Criminal Deception
Big mistake. He shouldn’t be watching anything involving a mouth as sexy as hers. The plumping of her plum-colored lips as they closed around the bottle neck, the movement of muscles as the cold water flowed down her throat, the slight grip of pink-tipped fingers around the bottle’s sweaty plastic…
Finally—thank God—she lowered the bottle and met his gaze. “Hello, neighbor.”
He swallowed hard, his own mouth suddenly dry. “Do you know how many millions of those bottles wind up in landfills and how long they take to decompose? The least you could do is buy a gallon jug and drink it from a glass. Better yet, buy a filtering system, or hey, here’s an idea—drink from the tap. It won’t kill you.”
She blinked, then looked at the bottle. “Sorry my drinking habits offend you.”
Heat flushed through him. He wasn’t a crusader. He did what he could to be environmentally responsible, but he didn’t push it on others. But instead of apologizing, he asked, “Why are you here?”
“I told you. I’m looking for Josh.”
“And I told you, I haven’t seen or heard from him.”
Her smile was small and tight. She didn’t believe him. She thought he was protecting his seven-minutes-older brother. That just proved how little she knew him.
Of course, they didn’t know each other at all. He’d seen her four times before the Mulroneys had tried to kill him in Josh’s place. Four excruciating evenings with Josh between them.
Except that last time. For a few short minutes they’d been alone in the room, and the tension between them had been unbearable. They had almost touched that night—had almost kissed. But she had whispered exactly the right words to stop him, and he’d bolted from the room before his brother had returned.
Remember Josh.
That was probably the only time in his life he’d managed to forget him.
“So what do you think? That if you hang around here long enough, Josh will show up and prove me a liar?” He folded his arms over his chest. “You’ve mistaken me for my brother. I don’t lie.”
“Never?” she asked, one brow arched.
He’d fled the kitchen that night, nearly plowing over Josh on the way. What’s wrong? he’d asked, and Joe had brushed him off. Nothing. Everything’s fine. Except that he’d almost kissed his brother’s girl. Except that he’d wanted a hell of a lot more than a kiss from her.
Now he just wanted her to go away.
“How did you get Miss Abigail to rent to you?” The old lady didn’t need the income from the cottages. She only rented to people she knew and liked. She’d been a regular at the coffee shop for three months before she’d agreed to let him have the purple house.
“I told her you and I were old friends.”
He scowled. “And she believed you?”
“And provided me with keys, furniture and dishes.”
“I’ll have to tell her you lied.”
Liz’s eyes widened innocently. “What kind of gentleman would do that?” Then she smiled. “See? I haven’t mistaken you for your brother. No one would ever call Josh a gentleman.”
It was an incredible smile, and it did incredible things to him. The knots in his gut changed to an entirely different kind of knot. Not stress, not anxiety, but tension of a much more intimate nature. He liked that smile. He could grow used to it very quickly. He could learn to need it.
If only he could also learn to forget.
Resolutely he stiffened his spine and scowled at her again. “Why are you looking for Josh?”
She took another drink from the bottle, her gaze on him as if expecting another lecture. After capping it, she set it aside, then rested her arms on her bent knees. “Let’s just say he’s got something I want.”
It figured. His brother was a liar, a cheat, self-centered to the max and, now, a thief, too. “You won’t find him hanging around me.”
“Maybe not. But it’s the last place I have to hang around.”
“Leave your number and go back to Chicago. I’ll call you if I hear from him.”
She shrugged. “I’m in no hurry to get back. I’ll stick around and experience Georgia in the springtime. Mrs. Wyndham says it’s very nice.”
He didn’t say anything. He couldn’t think of anything to say.
Pivoting on his heel, he stalked back across the grass to his own house. Before he reached it, though, Natalia’s screen door slammed open and eight scrabbling feet dragged her onto the porch. He wasn’t sure whether the yelps came from her or the lunging, yipping dogs she held, more or less, at the ends of two leashes. She scrambled down the steps, barely keeping both her balance and her hold on the leashes, then managed to dig in her heels as both dogs began sniffing and dancing around his feet.
Her smile was brave if not particularly confident as she offered the leashes to him. “Your puppies,” she said breathlessly. “You’ll love them.”
