Jamie found he had to make a conscious effort getting to know Liz. Listening turned out to be a lot harder than he'd expected. He'd always thought he'd been listening before. In one ear and out the other was the reality. At a subconscious level, which is what most people do. It's why wives had to tell their husbands the same thing several times. Then ask them to repeat it. Only for the man to forget it immediately. People only really listened to what they wanted to hear. In his case, there hadn't been many entries on that list. If he considered something to be of no immediate benefit to him, his brain filtered it out.
Even after a few days he found the effort to be well worth it. She was a fascinating woman. Some would have insisted she was a set of contradictions. What woman wasn't? That wonderful mix of logic and emotion. Emotions being something he'd dipped into every so often. With the ultimate result being he had no emotional range and little understanding of other people's feelings. She said it was a classical symptom of being an only child, when they discussed it. His parents were unemotional, in his presence. Viewing him as an adult there were those things they kept hidden from him, along with things they'd share with any adult. It gave him a skewed perspective.
Liz was what would be classified as beautiful. Symmetrical features and a slim body. A complete absence of make up and her clothing hid that beauty from the casual observer. That's what everyone was, until something caught their attention. The most beautiful thing about her, to him, was the way she moved. The way she went about her day. He'd watched her chopping wood for an hour. Swinging the ax with precision. Using technique rather than strength. Economy of effort, was a vital part of her life. That entailed planning. Looking ahead. Predicting what would occur. The fact she had great tits and a bodacious ass, was mere aesthetics. All that wood chopping had to have something to do with that. It was heading into summer, the wood was being cut for the future. He'd have cut it as and when needed. It would have been damp.
His offers of assistance were politely refused. Her reasoning was he wouldn't be there permanently. She didn't want him to interfere with her rhythm. Jamie suspected it was more to do with being a strong independent woman. Liz was definitely strong. Both emotionally and physically. Alone but never lonely. If she wanted company there were people she could visit. Her view being the holidays were best spent in isolation. Oddly, to Jamie's mind, this made the two of them roughly analogous. It was a bit of a stretch. While she had isolated herself physically, he'd done so emotionally. It was partly one of those gender differences. That fell apart in the comparison, as he wasn't that practical or object orientated, A deficiency Liz did not share. This lady knew her way around a car engine, having taught herself the basics.
She was a city girl from a comfortably middle class family who'd "found herself" when she'd moved to this remote spot. The first couple of years had been hell on wheels. Liz admitted she'd cried herself to sleep on many a night. She wasn't a quitter though, unlike himself. Once she set out to do something she'd go through with it right to the end. Regardless of the consequences. She gained far more than she lost in her estimation. Found a few things she'd never attempt again on the way. Keeping chickens for a start.
He became quite jealous of her. Liz had achieved things. By the time she was his age she'd had a career in banking laid out. Less than a decade later, following resounding success, the lady had dropped everything and moved on to an entirely different way of life. Stepping so far out of her comfort zone she couldn't see where she'd come from with, a large telescope. Initially it was hard for him to accept his conclusions. Jamie aspired to be like her.
A week after their long lunch Sophie left him another message. In spite of everything he bore her no ill will regarding any of her actions. Jamie had started to look at the whole thing as a lesson. What happened had been the kick in the pants he needed. If he did nothing with that impetus, He would truly be a world class failure. The message was short. Her voice sounding tired. They were delaying the switching off of life support on Dale. A couple of relatives and a friend wouldn't be able to get to the US for a few days. Leading to the conclusion there had to have been a queue. This seemingly callous observation, down to him realizing if their situations were reversed, no one apart from his own mother would have come to visit him.
Even that wasn't a certainty. Dale was effectively dead. Jamie had no religious beliefs, being a non-practising atheist in most senses. Whatever those machines were hooked up to wasn't Dale. His next move was prompted by Liz. He'd bugged out of his apartment in a hurry. Not packing much. A few of his clothes essentially. It would be worth the risk of going back. He could check that security system. See if anyone had visited. It would be taking a chance, there was no doubting it. He could use it as an opportunity to hone his hiding skills. It would enable him to return the rental car. Pick up a replacement from the ads, purchasing it using the fake ID.
This he did. Scoping out the building for a whole day before daring to enter. The concierge didn't know him from Adam. Either the guy was new or they'd not registered with each other. The guy did look vaguely familiar. That could have been the light grey uniform. Jamie walked in like he belonged there. Which he did. Taking the elevator up to the fourth floor, before going down the stairs to the third. All of his precautions proved unnecessary. Nobody was interested in him for now. On a hunch he checked out the security system first. Kelly had been there once. Spending no more than twenty minutes. She'd kept some of her stuff there. More surprising was the visit by Bradley Kreuz a day later. He'd been accompanied by another man Jamie had never seen before.
They were there a lot longer. Over an hour. What had they been up to? He ran the video a few times before he spotted what he thought they'd been doing. Those bastards had him under surveillance. Cameras and microphones. He couldn't help chuckling at the dumb bastards. After reviewing what could have been hundreds of hours of video they'd have seen very little. They must have been looking for where he'd secured the thumb drive Dale had given him. Which could have held anything, now he thought about it. When that combined with Kelly hadn't produced a result, they'd used Sophie. She'd been there a few times when she was in town. Dale had only been a visitor once, back when Jamie first moved in.
Given he'd used this place as a hotel there was a lot of stuff he could do with taking. Sophie had fitted the apartment out for him. That was the main reason she had a key. Being a normal person she'd purchased everything needed for a home. From bedding to cutlery and saucepans. His mercenary side caused him to take the lot. That entailed hiring a trailer. Ironically he'd end up spending more time moving out than living there. Some of the kitchen appliances were way beyond his culinary knowledge. The top of the range Keurig coffee maker was the limit of his prowess in the kitchen.
No two ways about it, there was a lot to shift. The furniture could stay here. The rest he determined to take with him. Including the TV he'd never watched. It would make a handy computer monitor if nothing else. With this in mind Jamie did something incredibly stupid on the spur of the moment. Thanks to what could only be beginners luck, nothing untoward happened. He constructed his first elaborate lie. He'd lied in the past, everybody lies. This one was a completely fake narrative, to be used on the concierge.
He knew not to make it too detailed, but the hundred bucks he slipped Calvin helped answer any questions he might have come up with. On reflection Jamie had overbid. The guy would have done it for fifty. So he should have offered twenty. He recounted a tale of woe to the doorman. His fiance had dumped him a few weeks before their wedding. The bitch was planning to pick up all the accoutrements, he'd learned. Jamie was preempting her by taking the lot before she knew any better. He'd paid for most of it. She wasn't even going to give his ring back. Calvin sympathized with him. He'd gone through a divorce himself. If they waited until after midnight Calvin would give Jamie a hand removing everything. They would be able to use the freight elevator down to the garage, meaning only one trip.
The huge gaping holes in his story became apparent with hindsight, much later on. It wasn't like they were friends. This was more like a business arrangement. The two of them took a trolley up to the third floor where they loaded all the items to be removed. Jamie actually got quite a buzz out of the whole process. An undeserved one in the circumstances. The risk was tiny. This was what he'd later define as a taster session. He wasn't to know it at the time, but it was a portent of what was to come. Except the risks would be real.