The Liar Charms

By Lorain O'Neil

Remy's just graduated college and... been kidnapped! Sent to auction. And she doesn't have the vaguest idea why.

But intractable businessman Isaiah Grommet knows why: Remy's a Liar Charm, invaluable to his billionaire empire ―voluntary or not.

Awakening in a locked room with other bewildered young women Remy is thunderstruck when informed by Isaiah what her new future is: working for him. Or, she can face the wrath (not to mention the executioner!) of Pakken, an old and powerful company of very patriarchal men siring very special daughters for very special remuneration they are not about to give up.

But one Pakken father has had enough ―and he's secretly doing something about it. Another one is too but in a decidedly lethal direction. And Remy? Remy has a whopping big secret herself, one Pakken sure hasn't bargained for.

'Cause when it comes to enslaved servitude, hipster Remy has some pretty intractable ideas of her own, creatively inventive ones if you want to be charitable, brain-bleached hilarious ones if you want to be accurate. So if Remy can just turn her "screw yous" into "yessirs" instead of launching her barmiest blast of fake-the-funk evah, she might not only stay alive but land the whole Pakken lot of 'em smack in the Hudson!

Unfortunately Remy has never managed a "yessir" in her life.

Bonus chapters from some of the author's other books are included.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lorain O'Neil
• Release date: Feb 5, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386856030

Book preview

Chapter One

Remy

IT JUST DIDN’T MAKE any sense. Except for two of us, if you’d wanted women for the sex slave business you sure wouldn’t have chosen us. And the two you might, I figured out they were plants, shills. The hairdresser and the make-up artist. The other five of us, nope, we were for real. Kidnapped. Held. What did they want, our kidneys or something? It just didn’t make sense. I’d woken up in a room, a large room perched near the top of a city high-rise that nevertheless felt like a cavern. It was a barracks of sort, all eight of us kept in that one large room. It was the hairdresser who’d been seated by my bed.

Hi, she’d said so sweetly, you okay, Remy? Awake? I know you must be confused but everything is okay, nobody has hurt us—

She was elbowed out of the way by a pudgy black woman who looked my age, about twenty-one years old until she opened her mouth and a missing tooth put a few more years on her.

Girl, you’ve been kidnapped, the woman spat at me. "Do you remember? Did anybody see you get taken? C’mon, sit up, pay attention."

Kidnapped? Me? My first stupid thought was what on earth for? I wasn’t beautiful, I was Bag o’ Noodles broke, no family connections, who in their right mind would want to kidnap me? I sat up and looked around, muddleheaded.

What happened to you? the black woman pressed. Think!

Give her a minute, Lula, sweet-smiler said, she’s probably still woozy.

Screw that, the woman called Lula said. "Somebody might have seen her get snatched, might be looking for her. Well? What happened?"

I blinked, looking around. There were beds, but they looked odd, like they were big heavy boxes bolted to the floor. There was furniture: chairs, tables, a very large sectional sofa arranged before a wall-mounted TV screen, but no lamps, no dressers. Instead, by each bed there was a heavy wardrobe against the wall. There was a large, thick glass window framing the city skyline and I could see it was daylight outside which also didn’t make sense, it should’ve been the middle of the night. There were other women scattered about the room, all staring at me with a look of sadness, pity even. The room looked clean, modern, but with the kind of sparseness that says temporary, but what that room really had, in spades, was despair. The air reeked of it.

How did you know my name? I asked in a voice I was dismayed to hear come out a croak.

Matron told us when they carried you in last night. Do you need help getting to the bathrooms? My name’s Maryann, I’ll—

Bloody hell! Lula raged. Tell us. Did anybody see you get grabbed?

I stopped and thought. What had happened?

N... no. I don’t think so, I said dully. I came to New York—

"On a job interview, we know. That’s how they got most of us here. Lula sat down on the bed. When they took you, how did that go down?"

I ignored her and got up from the bed, wobbling, and Maryann grabbed my arm steadying me.

What’s going on? Where is this place? Who are all you people?

Nobody saw you get taken? Lula inhaled and I saw her bottom lip start to quiver.

