The Liar Read online

  NORA ROBERTS

  Hot Ice

  Sacred Sins

  Brazen Virtue

  Sweet Revenge

  Public Secrets

  Genuine Lies

  Carnal Innocence

  Divine Evil

  Honest Illusions

  Private Scandals

  Hidden Riches

  True Betrayals

  Montana Sky

  Sanctuary

  Homeport

  The Reef

  River’s End

  Carolina Moon

  The Villa

  Midnight Bayou

  Three Fates

  Birthright

  Northern Lights

  Blue Smoke

  Angels Fall

  High Noon

  Tribute

  Black Hills

  The Search

  Chasing Fire

  The Witness

  Whiskey Beach

  Tonight and Always

  The Collector

  SERIES

  IRISH BORN TRILOGY

  Born in Fire

  Born in Ice

  Born in Shame

  DREAM TRILOGY

  Daring to Dream

  Holding the Dream

  Finding the Dream

  CHESAPEAKE BAY SAGA

  Sea Swept

  Rising Tides

  Inner Harbor

  Chesapeake Blue

  GALLAGHERS OF ARDMORE TRILOGY

  Jewels of the Sun

  Tears of the Moon

  Heart of the Sea

  THREE SISTERS ISLAND TRILOGY

  Dance Upon the Air

  Heaven and Earth

  Face the Fire

  KEY TRILOGY

  Key of Light

  Key of Knowledge

  Key of Valor

  IN THE GARDEN TRILOGY

  Blue Dahlia

  Black Rose

  Red Lily

  CIRCLE TRILOGY

  Morrigan’s Cross

  Dance of the Gods

  Valley of Silence

  SIGN OF SEVEN TRILOGY

  Blood Brothers

  The Hollow

  The Pagan Stone

  BRIDE QUARTET

  Vision in White

  Bed of Roses

  Savor the Moment

  Happy Ever After

  THE INN BOONSBORO TRILOGY

  The Next Always

  The Last Boyfriend

  The Perfect Hope

  THE COUSINS O’DWYER TRILOGY

  Dark Witch

  Shadow Spell

  Blood Magick

  eBOOKS BY NORA ROBERTS

  CORDINA’S ROYAL FAMILY

  Affaire Royale

  Command Performance

  The Playboy Prince

  Cordina’s Crown Jewel

  THE DONOVAN LEGACY

  Captivated

  Entranced

  Charmed

  Enchanted

  THE O’HURLEYS

  The Last Honest Woman

  Dance to the Piper

  Skin Deep

  Without a Trace

  NIGHT TALES

  Night Shift

  Night Shadow

  Nightshade

  Night Smoke

  Night Shield

  THE MACGREGORS

  The Winning Hand

  The Perfect Neighbor

  All the Possibilities

  One Man’s Art

  Tempting Fate

  Playing the Odds

  The MacGregor Brides

  The MacGregor Grooms

  Rebellion/In from the Cold

  For Now, Forever

  THE CALHOUNS

  Suzanna’s Surrender

  Megan’s Mate

  Courting Catherine

  A Man for Amanda

  For the Love of Lilah

  IRISH LEGACY

  Irish Rose

  Irish Rebel

  Irish Thoroughbred

  Best Laid Plans

  Loving Jack

  Lawless

  Summer Love

  Boundary Lines

  Dual Image

  First Impressions

  The Law Is a Lady

  Local Hero

  This Magic Moment

  The Name of the Game

  Partners

  Temptation

  The Welcoming

  Opposites Attract

  Time Was

  Times Change

  Gabriel’s Angel

  Holiday Wishes

  The Heart’s Victory

  The Right Path

  Rules of the Game

  Search for Love

  Blithe Images

  From This Day

  Song of the West

  Island of Flowers

  Her Mother’s Keeper

  Untamed

  Sullivan’s Woman

  Less of a Stranger

  Reflections

  Dance of Dreams

  Storm Warning

  Once More With Feeling

  Endings and Beginnings

  A Matter of Choice

  NORA ROBERTS & J. D. ROBB

  Remember When

  J. D. ROBB

  Naked in Death

  Glory in Death

  Immortal in Death

  Rapture in Death

  Ceremony in Death

  Vengeance in Death

  Holiday in Death

  Conspiracy in Death

  Loyalty in Death

  Witness in Death

  Judgment in Death

  Betrayal in Death

  Seduction in Death

  Reunion in Death

  Purity in Death

  Portrait in Death

  Imitation in Death

  Divided in Death

  Visions in Death

  Survivor in Death

  Origin in Death

  Memory in Death

  Born in Death

  Innocent in Death

  Creation in Death

  Strangers in Death

  Salvation in Death

  Promises in Death

  Kindred in Death

  Fantasy in Death

  Indulgence in Death

  Treachery in Death

  New York to Dallas

  Celebrity in Death

  Delusion in Death

  Calculated in Death

  Thankless in Death

  Concealed in Death

