Marie Ferrarella - The Coltons - Nick, Clay & Jericho

“You’re on the surveillance tape,” he told her, watching her reaction.

She didn’t seem to hear him. Or, if she heard, the words apparently didn’t penetrate. She made no response to his statement one way or the other.

“There are charges on my credit cards,” she told him. The words sounded as if she was being strangled.

“That’s what they’re for, to charge things with,” he replied.

Some of the color returned to her cheeks. She continued to hold on to the doorjamb for support.

“Charges I didn’t make,” she snapped.

It was official. The unthinkable had happened. Something she had never dreamed of ever happening, not to her. She’d read about this in the newspaper. But now she was the victim.

Her identity had been stolen.

Her identity, her money and her life.

Both of their lives, she amended, looking down at her little girl.

“Somebody’s stolen my identity.” Every single card she owned had been taken and used, even the two she kept as emergency backups, the two she never used except for once a year just to keep them active.

The simple sentence got her all of Nick’s attention. “Are you sure?”

Georgie felt a wave of hysteria rising. Last night, she’d been flush, sitting on top of three hundred thousand dollars. This morning she was all but broke and fiercely in debt. And about to be arrested. How could everything have gone so wrong so fast?

“Of course I’m sure,” she retorted angrily. Did he think this was a game? Why would she do that? What would she gain by pretending that her identity had been stolen?

Georgie unfolded the piece of paper she’d used while speaking to the customer service representatives at the four different credit card companies.

“There’s a whole list of charges from stores on the damned Internet. Stiletto heels, fancy clothes, fancier undergarments.” She pointed to the name of an exclusive shop that had only recently launched online sales. “CDs by people I wouldn’t listen to, DVDs of movies I wouldn’t be caught dead watching—”

The mention of stiletto heels and Maid of Paradise bras and microscopic panties had Nick’s mind booking passage on a ship he couldn’t allow to leave the harbor. Still, for one unguarded moment, he couldn’t help imagining what she would have looked like, wearing only those items.

“Planning on doing some entertaining?” he quipped.

Her eyes blazed at the question and even more when she thought of the unknown person who had done all this to her.

“Planning on a murder if I ever get my hands on the person who’s responsible for all this,” she retorted.

He looked at her for a long moment, playing the devil’s advocate. “You still say it’s not you.”

Georgie squared her shoulders, as if that could somehow help her get the point across more forcefully. “With my dying breath,” she told him fiercely. “Not that you believe me.” The last sentence fairly sizzled with her anger.

That was just the problem, Nick thought. He was starting to believe her.

He glanced at the bank manager who still stood at the desk. The man was obviously taking in every word and trying—without success—to look as if he wasn’t.

“Make me a copy of that section of the tape,” Nick instructed.

Clearly feeling that he was off the hook, Collins snapped to attention, more than happy to comply. “Right away,” he promised.

Nick heard the bank manager murmuring to Abby, telling her to make the copy because she was the one running the tape.

That taken care of, Nick took hold of Georgie’s elbow and led her out of the small, dark room. Emmie hurried to follow.

“Let’s just say,” he told Georgie evenly, “for now, that I’m not a hundred percent convinced that that’s you on the surveillance tape.”

“Of course, it’s not me. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you all along.” She shrugged out of his hold. Wanting to remain aloof, curiosity got the better of her. “What makes you think it isn’t me?”

“You walk differently.” That was what had bothered him while he was initially watching the tape.

Georgie stared at him. She wasn’t aware of there being anything unique about her gait. “What?”

Nick elaborated. “The woman on the tape was in a hurry, but she still walked like she knew everyone was watching her. She minced and put a little wiggle in her step. You walk like you’ve got somewhere else to be and you cut through that distance like a ranch hand. There’s nothing feminine about the way you move.” Other than her body, he added silently. But that was neither here nor there and certainly not something he was about to admit to her.

She wasn’t sure if she was clear about what was going on here. “Are you insulting me or finally coming to my rescue?”

He didn’t view it as either and he didn’t care for the tone she was using. “I’m making an observation. You want my help or not?”

In a perfect world, Georgie thought, she would have lifted her chin, told him what he could do with his help. She could handle the situation by herself. But this wasn’t a perfect world and without doing a single thing to bring about this awful chain of events, she knew she was in way over her head. Like it or not, she had no recourse but to accept his offer.

Still, the words had a bitter taste in her mouth and burned her tongue as she said them. “I want it.”

Nick felt something suddenly clutch his leg. Startled, he looked down to see that the woman’s daughter had all but wrapped herself around him.

Emmie smiled up at him gleefully. “I knew you weren’t as bad as you looked.”

He kept forgetting that she was there, a pint-sized recorder with ears, taking in everything and absorbing it rather than letting it go over her head like the average four-year-old.

“You sure she’s only four?” he asked Georgie.

“I’m almost five,” Emmie announced proudly as her mother gently removed her from the Secret Service agent’s leg and then protectively kept her hand on her shoulder. “Mama said we had to come back because Uncle Clay wants to help celebrate my birthday.”

“Uncle Clay,” Nick repeated, raising his eyes from the child to look at Georgie. “Is that what you have her call your boyfriends?” he asked mildly, giving no indication that her answer, one way or the other, meant anything to him. “‘Uncle?’”

“No, that’s what I have her call my older brother.” Overwrought, and stressed near to the breaking point, not to mention that she hadn’t had any sleep because she’d spent the night verbally sparring with Sheffield, she glared at him. “Don’t you pay attention? I said I didn’t have a boyfriend.”

As he looked at her, Nick found it hard to believe she was single. She was far more than passably pretty. Then again Georgie Grady could also slice any man to bloody ribbons with that sharp tongue of hers and he was fairly certain, given half a chance, that she would run over anyone who got in her way.

“Got that tape for you,” Collins called out, coming up behind Nick. He held the tape aloft as if it was the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Georgie shifted uncomfortably. Sheffield had said that he thought the woman in the tape was an impostor, disguised to make people think it was her. What if he was only putting her on? What if he was just saying that to make her put down her guard?

“What are you going to do with that?” she asked Sheffield. “Use it at my trial?”

He’d never believed in putting all his cards on the table until the game was over. This was far from over. “Maybe, maybe not. Right now, I’m going to have it expressed back to Prosperino in California and have my tech support see if he can clean up the picture and magnify the image.”