Book Review: The Lies I Tell

Synopsis:

She’s back. Meg Williams. Maggie Littleton. Melody Wilde. They’re different names for the same woman, depending on the town, depending on the job. She’s a con artist. She erases her real self and becomes whoever you need her to be. A college student. A life coach. A real estate agent. Nothing about her is real. She sidles up to you and tells you exactly what you need to hear. By the time she’s done with you, you’ve lost everything.

Kat Roberts has been waiting a decade for the woman who upended her life to return. At last, now she has. And Kat is determined to expose her and get her life back on course.

But the two women grow closer and Kat’s long-held assumptions begin to crumble, leaving her wondering who is Meg’s true target this time.

The Lies I Tell examines the psyches and motivations of two women on an unwavering quest for justice for the past . . . and the futures they desire.

Review:

Bestselling author Julie Clark describes herself as “obsessed with true crime podcasts.” She happened upon Who the Hell is Hamish? about Hamish Watson, a surfer from Sydney, Australia who pulled off scams for decades in the United States, Canada, Britain, Hong Kong, and Australia. He evaded capture for years and bilked his victims out of millions of dollars. The podcast examines how he did it, what he might have done with all the money, and how he managed to slip through law enforcement’s grasp for so many years. Clark was fascinated by the way he “went to elaborate lengths to lure in his victims, gain their trust, and then steal everything they owned.” She envisioned female con artists being even more effective because women are generally perceived as less threatening than men. She asked herself, “Would people be more inclined to trust them?”

From the outset, Clark makes Meg a richly sympathetic con artist. Early in the story, Meg reveals that her latest target, Ron Ashton, tricked Meg’s mother, robbed them of what was rightfully theirs, and is now a powerful politician. Meg’s first-person narrative is highly effective and heightens her story’s emotional impact. She explains that Ashton “tore my life apart, sending my mother into a downward spiral she never recovered from and leaving me to live alone in a car for my final year of high school and beyond.” Meg describes how her mother longed for a true partner, believing women should stand on their own, but fell victim to the scheming, deceitful Ashton. Meg’s dreams were crushed and she learned to take refuge in libraries, using the computers there to establish a dating profile that ensured at least three dinner dates per week in order to stay fed. Living in her car, she worked at the YMCA where she was able to shower before her shift and hide her true circumstances from her boss and coworkers. She was never quite able to save enough enough money to get a place to live due to car registration fees, rising gas prices, and parking tickets issued as a result of the ongoing search for a safe place to park and catch a few hours of sleep. She inadvertently fell into a life of grifting when she discovered the profile on a dating site of a math teacher, Cory Dempsey, at her high school. Crafting a fake identity and life story, Meg used her knowledge about the forty-eight-year-old, who had been promoted to high school principal, as a basis for her first scam. Initially, she was motivated by her need for a safe place to live. But as she learned more about him, she formulated a plan to extract revenge and found she enjoyed being someone else. “To be able to shed my problems and become a different person was liberating. Amelia had options where I had none, and with a few keystrokes, she could have even more.” Eventually, Meg reached the point that “harming someone who harmed someone she cared about felt right to her” and, according to Clark, she “rationalized her choices.” She found a lucrative career as a con artist.

The difference between justice and revenge comes down to who’s telling the story.

Clark says her research revealed that a skilled con artist convinces his/her victims to participate in the scheme with no knowledge that their actions constitute participation in a crime. They study the victim and convince the victim that they need something that only the con artist can provide. Clark also took great pains to ensure that prosecutions against Meg would be extremely difficult given the circumstances surrounding her scams. For instance, if a victim willingly gives the con artist money, no theft has occurred in the eyes of the law. Indeed, Meg explains how she creates elaborate, detailed backstories about herself, focuses on specific targets, and “plays the long game,” taking time to study her prey. She methodically infiltrates her victims’ lives, heavily using social media to establish connections with her victims’ friends and business associates. That way, the mutual acquaintance can vouch for her when she finally meets the victim, corroborating details of the identity she has fabricated. And she reinvests in her business, using the money she makes from her cons to fund her future scams. She keeps meticulous records of her pursuits.

