Someone once told me that as you live your life, you learn a secret you take to your grave. To share it, is to lose it.

I read books on the sand and sweat. I don't want anything else right now. It seems so simple, so easy ... and it should be. My muscles feel loose and if I rose right now from this towel, I think maybe they would be too rubbery to bear me all the way to the water.

My family came to this lake when I was a child. Picnics and screaming children ... how did my parents stand it?

It's no longer popular. People don't seem to like its brown water when they can drive down over to the concrete beach and tide pool someone built less than twenty minutes from here. There are slides and more slides there ... pools and waves ... screaming children and harassed parents ... and they all go home sunburned and tired.

But out here, the lake only attracts the jetskies and the powerboats pulling boys on boogie boards doing flips and diving over wakes. They launch across the way where there are facilities.

Over here, I have the sand largely to myself.

When I was in high school, I was swimming here with friends and lost my mother's high school ring. I still feel for it with my toes when I'm standing in the water and know I'll never tell a living soul what I did. I never told her ... she thought it was my sister who lost it ... my sister to whom she'd given the ring, while she'd given me some old-fashioned emerald ring that her brother bought with his first paycheck after joining the Navy.

I can't remember anymore why she told us she was giving us her rings that year. But now I know that it was because she knew she was leaving us. I took her high school ring because I was jealous. It was gold and pretty and no one ever had a ring like it. My sister never knew I coveted it. I took it one night, going out with friends to skinny dip in the lake and lost it there in the brown waters.

Whenever I am at this lake, I think about this ring and I think about how I should stop coming here. But I come here and lie in the sand, sweating and reading ... and my mind drifts. When I open my jewelry box and see my mother's emerald ring, I find it funny that in the end it turned out to be the emerald ring that was actually the more unique piece ... an art deco setting that an appraiser told me once would fetch a pretty penny if I ever felt like putting it up for auction.

A man's face drifts across my short term memory panels. I saw him earlier in the day, when I was out swimming for the first time today. I had stopped and was feeling around with my toes, looking off toward the center of the lake as if I was doing nothing. He went by in one of those party boats, the ones with broad platforms and shallow draft ... and people sit under the awning or out back in benches along the side ... and they drink and talk ... and sometimes there is music playing too loud.

There were not that many people on the boat, maybe ten. He was sitting along the side, looking toward the shore. A woman was sitting next to him, looking toward the front of the boat. She was talking to him. He was looking idly off.

His eyes met mine. My toe was nudging under the sand, feeling its way, looking for the lost ring of long ago sins ... I must have looked quite guilty, now that I think on it. Maybe it's why he looked at me as he did ... an eyebrow lifting, his chin tucking under, his eyes staying glued to mine as the boat moved away. We both turned to watch each other until, at last, there was really nothing left to see.

Putting the book down, I close my eyes and picture myself swimming to the middle of the lake, treading water. I imagine the lost ring somewhere below me, taunting me with its secret shame.

The lodge at the lake is having its monthly luau party. I would not go but Jeannette has never been and she brought a raffia skirt just for the occasion. How can I deny her?

We walk along the blacktopped road that used to be gravel. Mosquitoes buzz and she swats at them, grumbling that we did not drive over.

"Look at the moon, girl," I say to her, pointing over the hill's maple-crested ridge. "It's a harvest moon, isn't it?"

"Like I would know?"

"I like your shoes. You're going to have fun dancing in them."

"Will there be boys to dance with?" she says, giggling in her imitation-teen voice.

"You know who's going to be there? Bobby and Billy, the cute lifeguards. You watch."

She laughs and twirls around, her skirt billowing out around her slim, well-shaved legs with their tan making them look long and sexy. She is going to get into this now, determined, as she is so often, to find the fun inside the odd things I get her to do with me. I love her in this mode ... but then I have to admit, I also like her when she's all serious and take-charge gruff. "Well, I bet Peggy and Mary Sue are going to be there, too ... but ... but they do not stand a chance. We will steal those boys and make them ours tonight."

"I get Bobby," I say, now skipping ahead of her, light-headed. Glad she's with me. Glad I came. "He's a sucker for neon green bikinis."

"But he's the one I really love!" she cries.

I glance back at her over my shoulder. "First one to the lodge gets Bobby!"

Suddenly, car lights shine on her, backlighting her figure as I cry out to her to move to the side of the road. A black car chugs past after the driver brakes when he realizes he is not alone on the road. We wave at those inside but get no return greetings. By the time we make the lodge 15 minutes later, we have made up a story about the occupants and it is based on an F. Scott Fitzgerald short story I read once in college.

It's not a match to my memory from high school, coming here with my parents in the summer and early fall. Back then, it was the place for parents to take their teens ... and for the teens to sit sullenly at linen-covered tables, dying of boredom to be with their parents. And after dinner, there were dances where the adults hogged the dance floor while the teens looked at each other across the room and dreamed of slipping away into the night. And then suddenly the year arrived when I was old enough to slip away into that night. I came close to losing my virginity then but instead ended up with a grass-stained dress of buttercup yellow and the new knowledge of what real kissing was supposed to taste and feel like.

