Daring Deception

by Barbara Freethy

  "I remember," he said tightly. He'd tried to speak to Donovan, but his best friend had told him he had nothing to say and they shouldn't be seen talking to each other.

  "You should have been at that party, Quinn. It was Donovan's birthday, but you didn't make it. I know that hurt Donovan."

  "Caitlyn was sick."

  "You picked her over Donovan. You abandoned the group, Quinn."

  "I didn't abandon anyone. I had other priorities. We didn't take a blood oath to do everything together. It was an extracurricular group."

  She gave him a disbelieving look. "It was far more than that, and you know it. We were a family."

  "Families don't do everything together."

  "This one did. When you veered away, Quinn, the army part of the LNF took on more meaning. People wanted to be soldiers. They wanted to fight. Donovan was right in the middle of that. He was losing faith that anything could be accomplished with peaceful protest. He thought there had to be enormous disruption, maybe even violent disruption, and he had followers who believed the same thing."

  "I didn't see that."

  "You were blind." She cleared her throat. "But Donovan is dead, and the LNF died with him. Even if he had something to do with the last bomb, he certainly wasn't responsible for what happened today. I can't imagine it was anyone in our group."

  "It's still strange that the target of this bomb also had to do with climate change and an environmental group."

  "Maybe it was a copycat. Allison knew about the previous explosion, and she said the group had talked about the LNF. Maybe someone wanted to make their own statement. Hopefully, the FBI will do a better job of solving this explosion than they did the last one. Are you sure I can't get you a drink?"

  "No. I should go."

  "Not yet. You haven't told me anything about yourself, Quinn. Where have you been all this time? What do you do for work?"

  He hesitated, but what was the point of lying now? His cover was blown. "I work as a research diver for the Oceanic Institute."

  A smile parted her lips. "That's perfect. You always loved being in the water. I'm surprised I haven't run into you before. I teach ocean sciences at a community college. We've actually had speakers from the Oceanic Institute in the classroom. Who do you work with there?"

  "I work with a dive team. I doubt you'd know them."

  "I never understood your love of diving. I did it once and it was so claustrophobic."

  "It doesn't feel that way to me. Being underwater makes me feel free."

  "I'm sure it does." She licked her lips. "Are you going to reach out to Caitlyn? She has to be investigating this new explosion."

  "I'm not sure."

  "You should stay away from her."

  "Why?"

  "Because she was never right for you. She took you away from your life."

  "She didn't take me away from anything. I wanted to be with her."

  "You were obsessed with her. You gave up your friends for her. She asked too much of you."

  "That's not true. I know you never liked her, Lauren, but you didn't know her the way I did."

  "I suppose. But in the end, you left her. Why did you?"

  He shook his head. "That's between us. Do you have Wyatt or Hank's number—maybe Justin's too?"

  "I have all their numbers. But they won't want to talk to you. And I'm not sure I should give out their contact information."

  "Do you think they have something to hide?"

  "No."

  "Then what's the problem?"

  She thought for a moment, then gave him a smile. "You know what? There is no problem, and I don't know why I would think about protecting them for one minute. It's not like they give a shit about me. Do you want the information for Vinnie and Vitaly, too?"

  "That would be helpful." He gave her his number, and she texted back the contact information.

  "I wouldn't expect anyone to throw out the welcome mat, Quinn. There was a lot of talk about you after Donovan's funeral. They couldn’t believe you didn't show up for your friend's memorial service."

  "People miss funerals."

  "Best friends don't. Family doesn't. You don't seem to get that, Quinn. We were a family, and you turned on us. You didn't just ask me pointed questions, you asked everyone. Your suspicions were like a contagion of distrust. You were the reason we all started questioning each other, wondering if it was possible one of us was a murderer. It's a hell of an accusation to come from someone within your family."

  "I spent more time in interrogation rooms than all of you combined," he countered. "I'm fairly certain every single member in our so-called family said my name in their interview. I heard a lot of stories about me—that Caitlyn had cheated on me, and I wanted to make her pay, that I was angry with her father because he was trying to break us up, that I was using her to get inside information on Carlson Industries, and I set the bomb because she'd found out about it and was going to tell everyone. Those are just a few of the lies that were spread about me."

  "I didn't realize that happened," she said in surprise. "I never made up any stories about you."

  "Well, I appreciate that."

  "You should let this go, Quinn. Don't get involved again. There's nothing to be gained. You started over. Don't go back."

  "I'll think about it. Thanks for talking to me."

  "I'm happy to talk to you more. We could meet for a drink one night."

  "I have a lot of work next week, but maybe after that."

  "Which probably means never, but sure, maybe after that," she said cynically. Then she walked over to the front door and opened it.

  He moved into the doorway, then paused. "I wish you well, Lauren. You were a good friend to me in college. I don't know if I ever told you how much I appreciated that."

  Her anger evaporated with his words.

  "We understood each other," she said. "We'd both lost a parent. You helped me get through that, and I hope I helped you a little, too."

  "You did. More than you know." He walked through the door and pulled it shut behind him, then hurried down the street.

