Christmas Witness Conspiracy

by Maggie K. Black

  “Well...that...” Liam shook his head. She glanced at him in the rearview mirror. Any remaining vestiges of blood fled his face, leaving his skin as ashen as the dirty snow outside. “That...is... I... Wow...”

  “It’s what’s called a deep fake,” Kelly said quickly. “They use computer-generated images and digitally altered existing footage to create this. It’s not real.”

  Then a stray and disconcerting thought crossed her mind. She’d never asked Hannah how she knew for sure Renner was alive and that it was him communicating with her. Could that have been faked, as well? Could he really have created a master-key decryption device and been killed for it, and it had been somebody else pretending to be him to lure Hannah into danger?

  “If I didn’t know any better I’d think a younger and stronger version of myself traveled through time and I killed him,” Liam said wearily.

  “Yeah, that’s the point,” Kelly said, forcing her worrying thoughts aside for a moment. “Judging by the time stamp, it was posted online minutes before that cop tried to arrest you on the boat. Which might explain why he was so off his game, if he’d just gotten word you had a murderous doppelgänger on the loose. I’m guessing that’s also why Seth told you to go dark and a man whose daughter you saved sent goons to kill you. Guess the downside of being famous and beloved is that everyone wants to help avenge your murder.”

  “I’m neither of those things,” Liam muttered. He turned to Constable Marlie. “And this is all over the internet?”

  “And television,” Marlie said. “It’s the top trending story on all the major social-media sites. It’s international news.”

  Liam pressed his lips together and nodded slowly.

  “Well, Kelly,” he said. “Seems you were right about thinking we should’ve gotten online as soon as possible.” He really was waking up to a whole new world. One where he was both dead and wanted for murder. “How do we get this off the internet and prove that I’m not dead and not an evil double who murdered the real me, before the next person we run into isn’t as professional as Constable Jake Marlie here and instead has a shoot-first, ask-questions-second mentality?”

  “With a lot of difficulty,” she admitted, “and a lot of help.”

  She watched as Liam closed his eyes and a silent prayer crossed his lips. Then he turned to Constable Marlie.

  “You’re a great cop from what I’ve seen and I don’t want to do anything to hurt your career,” Liam said. “If I give you the key, do you know how to get your hands free from the cuffs?” Marlie shook his head. “Well, it’s a good skill to learn, and I’ll cuff one hand to the steering wheel instead to make it easier. Then I’ll leave you with the key, let the air out of your tires and go. By the time you radio for help and they get here, we’ll be gone.”

  “Look,” Constable Marlie began, “I don’t know what’s going on and I’m not saying I’m convinced you’re Liam Bearsmith but—”

  Liam held up a hand to silence him.

  “No,” he said. “I’m Steve Parker, or whoever. That’s all you know. You stick with that. Because if I was Liam Bearsmith, the last thing I’d want or need right now is for whoever’s behind this to think that I have a clue what’s going on. I’d want them to think I’m clueless. And I also wouldn’t want a good cop taking collateral damage over this, either. Got it?”

  The constable nodded.

  Liam turned to Kelly. “Take Pip back to the truck and get her buckled in. I’ll meet you there in five.”

  She did as he asked, saying a quick goodbye to Constable Marlie because it felt wrong to just walk away without saying something. True to his word, Liam met her back at the truck four minutes later.

  “Thanks to the constable’s computer, I’ve confirmed that law enforcement have mounted a full-scale operation to locate and rescue Hannah,” he said as he slid back into the driver’s seat. He closed the door and did up his seat belt. “The good news is that she appears to be safe and unharmed for now. The Imposters have been posting about her online, offering to trade her safe return for Renner’s decryption key.”

  “But Renner hasn’t responded, has he?” she asked.

  Liam shook his head. “No, why?”

  “Because almost all of Hannah’s communication with Renner has been typing,” she said. “They’ve only had a few quick video calls. What if you were right? What if Renner is dead and it was all faked? What if no one was ever going to message me back?”

