Daring Deception

by Barbara Freethy

  His grandfather had been in the Irish Republican Army and then the Provisional IRA, where his father had joined the cause. When Quinn was ten, those in the Provisional IRA who refused to accept the peace process splintered off to form the Real IRA. His father had been fighting for that group for a year when he was killed.

  His mom had taken him to the States shortly after his father's death. She'd been exhausted by the struggles, the bloodshed, and she hadn't wanted him to get sucked into it, although at eleven, he'd already been exposed to more violence than most kids.

  California had felt like an entirely different world. They'd settled into a small apartment in Watsonville, near Monterey Bay, several hours south of where he lived now. His mom had given him the one small bedroom while she'd slept on the couch. They hadn't had a lot, but what they'd had was peace. There were no late nights or long days wondering if his father would come home. There were no gunshots, no sirens, no constant beat of rebellion in the neighborhood. He hadn't realized how anxious he'd been until they were on the other side of the world.

  But he had missed Ireland, their cottage with the cozy fire, and the amazing views of the sea from the cliffs where he and his friends would play. He'd also missed the food, but thankfully, Seamus's pub gave him a little taste of that when he desperately needed it.

  "Here you go." Seamus set down his shot. "You okay?"

  "Fine," he said shortly, downing the shot. "I'll take another."

  Seamus gave him a sharp look, then refilled his glass. "Must be a woman."

  He threw down the second shot, relieved at the warmth that flooded through his ice-cold veins. "You don't know what you're talking about."

  "I suspect I do."

  "Hit me again."

  Seamus hesitated. "I don't think so. It's the middle of the day and you don't drink like this. Why don't I get you a Guinness? Slow things down a bit."

  "I can take my money elsewhere."

  "You'll have to do that if you want another shot. What's wrong?"

  He shook his head. "That's a much bigger question than I can answer."

  "Is it?" Seamus gave him a knowing look. "I've poured too many shots to too many guys who look like you. I know what love gone wrong looks like. Who is she? That pretty brunette who works at the dive shop? She was eyeing you something fierce last time you were both here."

  "Melanie? No," he said with a firm shake of his head. "We have never gone out."

  "I bet she'd like to."

  "Stop trying to matchmake."

  "Well, someone should. You're not getting any younger. Beth was saying just the other day how we should find someone nice for you."

  Seamus's wife was a sweetheart, but he didn't need her help. Nor did he particularly appreciate Seamus and Beth thinking about setting him up with someone. He'd clearly been in one place for too long. People thought they knew him. They believed they were his friends. But they knew nothing about him, not even his real name.

  He would finish drinking at home. He pulled a twenty out of his wallet and set it on the bar. "I'll see you later."

  "Hey, now, don't run off. You got problems? I'll listen."

  "It's just been a long week."

  "Well, it's almost the weekend. Hopefully, you can take some time off."

  He didn't want time off. Work and the sea were the two things in his life that kept him going. He got to his feet.

  "One word of advice?" Seamus asked.

  "I'm sure it won't be one word," he said dryly.

  "Tell her. Talk to her."

  "You don't know what's going on, Seamus."

  "Doesn't matter. Women see things differently than we do. Only way to bridge the gap is to talk. But you're not so good at that."

  "Thanks for the drinks and the bad advice."

  Seamus laughed. "It's not bad advice. It's just not what you want to do."

  That was true. The last thing he wanted to do was talk—to anyone—but especially to her. "I'll see you around."

  As he headed out to his car, he felt only marginally more relaxed from the two shots of whiskey. His thoughts were still racing. He'd put Caitlyn and Bolton out of his mind a long, long time ago. But now they were back. He didn't know what to make of the explosion today, but he had a terrible feeling about it. It felt like something was beginning again.

  Starting the engine, he turned on the radio, blasting the music to drive out the stressful memories. But since he only needed four blocks to get home, it wasn't much of a distraction.

