All the Lies We Tell Read online

  Now he lifted it to his face, breathing in the scent of her perfume, to see if that would help him remember her name. Amber. Her name was Amber. Well, he could put the scarf in his “Lost and Found” box, and if they ever hooked up again, she could sift through the discarded lingerie, sunglasses, and lipsticks. One day he was going to get rid of all that junk, those mementos of his wild nights out, but for now he tossed the scarf on top of everything else and slid the cardboard file box back into its spot on the shelf in the front closet above the winter coats.

  Stripping out of his boxers on the way to the shower and kicking them in the general direction of the pile of dirty laundry near the basket, he thought about running out onto the front lawn totally naked for a few minutes just to get Dina Guttridge’s motor running. If she had a hissy fit about him doing a few downward dogs in his boxers, she sure as hell wouldn’t like him doing it in the nude—but ultimately, it wasn’t worth the hassle. Sooner or later, he figured she was going to quit spying on him and get over the fact that once a few years ago they’d had a couple of glasses of wine while her husband was away. Not much had happened. A little making out, a little finger banging. As far as Ilya was concerned, it was only cheating if someone came. It had been a mistake, though, and not because she was a married woman living next door to his ex-wife, with whom he still owned a business and worked with every day. Nope, he should never have fooled around with Dina, because she was flat-out crazy for the D, and she couldn’t seem to get it through her head that Ilya was not interested in being anyone’s side piece—at least not more than once.

  He wasn’t interested in being anyone’s front or back piece, either. Him and relationships? No, thanks. He’d done that already, all serious and committed and monogamous, and look what had happened. The sour sting of that experience still lingered. Probably always would. And why? Because he’d done his best to love Allie and be good to her, and in the end all he’d done was make a mess of things. That was all he was good for: screwing up.

  He couldn’t blame her for it. Their relationship had been doomed from the start. Tumultuous and emotional and stupid. It had ended as abruptly as it had begun; he’d come home one day to an empty house and a note telling him she’d moved back across the street into the house her parents had left behind when they moved to Arizona. There’d been no counseling, no “working it out.” Ten years and it was over, yet they were still a part of each other’s lives and would likely always be. They were family.

  They’d once filled an empty space within each other, one that nobody else could ever understand.

  Maybe that was why he’d been an asshole and tried to come on to her this morning, he thought as he stood in the shower under water still too chilly for comfort. Because, despite last night and Amber, all Ilya had was a still-empty space. He pushed those thoughts away because, damn, it was too early for self-contemplation. Hissing at the sting, Ilya twisted the faucet handle sideways, to get beneath the water so he could scrub his armpits, still rank from the night’s acrobatics and not helped by his morning exercise. The showerhead had come off a few years ago, and he hadn’t replaced it, which meant the water shot out of a single pipe sticking out of the wall with enough force to abrade him in every tender place if he didn’t stand at just the right angle. He winced at the scratches along his back and sides. Next time, he told himself, he’d make sure to pick up a woman who didn’t have talons.

  He heard the muffled sound of the landline ringing again but didn’t bother to get out of the shower to answer it. The only calls that came through on that number were solicitors or scams. Or his ex-wife, he thought, calling to chastise him about naked front-lawn yoga. He took his time scrubbing and rinsing, then stepped out of the water and rubbed his hair dry with a towel that smelled faintly of mildew—shit, he needed to do laundry. Again. What the hell was up with that?

  Ilya tossed the damp towel toward the basket and went, still naked, down the hall into his bedroom, where he dug through another pile of clothes to give them a sniff test to determine whether they were clean enough to wear a second time. He was going to be in his scuba gear most of the day, anyway, or a pair of trunks and a T-shirt, so what difference did it make that he picked out a pair of grass-stained cargo pants and a tank top with a hole in the side? He wasn’t entering a fashion show.

  His phone buzzed from on top of the dresser, then went silent, which meant he’d missed a call. A moment later, the landline rang again, sounding louder this time, since there was still a handset hanging in the hallway outside his bedroom. Pulling up his briefs with one hand and hopping on one foot, Ilya headed for the doorway. His shoulder connected with the door frame hard enough to bounce him backward, and he let out a curse of pain as he managed to unhook the phone from its cradle, but then dropped it and kicked it out of reach when he bent to lift it.

  Behind him, on the dresser, his phone buzzed again.

  “This better be important!” he barked into the landline when he at last was able to snag it.

  “Mr. Stern?”

  “Mr. Stern’s my dad,” Ilya said, ever the smart-ass, and unable to stop himself. His father had died when Ilya was two. He didn’t even remember him. “Who’s this?”

  “Ummm . . . I’m trying to reach Ilya Stern?” Whoever it was pronounced the name as “Eye-lah” and not “Ill-ya,” which set him directly into telephone-solicitor territory.

  “Wrong number.” Ilya slammed the phone back on its cradle, hard enough to shake it on the ancient screws barely securing it into the plaster.

  His cell hummed with another call, this time adding a few beeps to indicate a voicemail. Damn, he was popular this morning. Throwing on his pants and tugging his shirt over his head, he thumbed in the code to listen to his messages. There were three. Two from a number he didn’t recognize, with nothing but the empty hiss of air for a message.

  The third was from his brother, Nikolai. He hadn’t heard from Niko in a couple of months—nothing unusual about that. Niko had been living overseas for the past few years. Niko hadn’t been stupid enough to get married too young. He’d been smart enough to get the hell out of Covey County and see the world instead.

  Without listening to more than the first few words of Niko’s message, Ilya thumbed his brother’s number instead. “Yo. What’s up?”

  Silence.

  “Niko?”

  “Ilya . . . you didn’t listen to the message, huh?”

  “No.” Ilya paused his search for a pair of shoes. He straightened. “What’s going on?”

  “The nursing home’s been trying to get hold of you for like an hour, man. They finally got me on my cell, but that was a lucky shot. I just happened to be taking a break from work and checked my messages.”

  Ilya sat on the rickety chair in the corner, knees suddenly weak. “You sound bad. What is it?”

  “It’s Babulya,” Niko said with an edge in his voice. “She’s . . . they say she doesn’t have long to live. You need to get over there right away.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Alicia had seen Ilya cry only once before, and that had been the first night they’d ever had sex. She didn’t like thinking of that night at all, but especially not now, not here in Babulya’s sparsely decorated room in the nursing home, as they’d all gathered around her bed. The old woman had been as much a grandma to Alicia and her older sister, Jennilynn, as she’d been to her own two grandsons. The only one Alicia could remember, as a matter of fact, since her own grandparents had all passed away when she was a toddler. And now Babulya was dying, too.

  Nikolai was here, travel-worn and exhausted. It had taken him a day and a half to get home from whatever far-off adventure he’d been having, and Alicia hadn’t even had time to say more than a quick “Hey.” Not that she had much more to say to him than that.

  Her former brother-in-law had taken charge quickly enough, stepping in where Ilya had faltered, and Alicia supposed she ought to be grateful that someone had, if only because it meant she didn’t have to. Babuly