Marilyn Pappano - Criminal Deception

Instead, here she was, sitting across from Joe, trying really hard not to wonder anymore.

She expected another denial from him, but it didn’t come. He stared out the window for a moment, as if the increasing traffic held his interest, before finally dragging his gaze back to her. “Did he know? Did he know they wanted him dead?” he pressed on. “Did he let me go on with life as usual knowing that people wanted to kill him, that they could easily mistake me for him?”

Her fingers tightened around the mug. Were these the first questions he would ask his brother if given the chance? Would a no provide any comfort? Would yes destroy their relationship for all time?

Up to the day Joe was shot, the Mulroneys’ crimes had been nonviolent. Their business had been just that: a routine job moving a product-money-from one place to another, laundering it along the way. They’d been involved in their communities; they’d gone to church with their families; they’d handled disputes diplomatically. Their hit on Josh had been the first and, so far, only sign of violence in their fifteen-year career. It was even possible that someone else Josh had pissed off was behind it instead.

“You know Josh.” Liz’s shrug was awkward. She’d never gotten over the guilt because she had known Josh, too. She should have expected violence. She should have known Joe was in danger. She should have protected him, too. “Nothing he ever does has consequences.”

Yeah, Joe thought grimly. He knew Josh. “When we were five, he sneaked Mom’s keys out and took the car for a drive. He made it two blocks before he ran into two other cars. He wasn’t hurt, but it did a lot of damage to all three vehicles. Mom spanked him. Dad grounded him, gave him extra chores, took his allowance, and three weeks later, Mom caught him behind the wheel again with the keys in the ignition. When we were eight, he tried to fly from our tree house to the ground. He spent the next six weeks with his left arm in a cast, spanked, grounded, extra chores, the whole bit again, and the day the cast came off, he tried again, breaking his right arm. And when we were twelve…” Breaking off, he shook his head. Too bad he couldn’t banish the memory so easily.

“And you were always the good son.”

He raised one hand in the Boy Scout salute. “I made good grades, stayed out of trouble and never gave Mom and Dad a reason to worry.”

“I was the good child, too,” Liz said.

The simple statement stuck him as odd. He’d seen her as only two things: his brother’s girlfriend and therefore the last woman on earth he should be-but was-attracted to. He’d never thought of her as a person: a daughter, a sister, someone with a life, hopes and plans outside of Josh.

Hell, he’d tried his best not to think of her at all.

“Of course, it wasn’t difficult. I was the youngest of four and the only girl, so my parents were predisposed to think of me as the good kid whether I was or not.”

Where were those brothers when she’d gotten involved with Josh? While Josh liked a challenge, he also liked not getting his ass kicked for messing around with the wrong girl. He would have kissed her goodbye…and then Joe, with his regular job, arrest-free record and all-around good-guyness, might have had a chance.

“Did your brothers approve of Josh?”

“They didn’t meet him, but no, they wouldn’t have approved.”

Which had probably been part of Josh’s appeal. Always being the good girl had grown tedious, and what better way for a good girl to rebel than with a bad boy?

Had she had enough of him now? Was she willing to admit he was a lost cause?

She was in Georgia looking for him after he’d dumped her and run. That seemed a pretty loud No.

“Do they live in Chicago?”

She picked up the mug, glanced at the dregs inside, then set it down again before meeting his gaze. Joe had the clear blue eyes that people paid money to get with contact lenses, but he’d always been a sucker for brown eyes, especially big, deep brown ones that, even after a couple of tough years, still managed a hint of innocence.

“No. D.C., Miami, L.A.” After another pause, she added, “I guess we all wanted out of Kansas.”

A good girl looking to escape the Kansas farmland and run a little wild. How easy it must have been for Josh to wrap her around his finger.

“I never would have pegged you for a farm girl.”

She blinked, then laughed, an easy, natural sound that reminded him again of innocence. “I’ve never set foot on a farm in my life. Well, no, wait, there was the time in third grade that my parents took us to the pumpkin patch for Halloween. That might have been a farm. Then again, it might have been a church parking lot in Wichita.” Her voice turned chiding. “There’s more to Kansas than farms.”

“I’ll keep that in mind in case I ever head out there. Do you go back often?”

“At least twice a year to see my parents.” As Esther approached with the coffee carafe again, Liz shook her head with a faint smile. “Do you get to see much of your parents?”

He shrugged. They’d settled in Savannah, only a few hours away, and he drove down at least once a month. He didn’t tell her that, though. How could he be sure that Josh hadn’t sent her here with a made-up story about looking for him just so he could find their folks? Mom and Dad might miss him like hell, but they were better off without him. Who knew what kind of trouble Josh would bring to their door if he could find it?

Because his thoughts had already taken a grim turn, he remarked, “Miss Abigail says you signed a month’s lease.” Twenty-nine more nights like last night, his gaze straying constantly to the windows, watching shadows as she moved from room to room. Twenty-nine more nights of getting to know her schedule, of catching unexpected glimpses of her, of seeing her both at home in casual clothes-those snug denim cutoffs from last night still made him sweat-and out and dressed up.

Twenty-nine more nights. God help him.

“Actually, my lease is for one month, with a month-by-month extension. I could be here one, two, four months. As long as it takes.” She made the announcement with an entirely too-sunny attitude. It turned his mouth down as if he’d just taken a hearty swallow of the used-up coffee grounds he provided Miss Abigail for her garden.

“If you’re really looking for Josh, Copper Lake isn’t the place to do it.”

“It’s the only place I have.” The airiness disappeared and something else crossed her face, flattening her voice. Panic? Despair? He’d taken something of value from her, she’d said. Sentimental value, like her grandmother’s opal ring she’d once worn? It was missing from her finger now.

Or financial value? Liz must have worked during the months they were together; someone had to support them, preferably in a way that didn’t bring them to the attention of the local cops. Had Josh wiped out her savings before he ran? Joe didn’t know what kind of work she did-Josh’s tastes usually ran toward waitresses-but it didn’t seem likely she could have saved an amount substantial enough to make her track him down.

What else could make a reasonably intelligent woman chase after a man she was well rid of? Love, he supposed, though he’d rather not think of Liz in love with his brother.

A knock on the plate glass window drew his gaze outside, and he waved. Anamaria Calloway, dressed in red with a bright Caribbean print shawl wrapped around her shoulders, was pushing the stroller that held young Will. The baby was sucking a pacifier and surveying the world around him with a lazy certainty that he was the center of its existence. He got both laziness and certainty, along with blue eyes, from his daddy and everything else, they hoped, from his ma-