“Is that what my uncle told you?”
He rolls his eyes, still coughing. “I looked it up. It’s not a bomb, Gen. It’s a bacterial infection. It’ll scare the crap out of them, but they’ll be fine. And maybe a little more humble.”
I grab a handful of his hair and shove his head against the wall, holding him upright. “It won’t just scare them if they inhale it!” I shout at him. “It could kill them. There are kids in there! Your parents are in there!”
Holden blinks at me. He looks confused. Conflicted. Then his gaze hardens. “The kids will be fine. And my parents deserve whatever they get. My dad was going to leave me in the jungle, Genesis. He had a chance to get me out of there, but he chose the company over me. Over his own kid.” He shrugs. “You chose Indiana over me. You all deserve whatever you get.”
“That is psychotic—”
“Genesis!” Indiana pounds around the corner, and relief floods his face when he sees me. “The police are on the way. We need to get out of here.”
“Maddie and Luke?” I ask him. “Penelope?”
“They’re outside with everyone else. Waiting for the ambulances.”
And that’s when I hear the sirens. I exhale slowly. The police have arrived.
This is almost over.
“Come on.” I give Holden a shove in Indiana’s direction. Toward the front of the building.
He pulls free, backing away from us slowly. Hands up, as if to fend me off. “Everyone will be fine. Just . . . let me go. Your uncle promised to get me out of the country—”
“Yeah. About that.”
I whirl toward the familiar voice to find Silvana standing at the other end of the hall. Pointing a pistol at us.
Shit. My pulse whooshes in my ears. The hallway looks a little unsteady.
“There’s been a change of plans,” Silvana says.
I back away, hands up, palms out, and Indiana steps closer to me. As if he might step between me and the gun. But she isn’t even looking at us.
“David thanks you for your service.” Silvana aims at Holden. “Consider yourself relieved of duty.” Then she pulls the trigger.
Light flashes from the end of her gun in the dim hallway, and I gasp, half deaf. Holden grunts, but I can’t hear him. Then he slides to the floor.
Blood blooms on the front of his formal white shirt, low on one side, and spreads rapidly beneath the side of his tux jacket. His face goes pale. Pain flickers behind his eyes and he clutches the wound.
The clogged sound in my ears begins to clear, but they’re still ringing. I feel like I’m inside a gong.
Silvana turns to me, and fear becomes fire pumping through my veins. Sharpening my senses. “Silvana . . .”
“Don’t worry, princesa. David wants you alive, so you can live with the consequences of blowing up his arsenal. Have a great life. And say hi to your cousin for me.” Then she turns and disappears down the hall in the other direction.
A second later, I hear the squeal of sturdy hinges. Then a heavy door slams shut.
Silvana is gone.
“Gen . . . ,” Holden gasps. “Help me.”
“Is there anyone still in here!” a new voice calls from the front of the building.
“Yes! We’re back here!” I shout as I kneel next to Holden. Indiana takes off his jacket and presses it against Holden’s wound.
Two officers round the corner in the direction Indiana came from. They’re wearing gloves and respirators. “Ma’am, we need to get everyone out of the building.”
“He’s been shot.” I stand to make room for the cops, and one of them kneels next to Holden, already pulling a radio from his belt to call for an EMT crew.
“The shooter is a woman,” Indiana tells the other cop. “In her early twenties. Dark curly hair. Brown eyes. About five foot eight. Her first name is Silvana. She went around that corner and out the door.”
The cop pulls his gun and takes off after her, but I already know he won’t find her. This may finally be over, but Silvana and my uncle are gone. They left Sebastián and Holden to pay for their crimes.
And me to be tried in the court of public opinion.
1 WEEK LATER
She’s a liar.
MADDIE
I ring Neda’s doorbell for the second time in a week, and suddenly I worry that this may become a habit. She’s still annoying. But I have to admit, she’s grown on me.
Her housekeeper opens the door. “Ms. Rahbar doesn’t want any visitors,” she says. “But thank you all so much for coming.”
