The Liar (5 page)

Carefully she made the payment online, the way she’d taught herself, logged it onto her spreadsheet.

Four hundred and eighty-six thousand, four hundred dollars down. Only two million, one hundred and eighty-four to go.

Not counting the next bill that came in from the lawyers, the accountants. But at the moment, hell, that seemed like chicken feed.

The phone rang, and seeing Donna’s name on the display, she snatched it up.

Maybe.

“Hello.”

“Hi, Shelby, it’s Donna. I know it’s a little late, but I wanted to let you know we got a good offer on the house.”

“Oh! That’s such good news.”

“I think the lender’s going to approve this. You know it can take weeks, even months, but I’m going to do everything I can to push it through. It’s the family I told you about, from the first open house. They really love the house, and the location is just what they wanted. And one more thing—she hates the furniture.”

Shelby let out a laugh, lifting her face to the ceiling, cutting loose. “She really does?”

“Absolutely hates it. She told me she had to look past it, pretend it wasn’t there, to really
see
the house, the layout. He’s nervous about the short-sale aspect, but she wants it, and he’s willing to go that route. And I think if the lender counters, asking for closer to their asking price, this buyer will come up.”

“Oh my God, Donna.”

“I don’t want to get ahead of ourselves, but you should celebrate, at least a little.”

“I feel like stripping naked and dancing all over this damn house.”

“Whatever works.”

“Maybe just the dancing part. Thank you. Thank you so much.”

“Fingers crossed, Shelby. I’ll contact the lender first thing in the morning. You have a good night.”

“You, too. Thanks again. Bye now.”

She didn’t strip naked, but she did bring up the satellite radio. She hit with Adele, danced around the office, picked up the lyrics, let her voice loose.

She’d had ambitions once, aspirations, dreams. She’d be a singer—a star. Her voice was a gift, and she’d tended it, used it, appreciated it.

She’d met Richard through her voice, when he came into the little club in Memphis where she was lead singer with a band they called Horizon.

Nineteen years old, she thought now. Not old enough to buy a legal beer in the club, though Ty, their drummer who’d been a little bit in love with her, used to sneak her a bottle of Corona when he could.

God, it felt good to sing again, to dance. Other than lullabies, she hadn’t used her singing voice in months. She rolled through Adele, straight into Taylor Swift, then fumbled with the remote to mute the volume when her phone rang again.

Still smiling, still dancing, she answered.

“Hello.”

“I’m looking for David Matherson.”

“I’m sorry, you’ve got the wrong number.”

“David Matherson,” he repeated, and rattled off the phone number.

“Yes, that’s this number but . . .” Something lodged in her throat. She had to clear it, grip the receiver tight. “No one by that name lives here. I’m sorry.”

She hung up before he could say anything else, then hurried to the safe, carefully entered the combination.

She took the manila envelope to the desk, and with stiff and shaky fingers, opened it.

In the envelope she kept the identification she’d found in the bank box, the ones with Richard’s face smiling out.

And one set of identification was in the name of David Allen Matherson.

She didn’t feel like singing anymore, or dancing. For reasons she couldn’t explain, she was compelled to check all the doors, check the alarm system.

Despite the waste of electricity, she left a light burning in the foyer, left the second-floor hall light on. Rather than go to her own bed, she slid in with Callie.

And lay awake a long time praying the phone didn’t ring again.

•   •   •

T
HE
FURNITURE COMPANY
sent a crew who packed up two guest rooms, the foyer, and the dining room, where Shelby hadn’t had a meal since Richard’s accident. After some haggling, she’d agreed to sell the master bedroom suite to the private buyer.

She wiped out the time payment, paid off a second credit card.

Two down, ten to go.

The house felt even bigger and less friendly with so much of the furniture gone. She had a nagging itch at the base of her spine to get gone herself, but there were details yet, and they were her responsibility.

She had an appointment at one-thirty with the book buyer—made at that time so she’d have Callie down for her nap. She tied her hair back, put on the pretty aquamarine dangles her grandparents had given her for Christmas. Added some bronzer, some blush because she looked too pale. She changed the thick socks she liked to wear around the house for good black heels.

