The Lies We Tell

Book 3: The Town

by Kate Anslinger

Genres: Thrillers; Domestic Thrillers; Suspense

Synopsis

The latest installment in the twisty domestic thriller series.

Trust No One.

A layered plot, thick with suspense and murder, lies and crime.

Haley Tilbury was sixteen years old when she discovered she was adopted. Almost ten years later she comes face to face with Evie Sullivan, the woman she thinks is her biological mother.

When Haley starts dating Dylan Crowe, criminal defense attorney and brother of a prime suspect in an unsolved murder case, she finds herself in a tangled maze of questions that lead her back to her past.

What happened during the first few years of her life?
Why does her mother seem to be protecting her adopted father from something?

When Evie is hired to tend to the landscaping on Dylan's newly purchased oceanfront property, both women separately dig up clues involving the murder case the Crowe family's name was dragged through the mud for. Nineteen-year-old Bella Winters was found dead during an open house, tucked into the guest room bed, her body discovered by real estate agent and Dylan's brother, James Crowe. The crime happened in Bridgeton, Massachusetts but the closer Evie and Haley get to uncovering the truth, the more they realize the murder is tied to Flagport.

Everyone in town has something to hide: a jealous ex-lover with a secret past, a wealthy family hiding their dirty laundry, and a few locals in Bridgeton who have their own theories on the case.

The truth is murkier than they imagined, and as they get closer to the heart of the mystery, the line between ally and enemy begins to blur.

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Release date: December 10, 2024

Publisher: Independently published

Print pages: 264

Sample

Haley
Summer of 2023

Social media is a strange place. Scary really. You can find out anything about a person’s life. Even
if they are one of those people who never share anything on their profile or have a limited bio.
Simply having a Facebook, Instagram or TikTok account usually provides a path to somewhere.
Her name wasn’t hard to get. I had friends who worked at the Flagport Yacht Club. All they had
to do was check the last name on the tab. Matt Sullivan. From there I searched for him on social
media, and lo and behold I found her and continued staying updated on her life happenings.
I should’ve followed my gut that first time I saw her. I had been thirteen. It was a time when I
started questioning everything in life, including the emotions and hormones that dictated my
moods. It was a time when I felt out of place in my own skin. I checked all the boxes. I had loving
parents, a beautiful home, enough money to partake in all my favorite hobbies and sports, and I
kept up to date on the styles that the other girls in my grade wore. But still, something felt off.
I could feel her stare on me a little too long as I walked through the Flagport Yacht Club, trailing
behind my parents, who I later found out were not biologically given to me. I had a feeling this
woman, who I learned was named Evie Sullivan, belonged to me in some capacity, like the
stuffed sloth I slept with every night up until I was twelve. It wasn’t just in the way we shared an
overbearing upper lip that practically concealed the lower lip entirely when we smiled. And she
smiled at me. Right then and there. Not in the way you greet a stranger, but in a way that made it
feel like she was evaluating me, her neck cocked to the side as her gaze danced across my face.
My presence was evidently so important to her that she disengaged from the conversation that
was going on at her table of four. It was March the first time I saw her in person. I remember this
because I recognized how golden her skin was. Sure, by mid- summer the yacht club is filled with
tanned bodies, bronzed from hours spent on boats and docks, but Evie Sullivan had the same
exact shade of skin as me and it didn’t matter what time of year it was. If our physical features
were the only things that aligned us, I probably would’ve walked away and chalked it up to
similar DNA. But it was the way her gaze remained on me, assessing, during every encounter
after that. It was when I was sixteen that I found out for certain she was my mother. By then I
had gotten so many gut feelings that something about my history was off, like that piece in a
puzzle that goes missing, only to find out later you were sitting on it the whole time.
I had started snooping through my parents’ stuff. I asked my mom and dad a lot of questions
back then. When did they meet? Where did they meet? When did they decide they wanted to
have a baby? I was well- versed in sex by that point, having learned about how babies were made
in my sixth-grade health class. But I wanted the nitty gritty details. And it was that need for
answers that led me to my next clue. My dad had always been one to avoid serious conversations.
Backing down during arguments, avoiding sentimental moments as if they were something that
could be caught, like an illness or a rash. So, I wasn’t alarmed when he didn’t engage in my
probing inquisitions. But mom...she was always a softie, free with sharing her emotions, and
always taught me to do the same. So, the fact that she got somewhat detached when I presented
her with questions, was a bold red flag.

