"First Lie Wins", ("The Cruel Prince")

Ashley Elston's twisty suspense fantasy doesn't tax one's brain much and doesn't insult one's intellect too much.

• And that same someone would pick up on little things, like the LSU baseball cap in the back seat or the frat tee showing through his white dress shirt or the country club sticker in the bottom left corner of his windshield, to ensure when they did meet there would be things to talk about. That someone would hold a nail just so in a valve while the air whistled away. <> I mean, it’s amusing to believe one person would go to those lengths just to meet another.
• It’s a fluke, really, that I even needed to search for them, but after running across a Facebook post Ryan was tagged in, I knew this was just the sort of item I needed to “collect.” He had gotten his mother one for her birthday last year. It was an Art Deco piece, a ball of etched glass wrapped in silver and adorned with small, mirrored squares, and looked exactly like the type of gift Jay Gatsby would have given Daisy. It was beautiful, and from the smile on her face, she loved it. <> And if I was the type of girl who collected things, this would definitely be it.
• * There’s an old saying: The first lie wins. It’s not referring to the little white kind that tumble out with no thought; it refers to the big one. The one that changes the game. The one that is deliberate. The lie that sets the stage for everything that comes after it. And once the lie is told, it’s what most people believe to be true. The first lie has to be the strongest. The most important. The one that has to be told.
• The key is not to take something when I’m there delivering flowers. That brings too much suspicion on the small group who were there early in the day... And then, when the house is bursting with guests and valet and waitstaff and bartenders, the forgotten flower shop girl has a chance to slip back in and grab the pieces that didn’t get chosen for the night. The police will inevitably ask when the last time Mrs. Albritton saw these three pieces was, and she will say it was just before the party started, therefore taking the flower delivery people out of the running of possible suspects.
• * It’s been said that if you want a slice of time to stick out, to be crystal clear in your mind, one small difference in an otherwise normal routine is all it takes... Something as simple as turning around in a circle just before you slip the key in the lock would do it. A simple movement and forever that memory will be burned into your mind. It becomes clear enough to play over and over again... I don’t need Ryan analyzing this moment later, wondering why I had such an interest in his old friend and the woman from North Carolina... I don’t need these questions to be the turn before locking the door.
• I’m sure Jenny shared this picture on social media to make everyone believe things are as rosy as that image suggests. I tug on the corner of the frame, just like I’ve done to every other piece of wall art in the house, and stop myself from celebrating when it swings open, revealing a small safe set into the wall.
• It’s crushing for him to lay the truth out like that. Even though I will remember Miles and this job for the rest of my life, he will no doubt forget about me. But Mr. Smith is wrong. I’m not just a ghost who passed through the Kingstons’ life. <> I am a ghost passing through my own life.
• He knows I would never keep anything sensitive in this house. So I created a spreadsheet entitled Opera Guild Association Fundraiser with a list of fake names and credit card numbers to symbolize the one I would have gotten from that auction at the country club if I hadn’t gotten busted that night. It was enough to catch her attention, and Mr. Smith will know I set her up to find it.
• * Toni is what Mama called a “latherer.” She does a good job of looking busy without actually getting anything done. And Jane is the list master. There’s a list of people to call. A list of things to buy. A list of dishes that have been dropped off. A list of people who have dropped by. And a list of people who will write notes to thank anyone who brought a dish or dropped by. <> Death requires a lot of organization.
• The post showed interior shots of the newly renovated home, including one of Miles’s room. When I zoomed in on the bookshelf, I spotted an origami swan sitting on one of the shelves. I’ll never know if it’s the same one I made with him that day or if he’s learned to make them on his own, but seeing that swan displayed as if it holds some importance is proof that I existed there, even if only for a very short amount of time. <> Maybe I’m not quite the ghost I thought I was.
• * I have zero posts and a handful of followers who are mostly bots, but I follow Devon’s bogus account plus forty-seven others, 90 percent of them businesses or famous personalities that post every day. Out of the forty-seven accounts my bogus account follows, thirty-two of them are also followed by Devon’s. And even though I posted my comment on Southern Living’s latest post letting him know I needed to meet up with him tonight at five, he will answer me in a comment on a completely different account so no one would be able to link our comments as communication between the two of us.