He looked down at the dogs, one sniffing so fast that he was surprised it didn’t hyperventilate and the other trying to climb up him with paws the size of salad plates. “Puppies,” he repeated. He’d expected something small, cute and cuddly that would fall asleep with nothing more than a brief belly scratch. These two were both quivering nose to tail as if they might never sleep.
Liz, Raven and now this. Life was going downhill fast.
Chapter 2
Liz woke up at five-thirty without the help of an alarm, but her eyes were heavy and her brain slow to kick in as she crawled out of bed. After a stop in the bathroom, she padded into the living room to look across the grass at the lavender house. The windows were dark, and there was no sign of the black heavy-duty bike that was Joe’s only mode of transportation.
Even back in Chicago, he’d been into recycling. Ever juvenile, Josh had thought it a hoot to toss out pop cans and newspapers when his brother was around. But she hadn’t realized until prepping to come here that his commitment to going green extended to not even owning a car.
She felt a twinge of guilt when she opened the refrigerator and took out a bottled water and the foam container that held leftovers from last night’s dinner.
She knew from her briefing that A Cuppa Joe opened at 6:00 a.m. Business was good enough that Joe had a part-time helper, a retired schoolteacher by the name of Esther, from opening until nine. There was another part-timer, Raven, who worked from 5:00 p.m. until close. After Esther and before Raven, Joe was usually on his own.
For at least part of that time today, he would have company.
She ate bites of cold vegetable lo mein while getting dressed. Makeup done, hair pulled into a froth of curls on top of her head, earrings matched to her cobalt-blue sheath, Liz stepped into strappy sandals with three-inch heels, grabbed her purse and went to her rental car.
The sky was turning rosy in the east, and lights were on in most of the houses she passed on her way downtown. Back home in Dallas, lights were always on, and morning traffic was a nightmare. Chicago, where she’d spent two months before the botched murder attempt sent her, Josh and the rest of the team out of state, was the same. Copper Lake’s early morning traffic consisted of only an occasional car.
She parked in the same spot she’d taken the day before and just sat for a moment. Most of the buildings that faced the square were dimly lit, but A Cuppa Joe, Krispy Kreme and Ellie’s Deli were bright and welcoming. Visible through the large window of the coffee shop, Esther, her hair a startling orange, was filling mugs for seated customers while Joe was behind the counter, a line of about ten waiting.
He moved quickly, efficiently, with a few words and an easy smile for each customer. Two years ago, he’d been a destined-for-success financial planner in one of Chicago’s top investment firms and had looked the part in Armani suits and Alden shoes.
He looked just as handsome and even a little sexier in faded jeans and a pale blue T-shirt bearing the shop’s logo.
She waited five, ten, twenty minutes, but business didn’t slack off. Finally she went inside, took a place at the end of the line and waited, nerves tightening each time she moved forward.
Joe turned from the cash register and his smile disappeared. Mouth tightening at one corner, he curtly asked, “What do you want?”
She would bet this month’s salary that his question had nothing to do with taking an order, but she smiled and gave one anyway. “Just plain coffee.”
“Topéca, Jamaica Blue Mountain, Sumatra Mandehling?”
“You choose.” Her coffee generally came crystallized in a jar and was reconstituted with microwaved water. She wasn’t picky.
“To go?” There was a hint of hopefulness in his voice, although his expression remained impassive.
She smiled again. “No. I’ll drink it here.”
He bypassed the paper cups and cardboard sleeves, both bearing the emblem signifying recycled materials, and took a white ceramic mug from a shelf above the back counter. Dozens of mugs were lined up there, in all colors, sizes and designs, most marked with a regular’s name. Natalia’s was tall, pale yellow with emerald grass and a cartoon drawing of a lime-green bike.
Liz bet she could come in five times a day for a month and still not get her own mug added to the collection.
She paid no attention to the type of coffee he poured into the cup. It was steaming, fragrant and loaded with caffeine. That was all she needed. He traded the mug for the two bucks she offered without coming close to touching her, and he laid the change on the counter rather than in her outstretched hand.
Maybe some bit of sizzle remained on his part, after all.
