“I mean, where are you from?”
“Everywhere.” Natalia sat in the armchair, feet flat on the floor, spine straight. “How is Joe?”
“You tell me.” When the blank look appeared, Liz went on. “I don’t know him that well.”
Natalia was silent a long time. “He’s a good guy,” she said at last.
“And you know that based on past experience with good guys?”
She snorted. “Just the opposite. You put a bunch of nice guys together and hide a loser among them, and I can find him blindfolded.”
As Liz slid to sit on the sofa cushion, she suspected that Natalia’s loser stories could put her own to shame. Some part of her wanted to know what the girl had been through and how she could help, but another part didn’t want to know at all. Sad stories were particularly sad when she knew the person involved.
“It must feel funny, going from his brother to him.”
As she considered the comment, Liz’s gaze skimmed across the framed art on the wall. Movie posters, of course, mostly for golden-age classics. If she’d truly been Josh’s girlfriend, it probably would feel strange. But she hadn’t been. “They don’t have much in common.”
“No family resemblance?”
“Well…” Had Joe told Natalia they were twins? “Yeah, I guess you could say that. But they’re very different.”
“So Joe’s the good brother, and Josh is the loser?”
“Yeah, you could say that, too.”
Natalia’s features darkened, and her lavender eyes radiated hostility, but just for a moment, the time it took for her to replace the mask. Did that home life she’d run away from-or been kicked out of-include a sister she couldn’t live up to? Had she been her parents’ bad daughter, their loser?
Liz wished she could magically undo the hurts Natalia had suffered, but she was short on magic. If she had any, she’d fix everyone’s problems. She would zap Josh back into custody, conjure a conviction for the Mulroneys and twinkle up a chance for her and Joe. Just a fair chance, with no baggage, no lies, no Josh between them. That was all she would ask for.
As if she’d had all the conversation she could stand, Natalia got to her feet. “Do you want to give the bike a ride now so you’ll be ready tomorrow?”
“So I can dazzle Joe by not falling off at his feet?” Liz asked drily as she, too, stood. Natalia handed her a white helmet, then went outside and wheeled the bike down the steps.
“I have to wear a helmet?”
“If you want to ride with Joe, you do.”
Liz plopped the helmet on her head, then fastened the chin strap. “I bet I look like a goober with all this hair sticking out.”
She didn’t expect a response, but Natalia looked her over, then soberly agreed, “Yeah, you do.”
After a quick lesson on gears and brakes, Liz climbed onto the bike and peddled between the cottages to the driveway without wobbling too much. The bike’s style was retro, looking like something her mother might have ridden forty years ago, with a wide comfortable seat and a design that allowed her to sit upright. Except for the helmet, it was fun, especially when she took a short spin on the paved street, without all the bumps, and she would get used to the helmet.
When she returned to Natalia, she grinned. “I’m not ready to give up my car, but this is cool. Way different from the bike I got for Christmas when I was eight.”
“It’s not a bad way to get around,” Natalia replied.
Liz climbed off and removed the helmet, shaking out her hair. “Maybe I’ll settle someplace where I can have a bike.”
“I figured you’d settle here. I mean, Joe says he’s not going anywhere.”
The idea was appealing. So was the possibility that it might appeal to him, too. But sooner or later he’d have to know the truth. While he would be relieved that she’d never had a relationship with his brother, he would be put off by her lies. He would wonder what had been real and what had been calculated to find out Josh’s whereabouts. His trust would be damaged.
Or she could stick to her plan: find Josh, drag his butt into court, then return to her job, her reputation restored, her energy directed toward her next assignment. She could try to forget that Joe existed. Try to forget that kiss. To forget the something more that was pretty much destined no matter how they fought it.
The something more that could destroy them.
Or maybe save them.
Chapter 8
Joe was pushing his bike out the rear door of the coffee shop a few minutes past five when Raven appeared in the storeroom door. “Hey, Joe, there’s a guy here who wants to talk to you.”