• * Three more pieces of paper. An electricity bill, a speeding ticket, and a statement from a doctor’s office. Three more pieces of proof that I’m Evelyn Porter.
  I’ve spent eight years hiding my real identity, while Mr. Smith has spent eight years creating a new active one for me.
  Devon and I are so thorough when we research a new town and a new mark, but not doing a deep dive into the name assigned to me was a blind spot.
• Yesterday, Mr. Smith’s plan was unclear, but that is not the case anymore. While I thought I could always go back to being Lucca Marino, after today it will be next to impossible to lose the Evie Porter identity. As a condition of being released, I was photographed and fingerprinted, so now not only am I in the system for the first time ever, I’m in the system as Evelyn Porter.
  I was so careful to keep Lucca Marino clean and off the grid—a blank slate that I could shape when I was ready—that I’ve got nothing to prove I’m actually her. But Evie Porter has a full background and history, including pictures, the freshly uploaded fingerprints, and the material witness warrant for questioning in the death of Amy Holder.
  Eight years ago, Mr. Smith saved me from potential arrest, and now he’s set me up for one.
• * There are a lot of emotions I’ll need to sift through. The anger that the man I’ve worked for all these years has turned against me in a way I could never imagine. The disappointment that washed over me upon hearing he built an identity for me from the beginning for the sole purpose of tearing me down. The bitterness that filled me when I discovered he was planning for my demise from the very first job. It all hits harder than I thought it would. Harder than I was prepared for. <> But the part that’s hitting me the hardest is the death of the woman. She came in and did her job. It’s my fault she’s dead. That James is dead. If I wasn’t playing this game with Mr. Smith, she’d still be alive.
• “Roger works for you. You tell him the players you want to commit to your alma mater, give him the funds to entice them to do so.”
  I came with receipts and he knows it. He’s quiet, toying with a black ballpoint pen in his hands.
  “I have just as many pics of you with the athletic director, the university president, and half the coaching staff so it’s not a stretch to assume the school knew what you were doing and even condoned it. Think the NCAA will give them a three or four season bowl ban?” This is my only bluff, because I can’t really pull the school into this, but Phil doesn’t know that. I just need him scared enough that I can tie the school to his activities. The last thing he wants is to be the guy who brought down the whole program.
• The day after we met at Buffalo Wild Wings, he showed up in Austin. <> I found him on the children and teens floor of the Central Public Library, where he was teaching three middle school girls how to play chess on the life-size board. For all his rules and procedures, he’s a complete softy when it comes to kids.
• Because Devon is Devon, he sent me exactly what I wanted almost before I had to ask for it. He didn’t even make me feel weird when I said I wanted more than screenshots of them from the video feed, I wanted names and addresses. Mr. Smith sent six of us into that job, and I wanted to meet them all. <> That was the first time I had ever been that close to learning who else worked for him, and I didn’t want to waste this opportunity.
• I just needed him to say it out loud, and he didn’t let me down. I’m also sure Mr. Smith will interpret it the way I want him to. He won’t think Andrew would help me just because he’s a nice guy, he’ll think Andrew has to because I’ve got something on him. Mr. Smith always thought I got dirt on Andrew Marshall but kept it for myself. Which is why it’s so easy for him to believe I did the same with the info on Victor Connolly. He thinks I retrieved it from Amy Holder and kept it for myself instead of turning it over to him.
• The detour to Oxford had three purposes. First, I wanted to look a bit unhinged. Wanted Mr. Smith to feel like I was out of control and worry about where I would go next. It’s harder to anticipate a person’s next move when they are acting erratically.
  Second, we needed to determine how clients get in touch with him. I knew Coach Mitch would only have one person to turn to when I came knocking.
  And lastly, we still don’t have Mr. Smith’s true identity, and we need that more than anything else. By discovering the fan site and Mr. Smith’s username, Devon is backing his way through the system, hoping to find something that will lead us to him.
