Finding Lies

by Rachel Lovise

  “I’d drive to campus and knee the guy in the balls again.”

  Ian gave a bark of laughter. “That’s my girl. Your mom might feel the same way.”

  “Maybe,” Leah said, but she wasn’t convinced. She thought of her mother, a small, tidy woman with fierce opinions and devout conservative values. She didn’t think her mom was the ball-kicking type.

  “So that’s it,” she said. “That’s the big secret. After I was kicked out of school I got my paralegal certificate and went to work at the DA’s office, and I’ve been there ever since.”

  “What made you move to D.C.?”

  “I was already there for law school, so I stayed. I liked the busyness of the city and how it seemed to be bursting at the seams with power and history. I’d come from a small, rural area so it was intoxicating to be in a place where people talked fast and made big decisions.”

  “And Sokolov, was he your first serious boyfriend?”

  She eyed him suspiciously. “He wasn’t ever a serious boyfriend. Why do you ask?”

  He shrugged. “We have two hours in the car together. Just making small talk.”

  Leah smiled wickedly. “You’re right. We do have two hours together and I’ve done all the talking so far. How selfish of me. So, Ian Haugen, let’s delve into your personal life a little bit. When was your last—” She didn’t get the chance to finish her sentence because his phone rang.

  He had an angel’s luck, she thought.

  “Haugen.” He listened for a moment, his body tensing as the caller spoke. “Goddammit,” he snarled. “How did that happen? How the fuck did that happen?”

  Gooseflesh broke out on Leah’s arms. Whatever information was being relayed to him, it wasn’t good. She listened intently but the voice on the other end sounded like garbled squawks.

  “I’ll be in touch.” Ian hit the end button, and in a rare display of temper threw the phone on the dashboard.

  Leah was afraid to ask but she had to know. “What happened?”

  “You know the PI that Svein had in custody?”

  She nodded.

  “He’s dead.”

  Chapter 29

  Leah’s eyes rounded. “Did Svein . . . ?”

  “Suicide.”

  She was relieved it hadn’t been murder. “Did he kill himself while Svein still had him in custody?”

  “Yes. What a fucking mess.”

  Indeed. That’s what the cops she worked with would call a “bag,” which she was pretty sure was short for “a bag of shit.”

  Obviously throwing the phone hadn’t done enough to quell Ian’s anger, because his fists clenched on the steering wheel like he wanted to beat the crap out of something—or someone. “Svein had him in an empty room with nothing but a chair and a table. Gunther requested water. When Svein returned, Gunther had wrapped the cord from the blinds around his neck and strangled himself.”

  Leah blanched at the image and faced away from him, letting the wind comb through her loosened hair. She let it soothe her for a moment before asking a question she wasn’t sure she wanted the answer to. “Why would Gunther do that? Was Svein hurting him so badly?”

  “Svein didn’t hurt him at all. He hadn’t even started. Gunther sat buttoned up tighter than Fort Knox for six hours and then asked Svein for a bottle of water. Svein didn’t take suicide precautions because Gunther hadn’t shown even the slightest hint of instability or fear.”

  “Gunther must have known something.”

  Ian made a humming noise in the back of his throat. “I don’t see Sokolov confiding in him. He hired the PI through a shell company so it’s likely Gunther didn’t even have a name to put to the face, much less a backstory. However, it wouldn’t surprise me if Sokolov made it clear what would happen if he ever talked about the assignment.”

  Leah thought back to the many overseas marketing trips Sokolov had taken while they were together. Could he have flown to Germany and threatened Gunther during one of those trips? She hated Sokolov. Hated him. It seemed that everywhere he went people died, as if he were an incurable illness.

  “What happens now?”

  “Svein wiped the room clean and called in an anonymous tip to the police.”

  “It wasn’t at Northern Wolf’s offices?”

  Ian gave her an exasperated look. “Of course not.”

  “What does this mean for us?”

  “It means it’s going to be harder to put together the puzzle pieces.”

  And that was the crux of it, wasn’t it? Sokolov’s attempt on her life was a puzzle, and she and Ian were racing against the clock trying to find all the pieces before Sokolov could eliminate the clues.

  And her.

