Daring Deception

by Barbara Freethy

  "How dare you, Quinn? How dare you not tell me what happened up on that mountain?"

  His expression turned grim. "I couldn't tell you."

  "Why not? I had a right to know what he said. You should have told me that he apologized."

  "Would that have really made a difference? That he was sorry?"

  "I don't know. You didn't give me the chance to find out."

  "Well, I know, and it wouldn't have helped at all. It would have meant nothing to you. I figured you'd hear that he was dead, and that would give you closure."

  She shook her head. "That's bullshit, Quinn. How would that give me closure?"

  "You thought he was the one responsible."

  "Maybe not the only one."

  "Well, he didn't give up any other names," Quinn said, anger in his gaze now, too. "I know I should have asked more questions, gotten more information, but I didn't, and I can't change that. But I did make sure that he could never hurt you again."

  She stared back at him for a long minute. "How did it feel? Watching him go over that edge? I need to know, Quinn. I need to know how it felt to watch him die."

  "Not as good as I wanted it to feel. I thought that if he paid with his life, it would make things better, but it changed nothing."

  "I wish I could have been there. I wish I could have told him what I felt in that moment." Tears burned at the back of her eyes. "I wish I could have pushed him over the side."

  "I didn't want you to have to be the one to do that. That's not who you are, Caitlyn."

  "It is who I am," she said. "It's who I became. I wanted vengeance as much as you did. Maybe more. But you didn't let me have that moment."

  He shook his head. "You're looking at the situation now, ten years later. You're confident, you're strong. You're more than capable of pushing Donovan off that mountain or putting a bullet in his head. But that's not who you were three months after the explosion. You could barely get out of bed. You were in physical and emotional pain. You couldn't have even made it up that mountain. I had to take the first opportunity I could get, and that was it. If I hadn't gone then, Donovan might have disappeared. I might have never found him."

  She knew he was right. It was still difficult to accept.

  "I didn't just do it for me, Caitlyn," he continued. "I did it for you and for Isabella, even though I didn't know her name at the time."

  Another reminder of how she had shut him out.

  "What happened after he went off the mountain?"

  "I left. It took me almost two hours to make my way down the mountain. When I got back to the campgrounds, I went into his cabin. I impulsively grabbed his duffel bag, thinking there might be evidence in there of what he'd done."

  "Wait. You have his duffel bag?"

  "Yes, but there wasn't much in it, a couple of photos of me and some other LNF members, and a notebook from school. There were notes from a class in the front, then a drawing of various snakes with their heads cut off. There was a quote next to one of the snakes. It said: Corporate greed lives like a viper in its nest. You must kill it before it kills you. That snake became the tattoo that Donovan and Wyatt got together. It also appeared that pages had been ripped out of the notebook, but I have no idea what they contained."

  "You still have the bag, don't you?"

  "At my house, in the basement. I looked through the bag last night."

  "That's what reminded you of the tattoo."

  "Yes."

  She frowned. "You said that we'd get back to Wyatt. If you didn't drive your Jeep there, then why would he ask you about it?"

  "I think he was trying to shake me up, searching for an answer by implying he already knew the answer."

  "You think he's capable of being that devious?"

  "Up until that moment, I was thinking no, that there was no way Wyatt had been involved in a scheme as deadly as a bombing. It wasn't his personality. But that question gave me pause. I also don't think Wyatt was actually there."

  "Why would he lie about that?"

  "I don't know, but Wyatt hated to hike. It was too much work for him. He never wanted to go to the mountains with us. His story didn't ring true at all."

  "I'm going to need to dig deeper into Wyatt's stories. There might be much more to find than a bad alibi." She blew out a breath. "What did you do after you left Yosemite?"

  "I drove south. I didn't know where I was going to end up. When I got to San Diego and the Mexican border, I almost went across, but I ended up finding a cheap apartment near the beach. I waited for someone to come after me. It was probably a year before I thought it might not happen. But I knew I could never come out of hiding. I could never be Quinn Kelly again. Even though Donovan's death looked like suicide, there was no guarantee someone wouldn't connect my disappearance to his death. That meant I had to stay disconnected from you as well. I couldn't let anyone from my past know where I was or what I'd done. I'd made my choice. I had to live with it."

  "And you never once considered telling me the truth?"

  "I considered it about a hundred thousand times."

  She frowned at his answer. "What stopped you? Did you think I'd give you up to the FBI?"

  "No, I didn't think that. But I did believe that showing up in your life again could bring danger back to you."

  "That's not the real reason."

  He gave her a long look. "I looked you up online about two years after Donovan died. It was the one and only time I looked for you. I saw photos of you with your friends. You were smiling and laughing. You looked like you again. I didn’t want to bring you back down by showing up and reminding you of everything you'd lost, of the pain I'd put you through."

  "Do you really think you can know someone's life by looking at social media?" she challenged.

  "No, but I was hopeful. I wanted you to feel better, Caitlyn. I wanted that from the beginning. I just couldn't make it happen. You couldn't decide if I was to blame or not. Sometimes, it feels like you still aren't sure."

