Last Lie Read Online Free PDF Page B

I don't wear one. Had I checked the time on my phone? I didn't, but it would have been convenient. At the moment when the big van came barreling out of the blackness I was staring at the phone rereading one of the day's e-mails. I dropped the phone--actually what I did was more akin to launching it--as I leapt out of the way of the blunt front fender.
    The time of the caterers' exit didn't seem important to me right then. Not even remotely. What seemed paramount to me was the safety of my dogs.
    Emily, a getting-on-in-years Bouvier des Flandres as black as a new-moon night and a protector as relentless as white water, was nearby, somewhere within a four- or five-acre perimeter, methodically conducting her last patrol of the day on the hillsides that rise gently on the southeastern rim of the Boulder Valley. Emily was the unofficial sheriff of Spanish Hills. Leashing her while she was running her beat was no longer even a consideration for me. A lifetime of responsible service and unwavering friendship had earned her the privilege of making the nightly rounds of her protectorate not only solo, but also untethered.
    The alternative would have been an insult to her.
    Only minutes earlier, Emily had been first out the door of our home. She always was. Her initial stop had been directly across the lane at the house that I'd probably always think of as Adrienne and Peter's. They had been my longtime friends. Each had died a violent death, their passings separated by many years. In the months since Adrienne's more recent death in a bombing at a Mediterranean resort in Israel, the house and its nearby barn had been vacant.
    Even though I had told myself I would never adjust to her absence, the dogs and I had slowly grown accustomed to the quiet that had begun to shroud our life at the end of the lane.
    But the house had recently been sold, and the new owners had begun what promised to be an extended process of moving in. That night they were throwing some kind of celebration to introduce their old friends to their new digs in Spanish Hills.
    Given the extended inactivity at the property prior to the sale, I wasn't at all surprised that the sudden presence of a couple dozen vehicles near the long-deserted farmhouse would warrant some of Emily's attention. From the moment the new owners' moving truck had arrived to begin the moving-in process a couple of weeks before, it was apparent to me that Emily wasn't entirely pleased at the increase in commotion in our quiet corner of Colorado paradise. I was thinking that the fact that our new neighbors were so clearly not dog people had something to do with Emily's disappointment, too.
    Mattin Snow, the male half of the new couple, had introduced himself to me only a week or so before, the evening after a big truck had arrived to deliver an initial fraction of their stuff. Before Mattin found me outside with the dogs that day, I had already knocked on the door a couple of times to formally introduce myself, but neither of those attempts to meet the neighbors had been successful.
    The introduction, when it finally occurred, seemed solely intended to provide an opportunity for Mr. Snow to inquire if it was my habit to allow my dog to run free. He meant Emily, the big Bouvier.
    He'd said, "Hello, Matt Snow." At that juncture he did not, I should note, allow a pause for me to insert my name. I offered my hand. He didn't offer his. A quick glance revealed his right hand was absent the ring finger. Burn scars raked the top of his hand, disappearing under the french cuff of his shirt. "You allow that big dog to run . . . wherever it wants?"
    I thought my new neighbor had said Matt. But he may have said Mattin and swallowed the final syllable. I also thought I heard a British Empire accent playing in his speech in a minor chord. I couldn't quite place it, but when faced with empire accents, I inevitably embarrass myself guessing the country of origin.
    I'd forced a smile and said, "I'm Alan Gregory. We