Promises I Made

  I nodded, still nervous after years of training by Cormac, who insisted we not talk outside of a designated War Room.

  “I don’t have enough information to lead us to Cormac’s sources before Parker goes to trial,” I said.

  Marcus tapped his cigar onto the deck, and Scotty glared at him in disapproval. “We’re not going after Cormac’s sources.”

  “But . . . I thought that’s what we agreed. To pool our information and go after Cormac’s support network. Shut them down and trade the information for Parker.”

  Marcus took a long draw on the cigar, his face thoughtful, before answering. “The thing is, most of the people who support us are decent. They live by an honor code, only do business when it serves a certain purpose. It wouldn’t be right to rat them out.”

  I shook my head, confused. “Then what am I doing here?” I had to force my voice steady, work to keep it from turning shrill. “I only agreed to work with you because I thought we wanted the same thing.”

  “We do,” Marcus said. “You want Parker’s freedom, right?”

  I nodded.

  “Well, I want to out Cormac.” I was just beginning to get his point when he spoke again. “Which is why we’re not going after Cormac’s sources—we’re going after him. And maybe Renee, too, although word on the street is she might be tougher to find.”

  I imagined Renee, reclining on a beach somewhere while the money from Warren’s gold racked up interest in an offshore account. I wondered if she ever thought of me, if she ever felt bad about leaving me behind or if I had been just another mark. I hated myself for even caring.

  “I don’t know where Renee is,” I said. “And I don’t know where Cormac is, either. Not for sure. I mean, he was in Seattle the last time I saw him. But Detective Castillo said—”

  Scotty lifted his eyebrows. “Raul Castillo?”

  I nodded.

  Marcus set his cigar in the ashtray on the table and leaned forward. “Do you mean to tell me you talked to the police?”

  I swallowed hard, suddenly scared that Marcus might change his mind about working with me. “Only to Detective Castillo. And it was off the record.”

  “Off the record?” Marcus sighed. “Tell me everything.”

  I explained my phone calls to Raul Castillo and our meeting at the promenade, including the part about Detective Fletcher and my sighting of him at the Town Center. They didn’t speak, didn’t even interrupt me to ask questions. When I was done, Scotty stood to take our empty plates into the kitchen.

  “How do you know Castillo didn’t have you followed?” Marcus asked. “That he didn’t tail you to the beach? Follow us here?”

  I couldn’t help but be insulted. “I’m smarter than that. No one followed me. Castillo didn’t even follow me after our meeting. He left first, and I didn’t go straight back to my hotel. And Fletcher definitely didn’t follow me to Selena’s house, or I wouldn’t be here right now.”

  Marcus studied me without speaking.

  “Look,” I said, uncomfortable with Marcus’s silence even though I’d been trained to sit through them, waiting for a mark to spill their guts, “I had to talk to somebody. I didn’t know you then. I was alone. I needed information about Parker, about what I could do to help him. And Detective Castillo seems like he cares, like he wants to help me.” I shook my head, feeling naive. “That’s probably hard to believe.”

  Marcus shook his head. “Not hard at all, in fact.” He sighed. “Okay, let’s establish some ground rules before we get started.”

  The thought of rules made me angry. I’d lived by Cormac and Renee’s rules, and look where it had gotten me. I needed Marcus, but that didn’t mean I had to play the part of loyal puppy dog.

  “I’m listening,” I said.

  “We’ll keep it simple,” he said as Scotty returned for the serving platters. “You don’t contact Detective Castillo, or anyone from law enforcement, without speaking to me first and considering my suggestions for security protocol.”

  “Considering them?”

  He nodded. “I’m a practical man. And you’re a smart girl. I’m confident you’ll do the right thing when our freedom is at stake. But the choice will be yours.”

  “Go ahead,” I prompted.

  “I’d like to suggest you move from Ms. Rodriguez’s house. It makes you, and by extension us, vulnerable.”

  “I don’t have anywhere else to go,” I said.

  “You can stay here—for now,” Scotty said, setting a fruit tart on the table. “We have two guest bedrooms.”