“It’s okay, Charlotte.” Genesis steps past me, and the housekeeper moves back to let her in. Most people don’t know how to say no to my cousin. “She’ll see us.”
Charlotte holds the door open, and Indiana, Penelope, Luke, and I follow Genesis inside, armed with an iced latte, a balloon bouquet, and an envelope containing a gift certificate for a “get well” full-day treatment at my cousin’s favorite spa.
“Who was it?” Neda calls out from the chaise longue, where she’s wearing earbuds and holding her tablet.
“Only your best friends in the world,” Genesis says as we troop into the living room.
“No, you guys, I don’t want anyone to see me like this!” Neda sets her tablet down, and before she tucks her hands beneath her thighs, I see that in the past week, the blisters have spread and darkened. But they’re nowhere near as bad as some of the ones we’ve all been looking at online. Probably thanks to prompt treatment in the ER.
“We don’t care what you look like.” Genesis sets the balloon weight on the coffee table, and the inflated bouquet hovers over it. “We’re here to see you, not your hand.”
Neda flinches eyeing the balloons. “Get those things away from me!”
“Oh, come on. They’re Mylar!” Genesis laughs. “Helium only. So you can do your Mickey Mouse karaoke.”
Indiana grins. “I told you she wouldn’t think that was funny.” He hands her the envelope. “I think you’ll like this better.”
Neda eyes the envelope suspiciously. Then she rips it open. Her smile looks reluctant, but real when she sees the certificate. “Thank you.”
“Gen and I will be joining you.” Penelope sinks onto the couch and holds her hand out for Neda to see. “After we’ve healed.” There’s a neat ring of blisters on her left hand, and one on her right palm. “No masseuse in the world would touch us right now.”
Genesis has a single cluster on her left wrist. Luke’s is on the back of his right hand.
Only Indiana and I are unmarked so far. But we’re all on strong antibiotics, just in case.
“How are you feeling?” Luke settles onto one of the couches next to me.
“Lousy.” Neda eyes her hand.
“Well, I suspect that’s psychosomatic,” he says. “The survivability of cutaneous anthrax infections is right at eighty percent, even without antibiotics, and with the meds we’re all on, we’re going to be fine. Holden, on the other hand . . .” Luke shrugs, and an uncomfortable silence descends over the room.
Holden is still in the hospital. Handcuffed to his own bed. The doctors think he will survive the gunshot wound, but I’m not sure he’ll survive himself. He’s been on suicide watch all week, because he’s threatened to kill himself rather than go to prison.
Genesis went to see him. Once. To thank him for telling the truth to the FBI, though I’m pretty sure he did that to flip the bird at my dad rather than to help us.
Gen says she went more for her benefit than for Holden’s. For closure. But I can’t tell that she actually got much out of it.
I feel the same way about my father. I’ll never get to ask him why he did what he did. Why he kept in touch with Holden, but not his own daughter. Why he abandoned his own family to pursue a violent, twisted agenda.
I’m never going to get any answers from him. And I will always hate him for that, and for the three people who inhaled anthrax at the benefit and are fighting for their lives in the hospital.
&n
bsp; But I’m learning to deal.
“The doctor said it could take sixty days for these things to heal,” Neda moans, staring at her hand. “That’s most of the summer. I’m going to have to hide out in the house for two months. No parties. No vacation. No umbrellas on the beach. I don’t even get to walk the line at graduation.”
“Neither do we,” Penelope tells her. But I don’t think they would, even if they could. Even if the rest of their school weren’t terrified of catching anthrax. As if that’s even possible.
Genesis is pretty much done with her fancy private school. With the facade of her perfect life. She’s a pariah now. A constant topic of speculation on the news and gossip on the internet. Some people still think she’s a murderer for blowing up the Splendor. Some people think she’s a hero for helping save people at the benefit.
The press is pretty sure she’s a liar, and that no one should ever believe another word she says.