Lula, Maryann said, her voice low, kind, gentle, you know they didn’t. You know how it happened for all of us. They aren’t going to make a mistake, let someone see them. You have to stop thinking like that, it’s going to drive you dotty. Nobody’s coming.

Yeah they are, another woman called from the other side of the room. "Just not the people we want coming."

"Tell me what’s going on," I practically screamed, everything about me in total disarray.

We don’t know, Lula said heatedly. It started with Maryann. They got her first. About three weeks ago. Then—

Who’s ‘they?’ What do they want? Why are—

The other woman who’d spoken had gotten up and approached me.

I’m Inga, she said. Sit down here and we’ll tell you what we know. I looked at her, she was the prettiest of us, maybe twenty-two years old, but with glasses and a face a bit too narrow and chest wise, pretty much nothing there.

I’ll get you some water, Maryann said in what seemed to me a calculated move, disappearing through an archway at the side of the room.

God I hope they take her first, Lula breathed.

First? I gasped.

Inga gave me an encouraging but sad little snigger. Maryann can be a bit annoying at times. We think she was a cheerleader.

I sat down at a table with them, Inga and Lula. Another woman drifted over to us and sat down next to me.

I’m Victoria, she said solemnly. She looked maybe thirty years old, a beautiful face but created, I could see, largely through cosmetics. I was the third one to land here. First Maryann, then Carmen, she pointed to a brown skinned Latina woman who had been staring at me but had seemed to lose interest and looked away.

Why do they want us? I asked horrified.

We’re pretty sure it’s not sex, Inga said forcing a smile.

Nobody has been molested in any way, Victoria added. They’ve been respectful of us, even kind, they—

"Bullshit, Matron decked Kelly, put her—"

That was, Victoria lowered her voice, necessary, you know that. Kelly was going to rip her vein out.

I felt all the blood drain from my head and thought I might pass out.

Please, I begged in bewilderment close to unraveling. "Tell me what’s going on."

Okay, Inga said. There’s a woman, she’s called ‘Matron.’ Sort of the den mother. You want something, you ask her, she might actually get it for you if it’s like, tampons, or something. Don’t waste your time asking her for help. She’s one of them. And don’t waste any effort on that window. It might look like it’s made out of glass, it isn’t. And don’t bother writing anything on it, a big shutter just comes down over it outside until Matron comes in and wipes the window off. So we know there are cameras in here though we haven’t found them. Probably microphones too I’m guessing. Needless to say, that door over there, you aren’t going through it. At least not until they want you to and even if you did it’s just another locked room out there, smaller than this. It connects to a hallway with an elevator. Over there, she pointed to the archway Maryann had passed through, are the bathrooms. No kitchen. They bring us food.

What do they want? Who are they? I implored.

Whenever Matron comes in, it’s with three men, Inga continued. "Three big men. All of them have Tasers so watch yourself. Is that how they got you? A Taser? Are you burned anywhere?"

No, I said. I was in my hotel room. Sleeping. I had a job interview... today? What day is this?

No job interview, Lula said. That was them. That’s how they got you to come here.

"But why?"

That, Inga said, is the big question. They aren’t saying. But, well, notice the beds. Eight beds and they were all here from the start. Now there are eight women. We think whatever this is about, it’ll start happening soon. We think they... got... everyone now. Everyone they wanted.

"But I’m nobody, I wailed. Why would they want me?"

We can’t figure out the common denominator but I’ll give you the rundown. Like I said, it began with Maryann, Inga said as I was only dimly aware that it was taking Maryann a rather long time to come back with the proffered water. Maryann is a hairdresser from right here in New York City. She’s thirty-two, has a husband and a kid. Next, Carmen. She’s from Puerto Rico via New Jersey. Twenty years old. She’s a singer, they got her to fly up here promising her an audition for a record company. Victoria was two days later, she’s thirty, divorced, no kids. She’s a make-up artist from California. They promised her a job working for a Broadway show. Then me, about a week after Carmen. I was engaged, just graduated college in Pennsylvania, my boyfriend brought me here to shop for a bridal gown.

Then he’s looking for you! I erupted.

A horrible look crossed her face.

No, Inga said. "I wasn’t kidnapped. He brought me here, said he wanted me to meet some people. He delivered me right to Matron and the Posse –that’s what we call the men with her. It was all a set up. And I’d known him for two years."