Her grandmother claimed heels might pinch the toes some, but they boosted a woman’s confidence.

She jumped when the doorbell rang. The book man was a solid fifteen minutes early, time she’d counted on to put coffee and cookies out in the library.

She rushed down, hoping he didn’t ring again. Callie slept light at naptime.

She opened the door to a man younger and better looking than she’d expected—which went to show, she supposed, about assumptions.

“Mr. Lauderdale, you’re timely.”

“Ms. Foxworth.” Smoothly, he held out a hand to clasp hers.

“Come in out of the cold. I’ll never get used to northern winters.”

“You haven’t been in the area long.”

“No, just long enough to go through a winter. Let me take your coat.”

“I appreciate that.”

He had a strong-looking stocky build, a square-jawed face, cool hazel eyes. Nothing, she thought, like the thin, older, bespectacled bookworm of her imagination.

“Donna—Ms. Tinesdale—said you might be interested in the books I have.” She hung the sturdy peacoat in the foyer closet. “Why don’t I take you right into the library so you can have a look?”

“You have an impressive home.”

“It’s big, anyway,” she said as she led him back, past a sitting room with a grand piano nobody played, a lounge area with a pool table she still had to sell, and to the library.

It would’ve been her favorite room, next to Callie’s, if she could have made it cozier, warmer. But for now she had the fire going, had taken down the heavy drapes—also in the to-sell pile—so the winter sun, what there was of it, could leak through the windows.

The furniture here, the leather sofa in what she thought of as lemon-pie yellow and the dark brown chairs, the too-shiny tables would all be gone by the end of the week.

She hoped the cases full of leather-bound books no one had ever read would be gone, too.

“Like I told you on the phone, I’ll be moving before much longer, so I’m inclined to sell the books. I’ve already packed up the ones I want myself, but these—well, to tell you the truth, my husband bought them because he thought they looked good in the room.”

“They look impressive, like the house.”

“I guess they do. I’m more interested in what’s in a book than how it looks in a cabinet, I guess. If you’d like to take a look at them, I can make coffee.”

He wandered over, took out a book at random.
“Faust.”

“I read how a lot of people buy books this way, by the foot? To decorate.”

She wanted to clutch her hands together, had to order herself to relax. She should be used to this by now, she thought, it shouldn’t still make her nervous.

“I guess I think it’d be nicer—more appealing to the eye, to my eye,” she corrected, “if they weren’t all the same. The bindings, the height. And I guess I have to say, I wouldn’t be one to curl up in front of the fire and read
Faust
.”

“You’re not alone in that.” He slipped the book back in place and turned those cool eyes on her. “Ms. Foxworth, I’m not Lauderdale. My name’s Ted Privet.”

“Oh, did Mr. Lauderdale send you to take a look?”

“I’m not a book dealer, I’m a private investigator. I spoke to you on the phone a couple nights ago. I asked about David Matherson.”

She took a step back. Heels or not, she could and would outrun him. Get him outside, away from Callie.

“And I told you, you had the wrong number. You need to go now. I’m expecting someone any minute.”

“I only need a minute.” With a smile, he lifted his hands as if to show her he was harmless. “I’m just doing my job, Ms. Foxworth. I tracked David Matherson to this area, and my information . . . I’ve got a photo.” He reached into his inside jacket pocket, holding his other hand out and up in a gesture of peace. “If you’d just take a look. Do you know this man?”

Her heart hammered. She’d let a stranger into the house. She’d gotten careless, having so many people going in and out, and she’d let him in. With her baby sleeping upstairs.

“You let me think you were someone else.” She put a whip in her voice, hope it stung. “Is that how you do your job?”

“Yeah, actually. Some of the time.”

“I don’t much like you or your job.” She snatched the photo out of his hand. Stared at it.

She’d known it would be Richard, but seeing him—the movie-star smile, the brown eyes with hints of gold—hit hard. His hair was darker, and he wore a trim goatee she thought made him look older, just like the identification from the bank box. But it was Richard.

The man in the photo had been her husband. Her husband had been a liar.

What was she?

“This is a picture of my late husband, Richard.”