She chose a table where her back was to the wall, not out of any sense of security but because it allowed her to see everyone in the shop and afforded a good view through the plate glass windows that lined the two outside walls.
Copper Lake had twenty thousand people or so and was prosperous for a small Southern town. The downtown was well-maintained and occupation of the buildings seemed about a hundred percent. The grass in the square was manicured, the flowerbeds were colorful and weed-free, and the gazebo bore a new coat of white paint. It looked like the small town of fiction: homey, welcoming, safe—a place where people looked out for each other.
Was that what had drawn Joe? Had he needed that sense of refuge?
She’d doctored her coffee with sweetener from a glass bowl in the middle of the table, stirred it with a real spoon and nursed her way through half of it when a presence disturbed the air. Glancing up, she met Joe’s gaze, unsmiling, serious blue. At the moment, he looked as if the only thing he needed refuge from was her. She might feel something about that later. Regret. Disappointment. Maybe even satisfaction, that he felt enough of something to need to keep her at a distance.
He slid into the seat across from her, resting his hands on the table top. Good hands. Strong, tanned, long fingers, neat nails. “You were keeping Josh on a pretty short leash. How did he get away?”
She resented the idea that she was the clingy sort but could see why he thought so. From the time she’d been assigned to Josh’s case, she’d rarely left his side.
Until the day he’d knocked her partner unconscious, handcuffed her to the bed and waltzed out of the San Francisco safe house where they’d been staying. She’d cursed herself hoarse and sworn that she would find him. Getting handcuffed, and to a bed, no less, by her protectee was the lowlight of her career.
“Everyone has to sleep sometime,” she said with a shrug. She had been asleep when Josh had snapped the cuff on. Her partner, on the other hand, had merely been asleep on the job.
“Did you have a fight? Was he seeing someone else?”
She shrugged again, lazily, as if it didn’t matter. “I’d say he just got tired of me.” Being in protective custody wasn’t easy for the most compliant of witnesses, and Josh had been far from that. He hadn’t wanted to testify against the Mulroneys, but it was the only way to keep his own petty-criminal butt out of jail.
For an instant disbelief flitted across Joe’s expression, but it was gone as quickly as she identified it. “What makes you think he’d leave Chicago? He’s lived his whole life there. He likes it there.”
She didn’t just think Josh had left Chicago. She knew it. She sipped her coffee, lukewarm now, before pointing out, “You’d lived your whole life there, but you left.”
Again, something flickered across his face. Guilt? Chagrin? Did he feel as if he’d run away? Getting the hell out of town when someone had tried to kill you, even if it was a case of mistaken identity, seemed perfectly rational to her. Instead of responding to her comment, though, he steered back to the original conversation. “When did he take off?”
“Two months ago.”
“And you’ve been looking for him ever since.”
She ignored the censure in his voice. There was something pathetic about a woman relentlessly tracking down the boyfriend who didn’t want her anymore. But she’d given more than two years of her life to this case, and damned if Josh was going to blow it. He would testify even if she had to force him into court at gunpoint.
“It must be valuable.”
“What?” she asked reflexively, drawing her attention back to Joe.
“Whatever he took.”
Her smile felt thin and strained. “It is to me.” Before he could continue with the questions, she asked one of her own. “Why Copper Lake?”
This time the shrug was his, a sinuous shifting of muscle beneath soft cotton. “The coffee shop was for sale. The price was right, the town was nice, and the name fit.”
Her brows raised. “You didn’t name it A Cuppa Joe?”
His scowl gave him a boyish look. “Do I look like the type who’d go for a name like that? I’d’ve chosen something less cute, like, I don’t know, Not the Same Old Grind.”
“I like A Cuppa Joe,” she said stubbornly.
A raspy voice chimed in, “You and every single woman in town.” Esther laughed, then topped off Liz’s cup. “Are you single?”
“I am. Are you?”
“I am, too. I’d go after him, but that age thing is a problem. He’s just way too old for my taste.” Punctuating the words with a sly wink, Esther moved on with the pot to the next table.
Silence fell over the table, not uncomfortable but not comfortable either. Liz stirred sweetener into her refilled cup, the spoon clanking against the porcelain, casting about for something to say. The sight of an elderly man coming through the door with the assistance of a younger man, clearly his son, provided it. “How are your parents?”
