Deceptive Practices

by Simon Wood

  “You sure you want to do this?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  The sun was falling toward the Pacific Ocean as he helped Beth from the car. He felt its heat on his back. It would be good for her skin, though he repositioned her veil to keep the sun off her damaged face.

  “We’ve got a hike ahead of us. You sure you’re up for it?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she snapped.

  “Okay, then.”

  Beth was so fragile these days, both physically and mentally, but not when she was on a mission. Then nothing stopped her. Roy watched her stride ahead of him. He didn’t know if she knew the spot the way he did. She hadn’t been with him the night he’d buried Maxwell. She was being treated for her wounds after the fire.

  He followed her to the trailhead. He thought he’d kept himself in good shape, but trudging up the stiff slope and into the shade of the trees, he felt his age. He moved with leaden legs while sucking in long, ragged breaths. It hadn’t been a problem a decade ago. Then again, maybe this new weariness came from literally going over old ground. Either way, he wanted to get this over and done with. Maxwell’s grasp over Beth, even from the grave, disturbed him. Maxwell had never seen her as anything more than a nice piece of ass. All she and Roy had achieved with Infidelity Limited proved she was much more than that. Still, he indulged her obsession for one simple reason; it soothed her. He hoped this was the start of an upswing for her. He needed it as much as she did.

  After a mile, they left the trail. They crossed a ridgeline before dropping down into a meadow. It was a beautiful spot. It rose and dipped, rose and dipped. It was encircled by trees, giving it a secluded feel. Maxwell didn’t deserve such an idyllic resting place.

  Beth kept up her determined pace, but she was veering off course. He took her hand and steered her back on the true path, toward the edge of the tree line. The tallest of the bunch served as his North Star.

  Roy stopped when he reached the spot. He looked down at the ground.

  “Are we over him?” Beth asked.

  They were. He didn’t need a map or a GPS to pinpoint the grave. The lie of the ground and the faint bump in the dirt radiated familiarity, even after all these years. He nodded.

  “Tell me what you did that night.”

  “You know what I did.”

  “I want to hear it again.”

  Beth was staring at the ground at her feet, and she didn’t see him frown.

  “Again.”

  The story was easy to remember, its details close at hand, but it was always hard to recount. He started the tale at the moment Beth had killed Maxwell and started the fire to destroy the evidence. Their futures had hinged on the minutes that followed Maxwell’s last breath, so Roy had acted fast. The fire had gotten away from Beth, so he attended to her burns as best he could, then dealt with Maxwell. He’d dodged the patches of smoke and flames and wrapped Maxwell’s corpse in plastic, then in a blanket before bundling it into the back of his SUV. He had dropped Beth off at an off-the-grid doctor he knew, then drove out to Topanga. He’d parked the car and spent an hour scouting the area for a suitable grave site. Once he’d found it, he grabbed his tools and Maxwell’s body. How the hell he’d managed to lug Maxwell over one shoulder up the trail while carrying his toolbox and shovel, he’d never know. Blind panic and fear were the superhuman fuel of choice, he surmised. He’d dug. Even with his strength, it had been exhausting, cutting through the dirt. It was hard and unyielding, as if it didn’t want to accept Maxwell’s body. It had taken him more than two hours to dig a hole chest deep. It wasn’t the regulation six feet under, but it was deep enough.

  He’d tossed Maxwell in, but there was still work to do. All identification had to be removed. That meant fingers and teeth. He snipped Maxwell’s fingers off with sheet-metal shears and smashed his teeth out with pliers before filling the grave back up with dirt. The teeth he’d dumped in various trash cans on the way back to Beth. The fingers he’d had to keep until he could burn them. The story was done.

  The events had played out in 4K Ultra HD with surround sound in his head, but he’d only given Beth the bare bones in his retelling, consisting of stick-figure outlines and colorless details. He could tell she didn’t like it. Her hands balled into fists, and she fidgeted in place, shifting her weight from one foot to another, like a child in need of the bathroom. He didn’t care. He wouldn’t let her revel in this memory.

