Dirty Liars Read online

  Dirty Liars

  Hawthorne Holy Trinity Book One

  Eden Beck

  Dirty Liars by Eden Beck

  © 2019 Eden Beck

  All rights reserved. This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of including brief passages for use in a review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  For permissions contact:

  [email protected]

  Ebook ASIN: B07SGPJS12

  Also by Eden Beck

  Hawthorne Holy Trinity

  Dirty Liars

  Dirty Fraud

  Dirty Revenge

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  A Note From The Author

  For all those who read to escape.

  You are not alone.

  Chapter 1

  I am not a good girl.

  I like to think it’s not entirely my fault, that I’m some messed up concoction brewed by a lifetime shifted from one foster house to another until they all just start to look the same.

  My bedroom window only creaks when the whole house is asleep.

  I pad, soft-footed into the back yard. It isn’t really a yard—I think there has to be grass for that—more of a patch of dirt meant for old bike tires and gravel. My sneakers are so worn that they leave indistinct marks in the dust and my shadow so familiar that the Rottweilers next door just watch me lazily from the neighbor’s back stoop.

  I pause in front of the window and take a deep breath to steady myself. A blue light catches on the glass, a tiny sliver running along the reflected tops of the run-down houses to my back.

  “Fuck,” I whisper under my breath. I should’ve been back hours ago. I can’t afford to be caught sneaking out again. This place might be a hell-hole of a foster house but it can always be worse. I’ve had worse. I know what it looks like, and as shitty as this place is, this isn’t it.

  I press the base of my palms to the bottom of the window frame and try to push up as slowly and evenly as possible. The window sticks for a moment, the old peeling wood swollen and slippery from morning dew. One of my fingers pries up under the bottom and it finally jerks up with a gut-wrenching screech.

  I freeze.

  The Rots next door perk up, their heads tilting back as they sniff the air. I listen for any noise, any sign of stirring on the other side. Aside from the rustle as the dogs flop back down, nothing makes a single clue I was overheard.

  I have to save my sigh of relief just a little longer. I push the window up as slowly and carefully as possible and hoist myself up and through into the bottom bunk directly on the other side. I’ve barely collapsed into my bed and tugged the window back shut behind me, this time with only the tiniest of squeaks, when the door to the room flies open.

  I tug the blankets up to my chin as if I’m protecting my modesty. I can’t let her catch me in yesterday’s clothes, or she’ll know I snuck out again.

  “Teddy!”

  From the shrill tone of Ms. Martin’s voice, you’d think I asked for this life. When I don’t answer right away, her wraith-like silhouette stumbles another couple steps into the room. This time she repeats herself using my full name.

  “Theodora!” The name I hate most rattles the very frame of the bunk bed, waking the others where the groaning window couldn’t. Cassie and Rachel mutter incoherently, still half in dreams. Lucky them. I’ve been stuck in this pathetic reality for as long as I can remember.

  My most recent wretched foster mother stands over me, so close even I can’t pretend to sleep any longer. Her three-day-old makeup is smeared, her hair is matted and askew all over her head, and she reeks of vodka. She’s a terror, but I don’t complain because she’s also the only one who didn’t try to take me back right away like a sweater with a limited return policy. She might suck, but I know that it could always be worse.

  “What?” I snap at her and finally push myself up. I move too fast and smack my head on the top bunk above me. I clap my hands over my forehead and groan as I fall back into the pillow. I should be used to the tiny bed by now, but in my defense, it was built for someone half my size.

  Ms. Martin tosses a wad of black cloth at me and I somehow manage to catch it, just to drop it in my lap a second later. I don’t know what she just threw at me, but it feels like a steel wool scrubbing pad.

  “Get up! Get dressed. You’re going to a funeral,” she says.

  Well, of all the things she might have said to me, that was certainly the last thing I expected.

  “Who died? Your personality?”

  I cock an eyebrow at her. I know I shouldn’t be talking back to her this early in the morning, but I can’t let the opportunity slip away. Call it a slip of judgement thanks to the exhaustion pressing at the back of my eyelids. I’d been counting on one more day to sleep before the new school year starts up tomorrow.

  Ms. Martin raises her hand to slap me across the face, but she spots Cassie sitting up and stretching and quickly goes to paw the back of her head instead. The girl is still new to the system and hasn’t learned to keep her mouth shut yet. It’s been my saving grace on more than one occasion, but I shouldn’t keep pushing my luck.

  I quickly change the subject and pick up the thing Ms. Martin tossed to me. The black fabric is as shapeless as it is scratchy.

  “What am I supposed to do with this? Clean something?” I shoot her a dirty look. She grits her teeth and glares at me.

  “No, smartass. Clean yourself up a bit and put it on. We haven’t got much time if we want to be early.”

