by Cherrie Lynn
He scoffed, then swung his door open wide. “You’re perfectly safe. I promise.”
Why she was willing to believe him and not Griffin, she wasn’t sure, but she took a few tentative steps inside and let him shut out the world behind them. His apartment was spacious and sparse, utterly masculine in its minimalist design, dominated with chrome and glass, granite and glossy dark woods.
“Drink?” he asked, moving toward the kitchen area, which was full of stainless-steel appliances. Whatever Jace had gotten into after having his education dashed upon the rocks, it must pay well.
“No, thank you,” she said.
He got himself a beer out of the fridge and twisted the cap off, then leaned against the island and surveyed her casually from his safe distance before taking a pull from the bottle. “I’m sorry.”
Lindsey cleared her throat and stared at her boots. Lena usually wore heels, but on that, she had to relent. She couldn’t go breaking an ankle on the sidewalk.
“I still don’t know what the fuck is going on, but you asked me to hear you out, and I want to do that.”
“Before you decide again that I’m lying and throw me out?”
One corner of his mouth tugged upward in a smirk before he took another drink. “If it comes to that, I’ll try to be more gentlemanly about it.”
“I can’t see you ever being a gentleman.”
He put a hand to his chest in mock offense. “That wounds me. Okay, Lindsey Morris. Meerkat. Like I said, you have my attention. How long you keep it is on you.”
“Are you always this arrogant?”
“Always. So begin.”
No. No, she couldn’t let him dominate this conversation, because something told her he would steer it to places she didn’t want to go. Maybe she needed a beer for this after all. It was going to be a long night.
It didn’t help matters that his T-shirt could scarcely contain his muscles, and the way his jeans hugged his hard thighs made her mouth water. Yeah, she normally liked cute and nerdy. Jace had been the one glaring exception, having always been a little more ripped than your average geek. Now, though, he was built like a god, and when it came to pure appreciation of the masculine form, she was a sucker for thighs. She’d seen his pumping and glistening with sweat while he was out on his run the other morning.
“Lena didn’t show up for my parents’ anniversary party that she was supposed to help me with. I didn’t think anything of it at first, except to be pissed off because that’s just how she is.”
“Right,” he said, but the scathing bitterness she’d witnessed from him the other day was absent, at least somewhat. Encouraged by that, she went on.
“Later that night, I got a text from her. I can show it to you, but all it said was that she ran into trouble. It said ‘go to this address and ask him for help.’ When I did that, Jace, you opened the door.”
“She specifically told you to come to me.”
“Yes.”
He set his beer aside and gave a weary shake of his head. “Unfuckingbelievable.”
“I completely agree, I promise. It makes no sense. But wait, let me back up. Before I came here, I went to her apartment. I thought even if she wasn’t there, I might be able to find out where she’d gone, rather than knocking on some stranger’s door.
“At the time, I had no idea that address would lead to you. But her apartment was completely trashed, and some strange guy showed up while I was there. He said he was supposed to be her date for my parents’ party and he had reason to believe that something was wrong with Lena. He said she was in danger.”
“Did you get his name?”
“He said to call him Griffin. He said it like that. So whether it’s a first name or last or alias, I have no idea.”
“Griffin,” he muttered to himself, seeming to search through his inner filing system. She could practically see the synapses firing behind his eyes.
“Do you know anyone by that name?” she asked.
“It isn’t ringing a bell yet. Did you tell him about the text from her?”
“No. I told him I hadn’t heard from her in days.”
“Why?”
“Just—something about him. I don’t know him. I was suspicious.” Speaking of suspicious, something about the way he was watching her made the floor seem to tilt under her feet. She now understood how it felt to be deemed untrustworthy upon first sight. She didn’t like it. “What is it?”
“You don’t know him, but you don’t know me, either.”
Lindsey went to lick her dry lips, only to find her tongue was dry, too. “She sent me to you.”
“You don’t know that it was her who sent that message, though, do you?”
“No,” she admitted sadly. “I’m flying purely on instinct here. I don’t know who to trust.”
He was silent for a moment. She found his agreement in that silence—he didn’t trust her, either. Then he said, “You’re the spitting fucking image of her. I mean, it’s uncanny.”
“I know.”
“Have you two ever switched places before?”
The way he asked it felt like an interrogation. She stared at him. “Until tonight? No. Never. Whether she’s pretended to be me, who the hell knows. I wouldn’t put anything past her.”
Jace held up a hand when she would have said more. “Wait, until tonight? What the hell happened tonight?”
“I went to a bar I think she frequents. Thought I would see if anyone approached me or acted surprised to see me.” When he crossed his arms and tilted his chin back somewhat, as if surveying her in a new, suspicious light, she rushed on, feeling she was in danger of losing him. “I’ll explain in a minute. When I was at her apartment, as far as I could tell, nothing of value was taken. She has some expensive jewelry and purses—they were still there. One thing I did notice missing was a picture of her and me together.”
