The Liar

by Nora Roberts

  house and get Fifi, drop her off. It won’t take fifteen minutes for me to get there.”

  “I’m so sorry to interrupt and cause you that trouble. My Bill would go get the dog, but I know your mama’s been locking up.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I’m on my way now. Tell Callie I’m bringing Fifi.”

  She spotted Crystal on her way to the ladies’. “I’ve got a favor to ask. Miz Bitsy’s in there, crying a little, just happy, you know how it is, and emotional. I’ve got to run get Fifi for Callie. Could you just soothe Miz Bitsy—or ask Granny to—and let Griff know, if you see him, I’ll be back in under a half hour.”

  “Sure, I will. You want me to go get Fifi?”

  “Thank you, but I’ll be quick.”

  “Oh, here! I meant to give you this at the salon. The lipstick I used on you.”

  “Thank you, Crystal. Keep this party going!”

  “You can count on me.”

  Hurrying off, Shelby shoved the lipstick in her right pocket, the phone in her left. She cast her mind back to packing for Callie. She knew she’d had Fifi right there, but . . .

  She saw it now, Callie picking up the stuffed dog to talk to it about their sleepover.

  And carting the dog with her when she’d followed her mama into the other bedroom.

  “On the windowsill,” she remembered. How she’d overlooked that, she’d never know.

  That was all right—she’d be back again before anyone missed her. And Callie and Fifi would be reunited.

  She cut around town as a Saturday night in the summer could be busy, and made it to the house in under ten minutes. Grateful for the low heels, she ran for the door. They’d scheduled her song for midway through the evening, so she had thirty minutes to spare. But no more.

  She dashed straight upstairs, into her bedroom.

  “There you are, Fifi. I’m so sorry you got left behind.” She plucked the much-loved dog off the windowsill, turned to rush right back out again.

  And he stepped into the doorway. The dog slipped out of her numb fingers as he moved toward her.

  “Hello, Shelby. Long time, no see.”

  “Richard.”

  His hair was dark, a deep, unfamiliar brown, and fell in careless waves well over his collar. Thick scruff covered the lower half of his face. He wore a camo T-shirt and rough khaki pants with scarred army boots. A combination he wouldn’t have been caught dead in.

  Oh God.

  “They—they said you were dead.”

  “They said what I wanted them to say. It didn’t take you long to go running back home, and spreading your legs for some carpenter. Did you cry for me, Shelby?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You never did understand much of anything. I guess we’ve got to have a long talk, you and I. Let’s go.”

  “I’m not going anywhere with you.”

  He reached casually behind his back, drew out a gun. “Yes, you are.”

  The gun in his hand struck her just as unbelievable as all the rest. “Are you going to shoot me? For what? I don’t have anything you could want.”

  “Did have.” He nodded toward the photo on her dresser. She saw now he’d taken it apart.

  “I know you, Shelby. You’re so damn simple. One thing you’d never get rid of—that picture you gave me of you and the kid. If they picked me up, they’d still have nothing. I kept what I needed with my lovely wife and daughter.”

  “Behind our picture,” she murmured. “What did you hide there?”

  “Key to the kingdom. We’ll talk. Let’s go.”

  “I’m not—”

  “I know where she is,” he said quietly. “Spending the night with her little friend Chelsea. At the grandmother’s. Maybe I’ll just go over there, pay Callie a visit.”

  Fear sliced through her, a knife to the bone. “No. No, you stay away from her. You leave her be.”

  “I’ll kill you right here where your family will find you. If I have to handle it that way, the kid’s my next stop. Your choice, Shelby.”

  “I’ll go. Just leave Callie alone, and I’ll go with you.”

  “Damn right you will.” He gestured her out of the room with the gun. “So predictable—always were, always will be. I knew you were a born mark the first time I saw you.”

  “Why don’t you just take what you came for and go? We don’t mean anything to you.”

  “And how far would I get before you called your cop brother?” As they stepped out of the house, he put an arm tight around her waist, pressed the gun into her side. “We’re going to walk down a little bit, take my car. A minivan, Shelby? You’re an embarrassment to me.”

  That tone, that pitying tone. How often had she heard it? “I’m nothing to you, never was.”

  “Oh, you were so useful.” He pressed a kiss to her temple, made her shudder. “And at first, hell, you were even fun. God knows you were eager in the sack. This one. Get in, climb over. You’re going to drive.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “A little place I know. Quiet. Private. It’s just what we need for a heart-to-heart.”