  I looked down at the table. I knew it was risky to stay at Selena’s. The pool people might hear me in the pool house. Her father could discover me. Selena might change her mind about helping me. And those were just the possibilities I could think of. But I’d started to hope that Selena and I might be friends again, that her visit to the pool house was the beginning of something new, a fresh start. What would happen to that if I left now?

  “I’m not ready to leave Selena’s,” I said. “And I just met you.” I cast a glance at Scotty, not sure why I felt the need to apologize to him for the slight. “Sorry.”

  “No apology necessary. I get it,” he said.

  Marcus drummed his fingers on the table. “All right. You’ll stay at Selena’s for the time being. But you give me your word that you won’t speak of Scotty and me. Our security is intertwined now, yours and mine. I won’t speak of you to anyone. Won’t let anyone know you’re back in town. But I need your word that you’ll show us the same courtesy.”

  “You have it,” I said.

  “And if you get even a hint of trouble, you’ll call us and come stay here,” Marcus added.

  “Okay. What else?”

  “We share everything,” Marcus said. “Every bit of information on Cormac and Renee and their operation. Nothing is held back. If we’re going to be partners, we have to trust each other completely. I think I’ve demonstrated that trust to you. I’m counting on you to do the same.”

  “I will,” I said. “I promise.”

  “Then I’d say we have a deal—if my terms meet with your approval, of course.”

  There was nothing snide in his voice, no hint of sarcasm.

  I nodded, and Marcus raised his glass. “I propose a toast: to Parker’s freedom,” he said. “And to giving karma the little push it sometimes needs.”

  Twenty

  Marcus insisted I go home and get a good night’s sleep before we got started. I was relieved to see Selena’s driveway empty, her dad not yet home from work, and I hurried back to the pool house, where I tried to read before falling into a deep sleep. When I woke up, I felt different, alert and even a little optimistic. I wasn’t alone anymore. Now I had people and resources on my side. Freeing Parker felt more possible than ever.

  It was just after nine in the morning when I knocked on Scotty and Marcus’s door. They had offered to give me a ride, but I didn’t want the blue Range Rover anywhere near Selena’s street if I could avoid it. Marcus was right: my fate was intertwined with his. But I was connected to Selena, too, and I wanted to keep her as far away from what I was doing as possible. I fought against the voice in my head that said I should take Marcus and Scotty up on their offer and stay with them. That I was putting Selena in danger by staying with her, especially with Fletcher combing the peninsula for clues. Deep down I knew it was true, but I was too happy to be near her again, to know the possibility existed for a conversation, even if it was just for a few minutes in the pool house before her father got home. I swore to myself that I would move if there was even a hint of danger.

  “Good morning,” Scotty said, opening the door. I stepped into the foyer and he led me back to the kitchen. “Have you eaten breakfast?” he asked.

  “I had a granola bar,” I said.

  “That’s not breakfast,” he admonished. “Sit. I’ll make you something while we wait for Marcus to come down.”

  I sat on one of the bar stools at the kitchen island and wa
tched as Scotty went to work, taking out a frying pan and pulling stuff from the fridge. The morning sun was diffused by the trees outside the windows, and the kitchen smelled of coffee and toast. An old-fashioned radio played softly from the counter. I thought it might be tuned to a station that played the old music Marcus liked, but instead I recognized the sound of the National’s “Fake Empire.”

  “I suppose it’s little morose for first thing in the morning,” Scotty said, following my eyes to the radio. “Do you like them?”

  “The National? I love them,” I said. “I just . . .”

  He stopped moving, wielding the frying pan like a lethal weapon. “What?” He smiled, and I realized how small he seemed. Not in a bad way. It’s just that his big frame and broad shoulders were somehow diminished by his smile, by the kindness that radiated from him like warmth from a bonfire. “You thought I’d like Marcus’s music?”

  I nodded. “It’s the thing I remember most about him from Camino Jardin. He was always humming, singing.”