Tonight, with Jeannette, it looks like we're entering a hunting lodge. I knew the décor had changed a few years ago because I do come here at least once each year for old time's sake. It can still feel like coming home even when I cannot enter here now and imagine my parents here ... right over there, waiting on me patiently.

I lead Jeannette through the dining room with confidence and we end up at a lovely table out on the enclosed back deck. The mosquitoes don't buzz; they have been swept away from the lake by the evening's breeze. The moon glows yellow and haloed. Stars blink in deep blue black skies. Candles inside Depression glass containers glow on each table. An obligatory carnation sits in a bud vase on our table. Jeannette gazes all around her.

"So this is the famous lodge," she says finally, after the waiter has ladled Thousand Island dressing on our limp lettuce salads.

"Imagine me here as a gawky teen?" I ask her, pushing the lettuce around with my fork.

"Oh, sure, based on those cheesy snaps your sister posted on her blog last year after you got that nice award from the company."

"Ah, yes. My sister. She's all part of my charm, don't you think? Besides, you wouldn't have started bugging me about coming up here if not for her posting those. So you owe her one."

We raise our eyebrows at each other. We both have family issues. Mine are my bitch of an older sister who resents me with an intensity I've never understood and never have actually dealt with. Hers are her alcoholic father whom she recently had to put in a nursing home.

Jeannette and I have both already scoped out all the tables inside the dining areas, inside and out. Comes with how we have been trained. We both noticed the sedate party of ten just inside, the one up on the riser level, the power table among those who frequent the inherited weekend mansions around the lake. I don't recognize any of them but I recognize their type. Old money. Bad genes. Perpetually bored. Too young to be so terminally unchallenged by life. Makes them stupid and vapid but they look good in their tennis whites. Haha. Is that sour grapes on my part? Undoubtedly why I focus my ire on people like that, wouldn't you say?

"Would you get a load of the ice princess? I dub her tonight's Peggy Sue."

"I thought it was Mary Sue?"

"No, she's too up her own ass to be anything but a Peggy Sue."

"Margaret."

"Yes. Margaret is better. A snoot."

"Looks like she's got tonight's Bobby, eh?"

And just as I say it, I recognize Bobby as the man in the party boat. He must realize we are looking at them and talking about them. He is watching us over Margaret's pampered shoulder as she babbles to the others at their table. There is a brief moment when I think to myself that he doesn't seem to belong ... he looks not of their stock. And suddenly he flicks the fingers of one hand at me. I return the gesture.

So Bobby has recognized me as the guilty girl bobbing in the lake, has he?

"You know him?" Jeannette asks, amused and pleased.

"Everyone knows Bobby. He's the lifeguard," I say, turning back to her as our entrees are served.

We are not exactly late to the luau party but we are fashionably entering after it has begun in the main party room. Lights are low, tiki lamps are hung in cascades along the ceiling. Jeannette is doing a hula as we walk down the stairs that lead to the dance floor area.

We start with a mai tai each and accept the leis made of plastic as if they are smart fashion accents. I wear mine draped down my back just to be different.

We spot Margaret holding court and Bobby looking about with sharp eyes that laser in on us. They are at a table filled with the same 40-something couples with whom they shared dinner.

"So we know where Bobby is. But where is Billy?" Jeannette asks me, dragging me and my mai tai toward the dance floor.

"Let's smoke him out," I say, putting my sweating glass on a convenient table before shimmying to a most un-tropical song by Stevie Wonder.

As it turns out, the only Billies we attract are teens and 20-somethings, much too young for us. But they do like dancing with us and we end up dancing as a group for one too many songs. When the emcee announces a limbo contest, the Billies drag us over to line up but I manage to slip away for I may be many things but I am not about to be a woman who'd limbo in a sarong wearing only the bottom of my neon green bikini, as if I'd be waiting for the disaster to happen ... the sarong's always precarious knot to come loose as I was getting down with the limbo ... I doubt the Billies' parents would be amused if my breasts popped out for all to see.

Bobby is outside, smoking. I see his form as I walk toward the wooden pavilion, feeling the dewy grass spring beneath my steps.

I like the looks of this Bobby. I could have created from my imagination his features, broad shoulders, green eyes and dark brooding stare out into the lake tonight. An aura of manliness and machismo tempered by an awareness of those around him. Men such as this are a particular weakness of mine. I notice them wherever I see them and wonder if they know that I will lock somewhere inside me the way it felt to see them? To react to that essential maleness that you could not describe with words but can feel like a taught rubber band inside you?

Or maybe they just find it creepy to look up and find me studying them as if I am cataloguing every detail of their appearance, making mental notes like they are specimens under my microscope? Which I am.

"I bet you got in all sorts of trouble for wearing that Hawaiian shirt tonight," I say to Bobby as I step up the final step into the old wooden pavilion that has graced this section of the lawn next to the sandy edge of the beach for longer than I have been coming here.

