Secrets and Lies

by Capri Montgomery

  She yawned, big and long. “I’m sorry,” she said once the yawn released her from its hold. Her eyes were now watery again.

  “No problem. You need some sleep.” He stood and pulled her up with him. “Call me, anytime—I mean that.”

  “I know,” she hugged him tight. “Thanks, Kyle. You’re a lifesaver.”

  Chapter Two

  First thing Thomas needed to do was get some information on that supposed accident that almost got Thena killed. He had been thinking about her case all morning, but he had a case to deliver the final documents on this morning and it didn’t leave time for the leg work he needed to do for Thena.

  He knew she wanted answers about her mother’s death, but right now the more pressing issue was getting answers about who had tried to kill her. He was sure it was related. He needed to know if the report had any information on the make, model and plate of the vehicle. Her mother was dead. He couldn’t change that. While he wanted to give her the closure she sought, keeping her alive took priority for him. He wasn’t a bodyguard. He knew people far more willing to assume that role, but for some reason he was determined to make himself her bodyguard. And what a body it was to be guarding. He still couldn’t get past those sexy lean legs of hers. She kept in shape—delicious shape—and he figured she did that with the work she did everyday. He doubted running the contracting company along with keeping her architectural dreams alive, combined with flipping houses and giving Twist of Fate a steady supply of houses to rent out, would leave time for a vigorous workout routine.

  She had told him, in no uncertain terms, that she just wanted answers about her mother. That was her way of telling him to drop the questions about the near hit and run from the previous night. As if he had any plans of ever doing that.

  Any other private detective would probably be content with just digging for information on her mother’s case, but he wasn’t any other detective. Protecting people was in his blood. She needed his help for more than just closure and he aimed to see that she got it—whether she wanted the full service package or not. He was also planning a way to cut her bill in half, if not more. He reckoned it was a good thing women like her didn’t walk into his office everyday otherwise he might go bankrupt trying to save them money.

  It wasn’t just because of her beauty. He had seen many beautiful women walk through his door, professionally and personally. It was her innocence, that blatant sense of goodness in her that he hadn’t seen in a long time. She was vulnerable, yet strong, innocent yet not naive, and she intrigued him.

  He needed to put those thoughts out of his mind. He couldn’t pursue her. It wasn’t her status as his client that kept him from going for more. At some point she wouldn’t be his client and with any other woman he might think of pursuing at will, but not her. She deserved more than what he could offer her—not financially, he was fine financially, maybe not rich, but not poor either. He was a solid middle class single man, with strong investments and a good economic ethic. He could be a good provider, a good husband—if he weren’t determined to get closure for his own case. Until he did that he wouldn’t be any good to anybody like her. She deserved a husband who would come home to her without eight years of baggage dragging behind him. She deserved more, more than what he could give her right now.

  “Focus,” he mumbled. “Focus on the case at hand.” He would drop off his findings to Natalie Kaufman, an eccentric older woman who was determined to protect her family and her family’s money by making sure her son didn’t marry a “gold digging floozy.” He had laughed, inwardly of course, at her verbiage. He wasn’t the type to usually think the worst of people, but in his line of work the worst is what he usually saw. Natalie had been right; her future daughter-in-law was indeed a “gold digging floozy.” She had taken three previous men to the bank, and the cleaners, within a year of marriage. She divorced and then quickly moved on to the next not-so-poor, unsuspecting sucker. Of course he was sure Jeremiah Kaufman didn’t know that because Jeremiah thought his new fiancé had never been touched, let alone married.

  He had to laugh at himself. He had taken that case as a favor to a friend. He didn’t do domestic cases. He hated cheating husbands, cheating wives, unscrupulous children and the likes. He stayed as far away from those cases as he could. He had learned, fairly early in his PI career, to keep those cases ten miles away from his office. First off, they never ended well. He always found himself telling some poor slob that his wife really was banging his business partner. Or he ended up sitting on the other side of the desk watching some woman fall apart in her chair after finding out her husband really was having that affair. After the first few times, and after he had nearly been the reason a husband didn’t live to see tomorrow, he decided he would stick to the cases with more than domestic issues to worry about. He had been told he would be limited, but he found out differently. Companies loved to hire him to get the goods on employees. He also did some fact finding work when there was the possibility of requisitioning a company. He had even worked a few old cold cases that cops had left to wither in a box down in storage.

  Now he had this case, this nearly twenty year old missing person—turned murder case. This was the type of case that jumpstarted his fire. He wanted answers and he was determined to get them. They might stonewall Thena, but that wouldn’t wash with him. He had ways of getting the information he needed; most of those ways were entirely legal.

  He had called Dustin Galveston, the medical examiner, first thing that morning, and Dustin assured him that he had been ordered to leave the body in the freezer until he was given clearance to do the workup. He knew he wouldn’t get any answers there, but Dustin had told him if he came by after the seven o’clock shift left he could get a look at the body without anybody else knowing. He would just have to pretend to be working on another case. That was just great. He needed access to answers and already, somebody was working hard to seal those answers. He wanted to know why. He wanted to know who. He wanted to know how. If the body had been found within his old precinct’s jurisdiction he would have full on access, but it hadn’t. He wasn’t a total outsider at the precinct where the case was being worked, but he was sure nobody there would feel obligated to answer his questions if he pushed.