  "I have gone back and forth," she admitted. "But I don't believe you knew about the bomb or had any idea I was walking into danger."

  "I'm glad."

  "I still don't like the way you left me. You didn't even say good-bye."

  "I did come to your house before I left. I had a whole speech planned. You were in the backyard, and you were crying. It was like you were sobbing from the depths of your soul. I didn't know how to comfort you and telling you I was leaving wasn't going to be helpful, so I just left."

  "What were you going to say?"

  "I was going to say we should take a break, see how we felt in a year or two. I wasn't sure at that moment that I wouldn't see you again. It wasn't until after Donovan died that I knew I'd closed that door forever."

  "I guess I can kind of understand," she said slowly. "Some of it, not all of it. I need to think about it."

  "I won't make the mistake of telling you to take all the time that you need."

  "Good. A lot of what you did was wrong, Quinn. I can relate to your desire to get justice and revenge, because those desires have been with me every single day for the last ten years. But the way you went about it, the way you disappeared without a word, that was…"

  "Unforgivable?"

  "Yes. You left me when I needed you the most. That's not on my dad. That's on you."

  "I know. And I'm sorry I didn't get more answers from Donovan. I really thought the danger died with him that night. Clearly, I was wrong. You told me I owed you before, and I do. But that's not why I want to help you now. I want the truth as much as you do. And if someone else needs to pay, I want that to happen, too. I want it for you, for me, and for Isabella." He cleared the sudden emotion out of his voice. "I didn't get a chance to say this before, but thank you for telling me her name, Caitlyn. You made her real again. You made her a person, and I will be forever grateful that you shared that with me."

  Her eyes teared up, and she felt overwhelmed with emotion. She jumped to her feet and walked down t
he stairs. She sat at the table, trying to fight off the tears. She'd cried too much already. But they were pressing at her eyes, so she closed them, and she put her head in her hands and tried to hang on.

  She told herself she should be happy Quinn went after Donovan. She should be happy that Donovan had said he was sorry, even though that meant nothing. But all she could feel was pain and anger that she hadn't been the one to shove Donovan off that mountain. That she hadn't been able to get payback for Isabella. That she might never get the revenge she thirsted for.

  Then the tears came. She got up and walked into the cabin and closed the door. She didn't need Quinn to hear her. She didn't need him to know that deep inside she was still weak, and she was still hurting.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Quinn stood outside the cabin door, debating what to do. The sound of Caitlyn's painful sobs tore at his heart. He wanted to comfort her. He wanted to hold her. But she'd shut him out, just like she'd shut him out before.

  It had shocked him then. Those days and weeks after the explosion had been filled with anguish and anger, as well as confusion. He couldn't understand why she wouldn't let him comfort her. They'd been so close. He'd known her inside and out: all her fears, her worries, and her dreams.

  But while happiness had bound them together, grief had ripped them apart. Distrust had ended their relationship. She'd blamed him and she'd doubted him. Worst of all, she just couldn't let him share or shoulder the burden of her loss, and that had made everything worse.

  He'd been very much alone in his grief. He'd had no family to turn to, and his friends had disappeared. He shouldn't have been surprised to find himself completely isolated. But his college years had made him feel like he was part of something, and his relationship with Caitlyn had given him hope that he would have a family again, especially when he found out she was pregnant.

  It had been too good to be true.

  In his life, everything that was good eventually turned bad.

  He left the galley and walked back up to the deck, letting the night air cool his heated thoughts. He had to give Caitlyn time and space, because that's what she wanted.

  But was it what she needed? Was crying it all out on her own helping her?

  Somehow, he doubted it.

  He'd hoped she might find some small comfort in the fact that he'd gone after Donovan and while he hadn't gotten a full confession, he had gotten an apology, and Donovan had paid for what he'd done.

  But she'd wanted to serve up justice. She'd wanted revenge, and he couldn't blame her, because she was the one who had been in a hospital bed for weeks, who had lost her baby, who had gone through surgery, who had been in terrible pain. But he couldn't change what had happened.

  What now?

  He drilled his fingers against his thighs and then he decided they'd spent enough time in the past. He needed to pull her back into the present.

  Walking down the stairs once more, he paused in the galley. It sounded quieter than it had before. Hopefully, that was a good sign.

  He opened up the fridge, happy to see that it was well stocked with food. He pulled out eggs, bacon, tomatoes, cheese and a package of Southwestern hash browns. His stomach rumbled, and he realized he hadn't eaten all day. Setting two pans on the small stove burners, he started cooking. Maybe the smell of bacon would draw Caitlyn out of the cabin. It had always worked before.

  That thought brought a smile to his lips, as he remembered the times he'd made breakfast for her. He didn't know how to cook much else, but he'd always been good at the first meal of the day, and Caitlyn had usually woken up ravenous. He'd loved cooking for her, and he'd loved watching her walk into the kitchen wearing one of his T-shirts, her hair tangled from his fingers, her lips pink from their kisses, her eyes sleepy and happy. Sometimes, he'd have to turn off those burners and make love to her because she was so damn pretty.

  He took a shaky breath at the memories. Those days were long gone, and they were never coming back. But he could still feed her. He could try to be there for her, as much as she would let him. And he would help her find out who had taken up Donovan's evil plan and made it their own.

