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“That’s not exactly true.”
“Excuse me?”
“You have excellent credit.”
“How did that happen?”
“You’ve got a VISA and a MasterCard in your wallet.”
“You gave me those cards. I’m like a guest on your accounts.”
“Yeah. I did tell you that.”
“You took out credit cards in my name?”
“In both our names. And I make sure we always pay on time.”
“That’s kind of illegal.”
I was about to get really angry, but then I stopped myself. He’d lied to me, tricked me even, possibly even committed fraud—but then I’d done those things to him. Many times. He knew I lied to him and somehow that gave him permission to do the same, didn’t it?
I should have known he was lying to me about the credit cards. Or at least it should have occurred to me as a possibility. I mean, if someone hands you a credit card with your name on it, you should ask a few more questions than I had.
“You know I don’t want my name on a deed, right?”
“I know you’ve said that. You’ve never said why exactly.”
“A deed is a public record. Anyone can look up who owns what property.”
He glared at me for a long moment. He’d known me long enough to figure out why I didn’t want my name on a deed—even my fake name. I didn’t want to risk being found. He also knew that whoever was trying to find me was someone I wouldn’t talk about.
What he didn’t know was that there was literally someone floating around town looking for me. I didn’t think he had the name Dominick Reilly, so he wouldn’t have searched public records, but he might have the name soon.
Ronnie had stopped glaring at me and was staring at the floor. We’d reached the outer boundary of our relationship, where all the risk resided. We could cross the boundary and who knows what might happen or we could stay where we’d been for years, safe and ignorant.
“When do you want to put in an offer?” I asked.
13
April 10, 1996
Wednesday morning
Iwas up early the next morning after having not slept well. The entire night my mind had been spinning. Anne Whittemore had married Paulie. That didn’t make sense. He married her after she testified that she was his brother’s fiancé. What was that courtship like? He couldn’t have beenthatgrateful she’d testified against Larry, right? And why hadn’t Larry told me about this? He had to have known they’d gotten married.
And who was the woman I’d seen coming out of the Michaels’ house? Was that Paulie’s new woman? Was she the reason he and Anne divorced? An affair resulting in pregnancy is a solid reason to get divorced.
The other name that had my mind spinning was Hamlet Gilbody. Was I being stupid? Should I be long gone by now? I was settled. I’d put down roots. I should never have done that.
I tried to tell myself the fact that someone was in Long Beach asking about bartenders didn’t mean much of anything. There were a lot of bartenders in Long Beach. There wasn’t any reason to think he’d figure out which one used to be Nick Nowak.
“What’s wrong?” Ronnie asked when I fully woke up.
“Nothing.”
“You were clingy. All night. You’re never clingy.”
“I can’t hug my boyfriend?”