  When he got to Caitlyn's car, he opened the passenger door and slid inside.

  "Well?" she asked impatiently. "You must have gotten something. You were gone a long time."

  "Lauren was more forthcoming than I thought she would be," he admitted.

  "What did she say?"

  "Her first reaction was shock. Apparently, when I didn't go to Donovan's funeral, everyone thought I was dead, that I had killed myself out of guilt for what I'd done to you. Some people thought Donovan and I had had some sort of bizarre suicide pact."

  Caitlyn's brow shot up. "That's crazy. Although, I am surprised you didn't go to Donovan's funeral. Why didn't you?"

  "I was done with the LNF, with the past. And as we've discussed, I wasn't clear whether Donovan had had a hand in what happened to you."

  "Did you ever confront Donovan? I remember you telling me you were trying to talk to him, but he was avoiding you."

  "I never got much out of him, certainly not a confession. He said he was sorry that you'd been hurt. But he avoided my questions, claiming that the FBI had asked him not to speak to me, and he had to follow their orders."

  "If he was sorry about what happened to me, he didn't express it. Other people sent cards. I never heard from Donovan." She paused. "What else did Lauren say?"

  "Donovan had a birthday several days before the bombing."

  "I remember. We didn't go because I was sick. I urged you to go without me, but you didn't want to."

  He shrugged. "I didn't want to leave you alone. Apparently, at that party, Donovan and Hank were talking about some big new plan. The group was going to have to change and people needed to get on board or get the hell out of the way. Those were Hank's words."

  "Sounds like Hank. He was always amped up."

  "I think he had a steroid addiction back then."

  "Probably now, too. I spoke to him five years ago, and his body
was ripped. He also had the same angry, intense personality. But getting back to the plan, what was in it? What was it about?"

  "She didn't have specifics. She just suggested that it would have been more aggressive than what we'd done in the past."

  "Lauren never told the FBI that. Neither did anyone else."

  "To be fair, those guys were always talking about big ideas, Caitlyn."

  "True, but I suspect she didn't want to throw fuel on the fire when it came to her fellow LNF members."

  "That's possible. She said everyone thought I'd abandoned the group—the family."

  "That you'd chosen me over them," she said with a nod of agreement. "I knew things were getting rocky in that regard, but you didn't seem to care. I wanted to be with you, so I didn't push you to hang onto your friendships. I always thought if they were really your friends, they would be happy for you—for us."

  "I thought that, too. And the LNF wasn't a family; it was a group of activists. Lauren said I was lying to myself if I believed that. Maybe I was. Perhaps my actions spurred Donovan to break his word to me."

  "If he blew up a building because you missed his birthday party, he was a sick individual."

  "True. I also told Lauren that I'd overheard Allison speaking to an FBI agent. I left you out of it."

  "That was smart."

  "She said Allison's group is nowhere near as organized or as passionate as the LNF was, that they have done little besides hand out flyers and plan that symposium."

  "You know who was supposed to speak at that symposium—Kevin Reilly. He works for Lexitech now, a Carlson company."

  "I had not heard that. Your family was targeted once again. What does Kevin say about the explosion?"

  "Nothing. He hasn't returned my calls. Nor did he want to speak to the FBI. His assistant said he was shaken up, and he had not been on campus when it happened, so he had nothing to contribute."

  That didn't make sense. "Why would he not want to talk to the FBI?"

  "We're all asking that question. I'm hoping he will call me back, since we grew up together, and he works for my father."

  "Your dad should be able to get him to talk."

  "I hate to involve him, but I might have to. Anything else of interest come out of Lauren's mouth?"

  He thought for a moment. "There was one other thing. She was talking about Wyatt, and she said Wyatt was there when they brought you out of the building, and that he had mentioned in this conversation they had a year ago that he'd never forgotten how shattered I'd looked that day. He felt bad that he'd never really talked to me about it."

  "He never spoke to you after the explosion?"

  "No. It became clear quickly that I was a person of interest and no one in the LNF wanted to put their face next to mine. But that's not the strange part. I never knew Wyatt was at the scene. I feel like I would have heard that before now."

  "He wasn't there, according to the FBI file. Wyatt and Justin were in their father's office discussing an upcoming trip. Senator Pederson vouched for them, and their alibi checked out."

  "Maybe Lauren got confused."

  "Or Wyatt lied, and his father covered it up."

  "That would be criminal, wouldn't it?"

  "Definitely. We need to talk to Hank and Wyatt. Hank, because he knew about the plan and also because he was roommates with Kevin, remember that?"

  "Not until you just said it. But I'm not sure why that matters."

  "I'm just looking for connections. We also need to talk to Wyatt, because he might not have been where he was supposed to be that day." Her eyes sparkled. "I knew you'd get something out of Lauren. Let's talk to Hank next. I want to take another look at the file before we talk to Wyatt, so I can be sure of what his statement was."

