“Thank you,” she murmured, not knowing what else to say. “I’m sorry kids at school were mean to you.”
“Thanks.” He nodded. “Some people think it’s weird for a guy to be this into the arts and creating movie creatures.”
“Or a girl to be into the army,” Holly said.
This time a genuine smile flashed across his lips and for the first time his eyes really met hers. “Yeah, I guess that, too. Uncle Nah was really supportive. Mom was great, too.”
“And your dad?” she asked.
“He doesn’t understand me, and he doesn’t get me,” Drew said. “But he loves me and that’s good enough for now. Lizzy told him you and Uncle Nah were getting married on Christmas Eve, and Mom had to set him straight.”
The mental image of Noah standing by an altar in a tuxedo with a ring in his hand crossed her mind. She shoved it away. “Well, that’s ridiculous. And why Christmas Eve?”
“I think she overheard something my mom and Noah were saying about how Christmas Eve is the big event.” He paused and looked up at her. “I’m guessing it’s not a good event?”
“No, it’s not,” she said. “In fact, it’s a very bad thing. You and your family are safe. But other people could get very hurt.”
“Is there anything I can do to help?” he asked, and her heart ached for this earnest young man and everything he’d already been through.
“You already are.”
“Cool.” He opened a small box. Six flat vials of colored disks lay inside. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to put your contacts in first.”
Twenty-five minutes later she was standing back in the front hallway of the farmhouse staring in the mirror at a person she’d never seen before. Smooth and strategic lines of thick movie makeup had made her cheekbones look both sharper and pinker. Another shade of pink made her lips look shiny and fuller. Long cascading locks of dark hair fell around her face and shoulders, all the way to her back. Bright turquoise eyes blinked out at her under dark fake lashes.
She slid her arms through the sleeves of another one of Anne’s coats. This one was a bright green and made her think of lime candy, with a hood of fuzzy fake fur.
Come on, Holly. You have a job to do. An outside is just an outside. It has no bearing on who you really are.
The door opened, and she stepped back.
“Holly, you ready to go?” Noah said. “I got new license plates on the truck and the snow brushed off, and—Whoa.”
Noah’s words caught in his throat. He stood there for a moment and watched as he struggled for words.
“Wow.” He ran his hand over the back of his neck. “I thought Drew might lend you a wig or something. But this is... Yeah, sorry. You look really different.”
She shoved her feet into her boots. “I know, I look ridiculous.”
“No, no, not at all,” Noah raised his hands, palms up. “I didn’t mean that at all. You look pretty, actually.”
Pretty. The word hit her like a punch to the gut. No man in her entire life had ever told her she looked pretty before. Was that all it took? A ton of paint on her face? Fake hair and lashes? But as her eyes searched his face, she saw something there that made it even worse.
Detective Noah Wilder was blushing.
Oh, no. Through all those hugs, walks and long conversations. All those times he’d reached for her hands and her for his... Why hadn’t she seen it before?
The man she was attracted to liked her back.
Only he was attracted to a fake version of her, who wasn’t who she really was at all.
* * *
Well, Noah, of all the dumb things you’ve ever said in your life, that was definitely the dumbest.
Noah was still mentally kicking himself as they drove silently down snowy Ontario back roads toward the safe house. The look on her face as he’d foolishly blurted out that he thought she was pretty had told him everything he needed to know. She’d looked offended. Worse than that, she’d looked hurt. And every awkward apology he’d attempted since then had only made the awkwardness between them worse, until he’d given up, gotten in the truck with her and started driving.
Pretty? Was that the best he could come up with? She was way beyond pretty. Whatever she was, that word didn’t even come close. She was fierce. She was strong. She was dynamic. She was a force to be reckoned with. And she was beautiful, too, in a way that shone through all the ridiculous gunk on her face.
And he couldn’t begin to let himself think about her that way.
Houses decked in Christmas decorations streamed past the window. Strings of unlit lights wove around the trees. It seemed everyone had collectively decided a few years ago that huge, inflatable, billowing Christmas figures were the must-have thing, and now most lawns were littered with the flat corpses waiting to be inflated again at night.
Four days until Christmas. Three days until the auction went live.
He prayed Seth’s lead would change all that.
“Drew told me about the trouble he had in school,” Holly said, after a silence so long and excruciating it had seemed to stretch out forever. “I get the impression it was a lot worse than he was letting on.”
Yeah, Noah’s heart still twisted in knots when he remembered. “He was bullied pretty badly. He’s a tough kid, but no one should go through that.”
“I’ve always wished more kids who had trouble at school, like Drew, or at home, like Anne, were encouraged to join the military cadets,” she said. “The army has been such a great family to me. At its best it teaches teamwork, self-esteem, independence, service to others...” Her voice trailed off in a sigh. “Which is why it really hurt to see what it can be at its worst.”
