Excerpt, Absolute Truth
"It's a girl," he said with a creepy grin. "I hope she's your daughter, 'cause, you know, she's kind of young."
True. She was young. It was Izzy. I was too shocked for a proper greeting.
"You followed me? "
"I told you I had friends here," she said.
"Like Josef Laird? You warned him that I was coming?"
"I told him—it wasn't a warning. More like an alert, so you'd know somebody. That's why I wanted to come with you."
"And here you are. The hotel clerk thinks you're my girlfriend pretending to be my daughter."
"He said that?"
"He didn't have to. The wink gave it away."
"Yeah," she said. "I might have mentioned that when I checked in. I thought I said granddaughter—he may have misunderstood."
"Or he's living out some warped fantasy. Why are you here? And why did you alert Josef Laird?"
"I don't trust him. But if you started nosing around and he got wind of it, he might very well respond–you know–negatively. Feel like breakfast? I'm famished."
"So all is forgiven because there's a paper-thin chance you did me some good?"
"I don't need forgiveness—I took a plane ride to see the bears. How about eating?"
"I wasn't planning to, as you put it, nose around. I was planning to get in here and out just as fast."
"Not possible until tomorrow. I checked. I told you—I know people Remember? If you had taken me along, we could have avoided all this unpleasantness."
"I don't find you unpleasant. I find you deceiving and conniving."
"Guilty. But you still have to eat. How about it?"
"How much is that going to cost me?"
"I know the right places. Good food and good prices. Come on, I'm buying."
"That's right; money means nothing to you."
"Now you're catching on. Come on."