Clearly just a standoff tactic for both of them, right?
“I’m really sorry, but I do have to arrest you,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “I don’t want to make a scene and I definitely don’t want to whip out my handcuffs. There are a lot of cell phones in this place and my colleague tells me the internet is everything these days. You deserve better than to have videos and pictures of your arrest plastered online.”
Because of their past? Because he still cared about her? Or because a quiet arrest suited his purposes? She scanned the room. It was crowded, but she’d intentionally chosen a table for two that was set away from everything else. The noise and chaos around them would mean someone would have to be practically on top of them to catch a word that they were saying. Two people standing alone whispering in a hallway might look suspicious, but stick them at a small table, with their heads bent together, holding hands, and people would instinctively give them space and look away. She’d learned a lot about how to live without being noticed when she’d been on the run during her first two weeks in witness protection. Unfortunately, the person she’d learned it all from was the man now staring her down.
“Believe it or not, this is the first time I’ve held anyone’s hand in decades,” she said, convincing herself she was only saying it as a distraction, even though it was true.
“Me, too,” Liam said and frowned. “And, no, I don’t believe it. Now, here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to slide your stun gun and any other weapons you’re carrying across the table to me underneath a napkin. Then, you and I are going to stand up, nice and slow, and walk hand in hand down to find the captain. I’ll ask him to turn the boat around and drop us back on shore. Don’t worry, I’ll do the talking.”
She felt her jaw clench. Sounded like he’d just accused her of lying. Her memory had generously edited out just how confident Liam was in his own abilities—too confident—or how irritating she’d found it even back then. She might not agree with Hannah and Renner’s plan, but that didn’t mean she was about to let him turn the boat around. Not until she knew Hannah had left safely to reunite with Renner, even if that meant she had to stay behind. As long as she kept Liam sitting here, at this table, talking and holding hands, then the boat was still heading toward American waters.
“What would it take to get you to let me go and walk away?” she asked.
“How about Renner Phillips’s decryption device?” Liam asked.
Well, she appreciated the straight answer.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “From what I’ve heard there is no master decipher key.”
Liam blinked. “So then how did he decrypt the code?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “Fluke, maybe? He got fortunate and took a wild guess?”
One that had thwarted a terrorist bombing and saved countless lives.
Liam’s jaw tightened. “But you believe he’s still alive?”
“I do,” she said. “But I haven’t actually seen him or spoken to him, and I’m not going to lead you to him.”
Liam snorted and leaned back so quickly the bells on his ridiculous Christmas sweater jingled. But his hand never left hers, and for a second she had to remind herself they were only pretending to hold hands.
“That’s not quite how it works,” Liam said. “He was a government contract worker. He had top-level government security clearance. He cracked a code without telling anyone how and then he disappeared—”
“Because a whole bunch of really bad guys had threatened to kill him and do worse to his wife—”
“Our government would’ve protected him—”
“He was targeted in a roadside bombing!” Her voice rose, not enough to be overheard, but still Liam’s eyebrows rose. The music faded as one song ended. She held her breath and waited as the next song started up. Her eyes glanced to the watch on Liam’s wrist. Whatever Renner’s big diversion was, it was happening in twelve minutes. Which meant she had about ten left to ditch Liam.
“This isn’t a game, sweetheart.” Liam leaned forward and something in his eyes darkened. “There’s a really bad cyberterrorist group out there threatening to do some pretty bad stuff if they don’t get their hands on Renner’s decoding device.” Well, that was incredibly vague. “The idea he took some wild guess on how to decipher some terrorist code and cracked it by a fluke it is frankly insulting. If Renner had turned his decoding device over to the government, law enforcement could’ve been using it all this time to stop these kinds of threats, instead of it being used as leverage. Renner needs to step up and help us stop these threats. We’re not the bad guys here.”