  “Tell it right.”

  “No.”

  “Do it.”

  He didn’t want to, but he knew Beth well enough to know that she wouldn’t settle down and move past this moment until she got what she wanted. He couldn’t work out why she’d gotten so agitated with the world recently. Was it because Infidelity Limited was going through a tricky time, with too many screwups of late? There had been a recent rash of clients tossed to the lions to ensure Infidelity Limited’s buffer to the cops remained intact, with Olivia being the most current and trickiest. Was it Olivia? Something about her case rubbed Beth the wrong way. Was it jealousy? Beth had sensed he had a soft spot for Olivia.

  “Okay,” he said and told it again.

  When he was finished, she spat on the ground. “You should have treated me right, Jeff.”

  “He should have,” Roy added.

  Beth turned to him. She faced him with her good side—the unmarred, beautiful side—but when she spoke again, that side was no less ugly than the fire-ravaged side.

  “Now, dig. I want to see his face.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Clare was trying her luck at Thunder Valley. She needed something to buoy her spirits after Richard’s funeral. The casino was out past Sacramento and a little farther to travel to than she liked, but it had been expanding and offering some nice enticements. Besides, Cache Creek had been dealing her cold cards lately. The grand she’d gotten from Roy had only ended up lasting about two hours, and now she was in to Gault for $2,500 plus interest.

  Maybe she deserved to lose Roy’s money. It was tainted by the fact she was informing on her sister. She blamed her decision on the heat of the moment. Roy had caught her at a time when she was desperate for money and was willing to take it from the devil himself.

  Roy called every day or so to ask her what she knew. She fed him a line of bullshit he expected to hear—Olivia was frightened, the police were asking questions, she was making preparations to fulfill her assignment. She told him nothing about Olivia trying to destroy Infidelity Limited. She didn’t feel bad about this deception, considering everything the prick had put her through.

  Olivia was crazy in that respect. She didn’t stand a chance of bringing them down, but Clare guessed she wouldn’t learn that lesson until she had exhausted every avenue and realized complying was her only escape.

  Clare’s cards came flying across the blackjack table at her. Eighteen. An awkward number. Too high to gamble on another card. Too low to guarantee beating the dealer.

  The dealer flipped his cards over—a queen and a jack. Enough to beat everyone sitting at the table. He whisked away all the cards and chips on the table, including Clare’s twenty-five-dollar bet.

  She’d only gotten paid yesterday, and all she had left was two hundred bucks. It wasn’t enough to get her through to her next paycheck, and certainly not enough to pay her rent. She could keep going in the hope of turning it around, but she was relying on luck and not design. How many times had Olivia berated her over her gambling? God only knew. She did remember one thing Olivia had said: “When are you going to learn that you can’t win?” Well, she was learning now. She knew if she laid down another bet, she’d lose. It was time to call it a night, while she could still afford the ride home. She picked up her short stack of chips, her drink, and her purse and walked away from the table.

  Olivia might even be proud of her for this show of restraint. Or maybe not, considering she had lost almost everything before she had stopped.

  Clare cashed out, and on the way to the parking str
ucture, she lit a cigarette. She’d reached the aisle where her Honda was parked, when someone called her name. She knew better than to turn around, but she did out of reflex.

  It was Gault.

  “Shit,” she murmured under her breath.

  He broke into a jog.

  She had a fifty-yard head start on him, but she knew better than to run.

  Despite his size, he wasn’t out of breath when he caught up to her. He glanced at her cigarette. He hated smoking, so she dropped the cigarette and ground it out.

  “You’ve been ducking my calls, Clare.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  “If you know, then you’re purposely avoiding me. And to make matters worse, you’re here, gambling with money you’ve borrowed from me instead of paying me back.”

  Clare said nothing. Apologizing would only serve to piss off Gault even more, as would pleading.

  “How much do you have left?”

  “I’m all out.”

  “All out? I saw you go up to the cashier. They don’t let you cash out nothing.”

  “Gault, all I have is gas money.”

  “That’ll do. I just need a payment, not the whole thing.”

