Lies I Told(21)

Someone pointed down the beach. “Here they come!”

I turned and saw two white lights bobbing on the sand in the distance.

“What’s that?” I asked Logan.

“Beach patrol. They comb the beach on ATVs,” he explained. “Better head out. They’re always trying to bust us for drinking and smoking.”

My heart raced. I couldn’t afford to be questioned, even by beach patrol. It would be a total violation of the leave-no-proof rule, not to mention risky if someone had caught onto us for the job in Phoenix. And there were only two ways off the beach—up the cliff or toward the approaching ATVs.

Something tugged on my arm. When I turned, Parker was staring into my eyes.

“Let’s go, Grace.”

“I have to get my stuff. I’ll meet you by the path.”

Parker nodded silently, hurrying away as I took off Logan’s sweatshirt and gave it back to him. “Thanks for the walk. I had a nice time.”

“Me too.” His eyes lit up. “And hey! I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“You will?”

“The barbecue? At my house? My dad said he invited you.”

I smiled. “Right. I’ll see you there.”

“Grace!” Parker barked from the rocks near the path.

I pulled my gaze from Logan’s and ran.





Sixteen


The Fairchilds lived high upon the peninsula. My dad drove, telling us how beautiful the club was and how Warren Fairchild had already put in a recommendation for his membership.

I sat next to Parker in the back, thinking about Logan. I hadn’t stopped thinking about him, actually, since the bonfire the night before. As Warren and Leslie’s only child, Logan was key to the con. My ability to get close to him could be the difference between getting out clean with Warren Fairchild’s gold and being arrested.

But I wasn’t thinking about the con. Not the way I should have been. I was thinking about Logan. About how real he was, vulnerable and strong all at the same time. About how he’d looked at me on the beach, like he knew all my secrets and didn’t care, and how his fingers had sent a spark across my bare shoulders when he’d given me his sweatshirt.

About what he would think of me if he knew the truth.

We pulled onto a private street, and the ocean and sky seemed to open up around us. The Fairchilds’ house sat alone at the end of the road. It was a Spanish-style structure, and smaller than I’d expected. It looked old, not like one of the giant reproductions I’d gotten used to seeing in California.

“Wow . . .” Parker looked out the window. “This must have cost a fortune.”

“Warren and Leslie bought it in the early nineties,” my dad explained, pulling through the open gate. “Don’t get me wrong; it was still one of the most exclusive neighborhoods in Southern California. But the market was a bit lower then.”

My mom laughed as we headed up the long, winding driveway. “So it was ten million instead of the twenty million it would be now?”

“Something like that.”

We parked behind a row of other cars and headed for the front door. My stomach was fluttering, although I couldn’t tell if it was because this was our first chance to check out the job site or because I’d get to see Logan again.

The walkway was paved with stone, heavily shaded from the trees overhead. I heard a squawk and looked up, catching a flash of brilliant red and blue through the foliage.

I pointed. “I think I just saw a parrot!”

Parker gazed upward, peering through the trees. “I don’t see anything.”

My dad rang the bell. It echoed through the house on the other side of the door. A minute later, it was opened by a voluptuous brunette, her hair graying at the temples.

“Renee! How nice to see you.” Her face was transformed by a generous smile. She opened the door wider. “Please, come in!” Her gaze found my dad. “You must be Cormac. Warren has told me so much about you. Seems he’s met his match on the back nine.”


“I don’t know about that,” my dad said, laughing and stepping into the foyer. “Warren’s been keeping me on my toes.”

My mom introduced us, and then we were following Leslie down a long tiled hallway toward the sound of music and conversation. I tried to put my finger on why I was so surprised. Was it because Leslie, clearly not a devotee of the treadmill, was rounder and softer than my mom? Because she wore a loose, caftan-type garment instead of the fashionable, semirevealing clothes that were a uniform for the other mothers in Playa Hermosa? Or because she seemed unconcerned with the silver threading her hair, in no hurry to get to the salon to cover it?

Whatever it was, I liked Leslie Fairchild immediately.

The unmistakable sound of a party in full swing grew louder as we crossed through the kitchen. A few seconds later we stepped outside. I had to stop myself from gasping at the view.

The lot was huge. A graduated stone terrace stepped down to a lush lawn stretching toward the cliffs, the ocean shimmering in the distance. The property was private, with no neighbors on either side and mature trees reaching into the sky, flowering bushes and vines growing a little haphazardly all around them. I glimpsed the top of a peaked roof at the back of the property and wondered if it was the carriage house I’d seen on the plans of the Fairchild estate.