  Liam reached for her hand and squeezed it. “She’s alive, and we’re going to find her. That’s all that matters right now.” He glanced over his shoulder at the baby in the back in her car seat.

  “Restless,” Kelly said. “Along with needing food and a steady supply of fresh diapers, I’m worried she’s not getting enough time to stretch and move. She’s very wriggly. Even babies this little need time to play.”

  “Understood,” Liam said. He pulled out onto the road and started driving.

  Her eyes glanced to the clock. It was almost eight in the morning and had been less than eleven hours since she’d bumped into Liam back on the Toronto docks.

  “I feel bad for Constable Marlie,” Liam said after a long moment.

  “He knew it was you,” Kelly said. “Not at first, but by the end you’d convinced him.”

  “Maybe,” Liam said. “When this is all sorted I’ll make sure his career doesn’t take a hit for this.”

  “For arresting the incomparable Liam Bearsmith when he was on the run under false charges?” Kelly asked. “Or for the fact a suspected criminal overpowered him and handcuffed him?”

  “A bit of both,” Liam said. “Maybe more A than B.”

  He was quiet for a long moment. Her eyes gazed over at the impossibly incredible and handsome man, whom she felt closer to than she’d ever felt to anyone else, and yet in some ways who still felt like a stranger. His brow was furrowed. He’d been willing to throw away a career in law enforcement for her, and now his dedication to it was so strong he was worried about the junior-level officer who’d tried to arrest him.

  Maybe it had been right he’d ended up in the RCMP instead of with her.

  Liam turned toward her, as if sensing her eyes on his face. “Do you want to go to a wedding?”

  * * *

  Detective Jessica Eddington stood alone in the tiny study of the apartment on the second floor of Tatlow’s Used Books in the small town of Kilpatrick, Ontario. Jess looked somewhat like a fairy-tale princess, Liam thought as he cautiously stepped foot onto the freezing second-floor fire-escape platform and continued to watch her through the window, to ensure she was actually alone. Her long blond hair was somehow both piled on top of her head and falling in loose waves around her shoulders, and the white cape that draped over her white wedding dress seemed to fall in glittery waves all the way to the floor. Jess spun toward the window, yanked her weapon from somewhere inside the shimmering fabric and aimed it straight between his eyes.

  Liam’s hands rose.

  “Jess!” He hissed. “It’s me! Liam! I’m—I’m not dead.”

  But he’d barely gotten a handful of words into his rambling explanation when the bride dropped the weapon back into some hidden pocket in her dress, ran across the study and yanked open the window.

  “Liam!” A delighted smile burst across her face, like a little sister welcoming her brother home from college. “Come in! Get in!”

  Despite being half his size, pretty much, she practically yanked him through the window.

  “I’m not dead,” he said again.

  “I know!” She laughed. “Now get in before anyone sees you.”

  “Did Seth fill you in on the situation?” he asked.

  Jess’s eyes widened. “I haven’t heard from Seth in hours. He was supposed to be one of our witnesses, but then he sent a text to both Travis and I in the middle of the night saying he wouldn’t
make it to the wedding. According to Travis, Willow isn’t that happy with him over it.”

  No, Liam didn’t think she would be. Six-year-old Willow definitely had strong opinions about things and was a force to be reckoned with. Seth had grown close to former detective Travis Tatlow, his adopted daughter, Willow, and her baby brother, Dominic, when Seth and Jess had gone undercover to help them escape deadly criminals from Travis’s past last June.

  What could possibly be serious enough to make Seth miss Travis and Jess’s wedding?

  “Mack, Noah and I did touch base about you briefly this morning,” Jess added, referring to the other two detectives on their team, Mack Grey and Noah Wilder. “We agreed that if any of us heard anything, we’d tell the other two right away.”