By the time Meg meets Kat, she has been spent ten years perfecting her techniques, all in preparation for and leading up to the one big con that will destroy Ashton, the man who ruined her life and “set her on a path she never imagined for herself,” according to Clark. “Meg wants revenge more than anything.” But as Meg compellingly explains, being a con artist is not just a role she never planned to play. It is a lonely existence and she has no intention of being a grifter indefinitely.

When Kat and Meg’s lives intersected a decade ago, Kat’s career as an investigative journalist was just beginning. Chasing the Cory Dempsey story, she saw a chance to score an interview with a reluctant witness. It could lead not only to the discovery of new and shocking information about the story, but also, perhaps, to details about Meg herself that would enable her to successfully pitch a story about her and allow Kat to advance in a highly competitive industry. Her risk did not pay off. Instead, her life quickly derailed. She was “collateral damage” as a result of a series of events set in motion by Meg. She has blamed Meg ever since, determined to expose Meg as the fraud that she is and put her life back in order. Clark also employs a first-person narrative to convey Kat’s story, pulling readers into her innermost thoughts and motivations in chapters that alternate with Meg’s account. Kat reveals that she knows blaming Meg for what happened to her is not entirely rational, but she embarks, like Meg, on a mission to “balance the scales.”

Kat is living with her fiancé, Scott, a police detective with a gambling problem, when she learns that Meg has returned. Meg is posing as a real estate broker, and Kat secures a job as Meg’s assistant. She plans to infiltrate Meg’s life, ingratiating herself in much the way that Meg does with her victims, in order to gather enough evidence to finally write the exposé that will unmask Meg and establish Kat as a credible, respected journalist. “I want to climb inside Meg’s mind, inside her life, and piece it all together, dot by dot,” Kat ruminates. “Take something from her, the way she took everything from me.” She believes that Meg has no idea who she really is, but before long, Kat finds herself being reeled in by Meg, and doubting everything she thought she knew as she strives to keep her life from unraveling yet again. Trust is a theme Clark deftly explores through Kat’s experiences. She made the mistake of trusting years ago and the consequences devastated her. But did she learn from the experience? Is her trust in Scott misplaced? Has she learned to trust her own instincts? And could her growing fondness for Meg, despite her knowledge of Meg’s actions, undermine her efforts to get her life and career back on track?

The Lies I Tell is a smart, absorbing story about two women who craft false identities and attempt to con each other. Both are motivated by deep wounds inflicted by others who wronged them. In Meg’s case, she lost her beloved mother as a result of Ashton’s callous wrongdoing. Both women are intent on retribution, believing that they can exact justice and, in the process, free themselves from past hurts and forge for themselves the kind of futures they have long dreamed about. Clark cleverly keeps readers guessing “who is the cat and who is the mouse” in a tale that is simultaneously full of surprises and heart-wrenching. Clark relates that she “wanted to write a morally gray character” and “spent a lot of time trying to figure out a way to write a female con artist with a conscience” and has succeeded, making Meg a relatable anti-hero for whom readers will find themselves rooting. Clark says that was her goal. “I love it when you can root for somebody who’s doing something wrong and still want them to succeed.”

And The Lies I Tell is yet another cautionary tale about the dangers of social media. The methods Meg employs to gather insight into her victims and enable her to believably ingratiate herself in their lives illustrate the inherent dangers of posting personal details online. Clark notes that seemingly innocuous activities like, for instance, online quizzes often reveal information that scam artists can use in furtherance of criminal schemes. Posts detailing life experiences, birthplaces, current and past residences, jobs held, names of relatives, etc. can easily provide a con artist the entrée he/she seeks. “We’re so used to being behind a screen” that it is easy to believe that no one is watching,” Clark observes, but “everyone is.”

In addition to penning bestselling novels, Clark continues working as a fifth grade teacher. “At the end of every book we read, my students have to answer the questions, ‘What is this book really about? What is it that the author wants you thinking about when you’re done?’” she explains. She says she has to answer the same question about every book she writes. For her, The Lies I Tell is “about justice; it’s about taking back what you think belongs to you.” And that theme is particularly poignant, resonant, and timely given that Clark’s two protagonists are female and, as Clark reminds readers, this is still “a world where women often get the short end of the stick.”

