He laid the most current of my fake IDs on the table: the driver’s license for Ana Prescott. “Tell me about her.”
I stared at the photo I had posed for in a motel bathroom before my father sent it off to his favorite counterfeiter. Ana Prescott looked just like me, of course, but she came from a world of privilege. Her father bought her jewels for her birthday and sent her on vacations to Aruba. On paper, she went to a private school and ran in elite social circles. In reality, she was a con artist’s daughter being dragged to another job with a promise it would be the last.
It was the last, but not for the reason we had planned.
“Who is she?” he prompted when I didn’t say anything.
I braved meeting his eyes. He stared at me with an honest curiosity accompanying the penetrating inquiry.
I knew how to dance verbally and mentally. To outwit and outmaneuver; I’d been trained by an expert. If I hadn’t been so terrified, perhaps I could have summoned some of my skills and talked my way out of the situation. But the way he was staring at me,watchingme, had me too afraid to make a move. Not to mention, he literally held all the cards what with my life’s fabricated history belly-up on the table.
“Who areyou?” I asked, realizing he hadn’t introduced himself, nor was he wearing a badge visibly displaying his name.
His mustache twitched at the corner with what might have been a small smile. “We’ll get to that. First, I want you to tell me about Ana Prescott.”
The name ground against my ears like sandpaper. Ihatedall my fake names. Hated them. They served as a constant reminder that my identity did not belong to me. A burst of anger gave me the guts to sass.
“Looks like you already know all about her,” I said, and nodded at the photo and folder.
He pursed his lips, undeterred by my attitude. “I know some, but not enough. I’d really like to know what she—you—were doing in that hotel room tonight with your father.”
A hard shiver shook me at the mention of my father. The memory was still solidifying in my reeling brain, but it came rushing back. The gunshots, the panic.
“Where is he?” I said.
He looked up at the raw scrape in my voice and the sound of my teeth chattering.
I stared back at him, trying to muster whatever nerve I had left and fight the tears burning the backs of my eyes.
He watched me wring my bloodstained hands and involuntarily shudder from cold, from fear. From everything. As he took in the thin straps of my dress, my stringy hair, my makeup, which had run with rain and tears, his face softened. He looked like he was seeing a person sitting across from him and not just a crime.
When he stood from his chair, the metal legs scraping the floor, I cautiously leaned back, not sure what he was doing. He removed his jacket, exposing the gun holstered to his hip, and I flinched at the sight of it. The sound of the shots in the hotel room rang out in my memory again, forcing my eyes closed in fear. I could see it all again, feel it all again.
I jumped when I felt something warm and soft land on my shoulders.
He draped his jacket around me and moved back to the other side of the table. He gave me the slightest sympathetic smile, and the tears almost boiled over.
“Now,” he said, pulling out a paper pad and pen, “why don’t you tell me what you and your father were doing in that hotel room tonight.”
CHAPTER8
Present Day
Because we had walked to the park, Bray gave me a ride to the coffee shop.
I sat at a small table and stared out the window while he ordered. Wallace’s death hadn’t fully registered, but the consequences of it were starting to set in like a million little teeth. If he really was gone, that meant I had no one watching out for me.
Bray returned to the table with a mug embellished with a heart drawn on the liquid’s surface. He set it down with a faint flush to his cheeks.
I arched a brow at him. He shrugged and set an enormous blueberry muffin sparkling with sugar crystals beside it. His knees bumped mine beneath the table when he folded himself into his chair.
“Sorry,” we said at the same time.
I shifted sideways and reached for the fancy drink. The gorgeous muffin would go to waste because I had lost my appetite with the news about Wallace.
Bray leaned forward on his elbows. He picked up his mug with one hand and blew on his drink. The rounded shape ofhis lips and the softwhooshthat came out of them made me sit up straighter.
“So!” I said for distraction without anything to follow it up.
