Tell Her No Lies Read online

  ACCLAIM FOR KELLY IRVIN

  “Tell Her No Lies is true romantic suspense at its best! Kelly Irvin has penned a heart-stopping, adrenaline pumping romantic suspense with an unlikely heroine that tugs at the heartstrings. Highly recommended!”

  —COLLEEN COBLE, USA TODAY BESTSELLING AUTHOR

  “In Tell Her No Lies, Kelly Irvin has crafted a story of wounded characters overcoming and fighting their way to the truth. In a world where so many present one facade externally and another inside their homes, this novel shines a light on the power of truth to cut through the darkness. Wrap that inside a page-turning mystery and some sweet romance and it’s a story perfect for readers who love multiple threads. This is a keeper of a story.”

  —CARA PUTMAN, AUTHOR OF THE HIDDEN JUSTICE SERIES

  “I think I’ve found a new favorite author! What an exciting read—tense, suspenseful, and masterfully written!”

  —CARRIE STUART PARKS, AWARD-WINNING

  AUTHOR OF FORMULA OF DECEPTION

  “A moving and compelling tale about the power of grace and forgiveness that reminds us how we become strongest in our most broken moments.”

  —LIBRARY JOURNAL FOR UPON A SPRING BREEZE

  “Irvin’s novel is an engaging story about despair, postnatal depression, God’s grace, and second chances.”

  —CBA CHRISTIAN MARKET FOR UPON A SPRING BREEZE

  “A warmhearted novel that is more than a romance, with lovable characters, including two innocent children caught in the red tape of government and two people willing to risk breaking both the Englisch and Amish law to help in whatever way they can. There are subplots that focus on the struggles of undocumented immigrants.”

  —RT BOOK REVIEWS, 4-STAR REVIEW OF THE SADDLE MAKER’S SON

  “Irvin has given her audience a continuation of The Beekeeper’s Son with complicated young characters who must define themselves.”

  —RT BOOK REVIEWS, 4-STAR REVIEW OF THE BISHOP’S SON

  “The awesome power of faith and family over personal desire dominates this beautifully woven masterpiece.”

  —PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, STARRED REVIEW OF THE BEEKEEPER’S SON

  “Storyteller extraordinaire Kelly Irvin’s tale of the Amish of Bee County will intrigue readers, who will want to eavesdrop on the lives of these characters on a regular basis.”

  —RT REVIEW, 41/2 STARS REVIEW OF THE BEEKEEPER’S SON

  “Irvin writes with great insight into the range and depth of human emotion. Her characters are believable and well developed, and her storytelling skills are superb.”

  —CBA RETAILERS + RESOURCES FOR THE BEEKEEPER’S SON

  Tell Her No Lies

  © 2018 by Kelly Irvin

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of HarperCollins Christian Publishing, Inc.

  Thomas Nelson titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail SpecialMarkets@ ThomasNelson.com.

  Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com. The “niv” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

  Publisher’s Note: This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Epub Edition September 2018 9780785223122

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Irvin, Kelly, author.

  Title: Tell her no lies / Kelly Irvin.

  Description: Nashville, Tennessee : Thomas Nelson, [2018]

  Identifiers: LCCN 2018028548 | ISBN 9780785223115 (paperback)

  Subjects: | GSAFD: Romantic suspense fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3609.R82 T45 2018 | DDC 813/.6--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018028548

  Printed in the United States of America

  18 19 20 21 22 MG 5 4 3 2 1

  To Becky Monds. Thank you for

  making this dream come true.

  HONOR YOUR FATHER AND YOUR MOTHER, SO THAT YOU MAY LIVE LONG IN THE LAND THE LORD YOUR GOD IS GIVING YOU.

  EXODUS 20:12

  CONTENTS

  Acclaim for Kelly Irvin

  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

  A Note from the Author

  Discussion Questions

  About the Author

  1

  Someone needed to make a perfume from stop bath and developer. The photo chemicals smelled like come-hither to Nina Fischer. She inhaled their biting scent and studied the image that appeared as she swished the sheet of paper in the deep, gray plastic tub. A homeless man with a toothless grin rewarded her efforts. The man smiled as if he’d invited her into a palatial home and not a squatter’s makeshift campsite. His black-and-white surroundings materialized in sharp contrast around him. A graffiti-covered Dumpster dwarfed his skeletal frame. A shopping cart loaded with a tattered coat, mismatched sneakers, and a pile of blankets was parked on the broken cement like a car in a driveway. Despite the alcohol-induced trust in his bloodshot eyes, he stayed close to the cart as if he feared she would steal it away.

  The photo told a story. A story that the world needed to see and Nina needed to tell. In many ways it was her story. The story of a child who’d lived in that world and survived. The words to the poem that would accompany the photo fell into place.

  “Nina? You’re doing it again.”

  Rick Zavala’s irritated baritone boomed in the small darkroom.

