Tell Me Lies
Tell Me Lies
Gail Chianese
Contents
PRAISE FOR GAIL CHIANESE
Title
Dedication
Acknowledgments
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
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Epilogue
More
Before The Dawn
About the Author
PRAISE FOR GAIL CHIANESE
Camden Point Mystery series
"Gail Chianese explodes onto the paranormal romantic mystery scene with a slow-burn, second-chance romance that readers of the genre are sure to love!" — Elicia Hyder, bestselling author of The Soul Summoner series
“In Gail Chianese’s mystery, Tell Me Lies, the characters are fresh, the plot is complex, and the readers will definitely savor the piquantly sweet sex scenes. But it’s the side-splittingly hilarious banter between Lexie and her best friend and agency partner, Kat Jones, that is the frothy icing on this multi-layered whodunit.“ — Josie Brown, author, The Housewife Assassin’s Handbook series
West Side Romance series
"Convincing characters, hot love scenes, and emotional depth."— Library Journal on Bachelorette for Sale (starred review)
"This book will make your heart smile." —Kristan Higgins, New York Times bestselling author
"This book lives up to the promise of its title: playful, sweet, sexy and fun."— Jamie Beck, Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestselling author
"Gail Chianese is a spunky, spirited, and sassy new voice in contemporary romance with a series destined for the keeper shelf!"— Roxanne St. Claire, New York Times bestselling author
"The West Side Romance series is like the perfect pick-me-up latte—hot and steamy, with a layer of frothy fun on the top!"— Jessica Andersen, New York Times bestselling author
“Engaging and down-to-earth…features characters readers can root for.” — Library Journal
Changing Tides series
“Recommended for contemporary romance fans who appreciate strong female leads, handsome naval officers, and a dog playing matchmaker.” — Library Journal
"Love Runs Deep is her finest work to date." Slick, Guilty Pleasures
TELL ME
Lies
* * *
Gail Chianese
Tell Me Lies
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Copyright © 2020 by Gail Chianese
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
This ebook/book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright ACT of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the author, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
Published by Gail Chianese, author.
Cover design by The Final Wrap
Author photo by Julia Gerace
Printed in the United States of America
Created with Vellum
Dedication
For Amy Higgison and Ramon Kersch
* * *
To late nights in hotel bars…
To lots of laughter…
And priceless friendships.
Even though I love this book, loved everything about writing this book, it wouldn’t see the light of day without the help, encouragement, and love of so many. Here are the people to thank or curse for making sure this book got published:
My husband, my biggest fan, my greatest love.
My kids, the loves of my life who encourage me to never give up.
My mom, for supporting my dream.
The rest of my family (too many to name, we’d be here all day), thank you for your faith in me, your support and hustling my books to your friends.
My MTBS, you are all such amazing, talented, intelligent, and fierce women. I’m lucky to call you friends and so thankful to have you watching my back, and making me laugh.
Jane Haertel, the best editor ever, who makes my work shine and really gets it.
Rebecca Pau, for the amazing covers!
And last, but never least, the Readers, for loving to read, for spending your precious time in my world, and making my dreams come true.
~ Gail
Chapter 1
It was a perfect spring evening for spying. The moon hid behind the clouds. The majority of the oceanfront homes on this stretch of the beach were still vacant for the season. And their target? Well, he was finally cooperating.
It was a private investigator’s dream. Or it should have been, except Lexie Smith hated everything about this case.
“Have you gotten the picture of the lying-cheating-rat-bastard yet?” Kat Jones asked for the tenth time.
“No. Now hush, before we get caught.” Lexie shifted her butt to sit firmly on the tree branch and glanced toward the neighbor’s house on the left. They had come home early. Just her freaking luck. Hopefully the cool breeze blowing off the water would keep them inside.
Lexie turned back to their assignment. Her firm, LexaKat PI, had been hired to prove that Mr. Salvatore Figerello, the aforementioned lying-cheating-rat-bastard, was engaged in an adulterous affair. Over the course of the last week, Mr. Figerello, the LCRB, had not cooperated in proving his wife correct, until tonight when he’d brought home his administrative assistant.
Talk about a cliché.
Both she and Kat, her best friend and business partner, were armed with telephoto lenses ready to obtain proof for their client.
“She’s pretty,” Lexie said.
“Pretty young.”
“What a cute belt.”
“I think it’s supposed to be a skirt.”
“This blows,” Lexie whispered. This was not how she pictured her career. Where were the cases in which she got to hunt down the bad guys, recover stolen jewels and artwork, or reunite long-lost loved ones? It was moments like these that made her question her choice to open a private investigations company. “I’d rather be working insurance fraud. Does he really think she’s in love with him? He’s twice her age.”
