Simply Lies: A Psychological Thriller

Table of Contents
 
 
 Cover
 Title Page
 Copyright
 Dedication
 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
 CHAPTER 40
 CHAPTER 41
 CHAPTER 42
 CHAPTER 43
 CHAPTER 44
 CHAPTER 45
 CHAPTER 46
 CHAPTER 47
 CHAPTER 48
 CHAPTER 49
 CHAPTER 50
 CHAPTER 51
 CHAPTER 52
 CHAPTER 53
 CHAPTER 54
 CHAPTER 55
 CHAPTER 56
 CHAPTER 57
 CHAPTER 58
 CHAPTER 59
 CHAPTER 60
 CHAPTER 61
 CHAPTER 62
 CHAPTER 63
 CHAPTER 64
 CHAPTER 65
 CHAPTER 66
 CHAPTER 67
 CHAPTER 68
 CHAPTER 69
 CHAPTER 70
 CHAPTER 71
 CHAPTER 72
 CHAPTER 73
 CHAPTER 74
 CHAPTER 75
 CHAPTER 76
 CHAPTER 77
 CHAPTER 78
 CHAPTER 79
 CHAPTER 80
 CHAPTER 81
 CHAPTER 82
 CHAPTER 83
 CHAPTER 84
 CHAPTER 85
 CHAPTER 86
 Discover More
 Acknowledgments
 About the Author
 Also by David Baldacci
 
 
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 Table of Contents
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
 Copyright © 2023 by Columbus Rose, Ltd.
 Cover design by Tal Goretsky. Cover copyright © 2023 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
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 First Edition: April 2023
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 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
 Names: Baldacci, David, author.
 Title: Simply lies / David Baldacci.
 Description: First edition. | New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2023.
 Identifiers: LCCN 2022053094 | ISBN 9781538750636 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781538742174 (signed edition) | ISBN 9781538742181 (BN.com signed edition) | ISBN 9781538750629 (large type) | ISBN 9781538742648 (international trade) | ISBN 9781538750599 (ebook)
 Subjects: LCGFT: Detective and mystery fiction. | Novels.
 Classification: LCC PS3552.A446 S57 2023 | DDC 813/.54—dc23/eng/20221108
 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022053094
 ISBNs: 978-1-5387-5063-6 (hardcover), 978-1-5387-5062-9 (large type), 978-1-5387-4264-8 (international trade), 978-1-5387-4217-4 (signed edition), 978-1-5387-4218-1 (BN.com signed edition), 978-1-5387-5059-9 (ebook)
 E3-20230224-NF-DA-ORI
 
 
 
 
 
 
 To Michelle, for providing the inspiration for this story—and for a whole lot more
 
 
 
 
 
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 CHAPTER 1
 
 M​ICKEY GIBSON WIPED THE SPIT-UP off Darby’s face, and then gave her two-year-old daughter a plastic squeaky ball, hoping that would hold her attention for a bit. The girl sat stoically in her playpen, eyeing the toy like it was neither foe nor friend. Gibson had learned in one of the many child development books she had read that two-year-olds should be able to play and entertain themselves for up to thirty minutes.
 Whoever wrote that was on drugs, or else my kids have no future as adults.
 She was hoping for simply a five-minute respite, just to finish her phone call.
 Gibson hefted her three-year-old son, Tommy, who had been doing his best to use his mom as a jungle gym, and placed him on her thrust-out right hip. It was only eleven in the morning and she was already exhausted.
 She said into her headset, “Okay, Zeb, I’m back. Like I said before, the paper trail is pretty clear. There’s at least two hundred mill in six different bank accounts, three in Chad, one in Bermuda, and two in Zurich. Larkin must know we’re closing in, so he’s probably going to try to move that money ASAP, and I may not be able to track it again.”
 Gibson listened for a few moments as she deftly dodged Tommy’s attempts to grab her hair and knock off her headset. Darby threw the ball out of the playpen and hit her mother in the back before starting to wail, then tried to climb to freedom over the playpen rails.
 Gibson noted this and went into action. While still holding Tommy, she grabbed the ball off the floor, tossed it up in the air, and deftly caught it behind her back—one of the skills she had developed from her basketball days.
 Darby stopped climbing, grinned, and started clapping. “Mommy, Mommy. G-good.”
 Tommy was also mesmerized by this enough to stop attacking his mother’s hair. “Do it again,” he ordered.
 Gibson kept repeating this act while she said, “Right, Zeb, I understand. But the fact is I got lucky on some key clicks and ran down a couple tricky leads that paid off, but there’s no guarantee that will happen again. The lawyers need to get injunctions filed and put concrete lids on those accounts before he can wire that money out to God knows where. I checked and we can get the assets frozen because all those countries are subject to the usual global banking laws, so Larkin