Zach stepped closer to her, forcing her to meet his gaze.
“No? Well, I don’t like you defending a man who stole from you. He doesn’t deserve your sympathy, let alone your help. Sorry, but your boyfriend’s going to jail.”
Meg glowered up at him. “I told you he’s not my boyfriend! Stop calling him that, that, that!” She yanked on her ponytail, once, twice, not caring that he witnessed another tic. The man was infuriating.
Zach raised an eyebrow. “Then who the hell is he? Why do you care so much about a perfect stranger?”
“He’s not a stranger!” she shouted. “He’s my brother!”
Stunned silence followed her words. “What?” Zach’s gaze searched hers. “Bullshit!”
Meg looked away. “He’s my twin brother. The only family I have left. If you would have just listened to me instead of assuming the worst like you always do, you’d know that by now. Go on.” She motioned toward the car. “Ask him. He’ll tell you.”
“Bullshit,” he said again, though he didn’t sound so sure of himself anymore. “Curtis can’t be your brother. You don’t look anything alike and he’s…six-four and you’re…tiny.”
Meg let out a snort. “So?”
He hesitated, uncertainty filling his eyes. “If he’s your brother, then why did you let me think all this time that you were sleeping with him?”
“I didn’t let you think anything. You just assumed. Not once did I say I was sleeping with him.”
Zach actually blushed then, the color flooding up his neck and into his face. He made a disgusted sound. “I don’t believe you. You’re trying to protect him from something.”
“From what? Go ask him!”
Zach spun on his heel and strode over to the car. He yanked the back door open and demanded, “Who are you, really?”
Curtis grinned. “Superman. Don’t you read comic books?”
Meg sighed in frustration when Zach turned back to her, his eyes blazing with fury.
“You think this is a fucking joke? I want the truth! You’ve lied to me for the last time.”
“I’m not lying!” She stumbled backward when Zach stalked toward her. Meg somehow tripped on her own feet when they got tangled together. She fell backward, landing hard on her ass. She barely managed to keep from banging her cast on the ground. Glaring up at Zach, Meg yelled, “Dammit Curtis, tell him who you are!”
Curtis had been watching their display from the backseat of the car. When Zach bent down to haul Meg to her feet, Curtis shouted, “Hey, don’t you touch my sister!”
“Sister?” Zach spun back around. “Did you say she was your sister?”
“Yes! You big fucking pig! We’re twins. We were born fifteen minutes apart. She’s just older than me.”
Meg rose to her feet. She wasn’t sure if she should be relieved or worried now that the truth was finally out in the open. Damn Zach anyway. No one had ever made her so angry before.
Zach turned back to her, his eyes still glittering with anger. “Does one word that comes from your mouth have any ring of truth?”
Her cheeks grew hot. She had told him plenty of lies, and by not correcting him when he’d assumed the worst, she’d only fed in to his assumptions. “I just told you the truth.”
“Just! You let me think he was your boyfriend!”
“I did not! You just assumed it. It’s not my fault you’re always thinking the worst of me.”
They glared at each other. “And not once did you bother to correct me. Why?”
She looked away, swallowing hard. “Because a part of me wanted you to think the worst of me.”
“What?” He looked incredulous. He lowered his voice. “Why?”
Meg didn’t answer. She couldn’t. How did she explain her reasons for wanting to keep him at a distance? He could ruin everything and she couldn’t allow that. Zach was distracting her from her goal.
She didn’t want to admit that she feared he was stealing her heart, something she’d sworn she’d never give to anyone.
“Never mind,” he whispered. “I think I know why.” He studied her in silence for what seemed like an eternity, but was probably only a few seconds. Finally he turned away with a loud sigh. “I’m taking your brother down to the jail. When I get back, you and I are going to have a nice, long talk.”
Over my dead body.
Their deal was off, damn him. She wasn’t telling him a thing. He’d promised not to arrest Curtis, but he’d lied.