  I look the dress over again. I guess if you look at it from a certain angle, you can at least tell what it is. Still, it’s the ugliest dress I’ve ever seen in my life.

  “You know what the problem is about funerals?” I say, almost swinging my legs over the edge of the bed before I remember I’m still wearing yesterday’s clothes. I stop just in time. “The person you’re there to see is usually dead.”

  Cassie’s eyes grow wide as she looks down at me. I cringe inwardly. I should be more careful around her and the others. Not all of them have to turn out like I have. Jaded and short tempered, amongst other poor qualities.

  Ms. Martin plants her hand on her hip. She always does that when I’m testing her patience. I always test her patience, just to see how far I can push her before she snaps. We are on opposite ends of a broad spectrum.

  “You might not be so snarky if you knew whose funeral it was.”

  I sit straight up. Forget getting caught. My pulse races and a sickening feeling settles in the pit of my stomach.

  “Who is it?” I try to run through who it could be, whose death could possibly upset me more than having to wear that potato sack of a dress she just threw at my face.

  “One of your classmates.”

  The purposeful evasiveness
makes me want to gouge out her eyeballs. Dear lord, give me the patience not to kill this woman.

  “Which one?” I ask through gritted teeth.

  “The pretty one. Sadie White.”

  Now even Rachel, usually oblivious to all but the most violent methods of waking her up, stirs. She rolls over and rubs sleep from her eyes.

  “You mean the one who looks like Teddy?” she asks.

  Cassie giggles. “Ms. Martin just called Teddy pretty.”

  I have to fight away the tiny smile that tugs at the corner of my moth as Ms. Martin looks appalled. What the girls say is true. I’ve never seen it, but everyone else at school always said we shared an uncanny resemblance to one another.

  I never minded, but Sadie she …

  I stop myself. You aren’t supposed to speak ill of the dead … no matter what a bitch they were when they were alive.

  That doesn’t help the fact that, no matter how much people thought we looked alike, Sadie White and I were as far from being friends as you can be without actually being enemies.

  “That’s sad and all, but I’m good, thanks,” I say, flopping back onto the bed. It’s draining, thinking someone you actually care about might have died … until you remember that there isn’t anyone you actually care about.

  I glance up at Cassie and Rachel’s petrified faces looking back at me. Ms. Martin is staring daggers.

  “Ass out of bed now. We leave in ten.” She glances up at the girls, who duck out of sight under the covers faster than a high school relationship lasts. “That goes for you too.”

  She shoots me one last look, and I know she means business because she doesn’t even stay to make sure we do it. If there’s one thing I know about Ms. Martin, it’s that you don’t want her to have to come back.

  I have to pick my battles with her carefully. I lie to her a lot, I get into trouble sometimes, and I don’t back down from her too often … but I can see that this isn’t the time to fight. As much as I hate to, I’m going to have to do as I’m told.

  I wait until she’s out of earshot before I roll right back out of bed with a loud groan. I stuff last night’s haul, just a measly ten bucks, into the end of shoes where even Ms. Martin won’t dare look. The old catholic church donation box used to such a great spot, too.

  As soon as Rachel and Cassie have scuttled down from their beds, I pull the dress on and head to the bathroom to brush my teeth. I don’t have to wipe the steamed-up mirror to see why everyone thought Sadie and I looked so much alike. They said we could be twins, Sadie and I, but I never saw it. It’s more than our looks though. We are … or were, I guess, just so fundamentally different that simply sharing a face isn’t enough.

  She was a princess and I’m a street girl. All she ever knew was privilege. All I’ve ever known is poverty. I pull down one of the sleeves of the black dress and use it to smudge the steam from the mirror, just for a moment, before it steams up again.

  Sadie was basically perfect in every way. I don’t know about her, but I was always the ugly kid; awkward and plain. I swear it’s one of the reasons no one ever wanted to adopt me out of the foster system. No one wants the girl with big alien eyes and a problem sucking her thumb.

  I’m not the homely little girl anymore, but I am still the girl on the outside looking in. Loner girl. Taking care of myself in a world that hasn’t given me a kind day in my life girl.

  So no matter how hard I look, the differences are too obvious for me to ignore.

  What else is obvious is the crappy, uncomfortable dress I’m wearing that’s two sizes too big, and makes me itch everywhere.

  I’m seventeen. It might only be by a few days, but I still shouldn’t have to put up with this kind of crap. As soon as I age out of the New York foster system I’ll be out on my own, and I’m simultaneously excited for and terrified by it. My days with Ms. Martin are numbered. Thank god.

  Her voice breaks over the sound of the running shower like a hyena cackle. I know this one. She’s on the phone with one of her friends, probably pacing through the living room while catching up on reality TV reruns she missed because she was passed out drunk over the weekend.

