The Liar

“Put on the new dress, and we’ll talk about it while the loaf of meat is cooking.”

23

She turned up the oven, put on the dress, banded back her hair so it wouldn’t explode as it dried.

She joined him on the back porch, with wine, and just sat a moment, looking out at the mountains with their soft peaks and ridges rolling up into the sky.

“I was paying bills today when the kids were napping, and I thought about how Jimmy Harlow—it has to be him—would be looking at all my business. The lawyer stuff, the creditors, the accounts I’ve kept of what I was able to sell. I thought how embarrassing that is, a stranger poking around in all that, and told myself it was worth the embarrassment if it made him realize I don’t have anything he wants.”

“That’s good thinking. Smart, positive.”

“Then I was thinking more. He’d see all the photos I have on the laptop. I keep them all in files on there—I transferred them from my old one once I got it back from the authorities. I never got around to going through them all, deleting any from . . . from the time I was with Richard because there was just so much else to do. It occurred to me he’d—Harlow—he’d seen, especially from that first year or so, all the places we went. He could follow right along, like a map.”

Griff nodded. “And so could you.”

“Yes! That’s what I realized. So could I. Griff, I think Richard took me all those places for a reason—I understand now he never did anything without an angle to play. I was like his disguise. I—and then when Callie came along, we—made him a family man. What if he stashed the jewelry or the stamps, or both, in one of those places, or sold some of it off as we went? And I started thinking more, once I started looking through the pictures, he was probably doing his work, too. On his honeymoon—or so I thought—then with his pregnant wife. Such a handy disguise, the pregnant wife.”

“I’m going to agree with you, even though I know it has to burn some.”

“I’m past the burning. Looking through the pictures, the letters I sent home, I started remembering what he’d always say to me—at least for the first months or year. Whenever we were going to meet somebody, he’d say, ‘Just be yourself, Shelby.’ How that would charm them. Not to worry, I didn’t know anything about art or wine or fashion, that sort of thing. I was never nervous about meeting new people, but I started to be.”

“He made you feel awkward, and . . . less.”

“He did, and as the ‘be yourself’ started changing to how I shouldn’t try to impress whoever it was because they’d just see through that. I guess I didn’t have a lot to say, and that made a good disguise for him.”

She sipped the wine, set that part aside for now.

“I thought maybe I could look at articles online, matching them with the time we were in a certain place. Was there a robbery? A fraud? Even worse? And I had more to use because Mama saved all my letters and postcards. Every one. So I could read through, remind myself what we did, where we went in Paris or Madrid, who we met. I was full of details at first, so swept up in it all.”

“Does anything stick out now, when you look at it from what you know now?”

“A couple of things. Why was he in Memphis? I don’t believe he just stuck a pin in a map. But there he was, and only four days from when he robbed that woman—Lydia Redd Montville—and shot her son.”

“Four days after, according to the brunette, he double-crossed her and Harlow, ran off with the take.”

“That’s right. I think he must have had that take with him, or he’d stashed it. A bank box, maybe. He had his new identity, and he had a fat roll of cash. Or it seemed like it to me. And there I was, just primed to be dazzled and swept up.”

“Do you want my angle on that?”

She drew in a breath. “I guess I do.”

“The cops were looking for Jake Brimley, a man on his own. He had to know his partners would rat him out. He didn’t go into it without a plan in place. The new ID, the seed money, a change in looks. But he needed one more thing. He needed to be a couple.”

“I think that’s true.”

“He wouldn’t want someone like the brunette, someone who could play his game. He’d want innocence, youth, someone malleable and trusting. And ready to be dazzled.”

On that she could only nod, let out a long breath. “I sure fit the bill, right down to the ground.”

“He was a professional manipulator, Shelby. You didn’t stand a chance once he zeroed in on you. He ends up with a young, striking redhead, so he’s not only not traveling alone, he has someone people notice. Notice first, remember last. Where did he take you first?”

“He spent four days in Memphis. I’d never met anyone so charming, and exciting, too, the way he talked about all his travels. Our gig was over, and I planned to come home for a week or so before the next one. But when he said he had to go to New York, for business, and asked me to go with him, I went.”

She let out a half-laugh. “Just like that. It was just going to be a few days—an adventure, I thought. And it was thrilling.”