Laura Caldwell - The Good Liar

www.mirabooks.co.uk

My deepest appreciation to Margaret O’Neill Marbury, Maureen Walters and Amy Moore-Benson. Thank you to everyone at MIRA Books, including Donna Hayes, Dianne Moggy, Loriana Sacilotto, Craig Swinwood, Laura Morris, Stacy Widdrington, Pamela Laycock, Katherine Orr, Marleah Stout, Don Lucey, Gordy Goihl, Dave Carley, Erica Mohr, Darren Lizotte, Andi Richman, Kathy Lodge and Carolyn Flear.

Thanks also to everyone who read the book or offered counsel on it, especially Jason Billups, Dustin O’Regan, Clare Toohey, Trisha Woodson, Pam Carroll, Mary Jennings Dean, Morgan Hogerty, Ted McNabola, Joan Posch, Elizabeth Kaveny, Margaret Caldwell, William Caldwell, Kelly Harden, Karen Uhlman, Rob Kovell and Les Klinger.

Lastly, thanks to my panel of experts—Dr. Stuart Rice and Dr. Richard Feely for their medical counsel, Maria Fernanda Mazzuco for her Rio de Janeiro expertise, Dr. Roman Voytsekhovskiy and Peter Zavialoff for their insight into Russia, Gary LaVerne Crowell for his knowledge about the Phoenix Program and Vietnam and Rob Seibert for his special ops and weapons guidance.

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

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Chapter 64

Chapter 65

Chapter 66

Chapter 67

Chapter 68

Chapter 69

Chapter 70

Chapter 71

Chapter 72

Chapter 73

Chapter 74

Chapter 75

Chapter 76

Chapter 77

Chapter 78

Chapter 79

Chapter 80

Chapter 81

Chapter 82

Chapter 83

Chapter 84

Chapter 85

“O nly you can save your own life.”

Everyone told me this in one version or another, during the very bleak days after Scott and I fell apart. I took the advice to heart. I did everything I could to rescue myself.

I prayed to a divinity I couldn’t see or feel. I logged hours on the couch. I cleansed. I twisted my body into awkward positions intended to purify. I scribbled and scrawled in journals. I read Goethe. I slept and wept. I watched comedies and dramas. I swore off TV. I ate organically. I drank toxically. I took up gardening. I ran until my legs could hardly hold me.

Nothing helped. The problem was I no longer really wanted to save my own life. Someone had to do it for me. That someone was Liza.

But even Liza had no idea what it would take to save me.

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

R oger Leiland both hated and loved Brazil. On one hand, he’d grown up there professionally. The Trust, the organization he worked for, the one he was now in charge of, had planted him in Rio many years ago. He’d lived there under his alias, Paul Costa, posing as an American businessman selling vaccinations to the Brazilian government. Paul Costa had fallen in love with a woman named Marta and consequently had fallen in love with Brazil itself. But then Marta was gone, dead after a drive-by shooting on the Rodovia dos Lagos Highway. The shooting had left Paul Costa all but dead, too. The Trust had realized he was slipping and pulled him out. Sent him to Chicago, where he was like a walking corpse slowly coming back to life, strangely paralleling his research there—the Juliet Project. Eventually, he’d moved to New York where he took solace in the resilience of power instead of the tenuous comforts of love. He climbed the ladder at the Trust until he’d forged an entirely new existence at the top, all the while keeping his thumb squarely on the Juliet Project.

Now, his expertise was needed in Rio again. Technically, he could have sent someone else, but he wanted to prove to himself that he was at the apex of his game, that Rio no longer touched him. He had been back in Brazil for a few weeks, and while he had felt a flicker of longing for his old life, it was only that—a flicker. He was a different person now.

He had done his job while here. He’d gotten all the intel he required, and now he was meeting with Elena Mistow. Usually members of the Trust knew each other only by their aliases, and they’d been strictly trained to look no further. But even before he was a board member of the Trust, he knew Elena Mistow’s real name. Everyone did. Because Elena Mistow was royalty. Her father had founded the entire organization.

Now, he and the woman called Elena sat at an outdoor café in Santa Terese, a charming area set on a hillside in Old Rio. He tried not to be impressed by Elena. She was younger than he, after all, and his subordinate. But there was her lineage. And her beauty.

Elena was all business. “What do we know about Luiz Gustavo de Jardim? Will he show himself anytime soon?”

“Gustavo will appear in public in the next six months. He has to. He’s talking about running for office again, and he needs to thwart rumors that he’s already dead.”

“Wouldn’t that be convenient?”

They both laughed. Nothing was ever easy or convenient with the Trust. They were silent for a minute, sipping coffee that tasted nutty and somewhat ashy. To the many on the street, they probably looked like a couple enjoying a break from the day.

“He’ll pull the same stunt he always does,” Roger continued. “He’ll make his kids and wife surround him.”

“The bastard uses them as human shields,” Elena said bitterly, which amazed Roger. She still cared about who got hurt.

“It works for him,” Roger said. “He’s a small man. His wife is the same height. By now one of his sons will probably be taller.”

“Audacious,” she murmured. “And evil.”

“We might have to take out the shields.”

They exchanged a long look.

Roger broke the stare first, taking another sip of his coffee and gazing at passersby.

“We’ve never done that,” Elena said. “We’ve sworn not to.”

“It’s impossible to infiltrate Gustavo’s inner circle…so other measures have to be taken to eliminate him. And times are changing. You know that as well as I.”

“No collateral damage. That’s always been our rule.”

“Everything changes. Don’t hold on too tight. Just hold on to our mission. Taking out Gustavo, no matter what the cost, advances our end, and that’s still pure.”

Elena Mistow peered up at the gray-blue sky. She seemed to study something in the atmosphere. A minute passed, then another. “Jesus,” Elena said.

Roger stayed silent. He sensed the searching of her mind, the processing, the emotion. He hoped she would draw the conclusion he’d already made.

Finally, she nodded. “So we take out the shields as a last resort.”