“The deal’s off!” Her voice shook, her emotions in a turmoil. “So don’t waste your time coming back here. I’m not telling you anything now. You can go to hell!”
He tossed the bag of cash at her. Meg barely managed to catch the bag before it hit the ground.
“I had a feeling you’d say that. You were just using me to get what you wanted. But guess what, sweetheart, this time you’re not getting what you want.” He spun away and strode for the waiting vehicle.
Meg’s cheeks flamed. That wasn’t true. She wasn’t using him. She’d needed his help.
“That’s not true,” she whispered. “I wasn’t using you.”
She’d thought he was too far away to hear her, but he glanced back at her with a hardened expression, his eyes cold. “Nice try. I won’t be your sucker again.”
Meg squeezed her eyes shut. She’d hurt him and he was trying to hide that hurt behind a cold mask. Her heart pinched. She’d never wanted to hurt him. Why had she made such a stupid deal with him? She should have just gone out searching for Curtis by herself. She opened her eyes in time to see Zach striding for the back door where Curtis leaned partially out of the car, watching them.
“See ya’, Meg!” Curtis called just before Zach slammed the door shut in his face.
Zach paused, his gaze darting to hers. Something that looked like triumph flashed in his eyes.
“Meg?” he repeated softly. “Your name’s Meg?”
All the blood drained from her face. Curtis had messed up and called her by her real name. Her heart raced. She could deny it, but she had a feeling Zach wouldn’t believe her.
She took a deep breath, slowly exhaled. “Yes.”
Zach stared at her, but she couldn’t hold his gaze and looked away. He shook his head, then pulled open the driver’s side door.
He paused, glancing over at her again. Their gazes met. Something in his eyes—something she didn’t want to decipher—made Meg’s breath catch in her throat.
Zach slid behind the wheel and closed the door.
Her legs trembling, Meg clutched the bag against her chest and watched as the patrol car disappeared down the drive.
Now he knew her name and by the time he came back, he would know almost everything about her.
* * *
Meg. Her name was Meg.
That was all Zach could think on the drive to the jail.
Her name was Meg.
Finally, he knew her real name.
But she’d used him, damn her. And that hurt.
After finger-printing Curtis, Zach discovered that the man had two outstanding warrants in the state of Washington. One was for failure to attend court ordered drug rehab, the other for failing to check in with his probation officer on a regular basis. Curtis’s record didn’t show the use of any aliases. Had Meg known about the warrants? Was that why she’d been hiding him? Or was there some other reason she hadn’t wanted him to know the man was her brother?
Zach had to admit he’d been the one who’d assumed she’d been sleeping with Curtis, which he now acknowledged hadn’t been fair. He had assumed the worst, but only because he’d been jealous. He’d never been jealous before and he didn’t like the feeling. Why couldn’t he get the damn woman out of his head? She drove him crazy.
As he sat behind his desk pondering the situation, it occurred to Zach that if her brother’s last name was Gardner, then logically that was her real last name as well.
Adrenaline rushing through him, Zach typed in “Meg Gardner” and input the
same birth date as Curtis. If she was telling the truth and Curtis was her twin, then she was thirty-two years old.
He sat back and held his breath.
Within seconds, she appeared on the screen.
Meghan Elizabeth Gardner.
Meghan. He liked that name. A pretty name with an uncommon spelling. Unique. Like her.
Her most recent driver’s license photo was dated two years ago. It was a Washington driver’s license, listing an address in Spokane. She had a law degree from Gonzaga University School of Law.
“I’ll be damned,” he whispered. She’d been the first suspect to mention “probable cause” to him and now he understood why. She was an attorney. She knew the law. Interestingly enough, Evan Ambrose also had a law degree from Gonzaga. They’d attended law school together. There was still no record of a marriage, which confirmed Zach’s belief their marriage had been pretend. Why hadn’t they made it legal? Had one or the other of them been reluctant to tie the knot? Or had Vicky merely assumed they’d been married when they hadn’t? The woman was a gossip, after all. She may have accidentally given him false information. Yet Meghan had referred to Ambrose as her “husband,” so either she was playing him or she had considered the man her husband, even though they were never legally married. He supposed he’d have to ask her about it.
