Page 47 of Filthy Liar

He catches me around the waist and tugs me close again. “Liar.”

“Takes one to know one.” I kiss him, at first to shut him up, then I keep going because it feels good. A spontaneous sweetness that takes us both by surprise. But fuck it, if the world is going to end, I’m going to have the taste of him on my lips when it does. “Maybe everything. I don’t know.”

He takes my hand in his and pulls me to the stairwell. “Listen, I don’t want you to be alone tonight. Come back to my place.”

I shake my head. “No.”

He tries to protest, but I cut him off. “You can come to mine, though. If you want.”

One more night together. A few more moments that will have to last us a lifetime.

16

Jason

The photo is damn convincing.

Wilson’s already running it through image comparison searches when we skid to a halt in his office doorway, and it repeats on three different screens.

Ellie gasps audibly. “I know,” she growls. “It’s not real, but that fucker.”

“We have a data ping, too. The image was sent from New York City.”

“Not D.C.?” Ellie scoots in closer to the screen. “That phone took quite a trip today.”

“Or it’s a deliberate misdirection,” Wilson warns her.

“Mmm. Good point.” She snaps her fingers as she examines the image properties. “Hey, is that… That’s not a coincidence,” she whispers to Wilson. “Right?”

“Four and a half minutes. I don’t think it’s a coincidence at all.”

“What are you two talking about?” I bark the question at them.

“We’ve figured out a bit of data on the images that could serve as a digital signature,” Wilson says. “A time gap between two pieces of data on the file. There’s no reason for it to be consistent across multiple images from different sources, so…”

Ellie straightens up, her face set in a grim expression. “We’re maybe dealing with a single bad actor. Whoever tried to blackmail Jeff Mayfair is also pretending to have Caroline.”

“Who would benefit from that?” I can’t make sense of it. “There’s nothing that ties the two cases together.”

“It’s a post-truth world. Nothing matters if everything is suspect. Maybe the ransom isn’t the goal. Maybe the confusion and doubt is the goal.” Ellie points in the general direction of the street. “Maybe someone has a camera trained on the entrance to your building. They saw Caroline approach, obviously in distress, greeted by Cole—who also brought in Jeff Mayfair, right?”

Cole frowns. “But then they would know that we have her and she’s safe?”

“Right. Which immediately means these text messages are not what they seem, so we go looking for a different explanation.” Ellie’s storming ahead, the words tripping out of her mouth she’s talking so fast, and I’m stuck on the idea of our offices being under surveillance.

I just had her naked on the roof. Were we in shadows the whole time? What if I had fucked her up there? My vision goes a furious shade of red.

But my would-be lover is still focused on a complicated theory I’ve now lost half the train of thought on. Fuck.

She pops her hands on her hips. “All of us, right now, are looking in the wrong spot…or maybe from the wrong angle.”

Cole is nodding along with her. “Right. Who benefits from that?”

Nobody.

The truth is, there’s no benefit in that kind of toxic malevolence. If Ellie’s right, and someone is trying to mindfuck us, it’s because they’ve gone past the point of no return. Or, even worse, they’ve decided this is the endgame for them.

What stops madmen from wreaking destruction at every turn? The fear that it might not beenoughdamage. They wait, biding their time for the right opportunity, and enjoying life in the meantime—because life as you know it comes to a screeching halt once you rain fire down on others. It’s the same for despots and dictators, for serial killers and cultists.

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