  She would never forgive him for abandoning her, and he couldn't forgive himself. Not just for the way he'd left but for not seeing what had been right in front of him. The LNF had turned into a terrorist group, and he had been oblivious. If he had been more aware, he wouldn't have let her go into that building. They wouldn't have lost their baby. Maybe they'd still be together.

  Or maybe not… But at least she wouldn’t have had to suffer. She wouldn't still be suffering now.

  For the next several minutes, he focused on making their meal, and as he'd hoped, the door to the cabin opened when he set the plate of bacon on the table.

  Her hair was mussed, her eyes and nose red, but there was a fighting light back in her eyes, and he was happy to see that.

  "You cooked," she said.

  "Breakfast for dinner."

  "Your specialty." She snatched a piece of bacon off the plate and waved it in the air as she sat down. "This produces my favorite smell in the entire world."

  "I remember." He set a plate of scrambled eggs and hash browns in front of her. "I thought you might be hungry."

  "I didn't realize I was until I smelled the bacon."

  He sat down across from her. "Dig in."

  "You don't have to ask me twice," she said, giving him a shaky smile as she took a bite of her eggs. "You're still an expert at scrambled eggs. I like the cheese and tomato addition. And what else is in here?"

  "Green chiles. Ray likes his food spicy."

  "I hope he won't mind that we've made ourselves at home."

  "He won't care. We keep the fridge stocked for longer dive trips. Ray gets hungry when I'm diving."

  "This is a nice boat."

  "It has served me well."

  She cocked her head at his words. "Past tense?"

  He shrugged. "I don't know what happens in the next minute."

  "Me, either." She tucked her hair behind her ear and gave him a sheepish look. "I'm a little embarrassed."

  "For being human?"

  "For being weak. You've heard me cry too many times."

  "You're one of the strongest people I've ever met, Caitlyn."

  "I haven't been very strong the last hour. I know we still need to talk about what happened on the mountain, but right now, I'd just rather eat."

  "I'm good with that."

  She finished off her bacon, then added, "My coworker Emi texted me some information about the car that tailed us from Wyatt's house. It was reported stolen from the home of a seventy-nine-year-old retired teacher that morning."

  "So much for my brilliance in capturing the license plate."

  "It was a good idea; it just didn't pan out. The woman did not have any cameras on her house, but Emi will check the neighborhood when she gets a chance. It's low priority at the moment with everything else going on."

  "Why is it a low priority? You're a federal agent, and someone tried to kill you."

  "True, but I can handle myself. The team needs to focus on the innocent people who could be targets of this terror group."

  "Any news from Alancor?"

  "Nothing of note. The next real worry is the gala on Sunday night that my family's foundation hosts. My father doesn't want to cancel. He doesn't bow to terrorists. But local and state political leaders, including our favorite senator, will be there, as well as CEO's from many companies. You might as well put a bull's-eye on the event."

  "That sounds like a place we need to be."

  "I will be there. You would definitely not make the invite list."

  "Make me your plus one."

  "We'll see. I'm still hoping I can talk my father into canceling the gala."

  "Why waste your breath? It won't work. Your father does what he wants to do. Save your energy for figuring out how to get rid of that bull's-eye or protect it."

  "There will be a tremendous amount of se
curity, but it's difficult to make any event completely safe, especially when you don't know where the danger might come from."

  "You should keep eating," he said. "Your eggs are getting cold."

  She took another bite. "These are good. I like the spice."

  "You always did like spice." She rolled her eyes, and he smiled. "I know you want us to stay in the present, but our past is part of us. Not just the bad but also the good."

  "We did have some good times," she said with a sigh. "Tell me more about your life after Yosemite. How did you reinvent yourself so well? Did you buy your new identity?"

  "Yes. An old friend helped me out."

  "What he did was illegal."

  "That's why I'll never turn that friend in."

  "You're careful not to say if it was a man or a woman."

  "Well, I am eating with an FBI agent."

  "Who just basically heard your confession for murder. Even though…"

  "What?" he asked.

  She put down her fork. "I've been thinking about the sequence of events."

  "I thought you didn't want to talk about it."

  "Well, I changed my mind."

  "Okay," he said warily. "Go on."

  She stared at him for a long minute. "You didn't actually push Donovan over the edge."

  "I was moving toward him."

  "You said he stepped away. And then he backed up."

  "Because I was coming at him," he argued.

  "That's not really how you described it."

  "I don't think you heard me right."

  "I heard you just fine. You said he backed up. One step and then another. He was in control. He told you he never meant to hurt you or me." She shook her head. "You didn't kill him, Quinn. He killed himself. He jumped off that cliff."

  "You weren't there. You don't know how fast it went."

  "Maybe that's why I can see it more clearly than you can. He didn't fall. And you didn't push him. He chose to take that step. He really did kill himself."

  He frowned at the conclusion she'd come up with. "If I hadn't gone there, it wouldn't have happened," he reminded her. "He fell because I confronted him. Donovan didn't go up there to commit suicide. There was no evidence of that."