Genuine Lies

nodded at the set. “Jules, I want you to listen carefully to this.”
    “… I’ve taken the precaution of making the other tapes …”
    He hit freeze, turned to Julia. “What other tapes?” “I don’t know. She never gave me any tapes.” “Exactly.” He kissed her, hard. She could feel his excitementsing through his fingertips as they pressed into her shoulders. “So where the hell are they? She made them between the time you last saw her and the time she was murdered. She didn’t give them to Greenburg. She didn’t give them to you. But she meant to.”
    “She meant to,” Julia repeated, lowering herself into a chair. “And she’d come to the guest house to see me, to wait for me.”
    “To give them to you. To erase all the rest of the lies.”
    “We went through that place, top to bottom.” Frank set his plate aside. “There weren’t any tapes except the one in the safe.”
    “No, because someone had taken them. Someone who knew what was on them.”
    “How could anyone have known?” Julia looked back to the set, to the frozen image of Eve. “If she made them that night, or the next morning? She never left the house.”
    “Who came in?”
    Frank pulled out his notebook, flipped pages. “Flannigan, her agent, DuBarry. She might have told any of them something they didn’t want to hear.”
    Julia turned away. She couldn’t face the possibility it could have been Victor. She’d already lost a mother twice. She wasn’t sure she could survive losing another father. “Eve was alive after each of them left. How could they have come back without Joe knowing?”
    “The same way Morrison got in,” Frank mused. “Though it’s tough swallowing the idea that someone else came over the wall.”
    “Maybe they didn’t.” With his eyes on Eve, Paul ran a hand over Julia’s hair. “Maybe they didn’t have to worry about getting in, or getting out. Because they were always inside. They were with her because they were expected to be with her. Someone she cared enough about to explain what she was doing.”
    “You’re reaching for one of the servants,” Frank muttered, and began flipping pages again.
    “I’m reaching for someone who lived on the estate. Whodidn’t have to worry about security. Someone who followed her from the main house to the guest house. Someone who could kill Eve in the heat of the moment, and Drake in cold blood.”
    “You’ve got your cook, your gardener, your assistant gardener, a couple of maids, the driver, housekeeper, secretary. They’ve all got a pretty snug alibi for the time of the murder.”
    Impatience shimmered like heat waves. “Maybe one of them manufactured an alibi. It fits, Frank.”
    “This isn’t one of your books. Real murder’s messier, the pieces don’t fit so neat.”
    “They always make the same picture. Haffner said she came out of the house, that Morrison changed direction and went straight for the guest house. He didn’t stop by the garage, which though I’d love to nail the little slime, probably eliminates Lyle. And I think we’re looking for someone close to her. Someone who knew Julia’s pattern, so the notes could get through.”
    “Haffner might have passed the notes,” Julia mused.
    “Why would he bother to deny it? He told us everything else. I want to know who followed you to London—and to Sausalito.”
    “I went over the manifests for the London flights, Paul. I already told you I couldn’t find a connection.” “Have you got a list of the names?” “In the file.”
    “Be a pal, Frank, have them faxed here.”
    “Christ.” Then he looked at Julia’s face, at the television screen that was filled with Eve. “Sure, sure, why not? I’m tired of carrying around a badge anyway.”
    It was worse somehow, Julia thought. Waiting. Waiting while Frank made the phone call, while Paul smoked and paced. Waiting for technology to kick in and send them another slim hope. She watched the sheets click out, hundreds of names. There was only one that would matter.
    They developed a routine. She would study one sheet, hand it to Paul. He would pore over another, pass it to Frank.She felt an odd jolt seeing her own name, mixed among so many strangers. And there was Paul’s, on the Concorde. He’d been impatient to get to her, she thought with a small smile. He’d been angry, pushy, demanding. By the time they’d flown back together, he’d been everything.
    Rubbing her tired eyes, she took another sheet. In her