Dangerous Lies Read online

  "No problem," I told the officer. He didn't know I was in WITSEC. Only Carmina and the sheriff knew.

  Again, his eyebrows soared, as if to say, Bad call, little miss. I was amazed he didn't seem pleased, or even grateful, that one of his fellow citizens was stepping forward to do the right thing. Granted, I had my own selfish reasons for wanting to see Trigger busted, but the officer didn't know that. Either way, I definitely got the impression he was trying to get me to back down. Forget it. Trigger was a douche, and if he got a DWI or worse, it was his own fault--not mine.

  "Anything else?" the officer asked.

  "Yeah, thanks for being so helpful." I smiled when I said it, but it was probably a good thing he couldn't hear my thoughts, which weren't nearly as polite.

  11

  IT WAS FRIDAY AFTER SUNDOWN, AND CHET WOULD be by any minute to pick me up. My first weekend on the town! I never thought I'd see the day when I was this excited for a softball game. But hey, beggars can't be choosers. A night out was a night out.

  I'd played softball in PE, and knew the basics, so I wasn't worried about making a fool of myself. Besides, Chet had told me the league was slow-pitch. You had to be really uncoordinated to not hit a ball the size of a grapefruit as it lobbed at a glacial pace across home plate.

  While getting ready for the game, which included dropping a tee over my head and braiding my hair, I was seized by an unexpected punch to my gut. Out of nowhere, the sobering truth hit me. I couldn't believe it had taken me this long to see it.

  I would never play basketball again. Not at the collegiate level.

  My senior year of high school down through third grade, I'd spent every winter playing basketball. It was my sport. I was good at it. Sophomore year I'd been bumped up to play a couple of varsity games, and by junior year I was one of the starting five. I received offers to play for Babson College and Penn State, finally committing to Babson.

  I lowered myself onto the edge of my bed. I gripped the baseball glove I'd taken from the closet, the one Carmina had said I could borrow. I clung to it like it was my lifeline. I was numb, my pain cutting too deep for tears. Gazing with hollow eyes at the wall, I let the truth swarm in. Before I'd been flown to Nebraska to start my newly incarnated life, I'd known exactly what my future held. A summer of fun and travel with my best friend, Tory, followed by college in the fall. Tory and I were supposed to be in Atlantic City right now. Did she know what had become of me? Did she think I was dead? I felt selfish and ashamed for taking so long to wonder how my friends might be handling my disappearance. As far as I understood, the detectives and U.S. marshals had not and would not explain what had become of me. It was their job to make me vanish. No bread-crumb trail left for anyone--good or bad--to follow.

  Given everything that had happened since being whisked into WITSEC just over a week ago, I hadn't had a chance to mourn my old life. Or fully grasp how vastly different--how completely alien--my new future would be.

  I struggled to quell the panic and dizziness that seemed to aim alternating blows at me. Those dreams of playing for Babson? Of donning a green-and-white jersey? Gone. My scholarship had dissolved with my identity. My career was finished, I'd never play for myself, my team, or the crowds again, and I'd given it up for what? To put Danny Balando behind bars. I'd done the right thing, and it had cost me everything.

  Deputy Price had mentioned the government would create new records to help me get into college, but what college? In their suits and badges, the detectives had pretended to have all the answers, but could they tell me this--at seventeen, how was I supposed to start from scratch? The idea of fully accepting Stella Gordon's future gave me a deep, trembling fear of losing myself. Of becoming invisible.

  "Stella!" Carmina called from downstairs. "Chet just pulled up."

  I shook off my thoughts and breathed deeply until the numbness left. There was no use looking back. There was nothing for me in the past but heartache and remorse. It hurt too much to dwell on everything I'd lost.

  I walked downstairs shakily, testing my smile. It felt strained and brittle, and I kept smiling until I got it right. If Chet saw even a suggestion of sorrow, he'd press me on it. If I wanted to avoid his inquiries, I had to pull off normal.

  Get it together.

  The outside lights were on, and I could see Chet making his way up the porch steps. He had on knee-length nylon shorts and a worn gray T-shirt that looked as soft as tissue. It clung to his body, highlighting his toned chest and shoulders. In Philly, the boys I knew who had a body like Chet's spent hours at the gym after school. Since there wasn't a gym in Thunder Basin, it was safe to assume Chet earned his body the old-fashioned way: performing manual labor.

