Look Closer by David Ellis

Author:David Ellis [Ellis, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2022-07-05T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

—

Vicky will be back in about five hours. I need to figure out a plan between now and then.

I dial my phone. Gavin answers on the second ring.

“I’m coming to you,” I say. “I need your brain.”

56

Christian

Gavin is quiet, eyes closed, sitting on the bench in Wrightwood Park, his hands together as if in prayer.

We’ve gone over this for the last three hours, starting with lunch, then beers, now walking around the park near his condo in Lincoln Park. I had to violate our vow not to share names, that wall we put up to keep our scams from each other. He’s only known Vicky as “Number 7” and Simon as “Number 7’s husband,” but running through all my options now with this new development, it was just too hard to keep using titles, especially with a third person—“Number 7’s husband’s mistress”—entering the equation.

So now Gavin knows the names Vicky Lanier, Simon Dobias, and Lauren Betancourt.

Finally, Gavin opens his eyes, spreads his hands, and says, “I can’t think of another option.”

“Jesus, really?” But I can’t think of another one, either.

“You tell me, Nick,” says Gavin. “You’re the one in the middle of it. I hardly know a thing about any of these people.”

Truth is, I don’t, either. “I know Vicky,” I say. “Vicky, I get. No problem.”

“And what about this Lauren?”

I shrug. “I barely knew she existed until today. Vicky mentioned once or twice that Simon had a serious girlfriend who broke his heart or whatever when he was young. But reading that diary of Simon’s, I mean—Lauren’s me. She’s a female version of me. She has her eye on that pot of money and she’s not gonna let anybody get in the way. She’s doing to Simon what I’m doing to Vicky.”

“Okay. Fine. What about Simon?”

“Yeah, that’s trickier,” I say. “Most of what I know about Simon, I got from Vicky. But now I’ve read his diary, too, and it pretty much confirms what she says about him.”

“Which is?”

“Brainy in that useless, academic way,” I say. “Kinda guy who could recite the freakin’ quadratic equation or something from memory but wouldn’t know how to operate a can opener.”

Gavin likes that one, nods along.

“He lets himself get led around by women, that’s for sure,” I say. “Falls head over heels in love, that kind of thing. He recognizes he’s in a bad marriage, but never did anything about it until Lauren started batting her eyes at him.”

“But it sounds like he can go pretty dark,” says Gavin. “Like the St. Louis thing.”

“That’s the thing. That’s the X factor. The guy holds a grudge, that’s for sure. I mean, he’s all pissed off at his father for years and years and plans out this whole thing to kill him. He drives down to St. Louis during his college finals week, stabs him in the gut, pushes him into a swimming pool, then drives back here and takes his final exam the next morning.”

“That’s pretty cold,” Gavin agrees. “But you know something, that works both ways.

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