Monday's Lie (32 page)

I click her username without hope. There are no other messages.

O
ur
house, or my house, I suppose, sold quickly. I've just returned to my office from the closing, and Jill rings my desk from her office up front before I can get settled in.

“Um, your uncle's here to see you?” Her voice is full of doubt.

“Terrific. Can you just direct him back here, please?”

He bulks up the doorway a few seconds later.

“Hi, Dee.”

“Hello, Paul.” I don't like his towering over me in my seat, so I stand and offer my hand for a strictly business greeting, but he twists it over and kisses my knuckles before I can pull away. It wouldn't have been easy anyway; his grip is a vise. “Security let you right up here, huh, just like that?”

“I'm good with security guards.”

“I imagine you are.”

“I'm sorry I haven't been by sooner. I mean, I heard what happened later that same day.”

“Well, there's a surprise.” I resist the urge to scrub the back of my hand against my slacks to be rid of the vaguely cool spot his lips have left.

“But I wanted to give it some time. Give
you
some time.”

“How unexpectedly thoughtful of you. Are you going soft in your old age?”

“You're never going give me a break, are you, Dee?” He laughs. “Or the benefit of the doubt?”

“I don't know what you mean.”

“Okay, well, here's a softball then, just to get into your good graces and to prove that I come in peace. I'd like to help you in this tough, confusing time. You must be rattled. What can I do for you? Do you have any questions for me? Can I help you with anything that you need to know to settle your mind?”

“Fine. I'll bite. Did you massage the media after Patrick died? After what he was accused of ?”

“I like that word
massage
.”

“So you did.”

“I just said it was a nice word.”

I sigh. “You know what? Never mind. I'm just going to go with that you did and made it all go away, and I'll say, in hindsight, thank you. I think it would have shattered my nerves.”

“Well, it wouldn't do to have your name splashed all over the papers, now would it? Is that all the questions you've got?”

“No, but it seems kind of pointless.”

“Do you want to try me?”

“Oh, sure. Why not? I've got nothing better to do all day. Did you know that Patrick was looking into having me killed?”

“No. That sort of thing is not really our pond. That's just freshwater and we're more, um, what you might call deep-sea fisherman.”

“Oh my God. That sounded like almost a straight answer, Paul. Bravo. I didn't know you had it in you.”

“Brian doesn't know I'm here, by the way. He says he doesn't know about any of this either, in case you were wondering.”

“I wasn't wondering.” I approve of my cool, unquavery delivery after he zapped me with news of Brian, now obviously a known mutual acquaintance somehow.

Paul laughs. “You are almost an excellent liar. But try not to work a hole into your head, having to believe your own bullshit. It makes the whole thing feel too much like work.”

“So, what is it for you, then, Paul, all the lying? Sport?”

“Exercise.”

I say nothing.

“Ah, come on, Dee. You're allowed to be in cahoots with your own tongue. It could save your life someday. You never know.”

Deep and well out of sight, which was the only place I'd allow it, a chill chases a dread between my shoulder blades. That sounded like something my mother would have said.

“Brian sends his love.”

“Not by way of you, he didn't.”

Paul drops his gaze and smirks at the crease cresting the knee of his trouser leg. “Well, I'm sure he meant to.”

The lull is uncomfortable and pointless. So I throw myself into it just to get it all over with. “I'm guessing you came here for a reason, Paul. And I'm almost thinking I know what that reason might be.”

“Oh, do tell.”

“Not a chance. Speak now or change your mind. Of course, you can always just take the high road and say you stopped by to tell me how sorry you are for my loss. Either way, let's wrap this up. I am actually a little bit busy. I'm meeting Simon in an hour and twenty minutes, and I have a few things to do before that.”

“Yeah, when your brother finds out, he's not going to be all that pleased that I've come to see you.”

I roll my eyes and chuckle through my nose. “Simon hates your guts. So I won't tell him if you don't.”

“He is really good at singing that tune, isn't he? Do you ever think maybe it's so he doesn't have to talk about me at all?”

“I know my brother. Nice try, though.”

Paul stares at me long enough to raise the fine hairs on my arm. His smirk shows that he knows it, too. “If you say so.”