Bobby turns, curious that I would speak to him, I imagine. He shrugs his shoulders. "You don't like it?" he asks me. "I'm hurt. I wore it just for you."

I laugh in response and say, "No, I do like it. Very Magnum PI-ish ... that color red? It looks quite nice on you. But I bet Margaret hated that you wore that shirt."

"Margaret?"

"Your girlfriend," I say, tossing my head back toward where Margaret is no doubt still prattling to her court of friends.

He frowns, opens his mouth, thinks better of it. Instead, he takes a puff off his cigarette.

"My friend and I decided your girlfriend looked like a Margaret. We don't know her ... just made that up to give her a name."

"Well, now you mention it, she does look like a Margaret."

"You see?" I say as I open my purse, take out a cigarette and lighter.

He moves, stepping toward me, his hand out, his own cigarette dangling between his lips. Nice lips. Just as imperfectly handsome up close as he was across the room. Rugged. Tempting. His fingers beckon at me ... and I realize what he wants. So I hand him my lighter. It is gold and flat. It was my father's. He flips the lid, strikes the flame into being ... and I bend toward his hand, to put the tip of my cigarette into the flame.

There is always an intimacy, I find, when a man does this. When he is this close, when he has presumed such a masculine role, when he has initiated this. I am close enough to him now to be drawn in by his unwavering gaze into my eyes ... and by the fact that he does not back up after he lights me up. Instead he stands there and studies me, as I examined him when I first came into the pavilion. He is taller than me. He seems both bigger and more cultured this close. If he simply bent toward me, to steal a kiss, I would not stop him. I like the way it feels, this close to a man like this ... this intimate stance between us.

He drops the lighter into my open purse.

The moment lingers.

"Why would you say I got in trouble with this shirt?" he says. His voice is feather soft, aware, manipulative.

I wouldn't back away from this encounter for anything in the world. But I don't understand where the goose bumps along my spine have come from.

"She's dressed in pearls and a cream linen skirt. Very proper. So are her buddies with you tonight. You, however ..."

"Me?"

"Yes, you ... you are dressed in the theme of the evening ... for the luau."

"Ah. You should be a detective."

I smile at him. He smiles at me. A little joke.

The moment changes.

Sighing, I step back from him very deliberately before turning to look toward the pier. Two steps and then I turn back toward him, walking backwards maybe three more steps until I am leaning against the railing. I take a pull from the cigarette and keep watching him as I blow out the smoke.

"So, I'm right? You're in trouble with her?"

"No."

"No?"

"She's not my girlfriend, either."

"No?"

He shakes his head as I study his reaction. "Just my date. And her name's Pauline."

"Hmmm. Well. I was wrong then."

"But you like the shirt ... really?"

"Oh, absolutely. As you can tell, I'm kind of in luau gear myself ... I figure if you're going to go to one, do it right. Have fun."

"The sarong is a nice touch. Noticed it right off."

"Good for you."

He has sauntered over to where I am and leans a casual hip into the railing. I hold my hand out. "My name's Grace. It's nice of you to entertain my little insanities."

He puts his hand out. We touch, linger, in the handshake. "Name's Ben. And is that what I am to you tonight? The entertainment?"

Something in his entire demeanor changes that swiftly. The genial good-looking man suddenly has an edge of danger. It chills me. I slide my hand from his grasp. He is smiling now, as if it's all in fun, even the edge he let me see.

"Grace?"

"No, I didn't say that."

"No?" he says, low, moving in closer.

I glance back toward the lodge's ballroom and see an outlined woman peering out the plate glass window in our direction. "Your girlfriend's looking for you," I say softly.

"She's not my girlfriend."

"Your date, then."

"I bet she wonders what we're doing out here, talking ... since she would have to presume that I do not know you, Grace."

"Then don't let me keep you, Ben." I toss my cigarette off into the nearby sandy beach.

He follows suit before finally saying softly, "You're not."

"I'm going back in."

"I'll walk you up. Like a gentleman should for a pretty lady with a few insanities."

Our eyes are fixed on each other. There is something inside his that seems so familiar and so unexpected at the same time. The edge slides away as I watch.

He extends his arm for me to take. I hesitate. He chuckles. And now he looks so beguiling, so charming, and strong, like a real man should. I know I will remember this man's eyes ... the way they change, their beauty, their essential masculinity. And how, staring into them, I find myself feeling an unbidden trust that I would never admit, even to Jeannette. Well, maybe to Jeannette even though she'd tell me I maybe smoked one too many wacky tobaccie.

"The lighter's a bust," Chad says as he tosses a report across the desk to me. 

We are inside the downtown headquarters of the Memphis Police Department.

"But his prints are on it," I say, scanning the report. I tap an irritated finger on one of the lines and glare at him. "Here ... they picked up two prints ... that are not mine."

"They bring nothing back in CODUS. Dead end, Grace."

"Damn," I say, seeing where it is marked on the form. "I tell you, Chad, something's hinky then. Because this was not the work of a one-off."

