Page 30 of Clever Deceit

Lily paused for a moment, looking out the window.

“There’s something I didn’t tell you, actually,” she admitted quietly after a moment. My heart skipped a beat, and I glanced over at her.

“What’s up, Lil? You know you can tell me anything.”

She chewed her lip.

“You remember when you were out for a walk with my mom and Silver a couple of days after the fire?”

I nodded. When we had gotten back from that walk, something had been off about her, and I hadn’t been able to put my finger on it. I’d dismissed it as stress left over from the attack, but maybe there had been something more to it, after all.

“I got a visitor,” she explained.

“You did?”

“Someone from the fire department” she continued. “He gave me his card. He was asking about...asking if I’d seen anything on the night of the fire, you know?”

I gripped the wheel a little tighter.

“And did you tell him anything?”

She shook her head. A wave of relief passed over me. I should never have doubted her. She was smart when it came to all of this; she knew how to handle herself, how to make sure she didn’t give away anything she didn’t want to.

“I wasn’t sure if he might have been working for Tony and his father,” she admitted. “So I just played dumb. Told him I didn’t see anything.”

“Do you think he believed you?”

“I don’t,” she confessed. “The way he was talking to me, it was almost like he...like he knew that Tony had something to do with this, and he wanted to get to the bottom of it. He was pressing me for more, to give him a name of someone who I might have seen there, but I just didn’t feel comfortable saying anything to him, especially not without you there.”

“You made the right call,” I assured her. “We can’t go spilling everything we know just like that. It’s way too dangerous.”

“Exactly,” she agreed. “But maybe...maybe there are more people on our side than we thought. And maybe he’s one of them.”

I paused as I considered it. It would have made a huge difference if we could really have people on our side in all of this. I had been operating under military rules, sure that anyone I didn’t know for certain was an ally was out to get us, but maybe I needed to drop that and focus on what was right in front of me—that we weren’t the only ones who had an issue with Tony and his father. They had been causing chaos in this town for a long time now, and I doubted it had gone completely unnoticed.

“You still have his card?” I asked, and she nodded.

“We should give him a call.”

“Yeah, maybe,” she replied. “I’m still not totally sure about him. I’d like confirmation he’s on our side before we tell him anything else.”

I grimaced but nodded. She was right. We couldn’t be too quick to trust anyone.

“We’ll wait and see what he does next,” I suggested.

“Yeah, let’s play it by ear,” she agreed. “He’ll show his hand if he’s really on our side with all of this.”

We drove the rest of the way home, talking about Rocco and Frank, wondering who else out there in this town had an issue with the McCarthy family.

“I know I can’t be the only woman he’s done this to,” she pointed out. “We know about Madison, but there have to be more of us out there. A guy like that, he doesn’t just get his fill and then stop. He’s addicted to treating women this way.”

“You’re right,” I agreed. “It might be tough getting them to come forward, though. They might still be scared of him.”

“Strength in numbers,” she pointed out. “The more of us who go up against him, the harder it’s going to be for him to refute all of us.”

I smiled.

“What is it?” she asked, frowning in confusion.