• * I inch closer. Leaning against the brick wall behind me, I slow my breathing and close my eyes. I invite my other senses to take over, hoping to pinpoint what has me feeling like this. Deep breath in, deep breath out. <> Two voices, both male. One much deeper than the other.
• And then Monday morning in the garage. Where Ryan lingered. And I ignored the 911 message from Devon. Because Ryan wasn’t ready to let me go. I remember thinking, Had I not lingered with Ryan in the garage, I would have seen Devon’s text as soon as I received it. Those few minutes may have cost me a clean getaway...
  The memory of the moment between Ryan and George boots up and I watch it again through a different lens. The familiarity is still there, same as I would have with George. But it’s Ryan making the decisions. George deferring to him. George delivering the papers to him.
  This job was a test. Testing my loyalty.
  And shit, Ryan would have known immediately that I’d altered the information on his business before I turned it over. He has direct proof I wasn’t doing the job I was sent to do. And I was worried about him losing his business to Mr. Smith.
• “I moved away from Decatur in early September, and I know I saw her before I moved but I can’t tell you the date.” In fact, you can tell the truth if you word it the right way, using the right intonation. They will take I can’t tell you the date as I can’t remember it because of the tone I used instead of the truth, which is I can’t tell you the date because it would incriminate me.
• * “Yes, the woman in that video is Lucca Marino.” <> I spent years and years protecting the identity of Lucca Marino. Making sure I could go back there and be that girl. I’ve already bought the land to build the dream house Mama and I planned. Already have the landscaping plans for the garden Mama would have loved. But when that name was threatened, I realized it was just that. A name. I spent years protecting the idea of Lucca Marino, but I’m no longer that naive little girl. While it was hard to finally make the decision to let her go, the truth is she’s been gone a long time. I don’t need to be Lucca Marino to keep the memory of Mama alive. Or to do the things Mama would have wanted me to do.
• Mr. Smith thought he was just making it difficult for me to one day go back to my real identity, but yesterday I put the final nail in the coffin, so to speak. Thanks to the uniform from Goodwill and my last stop in Eden, the woman’s dental records now match a set in a dentist’s office in Eden, North Carolina, under the name Lucca Marino, making the ID of her body complete.
• I list the names of the others and causes of death while she stares at me, unblinking. <> “I think you were spared since you actually figured out the puzzle by going to the laundry room even though you walked away with the fake.”
• “He’ll try to wreck us but if we get in front of it, it could be like one of those controlled explosions,” I finally say. “Like when the only way to get rid of a bomb is to detonate it. We’ll control as much as we can, so when things explode, like we know they will, the fallout won’t be as bad.”
• I shrug. “We could always have risen you from the dead if prison loomed too close. I’m not actually a murderer.”
  Amy laughs. “Well, yeah, there’s that too.”
  “It was a good thing Amy was already in that laundry basket before the filming started. I checked that building right before I delivered the body from the morgue, and the room directly across from hers was empty.” Devon frowned then added, “I hate when someone gets the jump on me like that.”
• And while Mr. Smith had people there to watch me watch Amy, they didn’t look closely enough at the bartender who served Amy her drinks or notice that Devon didn’t put any alcohol in them. It didn’t strike them as odd that every time Amy screamed at me, making sure to let critical information slip at the precise moment we needed it to, it was always in a very public setting—which guaranteed it would trickle back to him. <> Or that Amy chose Atlanta to ride out this storm she created, which was also home to one of my oldest and most famous friends, who would happily supply me with an alibi. Tyron made sure we knew Tuesday nights worked best for him.
• The road trip was my own version of instability. I knew Coach Mitch was my best shot at discovering who Mr. Smith really was, and we could finally play that card now that we had the proof against him. <> I needed to poke at Mitch, and I knew meeting with Andrew Marshall would send Mr. Smith over the edge,
• He leans forward, the laid-back attitude long gone. “I didn’t know you heard us talking. Is that why you freaked out and left? And yeah, that was him. But he was your boss?” His eyes glaze over as he tries to sort through his confusion. “He told me you were the one stealing files from me.” <> “Yeah, that sounds about right. Pitting two people against each other is his favorite pastime.” Or should I say was his favorite pastime. “He thought it provided the best results. One side working against the other, no one trusting anyone. And he conveniently watches from the sidelines.”