“That’s twice you’ve called me ‘sweetheart,’” she said. “Don’t do it a third. And I wanted to go into criminology, if you remember, before you showed up and told me I had to go into witness protection—”
“Then help me find Renner and talk him into coming to work for us and letting us protect him,” Liam said. “I’ll pull some strings for you, too, and make sure you never see the inside of a jail cell.”
Now she barely kept herself from snorting. “There’s something going on you’re not telling me,” she said. “How are you even here?”
“How did I find you?” he asked. “Or how did I get onto the boat? A contact in Vice monitoring motels in the area happened to pick up your signal and tipped me off. And another contact in the Toronto Police gave me a stealth ride to catch up with the boat. I know a lot of people in various branches of law enforcement.”
“Which contact just happened to have a big blue Christmas sweater with puppies that fit over a bulletproof vest?” she asked.
A laugh slipped from his mouth as if he’d tried and failed to stop it.
“Bought it off a guy on the lower deck for one hundred bucks,” he said. “He claimed it was itchy and his wife was trying to make him wear it. Told him to take the money and buy his wife something really nice for Christmas.” He stood up, holding her hand tightly and keeping the table between them. “Now, enough stalling. Slide over your weapons, otherwise I am going to very publicly arrest you.”
She pulled the stun gun from her pocket and slid it across the table, as asked. It was out of juice, anyway, and she was sure Hannah would have a spare in Pip’s diaper bag. She watched as he checked it, made sure it was off and then pocketed it.
“Now,” he said, “we’re going to see the captain.”
“Wait!” Her hand tightened on his. Her boots dug into the floor. He stopped, but didn’t sit. She’d kick herself later for what she was about to ask, but it would be worth it if it bought Hannah time. “Just tell me one thing. Why didn’t you ever come back for me?”
Because if you did, if you’d cared or even read my messages, I’d have seen it in your eyes when I mentioned the name Hannah.
Liam’s eyes widened and suddenly something soft pooled in their depths. A warmth? A sadness, even? All she knew was that it reminded her all too much of the man she’d loved a very long time ago.
“I... I tried,” he said softly.
“No,” she said, “you most definitely didn’t.”
“But... I did.” He stepped closer, until they were just inches apart in the crowded room, and his hand was still locked in hers. “You—you were married.”
“Married?” She yelped the word a whole lot louder than she’d intended to. Chatter stopped around them. Faces turned toward them. She didn’t know if people thought Liam was in the middle of some kind of disastrous proposal or a shock confession about a previous relationship. But either way, they’d just lost the anonymity they’d enjoyed. Liam had noticed it, too.
“Come on,” Liam said. He led her through a doorway and into a narrow hallway. Then he stopped, and for a long moment, they both just looked at each other without saying anything. She could feel her heart pounding so hard it ached. As she watched Liam’s chest rapidly rise and fal
l, she guessed his heart was probably thumping, too.
“Yeah, you got married,” he said. “I may be many things, but a gentleman is one of them. When I returned to the office and was debriefed after dropping you off, I was immediately pulled into a new undercover assignment that involved total radio silence and kept me from contacting you. The moment I was out, three months later, I got hit with the news you’d married some man you met undercover.”
“Married,” she repeated. What fresh nonsense is this? “You think I married some man I knew less than three months?”
“We’d known each other two weeks when I asked if I could marry you,” Liam said.
Yeah, and when she’d said yes she’d thought it meant something. Her heart was still knocking wildly. Did this mean he’d never gotten any of her messages? Did this mean he had no idea she’d been pregnant and they had a daughter?
“I never got married,” she said.
He rolled his eyes, but more like he was in pain than frustrated. “And you never had four sons?”
“What?” She shook her head. “No!”
“Kelly!” Liam said. “Look, I’m not proud of this but I used to check your official RCMP witness-protection file.”
“Then I’m telling you my official RCMP witness-protection file is wrong!” she said. “I never got married. I never had a son. Let alone four. And I wrote to you, a lot, in those first few weeks. Letters you clearly never got.”