“Seven months ago, this man—going by the name of David Matherson—swindled a woman in Atlanta out of fifty thousand dollars.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t know any David Matherson. My husband was Richard Foxworth.”

“Two months before that, David Matherson swindled a small group of investors in Jacksonville, Florida, out of twice that. I could go back, go on, including a major burglary in Miami about five years ago. Twenty-eight million in rare stamps and jewelry.”

The swindling, after what she’d learned in the past weeks, didn’t shock her. But the thievery, and the amount of it, had her stomach twisting, her head going light.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I want you to go.”

While he tucked the photo away, he kept his eyes on hers. “Matherson was most recently based out of Atlanta, where he ran real estate scams. You lived in Atlanta before coming here, didn’t you?”

“Richard was a financial consultant. And he’s dead. Do you understand? He died right after Christmas, so he can’t answer your questions. I don’t know the answers to them. You’ve got no business coming in here this way, lying your way in and scaring me.”

Once again, he held up his hands—but something in his eyes told Shelby he wasn’t harmless at all.

“I’m not trying to scare you.”

“Well, you have. I married Richard Foxworth in Las Vegas, Nevada, on October 18, 2010. I didn’t marry anyone named David Matherson. I don’t know anyone by that name.”

His mouth twisted into a sneer. “You were married four years, but you claim you don’t know how your husband really made his living? What he really did? Who he really was?”

“If you’re trying to tell me I’m a fool, get in line. Made his living? What living?” Overcome, she threw out her arms. “This house? If I can’t get it sold and fast, they’ll foreclose. You want to claim Richard swindled people, stole from people? Almost thirty million dollars? Well, if it’s true, whoever hired you to find him can get in line, too. I’m digging out from the three million dollars in debt he left me holding. You need to go, you go tell your client he’s got the wrong man. Or if he doesn’t, that man’s dead. There’s nothing I can do about it. If he wants to come after me for the money, well, like I said, there’s a line, and it’s long.”

“Lady, you want me to believe you lived with him for four years but you never heard of Matherson? You don’t know anything?”

Anger swallowed fear. She’d had enough. Just enough, and that temper lit her up like a flash fire. “I don’t give a good damn what you believe, Mr. Privet. Not one single damn. And if you pushed your way in here expecting I’d just pull a bunch of damn stamps and jewelry out of my pocket, or hundreds of thousands in cash to send you on your way,
I
believe you’re a stupid man as well as a rude one. Get out.”

“I’m just looking for information about—”

“I don’t
have
any information. I don’t know anything about any of this. What I
know
is I’m stuck here in this place I don’t know, with this house I don’t want, because I . . .”

“Because?”

“I don’t know anymore.” Even the temper faded now. She was just tired. “I can’t tell you what I don’t know. If you have any questions, you can talk to Michael Spears or Jessica Broadway. Spears, Cannon, Fife and Hanover. They’re the Philadelphia lawyers handling this mess I’m in. Now, you’re going, or I’m calling the police.”

“I’m going,” he said, following her as she strode out and went directly to the closet for his coat.

He took out a business card, held it out to her. “You can contact me if you remember anything.”

“I can’t remember what I don’t know.” But she took the card. “If it was Richard who took your client’s money, I’m sorry for it. Please don’t come back here. I won’t let you in a second time.”

“It could be the cops at the door next time,” he told her. “You keep that in mind. And keep that card.”

“They don’t throw you in jail for being stupid. That’s my only crime.”

She pulled open the door, let out a little yip at the man reaching for the doorbell.

“Ah, Mrs. Foxworth? I startled you. I’m Martin Lauderdale.”

He was older, with eyes of faded blue behind wire-rimmed glasses and a trim beard of more salt than pepper.

“Thank you for coming, Mr. Lauderdale. Goodbye, Mr. Privet.”

“Keep that card,” Privet told her, and skirting around Lauderdale, walked down the cleared front walk to a gray compact.

She knew cars—after all, her granddaddy was a mechanic, and she took careful note of this one. A Honda Civic, in gray, Florida license plates.

If she saw it in the neighborhood again, she’d call the police.