  "We?" he echoed. "Don't you have a team of agents to talk to suspects like Hank and Wyatt?" He felt like he was getting sucked deeper and deeper into the quicksand that was Caitlyn, and he was torn. He wanted to find the person who'd destroyed both their lives and left them with a grief that would never completely heal. But spending more time with her would only make everything more difficult in the long run.

  "The San Francisco office has a team of agents looking into the current explosion, working alongside the San Francisco Police Department and the ATF," she answered. "They're interviewing witnesses and running forensics, as well as looking for clues at the bomb site. That's all being covered." She paused. "I don't work here, Quinn. I don't know if I mentioned that, but I'm based in LA."

  "You did not mention that." He'd been thinking how lucky he'd been that she hadn't found him before now since she hadn't been that far away. Apparently, she'd been farther away than he'd realized.

  "I came up to consult on the investigation, because of my experience at Bolton and my knowledge of the previous case. The team here is focused on today's events; I'm looking for a connection to the past, because I'm convinced there is one."

  "Maybe you're just desperate for there to be one. It could be a copycat crime—a new activist taking a page out of an old playbook. Lauren's sister obviously knew about the LNF and she's involved in this new group. That group is who you should focus on."

  "That will happen, too. I'll follow the clues wherever they lead. But if it is a copycat and there was a playbook, who wrote it? Donovan? Hank? Does this plan still exist somewhere? And if it does, what's coming next? The only person who might be able to answer any of those questions is Hank, and I think you should go with me."

  "Hank was not my biggest fan. You don't need me for that conversation."

  "If we're together, it will shake him up, especially if he did think you were dead. That could rattle him enough to say something he might not say if it's just me."

  "You're reaching."

  "I don't think I am. If we want to get to the truth, this is how we do it."

  "I thought I knew the truth," he muttered. "I thought it was Donovan. I thought everything died with him."

  "Maybe it was him, but he might not have done it alone. And if someone else got away with it all these years, they still need to pay. Don't you agree?"

  "Of course I agree."

  "So, are you in or are you out?"

  He made the only choice he could. "I'm in."

  Chapter Seven

  Caitlyn started the engine, both relieved and a little wary about involving Quinn. She definitely thought he could help, but she'd also spent the past hour wondering how she was going to handle spending time with him again. She told herself it was for justice. He'd already gotten more out of Lauren than anyone else in the FBI had. She just needed to think of him as an asset, a source, someone who could help her case.

  But wasn't she lying to herself?

  She was curious to know more about him, and spending time with him now gave her that opportunity. It also gave her a chance to show him she wasn't the broken woman he'd left behind. She'd recovered, bounced back, and gotten stronger. She wanted him to see that.

  Not that any of that was worth more than finding the bombers. But it was still something.

  And she thought it might be a good idea to keep a close eye on him, anyway.

  She didn't completely trust him. Quinn hadn't told her the complete truth about why he'd disappeared to start a new life. He was holding something back. She had a better chance of figuring out what that was if they kept talking. She just had to make sure she kept a wall between them. She couldn't let her guard down where Quinn was concerned. She couldn't let him weaken or confuse her. The stakes were too high.

  That was easier said than done, because she was feeling all kinds of emotions being with him again. Even now, she was trying as hard as she could not to look at him, not to engage him in conversation unrelated to the bombings. But there were so many things she wanted to know, so much of his life she was curious about.

  After several minutes, the silence in the car felt too tense, too thick. She had to break it. "Did Lauren say anything about her breakup with Vinnie?"

  "Only that
he cheated on her and that she was bitter about the fact that their college friends took his side. That might be one reason she was happy to speculate about them now. She doesn't feel as close or as protective of them as she used to."

  "Maybe. Or she just felt more comfortable talking to you. I thought she would, and I was right."

  He smiled.

  "What?" she asked.

  "You always liked to be right."

  She frowned at that comment. "Everyone likes to be right," she said defensively. "But I might be a bit more extreme in that regard, because I grew up with a father who never thought I was right. According to him, I was always on the wrong path."

  "Because you weren't on his path. That didn't make it wrong."

  "In his eyes, it did."

  "It sounds like you're doing exactly what you want to do now, or is your job driven by your desire for justice and revenge?" He glanced over at her. "What happens if you get all that? Would you still want to be an FBI agent?"

  "Yes," she said with no hesitation. "I admit that the first two years on the job, I had one goal, and that was to find the person who killed my child. I had to do it on the side, but I still found the time. I drove people crazy with my relentless questions. But then someone I respected told me I needed to make a choice, that I could let the obsession consume me, or I could choose to make more of my career. I eventually chose the job. I joined a task force run by an agent I met at Quantico, and I work on all kinds of cases now. I actually go undercover quite a bit." She smiled at the gleam of wonder and admiration in his eyes. "I'm pretty good at blending in, being someone else."

  "It's difficult for me to believe you could ever blend into the shadows, not with those fiery red streaks in your hair and your beautiful face."

  She felt a wave of heat run through her at his complimentary words. "I've changed my appearance occasionally, but it's not that much about looks; it's about taking on a character, becoming that person, trying to think like they would think, act like they would act. When I go deep cover, I have to stay in that persona for weeks or months at a time."