by Nora Roberts
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.
“You look gorgeous, and sad—I thought that the first time I saw you. You’re smiling, but there’s no light in it. And what happened to your hair? You look gorgeous, like I said, but not so much like Shelby. Where are the curls? Did you sell them?”
She gave him a long look, then tipped her head to his shoulder. “You know what I want to do?”
“What?”
“I want to take a walk around your backyard, watch the sun set, give you all sorts of unasked-for advice about where you should plant things, and put that arbor. Then I want you to take my new dress off me. That’ll be easy as I’m not wearing a thing under it.”
“Can we do that first?”
She laughed, shook her head. “Let me drive you a little crazy first.”
“Already there,” he told her as she took his hand to lead him out.
• • •
HE FOLLOWED HER HOME AGAIN, used the drive back for thinking time. Added to thinking time by taking Snickers on a long patrol, then putting a good hour into framing out a closet in one of the other demo’d bedrooms.
One step at a time, he told himself as he put his tools away, cleaned up.
He took the next step by sitting down at his computer and doing his own search for unsolved burglaries and fraud cases in Atlanta during the years Shelby had lived there.
A puzzle to solve, he thought. Never did anything without a reason, Griff reminded himself. So why had the fucker pulled up stakes in Atlanta, and so abruptly?
It might be interesting to find out.
• • •
WHILE GRIFF RAN HIS SEARCHES, Jimmy Harlow worked on a laptop he’d lifted from a trade show in Tampa. The busy hotel and half-drunk conventioneers in the hotel bars had been prime picking.
He’d walked out with the laptop—fully loaded and in a nicely padded travel bag—just over two thousand in cash, two iPhones and the keys to a Chevy Suburban he drove directly to a chop shop.
He bought a new ID—it paid to have contacts—and stole a piece-of-shit Ford he drove over the Georgia border to an acquaintance who bought it for five hundred flat.
He lay low for a while, growing a beard, growing out his hair, dying both, building up his cash the old-fashioned way. He picked pockets, pulled some minor burglaries, moved on.
He made his way to Atlanta, taking a winding route, staying in fleabag motels, stealing the occasional car—a skill learned and honed in his youth. In a side trip to New Orleans, he mugged and beat the crap out of a drug dealer who procured for a high school in the Ninth Ward.
He strongly disapproved of selling drugs to minors.
He also picked up a solid Toyota 4Runner outside a bar in Baton Rouge, which he drove to yet another chop shop.
He paid to have it reVINed, repainted, and with the help of another contact, forged
the paperwork to match his new ID.
He watched the news obsessively, used the laptop to scan for the manhunt.
He trimmed his beard, bought easy, casual clothes—and broke them in so none of them looked new. He used self-tanner religiously to rid himself of prison pallor.
He bought maps, even sprang for a decent Canon digital camera, and slapped a few stickers on the truck from state parks, as any tourist might do.
He ate what he wanted, when he wanted. Slept when he was tired, got up and going when he wasn’t.
Every day of the years he’d spent in prison he’d dreamed of just that. Freedom. But he’d dreamed of what he’d do with that freedom.
He had no illusion of honor among thieves—he’d been one too long. But betrayals required payback. And payback drove him.
It drove him to Atlanta, where inquiries in the right ears, grease in the right palms, gave him information.
He stole the .25 from a split-level in Marietta, where some idiot had it unsecured in the nightstand, and took the 9mm from a desk drawer in the home office.
Kids in the house, too, he’d thought at the time as he’d done a sweep of a boy’s room, a girl’s room. Hell, he was saving lives here.
He’d left the kids the Xbox, but had taken the iPads, another laptop, the cash in the freezer, a diamond tennis bracelet, diamond studs, the cash rolled up in the jewelry box and, because they fit, a pair of sturdy hiking boots.
By the time he arrived in Villanova, the woman who’d hooked up with Jake was gone.
He picked the lockbox, took himself on a tour. Jake had done real well for himself, and that burned bitter in his throat.
He contacted the realtor using his drop phone, discovered it was a short sale. So maybe not so well after all.
He spent a few days in the area to get a better sense of things, then worked his way down to Tennessee.
He’d rented a cabin a good ten miles from Rendezvous Ridge—a three-month, under-the-table cash deal with the owner. He was Milo Kestlering here, out of Tallahassee, where he’d been middle management for a wholesale food company. Divorced, no kids.