"Agreed. But we have found nothing to link any prints on site with the one on your lighter, either."

"You thought you would?"

"Well, I was kinda hoping."

And I laugh. So does Chad, whose grin turns on me. "So what leads do you have on this?"

"And I ask, again, Grace ... what is your interest in this case?"

I shift in the visitor's chair that faces Chad's desk. He is a detective who investigates many things in which I have professional interest. This case should not be one of them, mind you. He is in robbery.

"You are going to give me my lighter back, eh?" I ask him, now rising and adjusting my skirt, knowing he likes looking but has long ago given up thinking he can hit on me with any success.

"Grace, did your company have an interest here?"

"We did not. As far as I know."

"Then ...?"

"I recognized him from the video."

"He was wearing a mask."

"The way he walked. His build. The way he held the gun."

"No way. That was the biggest piece of shit video ever ..."

"Well, those trucks don't carry as good cameras as the ones we have Chase's transports use. You should tell them that. Make them spend a bit more on security ..."

Chad sighs and puts his hands on his hips. He's been up all night. He knows I am trying to help him but he also can be a hard ass when he feels like it. Like he does this afternoon. He just looks at me. Waiting.

"Okay, I'm just saying ... I met him this weekend ... I would place a bet that the man I met at the lake is this man on the video. Have you ever known me to be wrong on an ID?"

Just then the sketch artist comes in with the finished piece we worked on. It's him ... Ben. Down to the lips that I remember pressing against the shell of my ear as we re-entered the lodge's ballroom and he was trying to wind up his girlfriend ... his date, rather. His fingers were on the pulse of my wrist and he was asking me to save him a slow dance.

We never did dance.

"This is him?" Chad asks me, looking at the sketch.

"Yes. It's a good likeness."

"Okay ... once again ... the name of the woman he was with? And all you got is first names?"

By the time I make it back to the office, the news has flown throughout our small confines. Jeannette has called me twice, not happy that Chad has called her in to get her take on the sketch of mystery man Ben.

A mystery man ... and I do not cotton to mysteries.

He led a group of seven heavily armed men plus at least three drivers who that morning have already waylaid and held up an armored car ... and has me scratching my head that I had no clue that I was that close to someone ruthless enough to shoot the driver when he wouldn't come out and then shoot one of the transport guards when he fought with them after seeing his co-worker shot down. The other transport guard was the lone survivor.

It is the biggest armed robbery to hit this town in a long time. A shipment from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis that had just been offloaded at the airport and was being driven maybe fourteen miles away to the downtown location of the area's second-largest bank. But five miles from the airport, it was ambushed, forced off the road, finally stopping inside an old warehouse after the circling SUVs boxed it in and there was no escape. And the bloodshed would be less chilling if the lone survivor's account had not been that the killings had seemed to be done with no hesitation or drama by the man I'd been trading cigarette smoke with only two nights earlier.

I have already been on the phone to the insurance company for whom I work this region's investigations. We put all our banks on alert. This sort of robbery cannot be the first action of the criminals involved and it will not be the last. Vigilance must be heightened. We must learn from what has happened to keep it from happening to any shipment we insure.

Chad has sent a squad car down to the lake, to ask at the lodge after Pauline and whoever was with her. I am sure the mystery's key is there. That man Ben could not have been choosing to spend that final weekend with those people unless it had to do with the robbery he had planned for this Monday morning.

Chad should know all about who she is and how she is involved soon.

Of course, there is always the possibility that I am wrong ... that Ben was not the gang leader I saw on the grainy video that has been running all day on the news shows locally. I don't think I'm wrong but you never know.

They killed two men and got off with $3.4 million. That may sound like a lot but it is not. Not to professional criminals. These kinds of people, they have no other jobs but crime. And so, soon, they will be off to work again.

"Why do you suppose they chose that location?" Stewart asks me as I walk into our four-person office that looks more like a lawyer's digs than anything in the security field. I like it that way and since Stewart shirked the onus of decorating it when we opened it for the company five years ago, he has had to live with the upscale art deco look ever since. He has always hated the round red leather couches in the reception area and in each of our offices. He also hates the frosted glass desks and has gone so far as to come in one weekend and spray paint his black.

"Hands, hands," I say, chiding him as he skims a finger along the part of my thigh where my skirt's hem falls as I'm walking past him. Shirley, our receptionist, smacks Stewart's shoulder for me as my hands are full. "If you have nothing better to do ..."

"I've spent all day on the horn with Hoskins and the thing is, not that I do not like him, but he just called maybe five minutes ago and is now wanting us to go personally visit every security office ..."

"At all the banks?" I ask him, now in my office and wishing I'd stopped for an iced cappuccino instead of being so diligent about coming in here like I couldn't have spared the ten minutes. "I think that's not a bad idea. Do a bit of raising their attention to the risk."

"And the armored transport contractors and the major policy holders in malls ..."

"Malls?" I ask, surprised.

"They think maybe this group's hit transports leaving malls ... the big department store shipments ..."

"What? They know who it is?"