  “Sorry.” Nina snatched the phone from the counter, hit the speaker button to turn it off, then tucked the phone between her ear and her shoulder while using her free hand to move the photo to the stop bath. She glanced at the illuminated face of the sports watch on her wrist. Thirty seconds and the photo moved to the fixer.

  “You could at least pretend to pay attention when you’re on the phone with me.”

  “I am paying attention.” Now she was. Suppressing a snort of laughter, she gripped the tongs and slipped the photo into the next tub. “It’s three o’clock in the morning. I’m not going to a party with you. I only have a week left to get ready for the exhi
bit.”

  “All work and no play make Nina a dull girl. Have a cup of coffee and get your second wind. Jackson hired a great band for this fund-raiser. Everyone’s here. It’s actually fun.” Despite the loud conversations in the background accompanied by raucous Dixieland jazz, Rick’s silky voice dropped another notch the way it always did when he wanted to coax her into doing something they both knew she didn’t want to do.

  “There’re some people I need to talk to here. Having you by my side would help. It’s a perfect opportunity—”

  “To schmooze, I know.” Glancing at her watch again, Nina laid the tongs on the counter. Thirty seconds. She flipped the switch and the small room was bathed in a soft overhead light. She had five minutes before she could move the photo to the water bath. “My favorite thing.”

  Not.

  A chorus of whiny yowls outside the darkroom door made Nina pause for a second. The cats never bothered her when she was working. They knew better. She opened the door. A black furry streak hurled herself into the room. Nina managed a quick two-step as Daffy whirled and threw herself at Nina’s legs, emitting a meow that was more of a hiss than a whine. Mango, an orange tabby whose girth prevented her from winning any race with Daffy, followed at a surprising clip. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “Something’s wrong with me because I want my girl at my side—”

  “I’m not talking to you. The cats are having a hissy fit at my feet. They have the run of my family’s entire three-story home, and they have to congregate here. Jan must’ve forgotten to feed them before she and Brooklyn took off. And I’m not your girl.”

  Just to keep the record straight.

  “You could be if you’d stop putting me off.” His aggrieved tone reminded her of all the times she’d beaten him in one-on-one basketball games and he’d insisted she cheated. “I’m ready to take it to the next level and you know it.”

  His idea of the next level didn’t jive with Nina’s. “I’m not putting you off.”

  “Then what would you call it—playing the field?” Now he sounded like the sulky kid she’d first met when his mother let him tag along while she cleaned the Fischer house a hundred years ago. “Playing hard to get? Playing with my feelings?”

  “I’m not playing at all. I take relationships seriously. You’re the one out past midnight on a work night. You’re almost thirty years old.”

  “This is work and I’m asking you to be here with me.”

  “As a prop.”

  “I would never use you as a prop. I would never use you period. I love your company.”

  In typical Rick fashion, he stopped short of saying he loved her. “It’s late and I’m tired. Let’s not do this now.”

  “If you have your way, we’ll never have this conversation.”

  The opposite was true. They’d had the conversation over and over again in the years since they both returned to San Antonio after college. Always with the same outcome.

  Ignoring the pique in his voice and the herd of two cats clamoring at her feet, Nina focused on a dozen photos clipped overhead with wooden clothespins on a rope strung the length of the room. She liked the progression. Early afternoon sunlight slipping into dusk as the day went on. It would be interesting to see how they compared to the video Aaron shot for their joint exhibit.

  Daffy nipped at her bare ankle and yowled. “Ouch. Seriously, what has gotten into you?”

  “Nothing—”

  “Sorry, not you, Rick. Daffy just attacked me. You don’t need me. You do fine without me.”

  “That’s not true. I need you in more ways than one and you know it.”

  No, she didn’t. Rick’s efforts to line up supporters for his fledgling campaign for state representative would no doubt go better without her. She didn’t schmooze well and she didn’t have a political bone in her body.

  “I’m hanging up now. I want to have this series done before Aaron comes over with the video. We have to figure out how to loop it on the wall opposite the photos, and the photos still have to be mounted and the poems finished.”

  “Aaron’s coming over? At this hour? Doesn’t he have to work tomorrow—later today?”

  Nina held the phone away from her ear. Rick wanted her to come out to a party at three in the morning, but she couldn’t have a colleague over to work at that time? She and Aaron McClure had been in school together at the University of Texas–Austin. He was her closest friend in ways Rick could never be. They walked a careful line that preserved that friendship, which she valued beyond measure. “Unlike you, he’s taking a vacation day tomorrow—today. We’re running out of time and he’s just now doing the final edits to the video.”

  “Whatever. Let’s have breakfast.”

  His way of ensuring she didn’t share that meal with Aaron. “You’ll be up by nine?”

  “Probably not. Peter knows about this party tonight, and I don’t have anything on the court docket. He’ll cut me some slack.”