It had started out as an average evening, until I asked the question. “What was it like when you
were pregnant with me? Did it hurt to give birth?” I cleared the table and brought the dishes to
the sink, where she was cleaning a pan.
She stepped side to side as if she couldn’t stand still. And then she started scrubbing with
aggression, so hard that she ran a knuckle on the surface of the pan and started bleeding. She
rinsed her cut, keeping her eyes off me and focused on the stream of blood that was dripping off
her finger and into the sink. “Pretty normal. Nothing exciting really.” My mother, the woman
who ingrained the importance of eye contact in me since I was old enough to have a
conversation, didn’t once look at me after I asked these questions. She went about her business,
tending to her wound and cleaning up the kitchen, dodging the proverbial bullets I was throwing
at her.
This was nothing like how my best friend Katie’s mom described her pregnancy, and it made me
feel like I’d been robbed. My own mother couldn’t produce one memorable fact about the day I
was born or the months leading up to it. Knowing what I know now, maybe I should be
applauding her for not wanting to lie. Instead, she kind of glossed over the truth. She had always
been a diehard promoter of “honesty is the best policy,” but for whatever reason she did not want
me knowing the truth about my birth.
And that’s when the detective in me came to life. In the house I grew up in, we had a decent sized
attic. As a child I would play up there while my mother organized old mementos and detoxed the
space of things we no longer needed. A major selling point of that attic was the cedar closet that
had plenty of shelves and space for bins of winter sports apparel and seasonal clothing. For a
reason I understand clearly today, my parents always locked this closet, and they locked the metal
safe that remained pushed against the wall inside, between two Tupperware bins of ski jackets.
Back then it was naturally lost on me. As children, we don’t question our parents’ decisions. They
are God to us, and everything they say and do might as well be straight from the Bible.
After my mom’s awkwardness about my birth questions, I thought more about Evie. Our
similarities, the way she looked at me. How she kind of appeared out of nowhere. While I didn’t
first see her until I was thirteen, I’d heard in passing that she had been fairly new to town back
then. If you’re not born in Flagport, then you’re considered new to town. She was being
introduced as the “new neighbor” to one of Lauren Rivers’ friends before I was thirteen, so I
imagine she had moved to town a year or two before I first saw her. All this knowledge led me to
think more about that safe in the cedar closet, and what was so important that it needed to be
locked up, not once but twice. I thought about just letting it go. Chalking it up to my mom not
being super open about talking about her pregnancy. Maybe it really was a traumatic experience
for her and she didn’t want to relive it. But I couldn’t let it go. It was like those annoying
mosquitoes that used to pester me when we went camping in New Hampshire every summer.
While the safe and the cedar closet were locked up like Fort Knox, the key itself wasn’t all that
hard to find. We had this tall black dresser that served as an accent piece in the upstairs hallway,
the one that connected my room and my parents’ room. It was made of several tiny drawers, all
side by side the entire height of the dresser. Something told me it was a good spot for keys, so one
day I faked an illness. I knew it was a day my mom had a big work event and dad, well dad, never

missed work. It was a day I suspected they wouldn’t offer to stay home with me. It wasn’t like I
was puking or anything. I lied about a stomach ache and sniffled a few times for good measure.
The neighbor, a stay-at-home mom, would be over periodically to check on me and my mom left
a list of every possible number she could be reached at.
As soon as the door clicked shut, I bounded up from the bed Mom made me on the couch. I
went to work digging through each of those drawers, investigating the contents and then moving
on to the next one. The dresser contained thirty tiny drawers. Several of them were filled with
keys, but most of them looked like old car keys, metal clips, elastics, magnets, a whole slew of
random supplies. I narrowed it down to being one of two small keys that were dangling from a
blue carabiner. Neither was labeled but surely it had to be one of them. I remembered which
drawer I found them in. The eighth row down in the right column of drawers. I had to be sure I
replaced them correctly. My father was anal about things being in their places.
With the keys tucked in my pajama bottom pocket, I raced up the stairs two at a time. I had to
jiggle a bit but the cedar closet opened. And as I thought, the second key unlocked both drawers
in the metal safe. I let out a breathy sigh when the drawers opened. I flipped through the file
folders, all titled according to date and topic, going back to the year 1998. The year I was born. I
moved my fingers over the top edges of the folders, hoping to see something, anything with my
name on it. Evidently my parents kept everything from my life. My preschool graduation
certificate, a white envelope filled with a strand labeled “Haley’s first haircut, January 4, 2002.” A
mini jar of teeth. They loved me, there was no doubt about that.
When my fingers landed on a manila envelope, I paused. I asked myself if I really wanted to see
what was inside. Once I knew, there was no turning back. Wrapped around the top of the
envelope was a red string that coiled around a tack. The front was blank. Surely, they would’ve
labeled this if it had been an important life document. When the string was uncoiled, it was the
smell that hit me first. The musty scent of old paper. I reached in hesitantly before I pulled the
papers out, sorting through them on the hardwood floor in front of me. My social security card
slid off my lap and onto the floor. I unfolded a sheet of paper, thinned from time, squinting as I
figured out what it was. Printed-out directions to a hospital in Ohio. I squinted. Ohio? I knew we
moved here from somewhere, but I never really knew where because we’d made the trip when I
was too young to remember. I flipped my fingertips along the top edge, the stack of documents a
short one. A physical form from when I entered Kindergarten. A receipt for the care I received
when I had my tonsils removed at the age of four. And then, two sheets of thick paper, held
together by a paper clip. Certificates, both watermarked, framed in blue, the Ohio state emblem
in the top left corner. The title on both read: State of Ohio, Office of Vital Statistics. I remember
thinking about how formal and official the document looked, the shiver that ran through my
spine when I saw the name Evelyn Stone beside the Mother designation. And the other sheet
with the name June Tilbury listed in the space for Mother designation. I rubbed my finger along
the last name. I had two birth certificates. Based on what I’d researched about adoption up until
this point, I had learned that birth certificates can be amended during a private adoption. I was
holding the original, with Evelyn Stone listed on it, and the amended one with June Tilbury. I
held the paper up, assessing it, questioning my history.

