Three
women. Two bodies. One big lie…
A tangled web of lies draws together three women in this explosive thriller of revenge, murder and shocking secrets.
At an elite private school nestled in the Colorado mountains, Natalie, an
office assistant, dreams of having a life like the school moms she deals with
every day. Women like Brooke—a gorgeous heiress, ferociously loving mother and
serial cheater—and Asha, an overprotective mom who suspects her husband of
having an affair. Their fates are bound by the handsome assistant athletic
director Nicholas, whom Natalie loves, Brooke wants and Asha needs.
But when two bodies are carried out of the school one morning, it seems the
tension between mothers and daughters, rival lovers, and the haves and
have-nots has shattered the surface of this isolated, affluent town—where
people stop at nothing to get what they want.
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Prologue
THE
NECKTIE OF her ex was still clasped in her hand when Natalie woke. Her head was
pounding, and her mouth tasted bad, like she’d fallen into bed without brushing
her teeth. She had a horrible, cloudy feeling that she’d done something regrettable,
but in that moment, she couldn’t remember what it was.
She
wasn’t at home. Instead, she was upright, a seat belt crossing her chest. In
front of her was the windshield of her own car, coated in a sheet of frost, and
her I LOVE COLORADO! key chain was dangling from the ignition.
Natalie
realized then that she’d blacked out. It had happened before, when she was much
younger, and the memory of that awful awakening hit her with an electrifying
jolt. After a frantic inspection, she concluded that all her clothes were on
and nothing seemed torn or altered. She slipped the tie into her coat pocket.
Yanking
the rearview mirror toward her face, she saw that her hazel eyes were huge, the
pupils tiny pinpoints, and her mascara was smudged. A chapped crack ran down
the bottom of her lower lip, but there were no other bruises or cuts. It didn’t
appear that she’d crashed into a building or a tree. There were no sirens.
She
rolled down her window, and a thin wall of ice collapsed into the car,
dampening her plaid skirt. It was almost dark outside.
Work.
She was at work. Across the snowy parking lot, she could see the back door to
the east wing of the private school where she was an administrative assistant
in the front office.
Pulling
on her stocking cap and opening the car door, Natalie noticed footprints,
slightly softened by snowfall, leading from her car to the rear exit of the
school’s gym. Another set of identical prints returned from the door to the
car, but not in a straight line. They zigzagged, and there was a large
compression in the snow, just about the size of a small person like her.
Gingerly, she lowered one boot into the first of the prints to make sure it was
a match. It was. It seemed likely that the body-shaped spot in the snow was an
indication that she’d fallen, and a quick pat down of her coat confirmed that
it was wet.
Natalie
stepped out of her car and squinted into the wind. Her legs felt weak, as if
she’d just returned from one of her longer runs.
She
retraced her own tracks, leading to the school. The sky was changing color from
a grayish stormy dusk to night, and it struck Natalie, who loved art, that the
swirling white flurries between her and the stars resembled a monochrome Van
Gogh painting. Snow-capped peaks surrounded her on all sides. Down the mountain
was the town center. Lights twinkled. Houses, vacation condos, and old-timey
shops were piled like Christmas gifts on top of one another alongside a dark
and twisting river.
The
heavy back door was ajar. When she tugged on it, it groaned, scraped, and
opened. Heart pounding, she went in.
During
school hours, the sports pavilion would have been filled with the sound of
bouncing basketballs, laughter, whistles, and sneakers squeaking on the gym
floor. Now, there was distant, droning pop music playing up on the mezzanine,
but no one was singing along or dropping weights to the floor with a crash.
Natalie
walked with slow, hesitant steps over to the double doors that opened onto the
basketball courts.
Normally
those doors stood propped open by gray rubber wedges. Now they were closed, but
each had a rectangular window. Natalie curled her hand and made a cup for her
eyes.
It
took a second to see anything at all. The court was dim, aglow only from the
small green emergency lights situated over the doors and in the corners of the
room. Her eyes were adjusting. Something was there.
She
jumped away from the door as if the glass had burned her skin. Her hands flew
up to cover her mouth. A scream almost escaped, but she stopped it in her
throat with a choking noise.
Not
far from the door was what looked like a crumpled pile of clothes and broken
body parts, motionless in the middle of a spreading pool of blood.
What the hell did I do?
The
security lights in the Falcon Academy parking lot flickered. It was early
Monday morning and still dark. A beat-up Pathfinder left tracks in the snow as
it swerved into a spot re-served for employees.
Harry
Doyle climbed out and used his heel to squelch a cigarette into the ground. He
grabbed a battered baseball cap from the dashboard and plopped it on his head,
holding down what little was left of his hair. After slamming the driver’s door
shut, he looked up at the sky, which was turning pink and orange to the east.
An enormous blanket of fluffy white covered the parking lot. Last night had
been the first big storm of the season, and some parents would call their kids
in sick so they could hit the slopes with their friends.
The
sixty-eight-year-old custodian shuffled towards the rear entrance of the sports
pavilion. The automatic fluorescents in the back hallway glowed a sickly
yellow. He hummed as he plodded down the hall to the boys’ changing room, where
he put his lunch and jacket away in his locker before going to the storage
closet. Harry grabbed the fiberglass handle of the deluxe wet mop and hauled
it, and the bucket, out into the corridor toward the basketball courts. Pushing
past the double doors, he activated all nine light switches with a swipe of his
hand. The bulky, caged gymnasium overheads burst to life with a buzz.
“What
the hell?” he exclaimed, dropping the mop.
The
handle clattered against the maple wood planks. “Oh dear God.” The words came
out strangled.
Harry
scrambled for his phone in a zippered compartment of his slacks.
“Hello?” he managed to say, after dialing 911. He was having trouble breathing. “The Falcon Academy. Off Highway 70. Just west of Blackswift. Oh Jesus. Jesus Mary and Joseph. We need help. There’s a lot of blood.”
Excerpted
from The Lying Club by Annie Ward, Copyright © 2022 by Annie Ward. Published by arrangement with
Harlequin Books S.A.
Annie Ward is the author of Beautiful Bad. She has a BA in English literature from UCLA and an MFA in screenwriting from the American Film Institute. Her first short screenplay, Strange Habit, starring Adam Scott, was an official selection of the Sundance Film Festival and the Grand Jury Award winner at the Aspen Film Festival. She has received a Fulbright scholarship and an Escape to Create artist residency. She lives in Kansas with her family.
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