“Considering that they had to leave the home they’d lived in for thirty-some years and move someplace where they knew no one, and they haven’t seen their son in more than two years, not bad.”
Once the Mulroneys had learned of Josh’s family’s existence—had found other targets for their warnings—the U.S. Attorney’s office had deemed it safer for Joe and his parents to leave town and keep a low profile in their new homes. Joe had chosen the security of small-town life, while the elder Saldanas had opted for the anonymity of the city a short distance away. They’d been willing to give up a lot, but not the conveniences they’d taken for granted all their lives.
She had no desire to defend Josh’s actions, but it seemed the sort of thing a girlfriend should do. “He didn’t know how to contact them.”
Not surprisingly, the argument didn’t sit well with Joe. His gaze darkened and his lips thinned. “If he hadn’t screwed up so damn bad, they would have stayed in that house forever, like they’d planned, and he’d have always known where to find them.”
“He was sorry about that.” Truthfully, in a few moments of remorse, Josh had expressed regret for what he’d put his family through. Those moments had been rare, though. More often, he’d blamed the Mulroneys, the marshals service and/or the U.S. Attorney’s office. Sometimes he’d insisted that his parents had merely used Joe’s shooting as an excuse to move to a warmer climate, a smaller city, a more retirement-friendly area—not that they’d ever expressed any dissatisfaction with Chicago.
Maybe, Liz had thought, he just couldn’t face responsibility for the upheaval he’d caused.
Or he was just a self-centered, whiny brat.
Joe gave a sharp laugh. What it lacked in humor, it more than made up for with bitterness. “He’s never been sorry for a damn thing in his life.”
“He was sorry when you got shot. I saw him.” That had been one of the rare occasions. Standing beside Joe’s bed in ICU, not knowing whether he would survive, Josh had been humbled by regret and fear.
Liz had been afraid, too. Afraid that one more good guy would be lost, that once more the bad guys would win. Afraid that the Saldanas would never recover from such a loss. Afraid that she would always wonder what might have been if things had been different.
She had wondered. Nearly two years in different cities and states had added up to a lot of solitary nights. It had been safe to wonder then, because she’d thought she would never see Joe again. Once the Mulroneys went to trial and Josh had testified, she would take on new cases in new places. She would meet other men and probably, eventually, hopefully, fall in love with one of them.
Instead, here she was, sitting across from Joe, trying really hard not to wonder anymore.
She expected another denial from him, but it didn’t come. He stared out the window for a moment, as if the increasing traffic held his interest, before finally dragging his gaze back to her. “Did he know? Did he know they wanted him dead?” he pressed on. “Did he let me go on with life as usual knowing that people wanted to kill him, that they could easily mistake me for him?”
Her fingers tightened around the mug. Were these the first questions he would ask his brother if given the chance? Would a no provide any comfort? Would yes destroy their relationship for all time?
Up to the day Joe was shot, the Mulroneys’ crimes had been nonviolent. Their business had been just that: a routine job moving a product—money—from one place to another, laundering it along the way. They’d been involved in their communities; they’d gone to church with their families; they’d handled disputes diplomatically. Their hit on Josh had been the first and, so far, only sign of violence in their fifteen-year career. It was even possible that someone else Josh had pissed off was behind it instead.
“You know Josh.” Liz’s shrug was awkward. She’d never gotten over the guilt because she had known Josh, too. She should have expected violence. She should have known Joe was in danger. She should have protected him, too. “Nothing he ever does has consequences.”
Yeah, Joe thought grimly. He knew Josh. “When we were five, he sneaked Mom’s keys out and took the car for a drive. He made it two blocks before he ran into two other cars. He wasn’t hurt, but it did a lot of damage to all three vehicles. Mom spanked him. Dad grounded him, gave him extra chores, took his allowance, and three weeks later, Mom caught him behind the wheel again with the keys in the ignition. When we were eight, he tried to fly from our tree house to the ground. He spent the next six weeks with his left arm in a cast, spanked, grounded, extra chores, the whole bit again, and the day the cast came off, he tried again, breaking his right arm. And when we were twelve…” Breaking off, he shook his head. Too bad he couldn’t banish the memory so easily.