  Dustin had been his friend since high school, which is probably why he was willing to put his career on the line to let him get a look at the body. He would hold off on making an appearance at the station to talk to the officer on the case until after he had a look at the body. One should never tip their hand until they were ready for their hand to be tipped.

  First he would find out what he could on the near hit and run, then he would get a look at that body, and then, tomorrow he would have a talk with the officer who was working the case. Or maybe he would get a look at the body first and then find out about the hit and run because that too was being handled within the same precinct and he didn’t want to chance anything leaking from one department to another. He needed the element of surprise. If he wanted to avoid the waiting room of paperwork he would need to find out who the detective assigned to Mrs. Davis’ case was. He could probably get that information from Dustin tonight. First, there was still one thing bothering him, and the only person who could fix that was Thena Davis. At least that’s the reason he gave himself for summoning her to his office when it hadn’t even been a full twenty-four hours since he saw her last.

  When she arrived she was wearing a sexy white skirt that zipped up the front from bottom to top and a hot pink blouse that hugged her petite curves in all the right places. His eyes hadn’t wasted any time in taking in her luscious brown legs, covered in sheer skin-tone stockings, on up to her curvy hips, slender waist, and small breasts. He made the movement quick, wishing he could spend a lot more time getting to know the body in front of him. He made sure he reminded himself this was business. There would be no getting to know the body of any client, especially this one, no matter how much he wanted to.

  “Have a seat,” he mot
ioned to the chair.

  “Thomas I’m heading out now. Mike has a soccer game tonight.”

  Thomas looked at the redhead who, on most good days, actually worked as his secretary instead of jetting out of the office for personal errands. “Sure,” he nodded. “See you tomorrow, Janet.”

  “Well…tomorrow is—”

  He held up his hand to stop her from talking. “You need tomorrow off too?”

  “Do you mind? It’s just that Mike has a school thing…and you know it’s so important that I’m there for him.”

  He shrugged. It was nearly May, which meant school would be over soon and he didn’t even want to think what reasons she would have for missing work then. He nearly laughed. If he didn’t let her get away with it she wouldn’t do it. No, if he didn’t let her get away with it she would either try to find a job where she could, or she would forget about being there for her son. Her son was ten years old and he was still recovering from his dad leaving them. Thomas understood the kid’s emotions. His father left too. Of course it was different for his family, they weren’t young children wanting their family to still be a family living under one roof. They were all grown, and still pissed as hell at their father for cheating on their mother and walking away. He knew Mike needed his mother right now, more than ever before.

  Thomas wasn’t in the habit of breaking up families. He could get by without her in the office. Come summer, however, he would have to figure something else out to make sure her son had his mother while he still had his secretary working in the office. Although maybe he might set her up to work from home a couple days a week. She could type dictations, keep records, something…he would have to figure it out.

  “I should start making you work weekends for all the days you miss,” he said as seriously as he could. If it bothered him that she took more days off a week than she worked he would fire her, but she was a good secretary. She worked hard when she was in the office.

  “Tell Mike I said hello, and to stay out of trouble or I’m going to put him to work again.”

  She smiled, warm and bright. “I can’t thank you enough for that. You’ve been a God send Thomas.” She waved and hurried out the door.

  “She’s nice,” Thena smiled. “Are the two of you…?” She let her question go unfinished.

  “We work together. I’m her boss; she’s my employee.” His tone was business as usual. “Janet’s husband recently left, and her son got into some trouble. I put him to work here; got him fixed up with the youth soccer team and I help when I can. I’m trying to keep him from ending up in jail one day.”

  She nodded. “That’s very noble of you. A lot of people wouldn’t even care to help.”

  “I got the impression the other day that you worked with your men on the site.” He refrained from gesturing to the sexy clothes she had on. She looked sexy in the jeans she had worn to his office yesterday too. She could probably look sexy wearing a paper bag.

  “I couldn’t really handle going in that house today. My foreman can handle things there. Plus I had a new client to meet with so I just…played hooky, I guess.” She crossed her legs. She couldn’t know what that unconscious movement had just done to him. His mind was already thinking about getting those legs crossed around his body.

  He mentally pushed the thought from his mind. It was getting late and if he wanted to grab a bite to eat and take a drive by the construction site before he needed to meet with Dustin, then he needed to get on with business. “I called you here because something’s been bothering me about the chain of events after you found the body.”

  Thena waited to see if he was going to divulge any further information. Was she supposed to read his mind? If something was bothering him then he should just spit it out. Clearly he was of a different opinion on that.

  “What’s bothering you?” If she could help, she would. She needed answers more than anything at this point and the cops weren’t exactly in a hurry to help her.

