Page 80 of Master of Lies

“Joe? Joe, who are you talking to?”

I jerked around at the sharp female voice from the door behind us. It was Grifo’s wife, Rachelle. At closer range, I saw she was in her forties, but very well preserved. Having a cosmetic surgeon for a husband clearly had its perks. She’d squeezed into a sequined black sheath, and she would’ve been very pretty if her collagen-plumped, cherry-red mouth hadn’t been puckered with anxiety.

She knew damn well her man was neck-deep in shit.

“Rachelle, I’m having a private conversation. Please leave. We’ll talk later,” Grifo said, but from his weary tone, it was clear she would ignore him.

“Who are these people?” she demanded. “What are you telling them, Joe? What do they want?”

I waded right in. “We want to give you a way out of this mess.”

Rachelle’s eyes widened. “Just exactly what mess are you referring to?”

“We know your family is in danger,” Jed told her. “We’ve been fighting off the same man who’s threatening you, and we’re still alive. That’s our calling card.”

She turned to her husband. “I told you we should’ve run!” she hissed. “Weeks ago!”

“These things take time!” Grifo retorted. “Finding a safe place, getting ID, moving money around so it can’t be traced—”

“Who cares about money? We’d all still be alive, right?”

Grifo let out a bark of laughter. “Oh, right. I’d love to see how little you care about money once you’re in some strange foreign city and you don’t have any!”

“Don’t talk down to me, Joe—”

“I’m just trying to keep you all alive, and to achieve that, we have to act like everything is perfectly normal! So we attend the fucking gala! You keep on shopping, having lunch at the club, working out at the gym. The girls stay in school. If we start acting erratically, he’ll notice, and we’re dead! Think of the girls.”

“I’m the only one who is!” Rachelle Grifo’s voice was dangerously loud. “How did you get us into this mess! You got greedy? Is that what happened?”

“Me, greedy? Just chasing the lifestyle to which you have become accustomed, Shell.” Grifo’s voice had an ugly edge.

“Oh, so it’s my fault, now? And now these strangers know our private business? This…this cheap blonde and this tattooed thug? He threatened Ramona and Clark!”

Cheap blonde? I choked back a peal of absolutely inappropriate laughter. This was so, so not the time to be a snotty bitch. Those two were teetering on a tightrope.

I barely caught Jed’s swift eye-roll. “I didn’t threaten anyone,” he said. “They were very nervous, and they misinterpreted what I said. I swear, Mrs. Grifo. If I were working for Boer, and I had been sent to deal with you, we would not be having this conversation. The job would be done, and I would be miles down the road by now.”

A terrified pause followed that statement.

“Ah…that is not reassuring,” Rachelle said faintly.

“It wasn’t meant to be,” I told her. “We’re here to help solve your problem, not to make you feel better about them.” I gestured at Jed. “He is one of the good guys. And we are absolutely for real. Not some trick or some test sent from Boer. Boer has no reason to jerk you around, or play complicated mind games. The man’s on a schedule.”

“To do what? And who the hell are you?” Rachelle spun around to face me, her eyes wild and white-rimmed. “What the hell do you care what happens to us?”

It wouldn’t be wise to give her the answer she richly deserved, so I jerked my chin at Jed. He had to field this one, or I’d get the woman’s back up even more.

“We need the info your husband has on Boer,” Jed said. “That’s how we win.”

Rachelle clapped her hands over her mouth like an opera diva. “Oh God,” she moaned. “Joe, you idiot. You have evidence…? Oh, God. We are so dead.”

The woman’s whining was getting on my every last nerve. “Not necessarily,” I said. “We’re your ticket back to your real life. Your own life, here, with your house, your friends, your girls. They’re, what, in college now?”

“Are you threatening my girls?” Her eyes were ringed with mascara smears.

“We’re not threatening anybody, particularly not your girls,” Jed said, with admirable patience. “On the contrary. If you give us the info that Mickey gave you—”

“Who’s Mickey?” Rachelle shrilled. “What did he give to you, Joe? Why didn’t you tell me? How can I trust you? Why have you been keeping secrets from me?”

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