Tell Me No Lies Read online

  ALSO BY A. V. GEIGER

  Follow Me Back

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  Copyright © 2018 by A. V. Geiger

  Cover and internal design © 2018 by Sourcebooks, Inc.

  Cover design by Nicole Hower/Sourcebooks, Inc.

  Branding by Connie Gabbert

  Cover image © Ilina Simeonova/Trevillion Images

  Internal image on p. 77, 323 © eugenesergeev/Thinkstock

  Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks, Inc.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Published by Sourcebooks Fire, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc.

  P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Geiger, A. V., author.

  Title: Tell me no lies / A.V. Geiger.

  Description: Naperville, Illinois : Sourcebooks Fire, [2018] | Sequel to: Follow me back. | Summary: Tessa and Eric are forced out of hiding when pop star Dorian Grey is found alive, intimate photos appear on Eric’s biggest fan account, and Tessa becomes a suspect in a murder.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017043009 |

  Subjects: | CYAC: Agoraphobia--Fiction. | Mental illness--Fiction. | Celebrities--Fiction. | Social media--Fiction. | Stalking--Fiction. | Singers--Fiction. | Popular music--Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.1.G4475 Tel 2018 | DDC [Fic]--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017043009

  To my mom and dad, with love.

  CONTENTS

  The Interrogation (Fragment 1)

  1. Dead Celebrities

  2. Alive and Well

  3. Just Another Snowflake

  4. Cognitive Distortions

  5. The Curse of the Male Celebrity

  6. Insecure

  The Interrogation (Fragment 2)

  7. Baggage

  8. Time’s Up

  The Interrogation (Fragment 3)

  9. Social Media Consulting

  10. Sad Kitty Cat

  The Interrogation (Fragment 4)

  11. The Show

  12. Indirect Messages

  13. Losing It

  The Interrogation (Fragment 5)

  14. Pistols at Dawn

  The Interrogation (Fragment 6)

  15. Female Problems

  The Interrogation (Fragment 7)

  16. Unreliable Witness

  The Interrogation (Fragment 8)

  17. Radio Silence

  The Interrogation (Fragment 9)

  18. False Evidence

  The Interrogation (Fragment 10)

  19. Him

  The Interrogation (Fragment 11)

  20. Remote Control

  The Interrogation (Fragment 12)

  21. Say Something

  22. Baby

  23. Questions and Answers

  24. The Mind Perceives

  25. Hit Refresh…On Your Life

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  THE INTERROGATION

  (FRAGMENT 1)

  May 1, 2017, 2:19 p.m.

  Case #75932.394.1

  OFFICIAL TRANSCRIPTION OF POLICE INTERVIEW

  —START PAGE 1—

  INVESTIGATOR: Thank you for joining us, Ms. Hart. For the record, I’m Detective Tyrone Stevens with the Los Angeles Police Department. This is my partner, Detective Andrew Morales. Today is May 1, 2017, at 2:19 p.m. This interview is being recorded.

  HART: Why am I here exactly?

  INVESTIGATOR: Just a few questions. Could you please state your full name for the record?

  HART: Tessa Lynn Hart.

  INVESTIGATOR: Occupation?

  HART: I’m a social media consultant.

  INVESTIGATOR: Consultant. Very nice. You’re how old now?

  HART: I’m nineteen.

  INVESTIGATOR: And how long have you been in that profession?

  HART: A few months. I started in January.

  INVESTIGATOR: What date in January? Can you recall?

  HART: January 1.

  INVESTIGATOR: New Year’s Day?

  HART: Yes.

  INVESTIGATOR: And what services do you provide for your clients?

  HART: Only one client. I run his Twitter… Sorry, can I have a glass of water?

  INVESTIGATOR: Are you all right?

  HART: No… [pause] It’ll pass. Just give me a sec.

  INVESTIGATOR: Are you ill, Ms. Hart?

  HART: I’m OK now. What were you asking me?

  INVESTIGATOR: What do you charge as your consulting fee?

  HART: I can’t tell you that.

  INVESTIGATOR: Ms. Hart, this will all go much faster if you simply answer the questions.

  HART: I’m really not allowed to say. I signed a nondisclosure agreement.

  INVESTIGATOR: Well, let me ask you this: If we were to contact your so-called client, would he corroborate your statement that he employs you as a… What did you call it again? A social media consultant?

  HART: Are you calling me a liar?

  INVESTIGATOR: I’m simply trying to get the facts on the record.

  HART: Look, I can prove it. I’m not delusional, OK?

  INVESTIGATOR: No need to get defensive, Tessa. We’re simply trying to establish your employment history.

  HART: I already told you as much as I can say about it, so can we please move on?

  INVESTIGATOR: I’ll decide when we move on.

  HART: I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be rude, but you haven’t even told me what you’re investigating. What division are you guys with?

  INVESTIGATOR: Homicide.

  HART: Oh.

  INVESTIGATOR: Ms. Hart, the Twitter account you say you run… Is it by any chance the Twitter-verified account of Eric Thorn?

  HART: What homicide? Is someone dead?

