Framed for murder. A viral video proves it. Solving the case she abandoned after her daughter died could save—or destroy her, from the USA Today bestselling author of The Night Olivia Fell.
A grieving mother…
Detective Jess Lambert is days away from the trial of the woman accused of killing her daughter when she wakes in a seedy hotel room with no memory of how she got there. On her phone is a viral video showing Jess calmly shooting the woman in cold blood.
A framed detective…
As the footage spreads and her own department closes in, Jess has no choice but to run. Someone has engineered her downfall, and the only way to survive is to uncover who’s turning her past into a weapon. Desperate to clear her name, she follows the only lead she has—an unsolved case she abandoned after her daughter died that now holds the key to who set her up.
A viral lie that could destroy it all..
But the closer Jess gets to the truth, the more she realizes it may not be enough. Because when people prefer the lie, even reality becomes irrelevant.
All The Lies We See
Chapter 1
Cecilia
I’ve been dead for two years when I hear the news.
It doesn’t come as a voice from the heavens or a divine whisper or ghostly revelation. It’s more ordinary than that. Just a news story half-drowned in static and grease crackling from a speaker in the corner of a tired diner, the kind of place where time slows, where people don’t notice the things sitting right in front of them. Like me.
I shift against the diner’s ripped red vinyl booth, stuffing pushing through like bones beneath torn skin, and listen.
“The Massachusetts Supreme Court has ruled in favor of the Medical Examiner in the death of local teacher Cecilia Harte, upholding the finding that Harte died by suicide when she jumped from Angel Falls nearly two months after escaping captivity from an unknown assailant…”
My hands curl around a chipped coffee cup I didn’t order, the coffee inside long gone cold. The waitress, Edith, with her brittle smile and name tag hanging by one bent pin, glides past me without a glance. Ghosts blend with the shadows, and that’s all I am now, a ghost. A shadow. A trick of the light.
I walk the tightrope between two worlds, lurking in the outline of a life that was once so full. But this? Suicide? It isn’t true.
I stare out the rain-streaked window at the town of Black Lake beating like a heart beyond. My own hollow eyes stare back at me, a list of regrets scrawling along the backs of my eyelids. Sagging skin, green eyes, dark hair pierced through with a streak of white at my temple.
Then I hear it, another story, an upcoming court case, a name curling through the static, ghostly and insistent.
I lean in, listening, but a man on the far side of the diner calls out for Edith to change the channel, and she does, her giant, hooped earrings swinging as she twists the dial.
The voice vanishes, swallowed by a pop song about forever love, the kind of lie the living still believe in.
But I’ve heard enough. It’s time to go back. My death is clawing its way out of the grave. The truth has been buried beneath lies for too long.
And if I’ve learned anything from the living, it’s that nothing is ever what it seems.
______
…if I’ve learned anything from the living, it’s that nothing is ever what it seems.
______
Chapter 2
Jess
“We should talk about what happens after the court case.”
Mac runs one finger over my bare hip, sending a delicious shiver down my spine even while his words make me flinch.
The court case. The woman charged in our daughter’s death goes on trial next week. Mac thinks we’ll finally get some justice.
I stare at the ceiling of our marital bedroom, where my husband hasn’t lived in nearly three years, since Isla died and our world fell apart. Lately, we’ve been enjoying long dinners and lazy, languorous evenings in bed together. But one thing we don’t do is talk about the future, and we never talk about what will happen after.
Making plans, looking ahead, moving forward, it’s like wiping away the things that happened. Like we’re erasing Isla. And I just can’t do that.
“Mac…”
“Seriously, Jess, it’s only a week aw…”
I press my mouth to his. He stops talking, but I feel him smile. I’m an expert at distraction. Sometimes it’s the only way to ease the pain: damage myself in a different way. Alcohol. Pills. Overworking. A little hurt to help me heal.
Mac’s faith in the justice system is what makes him a good defense attorney. He believes in justice and fairness. To him, defending someone isn’t about excusing their actions. It’s about redemption. He believes everyone deserves a second chance, that actions have consequences and justice will be served.
As a detective, I’m a bit more pessimistic. When we’re young, we’re naive enough to believe that good vanquishes evil. That good guys win, and bad guys lose. But then we have to grow up.
Unfortunately, lots of criminals walk away free. Sometimes the law is about interpretation, not truth
I pull Mac on top of me, my lips hungry on his. We were always good at this. Sex. Connecting physically. It’s emotionally that’s harder to untangle.
My pain is an internal fire raging, its ashes scatter over my skin as he enters me. My name in his mouth is an invocation, a summoning. Inside, I am swirling, like snow. Outside, the sky is black, the night drawing in, autumn rising before us. I wrap my good leg around his waist. I want him to help me forget.