  Scotty nodded and put the frying pan on the commercial cooktop. “I have to admit that when I pictured the man of my dreams, he didn’t look like Marcus.”

  I couldn’t help smiling.

  “What are you trying to say?” a lazy voice said from the doorway. “I’m not your knight in shining armor?”

  Scotty laughed. “More like a thief in a bucket hat.”

  Marcus shuffled across the floor in a T-shirt and slippers, his skinny legs emerging from a pair of shorts. He sat down next to me. “Morning, kid.”

  “Good morning.”

  “Get some sleep over there in the pool house?”

  “Yep.”

  “Good. We have a lot of work to do today.”

  Scotty set a cup of coffee down in front of him and lifted an egg out of the carton. He looked at me. “You do like eggs?”

  I nodded, and he cracked the two eggs into a bowl and whisked them with a fork while a pat of butter melted in the frying pan.

  “So what do you like to do, Grace? When you’re not . . . working, I mean?” Scotty asked.

  It was an easy question, but when I reached into my mind to retrieve the answer, I was met with emptiness. It had been too long since I’d had the luxury of doing something I enjoyed. In fact, everything I’d done since being adopted by Cormac and Renee had been the product of a con. I’d taken piano lessons from one of our marks in New York, had tried photography to get close to a girl in Chicago. I’d even joined the lacrosse team—and gotten clobbered—just to get to know a target in Phoenix. Had I enjoyed any of it? I didn’t know. Enjoyment wasn’t part of the grift. I looked up, surprised to see Scotty still watching my face, waiting for an answer.

  “I like to read.” It was the one thing that was mine, that had carried me through five cities, more foster families than I could count, so many last names I could hardly remember them all. I might not have a home, might not recognize myself in the mirror, but I could always find a library, the bookshelf at the Salvation Army, and later, when I was with Cormac and Renee, a bookstore. Books never lied to me, never betrayed me, never left me alone and wondering what was wrong with me.

  Scotty stirred the eggs in the pan with the spatula. “I like to read, too. We have a pretty good selection if you ever want to borrow something.”

  I smiled. “Thanks.”

  Scotty scooped the eggs onto a plate with buttered toast and a handful of strawberries. He pushed the plate toward me. “Want some juice?”

  “Can I have coffee?” I asked. There was a mini coffeemaker in the pool house at Selena’s, but I was afraid to use it. The smell of brewing coffee was a distinctive one, especially to people who loved the stuff. I didn’t want anyone to follow their nose to the pool house.

  Scotty nodded and poured me a cup of coffee from the machine on the counter. He set the cup in front of me and I took a greedy sip before tackling my food.

  “So what are we doing today?” I asked.

  “We’re going to brainstorm,” Marcus said. “Go over everything you remember, from before the Fairchild con and after it.”

  I looked around the room, scanning for open windows, for anything that might give us away.

  “Grace,”—Scotty’s voice was gentle—“you’re safe here. Marcus has never been picked up.”

  “Never?” I asked.

  “Listen, kid.” Marcus’s voice was wry. “I know I look older than dirt, and it’s true I was in the business a long time. But I was careful. Real careful. As far as I know, none of my marks ever realized I was the one who stole from them, which, incidentally, is how it’s supposed to be. I’m perfectly legitimate, have been for years now.”

  “So you don’t use . . .” I was afraid to finish the statement, still spooked about talking so freely.

  “A fake?” he asked, referring to the fake IDs that had allowed Cormac, Renee, Parker, and me to move so quickly from town to town, setting up new names along the way in case anyone caught on.

  I nodded.

  “Don’t need it,” he said. “When I say I’m clean, I mean I’m clean. Never did anything high stakes. Kept it small. Just enough to live comfortably and stash a little for the future.”

  I looked around the room. “So how do you, I don’t know, live?” I felt rude asking, but I had a right to know what he was into if we were going to be business partners.

  “We have legitimate investments,” Scotty said. “So I guess you could say we’re both retired.”