  INVESTIGATOR: Tessa, did your role as a social media consultant include the tweet sent from the @EricThorn Twitter account on… Andy, what was that tweet again?

  INVESTIGATOR 2: “Sleep with a leech, and it just might bleed you dry.” Tweeted January 1, 2017, at 7:26 a.m.

  INVESTIGATOR: That’s right. New Year’s Day. Tessa, you tweeted that message from Mr. Thorn’s account, did you not?

  HART: Like I told you, I signed a nondisclosure—

  INVESTIGATOR: Do you have a copy of the agreement you signed?

  HART: N-no. I mean, not on me. I don’t carry it around with me.

  INVESTIGATOR: See, the odd thing is, according to the Twitter records we obtained, someone tweeted that one message, and then there was no further activity on the account for an extended period. In fact, the account with username @EricThorn was completely inactive over the entire month of January. Does that sound right to you?

  HART: Wait. You already have the Twitter records?

  INVESTIGATOR: And then the account resumed activity on… Do you have tha
t date, Andy?

  INVESTIGATOR 2: February 3, 2017.

  INVESTIGATOR: Tessa, what happened on or about February 3, 2017?

  HART: I’m not stupid, OK? You obviously already know.

  INVESTIGATOR: For the record, Ms. Hart.

  HART: February 3. It was a couple days after the news broke.

  INVESTIGATOR: What news, Tessa?

  HART: It was all over the Internet. There’s no way you could’ve missed it. I was living out of a VW camper van on the other side of the Mexican border, and I still heard the news.

  INVESTIGATOR: Tessa, can I ask you to clarify what news story you’re referencing?

  HART: It started with one little post on Facebook, and then it spread like wildfire. It trended on Twitter for weeks. You’d have to be living under a rock not to have heard about it. I mean, I practically was living under a rock.

  INVESTIGATOR: For the record, you’re referring to—

  HART: Dorian Cromwell, lead singer of Fourth Dimension, spotted by some goatherd in Switzerland…very much alive.

  1

  DEAD CELEBRITIES

  February 1, 2017 (Three Months Earlier)

  “And this just in. We’re getting word now from sources in Switzerland that the Facebook Live video has been authenticated. The man in the video is, in fact, Dorian Cromwell—”

  Tessa squinted at the tiny image on her phone, straining to make out the facial features of the blurry figure. The thirty-second clip showed a lone man making his way down an icy slope. He had his face tipped down, eyes on the uneven terrain, but he glanced up and raised a ski pole in greeting as the clip ended.

  Dorian Cromwell, for real? How could they be so certain? To Tessa, the man looked more like a cross between a hippie and a homeless person, with a scraggly beard and a mop of unwashed hair that hung down below his shoulders. She supposed she could see a passing resemblance to the formerly clean-cut boy band leader, but it was hard to say. A bush of facial hair concealed the whole bottom half of his face. The video was shot from too far away to make out his age or eye color.

  Someone had streamed it on Facebook two days ago with a geotag in Munster, Switzerland, and a clickbaiting caption:

  Guten Tag, Dorian. #DorianCromwell #VeryMuchAlive

  Tessa had noticed the story on TMZ the other day, but she hadn’t given it much thought. Just another rumor started by some attention seeker. It happened with Eric all the time too. In the month since Eric’s disappearance from Texas, he’d been “spotted” dozens of times by fans around the world. All fake, of course. Those pics were old shots doctored in Photoshop, easily recognizable to anyone who followed Eric’s social media half as closely as Tessa always had.

  Still, the mere thought of dead celebrities made Tessa’s pulse rate jump. She shifted position inside the back of the van, sitting up straight. The thin, fold-down cushion that served as her sleeping surface creaked beneath her weight. At the noise, her eyes flicked to the tinted van window beside her. She’d propped it open a few minutes ago to let in a whiff of the cool mountain air. It was after dusk, and the long shadows of the pine trees cloaked the van’s interior in darkness. No one could see her inside. The rational part of her mind knew that—and yet she fought the urge to pull the window closed.

  “No,” Tessa muttered. She’d suffocate in here without fresh air. She closed her eyes and pulled in a deep breath, counting the beats inside her head.

  Eric one…Eric two…Eric three…

  Better.

  There was no one out there watching her. Tessa had learned to view the lingering sense of dread with clinical detachment. It was anxiety creeping up on her. A quirk of her brain chemistry. Nothing more. Nothing real. The van was parked at the far end of a densely wooded campground in the foothills of a Mexican mountain range. It was quiet here, with only a couple other cars parked near the cabins at the other end of the unpaved lot.

  No one was watching. No one cared about some beat-up, old VW camper with Texas plates.

  Tessa exhaled slowly, releasing the tension from her lungs. She turned her attention back to her phone. The story about Dorian was turning into more than idle Twitter gossip. Tessa was tuned in to a live stream of U.S. network television, and they’d interrupted the evening news to cover the breaking story. She wished they would freeze the frame so she could study the face in the video. She didn’t dare hit Pause, for fear that she might lose her connection to the feed.

