Sweet Liar Read online

  “I wish I knew what my grandmother liked to eat,” she said. “I wish I could take her…chocolate cake or something like that, whatever she really likes, something that’s bad for her, something that I was sure that insufferable place wouldn’t give her to eat.”

  Putting his hands on her shoulders, Mike looked into her eyes. “Can I say anything to make you stay away? What if I told you that whoever tried to kill you might still be watching you and you might lead them to Maxie? I don’t think that woman’s body is strong enough to withstand an attack such as you had.”

  Samantha had thought of that and had weighed the possibilities. “How long do you think she has?”

  Mike wasn’t going to lie to her. “When I first contacted her, the doctor told me she had three months left, tops.”

  Samantha took a deep breath. “If you were she and you had had no one for many years, and now you had a chance to spend a few weeks with someone you love, would you risk it?”

  He wanted to point out that just because Maxie had left her family in Louisville twenty-seven years before didn’t mean that she had necessarily been alone since then, but he didn’t say that. In fact, remembering Maxie in that loathsome place, he wondered if maybe Sam wasn’t right and Maxie had been alone all those years. She may have run away because she was afraid of being discovered, so it wouldn’t have made sense for her to leave one place and become a social whirl and therefore highly visible elsewhere.

  “Any pictures of you naked mixed in with those photos?”

  Laughing, she moved away from him. “On a fuzzy rug when I was eight months old,” she said.

  “How about eighteen years old? Young, nubile—”

  “What does that mean? That I’m not young now?”

  Mike shrugged. “Young body, old mind. Hey! you think Maxie would like caviar? We could stop at the Russian Tea Room and get blinis.”

  Samantha was still thinking about his “young body, old mind” comment. “I would imagine she would love caviar, at least it sounds good anyway. I just hope the home doesn’t give us too hard a time.”

  When what he hoped was an inspired idea occurred to Mike, his face lit up. “You leave the home to me. I’ll see that they let her eat whatever she wants and that she’s treated very well from now on.”

  22

  It was almost six o’clock when they arrived at the nursing home. Samantha was wearing her red Valentino suit and Manolo Blahnik high heels and carrying a red Chanel bag. Now that she knew how much her clothing cost, she was almost afraid to wear it and she dreaded getting into one of those filthy New York cabs. So she asked Mike if he was maybe, hopefully, going to hire a private car again, but he told her that no, he wasn’t.

  Because of his answer, she was not prepared for the long black limousine that pulled up in front of the town house. Her mouth was still hanging open in astonishment when the uniformed chauffeur got out and she saw that he was Mike’s cousin, Raine.

  “Good evening, Miss Elliot,” Raine said politely, tipping his cap to her.

  “Get the blinis?” Mike asked, his arm around Samantha’s waist so tight you would have thought Raine was a pirate trying to kidnap her.

  “Yes, sir!” Raine said smartly, clicking his heels together, then preceded them down the stairs and opened the back door for them.

  “You’re sure you know how to drive this thing?” Mike asked his cousin, obviously doubting his ability to do so. “Frank will kill both of us if you so much as scratch it.”

  “Who’s Frank?” Samantha asked as they got inside.

  “My oldest brother.”

  Once inside the car, Samantha tried her best to sit very still and behave herself, for she was sure that women who wore designer clothes were used to stretch limos and didn’t crawl all over them exploring, but Mike laughed at her. “Go on. Frank won’t mind.”

  She opened little doors, looked in cabinets, and turned the TV on and off, then Mike sent a fax to Colorado and received one from his grandfather that said, “Michael, my boy, when are we going to meet your Samantha?”

  Wide-eyed, Sam looked at Mike for an explanation as to what his family knew about her, but Mike just shrugged in reply.

  After a while she settled back in the seat and thoughtfully looked at Raine so skillfully driving the car. She felt that she was beginning to know Mike and to understand a little about the way his family functioned. “If he’s doing this for you, what are you going to do for him?”

  “Looking over his portfolio.”

  “His investment portfolio? Why would he want you to do that for him?” She wanted to know more about Mike, for she was finding out that he was good at giving away very little about himself.

  “Because none of the Montgomerys knows anything about math.” Begrudgingly, he said, “They’re okay with words but not with numbers.”

  “You still haven’t answered my question: Why does he want you to look at his portfolio?”

  “Because I’m good at it, that’s why,” he answered, and Sam knew that that wasn’t really an answer at all.

  When they arrived at the nursing home, Mike wouldn’t allow her to get out, but made her sit in the car for ten minutes. “I want every one of them to see us,” he said, looking out the dark tinted windows through which no one could see at the faces that were peering out at them from the windows of the home.

  After a long while, Raine opened the door for them and Samantha, moving as regally as she felt alighting from such a car, walked ahead of the two men. Mike was wearing his beautiful Italian suit, and Raine, in his chauffeur’s uniform, his arms laden, looked like a bored rich girl’s dream-come-true. By the time they reached the desk, every mobile person in the nursing home had crowded into the hall to see them. Four women and two men were attached to stands with bottles hanging from them, and one woman was in a wheeled bed pushed by two other women.

  With Samantha’s arm tucked firmly in his, Mike stopped in front of the plastic-laminated counter and looked at the shapeless nurse behind it. She was obviously the person in charge; she looked so “in charge” that the words may as well have been written across her forehead.

  “We’re here to see Her Royal—” Mike began, then when he saw Samantha’s shocked face, he patted her arm. “I’m sorry, my dear, I know I keep forgetting that she doesn’t want anyone to know the truth. What name is she using now?”

  Samantha blinked at him.

  “Abby?” Mike asked. “Is that the name Her Royal—Oops! I was about to do it again. The princess will never forgive me if I reveal her secret.” Leaning across the counter, he gave the ugly nurse a look of such lasciviousness that Samantha wanted to hit him. “But I’m sure that you already know all about…ah, Abby, don’t you?”

  The woman blushed like a girl, but it lost something in effect since all the blood rushing to her face made the hairs on her chin stand upright. “O’ course. We know about the…the princess.”

  “And you’re taking good care of her, aren’t you? Not that you need to curtsy, she hates all that fuss. When one has a childhood of nurses and nannies curtsying to one, it makes one come to hate such formalities. You understand, don’t you? But—”

  “Whatever happened to the sapphire bracelet she gave her last nurse?” Samantha asked. Two could play this game. “Remember that nurse who was so nice to her?” Leaning over the counter, she smiled at the nurse in conspiracy, as though what she was saying was just between the two of them, but when Sam spoke she was loud enough to be heard to the far end of the corridor. “Her generosity is going to be the death of this family. If she tries to give any of her jewelry to the staff, would you please report it to us?”

  “W-why, yes, of course I will,” the nurse answered.

  “Now, may we see her?” Mike asked. “Undisturbed?”

  “Yes, certainly. Right away. Move it!” she snapped at a man in a wheelchair.

  With all the expertise of an experienced doorman, the nurse opened the door to Maxie/Abby’s room and closed it behind th