  “Why were you all back on the site working the next day?”

  She shrugged. “The cops came, took the body and the chest she was stuffed in. they said it was okay for us to continue working.” She thought it had been odd that they would allow them to keep working on the remodel of the house, but she had been assured they were clear to work. She knew the guys needed the work. With the economy near rock bottom she didn’t want to keep them out of work. She left, but they stayed on.

  It had been a fluke they even found the chest. The wall that it had been hidden in was supposed to be solid. On the blueprints it showed itself as a supporting wall, which meant she couldn’t knock it down. The only thing that changed her decision was getting her hands on another set of blueprints, one that was dated a month earlier than the completion date and it didn’t show the wall as a supporting structure. After much consideration and research, she made a judgment call. She was skilled. She knew she could trust her gut on all things construction and building related. She made a call to move the wall back in order to open up the smaller bedroom. Of course she hadn’t ordered it done that day. Reese had misunderstood her and he had gone in with the sledgehammer and started making a dent in the structure. He was the one who found the chest.

  “They told you to keep working?” He looked at her as if she had to be joking with him.

  “Yeah. They said it wasn’t an issue. I let the guys stay and I went down to the station to try to get some answers…I got stonewalled. It wasn’t a priority for them and so they weren’t going to rush it through.”

  “Who did you speak with?”

  “Same detective that came out, a…McNamara, Phoebe I think was her first name.”

  He nodded.

  “You know her?”

  “Yeah. I know her.” His tone told her the history was not a pleasant one. She decided not to press for answers.

  “I don’t think they’re going to give me any answers anytime soon. I guess they have more recent cases to work, but I just need to know what happened to her. She vanished when I was a child and I guess dad and I always knew she was dead, but finding her was just so…surreal. She looked the same as I remembered her. The same as the last photograph we took together. How is that even possible?”

  “Did she have any sisters or brothers?”

  “Yes and no. My grandmother died when my mom was six. My grandfather couldn’t take it so he left her on a doorstep near the state line. The family ended up raising her. They had a little boy and a little girl at the time. They were white and my mom pretty much looked fully white. She had about an ounce of black in her. My dad was black—it’s where I get my coloring from. I have her hair though. That curly, easily tamed texture.” She smiled, though briefly. “She went to school at UMAS Boston campus, and she met my dad while she was walking home one day. It’s why I went to school there, because it was her Alma Mater.”

  “I’m going to do some more research and I’ll get back with you with the details. Whatever I can find out, you’ll know.”

  “Thanks,” she nodded. She just wanted answers. She wanted the truth about what happened and if whoever killed her was still alive then she wanted justice too. For now, she would settle for answers. Now, there was just one more thing she needed to do before she left; one thing that she had been thinking about all night. “Have you eaten yet?” Thena felt nervous vibrations going through her body.

  “No. I’ll grab a sandwich before I head in.”

  “I could buy you dinner,” she offered. His shoulders went rigid, not relaxed as they had been while he was talking to her. It wasn’t that he had bad posture, because he didn’t, but she could definitely tell the difference in his relaxed, laid back posture with her just seconds ago, and his tense, highly evasive posture he had now.

  “Thena, this is business, and I think we best keep it that way.”

  “Right…right,” she blushed at her embarrassment. Here she was practically throwing herself at the man. She had broken her first rule. Always, always, wait to be sure the
man has some interest before attempting to schedule a date. “I wasn’t…that is I was just offering to pay for your…meal,” she smiled the best she could, knowing she must have looked like a big idiot. She surely felt like one.

  “Thanks, but I’ll be fine to get my own.”

  She nodded. “All right then. I guess I should go. If you need any further information from me please call—anytime.”

  “I’ll walk you out.”

  “No…no. I’m fine. I don’t want you to trouble yourself. My car is right in front of the building.”

  “No trouble.” He stood. She had really hoped he wouldn’t walk her out. She needed to escape as quickly as possible given the fact that she had just humiliated herself. He was being nice enough not to throw the humiliation in her face, but she was sure he knew her offer to buy him dinner had been about more than just wanting to pay for his meal. She had been, in her own way, trying to ask the man out on a date.

  “Okay,” she managed another fake smile. Utter humiliation; could it get any worse? She didn’t think so. She was shy, not old fashioned, just shy. It took her months to ask a guy she liked out because she usually spent the months leading up to asking him out trying to determine if he even remotely liked her. Her first and third boyfriends had taken months to ask out whereas the other two had asked her. Kyle had even joked that if he had waited for her to stop procrastinating and ask him out he would still be waiting. He had been right. The bad experience she had had when she jumped the gun and professed her intentions without indication that the feeling was mutual had stopped her from making that mistake again—until now. She still remembered high school, the wrestling jock, the class president, the guy she liked—although now she wasn’t sure why—and she had done probably the dumbest thing a woman could ever do; she told him how she felt in a letter—a letter he then passed around his elite circle of friends. What an idiot—her and him. She was an idiot for writing the letter and he was an idiot for passing it around.