Free Forbidden Dreams by Judy Griffith; Gill Page B

after a significant pause, “who her friends were not.”
    Shell felt cold. Sterling Graves was, indeed, a “computer whiz.” In only a few hours he had reprogrammed her entire stock-control system for her by modem, making it incredibly easy to use. But did that make him a “geriatric hacker”? Weren’t hackers teenage nerds with fantastic IQs and no conscience?
    “So you see,” Jase went on, “if Sterling Graves and his sister were acquaintances of your grandmother’s, but not friends, then he’d be fairly safe in assuming the Graves persona.”
    Shell blinked slowly as she assimilated what he’d said. Unwillingly, she had to admit he was making sense. “Yes,” she said finally. “I see how it would be possible for him to wriggle into Grandma’s confidence using a trick—like that, and of course you’re right. She probably wouldn’t think to check him out. Why would she, since she already knew him, even if it was a long time ago?”
    She chewed on her lip for a moment. “And you think he’s been doing this for years? Why hasn’t he been caught?”
    “Mainly because he’s careful whom he chooses as his mar—his prey. A con-man’s victims seldom complain. They’re ashamed to let anyone, most of all their families, know how stupid they believe they’ve been and how much money they’ve lost. What they don’t understand is that stupidity was not their problem. Love was, and trust, and quite likely a deep need to assuage their loneliness.”
    Shell swallowed hard, thinking of how often her grandmother begged her to come and spend more time with her, either in her Vancouver apartment or her Palm Springs condo. “You’re my only granddaughter,” she would say. “You have competent help in your bookstore. Take more time off. I wish you wouldn’t spend so much time buried up there in the woods. After all, your mother has Kathleen.”
    Had her insistence on “burying” herself contributed to her grandmother’s loneliness? Had that helped set her up for a man like the one Jase described?
    “He’s also careful not to leave any pictures of himself behind,” Jase said. “He dislikes having his photograph taken, managing to turn away at the crucial moment. Before he leaves, he lifts any pictures that might have been taken despite his precautions.”
    Shell remembered how Sterling had sneezed when she’d taken a photograph of him and her grandmother beside the pool. He’d whipped out a large white handkerchief that hid most of his face, then accidentally knocked her camera into the water before she could try to take another. He’d apologized, of course, and bought her a new, and much better, digital camera despite her protests that he didn’t need to. But he’d ordered it from an online source and had it delivered to her home address so she wouldn’t have to pay duties, as he’d said with a conspiratorial wink. She’d returned home the next day without photographs of her week in Palm Springs.
    “How did you find all this out?” she asked Jase.
    “I’d been away while my grandmother was seeing him,” he said, “so I never met him. But when I got back and up to Boston to surprise her with a visit, I was appalled at the way she was living. Patches on the walls where valuable pieces of artwork had hung, missing antiques but even more worrisome, the lack of household help. She’d let them all go, had closed off all but the kitchen and the maid’s room, where she was sleeping herself. She tried to make light of it, saying she had no need for fancy trappings and that the upkeep of a huge old barn of a place was a needless expense. I refused to buy it, and she finally admitted what had happened. She was so ashamed, so heartbroken, and felt so betrayed, she had to talk to someone.” He shrugged and watched his thumb nail track along the edge of the table. “And she knew I’d understand.”
    Shell felt a heaviness in her chest. Jase O’Keefe understood betrayal. And heartbreak? And shame?