The Liar

“A good deal? A good deal?” Not breathless now, not when insult and fury rolled through. “He lied to me, right from the start. He made me his whore without my knowing. I thought I loved him. At first, I thought I loved him enough to leave my family and everything I knew and thought I’d wanted.”

“Your mistake, but you were compensated. Plucked you out of this little hick town, didn’t he? Oh, excuse me, this art-and-culture-ridden town. Dropped you right in the lap for a few years, so don’t whine, Shelby. It’s unattractive.”

“What’s the matter with you? You come here, tell me all this. Maybe you’re the liar.”

“Check it out, be my fucking guest. But you know I’m not lying. Jake had a way of making women fall for him, and do what he wanted.”

“Did you love him?”

“I liked the hell out of him, and we had a damn good time. That was enough, would’ve been enough if he hadn’t hung me out to dry. I made an investment in him, you could say. And I paid a high price. I want my payoff.”

“What payoff?”

“Twenty-eight million.”

“Twenty-eight million what? Dollars? Are you crazy? He didn’t have anywhere near that kind of money.”

“Oh, he had it. I know because I helped him get it. Just shy of thirty million in sparkly diamonds, emeralds, rubies, sapphires and rare stamps. Where is the take, Shelby? I’ll settle for half.”

“Do I look like I have diamonds and emeralds and all that? He left me in debt up to my eyeballs. That’s the price I’m paying for believing him. What did you pay?”

“Four years, two months and twenty-three days in a cell in Dade County, Florida.”

“You—you were in prison? For what?”

“For fraud, since I rolled like an acrobat on Jake and Mickey. That’s Mickey O’Hara, the third member of our happy little band. Mickey’s got twenty years to go, last I heard.”

Smile sharp and derisive, she ticked her finger at Shelby. “You don’t want Mickey O’Hara coming after you, Shelby. Take my word on that.”

“You hired that private investigator to hound me.”

“I can’t say I did. I do my own investigating—it’s one of my skills. Half, Shelby, and I’m gone. I earned every penny of it.”

“I don’t have half of anything to give you.” Shelby lurched to her feet. “Are you saying Richard stole millions of dollars? That the detective from Florida was telling me the truth?”

“It’s what we do, sweetheart. Or in his case, what he did. Find the mark. Rich, lonely widows worked best for Jake. He could turn them into putty in a matter of days. Easy to get them to ‘invest’ in a land deal—that was his specialty. But the big one, the biggest of our career, the one that went wrong, that was jewels and stamps, and she had some beauties. If you expect me to buy that you knew nothing about nothing, you’re not selling it.”

“I’m not selling a damn thing. If he had all that, why am I paying off his debts?”

“He always was a bit of a hoarder. And those jewels were hot. The stamps? You’d need to find just the right collector for them. When it went south, Jake could take off with them, but if he’d tried to sell them, even breaking the jewelry down to the stones, they’d have tracked him. Something like that, it’s best to give it a few years, lay low.”

“Lay low,” Shelby murmured.

“That was the plan. Four or five years, we figured, before we could liquidate and retire. Or semi-retire, as who wants to give up all the fun? You were his cover, that’s clear. But you’re going to have to go a ways to convince me you’re stupid enough to know nothing.”

“I was stupid enough to believe him, and that’s what I’m going to be living with.”

“I’ll give you some time to think about it. Even if you’re the driven snow, Shelby, you lived with the man for more than four years. You think about it hard enough, you’ll figure out something. Consider half of close to thirty million—maybe a little more now—motivation.”

It was Shelby’s turn for contempt. “I don’t want half of anything you stole.”

“Your choice. Turn your part in, take the finder’s fee if you’re delicate. It’d be fat enough to pay off some of the debt you’re swimming in. Like I said, I get what’s mine, I’m gone. If you want to stay in this little nowhere town, working in your grandmother’s beauty parlor for peanuts, singing on Friday nights in a bar for rubes? Your choice. I get what’s mine, you keep what’s yours. You’ve got that pretty little girl to think about.”

“You go near my daughter, you think about going near my daughter, I’ll take you apart.”

Natalie just looked over the side of her shoulder, lips curved. “Do you think you can?”

Shelby didn’t think; she acted. She reached down, hauled Natalie to her feet by fisting a hand on the front of her blouse. “I can, and I will.”

“That’s what caught Jake’s eye. He liked some fire, even in a mark. You can relax. I’m not interested in little girls or in going back in a cell. Fifty-fifty, Shelby. If I bring Mickey in on this, you’ll get nothing but pain and heartache. He’s not as civilized a negotiator as I am.”

She shoved Shelby’s hand off her blouse. “Think about it. I’ll be in touch.”