Marilyn Pappano - Criminal Deception

“Too big for the Kansas farm girl?”

She responded with an exaggerated frown before following him around the corner of the verandah, then down brick steps to the path. There she moved to walk beside him, through the gate and onto the sidewalk. “I’m not a farm girl.”

Stopping beside her car, he shifted the urns, then extended his hand for the basket. She considered not giving it to him and instead heading across the street to the coffee shop, prolonging this moment with him. A short walk in the cool humid night, a few moments more of comfortable conversation, another few deep breaths that smelled of jasmine and coffee and faded cotton…

She gave him the basket. “I’ll see you later.”

His fingers brushed hers. “You’ll be hard to avoid.”

She shoved her hands into her pockets. “You know how to get rid of me for good.” Tell me where Josh is.

There at the side of the street, his arms loaded, still looking like a surfer boy but a tired one, he said flatly, “I can’t tell you what I don’t know.”

His voice lacked the insistence she was accustomed to from deceitful family members. He didn’t shift his weight or avoid her gaze or do anything to suggest dishonesty. That didn’t mean he was telling the truth, though. It just meant he was better at lying than most people she dealt with. He was smart enough to avoid the usual subconscious behaviors of an untruthful person.

“Like I said, I’ll see you.” She clicked the remote to unlock the car door, then slid behind the wheel. He didn’t wait until she was safely on her way, but turned and strode across two intersections to the dimly lit coffee shop on the corner.

Within three minutes, she was home. In six, she was stretched out on the sofa, her cell phone propped to her ear. The only light burning in the house was above the kitchen sink; it cast just enough illumination to deepen the living room shadows. The curtains were drawn back, giving her a good view of all three houses across the way.

Pete Petrovski was home, and so was Natalia, babysitting Joe’s puppies. Their barks drifted through the open window, along with a cooling breeze. But the lavender cottage remained dark. Liz wondered if Joe was still at the shop, or if he’d taken advantage of the lovely night to take a ride around town, or if he’d somehow managed to sneak in through the back so he wouldn’t risk seeing her. Not an easy feat considering none of the houses had back doors.

“Hey, I know you’ve had a tough day playing the grasping ex-girlfriend, but surely it wasn’t so exhausting that you can’t take part in a conversation for five minutes.” Mika Tupolev’s voice was chiding, but her expression, Liz knew from experience, wouldn’t match. Mika didn’t frown or scowl or sneer or smirk, or smile much, for that matter. Like the icy Russian mountains her family had once called home, she was all cool all the time. The boss should have sent her to Copper Lake instead of Liz. Joe wouldn’t have been able to melt the first layer of permafrost that encased her if he tried.

Hell, Liz was hot-flashing just from seeing him. Just from thinking of him. And he wasn’t trying to get a reaction from her.

“I’m listening, Mika.”

“You’re not supposed to be listening. You’re supposed to be answering my question. Do you believe Joe Saldana when he says he doesn’t know where his brother is?”

She wanted to think that he was well and truly done with Josh for at least the next fifteen years to life. After all, Josh was as big on screwing up as Joe was on responsibility.

On the other hand, they were identical twins. They’d shared their mother’s womb, had the same face, the same eyes, the same DNA. Was breaking that bond permanently even possible?

“I don’t know,” she said. “He sounds sincere.”

Mika voiced what Liz was thinking. “Don’t all good liars?”

They did. As far as anyone knew, Joe was an honest law-abiding man, but most honest law-abiding people would lie for the right reason. Look at her. Lying was a big part of her job, and she sounded damn sincere when she did it. And Joe had spent half a lifetime with a brother who lied as easily as he breathed.

“My instincts say he or his parents are our best shot,” she said. “It’s always been Josh’s pattern. When he screws up badly enough, he turns to his family for help.”

“We’re keeping tabs on the elder Saldanas as well. If Josh contacts them or shows up there, we’ll know.”

There was a murmur in the background on Mika’s end. While she spoke to whoever had interrupted, Liz continued to gaze out the window. She wouldn’t have heard the whirring of tires on sidewalk if they’d been talking, but she still would have known Joe had arrived home. Her stomach muscles tightening and the hair on the back of her neck standing on end were her usual reactions to danger, always sensed before seen.

He came into view through the window, coasting, one long muscular leg extended as he made the sharp turn to his house. He swung off the bike, then hefted it into the air and carried it up the steps to the porch. As he unlocked the door, he glanced toward Natalia’s cottage, then right toward Pete’s, but he didn’t look over his shoulder at Liz’s. Instead, he went inside, wheeling the bike with him, and closed the door.

Across the small lawn, the door shut with a sense of finality. Liz imagined she could even hear the lock clicking, securely shutting out the world for the night.

“Sorry about that,” Mika said, returning her attention to Liz. “The wiretaps haven’t provided anything of interest. Joe Saldana has renewed his membership in a group supporting green business practices. He’s agreed to help coach a baseball team made up of six-year-olds and he’s going to spend a small fortune taking two strays to the vet, where, at the appropriate time, of course, he’ll spend another one getting them fixed. Oh, yes, and he’s trying a new blend of coffee handpicked by gnomes on the northwest side of a volcanic Peruvian mountain only under a full moon and, therefore, commanding the price of a gazillion dollars per pound.”

Liz grinned. Mika’s sense of humor appeared so seldom that she regularly forgot the woman had one. “Trust me, if it’s half as good as the stuff I’ve already had in his shop, it’s worth every dime. Besides, gnomes don’t work cheap, you know.”

“Fortunately for America, we do.” Mika’s customary sobriety returned. “Other than calls to his parents, he has little contact with anyone outside the coffee shop. Since we got the wiretap order, he hasn’t made or received a single call on his home phone. Ninety-five percent of his cell phone use is business-related, and ninety-five percent of the calls made to or from the shop are boyfriend-related.”

“Esther has a boyfriend?” Liz imagined the waitress first with a boy barely old enough to be legal, then with a man more her age with the same wrinkles, the same orange hair. Neither was an appealing image.

“Not Esther. Raven.” If Mika had been given to grimacing, Liz was sure she would have been doing so at the moment. “God save us from young love.”

“Better that you guys hear it than me.” What was Joe doing over there? Getting something to eat? Popping the top on a beer? Stripping off his clothes to take a shower?

Better not go there.

But it was too late to block the image of a long, lean body, of bare, tanned skin, wet hair slicked back as pounding water turned it dark gold.

It had been too late for them from the first time she’d seen him. Even if she weren’t working, even if he weren’t a subject in an investigation, Josh and her lies would always be between them.

“The trial is approaching quickly,” Mika said. “If we don’t have Josh Saldana in custody in time, the last two years will have been for nothing.”