The Liar

“Why wouldn’t it be?” Griff countered.

“We flew on a private plane. I’d never known anyone who’d been on a private plane.”

“No security, no luggage check. You can take anything you want on private, right?”

“I hadn’t thought of that. He almost always flew private. At the time it was just one more thrill. I’d never been anywhere like New York, and he was so sweet and charming and . . . well, he seemed dazzled by me. It wasn’t the money, Griff, though I can’t say I didn’t love that he’d buy me nice clothes and take me to restaurants. It was the sparkle of it, all of it. It was blinding.”

“He made sure of it.”

“Even now it’s hard to believe he didn’t mean the things he said back then. How I was what had been missing from his life. I wanted to be that—I wanted to be what had been missing from his life. So when he asked me not to go back, but to go with him to Dallas—more business—I went. I threw everything away and went with him.”

“Another major city.”

Closing her eyes, she nodded. “Yes. You see that pattern already? We always went to a big city, always stayed for only a few days. Sometimes he’d give me a wad of cash, tell me to go out shopping because he had meetings. Then he’d come back with flowers—white roses. He said how he lived on the road or in the air right then, but how he was ready—now that he had me—to settle down somewhere.”

“Exactly what you’d want to hear. It was his business to read people, to be what they wanted or expected.”

She sat silent for a moment, appreciating the softening light, the whisper of air in the trees, the bubble of the stream.

“If I’d built a man I’d fall for, at that point in my life, it would have been Richard. The thing is, Griff, in those first few weeks, we crisscrossed the country.”

“Covering his tracks.”

“I think so, and I wonder, did he have places along the way where he left part of the take from that Florida robbery? If he had a bank box in Philadelphia, maybe he had others. Melinda Warren indicated that. He never seemed to run out of cash, so I think maybe he had those boxes to pull from, or he was stealing along the way.”

“Probably both.”

She shifted toward him, angling so they were face-to-face. “I think it was both. Looking through the pictures and letters, I remembered when we were in St. Louis, and I woke up to find him gone. He’d go out for walks—that’s what he said. Thinking time. He didn’t get back until nearly dawn, and he was excited. Just quivering with it. We left that morning. He rented a car and we drove to Kansas City. Just a quick stop, he said. He had a business associate to meet up with. And he pulled this Cartier watch out of his pocket, said he’d picked up a little something for me. A couple years later, I went to put it on, and it was gone. He got angry, said I’d been careless and lost it, but I hadn’t been careless. Anyway, I went on the Internet and I looked back, matching up the dates, and found there’d been a burglary that night in St. Louis. Jewelry again, about a quarter of a million in jewelry. And watches.”

“Steals them in St. Louis, fences them in Kansas City.”

“I guess he figured the watch was my cut—for a while. There were other times. I’m going to see if I can match them up like St. Louis.”

He reached over, gave her arm a rub. “What’ll that tell you?”

“I know I can’t change any of it.” She dropped her gaze to her hands, thought of her notes, her stacks of photos and postcards. “But maybe he did steal in those places, and at least I can give what I know, or think I might know, to the police. It feels like I’d be doing something.”

“You are doing something.”

“Right now I should be putting dinner on the table.” She rose. “I appreciate you listening.”

“Why wouldn’t I?” He walked in with her. “I’ve got a list of my own started.”

“What kind of list?”

“I don’t have the information you do.” He glanced at the memory box, the laptop. “I wouldn’t mind having a look at it. Mine’s pretty much a list of names, events, times. Warren, Harlow and Brimley—as he was known then. Miami robbery, the shooting, the double-cross. You come next. I didn’t realize it was only days after Miami, but had to figure it wasn’t long.”

“It’s like I was as tailor-made for him as I thought he was for me.” She put the meat loaf on a trivet, got out his only platter. Transferring the meat and vegetables, she glanced around as he’d gone quiet.

“What is it?”

“I don’t want to upset you more than all this already does, but I don’t think he just walked into the club where you were playing that night and decided, okay, she’s my cover.”

“What do you think?”

“I think he spent a couple days checking you out. You’re a looker, Red, and I bet you were a looker at nineteen, on stage. Your name’s right there, so he could look you up, ask a few questions. You’re single, unattached.”

Thoughtfully, she garnished the platter with curly parsley and rings of red and green peppers. “A bumpkin from a little mountain town in Tennessee.”