• “But then I was more confused than ever,” he says, his voice strong but quiet. “Everything he gave me as proof of what you had taken from me was altered. The dates of big shipments were a week later than what I planned. The cargo smaller. The buyers’ names changed. It didn’t make sense. And it was enough for me to doubt what he was trying to make me believe. And then I went inside. I went looking for you. And I found you in the shower and you were so . . . broken. Crying so hard I thought you’d break in a million pieces. It was the exact same way I felt. I knew there was a big piece I was missing.”

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My second attempt and its YA-ness defeated me again. Holly Black does well with fairy lore, but the court intrigue stuff is uninspring.

• It was Tatterfell who smeared stinging faerie ointment over my eyes to give me True Sight so that I could see through most glamours, who brushed the mud from my boots, and who strung dried rowan berries for me to wear around my neck so I might resist enchantments. She wiped my wet nose and reminded me to wear my stockings inside out, so I’d never be led astray in the forest. “And no matter how eager you are for it, you cannot make the moon set nor rise any faster. Try to bring glory to the general’s household tonight by appearing as comely as we can make you.”
  I sigh.
  She’s never had much patience with my peevishness.
• Many nights I drifted off to sleep to his rumbling voice reading from a book of battle strategy. And despite myself, despite what he’d done and what he was, I came to love him. I do love him. <> It’s just not a comfortable kind of love.
• She does what she likes. Including reading magazines that might have iron staples rather than glue binding their pages, not caring if her fingers get singed.
• She’d vowed to hate Madoc, and she stuck to her vow. When Vivi wasn’t reminiscing about home, she was a terror. She broke things. She screamed and raged and pinched us when we were content. Eventually, she stopped all of it, but I believe there is a part of her that hates us for adapting. For making the best of things. For making this our home.
• an incredulous smile starting on my face and then fading when I remember that Vivi didn’t bother to tell me the story, even though it must have happened days ago. Three is an odd configuration of sisters. There’s always one on the outside.
• Like, for example, as a redcap, Madoc needs bloodshed the way a mermaid needs the salt spray of the sea. After every battle, he ritually dips his hood into the blood of his enemies. I’ve seen the hood, kept under glass in the armory. The fabric is stiff and stained a brown so deep it’s almost black, except for a few smears of green. <> Sometimes I go down and stare at it, trying to see my parents in the tide lines of dried blood. I want to feel something, something besides a vague queasiness. I want to feel more, but every time I look at it, I feel less.
• Oriana has never forgiven me for that restraint—she believes my not revenging myself on him then means I plan to revenge myself in the future. <> Here’s why I don’t like these stories: They highlight that I am vulnerable.
• I wrench my mouth free and scream, but screams in Faerie are like birdsong, too common to attract much attention.
• We’ve talked about it before, of course, how Vivi thinks we’re stupid for not being able to resist the intensity of Faerie, for desiring to stay in a place of such danger. Maybe growing up the way we have, bad things feel good to us. Or maybe we are stupid in the exact same way as every other idiot mortal who’s pined away for another bite of goblin fruit.
• My stomach lurches. They’re going to beat him. <> I should be glorying in seeing Cardan like this. I should be glad that his life sucks, maybe worse than mine, even though he’s a prince of Faerie and a horrible jerk and probably going to live forever.
• Truly, he has come by his cruelty honestly in Balekin’s care. He has been raised up in it, instructed in its nuances, honed through its application. However horrible Cardan might be, I now see what he might become and am truly afraid.
• Most of my life is dreadful anticipation, a waiting for the other shoe to drop—at home, in classes, with the Court. Being afraid I would be caught spying was an entirely new sensation, one where I felt, at least, as though I knew exactly what to be scared of. I knew what it would take to win. Sneaking through Balekin’s house had been less frightening than some revels.
• The Roach looks over at the Ghost and shrugs. “This is always the problem with infiltrating the Court. Lots of etiquette taking up time. When can you get away?”
• Mithridatism, it’s called. Isn’t that a funny name? The process of eating poison to build up immunity.

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