"Not by name. Or face. Just that there've been some armored car hits in Texas and California that they say were done by this size of group over the last two years maybe. And very professional, mind you. So they are thinking ahead ..."

"To what?"

"To this maybe being an escalation."

"Like they've been practicing," I say softly, smiling at Stewart. "I knew this couldn't have been a first timer."

"You know what I think?" Stewart asks, sinking into the red sofa he dislikes. "I think he won't ever strike near Memphis again. I think he's too smart to make that mistake. This was the first time they struck something like this ... a federal reserve going to a bank. Usually it's been forcing the car off the road after doing transfers from businesses on the outskirts of a town sending their money to the bank in town ... but never an armored car delivering this much and not in a major city before."

"Because security's lighter on those type of transports."

"Yeah."

 "They're not going back to malls. They are looking for bigger payoffs."

His picture becomes part of my office décor. The days go by and I am still immersed in this case even though I am officially nothing but a witness.

Of course, Chad and his partner are now convinced that I have suddenly become the most unreliable of witnesses.

They have tracked down Pauline.

Her last name is Chambers.

She has never met anyone who looked like the picture they showed her. The picture of Ben. She is also sure she never had dinner with anyone named Ben at the lodge at the lake over the weekend. She was there but with old friends and her grandparents.

Her grandfather was present when she was interviewed. He also had never seen the man in the picture. And no man named Ben had been with them at the lodge.

"Why would she lie?" Chad asks me as his partner Mike groans at my stubborn assertion that I saw this man.

"Exactly!" I say, triumphant.

"Grace, she is a nice woman and she comes from money."

"Well, I could have told you that! And who is this alleged grandfather? She was not with any grandfather or grandmother, I can attest to that."

"Her grandfather is a lawyer. Christopher Ford. Recognize the name?"

"Yikes. Not ..."

"Yes."

Christopher Ford is one damned scary defense attorney. Well, was. He is retired. I think. But I can remember stories about him ... and the biggest ones are about the suspicions of ties to organized crime ... suspicions that are rumored to never be more than whispered for fear he'll hear ... and you'll either be killed by some mafia hit man or you'll end up sued for everything you own and your last pint of blood. He's a scary man. Was he there that night? I think back to those I saw in the dining area that night and know for sure he was not.

"They're lying," I say to Chad.

Mike takes a step toward me from his desk next to Chad's. He puts a warning finger up. "They are not lying."

"Did you two interview them? Or another team?" I ask, not to be deterred.

They look at each other. Chad shrugs. "We sent a patrol car down."

"You sent a patrol car?" I ask, my voice incredulous. "On a case this big?"

"Listen, missy," Mike says, and he does like to call women 'missy' when he would much rather not be dealing with one of us. "It's not like we didn't have a lot more important leads and casework to do than go there ourselves or waste a pair of detectives for a half day."

"I don't believe this. It took you two days to send someone and then you send ... Oh, you're just ..." I stand up, take a deep breath and realize I must concede on this. "Okay. I'm sure you know what you're doing."

They look at each other. "Grace, you said your company was not involved," Mike says, sounding a bit anxious that I am giving in so easily.

"My company did not cover this shipment. But they have covered two of the others we believe this group has hit."

"And like I said two days ago, we appreciate that tip."

"So, therefore, you see, I have a legitimate involvement in finding these men."

"Don't overreach."

"And, if you consider our position, it's likely we may have future crimes from this group that hit others of our insured clients. We'd like to avoid that, if at all possible."

"Do not, under any circumstances, think you can go down and interview Mrs. Chambers."

"She's married?" I ask, now smiling.

I am on the phone to Jeannette when I pull up to Pauline Chamber's home in Germantown, that tony suburb to the east of Memphis. "Grey brick," I say to Jeannette, who has gotten me the address for Mrs. Chambers on the proviso I share any dirt with her.

She snorts. "Two stories?"

"You got it."

"What will you tell her?"

"Oh, that's the easy part."

"What's the hard part?"

"Figuring out how to get her to admit she was cheating on her husband in full view of people she knows ... You wonder why none of them have come forward?"

"It's an insular world she lives in. Besides, no one in that status group would voluntarily talk to cops."

"Wow. She has a damned Great Dane. Jeannette, you know how I hate dogs."

"How do you know? Is the dog out guarding the front of the house?"

"I can see his frigging head poking over the frigging fence."

Jeannette is laughing.

"Fine. I'm not going to call you after and tell you how I got her to break down or what sordid creams are in her medicine cabinet."

Pauline Chambers answers her cell phone on its second ring, despite not recognizing my number in her caller ID window. Jeannette has also gotten me this phone number.

I tell Mrs. Chambers who I am. Who I represent. That I want to interview her about a 'guest' of hers at the lodge who is a 'person of interest' in my company's investigation. Her voice is so frosty that the air between us is littered with ice crystals. I am using my most officious voice. She says to contact her attorney. I say I am in her driveway. I see her peek out the window at me.

Maybe it is that I wave at her. Maybe that's why she says I can come in. She will give me ten minutes, she says as she lets me in.