  He lived off the highway, in a small two-bedroom house set in the redwoods. There wasn't much around his home except for trees, and that's the way he liked it. He pulled into the driveway and hopped out of the car. He grabbed the mail from his box and then put his key in the lock. As he opened the door and stepped into the living room, his heart came to a crashing halt.

  For a second, he thought he was imagining her.

  But she was too beautiful, too angry not to be real…

  He'd spent the drive home trying to tell himself that he hadn't seen her, and she hadn't seen him. But looking at her haunting brown eyes, her beautiful face, he knew he'd been wrong.

  Chapter Four

  "Caitlyn." Her name slipped from his lips in shock. He blinked hard, still thinking she might be a whiskey-induced mirage. But she didn't disappear, and as she raised the gun in her hands, he was even more surprised. "What are you doing here? Why do you have a gun?"

  "I'll ask the questions," she said in a sharp, bitter voice that wasn't at all familiar to him.

  There was edginess and anger in her eyes, as well as dark shadows that he couldn't decipher. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and she seemed thinner and fitter than when they were dating. In fact, everything about her was harder, tougher.

  While she'd always been able to speak her mind with him, she'd never been one to give orders. In fact, most of the time, she'd been a peacemaker, a mediator, someone who wanted everyone to get along, for the world to be a good place, and for people to do the right thing. But that idealistic, kindhearted woman didn't seem to be in this room.

  "Why were you at Bolton today?" she demanded.

  "I heard about the explosion. Why do you have a gun on me, Caitlyn?"

  "Because you were at the scene of an explosion. Because you're driving a car registered to Michael Wainscott, and because Quinn Kelly fell off the face of the earth ten years ago."

  Each statement felt like a knife going into his heart. Behind the fury in her eyes and her voice, there was pain, and he was responsible for that.

  "Answer the question, Quinn. Why were you at Bolton today?" she asked.

  "I heard about the explosion on the news. I couldn't get it out of my mind. I was on my way to the store and then suddenly I was on the freeway headed south. I had to see what had happened. I didn't expect to see you there. In fact, I wasn't sure it was you. I thought I might have conjured you up from my memories."

  "I had a similar feeling," she muttered, for the first time letting a small crack appear in her tough armor.

  "Did you follow me?" He realized that she'd not only figured out his alias and where he lived, she'd also gotten into his house. He hadn't seen a car, but maybe he had been too distracted to notice. "Did I leave the door unlocked?"

  "Your lock is worthless. I got inside in two seconds."

  He shook his head in bemusement. "You know how to pick locks now? Is that a skill necessary to be a journalist?"

  "I'm not a journalist."

  "You're not? It was all you wanted to be." For the past decade, he'd imagined her writing for some paper or working in broadcast news. He'd deliberately avoided looking at bylines or the news in case he might see her name or her face. He'd only once looked her up online, and that was about a year after he'd left. He'd seen photos showing a happy, healed woman, and that had given him some peace. He'd never looked again.

  She opened her jacket and motioned toward the badge at her hip. "I'm an FBI agent."

  "Seriously? Why
did you give up on being a reporter?" He wasn't sure why that was the question that came out of his mouth when there were so many other things he needed to know, but it seemed…safer.

  "I was a journalist for a few years, but I didn't want to just report on the bad things that were happening in the world. I wanted to stop them."

  "I can't believe you went into the FBI. You hated guns. You refused to go hunting with your father and your brothers."

  "I don't believe in hunting innocent animals. But I'm very capable of taking down a criminal. Don't think I won't use this, Quinn."

  Her choice of words gave him pause. "Is that what you think I am—a criminal?"

  "I honestly don't know. Why did you change your name? Or is there an actual Michael Wainscott who owns the car and this house?"

  He debated how much he wanted to tell her—certainly not all of it. But he had to say something, and it wouldn't take her long to figure out he was Michael Wainscott. "I changed my name. I wanted a clean start."

  "From me? The first bombing? What?"

  Seamus's advice to be honest ran through his head. But he couldn't tell Caitlyn the truth; he could never tell her or anyone. "Everything. I wanted to be someone else."

