The Liar

“Most likely.” Since he’d come to the same conclusion, Griff nodded. “And more, a lot of people project. You know what I’m saying? She couldn’t imagine you being with him and being uninvolved in the rest. She was a liar, a cheat, so by her reasoning, you had to be the same.”

“And Jimmy Harlow would think that, too.”

“I don’t know.”

“You’re hedging back now,” Shelby said when Griff went quiet. “Because you’re worried all this upsets me.”

“It does upset you.”

“It does, but I want to hear what you think. I don’t need to be protected against upset, Griffin. I’ve gotten through worse. Tell me what you think.”

“All right. I think it’s a pretty sure bet Harlow wasn’t in love with Richard, so his thought pattern might be clearer on it than the brunette’s. But he’s on the list I’m making, in several columns. I’m guessing he’s been staying somewhere close. Not as far out as Gatlinburg, like the brunette. Probably not the hotel. One of the campgrounds or cabins, one of the motels.”

“So he can watch me.”

He paused a minute, but he agreed with her. Knowing was better than not.

“Think about this. He didn’t confront you, get in your face, make threats like the woman. He’s playing a longer game, I think, so he wanted information. He wants to know who you are. It’s more likely he’ll cut his losses once he does. Better to stay free than to be rich—especially when the rich part doesn’t look promising.”

“I hope you’re right.”

“Playing that longer game, he’d be smarter to take a good look at all the information, just like we are. He’d know Richard better, and it seems like he’d follow the lines if he can connect the dots.”

Just as Griff’s thoughts and conclusions helped her connect dots. “We stayed the longest in Atlanta. But he planned to get out, and fast. I think he had a job there, a mark there, and wanted to pull out as soon as that job was done. I barely had time to pack once he told me. He went on ahead.”

“I didn’t know that. He went north without you and Callie?”

“About ten days before. I was supposed to pack, and turn over the keys. I thought we’d bought that condo in Atlanta, but we’d rented, so it was just turn over the keys, and fly north. I almost didn’t. I almost came home instead, but I thought maybe that’s what we needed—that change. Maybe that would help set things right between us again, and he talked about how we’d have a big yard for Callie. And . . . how we’d have another child.”

“Playing you.”

“I see that now. Clear,” she added. “I found in his papers he had a vasectomy right after Callie was born. He made sure there wouldn’t be another child.”

“I’m going to say I’m sorry, because that hurt you, and it’s a beyond crappy thing to do. But—”

“For the best,” she finished. “I have to be grateful I didn’t have another child with him. Playing me is what he did, all along, and in that lightning move to Philadelphia when he must have known I was thinking about leaving. Making it sound like the best thing for Callie nudged me into trying it, going, wanting to make it work.”

“A fresh start.”

“Yes, that’s how he made it seem. I said we stayed longest in Atlanta, but I don’t think he’d have left anything important there. I can see, looking back, he planned to get out well before he told me, so I think he’d plan to take whatever he had stowed away with him.”

He noted she only pretended to eat now, and wanted to erase it all, all the thoughts, the speculations, the points of view. But that wasn’t what she wanted.

“You said he traveled a lot, without you.”

“More and more, especially after we settled in Atlanta. I just wanted to nest a bit, find a routine. It got so he didn’t ask, just told me he had a business trip. Sometimes he didn’t bother to tell me. I don’t know for sure where he went. He may have told me the truth, he may not. But I know where I went with him, so that’s a start.”

“You could dump all this on the cops.”

“I suppose I will, but I want to work my way through it first, try to understand it.”

“Good. So do I.”

“Why?”

“You,” he said immediately. “Callie. If you don’t get that, I haven’t been doing a good job.”

“You like fixing things.”

“I do. People ought to like doing what they’re good at. And I like your face. I like your hair.”

He reached out for it, really wanted to take it out of the band she’d pulled it into.

“I like your meat loaf,” he added, polishing off the last of it on his plate. “I like taking Little Red on pizza dates. And I’m sunk when she gives me that flirty smile. So it’s more than fixing things, Shelby. You’re more than something to fix.”

Saying nothing, she rose to clear the plates.

“I’ve got those. You cooked. You cooked great.”

While he cleared, she opened her laptop, did a search for a photo. “Tell me what you think.”

She turned the computer around.

With a considering frown, Griff crossed back, leaned over and studied the photo of her.

Taken at one of the last functions she’d attended in Atlanta, it showed her and Richard in formal dress.