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REAL LIES

  Liana Brooks

  Copyright 2011 Liana Brooks

  Cover art copyright 2011 Amy Laurens

  Cover image: Swandieve via stock.xchng

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  REAL LIES

  By Liana Brooks

  I’m not even sure where to start. I’m good at my job. Real good. It’s reports I can’t handle. Charlay usually does our reports, but she’s on vacation, so I get the honor of reporting the body.

  Or lack of body.

  But I’ve no clue where to begin.

  Saturday morning, I woke up bleary-eyed to the phone ringing like a fire alarm during mass. Groggy, I hit the speaker phone button. “’Sup?”

  “We’ve got a body at La Jolla cove,” Charlay said in the no-nonsense tone of a woman who wakes at four every morning for a brisk five-mile run. “Bring your gear.”

  Too many years of Catholic school had stripped me of the ability to swear, but I tried. “Pink fluffy elephants!”

  I hung up, rolled off of my mattress, skimmed out of my black tank and panties, and pulled on my musty black swimsuit. Black is my color of choice for everything; it’s hard to stain. I scraped my hair back into a tight ponytail and pulled my beat up sweats on. They still smelled like smoke from the bonfire two weekends ago.

  At some point I really needed to wash my clothes.

  My car keys hung on a lanyard on the back of the door, complete with ID pouch and driver’s license. I pulled it over my head and groaned as I pulled the dive bag from my closet. Spinning the blue mesh bag once, I checked for my gear. Everything but a tank of air.

  I groped my breast, feeling for my cell phone. And cursed again. No bra meant my cell phone was somewhere in my pile of clothes from last night. I looked over at the mountain of laundry and hit redial on my landline instead.

  “’Sup?” Charlay answered.

  “Got tanks?”

  “Woman! Do I ever not have tanks? I mean, I only own, like, five hundred of the” –

  the phone crackled – “things!”

  “Right. I’m on my way.”

  As a last thought, I grabbed my dive watch from my dusty dresser top. Quarter to seven. Why can’t people die at normal times of the day? I mean, yeah, obviously it sucks to be them and all, but do they have to ruin my beauty sleep?

  The landlady nodded to me as I clunked down the wooden stairs. “Get me donuts while you’re out.”

  “I’ve got to get a body out of the cove.”

  “That’s nice, dear.” She puttered around the front of the apartment, dusting patio furniture while I loaded the car. Weird as heck, but she hasn’t raised rent since I moved in, so I don’t complain.

  La Jolla Cove is an expanse of black sand beaches, with a pointed lookout perfect for weddings, and a small, flooded cove that dive instructors like to use for familiarization classes when the current isn’t too strong, the tide too high, or the water too cold. Saturday morning, for instance, would not have been a good morning to take a class out; current and waves aside, it was frikin’ cold.

  The cove was packed when I pulled up, parking my car behind Charlay’s van. There were the usual health nuts, surfers, swimmers, derelicts and tourists who didn’t understand that the Pacific Ocean at seven in the morning in October was pure ice.

  I nudged my way through the crowd on the point until I could see. Fifty meters out in the water, a pale object floated in a rack of seaweed.

  “Wanna look?” a man with binoculars offered. “I use them to watch the birds,” he added.

  “Perv,” I muttered under my breath, but I took the binoculars. I focused on the white - a pale face with pale hair and blue-tinted lips. A fairy tale sleeping beauty, snoozing with the otters. Right. Because everyone knows forty degree water and kelp make for the perfect bed.

  I hoofed it back to the stairs that led down to the small cove’s beach. It was flooded, which made getting the inflatable dingy in easier, but made the swim farther.

  “Hey,” Charlay said as she wiggled into her dry suit and pulled a neoprene hood over her white-streaked black hair. She’s fifty if she’s a day, with family that traces its roots back to vaqueros and black miners who moved west for the gold rush. She looks like a miner when I think about it, muscles that make Governor Arnold weep in envy and the kind of assets that makes his wife ruin her botox smile.

  “Looks like she’s been in the water an hour or two.”

  “Yup.”

