That had been Phoenix—hot, flat, red. Friendly people, lots of smiling faces, a definite Southwest hipster vibe. Pop’s “girlfriend” had been a middle-aged accountant that Pop had met via a dating app—Bridget.
What did they want? That was the first thing to find out.
And they will always tell. All you have to do is watch and listen.
Maybe they won’t tell you with their words. They may not even truly know themselves. But they will tell you with the way they wear their hair, how they do their makeup, how they dress. They’ll tell you by their favorite song, book, movie. What they say about their parents, how they hold their bodies, whether they look you in the eye, whether they look at themselves in the mirror when they walk by.
An unmarried woman of a certain age—that was easy. She wanted the fairy tale, the one that had been promised all her life. She wanted that long-awaited prince, the one who made all those frogs worthwhile, if there had been any frogs at all. She ached for romance, attention, the love that made up for all those lonely nights, that closet full of bridesmaid dresses, the Christmases she spent alone. After all that time, she wanted to be able to say, I was just waiting for you.
And Pop was good. He was very, very good at giving women what they wanted.
He was loving, attentive, respectful. A listener. A doer. He was handy, someone who could fix broken things and wanted to. He cooked.
And Anne—or Mary, or Beth, or whoever she was at the time. She was the sweet icing on the cake. The latchkey child raised by her single father. The one looking for a mother, a friend—but old enough to take care of herself. Together they offered the insta-family. This might send a young woman with good prospects running. But not the woman who worried that she missed out on everything—true love, children, grandchildren. For that woman, Anne was part of the prize package.
And she played her role to perfection. Rarely she had to play the role in person; most often it all happened online—email and the occasional FaceTime conversation. She’d be shy at first, slow to warm. Eventually, she’d come around. Start calling Pop’s new lady friend of her own accord—asking for advice on this or that. She’d send a funny text or two. A meme. An adorable cat video.
“You’re a natural,” Pop said. “But don’t overdo it. Don’t reveal too much, don’t give too much. And, whatever you do, don’t fall in love.” She never did, of course. But Anne made sure they fell in love with her.
Then, after the mark—which was a cold word and didn’t convey the whole truth of it—was in love, baited and hooked, just days before they were all supposed to meet for the first time, Anne or Beth or Mary would suddenly fall ill. Usually while she and Pop were away “on vacation” ostensibly in the location, maybe, where they were all to meet. Of course, they were nowhere near that place, nor would they ever be. Or maybe they’d been robbed, Pop’s wallet stolen, his beautiful daughter clinging to life after the attack. The mark rarely hesitated to wire the money he needed. Five thousand, ten thousand, sometimes more. These were short games, usually a couple of months at most.
Once the money had been wired—or if the mark got suspicious, tried to fly in for a rescue—then poof—they disappeared. Online profiles deleted, burner phones discarded, email accounts canceled. Most women would never even report the crime. Shame kept them quiet. These were wealthy, accomplished women. How, they’d ask themselves, could they have been so easily duped?
But Bridget? Anne had sensed that she was not the typical mark—she had an edge, there was a distant coldness. She wasn’t as enamored of Anne as the others had been. Anne said something to Pop about it, but he wasn’t hearing it. She was a big fish, lots of money. But when he tried to reel it in, Bridget didn’t wire the cash. First, she offered to fly in to help. Then she offered to send a lawyer. She called and called Pop’s burner phone. Finally, she sent an email threatening to call the police. Pop had to shut everything down fast—the online profile, the email account, the Skype ID, the phone. Even though there was no way Bridget could know where they physically lived, they left the Phoenix house.
They were miles away, nearly to El Paso, when Pop finally spoke.
“How did you know?”
They were on a dark desert highway, city lights blinking off in the distance, sky rattling with stars. She watched them through the moon roof. They gave her a kind of comfort, reminding her that nothing mattered very much. There was stardust in her bones. Not so long ago, she hadn’t been here at all. One day she’d be gone for good. And she was okay with that.
“I just didn’t get the warm fuzzies. She didn’t have smiley eyes when she looked at me. I think she had trust issues.”
“I didn’t see it,” he said, gripping the wheel.
She’d noticed that his knuckles were raw, that he had a slight bruise on his cheekbone. She knew better than to ask him about it. Sometimes he went out at night, drank too much. He didn’t always remember what happened.
“You can’t win them all,” she said.
It was something Stella used to say. She should know. Anne remembered random things about her mother—the smell of her perfume—Chanel No. 5—the sandpaper of her laughter, how cold her feet and hands always were—how she’d bury her toes under Pearl as they lay on the couch together. Sometimes details like that came back, and she almost felt something then. A tugging at her heart.
“Maybe I’m losing my touch,” said Pop. “They say it happens. Your instincts dull.”
“Maybe you should retire.” It was kind of a dig. She was mad. She’d liked the Phoenix house; she’d made a friend, a boy in the neighborhood.
She thought he’d go dark again. She almost wanted him to; that way she could be mad in quiet.
“Not just yet,” he said. “I’m not ready to retire yet.”
“Can she find us?”
“No,” he said quickly. “No way. We’re ghosts.”
But he didn’t sound entirely sure. And it would turn out that he was wrong.
TWENTY-THREE
Hunter
Hunter Ross entered the diner, the little bell jingling to announce his arrival. Not that anyone would hear it over the din. The waitress at the counter waved to him, then nodded with a knowing smile over toward the rowdy group of older men in the back. Hunter issued a sigh and made his way toward them.
Retirement didn’t appeal to Hunter Ross. In fact, he had actively started to dread his Tuesday morning breakfast group, a bunch of old guys out to pasture from various gritty professions. On any given Tuesday, there might be a cop, a lawyer, a firefighter, an EMT, and an FBI agent. Men who had strongly identified with their work, and who now used all that pent-up energy to complain about the state of the nation and the world.
They were out of shape. They watched too much television. And, frankly, the way they ate—giant chili cheese omelets and piles of hash browns, sides of bacon, thick sausage links, pints of juice, gallons of coffee—made Hunter nervous.
Some Tuesday soon, one of these old guys was just going to stroke out right in front of him. Not if. When.
They called him “son.” Because Hunter was in his late fifties, and they were all pushing seventy. He wasn’t technically retired, because since leaving the job, he’d hung out a shingle and investigated cold cases for families, understaffed police departments, whoever had a case that had run short of leads, time, money, energy. Sometimes he did it for free.