  “I wish I could, but I’ve got to take the kids to a dumb funeral.”

  Little snippets of her conversation cut through the sounds of Rachel switching out the shower with Cassie, who stops for a second to let me towel off the top of her head. Her short brown curls look a little thinner than I remember them, and I have to stuff down a twinge of guilt in the pit of my stomach. I’d always hoped these two would get adopted out before they got too old. But they arrived shortly after me last year and so far, it doesn’t look like they’re going anywhere soon.

  Like me, they’re going to have to learn that this is the way life is.

  “… girl ODed on her mother’s sleeping pills, oh yeah Heather, from what I heard the bitch has had a serious addiction.”

  “What’s addiction?” Cassie asks, pausing as she reaches for her own toothbrush.

  Shit. I slam the bathroom cabinet shut and turn heel to go.

  “Uh nothing … she has a serious addition problem. She loves math. Now hurry up, I’m not going to take responsibility with Ms. Martin if you make us late.”

  I turn on the faucet as high as I can to try to drown out the rest of Ms. Martin’s conversation before either of the girls asks any more tough questions. I should be harder on them, I know … teach them to stand up for themselves the way I had to learn. But I just can’t bring myself to do it.

  Don’t get close. I remind myself. One day, they’ll be gone too.

  They aren’t my sisters. They just live with me. For now.

  Ms. Martin’s conversation continues in the other room, but I try my best to block it out. The steam that’s settled on my hair and skin turns into a cool film on my body as soon as I shut the door behind me and stand in the hall.

  It’s rare that I’m surprised by anything, but I’ll admit … I didn’t expect this. Perfect little Sadie White, the poor little rich girl who has everything handed to her on a silver platter. The most popular girl in school. The prom queen. The cheerleading captain. Dead. All because she took something from mommy dearest’s medicine cabinet. I didn’t see that one coming.

  I brush my hair and pull it back in a wavy ponytail. Someday I’m going to find a way to end this nightmare. I’ve always got my eyes open; ready for the moment when my golden opportunity will come, and when it does, I am going to grab it with both hands and do everything I can to change my whole world.

  Chapter 2

  Within a few minutes Ms. Martin totters out of her room and starts clapping her hands like an overexcited seal to try and get us out the door faster. She’s wearing an old dress that might have looked hip in the ‘70’s but combined with the rest of her look … I press my fingertips to my lips and snort, trying not to laugh out loud as I glance over her hair and makeup.

  I don’t say anything to her as we head out, but she starts rambling and threatening me as we drive off. All I can do is stare outside at the passing streets and promise myself that one of these days I’ll get back at her for all she’s done.

  “Don’t you do anything stupid while we’re at this thing. You be on your best behavior. Do you hear me?” She swivels her head around and shoots a death glare at me in the passenger’s seat. Her eyes stay glued on me waiting for a response until I’m worried she’s going to crash the car and quickly bark out a reply.

  “Yes, Ms. Martin,” I recite to her. It’s the law around her house. We all have to call her that. Always.

  She turns her eyes back to the road ahead and I am already counting the city blocks going past. The longer we drive the nicer the neighborhoods become; the cement blocks and abandoned shopping carts turn into long stretches of green grass and manicured lawns, and the Rottweilers on chains to small designer poodles in dog carriers.

  We’re the first car to arrive at the facility where the funeral is being held. Ms. Martin pulls straight into the first
spot up front. She ignores the sign marking it for the immediate family of the deceased and switches off the car to save on gas while we wait for everyone else to arrive.

  I slouch down in my seat as far as possible and wish I could just completely disappear.

  “Who shows up early to a funeral?”

  A couple other cars have started to pull up and park beside us, and I catch one of the people dressed in black eyeing our parking job with narrowed eyes. Ms. Martin doesn’t look at me from where’s she’s fixing her gaudy red lipstick in the car mirror. She smacks her lips a couple times, and then flicks the visor back up.

  When she does, I spot a figure getting out of the car beside us and suddenly everything starts making sense. Ms. Martin sees where my eyes go, and suddenly her claws are digging into my arm. She leans down close and glares at me.

  “You’re going to be nice and quiet and put on a good show or you’re going to regret it. Do you want a bruise on your other arm to match the first one? Because I can put it there if you need convincing.”

  A face appears on the other side of the glass and she quickly lets go of my arm.

  “Oh, fancy seeing you here!” Ms. Martin says as she cranks down the manual window on her side.

  Lola Hines, the social services officer in charge of Ms. Martin’s case leans in to peer through the crack in the window.

  “I didn’t expect you see you here,” she says, her eyes flitting to the candy wrappers littering the floor and vodka bottle Ms. Martin keeps kicking back under the seat only for it to roll right back out.