  He saw us through the screen door and invited himself inside. "Carmina."

  "Evening, Chet," she said in a measured tone. "You'll have Stella back by eleven thirty." An order, not a request. "Her curfew is nine, but I'm making an exception for the game."

  "I don't have work tomorrow," I told Chet. "I can sleep in. We can stay out as late as we want."

  "Curfew is eleven thirty," Carmina repeated firmly.

  "It's Friday night," I said, giving her a look that said she was treating me like a child and needed to stop--immediately. "What if there's a party after the game?"

  "Kindly tell your friends you won't be going."

  "I don't have friends! That's the point. You keep me caged up in this house. You knew I was a teenager when you signed on for this, so why do you keep acting like I'm five?"

  "All right," Chet said loudly, stepping between us. "The game starts in thirty. We should get going, Stella." He turned to Carmina. "I'll have her back by eleven thirty."

  My jaw dropped. "You're letting her have her way."

  He put his arm around my shoulders and steered me carefully out the door. "You got a mitt?"

  He knew I had a baseball glove. I was holding it. He was purposefully changing the subject to distract me. And against the voice in my head that was screaming for me to turn back and have it out with Carmina, to give her the fight she seemed to want, I bit my tongue, choosing instead to fume in silence. I'd rejected most of my mother's early attempts to raise me properly, but in this one instance, I took her instruction and decided to spare Chet needless embarrassment. I'd wait to give Carmina my opinion of her actions in private.

  Chet closed the screen door behind us and audibly let go of the breath he'd been holding.

  "Someone needs to stand up to her," I argued, directing my pent-up frustration at him. "You're obviously afraid to, but I'm not. If there's a party after the game, we're going. What's the worst Carmina can do? Kick me out?" I shut my mouth to keep from saying more, but that didn't stop me from thinking it. Go ahead, kick me out. Let's see how fast it takes Price and his friends at the DOJ to show up on your doorstep.

  Chet opened my car door, shutting it wordlessly behind me.

  We didn't talk on the drive to the softball field, and I wondered if this was some secret ploy of his to give me time to cool off. Well, I didn't feel like cooling off. I knew there was history between Chet and Carmina, and I knew she strongly disliked him, or at least didn't want me around him, but this was getting ridiculous. She couldn't keep us apart by punishing me. I wouldn't tolerate it. But the real issue was that Chet should be taking my side. That's what I really wanted. He had a lot of things going for him, but his insistence on being polite to Carmina wasn't one of them. It was what I loved about Reed--he took my side, even if it meant going against my mom. He wasn't afraid of her. Of course, most of the time when he had come over, she'd been passed out in bed, but the point was, he was on my side. I couldn't say the same of Chet. The deeper this realization sank, the more betrayed I felt.

  Chet parked and glanced at me warily.

  I jumped out of the Scout and shut the door hard. I wanted him to know I was upset. Maybe it would give him something to think about. If he was trying to get on my good side, sweetening up to Carmina wasn't the way. She meant nothing
to me. She basically was my parole officer.

  Stadium lights blazed on the raked dirt of the infield and the thick green grass of the outfield. The foul lines were freshly chalked, and the concession stand had a line trailing down the sidewalk.

  "You play before?" Chet asked as he led the way to our team's dugout.

  "Wiffle ball counts, right?"

  He gave me a startled rake of his eyes. "Uh--"

  "Relax. I've played. But it's been awhile, so don't expect a home run on my first at bat."

  Chet trotted down the steps to the dugout and cleared his throat to get the team's attention. "Everyone, this is Stella, the new player I told you about. Stella, this is the team. I won't bother with individual introductions--you guys can introduce yourselves better than I can--except to tell Stella to watch out for that guy in the Broncos hat. He thinks he's Don Juan."

  Everyone laughed, apparently finding some truth in the joke.

  "Don Juan's got nothing on me," the guy in the Broncos hat said in a voice like silken chocolate. "I'm the real deal." He winked at me, puckering his lips to blow me an air kiss.