His nostrils flared. He let out a hard breath. Liam didn’t believe her. He believed his own files and sources in the RCMP. A faint buzzing sound came from his jacket pocket. He yanked out his phone and answered.
“Hey, Seth,” he said. “Yeah, sorry—before you say whatever it is you’re going to say, I need you to pull an RCMP witness-protection file for me. Kelly Marshall. Placed in protection a couple of decades ago. I need to know her family status. Specifically spouse and kids. Yes, it’s urgent. Yes, super urgent. No, I’m not going to tell you why.”
He paused as if waiting for him to pull the file.
“Who’s Seth?” Kelly asked.
“Seth Miles,” Liam said. “He’s a member of my team.”
“Seth Miles,” she repeated. “The criminal hacker?”
Seth Miles was either famous or notorious in online circles depending on one’s opinion of vigilante Robin Hood figures who tried to do the right thing outside of the law. Did Liam have any idea how many laws Seth had broken? And yet he judged Renner for going outside the law?
“Yes, the formerly criminal hacker,” Liam said. He turned back to the phone. “Okay... Okay...” She watched as he nodded and then nodded again. Then his face paled. “All right, call you back in a moment.”
Liam hung up. His eyes locked on her face.
“Well, sweetheart, according to your official RCMP file, you got married three months after entering witness protection to a man named Robbie, and had four sons with him, named Robert, Gordon, Frank and Bill—”
“Well, that’s obviously not true—”
He held up a hand as if to stop her. “It also said you died in a car crash four and a half years ago.”
* * *
Liam watched as her face paled and her eyes widened. The fact that she was still so beautiful it knocked him sideways whenever he looked at her wasn’t doing much to help his focus. Then she laughed. It was a mildly hysterical giggle that meant she found his information more unsettling than funny. Yeah, so did he.
“I can’t believe I’m saying this,” Kelly said, “but I’m not dead and I really did not get married to a man named Robbie. You can go find him and ask him yourself.”
“I know you didn’t.” Liam ran his hand over his face. “And, no, I can’t ask him, because apparently Robbie’s dead, too. Your whole fictional family is. You all died in the same car accident.”
Her hand rose to her lips. This whole situation was like a sick joke. One that his gut actually felt queasy over. He’d built his entire life around the integrity of the RCMP. The idea that someone could’ve deliberately falsified Kelly’s file was unthinkable. A burst of cold air rushed in to their right, as a small mob of happy partygoers ran down the narrow hallway. Kelly pressed her back against the wall and he braced his hand on the wall beside her, placing his body protectively between her and the people pushing past.
As tempted as he was to get the captain to turn the boat around, this was also the second time in one night he’d been knocked sideways when he’d discovered what he thought he knew was wrong. Just how much didn’t he know? The new Imposters had placed a bounty on Kelly’s head in the hopes she’d lead them to Renner and help them get his decoding device, not that there was any indication they knew who she was in real life. Thank You, God. In fact, these new Imposters were so gung ho on committing the kind of major crimes they’d be able to do with a master key that could open any online door that they were willing to crash power grids worldwide on New Year’s Eve.
And Kelly had just informed him that she was sure Renner was alive and there was no master decipher key. Hearing it from Seth was one thing. Seth had all sorts of crazy ideas. But Kelly?
What Liam needed most right now was information—information Kelly had—and he’d learned in his line of work that sometimes it was better to keep a subject of an investigation talking for a while before arresting them. After all, some people tended to get pretty upset at being arrested and would stop cooperating, and he was fairly sure she’d be one of them.
More chattering came from the other direction now as a fresh group of people came down the hall, then more cold air rushed in. Then suddenly another fact hit him—Kelly hadn’t actually tried to escape from him. That in itself was pretty interesting.
“I’m sorry I called you ‘sweetheart,’” he said finally. “I won’t do it again.”
And he didn’t know why it kept happening.