  And Liam had a lot to fill them in on. He glanced down at the truck, now with altered plates, he’d parked in the alley below. “I’ve got people with me. A friend of mine and a baby. My...” He swallowed hard and forced the words over his lips. “My granddaughter. Turns out I have a baby granddaughter. They need a place to hide.”

  Jess’s blue eyes went wide.

  But all she said was “Well, they’re safe here. I’ve still got one of Dominic’s old cribs and playpens here. I’m pretty sure we have formula. There are a few diapers in the bathroom. I don’t know if we’d have any the baby’s size, but we might. Check in the back of the cupboard. Either way, there’s a drugstore just down the street.”

  Travis had become like a father figure to little Willow and Dominic while in witness protection and he’d eventually adopted them when they became orphaned. The love that Jess felt for Travis and the kids practically radiated through her. Gratitude overwhelmed him.

  “Thank you,” he said. “But we can’t stay.”

  “Of course you can stay.” Jess’s arms crossed.

  “But, it’s your wedding day,” Liam said.

  “Yeah, I know it’s my wedding day.” She laughed. “I’m the one in the big white dress. And you’re not going to miss it. How many years have we worked together? Five? Six? And how many times did you save my life or have my back?”

  He wasn’t sure. He didn’t keep count. It wasn’t the kind of thing a person did in a job like this.

  “Travis, the kids and I might not even be alive today without your backup,” Jess said. “So you’re coming to my wedding and that’s final. The church has a small balcony that’s never used. We’ll close it off and you can hide there. We’ll find somebody both you and I trust to watch the baby. Then after the wedding, we’ll sit down with the rest of the team and figure this all out.”

  He almost laughed. “But. It’s. Your. Wedding. Day.”

  “I know!” She laughed. “And don’t worry. I’m heading to church soon and getting married in about an hour. I’ll still catch a flight to Florida with my new husband for our honeymoon tonight. Noah and Holly will still be getting married tomorrow and Mack and Iris will still be getting married on New Year’s Eve. But we can still be there for you, too.”

  Jess’s smile was gentle, but her blue eyes were strong.

  “Go get your friend and your granddaughter,” Jess insisted. “We’ll get them sorted, and I’ll fill the team in. Just let me have the wedding and get married, then we’ll carve out a little bit of time to meet back here and hash things out before the reception. It’ll give Travis and I a nice little interlude between doing all the fancy, formal wedding things. Considering the fact we have a one-year-old and a six-year-old in the wedding party, we planned a pretty short ceremony, and the reception’s a potluck at the volunteer fire hall.” Her eyes glanced to the clock. “I should have the team back here in two and a half hours. Maybe three. Don’t worry. It’ll be fine.”

  “Thank you,” Liam said, suddenly finding it hard to speak words as something welled in his throat.

  Sure, he’d been there to help rescue her, Travis and the children from violent criminals, and to assist her out of a few tight spots. But that was the job. That was what he did. Maybe even, on some level, what God had put him on the planet to do. What Jess was doing now somehow felt like so much more.

  “Now again, hurry up and get your people,” Jess said. “I can’t wait to meet them.”

  His people. Huh. He’d never thought of himself as having people before.

  “Kelly,” he said. “My friend’s name is Kelly. She’s...the grandmother of my grandchild. We haven’t seen each other in a very long time. I didn’t even know we had a child. The baby’s name is Pip. It’s a nickname. They haven’t named her yet.” He ran his hand over the back of his neck. “Sorry, I don’t even know what to say about this situation yet. It’s all very complicated and confusing.”

  Jess nodded. “Family often is.”

  And there was something about the simplicity of her answer that helped.

  “Not sure how to say this, but you look really nice, by the way,” Liam added, partly to change the subject, but mostly because it was true. “Like a princess only not cheesy.”

  “Thank you,” Jess said. “Willow helped pick it out. She has a matching dress in navy and silver. According to Travis, she was running around in the cape all last night and he barely talked her out of sleeping in it. Considering she’s six, my getup could’ve been much more sparkly. I barely talked her out of tiaras.”