  "Why?"

  "I had my reasons."

  She gave him a look filled with both disappointment and disgust. "Let's not waste any more time. Were you involved in the explosion that almost killed me and that took the life of our baby? Is that why you had to start over as someone else?"

  He had to swallow hard to get past the suddenly thick and painful knot in his throat. His gut clenched at the reminder of their unborn child, someone else he had never wanted to think about again. It had been a girl. That's all he'd known about her. Caitlyn had miscarried after the blast. She'd been eleven weeks pregnant.

  "Quinn! Answer me."

  Her sharp tone brought him back to the present. "No," he said, meeting her gaze. "To both." As uncertainty flashed in her eyes, he added, "You don't believe me, do you? I saw the doubt in your eyes ten years ago. The same doubt that is there now. It never went away."

  "Maybe it would have gone away, if you'd stayed. But you disappeared without a good-bye, an explanation, without anything. If you had nothing to do with the bomb, then why vanish two months later? I was barely out of the hospital. I was still rehabbing. Did you not think that I might need you?"

  "You didn't need me. You didn't want me around you. We were barely speaking."

  Something flickered in her eyes. "I was going through a lot."

  "I know. And I wasn't helping." He took a much-needed breath. "Your father also asked me to stay away from you."

  "No." She immediately shook her head. "That's a lie."

  "It started with a polite request. That came about a week after the explosion. When I didn't agree, threats followed. As the FBI continued to pepper me with questions about my involvement in the LNF, your father told me that their focus on me would never change, not while I was involved with you. He was a powerful man with a lot of money, and he did not want me in your life."

  "You're exaggerating. My dad couldn't influence the FBI."

  Despite her words, he didn't believe she was as convinced as she was pretending to be.

  "I'm not exaggerating," he said flatly. "You know who your father is, Caitlyn. Don't pretend he doesn't wield tremendous power."

  "If he said anything at all, he was only trying to protect me. He wouldn't have destroyed you, not if you were innocent. He couldn't make anyone arrest you without proof. Did he have proof of your involvement?"

  "How could he? I wasn't involved." He tossed his keys on the table, feeling the need to change things up. "You will not like my answers, Caitlyn. So, shoot me or put down the gun, your choice. I'm going to get a beer. Do you want one?"

  He walked past her into the kitchen, not entirely convinced she wouldn't put a bullet in his back. She was not the girl he'd left crying in the garden, a broken shadow of herself. She wasn't even the girl he'd known before that, the one full of optimism and hope, who believed in the innate goodness of people. He didn't really know who she was now. He just knew that his heart was pounding out of his chest, and he hadn't felt this hyped up in, well…ten years.

  When he entered the kitchen, he opened the fridge and took out two beers.

  She came into the room a moment later, taking a chair at the small table. As his gaze ran over her once more, he couldn't help noting how professional and businesslike she looked now in her black slacks, white blouse, and gray leather jacket. There was stress in her eyes and a pallor to her skin, but she was still beautiful. He just couldn't help missing the ripped jeans and short shorts she'd once favored, the graphic T-shirts that had always hugged her breasts, and the sexy, thick waves of her long hair that she'd almost never worn up. But when she had, he'd loved pulling the band out of her hair and running his hands through the long, silky strands, trapping her face for his kiss.

  He sucked in a breath. He missed a lot of other things, too, but he couldn't let himself go any further down the path of yesterday. He couldn't remember the taste of her lips, or the curve of her hips, the way she'd said his name in a breathy, wondrous voice…

  His body hardened at that memory and he told himself to get a grip.

  Forcing himself forward, he walked toward the table.

  She'd put her gun down, but it was within easy reach. He set a beer in front of her and sat across from her, still feeling like the entire scene was surreal. He'd never thought he would see her again, and if he had imagined catching a fleeting glimpse of her somewhere, it had never been here in his kitchen.

  She took a long swig of beer and then said, "Even if my father threatened you, why didn't you talk to me about what he said? Why didn't you tell me what was going on?"