Excerpt from The Lies I Tell

Kat

Present — June

She stands across the room from me, in a small cluster of donors, talking and laughing. A jazz quartet plays in a corner, the bouncing, slipping notes dancing around us, a low undertone of class and money. Meg Williams. I take a sip of wine, savoring the expensive vintage, the weight of the crystal glass, and I watch her. There are few photographs of her in existence—a grainy senior portrait from an old high school yearbook, and another image pulled from a 2009 YMCA staff directory—but I recognized her immediately. My first thought: She’s back. Followed closely by my second: Finally.

As soon as I saw her, I tucked my press credentials into my purse and kept to the perimeter of the room. I’ve been to all of Ron Ashton’s campaign events in the past three months, watching and waiting for Meg to make her appearance—called there by a Google Alert I set ten years ago. After a decade of silence, it pinged in April, with the creation of a new website. Meg Williams, Real Estate Agent. I always knew she’d return. That she’d done so under her real name told me she wasn’t planning to hide.

And yet, when she entered, smiling as she handed over her coat at the door, my sense of equilibrium shifted, launching me into a moment I wasn’t sure would ever arrive. You can prepare yourself for something, imagine it a hundred different ways, and still find yourself breathless when it actually happens.

I spoke to her once, ten years ago, though she wouldn’t have known I was the one who’d answered the phone that day. It was a thirty-second call that changed the trajectory of my life, and to say I hold Meg partially responsible would be an understatement.

Scott, my fiancé, will surely argue that the cost—both financially and emotionally—will be too great. That we can’t afford for me to step away from paying jobs to chase a story that might never happen. That immersing myself in that time, in those events, and in those people, might undo all the work I’ve put into healing. What he doesn’t understand is that this is the story that will finally set me free—not just from the fluff pieces I’m paid pennies per word to write, but from the bigger demons that Meg sent me toward so long ago.

I attach myself to a larger circle of people, and I nod along with their conversation, all the while keeping an eye on her. Watching her mingle and circulate. Watching her watch him. I’ve spent hundreds of hours deconstructing her last few years in Los Angeles, and no matter which way I look at it, Ron Ashton stands at the center. While I don’t know her heart—not yet at least—I do know she isn’t the kind of woman to pass up an opportunity to balance the scales.

She tosses her head back and laughs at something someone says, and as Ron approaches her from behind, I marvel that I get to be here to see this moment. That I’m the only person in the room who knows what’s about to happen.

Well, not the only person. She knows.

I turn slightly so I appear to be looking out a large window, at the sweeping views from downtown to the ocean, and I watch as introductions are made. Witty banter, some laughter. He bends down so he can hear her better, and I wonder how she does it. How she can trick people into believing she is who she says she is, into handing over their deepest desires, opening themselves up to her manipulation and trickery. Offering themselves willingly to her deception.

I watch as a business card is passed and pocketed before looking away, my mind latching on to her entry point. Which will now become mine.

strong>Meg

Present — June
Twenty-Two Weeks before the Election

It starts how it always starts.

With me, quietly slipping alongside you—no sudden moves, no loud fanfare. As if I’ve always been there. Always belonged.

This time, it’s a $10,000-a-plate fundraiser. After nearly ten years, I feel right at home among the extravagant trappings of the rich—the original artwork on the walls, the antiques that cost more than most people make in a year, and the hired help I pretend not to notice, quietly moving through homes like this one, perched high on a hill with all of Los Angeles glittering below us.

If you’re one of my targets, know that I’ve chosen you carefully. It’s likely you’re in the midst of a major life change—a lost job, a divorce, the death of a close family member. Or a heated run for elected office that you’re on the verge of losing. Emotional people take risks. They don’t think clearly, and they’re eager to believe whatever fantasy I feed them.