Noah nodded. Yeah, he could imagine. “When I applied for that promotion I was considering inviting Drew to live with me during college,” he said. “Just to give him one less financial worry.”
“That’s kind of you,” she said.
Was it? Well, it wasn’t going to happen without the promotion to Ottawa. Not while he was still crisscrossing the county helping vulnerable witnesses, a countless number of which were now on the verge of losing everything.
“Can we ask Seth to get a message to my parents?” Holly asked. “I imagine he has some encrypted, untraceable way of sending emails. They weren’t expecting to see me this Christmas. They knew I was going into witness protection. And we never tended to do much to celebrate the holiday, because it was also my birthday, and my dad was usually working. But I’d still like to wish them a Merry Christmas and let them know I’m safe and thinking of them. Oh, and to ignore any online rumors Seth planted about my getting married.”
“I’m sure he can do that,” Noah said. “Where are they?”
“Right now, my mom’s in Vancouver and my dad’s on a base in Germany. But they both said they were going to come to Ottawa for the inquiry when it’s my turn to testify.”
He blinked. “I had no idea your parents were on opposite sides of the world.”
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” she said. She settled back in the seat and looked out the window, and he lost sight of her face behind the ridiculously fluffy hood and mass of hair. “My dad’s always served in the Canadian military. Like I told you, he met my mother when he was home on leave. She was running a small garden center at the time. She’s a horticulturalist. It was whirlwind, gut-punch, love at first sight.” Holly sighed, as if thinking about more than she was saying. “She gave everything up to follow him around the world and be an army wife.”
“And you said it didn’t work out?” he asked.
“No, it didn’t,” she said. “My mom tried very, very hard to be the best possible army wife she could, for years. But the constant moves were draining. She missed working. She missed her garden. She missed putting down roots—metaphorically and literally. When I enlisted she moved out to V
ancouver to help friends with their garden center business, and never came back. Now they’re separated.”
“How many times did you move, growing up?” he asked.
“Nineteen,” she said. “But at least I always felt at home in the military. Not everyone has that.”
Funny, he’d never thought of her as someone who’d had a rough childhood, but he’d known a few individuals who’d moved that many times or more. In his experience, it made people slow to trust, slow to open up and even slower to believe anything permanent could be possible.
They lapsed back into silence again and he thought about Caleb, and why in all the conversations he and Holly had, he’d never really opened up about his foster brother. He’d caught enough snatches of telephone conversation to know that Lizzy had fully and enthusiastically informed her father that he was there, and he knew Anne had talked to him, too. But Caleb had yet to ask to speak to Noah, and he hadn’t asked to talk to him, either. Despite Anne’s pleas to let Caleb sell the gym they owned together, Noah hadn’t visited the property or agreed to meet the potential buyers. He’d meant to visit the gym, he really had, not to sell it as Anne wanted, but to see what state his brother had left it in.
Bros Gym was a painful monument to Noah’s attempt to do right by Caleb, and how very badly that had gone wrong.
Caleb had always been the kind of man who needed a little help to keep his life on track, and the gym was supposed to give him that. Time and time again, Caleb had squandered or gambled away whatever money he’d earned, borrowed or won in self-destructive ways, racking up debts and draining his bank account no sooner than money had come in. When Noah’s parents had decided to leave Caleb an inheritance, it had been in the hopes he’d use it to make something of himself. They’d hoped owning his own business would give him accountability, stability, purpose and a goal.
At least that had been the plan.
Noah would become the silent partner in the venture and Caleb would be able to use the money Noah’s parents had left him to fulfill his dreams, run a business he loved and support his family. Noah had taken his life savings, plus the money he himself had inherited from his parents, and invested it in helping Caleb, Anne, Drew and Lizzy have the best possible shot at life. It’s what Noah’s parents would’ve wanted.
In exchange, Caleb would keep on top of the mortgage and all the bills. He’d go back to rehab for his gambling addiction and take college business courses. He’d make good on Noah’s investment in him.
Only he hadn’t. Three years on and the gym lay empty and abandoned, with utilities cut off from lack of payment, a mortgage in arrears and creditors sending notices to Noah demanding their money.
If it wasn’t for the painful knowledge of how Caleb would blow his share of the money once the building sold, robbing his family of the one major asset they had, Noah would’ve divested himself of it in a heartbeat. The gym and his relationship to Caleb were now a liability he’d have to disclose in order to get the higher level security clearance a promotion would require. That could lead to investigators poking into Caleb’s life to see what kind of man Noah was in business with, and to determine if the gym left Noah vulnerable to either criminal activity or bribery. Now Anne wanted Noah to give up, sell the property and let both himself and Caleb have the share of money they’d invested into it back. And how was that responsible? To give up on his foster brother’s best lifeline to turn his circumstances around, and instead give him a lump sum of cash to gamble and party away?
Maybe Anne had given up on Caleb ever changing his mind, coming back, reopening the gym and becoming a better man, but Noah hadn’t.