  "You were shattered, Caitlyn. You weren't talking about anything back then. You could barely get through the day. You didn't need more to deal with. And, frankly, it was difficult to look at you." He drank half the bottle of beer as he finished that sentence.

  "I know my injuries were bad, but—"

  "It wasn't your physical injuries; it was the look in your eyes. You were so sad, so angry, and you blamed me."

  "I didn't blame you."

  "Yes, you did," he said forcefully, holding her gaze. "Deep down, you were furious that I didn't know about the bomb, that I changed plans at the last minute, and that I wasn't with you when it happened."

  "I never wanted you to be with me, to be hurt the way I was," she denied, giving a vehement shake of her head. "But I was sad and angry. I was devastated by the loss of our baby. I know I was barely pregnant, but she was inside me, and I felt a deep, maternal connection to her. I didn't know how to process the grief, and I was in pain in a lot of other ways. I had broken bones and torn muscles. And then I lost you. Why didn't you fight for me, Quinn? Was the baby the only thing holding us together?"

  "No, of course not." He finished his beer with one long, painful swallow, wishing for a way out of this horrifically awkward conversation.

  "Then why?" she demanded. "Just tell me what happened. Your actions have puzzled me for a decade, and I deserve the truth. Let's start with that morning. You were acting weird at the coffee cart. Then your study group time suddenly changed. Lauren was texting you a lot. Were you hooking up with her? Is that why you bailed on me? I could feel you pulling away from me, but I didn't understand why. I didn't know if it was because of the baby, or if you were just over me."

  His gut twisted at her words. He should say yes. It would be the easiest lie, but he couldn't bring himself to tell it, to hurt her more than he already had.

  "That's too long of a pause for a no," she said bitterly.

  "We weren't hooking up. Lauren just needed to change the time of our study group. She had a birthday party that afternoon. You know that."

  "Then why were you so distracted?"

  "I had a lot on my mind with the baby news."

  "Was it just that? Or did you hav
e some hunch that there might be trouble at the ribbon-cutting? I asked you that day if you thought the LNF would protest the opening, and you said no. You told me Donovan had promised that no one would be there. Either you were wrong, or you were lying, because I'm convinced someone from that group set the bomb."

  "I wasn't lying. Donovan had assured me two weeks earlier that the environmental center would not be a target."

  "Even though the group believed the center had been built with my family's dirty money?"

  "Yes. They agreed that the center was a positive step toward providing a place for additional research. And Donovan knew that you were important to me."

  "There's a good chance your best friend betrayed you."

  His lips tightened. "You don't have to tell me that."

  "What about afterward? We talked about the LNF being responsible. I do remember that. You were still uncertain."

  "I didn't want to believe it, but I couldn't see any other choice."

  "I know the FBI grilled you about everyone in the group."

  "Yes. They asked questions about the other members, but frankly they were more interested in me, in my past, my father's activities in Ireland, whether I knew how to build a bomb," he said, unable to keep out the bitterness of those memories. "Never mind that I was eleven when I left Ireland. The agent in charge was convinced that I was the most likely suspect."

  She frowned. "I didn't understand why they went down that road, either, because you were really young when you lived in Ireland."

  "You read the file?"

  "Many, many times," she admitted. "I've memorized every word."

  "Then you must know better than I who the perpetrator was."

  "The case was never solved."

  "You don't have a theory?"

  "Of course I do. I believe someone from the LNF put the bomb in the building, probably Donovan. Whether they meant to blow me up, I have no idea. I was there early. Maybe that was just a happy accident for the bomber." She paused. "What about you, Quinn? What's your theory?"

  "I thought it could have been Donovan, too, or someone who went rogue, who was more interested in violence and disruption than protecting the environment. There were several of those people in the group. But that said, I also thought it could have been targeted to your family. It was not uncommon for your father to get threats because of actions by one of his companies. There's an entire neighborhood in Southern California suffering from a cancer cluster that can be traced back to a plant owned by Carlson Industries."