  Festive in Death

  Obsession in Death

  ANTHOLOGIES

  From the Heart

  A Little Magic

  A Little Fate

  Moon Shadows

  (with Jill Gregory, Ruth Ryan Langan, and Marianne Willman)

  THE ONCE UPON SERIES

  (with Jill Gregory, Ruth Ryan Langan, and Marianne Willman)

  Once Upon a Castle

  Once Upon a Star

  Once Upon a Dream

  Once Upon a Rose

  Once Upon a Kiss

  Once Upon a Midnight

  Silent Night

  (with Susan Plunkett, Dee Holmes, and Claire Cross)

  Out of This World

  (with Laurell K. Hamilton, Susan Krinard, and Maggie
Shayne)

  Bump in the Night

  (with Mary Blayney, Ruth Ryan Langan, and Mary Kay McComas)

  Dead of Night

  (with Mary Blayney, Ruth Ryan Langan, and Mary Kay McComas)

  Three in Death

  Suite 606

  (with Mary Blayney, Ruth Ryan Langan, and Mary Kay McComas)

  In Death

  The Lost

  (with Patricia Gaffney, Mary Blayney, and Ruth Ryan Langan)

  The Other Side

  (with Mary Blayney, Patricia Gaffney, Ruth Ryan Langan, and Mary Kay McComas)

  Time of Death

  The Unquiet

  (with Mary Blayney, Patricia Gaffney, Ruth Ryan Langan, and Mary Kay McComas)

  Mirror, Mirror

  (with Mary Blayney, Elaine Fox, Mary Kay McComas, and R. C. Ryan)

  ALSO AVAILABLE . . .

  The Official Nora Roberts Companion

  (edited by Denise Little and Laura Hayden)

  G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS

  Publishers Since 1838

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) LLC

  375 Hudson Street

  New York, New York 10014

  USA • Canada • UK • Ireland • Australia • New Zealand • India • South Africa • China

  penguin.com

  A Penguin Random House Company

  Copyright © 2015 by Nora Roberts

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Roberts, Nora.

  The liar / Nora Roberts.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 978-0-698-16135-1

  I. Title.

  PS3568.O243L53 2015 2014040678

  813'.54—dc23

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  For JoAnne,

  the amazing forever friend

  Contents

  Other Titles by Nora Roberts

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  PART I | THE FALSE

  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

  PART II | THE ROOTS

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  PART III | THE REAL

  Chapter 30

  Epilogue

  1

  In the big house—and Shelby would always think of it as the big house—she sat in her husband’s big leather chair at his big, important desk. The color of the chair was espresso. Not brown. Richard had been very exact about that sort of thing. The desk itself, so sleek and shiny, was African zebra wood, and custom-made for him in Italy.

  When she’d said—just a joke—that she didn’t know they had zebras in Italy, he’d given her that look. The look that told her despite the big house, the fancy clothes and the fat diamond on the fourth finger of her left hand, she’d always be Shelby Anne Pomeroy, two steps out of the bumpkin town in Tennessee where she was born and raised.

  He’d have laughed once, she thought now, he’d have known she was joking and laughed as if she were the sparkle in his life. But oh God, she’d dulled in his eyes, and so fast, too.

  The man she’d met nearly five years before on a starry summer night had swept her off her feet, away from everything she’d known, into worlds she’d barely imagined.

  He’d treated her like a princess, shown her places she’d only read about in books or seen in movies. And he’d loved her once—hadn’t he? It was important to remember that. He’d loved her, wanted her, given her all any woman could ask for.

  Provided. That was a word he’d often used. He’d provided for her.

  Maybe he’d been upset when she got pregnant, maybe she’d been afraid—just for a minute—of the look in his eyes when she told him. But he’d married her, hadn’t he? Whisked her off to Las Vegas like they were having the adventure of a lifetime.