She lies the entire first ten minutes. And she knows I know. I keep Ben's picture between us the entire time. She keeps looking down at it as it rests seductively atop the coffee table that separates us, and then trying so hard to look up and stare at my forehead. She is nervous. Scared.

"Were you having an affair with him?" I ask her finally.

Her mouth forms an angry slit.

"He's a very sexy man. And I saw the two of you together. Saturday night. At the lodge."

"That is not possible ... as I told the officers ..."

"You were wearing a cream linen skirt, brown sandals with a little heel. Cute ... I liked them. And you were wearing your hair down, loose. Quite becoming." Her hair is in a bun today.

Her face goes pale and her brown eyes seem to fade just a bit.

"He was wearing a red Hawaiian shirt. I chatted with him out in the pavilion. We were both catching a smoke break from the luau. Bad luck, eh?"

She shakes her head and looks down at Ben. "So you're the reason they came to question me? Because you think you saw him there?"

"Are you sure you won't change your story? I promise you that I am not going to drop this. I can't. It's how I earn my living."

"I cannot ... there are circumstances."

"If you can just point me in the right direction ... I don't necessarily have to tell anyone where I get the information. I'm not the police after all. I am permitted to be much more discreet." Our eyes meet. "If you're worried about your husband finding out ... if that's the reason you're not saying ..."

She blushes. Shakes her head. "I want to call my grandfather."

"If you do, the offer is over," I say. "This is just between us. Let's keep it that way. Listen ... just tell me how you met him. How long ago. I'm trying to develop his routine on these things. And tell me ... why you?"

"What do you mean?"

"I don't think you helped him with the robbery ... but I know he was with you as part of his preparation for it. So, you must have inadvertently given him information, maybe? That sort of thing."

It's just past the ten minutes she's given me. And I think it's ironic that I notice that because I will be with her another twenty minutes and she has stopped lying to me.

"Or perhaps he wanted me. Why isn't that possible?"

"I'm sure it was. But that was only part."

"My husband ..."

"... doesn't have to know. Not from me."

"He wouldn't care," she says, almost a sneer at my remark. "What I was going to say is that the reason he targeted me was my husband."

"Why?"

"My husband is a pilot for the armored transport company."

"Yes, I know. That's why I was so certain that you were lying."

She closes her eyes. "Why didn't you just say that? Why be so tacky or do you enjoy trapping me?"

"I learn a lot about a person by what they choose to lie about. It helps me more than you'd imagine. Your husband's position with the transport company is too big a coincidence."

And funnily enough, Chad had not even looked further once he was convinced I had given him bad information on the bad guy. You can't blame him, I suppose. I just didn't think I was wrong so I started doing some checking. I figure that eventually, Chad will look over the list ... the reams, really ... of people on "the inside" of transferring, transporting and accepting the money. And then the name Chambers will pop out. And he'll realize ... ah ... it was the pilot who had the information ... and maybe that's how the robbers knew when it was coming in and could finish their planning for the crime.

"I met him two weeks ago."

About a week before they went to the lodge together? Fast mover, eh.

"He was at a gallery opening. We struck up a conversation. He was very ... magnetic."

Oh, I bet. Her eyes are almost dreamy at the memory. I can imagine he got to her ... I do not want to think of him in bed. Lighting up a cigarette after. His sated eyes. Stop sweating.

"You met him. You know what I am speaking of when I say he is magnetic," she says, now just a bit belligerent.  "Any woman would understand. He's that kind of man."

Well, at least I know she's not lying.

"My husband and I have an ... arrangement ... if we are discreet, then we do not care what the other does."

Or who.

"But you were in a public place with this man ... with friends at dinner ... staying at your grandparent's weekend place. That's discreet?"

She wrinkles her nose. "My family never has liked my husband. They consider him weak. And he's not fathered children, you see."

Oh, good Lord. They probably think she married beneath her ... an actual working man rather than a trust fund baby like herself?

"Why would they lie for you? All of them? Your friends there that night?"

"No one has asked them questions ... yet. If they are asked, I count on their discretion. They were quite receptive to my ... request that they honor my privacy."

"Why? Did he blackmail you? Or seduce you?"

"A little of both."

"For what?" I just want her to say it now. I already think I know. But I want her to admit it out loud. So she has to admit it to herself that what she's done had led to two deaths.

"He wanted information on the shipment's arrival."

"And your husband told you?"

She suddenly changes the conversation. Takes me on as only a woman like her would think would work. "He told you his name was Ben? It wasn't. His name is Kenneth."

I wonder. I wonder if he told me or her the truth on that score? Does it matter? Yeah, it does for some reason, in that moment, as she looks down her perfect and bland nose at me, seeking to challenge my right to know more about this man than she does when it was her he bedded. She wants me to believe she meant enough to him that he told her his real name but lied to me. I realize that I want to believe just the opposite. Women are so silly sometimes.

"So, you wheedled the information from your husband and when did you give it up to your lover?"