  “But Gault, I’ll have nothing.”

  He snaked out an arm and grabbed her wrist, forcing her to spin back to him in order to prevent him from breaking it. He moved in close. “I think you’re screwing with me, Clare.”

  “No, I’m not. I swear.”

  “I don’t believe you. You take my money, blow it, borrow more, blow that, then hide from me. That’s disrespectful, and I don’t like it. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Yes.”

  “After you make your payment today, what are the chances that I’ll get the rest of what you owe?”

  “I’ll pay you back with my next paycheck.”

  “Really? Do I have to take your sister up on her offer and visit her?”

  The last thing she needed was that. “No, no, no. You leave her out of this. I’ll get you your money back.”

  “It only seems fair that I pay her a visit after what she did to me.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The visit I got from the cops. They wanted to know why she’d paid me three grand. What was her little game—write the check, then get the cops to get it back?”

  Gault twisted her arm. She felt the pain all the way up into her neck. “It’s nothing like that. Her husband was killed. They were going through her finances.”

  Gault went quiet for a long moment. “Is your sister in trouble?”

  Clare closed her eyes. She’d said the wrong thing, and now Gault was plotting. “No. It’s routine. They always check out the spouse. Look, I’ll get your money. Just leave my sister out of this.”

  “You always say that, and you do pay, but not before you dick me around. I think it’s time I gave you an incentive.”

  He snapped back her pinkie, breaking it. She yelled out, her shriek bouncing off the walls.

  He released his grip on her, and she crumpled to the ground, cradling her busted hand in her good one. For a brief moment, she saw white light.

  He snatched her purse off the ground and rifled through it until he found her wallet. He sneered at the pitifully thin wad of bills. “Is this all that’s left of my money? You’ve barely got more than a hundred. Christ, Clare, you need to deep-six the cards. You suck.” He shook his head in disgust and pocketed the cash.

  She didn’t bother telling him that he’d missed the hundred bucks she’d tucked in her shoe. She’d learned a long time ago to break up her roll. You never knew who might take it from you.

  “Start making regular payments, Clare, or I’ll do worse next time.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  The Moore-Marbachs’ weekend beach house was a palatial affair, overlooking the ocean on the outskirts of Morro Bay. The architect must have had a field day, since the place was a mess of sharp angles. The roof was a series of wood-shake slashes that created sharp peaks and valleys. It rose up, church-like, on the ocean side, sporting a fabulous wall of glass offering a million-dollar view of the sea. That was in sharp contrast to the property’s street-side view. An understated front entrance with a large paved turnaround for cars was shuttered in by a six-foot wooden fence with a wrought iron gate. Trees surrounded the house, giving it a sense of seclusion.

  Olivia and Andrew viewed the place from the beach. They walked hand in hand, giving the impression they were a couple enjoying their Saturday afternoon instead of two people spying on the owners.

  “What do you think?” Olivia asked.

  “It looks good,” Andrew said. “They’re alone. I don’t think we’ll get a better opportunity.”

  They’d brainstormed the plan the night before. The simplest solution won out. They would simply go up to the front door and try to get invited inside. It would work as long as Heather or Amy didn’t slam the door in their faces. Olivia was banking on the theory that she possessed the key that opened all doors.

  “You up for this?” Andrew asked.

  “I don’t have much of a choice.”

  He squeezed her hand a little tighter. “You’ve got this. You know you do.”

  His faith lifted her.

  “Now, let’s kill Amy Moore-Marbach,” Andrew said.

  They returned to where they’d left Olivia’s Audi. She got behind the wheel and drove to the private beach road. She let the car roll down the road and stopped in front of Heather and Amy’s gate. She climbed from the car, went up to the squawk box, and pressed the button.

  “Hello?” a voice said. Olivia didn’t know if it was Heather or Amy. She’d never heard either of them speak.

  “Hi, I’d like to speak to Heather Moore-Marbach, please.”

  “What’s it regarding?”

  Olivia still didn’t know if she was talking to Heather or Amy. “A business matter. She’ll want to see me.”

