Elizabeth Bevarly - The Sheriff And The Impostor Bride

Two bright spots of color suddenly stained her cheeks, and Riley, whose instincts had always been right on the mark, immediately knew that she was guilty of either one of two things: either she was hiding something from him at the moment, or else she intended to hide something from him within the next few minutes.

But instead of calling her on it, he only waited to see what she would do. If there was one thing he’d learned as a law enforcement officer, it was that, nine times out of ten, if left to their own devices, people would do more damage to their own credibility than the police could ever hope to do. So Riley waited, feeding her all the rope she could possibly use in one lifetime to hang herself.

“A missing person?” she echoed, her voice more than a little tremulous.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“But...but how could I be missing?” She scrunched up her shoulders and let them drop in a gesture that was way too quick and way too nervous even to be considered a member of the shrug family. “I’m right here.”

Riley certainly couldn’t argue with her logic. Nonetheless, he said, “Well, yes, ma’am, but you’re missing from Freemont Springs, where an APB concerning your whereabouts originated.”

“Now, how could I be missing from Freemont Springs?” she asked. “I’ve never even been there. I live in Oklahoma City and have for years.”

“You’re not living in Oklahoma City right now,” he observed.

Again, that stain of color flooded her face. “Well...um, uh...actually...” Her voice trailed off, but her gaze never wavered from his. “Of course I’m living here now,” she began again. “But until very recently, I was living in Oklahoma City.”

Riley nodded. He didn’t believe for a moment that she wasn’t hiding something, but he nodded anyway. “And just what is it, pray tell, that brings you to our bustling little community?”

She swallowed visibly. “I, um...I needed to get away for a while. A, uh, a friend of mine who passed through here a while back told me what a great place this is, so I had to come and see for myself.”

Oh, well, now he knew she was lying. “A friend told you Wallace Canyon was great?”

She nodded quickly, anxiously.

“That’s like in that movie Casablanca, when Humphrey Bogart says he came to Casablanca for the waters, and then Claude Rains reminds him that Casablanca is in the middle of a desert, and it doesn’t have any waters.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Yeah. So. What’s your point?”

His point was that she wasn’t being truthful, but he checked himself before blurting that out. There were all kinds of things you could learn from a liar, after all. He’d seen that for himself. So aloud, he only said, “Well, to paraphrase Humphrey Bogart, ma’am, you were misinformed.”

She cleared her throat indelicately. “That doesn’t change the fact that I needed to get away for a bit,” she said.

Again, her response seemed unlikely, and he didn’t bother to hide his disbelief. “You needed to get away now?” he asked dubiously. “Right before Christmas?”

Still blushing, she nodded again, way too quickly for Riley’s comfort. But she said nothing.

“Excuse me for doubting your word, ma’am, but seems to me this is the time of year when most folks want to be close to their loved ones, not get away from it all.”

She lifted her chin a defensive fraction of an inch. “Yes, well, I think that probably depends on one’s relationship with one’s loved ones, doesn’t it?”

He studied her in silence for a minute, unsure whether to believe her or not on that particular score. So he dropped that line of questioning and returned to his first. “That still doesn’t explain why you’ve been reported missing. If not from Freemont Springs, then from Oklahoma City.”

She gazed at him blankly. “Well, my goodness, Sheriff. Lots of people are missing from Oklahoma City. I’d venture to say that there are a lot of people out there who’ve never even visited Oklahoma City. If you have to round up everyone missing from Oklahoma City, then you better hurry and be on your way.”

Ignoring her sarcasm, Riley said, “It’s not my job to round up everyone missing from Oklahoma City, ma’am, only the people who’ve been reported missing. And the Wentworth family of Freemont Springs has reported you missing. It’s my job to find you and let them know where you are.”

She paused for a very telling moment before asking, “Who are the Wentworths?”

“Who are the Wentworths?” he echoed. Well, hell, she should know that better than him. She was the one they were looking for.

“I don’t know anyone by the name of Wentworth,” she said. “sorry.”

He sighed. “You’ve been living in Oklahoma City for years, and you don’t know who the Wentworths are?”

She shook her head.

He wasn’t sure whether or not to believe her on that score. The Wentworths were plenty famous in the state, but he supposed there were a good number of people who might not know about them, especially if they weren’t Oklahoma natives. So, for now, Riley decided to play along, just to see how far Miss Sabrina Jensen was willing to play whatever little game she was playing.

“Wentworth,” he repeated, enunciating the word a bit more clearly, a little more loudly, in case there really was something wrong with her hearing.

But she only continued to gaze at him tepidly, as if she had no idea what he was talking about.

So Riley continued, “Joseph Wentworth is a big ol’ oil baron in Freemont Springs, which is not too far from Tulsa. Now, you do know where Tulsa is, don’t you?”

Miss Jensen nodded, smiling eagerly. “Oh, yes. In fact, I have a—”

Abruptly, she stopped talking, her eyes widening in panic, as if she’d been about to reveal something she shouldn’t. Riley waited to see if she’d continue, but she only snapped her mouth shut tight and said nothing more.

“You have a what?” he prodded her.

“Nothing.”

“Oh, come on now, Miss Jensen, you were about to say you had a...what...in Tulsa?”

“A, uh...” she hedged. “An elderly aunt. Aunt Wisteria. She lives in Tulsa.”

“Hoo-kay,” he said. Might as well just get on with it. “The Wentworth family,” he continued for Miss Jensen, “is real rich, and real famous—or maybe real infamous is a better way to put it. In any case, they’re real popular, real well-known folks. They run Wentworth Oil Works. That ring a bell?”

In response, all Miss Jensen did was squint her eyes a little, as if she were immersing herself in thought, searching the data banks of her brain for the slightest inkling of familiarity. Riley shook his head at what he suspected was a monumentally fake effort, but continued on with his story in the hopes of jogging her memory—or wrangling the truth out of her—for what good it would do.

“Old Joseph Wentworth pretty much raised two grandsons and a granddaughter after their parents were killed in a boating accident, oh...years and years ago. They have a big, beautiful house in Freemont Springs. Rich folks, like I said. Powerful. Stand tall in the community. You following me?”

Another nod from Miss Jensen, but nothing otherwise.

“Everyone in that part of Oklahoma knows about the Went-worths,” Riley continued. “Their activities are covered in the papers and on local TV all the time. I’d even wager to say that folks in Oklahoma City are pretty much aware of the Wentworths of Wentworth Oil Works in one way or another. Even the newcomers. Yet, you’re telling me you’ve never heard of them?”

Miss Jensen’s eyebrows arrowed downward as she processed this information—or at least pretended to. He was about to call her on her pretense when her expression cleared, and she lifted a hand to smack her open palm against her forehead. Hard.