The Lies I Tell by Julie Clark

The Lies I Tell by Julie Clark

Author:Julie Clark
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Published: 2022-04-18T00:00:00+00:00


Kat

July

I’m finishing up a paid copyediting job that’s due this afternoon, my mind foggy with exhaustion. I’d woken up at two in the morning with a night terror—heart racing, drenched in sweat—and hadn’t been able to fall back asleep again.

“You okay?” Scott mumbled.

“Bad dream.”

“It’s this story,” he’d said. “It’s putting you around all of the same people again, and your body is reacting. It remembers.”

“Maybe,” I’d whispered. In my dream, I’d been in a car with Ron and Meg, and they’d taken turns trying to get me to drink from a flask. “Go back to sleep.”

But I’d remained awake, catching up on paid work I’d let slide, only taking a break to drink the cup of coffee Scott had poured for me before he left for work.

When Jenna, my best friend from journalism school, calls at ten, I’m grateful for the break.

“Hey,” I say.

“Is now a good time? I’ve got a window before I have an editorial meeting.”

It’s been a year since Jenna moved to New York to take a staff position at the New York Times. After she left, I dropped away from our small circle of grad school friends who’d settled out here. It’s hard to be happy about someone’s piece in the Atlantic, or their byline in the Times, when I’m still struggling at the bottom. My mother is always on me about networking. Meeting people. You can’t hide inside the cocoon of your relationship with Scott or rely on Jenna’s contacts forever.

“That story you did on corruption inside the SDNY was great,” I tell her now.

“Thanks. It almost didn’t run. Long story. But tell me what’s going on with you. What are you working on?”

“Meg’s back,” I say.

I hear her sharp intake of breath. “Really? Tell me everything.”

I fill her in, telling her about the Google Alert and tracking Meg down at one of Ron Ashton’s fundraisers, then posing as a potential buyer and befriending her. “She’s hired me as an assistant,” I say.

“How’s that going?”

“Depends on who you ask,” I tell her. Then I explain about the missing bank statements. “Scott thinks it’s possible she knows who I am and that now she might be targeting me.”

“Seems pretty risky for her if she is,” Jenna says.

“That’s what I think. Plus, in the two weeks since they’ve gone missing, nothing’s different. We spend at least four hours together every day, and I don’t see any change in her behavior or attitude toward me. I don’t care how good she is at what she does, no one’s that good.”

“Where do you think the statements went?” Jenna asks.

“Maybe they just got lost in the mail,” I offer. Though even as I say the words, they don’t ring true. That it’s possible the woman who didn’t think twice about encouraging a young female reporter to meet with Nate might easily be the kind of opportunist Scott thinks she is.

“So, after all these years of wondering, what’s she like?”

I think about how to answer. The careful dance we’re both doing—each of us lying about who we are and what we want, always one careless comment away from the edge.



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