Stolen Identity

by Lisa Harris

  She turned around to take one last look at the body before they headed toward the restaurant. Officers and paramedics finished working the scene, along with the medical examiner who had recently arrived. The reality of what had just transpired hit her like a winter storm beating against the Pacific’s rugged coastline. When her knees buckled beneath her, Jason caught her and drew her into his arms.

  She let him hold her for a moment. Her head rested against his chest as she breathed in the smell of salt and seaweed, finding an unexpected security in his presence. He had been that for her once. Years before she’d even met Quinton.

  “I’m sorry.” She stepped back, suddenly self-conscious of her display of emotion to a man she’d purposely forgotten. “I just don’t think I’ve ever been so scared. Everything happened so fast…. I thought I could save him. I wanted so badly to save him.”

  “Hey, you don’t have any reason to be sorry.” He brushed away the tear sliding down her cheek with the back of his hand. “What you experienced today was traumatic.”

  Danielle looked up into his eyes again. The shadow of a beard covered his solid jawline, but despite his rugged looks, there was warmth in his expression. For a brief moment, memories of college and the Jason Ryan she used to know flashed before her. Weekends at the Saturday market sampling food and listening to music. Chinese takeout from Ling’s. Day trips to the coast filled with fresh seafood….

  She turned away from him, dismissing the memories. Whatever had been between her and Jason died years ago. But he was right about one thing. The situation had unnerved her. And she wasn’t the only one.

  Danielle shook her head. “I’m standing here, still in shock over the fact that I just pulled a dead body out of the water, but you knew him.”

  “I’m having a hard time believing that he’s really gone.”

  They started up the path in silence until they reached the quaint seaside restaurant with its weathered shingle siding and 1920s architecture.

  “Were you close?” she finally asked.

  “We were friends. Good friends.” Jason opened the side door to the restaurant, letting her slip into the warmth of the cozy great room with its thick, wooden ceiling beams and rustic decor. “We met a couple years after college and ended up starting an IT security company. Garrett and I have worked together ever since.”

  The name jarred Danielle’s memory. She stopped in the doorway, breathing in the smell of fresh baked goods and seafood, and tried to dismiss the connection. No. The name couldn’t be anything other than a crazy coincidence.

  But what if she was wrong?

  “What was his last name, Jason?”

  “Garrett’s last name? Peterson.”

  Garrett Peterson.

  The room began to spin. He had called her. She’d thought he was nuts. And now he was dead.

  “What’s wrong, Danielle?”

  “I’m not sure.” She skirted a row of wooden tables and stopped in front of the stone fireplace, wondering how she’d just gotten thrust into a situation with both a murder victim and her ex-fiancé. She held her palms out toward the flame, wishing the warmth of the fire could somehow ease the numbness of the situation. “This has to be some uncanny coincidence, but I think your friend called me.”

  “Garrett?”

  “Two days ago.” Danielle locked eyes with Jason. This time it wasn’t just her wet clothes sending chills down her spine. Somehow, Garrett’s death was linked to her. “Two days ago, I received a call from a man who told me his name was Garrett Peterson. He said his life had been ruined by a finance scam…and I was next.”

  TWO

  Jason stood next to Danielle in front of the crackling fire, trying to wrap his mind around what she had just told him. Garrett had implied she was next…and now Garrett was dead. Jason turned toward her, trying to read her expression, and caught the fear and confusion in her eyes as she stared into the yellow flames. No matter what stood between them from their past, knowing her life could be in danger had invoked his protective instincts toward her.

  Every plausible scenario he’d grappled with over the past few weeks had just been shot down. Finding Garrett dead was one scenario he’d never imagined. And he couldn’t…wouldn’t…let the same thing happen to her. Which brought him back to one probing question. How could Garrett have gotten himself tangled up with a financial scam, and how was Danielle involved?