  “Why aren’t you dead?”

  “You’d like that.”

  “I swear on all that’s in me, I would.”

  He shoved her into the car, forcing her to crawl over to the driver’s seat.

  “I never did anything to you. I did what you wanted, went where you wanted. I gave you a child.”

  “And bored the crap out of me. Drive, and keep it to the speed limit. You go over, you go under, I’ll shoot you in the gut. It’s a painful way to die.”

  “I can’t drive if I don’t know where I’m going.”

  “Take the back roads around that hole-in-the-wall you call a town. Try anything, Shelby, I’ll take you out, then I go after the kid. I’ve got too much at stake, and I’ve worked and waited for it too long to let you fuck it up.”

  “You think I care about the jewelry, the money? Take it and go.”

  “Oh, I will. First thing Monday morning. If you hadn’t come into the bedroom, you’d never have known I was there. As it is, we’ll have a reunion weekend, then I’m gone. Just do what you’re told, like always, and you’ll be fine.”

  “They’ll look for me.”

  “And they won’t find you.” Sneering, he pressed the barrel of the gun into her side. “Jesus, you stupid bitch, do you think I’ve outwitted the cops all this time and can’t keep ahead of a bunch of Barney Fifes for a day? Take this turn coming up, to the right. Nice and easy.”

  “Your partner’s been around. Jimmy Harlow. Maybe he’ll have better luck finding you.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  His tone froze her blood.

  “What did you do?”

  “Found him first. Steady on these switchbacks. I wouldn’t want this gun to go off.”

  Her insides quaked, but she kept her hands steady as she negotiated the tight wind of the climb.

  “Why did you marry me?”

  “It served my purpose at the time. I never could smooth you out, though, never could make anything out of you. Listen to you, look at you, I gave you plenty of money, taught you how to buy the right clothes, how to give a decent dinner party, and you’re still the ignorant hick from the Tennessee hills. It’s amazing I haven’t bashed what brains you have out before now.”

  “You’re a thief and a swindler.”

  “That’s right, honey.” His sneer shifted to a cheerful grin. “And I’m damn good at it. You? You’ve never been good at anything. Take this excuse for a road on the left. Nice and slow now.”

  He might’ve thought her ignorant, useless, malleable, but she knew the hills. And had a reasonable idea where they were going.

  “What happened in Miami? All those years ago,” she asked, wanting to keep him talking, distract him as she slid her left hand into her pocket.

  “Oh, we’ll talk about that. We’ve got a lot of things to talk about.”

  Texting while dri
ving, she thought, struggling not to give way to hysteria, was dangerous.

  She hoped to God she managed to do it right.

  Because while she knew the hills, she thought she knew the man beside her now. And she believed he meant to kill her before he was done.

  30

  The country-dark road twisted like a snake as it climbed, and gave her an excuse to ease off the gas. She let the fear show—no point in pride—and the show of fear could be another weapon. Or at least a shield, she thought, as she slipped her hand into her pocket, and prayed she could manage a coherent message.

  “Why didn’t you just run?”

  “I don’t run,” he said with that same self-satisfied smile on his face. “I navigate. You were just what I needed to make my new ID solid after the Miami job. It didn’t take me long to realize you’d be useless on the grift, but you made for a good temporary cover.”

  “Nearly five years, Richard?”

  “I never figured to keep you around that long, then you got knocked up. I think on my feet,” he reminded her. “Who’s going to look for a family man, a man with a hick wife and a baby? And I had to wait for the take to cool down. And for Melinda to get out. She made a hell of a deal—you have to give her credit. I’d thought she’d get double what they gave her, and that would’ve been plenty of time for cooling off and covering my tracks. But she always could surprise me.”

  “You killed her.”

  “How could I? I’m dead, remember? Make this right. Nearly there.”

  Nothing back here, she thought, but a couple of cabins—at least that’s all there’d been when she’d left the Ridge.

  She hit Send—she hoped—because she had to put her left hand back on the wheel.

  “But you’re not dead, and you killed her.”

  “And who are the assholes looking for over it? Jimmy. I’m in the clear. I’m going to stay in the clear. And when I pick up what’s mine Monday morning, I’ll be in the clear with millions. Long-range plans, Shelby, take a lot of patience. This one cost me a little more than a year for each five million. That’s a damn good deal in the world of big pictures. Pull up right beside that truck.”

