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Back One White Lie Save as PDF
Chapters (59)
  1. COVER
  2. About the Author
  3. DEDICATION
  4. ONE
  5. TWO
  6. THREE
  7. FOUR
  8. FIVE
  9. SIX
  10. SEVEN
  11. EIGHT
  12. NINE
  13. TEN
  14. ELEVEN
  15. TWELVE
  16. THIRTEEN
  17. FOURTEEN
  18. FIFTEEN
  19. SIXTEEN
  20. SEVENTEEN
  21. EIGHTEEN
  22. NINETEEN
  23. TWENTY
  24. TWENTY-ONE
  25. TWENTY-TWO
  26. TWENTY-THREE
  27. TWENTY-FOUR
  28. TWENTY-FIVE
  29. TWENTY-SIX
  30. TWENTY-SEVEN
  31. TWENTY-EIGHT
  32. TWENTY-NINE
  33. THIRTY
  34. THIRTY-ONE
  35. THIRTY-TWO
  36. THIRTY-THREE
  37. THIRTY-FOUR
  38. THIRTY-FIVE
  39. THIRTY-SIX
  40. THIRTY-SEVEN
  41. THIRTY-EIGHT
  42. THIRTY-NINE
  43. FORTY
  44. FORTY-ONE
  45. FORTY-TWO
  46. FORTY-THREE
  47. FORTY-FOUR
  48. FORTY-FIVE
  49. FORTY-SIX
  50. FORTY-SEVEN
  51. FORTY-EIGHT
  52. FORTY-NINE
  53. FIFTY
  54. FIFTY-ONE
  55. FIFTY-TWO
  56. FIFTY-THREE
  57. FIFTY-FOUR
  58. Acknowledgments
  59. THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING

It would explain the theft of the photos of John, the note he’d left me. Another brick in the wall to prove to the police that I was obsessed with him, a jealous lover. All of this a tryst gone wrong.

No, Vera would never. She loved me, and I her.

You wanted him to be a bad guy, so you could have him.

Besides, it had to be Sam, because Sam had access to my key. Whoever had stolen the knife had had to have access to my place. There was no way around it.

It caught my eye then – the silver gleam of the spare key Maggie had brought over.

Of course Vera had a spare key, same as me.

It was nothing; it didn’t even work. The locks had been changed. Everyone said so.

Still, I picked it up, felt its ridges, its peaks and valleys. Examining it closer, it didn’t look all that different from the key I’d been using since I got here, but so many of them looked alike.

I closed my fist around it, feeling it in my hand.

There was no way. Vera was my friend. She was my family. She could never. She adored John. Loved him more than any of us.

But Davis had loved me, too, in his way. Sometimes love drove us to do the worst possible thing.

Sometimes loyalty went too far.

It couldn’t hurt to check – could it? I walked to the front door, twisting the handle, stepping onto the porch. The cold snapped at me again, and I pulled the door slowly shut. Hands shaking, I slid the key Maggie had given me, the one Vera had a copy of, into the lock of the dead bolt. It sank in, but that didn’t mean a thing. Most keys went into just about any lock. The trick was whether they turned.

Taking a deep breath, I tried to turn it.

Instant relief. It didn’t budge.

Only there, a niggling in the back of my brain, a teensy objection.

Sometimes the lock was sticky. I knew this from turning it so many times myself.

I pulled the door closer to me, a matter of millimeters, but millimeters, I knew, could make a difference, and I attempted to turn the key again.

It was like my timeline split into before and after. Trust and deceit. Love and violence. Vera and a woman maybe I didn’t know at all.

Because the key turned.

It worked.

Penguin walking logo

FORTY-SIX

I was ready when I saw Vera pull out of her driveway and continue down the road, at the helm of her murdered husband’s truck.

I headed for the farmhouse immediately – I didn’t know where she was going, or how long she’d be gone – cutting across the frosted grass as soon as it came into view, making for the back door.