Social media has become my primary research tool, with its check-ins, geo-tags, and shameless self-promotion. And those quizzes some of your friends take and share? Dogs or cats? Number of brothers and sisters? Most of the questions seem harmless, but the next time you see one, take a closer look. Name five places you’ve lived or Four names you go by—both of which allow me to approach you. John? It’s me, Meg! From Boise, remember? I knew your sister.

It’s so easy, it’s criminal.

I spend hundreds of hours on observation and research. Profiling the different people in your life, finding the one I can befriend, the one who will lead me to you. When I’m done, I know everything I possibly can about you, and most of the people around you. By the time you’re saying nice to meet you, I’ve already known you for months.

Does this worry you? It should.
_______________

“Have you tried the crab cakes?” Veronica appears at my elbow, a cocktail napkin in hand. We’ve become close in the six months I’ve been back in Los Angeles, having met in a yoga class in Santa Monica, our mats positioned next to each other in the back. What started as a friendly greeting with a stranger at the beginning of class was a budding friendship by the end. It’s amazing how easy Instagram stories make it to put yourself in the right place at the right time, next to the right person.

“I haven’t,” I tell her. “I heard they’re serving filet mignon for dinner, so I’m saving myself for that.”

There’s a heat inside my chest, the slow burn of excitement I always get when I start a new job. I enjoy this part the most I think, the setting of the hook. Savoring the delicious anticipation of what’s about to happen. No matter how many times I do this, I never tire of the thrill this moment always brings.

Veronica crumples her napkin. “You’re missing out, Meg.”

It’s still a shock to hear people use my real name. I’ve gone by many over the years, mostly variations of my own—Margaret, Melody, Maggie. Backstories that range from college student to freelance photographer and most recently interior decorator and life coach to celebrities, all of them elaborate fabrications. Roles I played to near perfection. But tonight, I’m here as myself, someone I haven’t been for a very long time.

I’d had no choice in the matter. My entry into this job required me to get my real estate license, and there was no getting around the social security number and fingerprinting. But that’s okay, because this time I want my name to be known. For Ron Ashton—developer, local politician, and candidate for state senator—to know it was me who took everything from him. Not just his money, but the reputation he’s spent years cultivating.

I see him across the room, his broad shoulders a few inches above everyone else’s, his gray hair neatly combed, talking to Veronica’s husband, his campaign manager.

Veronica follows my gaze and says, “David says the election is going to be close. That Ron can’t afford a single misstep in these last few months.”

“What’s he like?” I ask. “Between us.”

Veronica thinks for a moment and says, “Your typical politician. Closet womanizer. Fancies himself to be Reagan reincarnated. David says he’s obsessed with him. ‘He won’t shut up about fucking Reagan.’?” She gives a small laugh and shakes her head.

“But what do you think?”

She looks at me with an amused expression. “I think he’s like every other politician out there—pathologically ambitious. But he pays David well, and the fringe benefits are great.” Then she nudges my shoulder. “I’m glad you could come. I think there’ll be quite a few people here who will be good for you to meet. Possibly some new clients.”

I take another sip of wine. My whole reason for being here tonight is to snag one client in particular. “I could use the business,” I say. “It’s been hard starting over.”

“You’ll get there. You’ve got years of experience in Michigan behind you. I mean, the way you handled our purchase of the Eightieth Street property. I still don’t know how you got the sellers to drop their price like that.”

I suppress a smile. Shortly after we’d met, Veronica had mentioned over post-yoga sushi that they were looking for an investment property, but the agent they were using wasn’t finding them anything in their price range.

“Did she show you that property on Kelton?” I had riffed, knowing exactly what they were hoping to find. “The one-story traditional that was on the market for $1.7 million?”

Veronica’s eyes had widened. “No, and that would have been perfect. I should ask her about it.”

“It sold in multiples the day it hit the market, so it’s too late,” I said. “Your agent works out of Apex Realty in Brentwood, right? We’re always getting internal email alerts announcing her deals—ten million, twenty million.” I took a piece of sushi and held it between my chopsticks. “I can tell you, managing escrows at that price point can be consuming.”

My story was that I’d moved home to Los Angeles after a successful career selling real estate in Ann Arbor. My new website links to another one in Michigan, featuring listings pilfered from Zillow and Redfin.