Meghan had no criminal record, but he honestly hadn’t expected her to. Her fingerprints hadn’t even been in the system. Though she was deceitful, he hadn’t gotten the “criminal” vibe from her. Even so, he was relieved to have proof that she wasn’t a criminal. But what was she hiding from? Why had she changed her identity? Why would an up and coming young attorney just disappear, giving up her job at the prosecutor’s office to go under the radar? Had someone threatened her? Had she stumbled upon someone or something illegal and run in fear for her life?
As he read more of her profile, something else caught his attention. Meghan Gardner was a person of interest, because she was also on the “Missing Persons” list along with Evan Ambrose. Her co-workers had reported her disappearance a day after Ambrose vanished. Zach would have discovered that sooner if he’d known her real name.
He sighed. He wanted to help her, but damn her, she wouldn’t tell him anything. He’d just barely found out her real name, and it wasn’t because she’d told him. Her brother had slipped up. Zach hated having to find out about her this way. He would have much preferred she be up front and honest with him.
But none of this explained why she was afraid of him.
Then she’d gone and used him. That didn’t sit well with him. He didn’t like being used.
It was his own fault, he surmised. He’d taken the bait because he’d desperately wanted to know her name. And because he wanted to see what she would do when he caught Curtis.
Zach groaned, rubbed his sore neck muscles, and read the rest of the report. A reference to an incident from fifteen years ago caught his eye and he clicked on the link. After reading the details of the case, he typed her name in the Google search engine. Numerous links came up, all referring to that incident from fifteen years ago. Zach swore softly. No wonder she hadn’t wanted him to know her real name. Shit. Now he understood her secrecy to some extent, but it didn’t explain why she’d suddenly vanished from Spokane, leaving her job and not telling anyone where she’d gone, changing her name and her appearance, and buying that little cabin out in the woods.
This changed everything and left him wondering what she was running from. Or what she was really up to.
One thing was for certain. She’d lied to him for the last time. Now he expected nothing but the truth.
Zach shut down his computer. Something told him getting the truth out of her wasn’t going to be that easy.
But first he had one other possible source of information that he couldn’t ignore.
Zach went back to the jail where Curtis was housed. Meghan’s brother looked up at Zach when he stopped in front of his cell.
“What’s Meghan up to? Why did she disappear from Spokane?”
Curtis looked away. “That’s her secret to share, not mine.”
Zach let out a frustrated sigh. “I want to help her, not hurt her. Can’t you see that?”
Curtis shrugged. “If she wants you to know, she’ll tell you.” He looked away for a moment, then said, “She’s in danger, dude. She’s in over her head. You need to keep a close eye on her.”
A chill slithered down Zach’s spine. “What kind of danger? What did she do?”
“I’m sure you know who she is by now,” Curtis said. “You’re a smart guy. You’ll figure it out.”
“You could help me out a little, don’t you think? I read about her. She was a bit of a celebrity fifteen years ago.”
Curtis let out a snort. “That was a long time ago, dude. I wouldn’t exactly call her a celebrity. People made fun of her, called her nasty names. But she toughed it out and just won’t let it go. Her determination is going to get her killed.” Curtis hung his head. “She has a bounty on her head, and I’m pretty sure I do too now.”
Zach’s heartrate kicked up. “What kind of bounty? You’ve got a few outstanding warrants, but no bounties on your head that I could find.”
“Not legitimate bounties, dude. You know, the kind bad guys put out on someone when they want you dead?”
Zach’s heart skidded to a halt. “Someone wants Meghan dead? Why?”
Curtis refused to meet Zach’s gaze. “That’s all I’m telling you, dude. You’ll have to ask Meg the rest. Or figure it out on your own. I shouldn’t have told you that much. You better not hurt her.” Curtis’s head jerked to the side rapidly. Five or six times. He blinked repeatedly, too many times for Zach to count. He shrugged his left shoulder, four or five times.
