The Lies I Tell(24)

“I wouldn’t know,” Nate said.

Our food had arrived, and I picked up a french fry and took a bite, trying to think about what to ask next. I didn’t have a lot of time, and he seemed pretty committed to keeping his distance from Cory.

Nate gestured toward the newspaper. “I will tell you, there’s more to it than what you’ve read.”

“There usually is.” I lifted my glass to my lips, the whiskey burning as it went down, and pivoted. “I read somewhere that there’s a girlfriend they want to talk to, but they can’t find her.”

“Meg,” Nate muttered. “God, she was a piece of work. She lied about everything and had no friends as far as I could tell. She just snuck into Cory’s life and appropriated his, convincing him to give her a free place to live. He bought her clothes, helped pay her bills. She even conned him into giving her access to his bank account, which she then emptied.”

“Where’d he meet her?”

“In a coffee shop. They both got stood up by their respective blind dates.” He shook his head. “It was a little too coincidental.”

I ate another fry, though I was too jumpy to have much of an appetite. “You don’t think it’s possible that there might be two people in a coffee shop, each of them meeting a blind date?” I asked. “Or that they’d both been stood up?”

“I’m saying that Meg’s likes and beliefs aligned just a little too easily with Cory’s.”

“But why target him?”

“Why wouldn’t she? Meg was working the front desk at the Y. For a girl like that, Cory would be a catch.”

I gave him a playful glance. “A girl like that?”

Nate held up his hands, grinning. “What I meant is that Meg wasn’t exactly flush with opportunities. Community college was a stretch for her.”

“And yet you claim she orchestrated a huge con on your friend,” I reminded him.

“Former friend,” he corrected. “And yes. I think she saw an opening to live in a nice house, to have a boyfriend who would buy her nice things.”

“That’s not a con,” I argued. “That’s just taking advantage of someone. She was the one who reported him. Why would she do that if she’d been in the middle of some big scam?”

Nate swirled the last inch of whiskey in his glass and then tossed it back, signaling the bartender for another one. “I made some calls. Nothing official like a private investigator could do, but Meg’s story was that she’d grown up in Grass Valley and moved to LA with a boyfriend a couple years ago.” He shook his head. “No one up there has ever heard of her.”

“Did you tell Cory that?”

“I tried. He didn’t want to hear it.”

I took another sip of my drink, mindful that I needed to stay sharp. “Wouldn’t it have been obvious what she was doing?” Just then my cell phone rang. It was Frank. I held it up and said, “I’m sorry, but I have to take this.”

I stepped outside, the bright sunlight making my eyes water. “Have you gotten to the high school yet?” he asked. “I want you to stop by the main office and see if you can get the office manager to confirm the date Cory started working there. I’m not getting anywhere with district HR.”

I checked my watch. It was nearing 2:15. I was going to have to wrap this up quickly if I wanted to get to Northside by the dismissal bell. “I’m on my way now,” I lied.

“I need this information, Kat, or the whole story gets pushed back and we risk someone else running it first.”

“I understand.”

I entered the bar and took my seat, checking the time again.

“Somewhere you need to be?” Nate asked.

“Work,” I told him. “I should be getting back.”

“But you’ve barely eaten anything,” he said. Then he pushed my glass toward me and said, “Finish your drink and I’ll lay it all out for you. Tell you exactly how I think Meg conned Cory.”

I checked the time again, my nerves tightening, trying to think what my male colleagues might do. The ones who never seemed to worry about being a little late, who wouldn’t think twice about being somewhere they weren’t supposed to be, if it meant getting an important lead on a story. I could be across town by three. Chances were, that teacher would still be sitting in his classroom, grading papers by the time I got there, and office managers usually worked until five.

I grabbed the glass and tossed the rest of it back, cringing as it went down.

And that’s the last thing I remember before I blacked out.

***

I woke with a pounding headache in a room I didn’t recognize. Early morning light had only begun to filter in through the drawn shades. In the bed next to me, Nate was asleep.

I sat up, the room spinning precariously, no clue how I got there or what had happened. A T-shirt I didn’t recognize covered my top, but I was naked from the waist down. “Jesus,” I said, and a swirl of nausea passed through me.

I managed to make it to the toilet in time. Sour brown liquid landed in the water, the stench of alcohol clouding the air around me. My hands shook as I flushed the toilet and splashed cold water on my face. My makeup was smeared, and I stared at myself in the mirror, searching my memory for something—anything—that would explain how I’d gone from a few sips of whiskey at two in the afternoon to Nate’s apartment the next morning. I remembered Frank’s call. Leaving the bar to take it so Nate wouldn’t overhear our conversation. And then…nothing.