Lies I Told(53)

Logan had been gone for nearly fifteen minutes when I finally gave up. He would be back any second. As far as I could tell, the gold wasn’t hidden inside the house. The three-car garage was the only place I hadn’t looked, but it would have to wait for another time.

At least I had a recording of the pass code for the alarm.

I sat down on the couch and hurriedly folded napkins. I’d only gotten through six of them when Logan reappeared, arms full of stacked metal pails.

“How’s it going?” He glanced at the pile of napkins on the coffee table and laughed. “Wow . . . You might be even slower at that than me.”

I forced a smile, my pulse still racing from my speed search of the house. “Right? I think I tried folding them five different ways before I finally picked one.”

He set down the buckets and kissed the top of my head. “The caterers will refold them anyway. My mom just wanted to keep them from wrinkling in the meantime.”

“Now you tell me,” I laughed.

He pulled me to my feet. “What do you say we take a break, and then I’ll help you with the rest of those.”

I wrapped my arms around his waist and looked up at him. “I could go for a break.”

“Want to order pizza?” he asked.

“Pizza sounds great.”

He called in the order and came around to the couch, where I was still trying to make progress with the napkins. “Forty minutes.”

I nodded. “What do you want to do while we wait?”

He sat down and pulled me closer, looping a piece of my hair around one of his fingers. His arms slid around my waist. Our faces were only inches apart, and all of a sudden we were back on the beach, the only two people in the universe.

I pushed away thoughts of the grift. Of all the work I had to do. All the lies I still had to tell. It was the way it had to be. The only way I could manage the dual roles of Logan’s girlfriend and betrayer.

He smiled. “I’m pretty sure we can think of something.”

I let go of everything as his mouth claimed mine.





Thirty-Nine


“I don’t know if this will help, but it’s all I could think of,” I said, pushing my phone across the table toward my dad.

We were in the War Room the night before the PHCT fund-raiser. It was the first chance I’d had to tell them about recording the Fairchilds’ pass code. I still felt a twinge of shame thinking about it.

“What is this?” my dad asked.

“It’s the pass code on Logan’s alarm system,” I explained. “I can’t see over his shoulder, but I thought we might be able to match up the sound of the buttons with the keypad here at home.”

My mom looked impressed. “Great idea, honey.”

My dad took the phone. “I’ll send the file to my computer. I can probably enhance the sound before I get to work on it.”

He tapped my screen a few times and handed the phone back to me. “Nice work, Gracie. Any luck with the gold?”

I shook my head.

“No sign of a safe or panic room anywhere in the house?” Parker asked.

“No, and the garage is all I have left.” I looked at my parents. “What about you guys? You’ve been playing golf and lunching with Warren and Leslie for weeks. Haven’t you been able to get anything out of them?”

“Other than some dates when they might be out of town long enough for us to move the gold, I’ve got nothing,” my mom admitted.

“Warren’s about as close-lipped as they come,” my dad added. “Which shouldn’t come as a surprise. The only reason he has the gold in the first place is because he’s so paranoid.”


“I’ll check the garage during the fund-raiser tomorrow,” I said. “Maybe there’s a panic room between it and the house or something.”

My dad nodded, turning his attention to Parker. “How are things at Allied?”

“Proceeding as planned,” Parker said.

For weeks Parker had been disappearing with the black backpack at all hours of the night. My curiosity finally got the better of me. “What exactly are you doing there?” I asked.

Parker looked at my dad. He nodded his approval.

“Turns out there’s only one night guard monitoring the Playa Hermosa accounts from Allied’s facility,” Parker said. “He can’t leave his post, so he calls local police if there’s any suspicious activity. I’m working to make sure we can get him away from the monitors when it comes time to take the gold.”

“How are you doing that?” I asked.

Parker smiled. “By having a little fun with him.”

“What kind of fun?”

Parker drummed his fingers on the table, like he wasn’t sure how much he wanted to tell me. Finally, he answered.

“I’ve been vandalizing the area outside Allied.”

I shook my head. “Why would you do that?”

He leaned forward. “I make sure the guy can see me, and then I spray-paint something where he can see it. But he can’t do anything about it, because he can’t leave his post.”

“Yeah, but can’t he call the police?”

Parker leaned back with a shrug. “Sure. Probably has. But I’m long gone by then. And it’s a relatively harmless act, so I doubt they spend much energy trying to find me.”