Free Forbidden Dreams by Judy Griffith; Gill Page A

he rushed on before she could object to the term again.
    “If, by some chance, she had heard that Sterling was dead, he’d have laughed and quoted Mark Twain. Your grandmother, unlike me, probably wouldn’t have bothered to check it out by calling the sister, or researching back copies of newspapers for obituaries, or requesting a death certificate from the state registry of births, deaths, and marriages. The innocent never do. But my bet is he knew before he went within ten miles of her that she hadn’t kept in touch with Sterling Graves’s family, that in fact she’d know nothing about the man, or even really remember him, except possibly his name.”
    “Well, there you have it,” Shell said definitively. “If she hadn’t remembered him, she’d have been coolly polite and extricated herself from him at the earliest possible moment. My grandmother is a very wealthy widow. She’s not stupid, Jase.”
    “Would she extricate herself politely? Can you be certain of that? As I said, the man is charming. He makes his living doing what he does. How do you know how your grandmother might respond to that kind of smooth operator? Have you ever seen her under those kinds of circumstances?”
    “You mean, such as on a date?” Shell laughed with little humor. “Of course not. Well, not until recently. My grandmother didn’t date after her husband died. She remained true to his memory for years.”
    She twisted her hands together. “That’s why we were all so pleased when she struck up a friendship with Sterling. He claims to have loved her from afar when they were kids. He’s a bit younger than she is, but Grandma says, at their age, what does that matter? They plan to go on a cruise together right after New Year’s. In separate cabins,” she added, “in case you’re thinking otherwise.”
    “Shell, I’m sure your grandmother’s morals are befitting a lady of her age and background. It’s the morals of the man calling himself Sterling Graves that concern me. Can’t you see? All these years she’s been careful, rebuffed men who tried to get close, and suddenly she’s fallen for someone and is planning on going away with him when she’s known him—what?—two months?”
    Shell worried the sleeve of her red sweater between her finger and thumb, staring down at it as if it had a stain she could rub away. “When you put it like that …” She looked up at him, clearly disturbed. “All right. Tell me more.”
    A trickle of relief ran through Jase. Maybe he was making some progress here. “I believe his name is—or was when he knew my grandmother—Martin Francis. Of course, it could be almost anything. Martin Francis is as unlikely to be the name he was born with as Sterling Graves.”
    “What makes you think the man who bilked your grandmother is Sterling Graves? How did you connect him and Martin Francis?”
    “I’ve been tracking him for nearly a year and a half now, and I think he’s rooked at least twelve other ladies in the past ten years and maybe a much longer time. His M.O. varies as to how he approaches his mark, but when he has, he checks her out in painstaking detail.”
    “How can he do that? As I said, my grandmother doesn’t give out information indiscriminately. She’s a very private person.”
    Jase nodded. He’d already learned that himself. “My suspect’s a computer whiz. One of the few geriatric hackers in the world. He’s broken into more data bases than you’d even suspect exist. He uses tax records, vital statistics, bank and credit card data, everything he can access—legally or illegally—from the all-too-massive amount of information that’s been compiled on each one of us, whether we try to keep our lives private or not.
    “He ascertains that his victim is a widow. He already knows she’s wealthy, or she wouldn’t be living in such a place. He discovers her maiden name, where she was raised, what schools she attended, and who her friends were. And,” he added