It was a moment I had been somewhat suspecting, but it still hit me with force. After all, I was
searching for something in the first place, but the writing set it all in stone. The parents I had
been calling Mom and Dad for sixteen years didn’t share the same blood as me. The woman at
the club and who I had seen at random events in town with her own children, the woman I knew
as Evie Sullivan, was my mother. It had to be her. And then that was all confirmed when a
newspaper clipping fluttered to the ground, stuck from somewhere on the back of one of the
certificates. It was a black and white photo, with a bold caption beneath. Evie Stone, Class of
1997, Ocean View High School. The familiar face looked back at me, the only difference was the
hair and eye color. Through the grainy image, I could tell they were darker than mine, but it was
undoubtedly the woman I knew as Evie Sullivan, that top upper lip a dead giveaway.
I had grown nauseous after faking my illness earlier that day, the sick feeling in my stomach
igniting a splitting headache, a thousand thoughts racing and crashing into one another. Some
connecting and others going in a different direction entirely. Did my parents ever plan to tell me?
Did they know that my biological mother was in the same town? Did she follow me here? Did
Evie’s own children know she had a daughter, half a dozen years older than them? How could she
keep this secret all these years? Better yet, why did she give me up for adoption in the first place?
The answer to the last question probably had something to do with the fact that I was born the
year after she graduated high school. An accidental pregnancy? Out of wedlock, and far too
young to raise a baby?
I never did mention that I found that birth certificate or the adoption papers. I just went along
with my life and dealt with the surge of emotions I would feel every time I was in the same
vicinity as Evie. That look...always assessing, the curiosity in her eyes, part twinkle and part
regret.
It is the same way she is currently looking at me as I stand at her table taking her order.
“Do you like oysters?” The man across from her peers over his single-paged menu, one eye
winking in contemplation.
“Love them.”
“Okay, let’s do a dozen of today’s oysters, and I’ll have a dirty martini.” The man hands me the
menu, his green gaze clicking on me like a lock pushed in place. He follows it up with a tight-
lipped smile, and that’s when I take the time to assess his features. A chiseled jawline and lips that
bubble up across a straight white smile. This is not Evie’s husband, but I still can’t figure out the
dynamic. They are having lunch. Evie is wearing knee-length white shorts and a teal blouse, her
hair styled but not perfected. He has on a pair of salmon-colored shorts and a navy blue belt with
red lobsters. A white-collared shirt hugs his chest and biceps, billowing out just enough at his
waist to hide any excess body fat. If I had to guess, he is a few years younger than Evie, and he
seems far more refined than the husband I have seen her with over the years. That guy, the one I
now know as Matt, is fun-loving and a tad goofy, hardworking but a bit of a man ditz.
“Actually, I’ll have a cup of clam chowder too.” Evie pipes in and I feel a glow of pride. My real
mother doesn’t shy away from ordering what the hell she wants when she’s with a man. Whether