"That day before you met him. A few days earlier, I had mentioned my husband was going to be away that weekend. I wanted to spend that time with Kenneth but he wanted details on my husband's itinerary to be sure we would not be ... disturbed. Actually, I thought all his questions about my husband were because it excited him to imagine his adversary. Some men are like that. They like to know who they're cuckolding."

"I wouldn't know."

"In any event, that morning, before he would agree to come away with me ... we couldn't very well spend the weekend at our home, as he wished it to be ... he would not leave with me until I told him exactly where Dale was and when he would be back ... to the minute. I checked Dale's diary. He wrote down his flight schedules so that we were clear on our mutual absences. It made matters ... tidier."

"I bet his employer doesn't know. It's so ..."

"Antiquated? Yes. That's Dale, to a 't' and how good of you to notice."

"So let me guess. You tell Ben or Kenneth, whichever, but it's not until the robbery that you realize why he wanted your husband's flight information? That this was the only reason he was with you?"

"You make it needlessly sordid." She sniffs and looks down at Ben before glancing away, her eyes finally coming to rest on her manicured side garden. "I never would have imagined he was involved in the robbery had it not been for the phone call."

"What phone call?"

"Kenneth called me, later that morning. He instructed me to never remember him. To never reveal our relationship. That he would destroy me ... and would implicate my husband in his dreadful scheme."

"He knew you'd figure it out. You're a smart woman. He knew you better than you realize."

"I would never have said a thing."

"Yes, you would have. And he knew that about you."

Her eyes swing back to mine. "You believe that? That he felt I am a smart woman?"

"Yes. I do. It's why he approached you."

Honestly? I think he thought she was vapid, lazy and conceited. And that this is why he picked her ... because she would not find his attentions suspicious and she would never believe that anyone would use her for anything other than entrée into her world of country clubs and private wealth.

"Interesting." She smiles, rises, smoothes at a nonexistent fly-away piece of hair.

"Why is that interesting?" I say, also rising, figuring this interview has reached its end.

"He called me on my cell phone," she says, reaching to pick it up, where it lies on a dainty Queen Anne desk.

"It can't be," I whisper. Damn, she's cleverer than I thought. "On the cell?"

I should have thought about that. I wonder if Ben underestimated her as much as I did?

I dream about him that night.

About his mouth.

About where he puts it when I stand before him, naked and drenched in sweat. I do not know why I walk around naked in front of him when he is wearing jeans and one of those fancy cowboy shirts with the pearl buttons like they had in the 70s.

But in my dream, what I remember of it, I am naked and sweating. He puts his mouth between my thighs and I rock up, thrusting myself against his tongue.

When I wake, my hand is in my crotch and I am riding it against the mattress.

I flop on my back, shove my hair aside, and stare at the ceiling fan, waiting on it to cool my fevered skin.

When I am calm, I get up and go into the office. It is still so early that the sun is just beginning to nudge the horizon. But I am grateful to be alone.

I play the recording again ... and again. Five times. I pretend I am taking notes. I pretend this is about listening for what I've missed. But I can only hear the cadences of his voice.

"Ben?" I asked when he answered, probably wondering about this number in his cell phone's caller ID window.

"Who am I speaking with?"

I would know his voice anywhere. Anywhere.

"A friend. You may call me Chase as in the bank."

I had to keep him on the line until we had his signal triangulated. I was going to do what I could to make that happen. I wanted Chad and Mike to help me with this but I could not tell them how I came by the number and they were still thinking I'm having some kind of crazy spell, trying to stubbornly pursue this angle just to prove I'm right. The FBI, similarly, refused to help because they believe as Chad and Mike do. So it was only me and Stewart and an outfit we've used for this sort of thing. Not quite as all powerful as the FBI's system, but usually good enough.

"You have a lovely voice, Chase. I could listen to it forever ... but I am just on my way out."

"They're closing in on you, Ben. They traced one of your drivers," I lied, listening for the sound of him gaining more interest in talking to me.

I hear nothing but the sound of his even breathing.

"One of my drivers?"

"Yes."

"Which one?"

"The one who is even right now worried about what you'll do to him."

"Why are you warning me, my friend Chase? Have I done something memorable enough for you that you would feel so beholden to me on such a personal level?"

"Perhaps. Or perhaps I simply have a financial interest in this myself. And want you to not be caught. Would you like to know more, Ben? I can help you."

"I would love to continue this discussion ... but, lovely Chase? Do not think me the fool."

And this is when the recording stops. No, I take that back ... the recording picks up my intake of breath at the sound of silence on his end when he disconnects.

I close my eyes and lean back in my chair. I remember what came next ... Stewart throwing the stopwatch on the floor and howling an obscenity in frustration. The technician saying it was nowhere near two minutes, that we essentially know nothing except the cell phone was bought in Tuscon, Arizona. Which we knew already just from looking at the area code.

And me taking a moment to blink my eyes, force away the aural stimulus of his silky voice's intimate cadences ... and then I cursed and threw the cell phone I was holding against the far wall, watching it bounce and break ... and that was okay because it was a throw-away line we bought just for this call.