“More like in love with his bank balance.” Kat scooted further out on her branch. “Move your foot so I can get a picture of the tramp while she prances in front of the window. Now, if he'd just shut up and make his move, we could get what we need and get out of here.”
“Let’s not take any more infidelity cases, okay? Watching him flush his marriage down the septic tank over a quick ego boost is depressing. Not to mention, I feel slimy.”
“Okay with me, but last I heard you liked to eat.”
Her stomach grumbled as if agreeing with Kat. “I could stand to lose a few.”
“Right. Speaking of eating, it’s still early and since you blew off your date with Benjamin Franklin Bacon the Fourth, we should go get dinner when we’re done. Maybe catch a movie?”
“I’m not dating Ben. My mom wanted me to round out the dinner party numbers.” She took a few more pictures and paused. “Isn’t P
aul at home waiting for you?”
“Does Ben know that? And no, Paul had a thing. So, dinner?” She smiled over her shoulder at Lexie. “We could get bacon burgers.”
“Funny.”
“Seriously, how can you date a guy with the last name of Bacon? I'd be hungry all the time. I’d be like one of those dogs in the commercial—‘Bacon, bacon, baaaacon, I smell baaconnnn.’ He needs a nickname like B4, and then I won’t always be thinking of eating.”
As if that could ever happen. “Again, not dating. Now shush. We're here to do a job, not discuss my social life. Besides, if you ate more than rabbit food you wouldn’t always be hungry.”
Not wanting to continue the conversation, Lexie snapped a succession of pictures of the LCRB and mistress as they moved into a tender embrace. She’d gone out with Benjamin a few times and the sizzle didn’t even fizzle. He was a nice guy that she knew her parents hoped would end up being more than her plus-one at social functions, but she just didn’t see it happening. They needed to stop pushing him on her before he got the wrong idea and wound up hurt.
“Just a couple more minutes and we can wrap up this case.”
“Speaking of social lives.” Kat scooted back to look her in the eye. “You never did say what you thought about a certain former resident’s return and his position as lead detective with the police department?”
Keeping her eye on the assignment, Lexie refused Kat’s invitation to discuss the topic of Rafe Barandas. Yeah, she’d heard about his appointment with the department. Witnessed him making his way around town, saying hello to the business owners, getting to know the new people in town. Lexie had had several near misses with the detective to date and she planned to keep it that way.
Getting reacquainted with her former flame, no matter how hot he’d become, was listed on her agenda under the never doing section.
“Hey, girls, what’re you doing in a tree?”
Lexie reached out to grab Kat as she jumped at the voice below, and missed. It was a close call, but Kat managed to grasp the branch and save herself from a painful fall. Lexie shook her head and returned to her task.
Vinnie, another man she wasn’t in the mood to deal with.
Lexie dropped the camera around her neck and took in Vinnie’s outfit. Her eye twitched. Her lips fought to stay straight. She lost the battle.
“Thank goodness no one else can see you.”
He looked down at his white polyester suit with the wide lapels, black silk shirt, and high-polished dress shoes and ran a hand through slicked-back hair.
Must be disco night.
“What’s wrong with the suit?” He went all New York old-school gangster, tugging at his lapels and looking indignant.
“Vinnie, the seventies are long gone. They were gone before you died.” She didn’t understand it, but for some reason the universe had decided to attach Vinnie to her and Kat the moment they were born, which just happened to be seconds apart from each other and the same moment he died.
“Like it matters what I wear. The only ones who can see me are yous two. Sometimes being dead sucks. I get all decked out and you give me grief.” He snorted out a sigh and leaned back against the trunk of the tree. “What’s the gig tonight?”
“Stakeout. What are you doing here anyway?” She turned back to her subjects, gathering more evidence and trying not to lose her cookies as the LCRB stripped to his tighty-whities. “You look like you’re ready to slide across a dance floor.”
“Thought I’d get some fresh air. Take a stroll down the beach. Saw you two birds perched up in the tree. Figured I’d see what’s up.” He looked across the yard and chuckled. “Figerello’s niece is visiting again.”
The women exchanged a look. Lexie swallowed her response as she focused on the subjects ahead of her.
“You’re a sick puppy, Vinnie. Try the LCRB of the Week and his sleaze of a secretary. We haven’t seen much of you in the office lately. Where’ve you been?” Kat asked.
“You know, here, there, keeping an eye on the local action,” he replied.
Kat gave her one of those whatever eye rolls. Camden Point, Connecticut, population just under ten-K, was a hotbed of activity. Not. Weekend options generally consisted of basket weaving at the senior center, catching a flick at the community center (aka the elementary school lunchroom) or hanging out at the dive bar on the edge of town.
