Genuine Fraud

  ALSO BY E. LOCKHART

  We Were Liars

  Fly on the Wall

  Dramarama

  The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks

  THE RUBY OLIVER QUARTET

  The Boyfriend List

  The Boy Book

  The Treasure Map of Boys

  Real Live Boyfriends

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

  Text copyright © 2017 by E. Lockhart

  Cover art copyright © 2017 by Christine Blackburne/MergeLeft Reps, Inc.

  Excerpt from We Were Liars copyright © 2014 by E. Lockhart.

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  Delacorte Press is a registered trademark and the colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Visit us on the Web! getunderlined.com

  Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at RHTeachersLibrarians.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

  ISBN 9780385744775 (hc) — ISBN 9780375991844 (lib. bdg.)

  Ebook ISBN 9780385391382 — ISBN 9781524770679 (intl. tr. pbk.)

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

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  Contents

  Cover

  Also by E. Lockhart

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  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

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Excerpt from We Were Liars

  For anyone who has been taught that good equals small and silent, here is my heart with all its ugly tangles and splendid fury.

  Begin here:

  THIRD WEEK IN JUNE, 2017

  CABO SAN LUCAS, MEXICO

  It was a bloody great hotel.

  The minibar in Jule’s room stocked potato chips and four different chocolate bars. The bathtub had bubble jets. There was an endless supply of fat towels and liquid gardenia soap. In the lobby, an elderly gentleman played Gershwin on a grand piano at four each afternoon. You could get hot clay skin treatments, if you didn’t mind strangers touching you. Jule’s skin smelled like chlorine all day.

  The Playa Grande Resort in Baja had white curtains, white tile, white carpets, and explosions of lush white flowers. The staff members were nurselike in their white cotton garments. Jule had been alone at the hotel for nearly four weeks now. She was eighteen years old.

  This morning, she was running in the Playa Grande gym. She wore custom sea-green shoes with navy laces. She ran without music. She had been doing intervals for nearly an hour when a woman stepped onto the treadmill next to hers.

  This woman was younger than thirty. Her black hair was in a tight ponytail, slicked with hair spray. She had big arms and a solid torso, light brown skin, and a dusting of powdery blush on her cheeks. Her shoes were down at the heels and spattered with old mud.

  No one else was in the gym.

  Jule slowed to a walk, figuring to leave in a minute. She liked privacy, and she was pretty much done, anyway.

  “You training?” the woman asked. She gestured at Jule’s digital readout. “Like, for a marathon or something?” The accent was Mexican American. She was probably a New Yorker raised in a Spanish-speaking neighborhood.

  “I ran track in secondary school. That’s all.” Jule’s own speech was clipped, what the British call BBC English.

  The woman gave her a penetrating look. “I like your accent,” she said. “Where you from?”

  “London. St. John’s Wood.”

  “New York.” The woman pointed to herself.

  Jule stepped off the treadmill to stretch her quads.

  “I’m here alone,” the woman confided after a moment. “Got in last night. I booked this hotel at the last minute. You been here long?”

  “It’s never long enough,” said Jule, “at a place like this.”

  “So what do you recommend? At the Playa Grande?”

  Jule didn’t often talk to other hotel guests, but she saw no harm in answering. “Go on the snorkel tour,” she said. “I saw a bloody huge moray eel.”

  “No kidding. An eel?”

  “The guide tempted it with fish guts he had in a plastic milk jug. The eel swam out from the rocks. It must have been eight feet long. Bright green.”

  The woman shivered. “I don’t like eels.”

  “You could skip it. If you scare easy.”

  The woman laughed. “How’s the food? I didn’t eat yet.”

  “Get the chocolate cake.”

  “For breakfast?”

  “Oh, yeah. They’ll bring it to you special, if you ask.”

  “Good to know. You traveling alone?”

  “Listen, I’m gonna jet,” said Jule, feeling the conversation had turned personal. “Cheerio.” She headed for the door.

  “My dad’s crazy sick,” the woman said, talking to Jule’s back. “I’ve been looking after him for a long time.”

  A stab of sympathy. Jule stopped and turned.

  “Every morning and every night after work, I’m with him,” the woman went on. “Now he’s finally stable, and I wanted to get away so badly I didn’t think about the price tag. I’m blowing a lot of cash here I shouldn’t blow.”

  “What’s your father got?”

  “MS,” said the woman. “Multiple sclerosis? And dementia. He used to be the head of our family. Very macho. Strong in all his opinions. Now he’s a twisted body in a bed. He doesn’t even know where he is half the time. He’s, like, asking me if I’m the waitress.”

  “Damn.”

  “I’m scared I’m gonna lose him and I hate being with him, both at the same time. And when he’s dead and I’m an orphan, I know I’m going to be sorry I took this trip away from him, d’you know?” The woman stopped running and put her feet on either side of the treadmill. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “Sorry. Too much information.”

