Genuine Lies

for him to break the will, no way for him to rake in the inheritance he’d worked for.
    But there was always an angle. He’d been saving this one.
    He sipped Absolut straight and smiled when the connection rang through. “It’s Drake,” he said without preamble. “You and I need to get together…. Why? Well, that’s simple. I have some information you’re going to want to pay me for. Like what you were doing sneaking into the guest house and searching through dear Cousin Julia’s notes. Oh, and another matter the police might be interested in. Such as the fact the security system was shut off the day Eve was murdered. How do I know?” He smiled again, already counting the money. “I know all sorts of things. I know Julia was in the garden that day. I know someone else went into the guest house where Eve was waiting, then came out alone. All alone.”
    He listened, smiling at the ceiling. God, it was good to be in charge again. “Oh, I’m sure you have lots of reasons, lots of explanations. You can make them to the cops. Or … you can convince me to forget all about it. A quarter million wouldgo a long way to convincing me. For now. Reasonable?” he said with a laugh. “Shit yes, I’ll be reasonable. I’ll give you a week to come up with it. One week from tonight. Let’s make it midnight. It has such a nice ring. Bring it here. All of it, or I go straight to the D.A. and save my poor cousin.”
    He hung up, then decided to pick a name out of his little black book. He felt like celebrating.
    Rusty Haffner was looking for an angle of his own. Most of his life he’d been playing the odds, and though in a final count he’d lost more than he’d gained, he figured he was still in the game. He’d been bullied into the Marine Corps by his father the day after he’d graduated from high school. He’d slipped and slithered through his enlistment, avoiding dishonorable discharge by the skin of his pearly whites.
    But he’d learned how to pump out the ‘Sir, yes, sirs,’ how to kiss whatever ass was most important and wriggle out of trouble.
    He’d been bored with his current job, and would have ditched it. If the money hadn’t been so good. Getting paid six big ones a week to watch a woman had been hard to turn down.
    But now old Rusty was wondering if there was a way to butter his bread a little thicker on the other side.
    Over a late night snack of blueberry yogurt, Rusty watched the eleven o’clock news. It was all there. Julia Summers, the classy babe he’d been shadowing for weeks. And wasn’t it a kick in the head to discover that she was Eve Benedict’s daughter? That she was the prime suspect in the old broad’s murder? And, most interesting of all to Rusty P. Haffner, she was about to inherit a large chunk of an estate rumored to be over fifty million.
    A classy babe like Summers would be very grateful to someone who could help her out of her mess. A lot more grateful than six hundred a week. Grateful enough, Rusty figured as he licked his spoon, to set a man up for life.
    Could be his current client would be pissed enough to cause some trouble. But for, say, two million—cash—Rusty could deal with trouble.

Sweaty, invigorated, and pleased with the world in general, Lincoln Hathoway breezed into the kitchen from his morning jog. The Krups coffeemaker was just beginning to brew, and he checked his watch. Six twenty-five. On the dot.
    If there was one thing he and Elizabeth, his wife of fifteen years, agreed on, it was symmetry. Their life ran along very smooth lines. He enjoyed being one of the most respected criminal lawyers on the East Coast, and she enjoyed being the wife and hostess of a successful man. They had two bright, well-mannered children who had known nothing but affluence and stability. A decade before they’d run over a little rough ground, but had smoothed it out again with barely a ripple. If the years had settled into a routine that edged toward bland, that was just the way they wanted it.
    As always, Lincoln took down his mug that read LAWYERS DO IT IN THEIR BRIEFS—a gag gift his daughter, Amelia, had given him on his fortieth birthday. He would drink his first cup of the day alone, catching the morning news on the kitchen TV before going up to shower. It was a good life, Lincoln thought as he switched on the set. The newscaster was announcing a surprise development in the Eve Benedict murder.
    The mug Lincoln held slipped out of his fingers and shattered. Hot