  I blew a kiss back, then stared him down smugly, showing him I could handle anything he wanted to dish out. The team ate this up, laughing and teasing Don Juan.

  When the laughing died down, I took a seat on the end of the bench, startled to find that the girl next to me was wearing perfume. It was so strong, it seemed to leak from every pore. I glanced furtively at her, noting she was wearing lipstick, too. Actually, she had a whole face of makeup. Leaning forward so I could see down the entire bench, I observed the rest of the girls. One had curled her golden hair into ringlets. Another wore denim shorts studded with rhinestones, and hoop earrings. I was the only girl who looked like she'd actually come to play softball.

  Once upon a time, I'd been one of them. I'd cared what I looked like, especially when boys were involved. But I wasn't Estella Goodwinn anymore. I was Stella Gordon. I'd already traded my Manolo Blahniks for softball cleats, and now I was going to have to trade my expensive salon haircuts for the mom-and-pop barber shop version. I hadn't seen another option in Thunder Basin, and more importantly, I was on a monthly government stipend. Not wanting Danny Balando's cartel to trace my family's money from our bank accounts and use the paper trail to find me, the government had seized our assets and allotted me a monthly payout, which was about as generous as you'd expect from the government. Given my monetary restraints and my inability to care about keeping up Stella Gordon's facade, I didn't see the point in trying to be fashionable or pretty anymore. I didn't even know who I was anymore.

  "I'm Sydney," the girl next to me, the one drenched in perfume, said. She had the sweet, translucent face of a milkmaid, and blond braids to match.

  "Stella," I replied, thinking this conversation was a waste since she and I would never be friends. I had her figured out in all of thirty seconds: She was the sweet, innocent, country type. She'd probably marry straight out of high school and have a kid before her twentieth birthday. Of course, I'd been wrong about Inny, I had to remember that. Maybe I'd find I was wrong about Sydney, too. I remembered Chet'sadmonition to give the town-- and those in it--a chance before blowing them off. I supposed I could take his advice.

  "So you're friends with Chet?" Sydney asked. "I noticed he gave you a ride."

  "I don't have a car, and he lives close by."

  Her brow scrunched in confusion. "He lives out in the meadows on Sapphire Skies. He doesn't really have neighbors. Where do you live?"

  "I'm staying at Carmina Songster's for the summer."

  Her eyes went round, and she said, "Oh." I could tell by the tone of her voice that she'd heard of me. Whether from Chet or someone else, I couldn't say. "Just for the summer, though?" she confirmed.

  "That's the plan." I decided it was more polite than Yes--hallelujah!

  "I've known Chet a long time. When I was little, I had a crush on him, but I'm so over that now," she added with a laugh, then studied me a little too closely while she waited for my response.

  "He seems like a pretty cool guy."

  "Oh, yeah." She kneaded her hands uncomfortably in her lap.

  Chet, who'd been going over the batting lineup with the team, crouched in front of Sydney and me. "Stella, you're batting third and playing right field. Sydney, you're batting seventh and playing center. Sound good?"

  Sydney nodded, smiling eagerly--no, adoringly--at Chet. He didn't appear to notice, ruffling her hair like he would a kid sister's. When he shifted his attention to me, I pinned him with an unmistakable look of reprimand, then darted my eyes toward Sydney, who sat beside me unaware. I was very obviously trying to communicate to him that he had treated Sydney improperly and should give her a different kind of attention.

  His brow furrowed and he shook his head slightly, indicating he didn't understand. With exasperation, I jerked my head more vigorously in Sydney's direction.

  "Um, Sydney?" Chet began uncertainly, glancing at me for confirmation that he was proceeding correctly. "Would you . . . like to join me at the pitcher's mound for the coin toss?"

  I beamed, signaling he'd done well, but he once again wagged his head in confusion, eyeing me like I'd sprouted alien antennae.

  Chet and Sydney jogged to the pitcher's mound for the coin toss, then returned to tell us we'd bat first. The umpires took their places on the field, one behind home plate, the other behind first base. Don Juan was first up to bat.

  "What's his real name?" I asked Chet, who had taken a seat on the bench beside me.

  "Juan. Yeah, I know. Irony."

