified the walls on my past as I made it onto the landing and turned down the hall. A pained breath forced from my lungs when my eyelids opened to find Nora there.

  “Jesus,” I hissed, staggering back a step and gripping at my chest, my heart thundering beneath my hand.

  Her stare was familiar and expression curious as she studied me the way I was her.

  After minutes in weighted silence, she sighed—her chest and shoulders lifting and falling in exaggeration—and curled a stuffed puppy closer to her chest.

  I hadn’t even realized she was holding anything until then.

  “I heard my Lala talking to you,” she said, voice soft.

  It was the first time I’d heard her speak, and just hearing the innocence in her tone made me want to protect her from everything in the world and rage because I’d been stripped of my innocence long before I was her age.

  “Me and you have the same mommy.” Her stare drifted to the wall, her little face scrunching up tightly. “She left me with my Lala. Why did you leave me?”