  Peter Coggins hadn’t become senior partner in his own high-powered law firm by cutting anyone slack. “If you decide to get up, bring me a whole wheat bagel with blueberry cream cheese.”

  “Come with me to see the Aaron Neville Quintet play at the Empire Theatre this weekend.” Rick managed to skip right over the breakfast invitation. He was not a morning person. “The guy’s in his seventies. You never know if you’ll get another chance.”

  Nina glanced down at her jazz festival T-shirt. How did he know? She wouldn’t be able to resist a concert featuring her favorite non-rock artist, the soul–R&B–funk–doo-wop man with New Orleans roots. “Call me later.”

  “I thought your name was Nina.”

  Chuckling despite herself, she disconnected and tucked the phone in the hip pocket of her jeans. Rick could be sweet when he wasn’t trying to figure an angle to make a situation work to his advantage. Including dating the daughter of a well-connected family whose roots went back to Sam Houston and the Alamo. Or maybe that was her imagination. Her insecurity. Couldn’t he be interested in her regardless of her family’s genealogy?

  Their paths had meandered in wildly differing directions, then reconnected because of her dad’s generosity. Giving a maid’s son a helping hand with college tuition was like her dad. Exerting his influence to get Rick a job at a local firm after law school. Whether intentional or not, her dad’s kindness served to keep Rick in her life. Which kept her off-balance and wondering.

  With a sigh, Nina turned the volume on the radio back up on her favorite classic rock station. Vintage Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run” poured from the speakers. Wishing she could take a long run to shake off her fatigue, she moved the print to the water bath and spent a few minutes swishing it around before hanging it next to the others. Fatigue made her light-headed. She gripped the counter and closed her eyes for a few seconds. She needed food. And caffeine if she was going to pull the necessary all-nighter.

  She slipped on her flip-flops, turned off the radio, scooped up Daffy, and headed down the stairs to the most important room on the first floor. The kitchen. Mango followed, nipping at her heels as if to say, “Hurry up.” Daffy struggled in her arms, her back claws digging into flesh. “Hey, that hurts, you little poop head.”

  Nina let go and the yowling cat leaped to the floor. Mango immediately joined in. “Hush up, you two. You can’t be that hungry. I’m getting the food right now.” She examined the scratch on her arm. The cat had drawn blood. “Seriously, Daffy, what’s wrong with you? I want both of you to find the dogs, annoy them for a while. Okay?”

  The cats ignored her instructions and followed her through the kitchen in a nip-and-tuck pattern. Thunder boomed in the distance. Maybe it was the weather. They’d forgotten what thunder sounded like after the long drought.

  “Nina.”

  She froze, sure she’d imagined the hoarse, whispered two syllables wafting into the kitchen from the hallway. She took a mental inventory. Grace was at a writers’ conference in Indianapolis. Dad had go
ne to bed hours earlier. Jan and Brooklyn were camping. Nina was alone on the first floor.

  She cocked her head, listening. The house creaked and settled, no doubt swaying in a stormy September wind.

  “Nina, please.”

  A screamed whisper.

  A chill spread across her bare neck above her T-shirt. She eased toward the kitchen door and put one hand on the solid wood frame. “Dad?”

  No response.

  Concern mixed with dread made a sour concoction in the pit of her empty stomach. She strode down the hallway that led to the living room and formal dining room on one side, her parents’ offices on the other. “Dad, is that you? Are you okay?”

  Daffy shot past her and squeezed through the first door on the right. Mango held back, impeding Nina’s progress as she stared. The door to her dad’s study.

  “Help me . . .”

  Now a breathless whisper.

  Nina touched the door with one finger. It swung open. “Dad? What’s wrong? Why are you whispering?”

  A low whine told her Peanuts, Dad’s cocker spaniel, had beaten her to the room along with Daffy. Nina bent and picked up Mango, who weighed more than a small child. Her warm, tubby body offered comfort against a sudden chill. “I’m here. Dad, did you want something?”

  No answer.

  A petite Tiffany desk lamp cast just enough light for Nina to see that nothing seemed out of place. She cleared her throat. “Dad, where are you? You’re scaring me.”

  Shadows created pockets filled with blackness. Books lined built-in shelves that covered an entire wall up to the eight-foot ceiling. The gold-and-auburn brocade drapes were pulled back and held with tasseled ropes, revealing the steady stream of rain running down two floor-to-ceiling windows. Fire bushes in the side yard scraped the windows in an annoying rustling sound.

  The mammoth mahogany desk bore all the signs of a workaholic. A desktop computer, a laptop, and an iPad. Piles of papers. Law books stacked six and eight deep. Court briefs.

  Her perusal of the room skidded to a stop. Behind the desk, one glass door to her dad’s gun cabinet gaped open. He never left it open. He always kept it locked and the key on his chain. Ever since she and her sister, Jan, had moved into a bedroom down the hall from Trevor’s room all those years ago.