  It threw me a little, the normalcy of their lives. I’d always imagined my postgrift life as on the run, in hiding, and looking over my shoulder. That there might be something else was a possibility I almost didn’t dare entertain. And anyway, I couldn’t think about any kind of life right now. Not until I freed Parker.

  “Why do you need to know about stuff from before the Fairchild job if we’re looking for Cormac now?” I asked Marcus.

  “You might remember something that will tell me about Cormac’s patterns,” he said. “Everyone on the grift has their favorites—people they prefer to use for IDs, logistical support, transportation. But there are different levels of support. At the top are the professionals. People who really know what they’re doing. Then there are the people who are a little less experienced, a little less scrupulous, people you want to keep your eye on.”

  “Why would you use someone like that?”

  “The sources at the top are expensive. Their level of expertise offers an extra layer of security, but not everyone can afford it. If you can’t, you have to use who you can afford. And the less experienced aren’t the worst of them. There are other people—gangbangers who sell IDs on the side, criminals fresh out of prison who run chop shops to provide cars to people on the run. Those are people you really don’t want to get involved with.”

  “But people do?” I asked.

  He nodded, finishing his coffee. “People do. And we need to figure out who Cormac’s been using—both before and after the Fairchild job. Then you’ll have to tell me everything you remember about Seattle. Where you stayed when you first got there, who Cormac talked to, even what stores you visited.” He slid off the stool. “You can think about it while I get dressed. Then we’ll get to work.”

  Twenty-One

  We set up in the living room. Marcus sat on one of the overstuffed chairs, his computer on the coffee table in front of him, while I sat on the couch with my laptop. I wondered about the cushion that sat on the floor against one wall. The tiny Buddha statue and incense burner next to it made me think it might be for meditation. I assumed it was for Scotty. It was hard to imagine Marcus meditating.

  We started at the beginning—the very beginning—with my adoption by Cormac and Renee. Marcus wanted to know everything: How many visits did they have with me before agreeing to the adoption? Where did they take me immediately after the adoption was final? How long did we stay there? How long before Parker was adopted? Where did we eat when we went out during that time? Where did we stay? What
kind of car did we drive? How long after Parker was adopted before Cormac and Renee started teaching us to grift?

  Most of it seemed unimportant. I couldn’t see how the restaurants we’d eaten in or the car we’d driven six years ago mattered now. But I answered anyway, pillaging my mind for information that had been dead to me, details about things I hadn’t bothered to think about when they were happening, let alone in the years since.

  I was already exhausted when Scotty brought in a tray of sandwiches, fruit, and two big glasses of water. He set everything down on the coffee table and reached for the TV remote.

  “Water?” Marcus said, staring balefully at his glass. “Where’s my Scotch?”

  “You know what the doctor said.” Scotty didn’t even look at him as he turned on the TV. “Besides, I’ve been following the news in the other room. I think there’s something you might want to see.”

  I reached for my sandwich, surprised I could be hungry after the breakfast Scotty had served me just three hours before. I froze, my hand halfway to the plate, when the local news sprang to life. Parker was there, walking into the courtroom in an orange jumpsuit, his chin jutting defiantly. His forearms were bare, the leather bracelets he’d worn to cover the scars from his repeated attempts at suicide gone. That hurt me the most. Even more than seeing him in prison garb, seeing him handcuffed and escorted into the courtroom by a bailiff. Parker didn’t like other people to see his scars. He didn’t want anyone to know that life had come so close to beating him. That he wasn’t very different from the rest of us.

  It was old footage, and a voice sounded over the image of Parker making his way to one of the tables at the front of the courtroom.

  “The trial of Parker Dawson, alleged con artist in the December 2014 theft of twenty million dollars’ worth of gold from Fairchild Industries heir, Warren Fairchild, will begin June twenty-ninth in Los Angeles Superior Court. William Bradley, a security guard for Allied Security, was killed during the theft. Dawson claims no knowledge of Bradley’s murder. The district attorney’s office for Los Angeles County has released a statement saying that an investigation is still under way and more charges may be forthcoming.”