“They might want both of you, then.”
His bold statement of something she’d been trying to shove away from the forefront of her mind, and the offhanded, careless way he said it, made her rub at the sudden eruption of chill bumps on her arms.
“Then they could have taken me,” she said through an involuntary flash of defiance. “I think someone might have been watching through her webcam. They probably knew I was there.” She’d been keeping a Post-it note taped over her webcam at home ever since.
“What were you supposed to do with me once you found me?”
“Ask for help. That’s all she said. I asked for clarification. I haven’t heard from her since.” Carefully, she watched his controlled reaction to that, the way his dark brows drew together minutely in concentration as he looked off at some neutral point. Somehow, watching him think was as fascinating as his thigh muscles. “I didn’t want to put you in danger, too, but I didn’t know what else to do.”
He picked up his bottle again and waved it in a dismissive gesture. “I’m not worried.”
No, he wouldn’t be, arrogant as he was. “So, what do you think? This is connected to you in some way or she wouldn’t have asked me to come to you.”
“Or whoever has her wouldn’t have asked,” he added, deepening her misery. She hated the thought that he relished the idea of Lena in danger.
“The glitch in this theory is that I’m not sure why anyone—especially Lena—would think I’d give two shits about her.”
“I get that.”
“So tell me one thing, Lindsey Morris. Why did she do it?”
Lindsey shook her head, not having to ask what he meant. “I don’t know, Jace. I honestly don’t. I didn’t speak to her for…God, so long.”
Jace frowned. “Why would you care?”
“I knew you at MIT. We had a class together. I don’t guess you would remember me; I looked different then.”
Now Lindsey found herself under that i
ntense scrutiny, and she tried not to fidget under it while her heart rate kicked up and she thought of all the things he might find lacking. “I’m not sure how I could have missed you.”
“I had much shorter, darker hair. I didn’t talk much.” She chuckled. “Still don’t if I can help it.”
“You do your talking in code,” he said. “I was impressed.”
Great, now she was blushing. His complimenting her skills was somehow better than his complimenting her looks.
He wiped both palms down his face. “All right. So, let me get this straight in my head. You were my classmate.”
“Yes.”
“But Lena didn’t go to MIT. She went to UMass.”
“Right.”
“I met her at a party, but I find it hard to believe I wouldn’t have noticed a carbon copy in my classroom.”
“If you want, I can show you old pictures. I tried to look as different from her as I possibly could. That persisted for years, actually. I just needed to be my own person.” It had been aggravating early on to be confused for her sister so much. Mainly because people had hated Lena. A lot. Lindsey had nearly been on the receiving end of more than a couple of butt-kickings that were intended for her sister.
“The twin sister of one of my classmates approaches me at a frat party—even though she doesn’t go to our school—and talks around to betting me that I can’t hack into UMass’s grading system and change her grade. I do it, and she turns on me. All along you knew who I was and, apparently, what I could do. It smells rotten, Lindsey. It smells like some kind of setup.”
Alarm flashed through her at his hardening expression, and she shook her head. “I swear to God, Jace. I’ll swear on anything you want to put in front of me. I didn’t know about all that until you were busted for it.”
“You got that part wrong, sweetheart. I wasn’t busted. I was ratted out. Your sister is goddamn lucky I didn’t return the favor.”
“Why didn’t you, then?”
“You don’t know how I struggled with that. I wanted to, trust me. I lost sleep over it. But in the end I didn’t do it because that’s not who the fuck I am. I wouldn’t sink to her shit-scum level.” He bit out every word, aiming them at her like daggers.
“I know you have every reason to hate her,” Lindsey said softly. “But there isn’t anything I can say that will lessen that. I can’t speak for her; I can’t apologize for her. Because to this day, I don’t know if she’s sorry or not. I don’t know if she even thinks about it anymore.”
“I think about it every day of my life,” he said, just as softly but far more dangerously.
Somehow she knew that attempting to put a positive spin on what he’d suffered would be very ill-advised, so she reserved comment. “What did you do…afterward?”
“Military,” he said, running a hand through his hair. “Funny thing is, little did I know I would have royally fucked myself if I had turned her in. They wanted my skills, and they wanted to know I could keep my mouth shut. So don’t ask any more questions about that.”
He’d made a comment about lying in a bunk at night, so the admission wasn’t a surprise to her. Neither was his reluctance to divulge any further information.
“Anything else?” he asked once the silence had stretched thin between them.
“Yes. Tonight. This Griffin guy was at the bar while I was there, and he approached me. I didn’t tell him anything I’d learned. He said he hadn’t learned anything, either.” She chewed her lip thoughtfully. “I haven’t gone to the police. Griffin told me not to, and for some reason that seems best, until we know what we’re dealing with.”
“Worried about what sweet Lena might have been into?”
That he had picked up on that so fast unsettled her. “I don’t know, Jace. I guess that’s part of the reason why I’m here. First of all, that she asked me to come here, and second…well, I remember you, even if you don’t remember me. And I know if anyone can help me find out what’s going on, you can.”