  “Any fish jumping?”

  “Nope. The senoritas are sitting pretty.”

  I smiled. Call me crazy, but I like senoritas. They’re dazzling yellow-and-pink fish and they make the kelp forests look bright and airy. If they weren’t jumping, it meant nothing was chasing them. Which meant PETA wasn’t going to try to bludgeon us to death for going near any sea lions, and no sharks were going to try to make me breakfast. Sounded perfect to me.

  “Dumped off a boat?” I guessed as I dropped my pants, stripped off my shirt, and shimmied into my neoprene while two proto-humans (read: surfers) gawked.

  Charlay spat in her face mask to keep it from fogging up. “Jumped off the cliff?”

  “You remember that old boy we had from the Bronx?” I asked as I checked my knives. One blunt tip on my left arm and a sharp tip with hook on my right leg.

  Charlay laughed. “I wish they were all that dumb.”

  He’d jumped but got his pants caught on a jutting bit of rock. Personally, I would have left the idiot, but he kept screaming, which scares off tourists. And the tide was coming in and, well, there’s this law about trying to prevent people from succeeding in suicide.

  “Maybe she swam out,” I said as we pulled on our dive gear, hoisted the dingy overhead, and walked down the stairs. Pushing the boat out, we paddling beside it, regulators in our mouths, and swam through the waves of the retreating tide, inching toward the dead woman.

  Cold water pressed my dry suit against me and salty spray hit my cheeks, tickling my ear. I focused on keeping my breathing even.

  I dive regularly. I’m not a rescue diver because of heroics; I’m a rescue diver because I’m one of the best in the city. But being in the cold water with a dead body still freaks me out.

  We pulled even with the girl. My knife came out so I could cut the body loose. Blunt, to lessen the risk of added stab wounds on the autopsy report, and to keep me from poking holes in the dinghy.

  Letting the air out of my BC, I sunk down into the water. The sea weed was wrapped around her legs good and proper. I reached out, slowly, and grabbed the weeds. The rack thrashed.

  I surfaced, spitting my regulator out and tasting salt. “She moved.”

  Bubble-cheeked and bug-eyed, Charlay glared at me.

  “Something moved in the seaweed,” I said.

  Charlay spat out her regulator. “We’ll pull her into the dingy, weeds and all. Cut any trailing bits.” She climbed into the dingy to haul the body up while I sank down and cut the loose threads of green kelp.

  When I surfaced, she was waiting, hands outstretched. “Gimme the stiff.”

  I shot two more pumps of air into my BC, then grabbed the dead girl’s shoulder. Her eyes shot open, bright purple and frightened. She screamed, a high pitched wail that made my teeth grind. Water foamed, and she was gone.

  I kicked a fin at Charlay and deflated, dropping my head under to look. Through the kelp there was a shimmer of green scales, streaming green hair like some submarine porno fantasy, and the girl was gone.

  Charlay hauled me up, no mean feat since I do not have the LA perfect anorexic figure.

  “Shark?” she suggested, face as pale as her heritage allowed.

  Images from Tom Hank's “Splash” came to mind – as did images of the local mental wa
rd. I nodded slowly. “Right. Shark.”

  “Had to have been.”

  “Right.”

  “Nothing else in the waters. Right?”

  “Right.” I shook, cold and in shock. “Probably a shark got tangled and when I cut the body loose it got away with the … the remains.”

  “Right. ‘Cause dead people don’t scream.”

  “Or open their eyes.”

  “Or have tails.”

  We eyed each other, gauging who was going to say it first. But instead, we both nodded.

  “Right.”

  On shore, several of the tabloids’ best had the photos already loading on their laptops. Shark attack all right. Even with a telephoto lenses they hadn’t seen under water and all they saw was me screaming – as if – and the body being dragged under.

  I did score a phone number for the hot EMT who checked us out, but otherwise… well… yeah.

  See. This is why I can’t write a report. No wonder Charlay took an emergency vacation. If I say I tried to haul in a mermaid they’ll drag me down to Sharp Memorial for psych screenings and tell me to stay out of the water. I’d rather die than not dive.

