Read The Lie for Free Online Page B

might have known he was the killer?”
    “After eighteen years? At best, I’d have to dig back, check our data base, and get lucky.”
    “Would you please do me that favor?”
    Cortlandt was silent.
    “It’s important to me,” said the artist.
    “You’re really stretching on this one, Paulie.”
    “I know. But what else have I got?”
    Paulie was no stranger to threat, mystery, and violent death. He had been just past his eighth birthday when one of his mother’s
     youthful, premarital involvements came near to ending her life as well as his. The only reason he was alive today was that
     he himself had drawn a hidden gun and shot their intended killer.
    Now he was nearly twenty-seven years old. He had stopped pretending a long time ago that the darker sides of life were unknown
     to him, or that he loved most of what he had witnessed. Lieutenant Spadero had caught it very quickly. He was his father’s
     son, and his father had passed on a key part of his inheritance: the knowledge that life held more grimness and cruelty than
     one could ever find reason for or understand.
    His father had been an American of Sicilian lineage who was born and had lived the first half of his life as Vittorio Battaglia,
     which means “victory battle.”
    Imagine having to live up to a name like that.
    Still, his father had earned a reputation as the top Mafia enforcer in New York. No women and children, thank you. He had
     run off with his only assigned female target, changed their names and appearances, and settled down to new lives in Positano.
    Like father, like son.
    How naturally Paulie had fallen into it. Some bloodspell had to be there. First, of course, he was an artist, having done
     his early suckling on his father’s own talent. Then he followed his father once more by going undercover for Tommy Cortlandt
     and the Company. Always partly lost in his own private kaleidoscope of death, he could never quite forget the man he had shot
     when he was eight.

Chapter 6
    K ATE D INNESON DROVE SLOWLY past the house where Peter and Peggy Walters had lived and died, and where their son was still in temporary residence. Three
     cars were parked in front but she knew they all belonged there.
    When the road ended in a cul-de-sac, Kate drove back and parked beside the other cars. She sat there for a while, gazing off
     at the early sun sparkling on the sea.
    Carrying a briefcase, she climbed through the rock garden to the house and rang the bell.
    A moment later Paulie Walters opened the door and looked at her. He remembered her eyes lighting his face across his parents’
     open graves and remembered being touched. What he did not remember was that she was this beautiful.
    “Good morning,” she said in classic Roman Italian. “My name is Kate Dinneson. We’ve never met but I knew your mother and father.
     Please accept my heartfelt condolence. If this is a bad time…”
    “No, no. Please come in.”
    Paulie led her into his father’s studio, where an entire wall was floor-to-ceiling glass and the light was steady and clear.
     She was younger than he had thought, with a softness to her flesh and a vulnerability that time had not yet been able to cover.
    Paulie seated her with as much care as he would have given to posing a model. He placed her with the light coming in at a
     good angle, flooding her hair and shoulders andspilling down over her breasts, which were small, high, and elegantly formed.
    When he was satisfied by what he saw, he backed into a facing chair, sat down, and waited.
    “I’ve been in this room before,” she said. “It’s probably my all-time favorite.”
    “Mine too.”
    Kate sat very straight, hands folded primly in her lap. “Did your mother and father ever mention my name?”
    “No.”
    “It’s hard to know where to begin,” Kate said. “Unless I just say I’m a writer and start from there.”
    “What do you write?”
    “Feature stories. Mostly for the Continental News Service. I was just