He sits down in the guest chair opposite my desk without having been offered the ease. “Well, I'll get to it then. They picked up some guy named Jim. I think you're acquainted with the fellow? Anyway, they caught him trying to get out of the country on a fake passport. I read his interview transcripts. Hell of a story he told. Hell of a story. Then, wouldn't you know it, somehow he escaped custody during a routine transfer. It was the darnedest thing. His whereabouts are unknown.”

“Is he coming for me?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Is he dead?”

“Um”—Paul punctuates the delay with a small, satisfied smile—“not as such.”

“But you know where he is.”

“We're in touch.”

“I see.”

“Fascinating guy, that Jim.”

“I don't want to know.”

“If his story is to be believed, you broke up a murder-for-hire ring with just an afternoon of poking around and a paintball gun. All with zero training.”

“Shhh. Will you please keep your voice down?” I close the door to my office. “I am trying to get things back to normal around here. I still have to live in this town, you know.”

“No, you don't.”

“And I thought you said this pond wasn't salty enough for you.”

“It wasn't until you went swimming in it. Vess is a particular name with particular connotations. I got curious.”

I ignore him. “And anyway, you and I both know I've had plenty of
training
.”

Paul grips the armrests and heaves the chair a half turn from the front of my desk and stretches his legs out, ankles crossed. “Do you know they've tied fourteen hits on the Atlantic coast to this ring already?”

“No. They won't tell me anything.” He's gained advantage again, lolling in my guest chair as I stand off to the side not knowing what to do with myself. I take my seat again and enjoy the span of my desk between us.

“Well, it's big. There's even a ruckus at the phone companies. Until the ‘special projects' department over at Carlisle had the clever idea to give each of their ‘special' customers one of their own phones, for the duration of said ‘special project,' they were paying techs to delete records in the databases. Ergo, a whole new branch of charges and red tape. It's a mess.” Paul leans in on the too-polished wood of the armrest.

My desk, my whole office even, suddenly seems fussy and prim. I nudge a short stack of papers out of its finicky geometry, peering over it as if there were something urgent for me printed on its top sheet.

Paul pays no attention to my pretend distraction. “You could have access to whatever you wanted to know if you came to work for me.” He's struck a tone without trying, at once flattering, conspiratorial, and with more than a hint of a dare. The snake in Eden probably had a dose of the same schooling. “You could use a fresh start, Dee. Get out of this silly place, for one thing.”

“It's not happening, Paul.”

“You'd have access to your mother's files.”

“No, I wouldn't.” Then a cool echo in my head:
You don't need them, Plucky. Truth be told, you don't need me either.

Don't say that.

“Why not, Dee? Why shouldn't I say it? That's the beauty of being me. I can say what I like and offer up what I like, all to get what I like. I've been around a long time. I've earned it.”

Shit.
I had said that out loud.
I really am losing it.
“I'm sure you'd show me a bunch of files that had my mother's name on them, but I wouldn't want to have to bank on what brand of bullshit would be inside.”

“You've really got your cloak-and-dagger play all scripted out, haven't you? It's not like that, Dee. We're not that complicated. I would show them to you. Whatever you wanted to know. None of it is that big of a deal anymore. Nothing stays top secret forever. Just the same, it'd be a bit of a Faustian thing.” He smiles sunnily. “You'd certainly owe me.”

Another long stare off, but this time he can't get my hackles up. He smiles into my eyes as he fishes in his pocket. He hands me a flimsy business card. The ink is thin, the graphic slightly off center. I know full well he could afford better. “If you change your mind, give me a call. I know it says Swan's Dry Cleaner's, but if you leave a message for me, I'll get it.”

“I'm sure.”

He doesn't turn around, and his parting comment comes from halfway out the door. “If you're curious, ask Simon where he gets his uniforms laundered.”

Paul's baiting me about my brother, and even if he isn't, Simon's life is his own. I had point-blank asked him about Paul in the bar on the day Patrick died. But if I was honest, I could play back that conversation verbatim. I had asked him in the present tense.
Does he try to get to you, too?
He could easily have answered no and let it stand as the truth on a technicality.