Later, as he’s winding his scarf around his throat and stepping out the door, Mac turns to me. “You know what I think? You don’t want to be happy. You’re still punishing yourself.”
I study Mac’s face, the sharp curve of his jaw, his sun-kissed blond hair, his navy-blue eyes filled with hope, fear, longing. He’s the type of guy who sees the best in people. Even me. But I am not the woman he fell in love with all those years ago.
“Maybe I don’t deserve to be happy.”
Mac shakes his head. “Don’t get so hung up on the past that you forget you have a future. Isla wouldn’t want that.”
***
After Mac leaves, I walk to Sammy’s Bar.
Usually I’d take my motorcycle, but right now I am too uneasy, too restless. Those sad memories hide inside me like ghosts howling to be acknowledged. I need to wipe my mind clean, the way the tide sweeps at the sand.
It’s a fine October evening, clear but coy, only a handful of clouds skittering above me, a blade-like breeze ready to bring rain at a moment’s notice. Stars prickle the sky, little tears in the black velvet. My bad leg twinges as I unsnap my cane and shuffle down the front steps. Physical therapy and regular swimming have helped me heal better than expected from the accident, but I still need my cane. I probably always will.
The streets shimmer with sepia lights as I limp through my neighborhood. I walk past ghoulish Halloween decorations and fat pumpkins, grinning skeletons hanging from trees, scarecrows with jaunty hats, a spider web with a huge plastic spider climbing a tree.
I hate Halloween. Masks make liars of all of us, and the shadows like to play along. Costumes, candy, a night of fakery and make-believe, it all puts me on edge. Because once the world decides truth is optional, you can’t trust anything to be real.
______
Masks make liars of us all, and the shadows like to play along.
______
Black Lake is the worst offender. Nothing here is exactly what it seems. Not the people, not the dead, not even my own memories.
My mouth waters as I approach Sammy’s. The black beast of my addiction is momentarily so overwhelming that I take out my two-year sobriety chip, digging the edges into my palm. For a heartbeat, I see blood on my fingers, smell its irony tang, feel it hot and sticky on my skin.
I started drinking after Isla died and then…didn’t stop. I’m now a recovering addict. You wouldn’t think a bar would be the best place for me, but it isn’t bars that make me drink. It’s emotions. I keep those under control these days.
The bar is packed with locals. I grab a Diet Coke from a new guy behind the bar. He’s young, surly, barely glancing up as he pours my drink. I’m surprised Sammy hired him. He’ll have to learn to be a lot friendlier if he keeps working here. Black Lake is a close-knit town.
I spot Will and Shane at the back, heads bent close, intense looks on their faces. Both men have been my partner at various times. Both have saved my life. Neither see me until I’m standing at the table.
“Gurrrlll!!!” Will crows, swooping me into a bear hug that sends a stream of Diet Coke onto my chunky black boots.
I hug him back, taking a large gulp of my drink to stop more spilling. Will weaves drunkenly. His pink forehead gleams with sweat, his glasses fogged with the heat. Someone I knew once commented that Will looks like Daddy Pig, and now I can’t unsee it.
Will is exceptionally drunk. Far more than usual. He’s supposed to be drinking less, eating healthier. Shelby would be furious if she saw him right now.
I glance at Shane but see right away that something is wrong. He looks troubled, stressed, his brow stamped with something indefinable. The air is heavy and taut.
“Have I interrupted something?” I ask mildly.
Neither answer. I slip my black leather coat off and slide into the booth next to Shane, the vinyl sighing beneath me. Will sits across from us. He opens his mouth, then closes it, words dying before he speaks them.
I take a long sip of my Diet Coke, the cool sweetness refreshing in the hot bar. Music and chatter spill around us, but between them it is like a cold, invisible wall. They don’t look at each other, their bodies angle away from each other. Tension pulses.
The first flutters of unease stir in my stomach. “Come on, guys. What’s up?”
“Fine.” Shane glances at Will, his voice spiking. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you. This is a bad idea.”
Will turns to me. And what he says next rips my fragile world in half.
“They’re cutting Melanie O’Brien a plea deal.”
The words punch through my chest, each leaving a gaping hole, air bleeding out.
“What?” I wrap my arms around my ribs, my belly, to keep my heart from falling out. It’s my darkest fear coming true.
“After everything she’s done.” Will practically spits the words out. “A plea deal. That’s what they’re calling justice now.”
Everything around me blurs: the room, the sounds, even my own pulse. My heart drops into the acid of my stomach, fizzing like an antacid. I pluck at the collar of my sweater, a wave of nausea leaving me lightheaded. The air is too hot, too syrupy and close.
