The Liar

“I can’t come up with something for that except maybe she double-crossed him somewhere. He talked about finder’s fees on this theft I didn’t believe with Forrest. I mean, I didn’t believe Richard had stolen all that.”

“I know what you meant.”

“I believe it now, and I think she and Richard were good at that sort of thing. Stealing and double-crossing. Or maybe they were lovers—the woman and the detective—and she betrayed him.”

“I don’t think so.”

Frowning again, she popped some bread in the toaster. “Why not?”

“I think if you add in love or sex, or both, it’s—murder—it’s more personal. You’ve got to fight first, right?”

She considered that. “I guess I would.”

“Most would,” Griff decided. “You’ve got to want to tell the other person what they did to you. You want, I’d think, some physical contact. This struck me as pretty damn cold.”

“You really found her?”

“Forrest was looking left, I was looking right. That’s all.”

“You stayed so calm. At least it seems you did. You looked calm when you came back in. I couldn’t tell anything was wrong by the way you looked. I think most people would’ve panicked.”

“I try to avoid panic because it leads to chaos, which leads to accidents. You get hurt that way. That happened to me when I was seventeen, climbing back out of Annie Roebuck’s bedroom window.”

“Climbing out?”

His smile was quick and crooked. “Climbing in was a breeze.”

“Was she expecting you?”

“Oh yeah. She was the focus of my hormonal obsession for six and a half crazed and blissful months, and I was hers. We went at it like rabbits on crack—and the fact that her parents were asleep right across the hall only enhanced the insanity. Until the night we were lying there momentarily in our postcoital coma and she reached over for her bottle of water, knocked over the lamp. It crashed like a bomb.”

“Uh-oh.”

“Uh-fucking-oh,” he concurred. “We hear her father call her name. I’m scrambling up, trying to get into my pants, my heart’s a jackhammer, I’m sweating bullets. Yeah, you laugh,” he said when she did. “At the time it was a nightmare of Elm Street proportions. Annie’s calling back, telling him she’s all right, just knocked something over, and hissing at me to get out, get out, get out, she can’t remember if she locked the door. So I’m out the window half dressed, panicked, and I lose my footing.”

“Another uh-oh.”

“And a big ouch with it. I fell mostly in the azaleas, but still managed to break my wrist. I see the pain, like this bright white light, as I’m tearing ass for cover. If I hadn’t panicked, I’d’ve climbed on down as smooth as I had every other time, and wouldn’t have had to fake falling on my way to the john once I got home so my father could take me to the ER and have my wrist set.”

She set a plate of eggs with a side of toast in front of him. And had to quell the oddest urge to just wrap around him and snuggle as she did with Callie.

“I really hope you didn’t make all that up just to take my mind off things.”

“I didn’t have to, but I’d hoped it would take your mind off things.”

“What became of Annie?”

“She became a newscaster. Worked local for a while in Baltimore. She’s in New York now. We e-mail now and again. She got married a couple summers back. Nice guy.” He sampled the eggs. “Good eggs.”

“Scrambled eggs always taste best at three in the morning. Was she your first? Annie?”

“Well, ah—”

“No, don’t answer that. I put you on the spot. My first was when I was just shy of seventeen. It was his first, too. July Parker.”

“July?”

“Born on the first of the month. He was a sweet boy, and we fumbled our way through it.”

With the smile her eyes went a little blurry as she looked back. “It was sweet, like July, in its way, but it didn’t tempt me to repeat it all again, not till the summer before college. That wasn’t so much better, and he wasn’t so sweet as July. I decided to concentrate on my singing, the band, college. Then Richard just bowled me over, and that was that.”

“What happened to July?”

“He’s a park ranger. Lives in Pigeon Forge now. Mama tells me bits and pieces. He’s not married yet, but he’s with a nice girl. I expect you’re considering having sex with me at some point.”

He didn’t lose his balance on the segue. “It’s more planning on it.”

“Well, now you have the outline of my experience in that area. Fumbling—sweetly. Disappointment, and Richard. And with Richard none of it was real. None of it was true.”

“It’s no problem, Red. I’ll show you the ropes.”

She laughed. “You do swagger.”

“Sorry?”

“You’re a swaggering man, Griffin, walking and talking.” She finished her eggs, took her plate to the sink to rinse. “If I ever work my way up to your plan, I can’t promise it’ll be good, or there’ll be any postcoital comas, but it’ll be true. That counts for something. ’Night.”

“Good night.”

And he sat a long while in the quiet kitchen wishing Richard Foxworth hadn’t gone out in that boat. Wishing he’d at least lived through the squall so they’d have a chance to face each other.

So he could kick the bastard’s ass.

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