  “Who else is here?”

  “Nobody now.”

  “My God, Richard, whose place is this? Who did you kill?”

  “An old friend. Turn off the car, hand me the keys.” Once again, he jabbed with the barrel of the gun. “You’re going to sit where you are until I come around for you. Try anything—anything—I’ll put a bullet in you. Then I’ll go get Callie. I know people who’d pay a premium for a pretty girl her age.”

  She hadn’t known he could sicken her even more. “She’s your child. She’s your blood.”

  “Do you actually think I care?”

  “No.” Her hand was back in her pocket, frantically tapping. “I don’t think you care about anything or anyone. And there’s nothing I wouldn’t do to keep Callie safe.”

  “Then what’s left of the weekend should be easy on both of us.”

  She considered locking the doors when he got out, just to give herself more time to send the next message. But it would only spike his temper. It had to be better to make him believe she was utterly helpless.

  It wasn’t too far from the truth.

  When he came around, opened her door, she got out compliantly.

  “Here’s our little home away from home.” He used a penlight to shine a thin beam, showing the way to a small cabin, roughly built.

  Her shoes crunched on the short gravel walk leading to a sagging front porch. A couple of old chairs, a rickety table. Nothing she could see that could be used as a weapon.

  He dropped the penlight back in his pocket, handed her a key.

  “Unlock the door.”

  She did what she was told, and at the prod of the gun, stepped off the dark porch into the dark cabin. She jolted when he turned on the light—couldn’t help herself. It came yellow and dull from the globes on a wagon wheel dropped from the pitched ceiling.

  “I call it the Hickville Dump. It’s not much, but it’s ours. Sit down.”

  When she didn’t move fast enough he shoved her toward a chair of red-and-green plaid. She caught herself, turned to sit, and saw the blood on the floor, smears of it leading to a closed door.

  “Yeah, you’re going to clean that up, then I’ve got a shovel with your name on it. You’re going to bury Jimmy, save me the sweat.”

  “All of this for money?”

  “It’s always the money.” The excitement, the light that had first drawn her to him, beamed out. But she saw it now for what it was. Hard and false.

  “It’s always the money,” he repeated, “but it’s the ride, too. It’s knowing you’re the smartest one in the room, no matter what fucking room. It’s knowing if you want it, you can take it.”

  “Even if it belongs to someone else.”

  “Especially, you moron, if it belongs to someone else. That’s the ride. I’m going to grab a beer.” He sent her a wide smile “Get you something, honey?”

  He backed into the tiny open kitchen when she said nothing.

  So sure she was paralyzed, she thought, he didn’t even bother to restrain her. She kept her hands clenched together in her lap, the knuckles white. But it was as much a rising fury as fear now.

  The lamp, she thought, the one on the table with the black bear hunched by the trunk of a tree. It might be heavy enough if she could get her hands on it.

  There’d be knives in the kitchen.

  She imagined the Winchester rifle over the fireplace was unloaded. But maybe not.

  And there was an engraved plate on the stock that read “William C. Bounty.”

  She relaxed her fingers, started to slide her hand toward her pocket, let it lie still again when Richard walked back, sat across from her.

  “Isn’t this cozy?”

  “How did you do it? How did you survive the boating accident?”

  “Surviving’s what I do. Melinda was getting out. I didn’t count on Jimmy busting out, complicated things a bit. I didn’t think he had that in him. But Melinda, I knew she’d be a problem. She always was a dog with a bone, just never let go, so she’d need to be dealt with before I cashed in.”

  He settled back, obviously relaxed. “I always figured on the five years—and it was close enough. So . . . a little vacation with the fam, tragedy strikes, and I’d be off the grid again.”

  “We’d have been with you if Callie hadn’t gotten sick.” When his eyes gleamed, understanding struck her with true horror. “You were going to kill us. You were going to kill your own baby.”

  “Young family’s holiday vacation ends in tragedy. It happens.”

  “You couldn’t have gotten away with it. If the authorities hadn’t hunted you down, my family would have.”

  “Not if I died trying to save you. It should’ve played out that way. I’d have spent a couple days painting us as a happy little family—people tend to believe what they see. Good-looking couple, pretty little girl. Then we’d make a day of it on the boat. Go out far enough, get some wine in you, wait until dusk.”