Good lord. Two years?

"That girl over there? She was next. Her name is –and she swears this is real– Prizes. Won’t tell us her last name. She’s twenty-one, works at a restaurant in Indiana."

Worked, Lula corrected her. I was next. Six days ago. I’m twenty-three, from Rhode Island. They got me here with a job offer too, secretarial. I took a course. On a scholarship. Now I’m wondering where that scholarship really came from –it was the school that sent me here. Kelly was next, she’s only eighteen, graduated high school less than a week before they got her.

I just graduated from college, I babbled.

Well that’s three, you and me just graduating from college, Kelly from high school, but I doubt it means anything, Inga said offhandedly. Probably just the time of the year, this is when graduations happen.

But me too, I’d just finished secretarial school, Lula said bitterly.

Well not me, Victoria offered. I finished school years ago, same as Maryann.

"No idea? None at all why they’ve taken us?" I asked in desperation.

We’ve gone over it and over it, Inga said. "The only thing we’ve come up with is that we are all different. What about you? Anything unusual about you? Any odd experiences? Anything out of the ordinary at all?"

Heck no, I said envisioning a reprieve. I’m from the suburbs! One younger brother still in college, my Mom’s dead and my Stepdad’s remarried. I just got a degree in—

"There’s gotta be something, Lula railed, they didn’t just take us all off the street at random. They planned this, they spent bucks on this."

"Hell, Lula, in my case at least, they spent years," Inga retorted acidly.

We need to be nice to them, Victoria urged. That’s the only way we’re going to get any information from them. Play along.

"Play along with what? I said. If they haven’t told us what they want, how do we know what to play along to?"

They’ve told us one thing, Maryann said, finally returning and placing a glass of water on the table before me. There is going to be an event. An important event. And we need to—

I think it’s an auction, a new voice chimed in. For us. I looked up and there was the Latina girl. Her voice was soft.

What? Maryann said aghast. No, no, that’s not it, it sounds more like—

Why do you think it’s an auction? Inga interrupted.

Because of what they’ve given us, the clothes, the makeup. They want us to dress up for it, remember? Matron said. They’ve given us food, they’ve kept us healthy. We’ll get a better price for them if we look good.

No offense, I said looking about at everyone, but if they wanted to auction off women, none of us here are exactly the never’d-be-kicked-outta-bed-for-eating-crackers type.

Lula was too plump, Inga was flat chested, and Carmen had a mustache and cactus legs. Prizes was too skinny and bookish looking. And me, well, not exactly Vogue material on a good day and it wasn’t a good day.

No, Prizes said from across the room, the first time I’d heard her speak. "But there is something. We have something. And whatever it is, it’s worth an awful lot. And I think we’ll each be bought for it at this auction. And we know what it’s called."

"No, Prizes, we don’t. We don’t know what that man meant when he said that," Maryann snapped.

Said what? I asked.

"When Kelly slashed her vein, they ran in, grabbed her. One of the men spoke into a phone, he said ‘code’ something –then he said ‘One of the Charms is injured.’ That’s what he called Kelly, one of the Charms. We are each a ‘Charm.’ What is a charm? Something magical. That’s what this is. We have something magical. And they know it," Prizes said emphatically, trying to be convincing.

Prizes, I decided, was nuts. Unless you counted my checkbook balancing methods there was sure nothing magical about me.

When is this auction? I asked.

We don’t know it’s an auction! Victoria lambasted me, and both Lula and Carmen were, I saw, eyeing her suspiciously.

All they’ll tell us is ‘soon.’ But you’re the last bed to fill, so if everyone they want is here now, I imagine invitations are going out to the bidders so it won’t be long. Carmen just paced away, as if she’d said her piece, was done.

A Charm? I was a Charm? It was the first time I’d ever heard that. Thank God I didn’t know what it meant or I might have slit my wrist too.

