Lies I Told(30)

“I’ve got Rachel covered,” he said. “She sent me a text this morning asking if I wanted to hang tonight.”

“Are you going to?” I asked him.

He looked surprised. “Well . . . yeah. I mean, she’s one of the players. As Dad would say, it’s my job.” He grabbed the wet towel and headed for the stairs. “I’m going to hit the shower.”

I sat there, a funny, fluttery feeling in my stomach. This is why we’re here, I reminded myself. To get close to Logan and everyone else in his social circle. To learn all we can about them. Parker was right. We all had jobs to do. We couldn’t afford to let personal feelings—good or bad—jeopardize the con.

I headed for the stairs. I had homework to do before my date with Logan. Plus, I needed to find something to wear. It seemed frivolous in the grand scheme of things, but my job was to make Logan like me. To reel him in, as my dad would say. The right outfit would only help.

That’s what I told myself anyway.

I glanced into the living room on my way up the stairs. My dad was sitting on the sofa with two of the guys from Allied, pouring over a large blueprint of the house.

“We can also put cameras here and here,” one of the men said, touching the paper with his index finger. “Those are the most likely places for a breach.”

“I think Warren said he had sensors on some of the windows, too,” my dad said. He glanced innocently at the blueprints like he was trying to make sense of them. I watched as he let the silence sit. Waited for the men from Allied to fill it.

“Exactly,” the second guy said. “On all of the first-floor windows, in fact.”

My dad nodded. “That’s right. I’d forgotten. Let’s do the same here then.”

I continued up the stairs, torn between admiration and disgust. They were talking about Logan’s house. The one that belonged to his sweet mother and his sick father. Nice people who’d probably never hurt anyone. Who hadn’t cheated or stolen their way to wealth. Who’d just had the good fortune to inherit it, and from the looks of things weren’t the worst people in the world to have it.

I took a shower so my hair could dry before my date with Logan, then settled onto my bed with my laptop. Looking at the empty folders on my desktop was weird, even after all this time, but it was standard protocol to wipe our computers after each job. I didn’t understand the technicalities. Computers weren’t really my thing. But as soon as we finished a job, my dad took our computers, installed a disc, and deleted everything we’d accumulated from our hard drives. Letters, essays, flyers for Drama Club or awareness posters for the Multicultural Diversity Society. All gone like we’d never been part of it at all.

The schoolwork at Playa Hermosa High wasn’t as challenging as the work I’d had on the East Coast last year, but I still had two papers to write before Monday, and for a while I forgot all about the con, lost in my essay on The Scarlet Letter, glad I’d already read it. The light was starting to fade, blocked by the house as the sun moved over the water, when I heard the humming.

I set my laptop aside and walked to the window, following the sound. It was the man next door, and this time I had a clear shot of his face. I couldn’t help being surprised. I’d gotten used to seeing him in shadow, seeing only pieces of his face. Gotten used to the idea that he was being purposefully coy. Which was crazy.

But now he was right there, sitting on a deck chair facing our house, his head tipped back to catch the fading sunlight. His head was bare, wisps of gray hair barely covering his scalp. Although his face was moderately lined, I couldn’t tell how old he was. Fifty? Sixty? I couldn’t be sure, but I took in the details, cataloging and storing them for later without knowing why.

His body was trim and toned, pale legs emerging from beneath plaid swim trunks and wiry, muscular arms pulling at the white T-shirt that covered his torso. His jawline was slightly shadowed—he hadn’t shaved in a while—and his nose was a little crooked, like it had been broken a couple of times and never quite set right.

He seemed at peace, a small smile playing at his lips as he hummed a tune I didn’t recognize. It sounded like the others I’d heard him singing, with the same smoky undertone, and I found myself wishing I could hear the words. Like they would offer some kind of commentary—some kind of message—about what was happening with the con, with Parker, with my feelings for Logan.

The back of my neck tingled, and I suddenly had the feeling that he was looking right at me, studying me from behind his sunglasses. That everything he did was deliberate, as if he could somehow know I would follow the sound of his humming at that exact moment. That I would come to the window. That I would even care.





Twenty-Three


The gate was closed when I turned in to Logan’s driveway. I pulled up to the little box and rolled down the window of the Saab, not sure what to do. I was about to start pressing random buttons when Logan’s voice came over the intercom.

“I’ll buzz you in. Just pull up in front of the garage.”

I didn’t have time to respond before the iron gates sprang to life. I glanced once more at the keypad, taking a mental snapshot of it to draw for my dad later, and started up the driveway. The sun hung low in the sky, setting the sea on fire in the distance. The glare produced bursts of light through the trees as I wound my way toward the house. It made it hard to get a good look at the property, and I squinted even behind my sunglasses, trying to keep my eyes focused on the driveway.