The Liar

“You look gorgeous, and sad—I thought that the first time I saw you. You’re smiling, but there’s no light in it. And what happened to your hair? You look gorgeous, like I said, but not so much like Shelby. Where are the curls? Did you sell them?”

She gave him a long look, then tipped her head to his shoulder. “You know what I want to do?”

“What?”

“I want to take a walk around your backyard, watch the sun set, give you all sorts of unasked-for advice about where you should plant things, and put that arbor. Then I want you to take my new dress off me. That’ll be easy as I’m not wearing a thing under it.”

“Can we do that first?”

She laughed, shook her head. “Let me drive you a little crazy first.”

“Already there,” he told her as she took his hand to lead him out.

•   •   •

HE FOLLOWED HER HOME AGAIN, used the drive back for thinking time. Added to thinking time by taking Snickers on a long patrol, then putting a good hour into framing out a closet in one of the other demo’d bedrooms.

One step at a time, he told himself as he put his tools away, cleaned up.

He took the next step by sitting down at his computer and doing his own search for unsolved burglaries and fraud cases in Atlanta during the years Shelby had lived there.

A puzzle to solve, he thought. Never did anything without a reason, Griff reminded himself. So why had the fucker pulled up stakes in Atlanta, and so abruptly?

It might be interesting to find out.

•   •   •

WHILE GRIFF RAN HIS SEARCHES, Jimmy Harlow worked on a laptop he’d lifted from a trade show in Tampa. The busy hotel and half-drunk conventioneers in the hotel bars had been prime picking.

He’d walked out with the laptop—fully loaded and in a nicely padded travel bag—just over two thousand in cash, two iPhones and the keys to a Chevy Suburban he drove directly to a chop shop.

He bought a new ID—it paid to have contacts—and stole a piece-of-shit Ford he drove over the Georgia border to an acquaintance who bought it for five hundred flat.

He lay low for a while, growing a beard, growing out his hair, dying both, building up his cash the old-fashioned way. He picked pockets, pulled some minor burglaries, moved on.

He made his way to Atlanta, taking a winding route, staying in fleabag motels, stealing the occasional car—a skill learned and honed in his youth. In a side trip to New Orleans, he mugged and beat the crap out of a drug dealer who procured for a high school in the Ninth Ward.

He strongly disapproved of selling drugs to minors.

He also picked up a solid Toyota 4Runner outside a bar in Baton Rouge, which he drove to yet another chop shop.

He paid to have it reVINed, repainted, and with the help of another contact, forged the paperwork to match his new ID.

He watched the news obsessively, used the laptop to scan for the manhunt.

He trimmed his beard, bought easy, casual clothes—and broke them in so none of them looked new. He used self-tanner religiously to rid himself of prison pallor.

He bought maps, even sprang for a decent Canon digital camera, and slapped a few stickers on the truck from state parks, as any tourist might do.

He ate what he wanted, when he wanted. Slept when he was tired, got up and going when he wasn’t.

Every day of the years he’d spent in prison he’d dreamed of just that. Freedom. But he’d dreamed of what he’d do with that freedom.

He had no illusion of honor among thieves—he’d been one too long. But betrayals required payback. And payback drove him.

It drove him to Atlanta, where inquiries in the right ears, grease in the right palms, gave him information.

He stole the .25 from a split-level in Marietta, where some idiot had it unsecured in the nightstand, and took the 9mm from a desk drawer in the home office.

Kids in the house, too, he’d thought at the time as he’d done a sweep of a boy’s room, a girl’s room. Hell, he was saving lives here.

He’d left the kids the Xbox, but had taken the iPads, another laptop, the cash in the freezer, a diamond tennis bracelet, diamond studs, the cash rolled up in the jewelry box and, because they fit, a pair of sturdy hiking boots.

By the time he arrived in Villanova, the woman who’d hooked up with Jake was gone.

He picked the lockbox, took himself on a tour. Jake had done real well for himself, and that burned bitter in his throat.

He contacted the realtor using his drop phone, discovered it was a short sale. So maybe not so well after all.

He spent a few days in the area to get a better sense of things, then worked his way down to Tennessee.

He’d rented a cabin a good ten miles from Rendezvous Ridge—a three-month, under-the-table cash deal with the owner. He was Milo Kestlering here, out of Tallahassee, where he’d been middle management for a wholesale food company. Divorced, no kids.

He had plenty of filler to his new background if he needed it, but the landlord had been happy to take his money.

He had no contacts here, and had to be careful. More careful with cops sniffing around since Melinda’s murder.