this is a work meeting, a business deal, or a hidden affair, she doesn’t hide who she is nor does she
conceal her appetite like all the other dainty women who parade through this club.
“And a drink for you?” I drop my gaze to Evie and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t get satisfaction out
of this exchange. She has no idea that I know she’s my mother. And here I am waiting on her,
knowing full well that she is analyzing my features, probably contemplating where I’ve landed in
life thus far. I’m a school nurse and I pick up extra cash working at the Flagport Yacht Club on
nights, weekends, and during the summer months. She, from what I’ve gathered over the years, is
a landscape designer and runs with some of the more prominent families in town.
“I’ll have a Pellegrino with lemon,” she adds. This is when I learn that she has either switched
her ways, transforming into a teetotaler or this is a business meeting that she has chosen to
maintain a clear head for. The man isn’t familiar. I’ve been slinging drinks at this place long
enough to decipher who is a regular club member and who is a guest. You can’t get in this place
without paying a hefty annual fee and I’m pretty sure the waitlist is so long you have to
practically know royalty to get in. Evie knows royalty. At least when it comes to Flagport
standards. She’s been connected to the McCue family since she started coming to this club.
Lauren Rivers, offspring of the McCue royalty is her best friend. And I know this because I’ve
walked in on them chatting in the bathrooms. When Lauren attends an event, Evie is right by her
side, even more so than Lauren’s own husband, who went missing about a year ago.
I turn on a heel and saunter toward the bar, knowing that Evie’s eyes are on me the entire time. I
ask the bartender, Eric, who has become my good friend over the years, “Do you know who that
guy is? I’ve never seen him before.”
Eric tips his head up as he shakes the liquor in the metal tumbler, the crack of ice colliding with
metal creates the everyday background noise of this club. He squints his dark brown eyes,
thinking about the question. He’s been the full-time bartender here for two decades. He knows
everyone. He knows every member’s drink order and preferred appetizers. He knows their jobs
and if they come from old money or new, and he can point out their home on a Flagport map,
and tell me the stupid things they did when they were drunk at the club.
“That makes two of us.” Eric stretches his neck to the left as he pours the drink into a frosty glass,
before locking his gaze back on the man. “Never seen him before. He’s not a Flagger.”
I let out an audible exhale. “Interesting. Thoughts?” That’s the only question I need to ask Eric to
get his opinion. I pull a Pellegrino out of the stainless-steel fridge that is tucked between the
kitchen and the bar and ready myself for his response.
He squints again before making his final assessment. “My guess is he’s new blood. Forties, single,
involved in a tech startup company, possibly here for a business meeting to gain something...” He
pushes the martini glass forward on the bar as I grab a tray from beneath where he is standing.
He leans forward, analyzing the scene before him, twisting his mouth to the side in
contemplation. “Hmmmm...”
“What?” I hang on his every word as if he’s a psychic predicting my future.

“He’s not your classic startup-looking dude though so I can’t one hundred percent commit to that
as his job.”
I assess the guy again. His hair is so dark, if I had to pick a shade I’d land on black. But his eyes
are a pale color, a shade of green I’ve never seen before. He’s good-looking. There is no doubt
about that. He’s the kind of good-looking that is universal...old Hollywood good-looking. I could
see him on a black and white film charming the pants off Marilyn Monroe or Audrey Hepburn.
“Do you think he likes the woman he’s sitting across from?” There have been so many times I’ve
almost slipped and called her ‘Mom.’
“Evie Sullivan?” The name comes quick to him. He’s served her many cocktails over the years.
“Yeah, I think so.” I play dumb.
“Hard to tell but I’m leaning toward yes...he likes her.” Eric pauses and squints his eyes as he
continues to stare and shake the tumbler. “I take that back. He either likes her or he wants
something from her.”
“What makes you say that?” I lift the martini glass and place it on the tray beside the bottle of
Pellegrino and the glass of ice.
“It seems to me he is trying to sell her something...whether that’s himself or a business
proposition.”
“Hmmmm,” I say.
“Why so curious?” He surprises me with the question. He never asks me about my inquiries, and
this has become more of a game to us over the years. But Eric is smart. He knows how to put on
enough of a kiss-ass approach to the yuppies and arrogant old money patrons, so they keep
coming back and leaving him hefty tips. But with me, he’s straight to the point and doesn’t hold
back from telling it like it is. If he wasn’t gay I would 100 percent consider dating him.
“Not sure...just never saw him here before,” I answer his question.
Eric wipes a cloth across the mahogany bar, making it gleam. “When’s the last time you went on
a date there, Hale?”
“Stop!” I pull the tray toward me and balance it on one palm. “That is not what this is about.”
As soon as I say the words, some‐ thing clicks into place. Maybe this is what it should be about.
Maybe I should show a little interest in the mystery man that is sitting across from my mother. ...