Stopping short, he muttered a curse. Two years in this town, and no one had ever come looking for him, and now people were crawling out from under rocks. Thanks a whole hell of a lot, Josh.
So far, he’d heard from the ex-girlfriend, the U.S. Attorney’s office and the marshals service. Was there another federal office involved, or would this guy be from the Mulroneys? And did he really want to know? Why not just have Raven tell him Joe was already gone?
Because whoever the guy was, it would take him about three minutes to get directions to Joe’s house, if not from Raven, then from anyone else in town who knew him. And he did
Griping, he pushed the bike back into the storeroom, locked the door and returned to the dining room. “Nice clothes he’s wearing, huh?” Raven murmured as he passed her.
Very nice clothes. Probably five grand for the suit and another thousand for the shoes. Hell, the tie alone could have paid her salary for a month. Yeah, Joe’s money would be on the Mulroneys this time.
The man was standing near the wall, studying the foil packs of coffee beans for sale. He picked up one and gave it a sniff before turning it over to read the back.
“You wanted to talk to me?”
He turned and his eyes widened in surprise. “Jeez, when they said identical, I didn’t really think
“Yeah. I’m thinking about getting that printed on my shirts.”
“Not that anyone would take it as proof.” Wallace was black, looked about forty and had a friendly gaze and very good taste in clothes and watches-a Rolex-and even coffee. The bag of Kona he held sold for $42 a pound. “I’m with the firm representing Sean and Patrick Mulroney in their upcoming trial.”
“I figured.” Though, if he’d really expected someone from the defense side, it would have been some tough guys to intimidate Josh’s location from him.
“Everyone’s wanting to talk to your brother, aren’t they?”
“Everyone but me.”
“I can understand that. After all, whoever shot you was aiming for him. But he is still your brother.”
“And I still haven’t seen him since then. Sorry I can’t help you.”
He pivoted and took a few steps before Wallace spoke again. “Of course, we’d be happy to help you in return.”
Slowly Joe turned and backtracked. Marshal Ashe had theorized that the Mulroneys had paid Josh to disappear, or had used the promise of money to lure him to his death. They probably considered payoffs a necessary cost of doing business, just like coffee and mugs were for him. How much would they be willing to pay him for ratting out his brother?
“Help me with what?”
Wallace shrugged. “You have a nice place here, but with only two part-time employees, it must keep you pretty busy. We could assist you with staffing and expenses.”
“How much staffing? How many expenses?”
“You want to retire and let someone else run the business for you, we could make that possible. We could see that you get a nice annual income without having to work at all, unless you wanted to.”
Retire before thirty-five, live comfortably, and all he had to do was supply information that would get Josh killed.
It was a good thing they’d made this offer to him rather than Josh, because Josh probably would have sold Joe out in a heartbeat.
“I tell you where my brother is, and you take on the expenses of running my business while I reap the profits?” Joe frowned as if concentrating. “Granted, I sell coffee for a living, so I’m not real up on the finer details of law, but there’s got to be something illegal in what you’re proposing.”
“One wouldn’t be connected to the other,” Wallace said smoothly, and with a straight face. “There’s no crime in telling us where your brother is. And there’s no crime in the Mulroneys investing in your shop. Their business interests are diversified. This shop would fit nicely into their portfolio.”
Lawyers could explain anything so it sounded reasonable and legal, Joe reflected as he leaned against the nearest table. But a person would have to be blind to not see the connection between him giving up information and being rewarded with an investment in his business. His vision-as well as the U.S. Attorney’s-was damn near perfect.
“What do you want with Josh? Just to talk to him, I suppose.”
Wallace gestured agreeably.
“To persuade him not to testify or, at least, not to testify truthfully.”
“The information he gave the prosecution wasn’t truthful. We’d just like him to set the record straight. We want him to admit that he was wrong, or perhaps mistaken, about what he reported.”
“What if you found him and he refused to, uh, set the record straight. Then what?”