Veronica had set her chopsticks down and said, “She was great when we purchased the Malibu house, but maybe this price point is beneath her.” I took a sip of my lemon water and let Veronica spin this out in her mind. Finally, she’d said, “I’d love to throw you the business. Maybe you can put your feelers out, see what you can find.”

I’d found them something almost immediately. A single-story traditional in Westchester on a tree-lined street. Hardwood floors, a bay window, and a fully remodeled kitchen. When I handed Veronica the listing setup, outlining the house’s features and price, she’d balked. “This is nearly $500,000 above our maximum budget.”

In another lifetime, I’d once taken classes toward a digital design degree. I still have the certificate of completion tucked in a box, somewhere in storage. Granted, it’s a forgery, but I’d learned enough to get by in the beginning, and even more in the years since.

“I think I can get them down significantly. Let’s just take a look and see what we think. It’s on lockbox, so we can go now if we want.”

The listing I’d handed her was mostly accurate—bedrooms, square footage, HVAC; I’d only inflated the price. From there, I’d proceeded to “negotiate down” to just over $200,000 above the actual list price.

This only worked because apps like Zillow and Redfin don’t exist for people like Veronica and David. In their tax bracket, no one does anything that can be outsourced. Accountants and bookkeepers who pay their bills. Maids and housekeepers to do their grocery shopping and cook their meals. And a trusted real estate agent to do the searches, coordinate with the listing agent to preview properties, set up private showings, and manage the transaction for them.

David and Veronica signed paperwork when I asked them to, wired the funds where I told them to, and if they ever noticed they’d never met the listing agent or sellers, it was a fleeting thought and then it was gone again.

In the end, David had proclaimed it the easiest transaction he’d ever done. Why wouldn’t it be, when everyone got exactly what they wanted? The sellers got $200,000 over the real asking price. Veronica and David felt like they got the deal of the century, thanks to the one I’d fabricated. And I got a shiny—and ironclad—reputation within their circle of friends.

The main element of a good con is a strong thread of legitimacy. Of almost being who you say you are. Just like on a movie set, I’m real. My actions are real. It’s only the background that’s fake.

David joins us now, wrapping his arm around Veronica’s waist. “Meg, you look gorgeous,” he says. “I hope my wife hasn’t been boring you with details of the remodel?”

I force a smile. “Not at all,” I say. “We were actually just talking about Ron. I hear the election is going to be close?”

David nods. “Our internal polls show them nearly tied. Tonight’s fundraising will go a long way toward our final push.”

“You must be exhausted,” I say. “Veronica tells me you’re never home.”

David winks at Veronica. “Sounds like the two of you have been getting into some good trouble in my absence. Thanks for keeping her busy.”

“It’s been my pleasure.”

When the conversation turns toward their annual winter vacation to the Caribbean, I tune them out and watch the crowd of people mingle and mix, small clusters forming and then re-forming into new configurations as the quartet in the corner launches into a new rhythm. Los Angeles is so different from Pennsylvania, where I’d been last. I’ve had to make a steep adjustment, softening my approach, making sure all my edges match who I say I am. Here, people are naturally wary, looking for the angle, the hitch, the trick. It’s expected that no one you meet is exactly who they say they are.

I work hard to embed myself into other people’s circle of friends, so that no one notices that I don’t have any of my own. I haven’t had a true friend in years, not since before I left Los Angeles. I try not to think of Cal, or wonder where he is, whether he’s still with Robert. I have very few regrets in my life, but how things ended with Cal is one of them.

A tendril of anxiety winds its way through me as I think through my timeline once more. Unlike my past jobs, this one has an expiration date—fourteen days before Election Day. Which leaves me twenty weeks. One hundred forty days. It sounds like a lot, but there will be very little room for mistakes or delays. There are specific benchmarks I’ll need to meet along the way in order for everything to work. The first of which is an introduction to Ron, and that has to happen tonight.