  “S’okay.”

  “You go on. Go shower or whatever. Maybe I’ll see you around later.”

  The woman pushed up the arms of her long-sleeved shirt and turned to the digital readout of her treadmill. A scar wound down her right forearm, jagged, like from a knife, not clean like from an operation. There was a story there.

  “Listen, do you like to play trivia?” Jule asked, against her better judgment.

  A smile. White but crooked teeth. “I’m excellent at trivia, actually.”

  “They run it every other night in the lounge downstairs,” said Jule. “It’s pretty much rubbish. You wanna go?”

  “What kind of rubbish?”

  “Good rubbish. Silly and loud.”

  “Okay. Yeah, all right.”

  “Good,” said Jule. “We’ll kill it. You’ll be glad you took a vacation. I’m strong on superheroes, spy movies, YouTubers, fitness, money, makeup, and Victorian writers. What about you?”

&nb
sp; “Victorian writers? Like Dickens?”

  “Yeah, whatever.” Jule felt her face flush. It suddenly seemed an odd set of things to be interested in.

  “I love Dickens.”

  “Get out.”

  “I do.” The woman smiled again. “I’m good on Dickens, cooking, current events, politics…let’s see, oh, and cats.”

  “All right, then,” said Jule. “It starts at eight o’clock in that lounge off the main lobby. The bar with sofas.”

  “Eight o’clock. You’re on.” The woman walked over and extended her hand. “What’s your name again? I’m Noa.”

  Jule shook it. “I didn’t tell you my name,” she said. “But it’s Imogen.”

  Jule West Williams was nice-enough-looking. She hardly ever got labeled ugly, nor was she commonly labeled hot. She was short, only five foot one, and carried herself with an uptilted chin. Her hair was in a gamine cut, streaked blond in a salon and currently showing dark roots. Green eyes, white skin, light freckles. In most of her clothes, you couldn’t see the strength of her frame. Jule had muscles that puffed off her bones in powerful arcs—like she’d been drawn by a comic-book artist, especially in the legs. There was a hard panel of abdominal muscle under a layer of fat in her midsection. She liked to eat meat and salt and chocolate and grease.

  Jule believed that the more you sweat in practice, the less you bleed in battle.

  She believed that the best way to avoid having your heart broken was to pretend you don’t have one.

  She believed that the way you speak is often more important than anything you have to say.

  She also believed in action movies, weight training, the power of makeup, memorization, equal rights, and the idea that YouTube videos can teach you a million things you won’t learn in college.

  If she trusted you, Jule would tell you she went to Stanford for a year on a track-and-field scholarship. “I got recruited,” she explained to people she liked. “Stanford is Division One. The school gave me money for tuition, books, all that.”

  What happened?

  Jule might shrug. “I wanted to study Victorian literature and sociology, but the head coach was a perv,” she’d say. “Touching all the girls. When he got around to me, I kicked him where it counts and told everybody who would listen. Professors, students, the Stanford Daily. I shouted it to the top of the stupid ivory tower, but you know what happens to athletes who tell tales on their coaches.”

  She’d twist her fingers together and lower her eyes. “The other girls on the team denied it,” she’d say. “They said I was lying and that pervert never touched anybody. They didn’t want their parents to know, and they were afraid they’d lose their scholarships. That’s how the story ended. The coach kept his job. I quit the team. That meant I didn’t get my financial aid. And that’s how you make a dropout of a straight-A student.”

  —

  After the gym, Jule swam a mile in the Playa Grande pool and spent the rest of the morning as she often did, sitting in the business lounge, watching Spanish instruction videos. She was still in her bathing suit, but she wore her sea-green running shoes. She’d put on hot pink lipstick and some silver eyeliner. The suit was a gunmetal one-piece with a hoop at the chest and a deep plunge. It was a very Marvel Universe look.

  The lounge was air-conditioned. No one else was ever in there. Jule put her feet up and wore headphones and drank Diet Coke.

  After two hours of Spanish she ate a Snickers bar for lunch and watched music videos. She danced around on her caffeine jag, singing to the line of swivel chairs in the empty lounge. Life was bloody gorgeous today. She liked that sad woman running away from her sick father, the woman with the interesting scar and the surprising taste in books.

  They would kill it at trivia.

  Jule drank another Diet Coke. She checked her makeup and kickboxed her own image in the reflective glass of the lounge window. Then she laughed aloud, because she looked both foolish and awesome. All the while, the beat pulsed in her ears.

  The poolside bartender, Donovan, was a local guy. He was big-boned but soft. Slick hair. Given to winking at the clientele. He spoke English with the accent particular to Baja and knew Jule’s drink: a Diet Coke with a shot of vanilla syrup.

  Some afternoons, Donovan asked Jule about growing up in London. Jule practiced her Spanish. They’d watch movies on the screen above the bar as they talked.

