The Better Liar(69)

    He swallowed. I watched him consciously stop himself from twisting to see what the officer behind him was doing. “What do you care?”

“I have my own reasons for wanting to know what Leslie Flores paid you to do. In exchange, I’ll go to your wife’s address—1515 Los Alamos, right?—and I’ll beat the shit out of her until she tells the police it was an accident.”

He laughed again, this one more like a burp. “That’s funny. You almost got me.”

I leaned closer. “When I said I was just like you, what I meant was I will beat the shit out of your wife, and I will do it like I was painting my nails. Do you understand me now?” For a second I imagined us as twins, mirrors facing each other, reflecting nothing. A long black socket where violence might go.

Then he believed me. I saw when it happened.

“Talk fast,” I said. “Nancy will be back any second.”

He licked his lips. “Why do you want to know about that chick? Leslie?”

“She’s my sister,” I said. “If she hired you for what I think she hired you for, I’m going to ruin her fucking life.”

He smiled, an involuntary twitch. “If you don’t do it,” he said, “you know I’ll track you down. Don’t you?” He tilted his head. “Robin, sister of Leslie Flores.”

“I know.” I smiled back.

“No broken bones,” he said after a minute. “No scars. Nothing on her face.” His long cheeks sagged.

“I’m not an idiot,” I said. “She’ll be fine.”

He nodded, licked his lips again. Then he sucked in a breath and opened his mouth.



* * *



—

Nancy returned as I was still working through what Clery had told me. I looked up at her. “He wouldn’t tell me anything about Leslie,” I said clearly into the receiver, summoning tears.

Clery hung up the phone and mumbled something to the officer behind him, who finally nodded and began to unlock the door to the prisoners’ section of the jail. I kept my head down and pinched both cheeks hard. There. I was splotchy and weeping.

    “Crap,” Nancy said, setting the coffee down too hard, so that it sloshed a little. “Clery! I have a few more questions.”

He didn’t turn around. The door shut behind him, a muffled thump.

“We can’t bring ’em back,” the officer who’d led us in said from the doorway. “Visiting hours are voluntary.”

Nancy clasped my shoulder. I took a fortifying sip of coffee. “Did he say anything to you? I saw he had the phone up.”

“He called me a bitch,” I said. “I tried really hard to make him—make him see…”

“It’s not your fault.” Nancy rubbed my shoulder. “Look, you saw him, you talked to him. Do you think your sister would have anything to do with him? She probably sold him your dad’s antiques and he screwed her. There’s nothing you can do but just ask her for the truth or decide to let it go.”

I trembled. “You’re right. Nancy—”

“Let’s go,” she said. “We can talk outside.”

The officer at the door led us back into the lobby. Nancy and I signed out with the clerk. She held the door for me, guiding me through with a hand on the small of my back.

It was hot outside, leaning into summer. Nancy shaded her eyes. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

I nodded. “You have to go back to work, right?”

“Yeah.” She gazed down at me, at my mouth, at the tears still clumping my eyelashes. “I wish I didn’t.”

“I wish you didn’t either.”

She squeezed my hand. “I’ll call you later. You should talk to your sister. I really think it’ll all be fine.”

I held on to her hand. It was solid and sticky in mine, our fingers interlaced, like we’d done it a thousand times before. “You think so?”

She nodded. “See you later, Robin.”

I watched her get into the police car and start it up, and then I went around to the driver’s side of my own little Nissan. The heat had stolen all the oxygen in the car, and the breath went out of my lungs as I pressed my forehead to the burning steering wheel and let my heart rate pick up again.

    What a fucking moron, I thought. All it had taken was a promise from a stranger, and he’d spilled his guts. He deserved to be in prison; no one who killed people for a living should be allowed to go on being so na?ve. But he’d learn, once he realized I hadn’t held up my end of the bargain. Why should I find Jennifer Clery? He’d already given me everything I asked for. And he’d done it in less time than it took for Nancy to get a cup of coffee.

He’d try to track me down once he was out. I had no doubt about that. But I’d be long gone by then.





44


    Leslie


At five-thirty I shut my computer off by unplugging it. I walked as quickly as I could from my office to the elevator, to avoid having to make conversation with Justin. “Have a good night, Leslie!” he said energetically at my back anyway. I didn’t reply. Mary was waiting for me.

Stretches of the drive home disappeared from my memory. I was in the parking lot, then the intersection near the Target. Then I was sitting in my car in the driveway, thinking: I forgot to stop by the daycare.