Marilyn Pappano - Criminal Deception

Joe’s voice made her feel safe and secure…and a whole lot more.

Forcing her thoughts from that direction, she looked around the room. The music playing in the background was symphonic, lots of strings and horns. She would have preferred something by Metallica or Nickelback, but the other customers didn’t seem to mind. Most of them were plugged into iPods or immersed in conversation. One woman read a book while sipping her coffee. Another typed furiously on her laptop, and the earbud customers were making use of the wireless Internet connection. With the ceiling fans circulating the mixed scents of great brews, it was a lovely way to pass the time.

If she were merely there to pass the time.

Minutes went by before Joe finished with the rest of his customers, then came to the table, carrying a tall glass mug that he set in front of her before sliding into a chair. She didn’t ask what it was, but reached for it, blew a small crater in the whipped cream mounded on top, then took a cautious sip. “Oh, my God, this is wonderful. I love hazelnut.”

He looked the way a good cook did when presenting a meal done to perfection. “ Jamaica Blue Mountain coffee and cream whipped with a little hazelnut infusion.”

“This would be incredible on a cold snowy night.”

“You don’t like cold.”

“No, but this would make it tolerable.” She took another drink. “Busy morning?”

“About typical. It’ll slow down at lunch, then pick up again around two.” He glanced around the room before focusing on her again. “How is your back?”

“Bruised.” She’d managed a look in the bathroom mirror after her shower and seen muddied colors and slight swelling. At least it wasn’t shaped like her pistol. That would have been hard to explain.

“By the time I got home last night, Nat had dried the dogs and they were curled up in my bed. Do you know it’s virtually impossible to dry a dog a hundred percent with a towel? I rolled over around two this morning onto a wet spot roughly the size of the two mutts combined and cold as ice. I had to strip the bed and leave the mattress to air dry and spend the rest of the night on the sofa.”

Ignore that. Change the subject. Take your coffee and run. But the only thing she ignored was the wise voice in her head. “Hey, I offered to show you my bed.”

His voice turned a shade huskier. “If you’d offered again around two, I would have taken you up on it, and we’d still be there. Then Esther would have been on her own this morning, and she’d be serving everyone plain black coffee, no matter what they ordered. She doesn’t think much of froufrou drinks.”

Liz smiled faintly at the old-fashioned phrase in his deep, quiet voice, though she could imagine it quite well in Esther’s gravelly tones.

Suddenly serious, he rested his arms on the table, leaning closer. “Does it matter-Josh and me being twins? Is that why…?”

Liz was slow to understand what he meant, then, as she took a drink of the slowly cooling coffee, it hit her and she almost choked. He thought she’d let him kiss her, that she’d held on so tightly to him, because he looked like his brother? Because she was looking for a substitute for Josh, and who better than his identical twin? “No,” she said bluntly. “If it mattered, it wouldn’t be in a good way.”

He opened his mouth to respond, but before he got the first word out, a man stopped beside their table, waiting for their attention. Like Joe, she glanced his way, automatically cataloging him: male, mid-thirties to early-forties, five foot ten, one-seventy-five, brown hair, brown eyes, forgettable. She had never met him before, but in his line of work-her line-forgettable was a good thing.

His gaze was fixed on Joe, as if she weren’t worthy of attention. “Saldana?”

Joe nodded.

“Which one are you? Josh or Joe?”

Hostility radiated from Joe even as he shifted to lean back in the chair, looking every bit as casual and relaxed as Liz knew he wasn’t. “Joe. Who are you?”

“You wouldn’t happen to have ID to prove that?”

“Yeah. Scars from two bullet holes. Want to see?”

The marshal’s gaze flickered down to the general area of the scars. Liz hadn’t seen the wounds; they’d been covered with dressings and tape during her one hospital visit. That had been enough to give her a bad dream or two.

“I’d settle for a driver’s license.”

Joe made a pretense of checking his pockets. “Damn, I must have left it at home again.”

“That’s convenient. Driving without a license is illegal.”

“Don’t need one for a bike. Who are you?”

“Paul Ashe.” In a practiced move, Ashe produced his credentials case from an inside coat pocket. “Deputy U.S. Marshal. I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

“Everyone wants to ask a few questions. Let me save you the trouble. No, I haven’t seen my brother, I haven’t heard from him and I don’t know where he is. Would you like a cup of coffee before you go back to Atlanta or wherever the hell you came from?”

Ashe’s smile was benign. “I don’t drink coffee. It makes me edgy.”

Joe’s smile matched, but with a sharp bite of anger. “I don’t need coffee to make me edgy.”

Sitting quietly, sipping her drink, Liz hoped she looked as if she wished she weren’t there-and, in some ways, she did. But what she was really wishing was that none of this was necessary. Why couldn’t Josh behave like an adult once in his lousy life instead of putting his family through this-questioned like suspects and kept under surveillance. Even if they weren’t aware of it.

“When was the last time you talked to Josh?” Ashe asked.

“About two minutes before some guy walked up to me with a gun and pulled the trigger.” Joe crossed his arms over his chest. “Last time I’m saying it-I haven’t seen him. I haven’t talked to him. I don’t know where he is.”

Liz’s fingers tightened around the mug handle. I haven’t talked to him. A moment earlier, he’d said he hadn’t heard from him. Hearing from someone didn’t necessarily involve talking. An e-mail, a text message, a letter, a message passed through a friend, a posting on a Web site-there were a lot of ways to communicate without actually talking, and some of them were virtually impossible for anyone else to discover.

Careless phrasing on Joe’s part? Or a subconscious slip?

She set the mug on the table, and the sturdy base clunked, drawing Ashe’s gaze to her for the first time. He feigned surprise well. “You’re Elizabeth Dalton. Last time anyone saw you, you were helping Josh get out of town. Now you show up here with his brother, and we’re supposed to believe he’s not here, too?”

“I’m also looking for him,” she said stiffly. “I haven’t seen him in a couple months. I woke up one morning, and he was gone, along with everything we had worth taking.”

Skepticism colored Ashe’s expression and his voice. “Yeah, right. He just ran out on you.”

She met his gaze then. “That’s what Josh does. He runs out on people.”

“Or maybe he goes someplace, pretends to be his brother, settles in, then sends for his girlfriend. They say the best place to hide is in plain sight. The Mulroneys know now that Josh has a twin. Next time-and there’s always a next time-they’ll want to be real sure they’ve got the right brother.”

Heat rose in Joe, spreading through his veins with each increasing beat of his heart, tightening his jaw until his teeth ached. Shoving one hand into his hip pocket, he pulled out the battered leather wallet his grandmother had given him when he turned sixteen, jerked out his driver’s license and slapped it on the table.

“You said you left your license at home,” Ashe said accusingly.