“And you were always the good son.”
He raised one hand in the Boy Scout salute. “I made good grades, stayed out of trouble and never gave Mom and Dad a reason to worry.”
“I was the good child, too,” Liz said.
The simple statement stuck him as odd. He’d seen her as only two things: his brother’s girlfriend and therefore the last woman on earth he should be—but was—attracted to. He’d never thought of her as a person: a daughter, a sister, someone with a life, hopes and plans outside of Josh.
Hell, he’d tried his best not to think of her at all.
“Of course, it wasn’t difficult. I was the youngest of four and the only girl, so my parents were predisposed to think of me as the good kid whether I was or not.”
Where were those brothers when she’d gotten involved with Josh? While Josh liked a challenge, he also liked not getting his ass kicked for messing around with the wrong girl. He would have kissed her goodbye…and then Joe, with his regular job, arrest-free record and all-around good-guyness, might have had a chance.
“Did your brothers approve of Josh?”
“They didn’t meet him, but no, they wouldn’t have approved.”
Which had probably been part of Josh’s appeal. Always being the good girl had grown tedious, and what better way for a good girl to rebel than with a bad boy?
Had she had enough of him now? Was she willing to admit he was a lost cause?
She was in Georgia looking for him after he’d dumped her and run. That seemed a pretty loud No.
“Do they live in Chicago?”
She picked up the mug, glanced at the dregs inside, then set it down again before meeting his gaze. Joe had the clear blue eyes that people paid money to get with contact lenses, but he’d always been a sucker for brown eyes, especially big, deep brown ones that, even after a couple of tough years, still managed a hint of innocence.
“No. D.C., Miami, L.A.” After another pause, she added, “I guess we all wanted out of Kansas.”
A good girl looking to escape the Kansas farmland and run a little wild. How easy it must have been for Josh to wrap her around his finger.
“I never would have pegged you for a farm girl.”
She blinked, then laughed, an easy, natural sound that reminded him again of innocence. “I’ve never set foot on a farm in my life. Well, no, wait, there was the time in third grade that my parents took us to the pumpkin patch for Halloween. That might have been a farm. Then again, it might have been a church parking lot in Wichita.” Her voice turned chiding. “There’s more to Kansas than farms.”
“I’ll keep that in mind in case I ever head out there. Do you go back often?”
“At least twice a year to see my parents.” As Esther approached with the coffee carafe again, Liz shook her head with a faint smile. “Do you get to see much of your parents?”
He shrugged. They’d settled in Savannah, only a few hours away, and he drove down at least once a month. He didn’t tell her that, though. How could he be sure that Josh hadn’t sent her here with a made-up story about looking for him just so he could find their folks? Mom and Dad might miss him like hell, but they were better off without him. Who knew what kind of trouble Josh would bring to their door if he could find it?
Because his thoughts had already taken a grim turn, he remarked, “Miss Abigail says you signed a month’s lease.” Twenty-nine more nights like last night, his gaze straying constantly to the windows, watching shadows as she moved from room to room. Twenty-nine more nights of getting to know her schedule, of catching unexpected glimpses of her, of seeing her both at home in casual clothes—those snug denim cutoffs from last night still made him sweat—and out and dressed up.
Twenty-nine more nights. God help him.
“Actually, my lease is for one month, with a month-by-month extension. I could be here one, two, four months. As long as it takes.” She made the announcement with an entirely too-sunny attitude. It turned his mouth down as if he’d just taken a hearty swallow of the used-up coffee grounds he provided Miss Abigail for her garden.
“If you’re really looking for Josh, Copper Lake isn’t the place to do it.”
“It’s the only place I have.” The airiness disappeared and something else crossed her face, flattening her voice. Panic? Despair? He’d taken something of value from her, she’d said. Sentimental value, like her grandmother’s opal ring she’d once worn? It was missing from her finger now.
Or financial value? Liz must have worked during the months they were together; someone had to support them, preferably in a way that didn’t bring them to the attention of the local cops. Had Josh wiped out her savings before he ran? Joe didn’t know what kind of work she did—Josh’s tastes usually ran toward waitresses—but it didn’t seem likely she could have saved an amount substantial enough to make her track him down.