“Well, I just assumed you called everyone ‘sweetheart,’” she said, as if trying to lighten the moment.
“No,” he admitted. “Just you.” He took a deep breath and prayed for wisdom. “Come on,” he added. “You and I are going to go back to the party. Just for another quick minute.”
Was it his imagination or had she barely managed to keep herself from sighing in relief?
His fingers looped through hers and they walked back into the party holding hands. He wasn’t exactly sure which one of them had grabbed the other’s hand first or why they’d decided to do it. But here they were now, and he was going with it. A couple of guys were sitting at their table, but without a word, they got up and vacated it when Liam nodded at them. Liam pulled the table closer to the wall and positioned the chairs to block people from seeing them.
“Sit, please,” he said quietly. He let go of her hand and she dropped into the chair. He grabbed a clean red-and-green cloth napkin from a nearby table, spread it open and then slowly slipped his handcuffs underneath it, making sure she could see them.
“If I didn’t know any better I’d think you were about to do a magic trick with those,” she said.
“And if I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’ve been trying to stall me,” he said. He sat so close her shoulder was almost touching his. “And I’d like to know why. Now, I don’t want to take you out of here in handcuffs. I really don’t. But you clearly aren’t in a hurry to get off this boat, which is very interesting to me. So how about we play a game of twenty questions. You can sit here and keep enjoying the atmosphere, handcuff-free, as long as you keep answering. Fair?”
“Fair.” Her eyes—strong, determined and full of grit—met his. She leaned her arms on the table and he did likewise. “So what aren’t you telling me, Liam?”
A laugh erupted in his throat. Had she always been like this? He’d remembered her as tenacious and someone who challenged and pushed him. If she’d also been this irritating, he’d forgotten.
“The person with the badge asks the questions,” he said. “Starting with, how do you know Renner Phillips?”
“I met him through Hannah.”
“Okay,” he said, “and how do you know Hannah?”
Her shoulders rose and fell. “Pass.”
“Why did you call her your girl?” he persisted.
“I called her ‘our’ girl,” she said. “And the answer is pass.”
“You don’t get to pass.” He clenched his jaw to keep his voice from rising an octave and his hands inched toward the handcuffs. Then he frowned. It was hard to tell with the darkness outside the window, but it felt like the boat had stopped moving. Was that part of the party cruise? “Who falsified your witness-protection file?”
Worry flickered in her eyes. “I have no idea.”
And that he believed.
“Do you know why the boat’s stopped?” he asked.
“No, I didn’t realize it had.” Her gaze darted to his hands. “Did you really not get any of my letters or messages? Not even one?”
“No,” he said, “I really didn’t—”
“And you honestly thought I was married?” she asked.
“Yes, but—”
She grabbed his hands. “And if you hadn’t thought I was married, you’d have done what?”
“I have no idea.” He heard the faint sound of a baby crying somewhere in the crowd to his right. Not wailing, but just the small cry of a tiny infant trying to be noticed. Odd, he thought this was a child-free event. But between the question and the fact that Kelly’s hands were on his, he didn’t turn and look. He couldn’t even remember ever having a woman suddenly try to grab on to his hand before and him not flinching or jerking away like he’d been electrocuted. “But it doesn’t matter now, does it?”
Help me, Lord. I don’t know what to ask.
He tried again.
“If you hacked the dark-web auction last year on Christmas Eve to prevent the sale of Hannah’s file, then you’ve clearly heard of the Imposters,” he said and watched as she nodded. “You probably don’t know that three detective friends and I, along with a hacker, are the ones who took them down.” At this revelation, her eyes widened. “As you probably know, the original Imposters are dead. Did you know a new group of Imposters have risen up to take their place? There’s dozens of them, spread across the country. No known leader. They’re threatening to crash international power grids unless someone hands them Renner’s master decipher key. They also put a bounty on the Sparrow’s head in the hopes you’d lead them to Renner.”
Christmas Witness Conspiracy Page 3