Noah pulled off the rural highway and onto a smaller road, following the GPS directions Seth had given him. A series of dilapidated structures came into view, scattered along the roadside like the remnants of some toy building set that someone had forgotten to tidy up. Then he saw the hangar, old and abandoned, with the carcasses of long-neglected motorboats scattered around the yard. The parking lot lay cold and empty. He didn’t much like knowing that Seth had been staying out here all alone for the past few days, without anyone babysitting him. But witness protection was about setting someone up in a safe and secret life, not about providing around-the-clock security. And Seth had never been one for being babysat.
Noah pulled in and dialed Seth’s number. It rang. There was no answer.
“You think something’s wrong?” Holly asked.
“Hopefully not.” He turned off the truck and got out, with Mack’s gun in the holster by his side and Holly one step behind him. He watched as her hand twitched toward him, and he realized she probably missed carrying a weapon. But could she shoot one? “Now, stay behind me, and keep a lookout, okay?”
She nodded. He led the way across the parking lot to a plain metal door in the wall. It swung open easily when he grasped the handle, and they stepped into a wood-paneled room that he guessed had once been an office. The place was stifling, as if a dozen space heaters had been turned on full blast. He coughed and raised a hand to his face.
“Seth!” he called. “Hey, are you here?”
No answer.
The room had been both trashed and tossed. Broken monitors, smashed computers and shards of glass covered the floor. The smell of gasoline hung heavy in the air. He stepped farther into the room and she followed, their feet crunching on broken glass. Then he saw Seth’s bag, slit end to end as if by a knife, and his clothes and belongings scattered around the room.
“Dear God, please have mercy.”
Noah heard the sound of Holly’s voice praying behind him, and his own heart felt momentarily too stunned to put what he was thinking into words.
Then he saw the blood, fresh and red, pooling on the floor.
And he found the only words he could pray were God, no... Please, no...
NINE
“Seth!” He shouted his friend’s name as loudly as he could. “Seth! Where are you?”
Tires screeched on the driveway outside as a vehicle slammed on its brakes.
Instinctively, Noah’s arm shot around Holly, as he stepped in front of her, shielding her and pulling her to safety. He heard the sound of footsteps. A man was running across the parking lot toward them. Noah pressed them back against the wall.
“Seth!” Liam burst through the door, then froze. His face paled. His eyes turned to Noah. “Noah! What are you doing here? Where’s Seth?”
“I don’t know where Seth is,” Noah said. “He called me and told me to come here. I arrived, found the place trashed, a lot of blood and no Seth.”
He watched as a prayer crossed Liam’s lips, then felt Holly step out from behind him. Liam blinked, and Noah watched as he took in her new look in a glance.
“Who’s this?” Liam asked. “What’s she doing here?”
“It’s Holly,” Noah said. “Guess you could say she’s in disguise.”
And even though it’s not my place to ask, I’d very much like it if you stopped staring at her.
“Where were you?” Noah demanded, with more bite in his voice than he liked. “Why weren’t you watching Seth?”
“You know where I’ve been,” Liam said. “I’ve been digging into every possible lead I can find and coordinating with Mack and Jess.”
“You shouldn’t have left Seth alone!” Noah’s voice rose even more. He felt Holly’s hand brush his arm, not like she was trying to calm him down or shut him up, but trying to let him know he wasn’t alone.
“You know he didn’t want to be babysat!” Liam’s pained voice matched Noah’s in volume and intensity, and Noah could tell his old friend was aching every bit as much as he was. “It’s not our role. We’re detectives, not babysitters! I gave him the choice of coming with me. He didn’t take it. He said he was chasing down a lead and very close to finding something.”
Well, it looked like the Imposters had found him fir
st. For a moment Noah stood there frozen, surrounded by the remains of the belongings of a man he’d promised to protect. If only Seth had let me protect him.
“It’s not your fault,” he told Liam at last. “He had this stubborn streak, doing things his way and only accepting help on his own terms.”
“We gotta go,” Holly interjected. She squeezed his arm again, harder this time, and her touch seemed to snap him back to the present. “I think the building’s on fire.”
And suddenly it was like everything hit his senses at once—the pervasive smell of gasoline, the tickle of acrid smoke in the back of his throat, the growing heat on his skin. And then he heard distant sirens.
They turned and ran out of the building. He reached the truck and looked back. Flames licked at the back windows of the hangar. The sirens grew louder.
“They set the building ablaze and called the fire department,” Holly declared. “I don’t know why. To destroy evidence. To trap us. All of the above.”
He glanced back, watching the flames lick higher and higher as they moved through the building. Any moment now and they would reach the office. He prayed that Seth was safe.
“Let’s swap vehicles,” Liam said quickly. Noah felt him press the keys of his black SUV into his palm. “Get Holly to safety. I’ll stick around here and see what I can find out about Seth.”
Christmas Witness Protection (Protected Identities Book 1) Page 11