  The show went to commercial, and Tessa glanced toward the window again. She pulled out one of her headphones to listen for the sound of approaching footsteps, swallowing against the bubble of tension that swelled inside her chest.

  Her ears were greeted by the gentle sounds of nightfall. The distant hoot of an owl. The babble of the creek that ran nearby. The breeze stirring back and forth through the tree limbs. Not a human sound in the mix.

  Safe.

  If only she could make her mind believe that…

  Tessa scowled. She knew she should focus on the positive. She would always have anxiety, but she’d come a long way since December. Literally. Her phone’s GPS placed her at 543.2 miles from her childhood home in Midland. To think, only a month ago, she’d worried she would never set foot outside her front door.

  So much for small steps. Tessa pursed her lips at the thought of her old therapist, Dr. Regan, and the excruciating desensitization exercises she’d prescribed. What a monumental waste of time. In the end, the small steps led nowhere. Everything had changed in one night. One giant leap.

  Tessa couldn’t really blame her therapist though. She never would have attempted this trip if she hadn’t been forced by circumstances. Tessa still longed for the safe cocoon of her childhood home, but she knew she could never go back. Not after what happened there on New Year’s Eve. The house itself had become one giant trigger. The mere thought of the rotted, old back deck made Tessa’s mouth go dry.

  No, her old, safe refuge was lost to her—like an empty womb, and she was the infant who’d been ripped from it and cast out into the cold, harsh world. By dawn on New Year’s Day, she’d understood that she couldn’t stay there any longer. She knew what she had to do.

  A month had passed since that morning. All that blood…staining her hands, her clothes, her mother’s hallway carpet… Then easing the Ferrari down the unplowed, snowy streets, with its owner hidden in the trunk…

  And then the frantic flight across the border. Tessa had rolled into this campground by nightfall on January 2, and the journey had taken every ounce of mental stamina she possessed. She’d collapsed after she got here. Taken a double dose of anxiety meds and slept in the back of the van for twenty-four hours straight. But she’d made it. When push came to shove, she was stronger than she knew.

  Tessa nodded to herself. She turned her back to the open window and bent over her phone. The live stream cut back to the news studio, and Tessa slipped in her earphones to listen.

  “Once again, if you’re just tuning in, a spokesperson has confirmed that Dorian Cromwell is not dead. He has been living for the past seven months in an underpopulated region of the Swiss Alps, accessible only by foot or cross-country ski…”

  Tessa fought back the urge to shake her phone. The whole story made no sense! Dorian’s death couldn’t have been staged. They found his body in the Thames. They conducted a murder trial and locked up his killer in a psych hospital. How could he have faked all that?

  “—still a lot of unanswered questions.” The news anchor paused and pressed in his earpiece, listening. Tessa leaned forward as she waited for new information. “Right. I’m getting word now that—”

  But Tessa never heard the end of his sentence.

  Out of nowhere, the sound cut out. Tessa’s head snapped up. She registered the shadow of a human arm, reaching through the window behind her. She lunged to close the curtain, but not before her gaze locked with a pair of eyes peering back at her in the darkness.

  “Oh my God,” she whispered, clapping a hand to her heart. “
You scared me!”

  Her travel companion made no reply. He slid the van door open, with her headphone jack in his hands and a curious expression on his face.

  “Sorry, sweet pea,” Eric said after he settled onto his half of the double mattress. “You looked intense. What are you watching?”

  2

  ALIVE AND WELL

  Eric handed the headphones back to Tessa. He stretched out on his side, with his head propped in his hand and his knee forming an upright triangle with the mattress. He recognized it as a classic underwear modeling position—a pose he’d struck so many times that it must have lodged itself permanently in his muscle memory.

  He wrinkled his nose and sat up.

  Tessa watched his movements, but her eyes looked blank and hollow. Had it been the wrong move, pulling out her earbuds? He could see he’d set her off by the way her face went rigid. In the month since they’d run away together, Eric had learned to recognize that tension at the corners of Tessa’s mouth whenever her anxiety level rose.

  “Are you OK?” he asked, reaching for her hand. “I didn’t mean to creep up.” He’d gone out to stretch his legs under the cover of darkness, and he couldn’t have been away for more than ten minutes. He’d pulled out her earbuds without thinking—one of those playful gestures of intimacy that people do all the time when they’re in a relationship. She must have been too fixated on her phone to hear him approach.

  Tessa pulled her hand away, but her face softened. She scrunched her mouth to the side, trying for a stern look. “‘Sweet pea,’ Eric? Are you still calling me that?”

  Eric grinned. “That’s your name! It’s not my fault you turned out to be nonspherical.” He waved his hand with mock irritation toward the long, slender legs that lay beside him, clad in a pair of skin-tight yoga pants, with her fuzzy, pink bunny slippers covering her feet.

  A reluctant smile curled her lips. “Um, that nickname sounded a lot less cheesy over DM.”

  “No good?” He reached over and pinched her knee, gathering the black spandex between his thumb and index finger. “Would you prefer ‘snowflake’?”