Look Closer

“This is a rich lady in a rich town,” he says. “This will be a big deal. Unless Simon was incredibly smart about this—and we can’t count on it—they’re going to figure out she was having an affair with him. You have to be prepared for a search of your house.”

I am.

“You have to be prepared to be interviewed by the police.”

I’m not. Oh, God, that would be a disaster.

“You have to be prepared to look Simon in the eye and act surprised when he tells you that someone named Lauren Betancourt was just murdered in Grace Village.”

Jesus, he’s a bundle of nerves.

“If Simon has the slightest idea that you were behind this,” he says, “maybe he goes ahead and files for divorce. And then all of this will be for noth—”

“I can handle Simon,” I say. “I’ve been handling Simon for ten years.”

“Yeah, well, this will be the performance of a lifetime, babe.”

“You have the gun yet?”

“Not to mention— What?”

“Do you have the gun yet?” I repeat. “You said you were getting—”

“Yes, I have it.”

“What kind is it?”

“I— Do you know about guns?” He seems surprised.

“I grew up in West Virginia, remember?”

I didn’t grow up in West Virginia. Vicky Lanier, my alter ego, did. But my father was an avid hunter and took me with him sometimes. He’d take me to the shooting range, too, and let me fire his guns, at least his handguns.

“What kind of gun do you have?” I ask again.

“It’s a Glock.”

“A Glock what? A 23?”

He steps back. “You do know your guns. It’s a Glock 17, apparently.”

“Okay, fine. And you have a suppressor?”

“A what?”

“A silencer, Christian. You need a silencer.”

“Yeah, I do.”

“Is it already attached?”

“Yeah, he— It came attached.”

He, meaning Gavin, I assume. Gavin Finley has a firearm owners identification card with the state, and he owns three handguns, at least three he has legally purchased.

Yeah, it’s nice having an investigator like Rambo on my team.

Not that I would expect Gavin to give Christian one of his own guns. No, Gavin must have bought it from a fence or used a straw purchaser. That’s what I’d do.

“Let me see it,” I say. “I want to check it out.”

“It’s not here. But don’t worry. The guy who got it, he knows guns.”

“Does he know you?” I ask. “Does he know me?”

“No, no, no, nothing like that.”

Yes, yes, yes—exactly like that. It must have been Gavin, and I’m sure Gavin knows who I am. He’s Christian’s—Nick’s—best friend from childhood. He’s a fellow scammer, only his are less profitable.

“Practice shooting,” I say.

“You want me to practice?”

“You’ve never fired a weapon before. Even shooting from close range, you need to get used to it. You need to make sure the magazine is properly loaded and the slide is back, you need to get used to the weight of it in your hands and holding it with a suppressor—”

“You’re, like, G.I. Jane over here.”

I pat him on the chest. “Promise me you’ll practice. Don’t let Halloween night be the first time you’ve fired a gun.”

—

“So no luck with Simon’s green phone?” Christian asks me.

“I couldn’t find it. And you remember what his diary said about the weekends. They keep their phones off. They don’t communicate after Friday morning until Monday morning.”

“Right, I remember. They go dark on the weekends. That’s smart.”

“Yeah, hooray for them, it’s smart,” I say. “But for me, it means that as of now, until Monday morning, wherever Simon stowed it away, it’s going to stay stowed away. My guess is he left it at his office at the law school.”

“I wonder where Lauren keeps her pink phone.”

“Probably stowed away for the weekend, too,” I say.

He shakes his head. “I guess at this point, it doesn’t matter. We have the information we need. We have the plan. We don’t need their phones.”

Maybe you don’t, Christian. But I do.

“You’re right,” I say.

—

Christian walks me down to the garage. I turn to him before he pops the door open.

“Now get rid of your burner phone,” he says to me. “It’s a connection to me.”

“I’ll keep it ’til Monday.”

“Vicky—”

“Just in case,” I say. “If there’s an emergency. If I need to reach you. Or you, me.”

“Okay, I guess that makes sense,” he agrees.

“If there’s an emergency, just text something innocuous. I’ll have my phone off, but I’ll check it periodically. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Otherwise, see you Monday?”

He sighs, thinks about that. “You think we should see each other on the big day?”

“Just in case,” I say. “Just a check-in. Just to make sure nothing’s come up. Just to run through everything again, one more time.”

He relents. “I guess it doesn’t hurt to make sure.”

“I’ll be here at noon,” I say. “Right here by the garage at noon.”

“Okay.”

“Promise me you’ll practice with the Glock this weekend,” I say.

“I will.”

We go silent. This is supposed to be a tender moment, I guess. He thinks I’m worried—about him, about our future together. This is supposed to be a tearful goodbye-for-a-while.

Okay, here goes.

“Promise me we’ll be together when this is over,” I say without gagging or vomiting.

He takes my hands, kisses me softly. “Of course we will,” he whispers. “That’s why we’re doing this, right?”