I asked.
“As sure as the FBI can be, and that’s pretty damn sure.”
Right. Okay. I licked my lips, struggling to figure out what to do right now. Offer Juliette coffee? Pretend like nothing happened? Pretend like my stomach hadn’t been ripped right out of me?
Such. An. Idiot.
“You okay?” Juliette asked, more friend now than police chief. I shook my head, not wanting pity or friendship or, frankly, anyone to witness this moment. “Did he hurt you?”
“Hurt me?” I laughed. No. Yes? I couldn’t say. “I told you, we didn’t sleep together.”
“Still, you’re freaking me out a little,” Juliette said, ducking her face to try and see into my eyes.
“Well, join the club.” I took a deep breath. “Maybe this isn’t a big deal,” I said, hopefully, but Juliette’s face was pitying. “Why does it have to be a big deal?”
“Men don’t lie for no reason. He gave you a false name.” She shrugged. “He’s hiding something.”
Which, of course, had been my suspicion from the very beginning. Then the bastard went and put on glasses and played the piano and put his hands on my weak and willing flesh and I forgot all those suspicions.
Finally, anger swept down like a flash flood and flushed away my numbness, the last lingering traces of my joy. A righteous rage that I would be taken for a fool—again—put steel in my legs and back and I stood straight, flinging my hair over my shoulder.
“What are you going to do?” Juliette asked, leaning against the counter. “You want me to take him to the station? Hold him for a few days?”
“I don’t need you breaking the law for me,” I said.
“All right. So? What are you going to do?”
Everything had all been a lie.
He’d slept in my house. In the same house as my daughter.
Good God. I’d caught him in the hallway a few nights ago. He’d said he was checking out a sound and I’d convinced myself not to be suspicious.
“I’m going to make him very sorry he came to my door.”
“Atta girl,” Juliette said as she picked up her ringing phone. “I’ll wait around to see if we need to bury a body.”
It was dark on the porch, the overgrown vines outside acting like shades against the sun. The white sheets on the bed glowed in the half-light, drawing my eye despite my intention not to look at the liar. His back rose like a mountain from the snowy sheets, beautiful, all that caramel skin over muscle and bone. His feet were bare and sticking out over the edge of the bed and it made him seem oddly vulnerable.
Good, I thought, hoping I’d find something that I could use to make him hurt. Hurt like I hurt.
The oddball lessons learned at Margot’s feet resurfaced and my nimble fingers, always so much more silent and careful than my brothers’ at such things, went through Matt’s clothing, searching out clues, evidence, secrets.
Our little pickpocket, Tyler had called me a million years ago.
Thinking about all that brought a gush of emotion I didn’t want to feel.
All I wanted right now was to be righteous and angry.
I’d put these strange skills behind me along with the gambling and card playing that my whole family loved. That Matt had reduced me to this was one more thing to hate about him.
Matt’s pockets were empty so I went around the room, a ghost on bare feet, finding hiding spots and hidden nooks.
I tipped over a broken dusty pot in the corner and found a black leather wallet.
And under that, a set of manila folders.
MATT
I dreamed of box hedges. And a pattern, a maze. Detailed and difficult, something a wild eight-year-old would get a kick out of. And at the center of that maze a secret heart. Lush bougainvillaea bushes, perhaps. Definitely some birds of paradise. A bench. A fountain, something old-fashioned and courtly that Margot would adore.
Someplace quiet for the sun to filter through Savannah’s hair.
My eyes blinked open and in a heartbeat I knew what to do with the courtyard.
A maze. It was perfect.
Inspiration, gone for months, flooded back.
A sound in the corner, something between a laugh and a sob, made me turn.
Savannah, pale as a ghost.
Holding my wallet.
Looking through my files.
My stomach bottomed out and I cursed.
“What…what is all of this?” she whispered.
I cleared my throat. The truth, I reminded himself, the pristine truth. I stood, not wanting to have this conversation naked, and yanked on some pants.
“Information I had gathered on you and your family.”
“Information?” she