  Liam chuckled. “Travis was really blessed to find you.”

  “We’re blessed to have found each other.”

  Liam turned to go, then paused as a question he’d forgotten to ask crossed his mind. “Why do you have your service weapon—a gun—in your wedding dress?”

  “Because for some reason the world thinks Liam Bearsmith is dead,” Jess said. “And while I didn’t know why or what that meant, I was pretty sure he couldn’t be.”

  He could still hear her laughing as he climbed back down the fire escape to get Kelly and Pip, and then he hid the truck.

  There was something peaceful, almost homelike, about how the next hour passed. Jess let them in through the closed bookstore instead of making them climb the fire escape with the baby. It turned out there was indeed a diaper Pip’s size hiding in the back of the closet, and before Jess left to join her bridesmaids and get ready for her wedding, she had a friend drop by with a fresh box of diapers, two different types of formula and a bag of donated baby clothes. Then Liam and Kelly camped out on the living-room floor and spread out a Noah’s Arc play mat for Pip to stretch and wriggle on, along with fuzzy animal toys that squeaked, crinkled and rattled. They leaned against pillows, played with the baby and ate a simple meal of ham-and-cheese sandwiches and fruit, thanks to Jess’s insistence they help clear out what was left in the fridge.

  A small television was on in the corner and they watched the twenty-four-hour news station, with the sound off, for news about the Imposters. Kelly’s phone charged and Liam used one of Travis’s tablet computers to scan the internet in vain for more information about the new Imposters, Hannah’s kidnapping and his supposed death.

  Despite the tension and fear, a comfortable silence fell between them, while hundreds of words tumbled silently through Liam’s brain that he left unsaid. He glanced over to where Kelly was kneeling, her long dark hair falling around her face as she played with Pip.

  Something ached like a deep wound buried by scar tissue inside his chest.

  Lord, I’d have given anything for this beautiful, amazing woman to be my family. Why were we torn apart? Who can we be to each other now?

  She glanced up, as if sensing his gaze. Their eyes met. Emotions crashed like waves over his heart.

  I wish I hadn’t believed you’d moved on without me. I wish I’d been brave enough to show up at your door and find out myself. I wish I hadn’t let my father talk me into forgetting you and moving on, for the sake of my career. I wish I’d had the courage to have my heart broken to my face. I should’ve come back for you.

&nb
sp; Her lips parted slowly. He watched as silent words formed there. But before she could speak them, a buzz sounded behind her. She spun.

  “It’s the phone!” she yelped. She snatched it from the cord. “It’s Renner. I’ve got a message from Renner!”

  She squeezed the phone in both hands for a moment and clutched it to her chest. Then she typed a quick response and set it back down.

  “It’s all good news,” she said. “Renner has found Hannah. He’ll be rescuing her later today and then coming to pick up Pip and I. We’ll all be reunited and leaving Canada by tonight.”

  The warmth and joy that flushed her cheeks did nothing to temper the cold dread that spread over Liam’s limbs. Something about this was wrong. Very wrong. But for once his mind was too murky to figure out what.

  Then she frowned. “Renner’s telling me to turn on the news.”

  He turned to the television and froze as he stared in disbelief at the face filling the screen.

  “A warrant has been issued for hacker Seth Miles’s arrest,” he said, reading out loud, “on suspicion of being the Imposter mastermind behind the holiday party boat hijacking.”

  NINE

  “Don’t believe it!” Liam said quickly. “Just because the news says that Seth’s an Imposter doesn’t make it true. I don’t know why the news is saying that, but there has to be a reason.”

  “The Imposters are exactly the kind of group he’d have teamed up with in the past,” Kelly said.

  “I know,” Liam said. “But he’s changed.”

  Footsteps sounded on the stairs.

  “Get behind me!” he ordered. In an instant, he leaped in front of Pip and Kelly, sheltering them with his body, just as two figures appeared at the top of the stairs.