“If I decide to help you,” he said coldly.
After all this, he might still decide not to help her? After all the questions? She’d thought he was intrigued, but he was only feeling her out. He might still shove her out and slam the door in her face again.
“Please, Jace,” she said softly, trying to rein in her desperation. “I have no one else.”
He sighed, setting his beer bottle on the island with a finality that told her either he’d decided or was simply tired of her whining. “All right. Tell me all about Lena. Everything. What she was like in high school. In college. What she did afterward. Email addresses, all of them that you know. Phone numbers. Any enemies she has. Any friends. Neighbors, even. I want her entire life fucking history.”
Lindsey scoffed. “Oh God. Seriously?”
“Seriously.” His expression brooked no argument. “If we’re going to find her, then I need to unearth everything about her.”
Crossing her arms, Lindsey looked away, taking a deep breath to even her pulse rate. Lena, for all her outgoing, charismatic behavior, had been such a private person. Lindsey had tried for years to get her on Facebook, anything, but she’d always laughed off her attempts and changed the subject.
“You aren’t going to find anything on her.”
“Doubting my abilities already? We aren’t going to get very far.”
“How do I know you aren’t going to use anything you find to ruin her?”
“If I were going to do that, it would already be done.”
There was no arrogance behind the statement, only pure confidence. If she didn’t think Lena’s very life might depend on his abilities, she might not have trusted him. Under the circumstances, she wasn’t sure she had a choice. “All right. Fine. But I have to warn you, there’s more I don’t know than I do.”
“That’s true of every person you know. So shoot.”
She cocked an eyebrow at him. He hadn’t moved a muscle away from the kitchen. “You aren’t going to write anything down?”
Grinning, he gestured casually toward his head. “Sure I am. But come on, take a seat if you want.” Leading her into his living room, he indicated the navy blue couch while he headed to his desk against the back wall. As he dropped into his desk chair, Lindsey sat, imagining the havoc he could create at that keyboard with only a few strokes of his fingers. Instead of turning to his computer, though, he only watched her, waiting for her to begin.
She tore her gaze away and stared at the glass coffee table in front of her. Even so, she felt those eyes on her, but she could breathe easier when she wasn’t looking at him. Quietly, methodically, she began telling him the story of her twin sister’s life. Everything she knew, anyway.
Carlton High School. Party girl. Undeniably smart, but more street smart. Good grades but amazing judge of character (except, it seemed, for her own). Always told Lindsey who to trust and who to not among her circle and was unfailingly dead-on in her assessments.
Like a natural-born human lie detector.
Problem was, a human lie detector knew how to lie. Orchestrator of much demise. Ruiner of many lives. UMass. The saga continued, as Jace already well knew, so Lindsey didn’t expand much on the college years, mainly because she didn’t know a whole lot beyond Lena getting him kicked out. Afterward, however, Lena had moved away and put her criminal justice degree to work. She became a police officer in Washington, D.C. At that point in her story, Jace perked up.
“That’s where you’ll start finding a trail,” he said, and for the first time since beginning her story, Lindsey looked over at him.
“Enemies,” she said softly.
“Maybe. Maybe not. But that’s where I would start, anyway.”
“Makes sense,” she said. “She never talked much about it, but she seemed to enjoy it.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’ll find every report she
was involved in.”
“You’re going to hack into police records?”
He shook his head with mock sadness, cocky grin in full force. “Doubting my abilities.”
“I just…” Leaning forward, Lindsey put her elbows on her knees and rubbed her temples. “It’s not your abilities I doubt, trust me. But don’t get yourself in trouble over—”
“That’s doubt.” He watched her for a moment, then leaned forward himself, gazing at her earnestly. “It’s that you’re still afraid of what I might find, isn’t it?”
Chapter Eight
Jace watched her struggle with what to say, trying to figure this girl out, trying to determine if she knew more than she was telling. There was a lot of that going around.
Your sister is fucking CIA, Lindsey. Jesus Christ.
He had to hold himself back from wondering how in the hell she hadn’t figured it out. Not everyone had his wary mind or his insight into this kind of shit, but she was obviously smart. Naive but smart.
“A little, maybe,” she said in answer to his question, dropping her hands from her head and looking at him sadly.
“It’s always hard to find out someone isn’t who we think they are.”
“Thing is, I know I shouldn’t be surprised with whatever you find. Maybe she was crooked, maybe…”
Jace leaned back in his chair, the springs squawking loudly in the silence following her forlorn words. He rubbed his thighs with both hands, itching to hurl more obscenities about just how crooked Lena was. She knew. She didn’t need him bitching about it anymore, no matter how much he wanted to. “More likely is that she pissed off the wrong people, you know. Maybe she did that by doing good. We can’t know yet.”
“Thanks,” she said, sounding so glum he didn’t have the heart to tell her how much he doubted his own words. “And thanks for helping me sort this out.”