Nine Liars (Truly Devious, #5)(66)

“I need to talk to you,” she said, shutting the door.

“Why does that fill me with dread? You never need to talk to me about finding a baby dragon or a bottomless pit of KFC. It’s always something terrible.”

“Quinn didn’t say we could come.”

Nate lowered his phone to his lap.

“What does that mean, exactly? I thought you asked her?”

“I did ask her, but . . .”

“But?”

Stevie looked at her friend.

“But?” he prompted.

“She said no.”

Nate put his hand over his eyes.

“That’s a joke, right?”

“We’ll be back so soon,” Stevie cut in. “And I’ll take all the blame. All of it. I’ll tell her I told you guys she said it was okay. I will take it. All of it.”

She allowed him a moment of silence, the heel of his hand pressing into his forehead. He finally lowered it and looked at her seriously.

“You have to tell Janelle and Vi.”

“Are you mad?”

“You do this shit, Stevie. This is how you are. I guess I probably knew on some level that Quinn said no and we were going anyway. That’s just what happens with you. Lying kind of sucks? And, I don’t know, Vi and I can probably take it, but you shouldn’t lie to Janelle.”

For some reason, this was more painful and difficult than Nate just being mad. He was right. Nate and Vi might roll with this nonsense, but Janelle didn’t play around with the truth.

“How bad will it be, do you think?” she asked.

“Bad,” he said. “Do it now. And then we have to figure out what to do when Quinn calls.”

“I already thought of that. She can’t tell where we’re calling from, so we can . . .”

He just stared at her.

“Yeah, I . . .”

“Everyone!” Sebastian called. “Would you like the tour?”

“Tell her soon, Stevie. Shit. I’m not telling her, and I’m also not going to lie to her.”

Lie. It was such a gross word, with spikes on it. She was a liar. A fiendish thing. Her throat felt dry.

“I’ll tell her tonight,” Stevie said. “I promise.”





19


SEBASTIAN GUIDED DAVID AND STEVIE OUT THE FRONT DOOR, AND they stood a moment on the grand flagstone porch, overlooking the rolling greens and the sheep and the sunset. Nate had opted out of the tour, and Janelle and Vi had vanished somewhere in the depths of Merryweather. Izzy was deep in conversation with Theo, so only David and Stevie were making the rounds outside.

“Good of you to come with Izzy,” Sebastian said, leading them down the steps to the lawn. “How is she doing?”

“She’s nervous,” David said as they descended the low stone steps onto the lawn.

“So are we all. Julian should be bringing news. Until then, keep calm and carry on, I suppose. And you get to see a bit more of England. See a place like this. My family has lived here since 1675. Somebody in the family did something or other for the king and got the land and an old house as a gift. This is the kind of thing I’m supposed to care about and remember, but I don’t. They tore that house down and built a new one, and then a hundred years later, some other ancestor of mine decided that house wasn’t quite right and ripped it down and built this one. Madness. But here it is.”

He waved a hand in the direction of the house that reared up behind them.

“I’d never be able to keep this place if it didn’t pay for itself,” he said. “It’s absurd for one person or family to own something like this, but here we are. Now it earns its keep by hosting weddings and events, film shoots, things like that. Spring and summer, Christmas and New Year’s . . . those are the busiest times. But there’s going to be a film crew here in two weeks’ time to shoot some scenes for a new period drama. It’s quite fun when that happens. I’ve worked as an extra in a few things. I played a butler once. Even got a line.”

He smiled.

“All the grand rooms, I leave those open for guests and filming. The top floor is where I live. Those are the poky servants’ rooms, but there’s loads of space and I knocked a few of them through to make myself a bigger bedroom and lounge. My husband is an antiques expert for Sotheby’s. He’s in Vienna at the moment, appraising items for an auction. He’s absolutely mad for boot sales—or yard sales, you call them? He can spot a treasure in a pile of dreck and picks it up for a tenner or something. And so, we live in a pile of tea sets and Georgian tripod tables that people found in their attics and basements.”

“When did your husband leave?” Stevie said, trying to sound casual. “For his trip?”

“Last week. These large estate sales are complicated affairs.”

They walked down and around a small pond at the base of the lawn. At its far edge, facing the house, was what looked like a tiny Greek temple.

“The folly,” he said. “Very good spot for wedding photos from here. Careful!”

He grabbed Stevie by the arm.

“Ha-ha,” he said.

Stevie stared. He indicated that she should look at the place she was about to step. The lawn cut away suddenly and there was a sheer drop of about four feet. There was nothing there to mark it—no wall or ornament of any kind. It was not clearly visible at all.