Of course, she could always go to the country club with her parents and their friends. The idea rated right up there with surgery minus anesthesia.
But regardless of the usual snooze factor, Camden Point was home.
LexaKat PI had opened two years ago and their most exciting job to date had been locating a missing seventy-year-old woman who ended up being at Foxwoods Casino hitting the slots. Most of the time, the cases were exactly like tonight, conducting surveillance on misbehaving spouses or insurance claims with the occasional subpoena being served. Yet their reputation was growing and, sooner or later, the bigger cases—the ones she craved like a chocoholic craved chocolate—would come their way.
Scanning the floor-to-ceiling windows that ran the full length of the house overlooking Long Island Sound, she spied the lovers in the master bedroom. Lexie snapped off a series of make-no-mistake-he's-cheating pictures and slowly scooted toward the trunk of the tree.
“Okay, people, that's a wrap. We have proof Mr. Salvatore Figerello is, indeed, a no-good LCRB, ensuring Mrs. Figerello of an uncontested divorce and protecting her prenup and property. Let's get out of here.”
She shooed Kat with her hand to get her to shimmy down the tree so she could follow.
“Hey, what's going on next door?” Vinnie asked.
Both Lexie and Kat looked toward the neighbors on the left, but Vinnie shook his head and pointed in the other direction to a house she knew well. Alan and Holly Irwin were her godparents and currently being wined and dined at the club by Lexie’s parents. The dark house held no sign of life, as expected.
Thank goodness for small favors.
All was as it should be. A few houses down, the anxious, possessive bark of a dog claiming his yard echoed through the night. The constant yapping—my yard, my yard—and the rotten assignment stole the enjoyment out of a perfectly good evening of listening to the gentle whoosh of the ocean as it rushed onto the sandy shore.
“Vin, nothing's going on next door. Now move out of my way, or I'm going through you. While we have permission from the wife—who's the legal property owner—it doesn't mean I want a confrontation with the husband, especially in his current state of undress.” Lexie scooted a few more inches, hoping he’d get the point.
Kat nudged her arm. “Hey, Lex, look again. Someone is in the Irwins’ house and I don't think it's either Holly or Alan.”
Lexie turned her head and followed a thin beam of light bouncing around Alan’s study.
Great. I do not need this double-edged headache.
“Come on, let's go bust some balls,” Vinnie urged.
“Vinnie, are you crazy? What if they’re packing? You know neither of us carries a gun,” Lexie replied.
“Right. You broads stay here and I'll go check it out.”
Vinnie disappeared in a silent poof.
Lexie turned to Kat. “Did he really just call us broads?”
“Yep, he did.”
“Remind me again how we’re supposed to respect our elders, because if he was solid, I’d smack him upside his head.”
The light continued to bounce around in Alan's study. Her heart sped up, muscles tensed. They needed to get out of there and call 911. She wasn’t stupid enough to confront intruders—possibly armed—no matter how much it would help their reputation.
“I've got a bad feeling about this, Kat. Let's get out of here.”
Instead of shimmying down the tree, Kat scooted farther out on her branch, shoving budding leaves around. “Can you zoom in with your camera and get a clear picture? Maybe see who's in there? I've got branches in my way.”
She could argue, but it’d be faster to take the picture. “Fine. I'll try, and you call 911 and report the—” Two figures clad in head-to-toe black ran out the back door, startling both women. Kat sucked in her breath and bolted upright. The branch protested at the sudden shift of her weight with a crack that sounded as if the whole tree was coming down on them. The second thief, taller by a half a foot, stopped, then turned with his gun pointed in their direction.
Every muscle in Lexie’s body froze.
She didn’t even dare blink. From the corner of her eye she could see Kat sitting just as still. The full moon was a good week or more away and only one outside light glowed, barely reaching the edge of the patio. As long as the intruders didn’t shine their flashlights on them, they should be safe. Otherwise, they were screwed because being perched in a tree with no weapons usually didn’t equal a fast getaway. Lucky for them the shorter guy—and with that beer gut, it was definitely a male—turned back, grabbed his partner, and pulled him down the beach in the opposite direction of their hiding spot.
First to come back online was her heart, followed by her lungs, and finally her brain. Lexie clicked off as many pictures as she could until the guys were out of sight.
Kat dropped to the ground and Lexie followed, making as little noise as possible. Crouched low, they scampered across the backyard in the opposite direction.
They headed toward the opening between the Figerellos’ and the house on the left. A sliding door grated across its tracks. Both women froze midstride.