  They’d been happy then. It was important to remember that now, too. She had to remember that, to hold tight the memories of the good times.

  A woman widowed at twenty-four needed memories.

  A woman who learned she’d been living a lie, was not only broke but in terrible, breathtaking debt, needed reminders of the good times.

  The lawyers and accountants and tax people explained it all to her, but they might as well have been speaking Greek when they went on about leveraging and hedge funds and foreclosures. The big house, one that had intimidated her since she’d walked in the door, wasn’t hers—or not enough hers to matter—but the mortgage company’s. The cars, leased not bought, and with the payments overdue, not hers, either.

  The furniture? Bought on credit, and those payments overdue.

  And the taxes. She couldn’t bear to think about the taxes. It terrified her to think of them.

  In the two months and eight days since Richard’s death, it seemed all she did was think about matters he’d told her not to worry about, matters that weren’t her concern. Matters, when he’d give her that look, that were none of her business.

  Now it was all her concern, and all her business, because she owed creditors, a mortgage company and the United States government so much money it paralyzed her.

  She couldn’t afford to be paralyzed. She had a child, she had a daughter. Callie was all that mattered now. She was only three, Shelby thought, and wanted to lay her head down on that slick, shiny desk and weep.

  “But you won’t. You’re what she’s got now, so you’ll do whatever has to be done.”

  She opened one of the boxes, the one marked “Personal Papers.” The lawyers and tax people had taken everything, gone through everything, copied everything, she supposed.

  Now she would go through everything, and see what could be salvaged. For Callie.

  She needed to find enough, somewhere, to provide for her child after she’d paid off all the debt. She’d get work, of course, but it wouldn’t be enough.

  She didn’t care about the money, she thought as she began going through receipts for suits and shoes and restaurants and hotels. For private planes. She’d learned she didn’t care about the money after the first whirlwind year, after Callie.

  After Callie all she’d wanted was a home.

  She stopped, looked around Richard’s office. The harsh colors of the modern art he’d preferred, the stark white walls he said best showed off that art, and the dark woods and leathers.

  This wouldn’t be home, and hadn’t been. Would never be, she thought, if she lived here eighty years instead of the scant three months since the
y’d moved in.

  He’d bought it without consulting her, furnished it without asking what she’d like. A surprise, he’d said, throwing open the doors to this monster house in Villanova, this echoing building in what he’d claimed was the best of the Philadelphia suburbs.

  And she’d pretended to love it, hadn’t she? Grateful for a settled place, however much the hard colors and towering ceilings intimidated. Callie would have a home, go to good schools, play in a safe neighborhood.

  Make friends. She’d make friends, too—that had been her hope.

  But there hadn’t been time.

  Just as there wasn’t a ten-million-dollar life insurance policy. He’d lied about that, too. Lied about the college fund for Callie.

  Why?

  She put that question aside. She’d never know the answer, so why ask why?

  She could take his suits and shoes and ties and his sports equipment, the golf clubs and skis. Take all those to consignment shops. Take what she could get there.

  Take whatever they didn’t repossess and sell it. On damn eBay if she had to. Or Craigslist. Or a pawnshop, it didn’t matter.

  Plenty in her own closet to sell. And jewelry, too.

  She looked at the diamond, the ring he’d slipped on her finger when they got to Vegas. The wedding ring, she’d keep, but the diamond, she’d sell. There was plenty of her own to sell.

  For Callie.

  She went through files, one by one. They’d taken all the computers, and those she didn’t have back yet. But the actual paper was tangible.

  She opened his medical file.

  He’d taken good care of himself, she thought—which reminded her to cancel the memberships at the country club, at the fitness center. That had gone out of her mind. He’d been a healthy man, one who kept his body in tune, who never missed a checkup.

  She needed to toss out all those vitamins and supplements he’d taken daily, she decided as she turned over another paper.

  No reason to keep those, no reason to keep these records, either. The healthy man had drowned in the Atlantic, just a few miles off the South Carolina coast, at the age of thirty-three.

  She should just shred all this. Richard had been big on shredding and had his own machine right there in the office. Creditors didn’t need to see the results of his last routine blood work or the confirmation of his flu shot from two years ago, paperwork from the emergency room from when he’d dislocated his finger playing basketball.

  For God’s sake, that had been three years ago. For a man who’d shred enough paperwork to make a mountain range, he’d sure been possessive about his medical receipts.