Chapter Seven

The least the woman could do was sprout moles and warts and zits all over her face, and get haggard and wrinkled. Griff was a big believer that a person’s outer appearance was a reflection of their inner beauty and kindness, that a person’s nasty inner persona was clearly visible on their face and body. So, by that logic, Claire Worthington should have been one seriously ugly woman. The fact that she wasn’t felt unfair and deeply wrong, and Griff decided to just go right on ahead and take that personally.

Yeah, this one was personal to him and the sooner he admitted that, the better. Sure, Wilbur had scammed other rich people and large businesses out of their money, but he hadn’t ignored or overlooked the average Joe and Jane at all. People like Leeza’s Dad, people like Griff’s parents – hell, people like Griff – had been in his crosshairs too. And boy, had he taken aim and fired.

Direct hits, man. Way, way too many of them.

“OK, so.” Leeza’s voice trembled slightly, and the men focused their attention back on her. “What do we do now? I mean, what’s the plan?”

Dallas smiled at her. “You don’t do anything, Leeza. You’ve done your part.”

“Oh.” She twisted her fingers together. “And Griff?”

“Griff gets close to Claire,” Dallas said brusquely. “Gets her talking.”

“Yeah, I don’t really get this part,” she said. “Are you really expecting her to just start talking to Griff about her billions stashed away in the Cayman Islands?”

“Nope,” Dallas said. “But I do expect her to be lonely and vulnerable and off-balance. She’s not anywhere near her home turf and she’s way out of her comfort zone, after all. I also expect that if a big, strapping guy starts to give her some flirty attention, she’ll respond, so long as it’s not over-the-top or questionable.”

“Questionable?” Leeza said.

“Right,” Dallas said. “She’s gonna be on the alert for journalists and for people looking to track her down. But if Griff stumbles across her path in a way that’s totally natural and non-threatening, then she’ll have no reason to suspect him.”

“And – what?” Leeza asked, waving her hands around. “Griff talks to her? Gets to know her? Asks her out?”

“Yep, yep, and yep,” Dallas said. “Gets her to relax and lower her guard, carefully gathers intel. Asks lots of questions, catches her in lies, gets her to reveal more than she wants.”

“How?”

“Oh, like talking about dream places to go on vacation,” Dallas said. “Or what she’d do if she won the lottery. Or asking about her childhood, see if any names appear of friends that she’s still in touch with, maybe people that she’d trust into her life now. People we can talk to.”

Leeza stared at Griff. “And… you can do this? You can pretend to be interested in and like a woman who’s done what she’s done? Flirt with her, maybe kiss her? Be like a – a male honeypot? You can act that well?”

“I can.” Griff grinned at her again. “My Oscar’s in the mail, actually.”

Startled, Leeza laughed.

“Listen, don’t worry about me,” Griff said. “I’ve done this kind of thing before, and one of the reasons that Dallas has me going in, and not himself or Solid Security’s second-in-command Mark Hayden, is because I can put on the mask pretty damn easy. Claire Worthington is a job, Leeza, but more than that, she’s a woman who knows where lots of money is, money that she’s planning to live off in luxury soon enough. Money that doesn’t belong to her and money that she has no right to whatsoever. I’ll pretend to be anything at all, if it means getting her to tell me where that money is… even if she has no idea that she’s doing it.”

“And then?” Leeza asked. “Once you think you know something?”