✦✦✦

Isaiah

Pakken, Inc. released pre-information about the Charms to Trackers when the Charms turned fourteen years old, though not their identities. Identities were released when the Charms turned sixteen because that was when Pakken opened up Early Purchase Bids on them. The reason Pakken gave us the Charms’ identities was so if we wanted to, we could go have a no-contact look at them which Pakken of course hoped would get us to make an Early Purchase Bid on them. I’d had my own Charm for five years when I received Remy’s pre-information from Pakken and saw her photograph, but I knew Charms wore out and even though Remy wasn’t the right age for me I was intrigued. So, two years later, when Remy turned sixteen, I went to have a look.

From all the reports I’d read on Remy she’d had a pretty normal childhood, nothing unusual ever seemed to happen in Remy’s life, at least not that made it into any of the reports I was given on her. But I knew Pakken sometimes sugar coated the reports, and for the kind of money any successful Early Purchase Bid required, I sure didn’t want to find out five years later that I’d bought some crippled meth-head psychopath or something. So I wanted a close-up look at her and that was how the convenience store incident occurred.

I’d been following Remy from school, it was winter, and I’d slipped on the ice scraping my hand as I landed, so when she entered the store I decided to go in too, to wash off my hand and to keep studying her. Kill two birds with one stone. Of course Pakken would have had a hissy fit if they’d ever found out I’d gotten that close to her, but I’d scoped around, there were no Pakken spotters about, so what the heck I figured. It wasn’t like she was going to notice me, she was a teenager, I was early fifties, no sixteen year old girl was going to waste her time noticing some ‘old guy.’

Still, I was careful to stay well away from her. I watched her through the store’s large plate glass windows and when she’d selected her appallingly self-indulgent junk food and headed to the counter to pay, I slipped in and went to the back of the store and got myself a bottle of water out of the cooler figuring the cold water would take the sting out of my hand. I expected her to pay and just leave. Instead she suddenly froze and even I, in the back, heard that loud Oh that came from her mouth. I forgot Mom’s milk. Wait a minute. That’s what she said, to the clerk. She whirled around, all teenage gawky, and rushed back to the coolers exactly where I had taken refuge to spy on her from and it was a dead end, a corner. All I could do was turn my back to her as she flung open the cooler door, grabbed her milk, and, I thought, would race back up to the cashier.

That’s when I learned why Pakken was so strict about not letting any of us Trackers go too near an unbonded free Charm.

Remy removed her quart of milk and was about to leave when she stopped, the milk suspended in midair. I felt her gaze on me and couldn’t stop myself from looking up to meet it. She looked right at me and her mouth dropped open. Now I know I am a powerful Tracker but Christ, she was only sixteen, without a drop of training, and for goodness sakes there couldn’t have been but a microgram of my blood on that cooler door handle. But the effect I had on her was instantaneous. Her arm not holding the milk wrapped around herself like she was suddenly frigidly cold. She took a step back as her face tightened in what can only be described as utter fear. Remy, Remy, I wanted to say, it’ll be okay. And then I well-nigh burst out laughing, at the thought of lying to her like that.

I did the only thing I could, I sauntered past her, out of the store. When I got in my car and looked up into the store she was still there, by the cooler, staring at me. I always wanted to ask her what it had felt like to her that day but I never risked it. I drove off, but with a sensitivity like hers I immediately phoned Pakken and put in an Early Purchase Bid on her even though I knew the peril I’d put her in. (I did not of course know the peril I was in.) They were surprised –I made the bid quite high so that if any other Tracker put in a Bid on her it wouldn’t top mine. I knew come Hell or high water, when Remy’s oh too far away Auction Day arrived, I’d be the one whose name would be put on her papers. She would be mine, there was simply no other outcome possible.

For either of us.

So that’s why I was pretty excited when, five way too long years later, no one having topped my bid when they still could have and Pakken having accepted it, I at long last watched on the monitors as Remy was finally brought in, inoculated, examined, and finally stirred, waking up slowly in the holding room. She didn’t really look all that different from when she was sixteen. She still had that ridiculous hair –over a yard long, past her waist, a flattering sheet of lovely sleek brown gloss when it was brushed but a nattering unsightly calamity when it wasn’t. She was tall but she had lost the gangling beanpole effect she’d had at sixteen and replaced it with an endearingly graceful and slightly curvous innocence.

It went smoothly? I asked Cal. She didn’t get hurt?