As part of my background research, I’ve dipped into Ron’s real estate portfolio, searching public records to get a feel for how much he’s got in equity and how much he’s leveraged. Thanks to his run for office, I’ve been able to look through his taxes as well. One thing that stood out was how many financial risks he’s taken and how many of them played out to his advantage. I think back to how he tricked my mother, robbed us both of what was rightfully ours, and I wonder how many others Ron has used and then discarded on his path to state senator.

“Meg, help us out. Saint John or Saint Croix?” Veronica’s eyes are pleading.

I know she’s been angling for Saint Croix, so I say, “The last time I was in Saint John was about three years ago.” I shake my head as if saddened by the memory. “As much as I love that island, I was really disappointed. You stay at the Villas, right?”

David nods. “They’ve always taken really good care of us.”

I wrinkle my nose in distaste. “I think they’ve unionized. Definitely not the experience I was hoping for.”

“Jesus,” he says. “Saint Croix it is then.”

Veronica gives a tiny clap and says, “I don’t know why you never listen to me.”

A voice from behind cuts into our conversation. “I hope you three are discussing my victory party.” I turn and find myself face-to-face with Ron Ashton, the man who tore my life apart, sending my mother into a downward spiral she never recovered from and leaving me to live alone in a car for my final year of high school and beyond.

I smile. “The man of the hour,” I say, holding out my hand. “Meg Williams.” A small part of me thrills, knowing that what I’m offering him is the absolute truth. I’ve spent years imagining this moment, wondering if he’d recognize me or my last name. See the shadow of my mother’s features in mine. Wondering if I’d have to pivot and turn our meeting into a happy reunion, a coincidence of naivete and sexual innuendo. Enough to glide over the bump of our prior connection and convince him I knew nothing then, and know even less now. But his expression is blank, and I’m relieved to remain anonymous.

His grip is warm and firm, and I hold it just a fraction of a second longer than is typical, until I see a flash of interest behind his eyes. He will remember this moment. Come back to it again in his mind, and ask himself if he could have made a different decision. My job is to make sure the answer to that question is no.

“Meg has just moved to Los Angeles from Michigan,” Veronica offers. “She was the one who got us that stellar deal on the Westchester property.”

Ron’s interest deepens, as I knew it would. According to Ron’s social media accounts, he’s been working with the same real estate agent for nearly fifteen years. A man who had two complaints for sexual harassment to the California Realtors board. It had been easy enough to become his third and final one, leaving Ron Ashton without representation for nearly four months now. For a developer, that’s a problem.

“Real estate,” he says. “What’s your sales record like?”

“In Michigan, I was in the top one percent for the last ten years,” I tell him. “But here in Los Angeles? It’s slow going.” It’s always good to infuse a shade of humility. People appreciate knowing they’re better than you.

“Do you have a card?” he asks. “I might give you a call.”

I pull one out of my clutch and hand it to him. “Check out my website. Even though I’m newly arrived in town, I’m not new to the business, and I know Los Angeles well. I’d be happy to chat if you’re interested.” Then I turn to Veronica and say, “In Saint Croix, you absolutely need to eat at The Riverhead.”

As Veronica begins to outline their itinerary, I feel it, a tingle on the back of my neck that I learned long ago never to ignore. I take a small step backward and look down to my left, as if I’m trying to make sure I don’t misstep. When I look up, I sweep my gaze across the room searching for someone who might be watching me, but all I see is a room full of people talking and laughing, drinking and celebrating a man they’re hoping to send to Sacramento.

I smile and nod at Veronica, but I’m no longer listening. I’m running through my arrival, the people I spoke to—the valet, the campaign staff covering the front entry, various donors. Harmless small talk necessary for a new-to-town real estate agent trying to build her client base. All of them are accounted for, all of them are occupied. Perhaps it’s just the familiarity of being back in Los Angeles. The air here is unique, a blend of grass and car exhaust, and sometimes, if you’re close enough, the smell of salt on an ocean breeze. I’m far away from where I grew up, but beneath all the layers—all the identities I’ve held, the years that have passed—I’m still the person I was when I left. A woman on the run, flush with the power of knowing I could become anyone. Do anything. All I had to do was tell a man what he wanted to hear.