  Today, at three in the afternoon, Jule perched on the corner stool, still wearing her swimsuit. Donovan wore a Playa Grande white blazer and T-shirt. Stubble was growing on the back of his neck. “What’s the movie?” she asked him, looking up at the TV.

  “Hulk.”

  “Which Hulk?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You put the DVD in. How can you not know?”

  “I don’t even know there’s two Hulks.”

  “There’s three Hulks. Wait, I take that back. Multiple Hulks. If you count TV, cartoons, all that.”

  “I don’t know which Hulk it is, Ms. Williams.”

  The movie went on for a bit. Donovan rinsed glasses and wiped the counter. He made a scotch and soda for a woman who took it off to the other end of the pool area.

  “It’s the second-best Hulk,” said Jule, when she had his attention again. “What’s the word for Scotch in Spanish?”

  “Escocés.”

  “Escocés. What’s a good kind to get?”

  “You never drink.”

  “But if I did.”

  “Macallan,” Donovan said, shrugging. “You want me to pour you a sample?”

  He filled five shot glasses with different brands of high-end Scotch. He explained about Scotches and whiskeys and why you’d order one and not the other. Jule tasted each but didn’t drink much.

  “This one smells like armpit,” she told him.

  “You’re crazy.”

  “And this one smells like lighter fluid.”

  He bent over the glass to smell it. “Maybe.”

  She pointed to the third. “Dog piss, like from a really angry dog.”

  Donovan laughed. “What do the others smell like?” he asked.

  “Dried blood,” Jule said. “And that powder you use to clean bathrooms. Cleaning powder.”

  “Which one d’you like the best?”

  “The dried blood,” she said, sticking her finger in the glass and tasting it again. “Tell me what it’s called.”

  “That’s the Macallan.” Donovan cleared the glasses. “Oh, and I forgot to say: a woman was asking about you earlier. Or maybe not you. She might have been confused.”

  “What woman?”

  “A Mexican lady. Speaking Spanish. She asked about a white American girl with short blond hair, traveling alone,” said Donovan. “She said freckles.” He touched his face. “Across the nose.”

  “What did you tell her?”

  “I said it’s a big resort. Lots of Americans. I don’t know who’s staying alone and who’s not.”

  “I’m not American,” said Jule.

  “I know. So I told her I hadn’t seen anyone like that.”

  “That’s what you said?”

  “Yeah.”

  “But you still thought of me.”

  He looked at Jule for a long minute. “I did think of you,” he said finally. “I’m not stupid, Ms. Williams.”

  Noa knew she was American.

  That meant Noa was a cop. Or something. Had to be.

  She had set Jule up, with all that talk. The ailing father, Dickens, becoming an orphan. Noa had known exactly what to say. She had laid that bait out—“my father is crazy sick”—and Jule had snapped it up, hungry.

  Jule’s face felt hot. She’d been lonely and weak and just bloody stupid, to fall for Noa’s lines. It was all a ruse, so Jule would see Noa as a confidante, not an adversary.

  Jule walked back to her room, looking as relaxed as she could. Once inside, she grabbed her valuables from the safe. She put on jeans, boots, and a T-shirt and threw as many clot
hes as would fit into her smallest suitcase. The rest she left behind. On the bed, she laid a hundred-dollar tip for Gloria, the maid she sometimes talked to. Then she wheeled the suitcase down the hall and tucked it next to the ice machine.

  Back at the poolside bar, Jule told Donovan where the case was. She pushed a US twenty-dollar bill across the counter.

  Asked a favor.

  She pushed another twenty across and gave instructions.

  In the staff parking lot, Jule looked around and found the bartender’s little blue sedan, unlocked. She got in and lay down on the floor in the back. It was littered with empty plastic bags and coffee cups.

  She had an hour to wait before Donovan finished his bar shift. With luck, Noa wouldn’t realize anything was amiss until Jule was seriously late for trivia night, maybe around eight-thirty. Then she’d investigate the airport shuttle and the cab company records before thinking of the staff lot.

  It was airless and hot in the car. Jule listened for footsteps.

  Her shoulder cramped. She was thirsty.

  Donovan would help her, right?

  He would. He had already covered for her. He’d told Noa he didn’t know anyone like that. He warned Jule and promised to collect the suitcase and give her a ride. She had paid him, too.

  Besides, Donovan and Jule were friends.

  Jule stretched her knees straight, one at a time, then folded herself back up in the space behind the seats.

  She thought about what she was wearing, then took off her earrings and her jade ring, shoving them into her jeans pocket. She forced herself to calm her breathing.

  Finally, there was the sound of a suitcase on rollers. The slam of the trunk. Donovan slipped behind the wheel, started the car, and pulled out of the lot. Jule stayed on the floor as he drove. The road had few streetlights. There was Mexican pop on the radio.