They’re all wrong. She’s just a girl who tried to do the right thing and made a lot of mistakes.
She’s also my cousin. My brother’s other sister. And my best friend.
“Well, you might have heard that my dad and I own a private strip of beach.” Genesis sinks onto the end of Neda’s chaise longue. “And that I like to throw parties. Though the list of people who might actually show up is pretty much limited to those of us in this room.” Genesis gives the rest of us a rueful smile. “I expect to see you all at my house tomorrow night at seven. We’re going to put this whole thing behind us the same way it began.
“Together. On the beach.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Every book has its own unique challenges, but because of the structure of the timeline, this one has had more than its fair share. Which is why I must first and foremost thank the outstanding copy editors at HarperCollins who, in addition to fact- and grammar-checking me, double-checked every reference to day and time in the entire manuscript. After all the timeline shifts necessitated by revisions, you made me look good at a point when I could no longer see the manuscript for the trees, and I am grateful. That said, any mistakes that still exist are mine.
Thanks also to Maria Barbo, my long-suffering editor, for more emergency phone calls and plot sessions than I can count. I leave every conversation we have feeling energized and enthusiastic, and I can’t tell you what that means to me.
Many thanks to Sophie Jordan, Terra Lynn Childs, and Angela Corbett for retreat plotting, commiseration, cookies, and company. I miss you all.
Thanks as always to Jennifer Lynn Barnes for endless suggestions and support, and to Rinda Elliott for listening to my doubts, fears, and complaints as if she’d never heard any of them before.
More now than ever, a huge thank-you must go to my children for letting me know when my characters said something a twenty-first-century teenager would not, and to my husband for reminding me daily that though I am no longer a teenager, it’s perfectly fine for me to consume caffeine like one.
And, of course, thank you to my agent, Merrilee Heifetz, and to everyone at Writers House for getting stuff done. Your job allows me to do my job in peace, and I could not be more thankful.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo credit Kim Haynes Photography
RACHEL VINCENT is the New York Times bestselling author of several pulse-pounding series for teens and adults. A former English teacher and a champion of the serial comma, Rachel has written more than twenty novels and remains convinced that writing about the things that scare her is the cheapest form of therapy. Rachel shares her home in Oklahoma with two cats, two teenagers, and her husband, who’s been her number one fan from the start. You can find her online at www.rachelvincent.com and on Twitter @rachelkvincent.
Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.
BOOKS BY RACHEL VINCENT
100 Hours
99 Lies
BACK AD
DISCOVER
your next favorite read
MEET
new authors to love
WIN
free books
SHARE
infographics, playlists, quizzes, and more
WATCH
the latest videos
www.epicreads.com
COPYRIGHT
Katherine Tegen Books is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
99 LIES. Copyright © 2018 by HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
www.epicreads.com
Cover photograph of girl by Mohamad Itani for Arcangel
Sea lights photograph by Lukas Sowada
Hand-set wood type lettering by Katie Fitch
Cover design by Heather Daugherty
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018936240
Digital Edition JUNE 2018 ISBN: 978-0-06-241161-7
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-241159-4
1819202122PC/LSCH10987654321
FIRST EDITION
ABOUT THE PUBLISHER
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers Australia Pty. Ltd.
Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street
Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia
www.harpercollins.com.au
Canada
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
Bay Adelaide Centre, East Tower
22 Adelaide Street West, 41st Floor
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
M5H 4E3
www.harpercollins.ca
India
HarperCollins India
A 75, Sector 57
Noida
Uttar Pradesh 201 301
www.harpercollins.co.in
New Zealand
HarperCollins Publishers New Zealand
Unit D1, 63 Apollo Drive
Rosedale 0632
Auckland, New Zealand
www.harpercollins.co.nz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF, UK
www.harpercollins.co.uk
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
195 Broadway
New York, NY 10007
www.harpercollins.com
Rachel Vincent, 99 Lies
Thank you for reading books on BookFrom.Net Share this book with friends