  Well, not die. But maybe lie…

  END

  Liana Brooks was born in San Diego, California. Years later she was disappointed to learn that The Shire was not some place she could move to, nor was Rider of Rohan an acceptable career choice. Studying marine biology so she could play with sharks seemed to be the only alternative. After college Liana settled down to work as a full-time author and mother because logical career progression is something that happens to other people. When she grows up, Liana wants to be an Evil Overlord and take over the world.

  In the meantime, she writes sci-fi and SFR in between trips to the beach. She can be found wearing colorful socks on the Emerald Coast, or online at https://www.lianabrooks.com.

  Contact Liana:

  Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/LianaBrooks

  Blog: https://www.lianabrooks.com

  EVEN VILLAINS FALL IN LOVE

  A super villain at the top of his game must choose between the world he wants and the woman he loves. 

  Chapter One

  I knew from the first time I saw my wife that I wanted her naked. Of course, seven minutes later I wanted revenge. It wasn’t that she had handed me my first defeat or ruined my chances for world domination that year, it was the way she kissed me good-bye. She sent my head spinning, then walked away as if I were the least important person in the world. Once my arm healed, I stole some new equipment, cloned some new minions, and I felt a little different. I wanted revenge, with a side order of naked.

  ***

  Across the dinner table, Tabitha devoured him with dark, ocean-blue eyes. She put a bite of lettuce in her mouth, full lips pursing around it. Eating salad never looked so good. Her tongue darted out to lick away a stray drop of dressing. She winked at him, promising with every move to do the same to him. “It’s almost bedtime,” she said, her voice husky and luscious.

  “I don’t wanna go to bed!” one of the quads screamed.

  “What about cake? Don’t we get birthday cake?” another asked.

  Evan winked back at his wife from the far side of the table, separated by a few feet and four, precocious just-turned-five-year olds, all as stunning as their mother with big, round eyes and honey-colored hair that fell in loose curls meant to trap hairbrushes and sticky substances.

  He had to peek at the eyes to see who was talking. Maria had green eyes, Angela’s eyes were blue like Tabitha’s, Delila’s eyes were brown like his, and Blessing—their stillborn who miraculously survived—had purple eyes. The waif in question had blue eyes.

  “Angela,” Evan said, “after dinner it’s pajama time, and then story time.”

  “Mommy doesn’t have a bedtime!” Angela wailed.

  Tabitha winked at him again. “Tell you what, tonight Mommy will go to bed the same time you do. Right after we eat cake.”

  She leaned over to give Angela a hug.

  All Evan could see was the deep V plunge of her tight blue shirt. Oh, yeah. Crime didn’t always pay, but altering someone’s moral compass sure put the O’s back in the bedroom.

  The cake was split into fourths, equal parts purple, white, green, and blue so each girl could have her favorite color in the cake. Baking four cakes was unreasonable, there weren’t any grandparents left to celebrate with, and neighbors had an annoying habit of asking uncomfortable questions. Saying little things like, “You look just like Doctor Charm! Do you remember him? Whatever happened to that guy? Do you know how hard it is to put together a good Villains Vs. Heroes fantasy league without him?” made for awkward evenings.

  So they had a quiet family party. Cake, then presents, after which he hurried the girls off to bed so he could read Dilly Duck’s ABCs in record time before rushing to the bedroom, hoping to catch Tabitha still in the shower.

  She was already out and wearing a blue satin robe that caressed her skin in exactly the way he wanted to. Rose-scented candles cast sensuous shadows on the walls.

  Tabitha turned, lips curved in an inviting smile. Long fingers twined with the sash of her robe. She tossed her honey-blonde hair in the way she always did when she was about to argue, posing with feet apart and one hand casually resting on her waist. “Sweetie, we need to talk.”

  Evan wiped grease-stained hands on his jeans as he forced a smile. “Sure, babes, anything you want.”

  “Really?” She slunk forward, all sinewy limbs and doe eyes.

  “Promise?” Tabitha nuzzled his nose. One hand flirted up the back of his neck to play with his hair. The other traveled downward, right to his zipper.