Zach eyed him for a moment. And then it dawned on him. The involuntary jerks. Shit, it wasn’t from drugs. Curtis suffered the same condition as Meghan, though his symptoms appeared to be a little more severe.
Zach hesitated. “Do you have Tourette’s Syndrome too?”
Curtis reddened. “Yeah, so what’s it to you? Why do you think I do drugs? It helps calm my tics. You want to laugh at me, motherfucker? Go ahead. I don’t care. I’ve been teased and made fun of my entire laugh. You can’t hurt me.” His head jerked again, almost spasmodically, before he finally stopped twitching. He blinked rapidly, then finally stopped and glared at Zach.
Zach scrubbed a hand over his face. Jesus. Why hadn’t he figured that out before now?
Because he’d been too blinded by his jealousy and dislike of the guy, thinking Curtis was Meghan’s lover. Thinking he was a loser, a druggie. A waste.
Zach’s stomach churned. He’d misjudged Curtis.
“I wasn’t laughing at you,” Zach said. “I just thought you were high on something stronger than pot.”
Curtis shrugged. “I don’t do the heavy stuff. And I only do it to help control my tics. Meg thinks I’m crazy, that it won’t help me, but what does she know? She’s never tried it.” He paused, his expression wary. “But she can control hers better than I can. She’s stronger than me.” He hesitated. “So, what you gonna’ do about it, dude?”
Zach turned away. “Nothing.” He needed to talk to Meghan now. “Thanks Curtis. I’ll do my best to help your sister.”
As he walked away, Zach thought he heard Curtis whisper, “you’d better,” but he wasn’t sure.
Now that he knew who she really was, it was time to have a serious talk with Meghan.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
As soon as Zach’s car disappeared down the road, Meg’s first instinct was to flee. To hightail it out of there. She had no doubt that when Zach returned, he would know the truth about her. Or at least as much as was in the official record and what he might find online. No one had believed her fifteen years ago, so why would Zach believe her now? There was a reason she hadn’t told him who she was and it was only partly because of the bounty. If he’d known who she was from the start, he would have prej
udged her. Hell, she feared his reaction when he came back. He already had a low opinion of her. Once he discovered the truth, he’d really think lowly of her.
She needed to leave.
Now.
She stood there in the front yard in indecision. She couldn’t just abandon Curtis like that. He was her brother. It was her fault Zach had taken him away. If she hadn’t made that stupid deal with Zach, Curtis wouldn’t be going to jail right now.
She let out a frustrated groan. She was terrified of what would happen when Zach came back. She needed to clear her head, think this through. Figure out what she was going to do.
Meg went inside the house and hid the bag of money in the bottom kitchen drawer. Five minutes later, she headed for the corral. A ride was what she needed to clear her head and help her figure out what to do.
During the ride through the woods, she searched her mind for all the possible solutions to this mess, and finally settled on what she believed to be the best one. If she stayed, Zach was close by in case of danger. She knew he would protect her, even after all her lies. But if she fled, she would be on her own.
She would stay. And hope she could deal with whatever happened when Zach came back.
Nearly an hour later, Meg returned home to see Zach’s car parked in her driveway. She wondered how long he’d been waiting for her. The ride had helped calm her nerves. But the sight of Zach leaning against the corral fence, watching her approach, his arms crossed over his chest, made her heart pound nervously.
Her gaze darted to his, then away. She fought the urge to turn Prince around and flee back into the forest.
Don’t chicken out now. He knows the truth.
Forcing herself to be brave, Meg brought the horse to a halt several feet away. She went on the defensive, blurting, “The deal’s off, remember? I’m not telling you anything.”
Zach stepped up to the horse and cocked his head. “You had no intention of making a deal with me. You were never going to tell me your name. If Curtis hadn’t messed up, I still wouldn’t know your name. You used me and I don’t like being used.”
Deceived (Unlikely Heroes Book 3) Page 17