  “I don’t understand.” He tugged on the collar of his shirt. The room felt warm. Too warm. He took a step back from the fireplace, her nearness wreaking havoc with his equilibrium. “If Garrett had gotten caught up in some con, he would have told me. We were business partners, but more than that we were friends.”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t know him, or what he was involved in.” She sat down at the table closest to the hearth, her back toward the flames. “All I know is what he told me. At the time I thought the call was some sort of prank and dismissed it as that, but clearly that isn’t the case.”

  Jason slid into the seat across from her, still trying to fit the pieces together. Garrett had told Danielle that his life had been ruined by a financial scam. If Garrett knew Danielle was in danger, he must have found whoever had conned him and was trying to stop them. And warn her.

  “Can I get the two of you anything?”

  Jason glanced up at the waitress standing in front of them with a pen, a pad and a too-perky smile.

  “Two coffees, please.” He ordered for both of them automatically. “One black and the other with extra cream.”

  Jason turned back to Danielle as the waitress spun around to walk away. He rubbed his temples with his thumb and forefinger. Poignant memories of the two of them together had only managed to add to his own internal turmoil. How many times had he ordered for both of them at some quaint, corner café? Stared into those same familiar brown eyes. But that was a lifetime ago. He shouldn’t assume that she—or her tastes—had stayed the same. “I’m sorry. I should have asked you what you wanted. If you’d like to order something else—”

  “No. Coffee—with extra cream—is fine.” Her knowing gaze seemed to reverberate right through him. “Italy expanded my taste buds a bit when it comes to coffee, but I’m impressed you remembered.”

  “You were right. A lot has changed.” He quirked a brow. “So what are your coffee drinking preferences these days?”

  She shot him a smile. “Sitting outside a café in Rome or Venice sipping an espresso.”

  He couldn’t help but grin back. She’d changed little besides a few extra smile lines, and her cinnamon-brown, shoulder-length hair had turned a shade or two darker. He’d pictured her from time to time, wondering where she was and what had happened to her, but he’d never tried to find her. Somehow, the distance between them had made it easier for him to forget. Because Danielle had been the first woman he’d ever really loved. And if he was honest, the last.

  But he had no intention of having his heart broken again.

  Jason shook his head and shoved the past back where their relationship belonged. He might not be able to deny that he was still powerfully drawn to her, but there were simply too many things that had to be figured out right now. “Let’s go over what happened. You said Garrett called two days ago?”

  “Monday evening. I’d just gotten home after picking up Lauryn from my mom’s.”

  “What exactly did he say?”

  Her chin quivered slightly as she answered. “He…he told me that his name was Garrett Peterson, then he started rambling about how his life was in shambles, and how I was going to be next. He was scared, Jason. I could hear the fear in his voice.”

  The waitress set two thick mugs in front of them. Jason waited until she left, thankful it was off-season and there was only one other couple in the restaurant. At least here they had a measure of privacy. Over the years, he’d imagined what it might be like to be alone with her again. But not like this. Not under these circumstances.

  He grabbed two packets of sugar from
the container on the table, ripped them open then dumped the contents into his coffee. “What did you tell him?”

  “Nothing.” Danielle added a packet of sugar then took a sip before setting the mug back on the table. “I hung up on him. I honestly thought he was crazy or had the wrong number. But now…I realize he had to have been trying to tell me to watch my back.”

  Jason tried to work through the timeline of the past few days. On Saturday, Garrett had called asking for more time off, which now seemed to imply he’d been looking for something, or someone. When he called Danielle on Monday, he’d sounded afraid. He’d lost everything financially and somehow the situation was connected to Danielle. Now he was dead. The situation was beginning to read like some horrible, low-budget movie script.

  “You knew him.” Danielle ran her long, delicate fingers across the handle of the mug. “Had he been acting strange lately?