  At bat, Juan swung powerfully and missed. Even from here, I heard him swear in Spanish. The umpire pointed a warning finger at him, spoke a few stern words, and the rest of our team giggled behind their hands.

  "Showboat," Chet muttered, shaking his head, but he was smiling.

  "Is he your best friend?" I asked.

  "That's such a girl thing to say." He thumbed his nose. "But yeah. I guess that's what he is. He sat by me at lunch in kindergarten and split his Twinkie with me. The rest is history."

  For the second time, I glanced down the bench to survey our team. "Anyone else you should warn me about?"

  "Yeah, the shortstop. He's tough on the field, but he wears his heart on his sleeve." He nudged his thigh against mine, and the air around us seemed to grow heavy and harder to breathe. Chet's playfulness felt awfully affectionate. And his intentions way too direct.

  I laughed airily, trying to lighten the mood, but felt the sudden urge to step out of the dugout and get some fresh air. Chet was flirting with me. It had to stop. Reed was my boyfriend. I made a mental note to swing by the library first chance I got, probably before work on Monday, and check the e-mail account. Surely he'd left a message by now.

  But that didn't help me tonight. I needed to dispel any notions in Chet's head that I was willing to take our relationship to a new level, and I needed to dispel them now.

  I also needed to get myself under control. Chet was being alarmingly direct, and I wasn't used to it. Reed had never overtly flirted with me; his way of showing he cared was always subtle. Touching my hand. Meeting my eyes across a room. Playing my favorite songs when we were driving in his car. He was secretive about everything he did, including revealing emotion, which meant I had to work a little harder to notice his affection. In contrast, Chet was straightforward and open. It made me feel almost uncomfortable--like stepping into noonday sun after a lengthy period indoors. It also made my heart yearn dangerously for more.

  Juan had struck out and was walking back dejectedly to the dugout, and I seized my chance.

  "Can't even make it to first base?" I quipped as he threw his bat down in self-disgust.

  "With you, carino, I'd go all the way to home." With fluid grace, Juan inserted himself between me and Chet, and draped his arm over my shoulder. "Don't be nervous. I'm a good teacher."

  "Knock it off," Chet said, giving him a playful shove off the bench. But I n
oticed Chet's face had turned slightly pink.

  Not giving up, Juan pulled me to my feet, pressed my body to his, and engaged me in a seductive Latin dance, humming a melodic tune in my ear. I played along, dancing with him, grateful that his comical routine had quickly defused the loaded moment Chet and I had experienced back there.

  I laughed. "You're good, I'll give you that."

  "I'm the gift that keeps on giving," Juan murmured tantalizingly against my cheek.

  "Okay, break it up, Stella's next at bat," Chet reminded us. He handed me a bat and tipped his head at home plate. "Go get 'em, Slugger."

  I took a few practice swings outside the dugout while the girl at bat hit a fly ball that was caught by the third baseman. The ump pronounced her out, and I stepped into the batter's box. In the dugout, I could hear Chet whistling and clapping for me. He was a good team captain, and was shaping up to be a good friend, and I told myself that's all we'd ever be--friends.

  I settled my feet in the dirt and choked up on the bat. It was a little long, and I was only aiming for a base hit--no flashy tricks tonight. The pitcher rocked back on her heel, then sent the ball in an easy lob toward me. I went after the first pitch with an aggressive swing. I heard the crack of the ball, tossed the bat aside, and ran. I'd squeezed a line drive between shortstop and second, and easily made it to first base.

  While our dugout erupted in cheering, I bobbed a curtsy.

  Chet grinned ear to ear, but I quickly avoided eye contact, choosing to pucker up for Juan instead, who was drawing a circle in the air with his finger, a clear innuendo for "going all the way."

  Chet followed me at bat, and pulled off a double after hitting a pop fly deep into left field. We played seven innings and won the game 5-4, bumping our season record to 3-0. After the game, both teams dispersed to the parking lot, and I watched anxiously as one by one the players got into their cars and drove off. Was no one going to invite me to a party tonight? Not even Juan? He seemed like a guy who'd be on the lookout for a good time and open to a tagalong. I knew Chet would try to talk me into going back to Carmina's, especially since it was after eleven, but that was the last thing I wanted. If I made it back on time, I was letting her win. And I refused to do that.