On the recording, my mother had only asked Brian to steer Paul away from me. She never mentioned Simon, and I burned with private shame that I hadn't wondered why.
Stable full of Vesses,
she'd said it, but I hadn't realized all that it meant. Did Brian know? Simon had said his job made it difficult to have a relationship, and that he'd wanted to rain down special trouble on Patrick.
Once upon a time . . .

And he'd always known what our mother was, far more and much sooner than I ever had. He'd been her coworker.

He had told me over and over, but I'd never heard him.

I start to tear the business card straight down the middle, intending to turn it into a ragged pile of wastebasket confetti, which is all it deserves. My mother stares saucily at me over her shoulder from the silver frame on the corner of my desk. One of her loves had been a photographer, and a good one. I had always liked that guy. He'd caught her for me to keep forever in that picture. Her eyes drill into mine, and I kind of forget to finish off the poorly rendered swan. A thin buffer of rinky-dink card stock saves its neck. I set the card aside and pick up the photograph. She all but winks at me.

Turning the frame over, I pry the easel back away from the felt and peel a flap in the facing paper. I wonder about people who can grease the gears of the world with stealth and plots and never let the consequences get under their fingernails. I think of Patrick, his image in my mind already faded pale like overexposed film. I hear the distant echo of brakes screaming and glass breaking. I look at my hand; it's steady. The overhead lights glint in my plain, clear-gloss manicure. I tuck Paul's card inside the little pocket I've made and smooth it down, all but invisible. I smile at Mother and she smirks at me.

“It doesn't matter about the stupid card,” I say aloud. I'll never look at it again. I'm almost positive.

In Acknowledgment writing, the greatest blessing is a cast of usual suspects. I'm in a fortress of familiar support and never for a moment am I not aware of, and grateful for, how wonderful these people are.

Atop the list are my fantastic husband and the ridiculously awesome daughters we discovered under some rare and magical cabbage leaves way back when. There are three things I prize above all others—intelligence, humor, and kindness. I live a daily jackpot, up to my neck in gold tokens of insight, laughter, and love because of Art, Julia, and Rianne.

My agent, Amy Moore-Benson, well, I hope she knows how much I appreciate her. I tell her often, but I love telling everyone else, too. She's tremendous in all the ways there are to be tremendous. The team at Simon & Schuster/Gallery Books makes the insecure, nerve-racking bits of this business brief and bearable, and they make the fun parts a full-on party. Thank you Karen Kosztolnyik, for your wisdom, encouragement, and patience, and also Paige Cohen, Stephanie DeLuca, Steve Boldt, Jen Bergstrom, and the ghosts of Alexandra Lewis and Heather Hunt (no, no, they're not dead—just off on other parts of life, but newly enough so that they still haunt the business end of this work; they're still mine—if only just a little).

Mike Breedlove (hopefully Sheriff Mike Breedlove by the time this goes to print) is still my go-to guy for police work and crime information. If I asked him more, I'd get less wrong. Thank you, Mike, always.

A writer's writer-friends can do for her what regular friends cannot. That's neither an endorsement nor an indictment. It's just the way it is. Graeme Cameron, my most trusted nay-and-yea-sayer, you're brilliant and thanks for existing. And an avalanche of thank-yous to Tana French, Mark Pryor, William Haskins, Chris Pavone, Brad Parks, Reed Farrell Coleman, Butch Wilson, Sylvia Harmon, Carole Oldroyd, Kim Michele Richardson, and Jane Smith for being writers and for being there for me. You people are absolute stars.

A writer's regular friends are what everyone's friends are: the best thing that life ever invented. Some of these are my patient early readers like Jessica Coffey, Katie Delgado, Mary Rollins, and Simone Kaiser, and some of them would have been if I'd gotten my act together sooner this time—I'm looking at you Kelly Coffey Colvin, Lisa Fitchett, Kristi McCullough, and Cindy Dearman. A little special thank-you goes to Tamsin Moore, a new friend, however far away, a reader and a person who could give lessons in enthusiastic encouragement. I could not leave out Tim Dearman, who is not only a wonderful friend but a master craftsman. He made for me the best place I could ever want for getting my work done. I love my office probably more than he even knows. I can think in here.