We don't want Ben to be able to trace us. We'd activated the phone with a northern California area code. We wanted Ben to feel it was too much effort to trace the phone. We had placed all our eggs in this one basket ... in the phone call. Because we knew Ben was too smart, had to be too smart, to have left that number on Pauline's cell unless it could not be traced to who he really was.

But if we'd been able to trace him? Get a GPS on his whereabouts? That we could have done something with. That could have given us some starting point on the investigation.

We do not carry guns, Stewart and I, because we don't go arresting the bad guys. But we are solid investigators, good at tracking them, good at tripping them up, good at setting all the evidence up for an arrest and conviction. We have a good solve rate. We are good at helping clients have the right security and we are good at figuring out how their security is breached when it happens because it does happen ... because criminals spend their time and focus all their energy on getting around any security measure there is. Two steps forward, one back.

Not that we don't have security forces who can accompany us in the field if we feel we may be entering something too dangerous for an unarmed person, but usually we are working with law enforcement and they are only too happy to follow up on a lead we generate. Except this time ... they don't trust this lead.

I still have not proven to them that Ben, even if he exists, is the same man who led the team that robbed the armored car and killed two men.

"We have nothing," Stewart says.

I have not heard him come in. "You're in early."

"You knew I would be."

"Of course."

We both hate being bested. Now we are both determined to find Ben and his gang.

The rest of the day is devoted to dead ends and bad ideas. Our only links were Pauline, the art gallery, the hotel where she said she met him for drinks one night. No helpful information came from any of them. We don't even waste our time on the phone Ben was using because we know it will lead nowhere to know the bogus name under which he opened the account.

That night, I sip bourbon on the rocks and try to imagine what my father would have done in this case. He drank bourbon and when I try to channel him, I drink it, too. My father would have said, it dawns on me some time later, that no one travels in a pack of ten or twelve men without being noticed. So this is the new thing I play with. How did they travel without that group being noticed? How long had they been in Memphis, plotting this, waiting on the next delivery, getting the cars, figuring out a weak link to get information on precisely when the plane landed so they'd know when the car would be leaving for the bank, and the route they'd take, all those details? It wasn't like they could just stake out that bank without being caught while they waited, day after day, hour after hour, for the one transport they wanted to hit to arrive ... banks aren't that dumb.

Tomorrow, I think as I drift to sleep on the couch, I will brainstorm with Stewart on how we can use that to find them ... how we can find the group in order to find the individuals. I've let us focus too hard on only Ben.

And maybe another visit to Chad, just to see where their investigation is going?

My eyes are shut, my brain is drifting ... the phone rings. The one in the study. On the desk across the room. I roll off the couch and pick it up by the third ring.

"Is that Grace?" says his voice when I answer.

I look down at the caller ID. No number is showing. Damn.

"Hello, Ben," I answer as there is no reason to be coy. "I wondered when you'd call."

He chuckles. It is rich, warm, sensuous. "One good turn deserves another, don't you believe?"

"Sure. Are you calling to give yourself up? I promise they'll go easier on you if you do."

"Grace ... or should I say Chase? No, I prefer Grace."

"As you wish."

"My good turn is in return for your warning me that I had made a mistake."

"A mistake? Really?"

"She says you saw us together. At the lodge," he says, his voice now slippery and my heart beats wildly. "In return for your warning me that she was a liability, I am prepared to make you an offer."

How had he figured out that I'd gotten his number from Pauline? He must have backtracked everything he'd done, every number he'd called, every contact he'd made. And ... oh god ... Pauline. Was she all right? Had he hurt her? Or had he threatened her and she'd caved? Gave me up pretty fast, I bet, to stoke the illusion it would keep him from hurting her.

So he knows where I live. Where I work.

Not good.

Where's my cell phone? I need to call 911 ... have someone over here ... no need for chances with a man who kills with no drama.

"Grace? Are you still there, pretty one?"

"I'm here."

"You're the woman in the sarong. The one who was not wearing a bra. Who danced with the boys but not with me."

"What is it you want, Ben? Or is it Kenneth?"

"It's Ben. Why would I not tell you my real name?"

So, he told me his real name? Interesting. Or he's manipulating me again.

My cell phone is on the kitchen counter. I touch it as if it is gold.

"Grace, do you know why I am calling you at this hour?"

"To shake me up. To prove to me you do not want to be found. To warn me off. To threaten me. That sort of thing?"

"I want to negotiate your silence, Grace. I would never threaten you. That's not the sort of man I am."

"That's not what I've been told, Ben. And besides, you kill people. You don't negotiate," I say as I punch in '911' on the cell phone and wait for it to be answered. When it is, I say quite clearly my address and that I've reason to believe a burglar is trying to break into the condo. I want Ben to hear that I've called in for help.

I don't want him to think I'm capable of being played by that voice of his.

As the operator tells me to hold on, a car's on the way ... I hear Ben in my other ear as he sighs in response. And then he says, "That was not a wise move, Grace."