  “A couple months ago, I started noticing some subtle changes in him. I chalked it up to the death of his grandfather. You know what happens when someone close to you dies—it can make you reevaluate your own life. That’s what I thought happened to Garrett. He started taking vitamins, working out more at the gym, even cut out sugar and fast food. But he also seemed preoccupied and distant.”

  “Some kind of early midlife crisis?” she asked, her wide brown eyes flickering with interest.

  “That’s a good name for it. But no matter how many times I tried talking to him, he always told me not to worry, that everything was fine.”

  “Could he have brought this on himself? What about gambling?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t think so. He wasn’t the addictive type, nor can I imagine him throwing away everything we’ve worked so hard for over the past few years. He’d even invested recently in a new house.”

  “So he never talked to you about financial problems.”

  “If he had any, I didn’t know about it. I actually assumed he was doing fine. He helped out his sister’s family while his brother-in-law was out of work, and always gave generously to his church.” He sighed. “Whatever financial issues he was facing—whatever they might have been—he kept them to himself.”

  Jason added another packet of sugar, restirred his coffee, then set down the spoon, wanting to dismiss the assumption. “What I don’t understand is how does a security expert fall victim to a con? Garrett’s job was to ensure companies were protected from online threats. More than anyone, he knew how to protect himself.”

  “Think about it.” Danielle didn’t look convinced. “How does anyone get involved in these kinds of scams in the first place? It’s never intentional. I read the news enough to know that identity theft is on the rise, and all it takes is one mistake by the victim that leaves them vulnerable. What I don’t understand is the connection to me.”

  “Identity theft is usually random.”

  “Which would imply that it’s also a crime of opportunity.”

  “What about you?” He took another sip of his coffee. Somehow, they needed to find the connection between Danielle, Garrett and their scam artist. “Are you still involved in archaeology and history?”

  “When Lauryn was born, I decided to give up my career so I didn’t have to travel so much. Now I own a small shop in town called The Bamboo Closet. It’s an eclectic collection of home decor, furniture and gifts sold primarily to tourists.”

  Her profile fit. While random, thieves would want to target people with assets.

  “So how could someone get to you?” Jason started throwing out ideas “Do you shred all your documents before throwing them away?”

  Her left brow quirked. “Yes.”

  “What about any missing credit cards?”

  “None.”

  “A stolen wallet or any missing bills?”

  She shook her head. “Nothing and my mailbox has a lock, so I can be pretty sure that no one has been in it.”

  Jason paused with his line of questions. She was looking to him for answers. He was trying to deal with the situation as if she were simply another client needing his expertise. But trying to convince himself that this wasn’t personal wasn’t working.

  “I suppose there is no way to know at this point how this happened,” he continued. “Someone could have hacked into the computer of one of your credit card companies, or bribed a county clerk for your personal information for that matter. The real question seems to be how did Garrett know that you’d be next?”

  “I don’t know.” Fear registered in her eyes. “But I can’t let the same thing happen to me. I have a daughter, a business… If Garrett was right, I could lose my shop, my house…everything I’ve worked for over the past few years.”

  He reached out and squeezed her hand. “We’re not going to let this situation get that far.”

  “We?” Her voice caught, but she didn’t pull away from his grasp.

  “You need to make sure that what happened to Garret doesn’t happen to you…and I not only need answers to my friend’s death, but reassurances that the security of my company hasn’t been compromised.” Tightening his grip on her hand, he gave her a reassuring look. “No matter what happened between us in the past, Danielle, we’re in this together.”

  *

  Ten minutes later, Danielle pressed her fingers against the armrest of Jason’s car as he followed the coastal road running parallel to the shoreline. Even after seven years of living here, she’d yet to grow tired of the view from the windy highway perched above narrow coves and rocky cliffs below. With the added green forests and the unending ocean, Pacific Cove had become her personal safe haven.

  Until now.