“I’m sorry, Jess,” Shane says quietly. “It was never a sure thing. Criminal law tends to limit liability to foreseeable consequences.”
“That’s bullshit,” Will snaps. “Melanie O’Brien shot a man and left him on a public road. That’s obviously going to be a hazard. She set the stage for Jess hitting him. And it’s felony murder if someone dies in the commission of a felony.”
But Shane’s right. I knew this might happen. Melanie may have shot the man I hit, but I hit him, losing control of my truck on the storm-slicked road. Isla died instantly. I was left permanently disabled, reliant on a cane to walk. And then, to cover up her crime, Melanie killed her friend who was with her, as well as her family. That’s what the evidence says. I’ve just been hoping the court will give us justice. Because the truth matters. My entire life, my entire career, that has been my guiding life principle. The truth matters.
Just not enough, I guess.
“How much time?” I croak.
“Two years. In exchange for giving up the names of the drug dealers she’s worked with.”
I sink back against the cool vinyl booth. Sweat gathers on my upper lip, pools at my back. A wave of anger rises in me, sheer fury with a thick, tangled, black quality to it. Two years. That’s what my daughter’s life is worth to the justice system. I sip my Diet Coke, trying to ease the nausea swirling in my gut, but the sweetness is now too cloying in my throat. I think I might throw up.
“You alright?” Will’s voice comes to me thin and meaningless through the gigantic red roaring in my head.
I don’t answer. Something is crawling up my back, landing on my shoulder. A prickly sort of unease. I glance up. A small frisson of shock fizzles through me. Someone is watching me from outside. A woman. She’s tall and ballerina thin with vibrant, jewel green eyes, delicate, arched eyebrows, and a long, thick lock of white streaking through her black hair, although she doesn’t appear older than thirty.
I grab my cane, mumbling that I need some air. I stagger through the bar, slamming the front door open. The cold slaps me in the face, my breath misting in front of me. I peer into the gloom, weaving like a drunk. My head is throbbing. A wave of nausea hollows out my stomach. The lights are too bright. What is wrong with me?
The woman has crossed the street. She glances over her shoulder, like I should follow. So I do.
“Hey!” I call, my legs wobbly beneath me. “Are you okay?”
She ignores me and turns left, heading down a weed-choked alley that leads to the beach. I hesitate, torn. I should return to the warmth and safety of my friends, but something is wrong. I can feel it.
I grip my cane and limp after her, turning down the alley and making my way out to the wide empty beach. A slip of silvery moonlight is smudged over the still waters of the black lake, turning the sand bone white. It shifts beneath my feet, cool and loose, unbalancing me. I feel something lurch down my spine. Not fear, more like the jolt of alertness when someone calls your name when you’re asleep. A recognition. Goosebumps crawl up my arms. This place is haunted, not by ghosts, but by memories.
The woman stands in a pool of moonlight a few feet away. She watches me, her green eyes bright as cut emeralds. She has a strange look on her face, like she’s surprised to see me.
Something shifts in the air. The pressure changes, a high-pitched buzzing echoing in my ears. Ice trickles down my spine and the fine hairs on the backs of my arms stand on end.
I know what this means. It is my gift and my burden. My trauma, my pain carved me into someone who sees deeper, sharper, truer. It’s given me a special insight. Appearances can be deceiving, but I see the truth.
This woman is dead.
______
It is my gift and my burden…Appearances can be deceiving, but I see the truth.
______
I open my mouth to tell her that I help people like her. People who have died, who are stuck here. But somehow the distance between us stretches and grows, distorting, warping. It’s the same distance, and yet not, as wide as the Grand Canyon. My fingers make strange blurred movements, like tracers, like colorful water, like I’m in the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory tunnel.
Cold skates over my scalp, the type of cold that embeds itself deep in your bones. It slithers outward, coating my arms and legs in ice. The woman with the white streak in her hair doesn’t speak, but her voice blasts inside my head.
Run!
But everything is swirling, and my feet have turned to cement. The woman’s edges soften, and she goes translucent, like bubbles, and then disappears.
My cane turns to liquid and slips from my hand, hitting the sand at my feet. Did I let go of it? I don’t remember. And then my knees buckle. The sand shifts beneath me.
I’m falling, pitching forward. But strong arms wrap around me, holding me from behind. There’s a scent, something faint and sweet, like overripe apples or warm pears left on a windowsill for too long. I can’t quite place it. And then the scent is replaced by the sensation of rough material scratching at my cheek and tugging on my arms. I’m being dragged backwards.
It’s seconds. Not even that. I have no time to think. No time to struggle. Everything goes black. I sink into it.
And then there is nothing.
xxx
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