No, Isaiah, she’s fine, Cal answered. Slept like a baby through the whole thing, you saw, even through the inoculation. She drank the entire can of soda before she went down, she was out like a light before we even entered the room –but that’s also why it’s taking her so long to wake up. Don’t worry, Maryann knows Remy got a strong dose, she’s keeping a careful eye on her. All of Maryann’s signals say Remy’s good. One of the easiest captures I’ve ever done.

I looked at Cal and knew that was saying something. Cal was sixty years old, huge, muscular, he’d done numerous captures of the Charms and if rumors were true there had been some pretty hairy moments for him. But no Charm had ever been killed though there were stories of a few that had gotten hurt. Cal had put a stop to that when he’d taken charge of the Capture unit. For Cal, the safety of the Charm had been paramount during a capture; if Cal wasn’t able to guarantee the Charm’s safety, he called the capture off no matter how much Pakken howled. A few Charms had even missed their Auction Day because of Cal’s insistence on protecting their wellbeing, but, not surprisingly, they were just offered in subsequent Auctions. From what I’d heard that’s what had happened to one of the Charms in Remy’s Auction, the black girl, Lula. But this auction, Remy’s Auction, was special; everyone knew it was going to be Pakken’s last Auction for twelve years.

I think your girlfriend’s hovering too much, I said. She’ll give herself away. She should be more like Victoria, stay in the background. Maryann, Cal’s girlfriend, was a former Charm who, after she’d worn out, had become a prep trainer for the recently captured Charms.

Since that incident with Kelly she’s being overcautious, Cal said. Can’t blame her for that.

Only eighteen, I said shaking my head in disapproval. Pakken getting greedy? Why’d they take that one so young?

What, you don’t get it? She was the last one before the Crash, Isaiah. If they’d waited another three years Kelly would have been alone at her Auction. So they had no choice. There’s a twenty year old in there too. Jeez, I knew this day was coming, but still... it’s a blow. But Kelly’s in pretty good shape now, you know? She’s going to make the Auction.

I wouldn’t bid on her.

No one would expect you to, Isaiah, Cal said with a flush of sympathy on his face. Damn, I’d walked right into that one.

Everyone knew my last Charm had committed suicide.

Everyone also knew that if Pakken hadn’t already accepted that Early Purchase Bid I’d put in on Remy, I could’ve kissed their collective backsides before they would ever have let me buy another Charm. But they had accepted it, so, suicide or not, they were stuck. Consequently it was damn lucky for me I’d put in that Bid on Remy though I knew Pakken was mighty unhappy about it (they’d tripled my bid trying to buy her back, probably at Wout’s direction). But now I like to say to myself that it was mighty lucky for Remy, too, that I’d made that Early Purchase Bid on her –something she would no doubt quickly label a perception highly polished by well-chosen hindsight.

So how’s the Auction shaping up for tonight? I asked Cal.

The usual, but, being the last one, magnified a bazillion times, he scowled. Same grumping and moaning from the guys who aren’t getting in. The favorite Charm is that one over there, the one in the corner, he said pointing at the monitors. Her name’s Prizes, don’t tell anyone I told you this Isaiah, but since I know you’re not going to bid on her –she’s one of Hamel’s too. We’re admitting eight bidders into the Auction just on her alone and you wouldn’t believe the number of Auction invitations requested on her. Amazing she didn’t get snapped up with an Early Purchase like your Remy.

I let out a long slow whistle. Eight bidders at the Auction fighting over one Charm. It would be a bidding war. Anything about Remy? I asked.

I know several people planning on making you offers. You’re not going to accept any are you?

Hell no.

Constantine wants her badly, Isaiah. He put in a formal protest against you getting her, tried to get you disqualified because of what happened to—

They can go screw themselves, Cal. Remy’s mine, I’m not selling her. I’m keeping her. Full term.

God I hope Constantine doesn’t get a Charm tonight, he’s one nasty piece of work. So tell me, how did you know about Remy? he eyed me suspiciously. How’d you know she had such a high sensitivity quotient? The spotters tell me it might even be off the scale, set a new record.

I smiled in a way to discourage further interrogation. Everyone wondered how I’d known to bid on Remy early and bid high, but they couldn’t prove what I’d done and I sure wasn’t stupid enough