  Oh, yes, the little Morality Machine in the basement was working just fine. Another thirty, maybe forty years of this and he’d consider retiring. Or turning the machine down so his wife wasn’t quite a sex kitten every day of the week. Maybe only days with Y in them.

  “Sweetie?” She nibbled his ear. “I want to go back to work.”

  “What?” Evan actually pushed himself away from her, something he wasn’t sure was possible in any other circumstance.

  Tabitha tucked her chin and pouted.

  “Tabby-cat, I love you, but work? I’ve got my...stuff...in the lab. I’m busy. And we can’t afford daycare for the girls. We’re barely making ends meet as it is. Do you really want to go back to being Zephyr Girl? Crime fighting is a game for the young, baby. You’re not nineteen anymore.”

  “I’m twenty-nine. A very—” Her hips pressed against his tight jeans just so”—very healthy twenty-nine.”

  He shivered at her touch. “You’re cheating.”

  “I want to do this, Evan.” She ground against the thick denim.

  “You can do me all you want, baby.”

  She stepped back, frowning. “I’m serious.”

  “So am I.” Evan sighed, reaching for his wife. “Sweetie, I love you, but what’s the point in being a superhero? The government stipend barely covers the dry-cleaning bill. If it’s money you want, write another tell-all superhero book. The Spanish Mask sold his third last month.”

  Tabitha crossed her arms. “I don’t want to write another book so we can live off the royalties while you’re between jobs.”

  He waved a finger at her. “I’m not between jobs. I work freelance in the computer business. I’m self-employed. That’s not the same as being between jobs.”

  “Between paychecks then.”

  “We will have a solid income. This project I’m working on, Tabby-cat, it’s going to set us up for life. We’re never going to worry about money again. I promise. Give me a couple of weeks and everything is going to be perfect.” He caught her hand and pulled her into his arms. The faint scent of her spicy perfume left him dizzy with need.

  She rested her head on his chest. “I want to save the world. Have you seen the news, Evan? An entire town in Kansas held hostage for a week by a bomb scare before a superhero was able to g
et in to defuse the situation. A week! I could have that done between grocery shopping and paying the bills. Ten minutes, no pulling punches.”

  “I know, baby. No one is better at this stuff than you. But I need you at home, Tabby. Having you out there scares me. I’m terrified I’d lose you. Why don’t you wait until I finish this project? I’ll be done by the time the election rolls around. Two more weeks. Once I get paid we’ll look at this again. I have that armor design for you, I just need some time to put it together.”

  Tabitha sighed. “You’ve been saying that since we got married.”

  “Well, my nights are busy.” He nibbled her ear as he tugged her sash loose. “Are you complaining?”

  Tabitha stretched against him, sending a delightful frisson of lust up his spine. “I thought you gave up the super villain schemes.”

  He twitched. “I did, baby. Of course I did.”

  “But you’re keeping me here. Isn’t that a little selfish? Just a teeny-tiny bit super villain-ish?” She slipped her hand between his pants and his skin.

  “Ah!” He caught her hand so he could think clearly. “Not selfish. Necessary. Like oxygen or sex.”

  “Don’t you mean water?”

  “No, definitely sex.” Evan slid the blue robe off, tossing it into the corner. “Come here, Tabby-cat, I’ll make you purr.”

  She tugged at his shirt, pulling it up and off. The shirt joined the robe on the other side of the room. “What are you doing down in that lab?” she asked as her hands drew lazy circles on his back.

  Ten seconds, that’s all he’d need to get her panties off. Three more to drop his pants. Mmmm. “What was the question?” “What are you doing in the lab? What’s this project?”

  “Oh, computer stuff. I told you. To help tally everything on election night. I’m trying to make the process run smoother so we don’t have to worry about recounts.”

  “Hmmm.” She gave him a dubious frown. Tabitha was built like a supermodel and had a superhero name straight from Campy Comics, but her brain was Mensa all the way. “And this computer program has nothing to do with world domination, or get-rich-quick schemes?”