  “Sorry, we don’t accept solicitors.”

  Olivia was afraid of this. The gated entry ensured unwanted parties didn’t even reach the front door. It was time to get nasty and use her magic key. “I’m from Infidelity Limited.”

  “Infidelity what?”

  That answer meant she was talking to Amy. “Infidelity Limited. Please pass that message to Heather. She’ll want to talk to me.”

  Olivia heard Amy yell out Infidelity Limited’s name, followed by some back and forth that she couldn’t make out due to the squawk box’s poor sound system, then silence. Amy must have taken a finger off the intercom’s button.

  “Come on, Heather. Be smart. You can’t hide.”

  Before Olivia’s anxiety could sink its teeth into her, the electric gate swung effortlessly open. As she guided the Audi inside, Heather emerged from the house. She looked how Olivia expected—a walking advertisement for her health and fitness business. She was tall, blonde, athletic, and attractive. The yoga leggings and sports tank top showed off all the assets that made her an in-demand trainer. She headed straight for them, her face knotted into a grimace.

  Sorry, girl, Olivia thought, this is going to get uglier than you could ever imagine.

  Olivia stopped the car, and she and Andrew managed to get out before Heather got in their faces.

  “What the hell are you doing here? Are you trying to blow this for me? Do I need to call Roy? Well, do I?”

  Olivia expected Heather’s bluster. The woman was in a moment of blissful naïveté. She didn’t know what Infidelity Limited was capable of. At least she wouldn’t suffer the nightmare Olivia was going through.

  “Believe me, Roy is the last person you want to call,” Andrew said.

  Heather eyed them with suspicion. “Who are you guys?”

  “Friends. What I have to tell you is going to save you a lifetime of misery. We need to go inside,” Olivia said.

  Amy was standing in the doorway, watching the drama play out. She was short and soft. Whereas Heather looked ready for a photo shoot, Amy looke
d like she needed a couple of hours in the makeup room. She was pretty, but it was hard to tell under her tangle of hair and the dark rings around her gray eyes. Olivia figured those were symptoms of the problem Heather had hired Infidelity Limited to solve.

  Olivia rounded Heather and walked toward the house.

  The fitness mogul grabbed Olivia’s arm at the bicep. She held up a cell phone in her other hand, no doubt one of Roy’s burners. “I’m calling Roy.”

  Panic and fear were in the woman’s expression. That was good. Those two emotions gave Olivia hope that this plan would work. “You call him and I’ll be dead before the week is out, and so will you and Amy.”

  Heather jerked back from the revelation.

  “I’m here to save our lives. You need to listen to me. I can’t pretend there isn’t going to be pain, but I mean you no harm. I promise you.”

  Heather’s grip fell away, and Olivia headed toward the house, with Andrew close behind. She waved to Amy. “You’re Amy, right?”

  Amy nodded.

  “I’m Olivia, and this is Andrew. We’ve got a lot to talk about.”

  Olivia slipped past Amy and into the house. Heather chased after her.

  “We need to discuss this privately,” Heather said.

  Olivia shook her head. “It’s too late for that.”

  “What’s going on?” Amy said.

  “It’s regarding a company called Infidelity Limited. I’m one of their clients, and so is Heather. I’ve got some difficult news for you both.” She smiled. “Let’s go somewhere comfortable.”

  Heather looked too shell-shocked to object, and Amy was flat-out confused. Olivia used her advantage to move through the house. Everything was open plan. A sunken living room was the central feature, with a clear view of the ocean and the beach. A dining area connected off to one side, and a kitchen wrapped around the back side, so as not to block the view. A substantial deck sat outside the floor-to-ceiling glass panes. It was all gorgeous.

  They sat opposite each other on a vast U-shaped sectional sofa, with Amy and Heather on one side and Olivia and Andrew on the other. The view of the Pacific went ignored. Heather glared at Olivia, while Amy looked baffled at the intrusion. Olivia willed the women to trust her. Amy took Heather’s hand. That small display of affection would probably be the last between the couple once Olivia spilled the beans.