  She glanced over at Jason, who’d said little since they’d left, and studied his face. His hair had darkened some since the last time she’d seen him, but the left dimple was still there when he smiled, along with his familiar wide, square jaw and pale blue eyes. The years between them had only seemed to add to his charm. That same charm had instantly captured her heart when she was a college freshman. Jason had been the life of the party, the one who could always make her laugh…the one who’d taught her how to take life less seriously.

  “You never told me why.” Jason’s even tone broke into her thoughts. “Never told me why you broke off our engagement.”

  Danielle swallowed hard and turned back toward the window at the rush of unwanted memories. She’d known this subject would surface, but she wasn’t ready to talk about the past. Not here. Not now. Not while trying to deal with a murder and the thought of her own life—and her daughter’s—in danger.

  “Our engagement was a long time ago.” Nothing she could say would change what happened…or lessen the tension presently hanging between them. “I made some foolish decisions out of fear. I knew you deserved more, but at the time I didn’t know how to deal with everything I was feeling.”

  “What were you feeling?”

  She fingered the sand dollar she’d dropped into her pocket, letting her thumb trace back and forth across its smooth ridges. Everyone had been shocked when, after graduating from college, she chose to join a three-year archaeological dig in Italy over marrying her college sweetheart. Even all these years later, she still carried regrets from that decision. Regrets of walking away without ever telling Jason the truth. Regrets of knowing she had broken his heart. Of wondering if she’d told him the truth would her life have turned out differently. But sometimes the past was better kept in the past.

  She turned back to his strong, familiar profile and caught the hurt in his expression, bringing with it a fresh wave of regret. “I can’t change what happened, except to say I’m sorry for hurting you.”

  She was avoiding his question, she knew that. He wasn’t asking for an apology, but an explanation. But while Jason might not have been her father, back then she’d struggled to believe that Jason would turn out to be any different. And while she had loved him, in the end, she’d allowed fear to push him out of her life.

  She shoved the thoughts from the
past aside, hating the unease hovering between them. She was happy with her organized, predictable life, where one plus one always equaled two and there were never any bad guys waiting in the wings—or murder victims to pull out of the water. She’d become content with days spent running her shop, evenings and weekends with family and friends, church on Sundays, volunteering at the homeless shelter and days off with Lauryn sprinkled in as often as she could.

  Today, though, nothing added up. Nothing felt familiar except perhaps the surfacing memories of feelings she’d once held for the man sitting beside her. Instead, she had no point of reference on how to react after finding a murdered body. Or what to do when one somehow became tied to a fraud victim. Dealing with the past only added to the complication. What she needed now was answers, and the only place she knew to find them was with Garrett Peterson.

  “Where did you meet Garret?”

  “A few years after college at a job fair.” Jason kept his gaze on the road while he spoke, seeming to accept—at least for the moment—her changing the subject. “We were both unhappy with our current positions and decided we could do a better job running our own company. Eventually, we did.”

  “That had to have taken a lot of courage—starting your own business.”

  “There were moments when I was convinced I should have continued working for someone else, but five years later we’re still in business, so I’d say hanging in there was a good move.”

  She glanced over at him. “You mentioned a security company?”

  “Garrett had experience in computers security and cyber-research—simply put, he’s a genius as an ethical hacker. I had a lot of financial business experience. Together, we were able to form a company that deals with issues like asset recovery, online security and even financial fraud investigations.”

  Danielle stared out the window at the passing shoreline down below as a picture came into focus. “Sounds like you both have done well for yourselves. What was he like?”

  “Garrett? He was somewhat of a good ol’ boy. Women thought he was funny and charming. Most men trusted and respected him, at least when he wanted to be taken seriously.” Jason’s fingers tightened around the steering wheel. “He has a sister, a brother-in-law and twin nieces born earlier this year. His parents still live in the same house where he grew up, and he still has a room there…though he moved out years ago. He was your ordinary computer geek who was great at his job, loved video games and movies, and had just enough independence— or maybe stubbornness—to where he never managed to find the right woman who would put up with him.”