Page 15 of The Perfect Deception

“I love show­ing my chil­dren how many peo­ple come to ser­vices on Fri­day nights,” Re­becca said to Dina, as she watched them run over to the dessert ta­ble for cook­ies and juice.

“And I love com­ing here Fri­day nights,” Dina said. “It helps me set­tle af­ter a week of stress.”

Re­becca nod­ded. “We missed you last week.”

“I was out to din­ner and it ran late.”

Re­becca’s face lit up. “With any­one spe­cial?”

Dina sighed. She loved Re­becca. About ten years older than she was, Dina en­joyed hav­ing a friend at tem­ple to keep her com­pany and to talk to, but Re­becca was al­ways try­ing to fix her up. “I got a flat tire and this guy stopped to help me. I was a lit­tle rude to him and to apol­o­gize, I took him to the diner.”

“You in­vited a ran­dom stranger to the diner?” She cov­ered her mouth with one hand and gripped Dina’s shoul­der with the other. “Are you crazy?” When Dina rolled her eyes, Re­becca shook her head. “What’s he like?”

Dina pulled Re­becca off to the side, away from the other con­gre­gants. “Com­pletely dif­fer­ent from any­one I’ve ever dated, but that’s not say­ing much.”

“Dif­fer­ent how? You’re dat­ing him?”

“No, he’s flashy and seems con­cerned about his im­age and what other peo­ple think.” But he’s got depth. She’d heard it when they talked, usu­ally when he wasn’t aware he was re­veal­ing it. Re­becca’s look of con­cern made Dina hold out her hand. “Don’t worry, he’s not my type at all.”

Re­becca put her arm around her. “Well, I think I have some­one per­fect for you, so let me know and I can set you up with him.”

Did she want to be set up again? Maybe. “Who are you think­ing of?”

“He’s a re­ally sweet guy, a few years older than you. He’s a re­searcher in Aaron’s lab. Very smart. I think you two would be per­fect to­gether. He lives in Madi­son.”

He didn’t sound bad at all. “Okay, sure. Why not?”

“Great! I’ll give him your phone num­ber. His name is Zach Ep­stein.”

When Dina left fif­teen min­utes later, she promised to let Re­becca know about her plans with Zach. If he called.

The large en­ve­lope em­bossed with her high school logo made Dina’s palms sweat. As she pulled out the in­vi­ta­tion to her tenth high school re­union, vi­sions of the pop­u­lar girls whis­per­ing as she walked in the hall­ways clicked through her brain. She’d been too smart in high school to fit in with any­one. Even the nerdy kids hadn’t wanted to hang out with her—they’d gig­gled when she’d wanted to dis­cuss the themes inThe Scar­let Let­terand looked at her like she was a bug when she’d proved she could re­cite the Con­sti­tu­tion from mem­ory. The only thing that had got­ten her through those years were her teach­ers and books. Now she was in­vited to go back and re­unite with them? No way.

Mor­bid cu­rios­ity made her read the in­vi­ta­tion, rather than throw­ing it in the trash un­opened like she had the five-year one. She frowned. It was a din­ner dance on a Sat­ur­day night two months from now at a fancy ho­tel about an hour away in Prince­ton. The or­ga­niz­ers had gone all out. Shak­ing her head, she started to slide the in­vi­ta­tion back in­side the en­ve­lope when her phone rang. Toss­ing the in­vi­ta­tion on the ta­ble by her front door, she an­swered her phone as she walked fur­ther in­side her apart­ment.

“Hello, Dina? This is Zach Ep­stein. Re­becca and Aaron Kopf gave me your name.”

“Hi, Zach. Re­becca told me you might call.”

“Oh. Good. I was won­der­ing if you’d like to go out for a drink one night this week?”

She swal­lowed. No harm in see­ing what hap­pened. “Sure.”

“Oh. Good. How’s to­mor­row? There’s this neat place in Madi­son called The Game Set. It has board games. Do you like board games?”

Board games? “Sure, that sounds fun.”

Af­ter get­ting the ad­dress, she hung up. She’d never heard of the place, but it would be dif­fer­ent. And he sounded much more her type than Adam, who hadn’t called de­spite telling her he would. Even if in her head, Adam was the one she pic­tured on the date.

Chap­ter Five

Dina stood in the door­way of The Game Set. The place was rus­tic look­ing, with a wooden floor and yel­low walls. To the left was the bar. The rest of the place was taken up by game ta­bles, shelves with board games stacked on them, and group­ings of comfy-look­ing chairs and mis­matched so­fas. To­ward the back was a room with a door­way marked Bil­liards. The place was filled with peo­ple of all ages and she walked through, look­ing for a guy on his own.

Move­ment from the bar drew her at­ten­tion and a man with wire-rimmed glasses and dark, wavy hair waved to her.

“Zach?”

“Hi, Dina. Nice to meet you. You look just like Re­becca said you would.” He shook her hand. His grasp was cool and firm and when he made eye con­tact with her, she no­ticed his warm, brown eyes. “Would you like a drink?”