He had plenty of filler to his new background if he needed it, but the landlord had been happy to take his money.
He had no contacts here, and had to be careful. More careful with cops sniffing around since Melinda’s murder.
Stupidity had killed her, in Harlow’s opinion. Maybe prison had dulled her edge, but either way, she wasn’t a factor anymore.
The redhead now, that was another matter. But he had what he wanted, for now. Enough to keep him busy, for now.
Cut it close at the boyfriend’s place, he thought. Pushed it, he admitted. Always better to go in an empty house—but the door was unlocked, and the laptop right there.
Still, he’d gotten the data.
He’d taken a risk walking right up to the redhead on the street, but he’d gotten what he wanted there, too. More, he’d seen no recognition in her eyes when she looked at him.
He wouldn’t have figured her for Jake’s type, but maybe that had been the point.
Plenty to think about there, but for tonight, he had the numbers right in front of him. He had pictures, he had e-mails. He had lives spread out on the screen.
He’d figure out what to do with them.
He’d figure out what to do about them.
24
The wild rhododendrons burst into bloom along the banks of streams, flashed and flamed their way up the slopes. In the high country the starry yellow blossoms of bluebeard lily peeked out from fanning ferns going thick and green.
She took Callie on hikes and hunts to find them when she could, or just to sit and listen to the music of bluebirds and juncos. Once, from a safe distance, she let her girl share the wonder of watching a bear fish in a tumbling stream before he lumbered off into the green.
Callie celebrated her fourth birthday in the backyard of the house where her mother had grown up, with friends her own age, with family, with people who cared about her.
For Shelby it was the shiniest gift in the pile.
There was a chocolate cake shaped like a castle with all the characters from Shrek scattered around it, and games, and gifts, balloons and streamers.
“It’s the happiest birthday she’s ever had.”
Viola sat, her great-grandson in her arms, and watched the kids play on one of Callie’s treasured gifts. A Slip ’n Slide.
“She’s getting old enough to know what’s what about a birthday now.”
“It’s more than that, Granny.”
Viola nodded. “It’s more than that. Does she ever ask about her father?”
“She doesn’t. She hasn’t said a word about him since we came home. It’s like she’s forgotten him, and I don’t know if that’s right or wrong.”
“She’s happy. She’ll have questions one day, and you’ll have to answer them, but she’s happy. She sure has a love affair going on with Griff.”
Shelby smiled over to where a soaking wet Callie clung to Griff’s legs. “She does.”
“How about you?”
“I can’t deny we’ve got something going, and since where we are makes me happy, I’m not thinking too much where we’re going to end up.”
“You’ve lost most of the sad, worried look behind your eyes. You’ve got my eyes—through me, to Ada Mae, to you, and on to Callie,” Viola pointed out. “Don’t think I can’t read them.”
“I’d say the sad’s gone, and the worry’s lessened. Are you going to give up that baby and give somebody else a chance?”
Viola laid a kiss on Beau’s forehead. “Here you go. Sleeping like an angel right through all this noise. Go ahead and take him out in the sun for a few minutes. Not too long now, but I expect some vitamin D’s good for him.”
It felt wonderful to have a baby in her arms again, to feel the weight and the warmth, to smell the down of his hair. She looked over at her daughter. Such a big girl now, sprouting like a weed. And the yearning pulled and tugged inside her as Beau waved a hand in the air in his sleep.
When Clay, nearly as wet as the kids, walked over, she shook her head. “Don’t you even think about stealing this baby from me. You’re too wet to take him. Besides, I’ve barely had my turn.”
“I figured I wouldn’t get much chance to hold him today.”
“He favors you, Clay.”
“That’s what Mama says.”
“She’s right.”
“I’m after a beer—Gilly’s driving. You want one?”
“I’m sticking with lemonade until this is over.”
Still he put an arm around her shoulders, turned her so they walked to the big tub holding the beer. “Forrest filled me in on what’s going on with you.”
“I don’t want you to worry about any of that. You have a new baby to think about, not to mention Gilly and Jackson.”
He kept his arm around her. He had a way of hugging you in, and always had, Shelby thought, that made her feel cherished. “I’ve got plenty of room for my sister in my thinking-about book. Nobody who looks like this Harlow character’s come by work. I haven’t seen anybody like that around the neighborhood. I know the police are still looking—that’s what they have to do. But he’s most likely gone. Even so.”
He pulled out a beer, popped off the cap. “You be careful,