  Leah spent the remainder of the trip racking her brain for reasons Sokolov might want her dead and praying for a light bulb moment that refused to come.

  They crossed the Tosbotn town line a little after ten in the morning. It was Saturday, and yet the village was as dead as any ghost town. Most of the buildings in the town center were abandoned, although a tiny petrol station had its doors defiantly slung open, as did a used car dealership and a convenience store that sagged as if it shouldered the weight of the world.

  “Do people still live here?” Leah asked.

  “Some, I think. Probably those who are self-employed.”

  “Won’t they think its odd that a shiny new truck is coming through?”

  He took a left and drove away from the center of town. “Maybe, but round these parts people tend to mind their own business.”

  After twenty minutes of bouncing over roads so rutted Ian’s truck would need a new alignment, they pulled onto a narrow dirt road at a faded sign of a pine tree and canoe.

  A quarter mile down the campground road they passed a dilapidated hut with boarded windows and a warped porch choked with weeds.

  “Registration building,” Ian said. From that point the lane split into a labyrinth of camp roads barely distinguishable from the weeds and surrounding foliage. Nature had been busy reclaiming her land.

  As Ian familiarized himself with the layout of the campground, traveling every road in and out, Leah studied the tent sites. They were nothing more than clearings carpeted with knee-high grass, each looking identical to the last. “No cabins?”

  “No, but even if there were, I don’t think they’d be fit for human habitation.”

  Eventually Ian chose a site, and Leah was ecstatic to finally get out of the truck and stretch. She explored the small clearing, which looked like all the others except that the grass was scrubby and short because it was on an elevated area of slate. Then she caught a glimpse of flashing water between the trees and grinned. Ian had picked a tent site that was almost directly on the fjord.

  Trees ten feet deep shielded the camp area from the open water, but it took her only a minute of walking before she practically stumbled into the glass-topped fjord. The fjord stretched all the way to the horizon, the water as placid and blue as the sky. Birds chattered discordantly, and she could smell composting leaves warming in the sun and the brine of the lapping sea. She didn’t hear Ian approach, but she felt his presence when he neared her.

  “It’s perfect.”

  “The water is another avenue of escape.”

  She sighed. She should have known he’d chosen the site for practical reasons and not for aesthetics.

  And thinking of practical needs . . . “I need to use the bathroom.”

  They walked back to the site with the sun stretching their shadows. Leah’s eyes were gritty and she felt filthy from crawling on the ground and sleeping in her clothes. What she wouldn’t give for a long, hot shower. Or, as Ian handed her a roll of toilet paper and told her to watch out for reindeer, any type of indoor plumbing.

  “Don’t wander too far,” he warned.

  “Why? Couldn’t you find me if I got lost?” she asked cheekily.

  His answer was dead serious. “Min kjærlighet, I would find you even if I had to travel to the ends of the ear
th.”

  Leah shivered.

  She was pretty sure he’d been joking about the reindeer, but just in case she kept a vigilant eye out when she had her pants around her ankles.

  When she finished her business, she circled around the campsite to wash her hands in the fjord. By the time she returned Ian had already set up the tent and was unloading the rest of the bags from the truck. It struck her then that she was going to be sharing a two-man tent with Ian Haugen, and she lifted her eyes heavenward at the unfair test of wills.

  Ian flattened the tailgate on the truck, and using it as a table, unzipped a black canvas bag. He withdrew each item, inventorying what looked like an arsenal capable of supporting a small army. There were two handguns, a disassembled rifle, a scope, several knives with different types of blades, night-vision goggles, binoculars, a compass, and a few other items whose functions Leah didn’t know.

  Ian snapped a leather knife sheath to his belt and shoved the compass, binoculars, and a few of the stranger looking objects into his pockets. He re-packaged the weapons and slid the bag into the truck.

  They were both hungry, so they sat on the tailgate and ate slices of rye bread, Swiss cheese, and dried herring. Leah didn’t think she would like the fish, but it turned out the salt obscured most of the fishy taste. For dessert they finished the grapes.

  Ian loaded the bag of food back into the cab of the truck and handed her the keys. “You should relax while you can. I’ll be gone for a few hours so you might as well use the time to decompress.”

  “Where are you going?” Her fist tightened around the keys, the metal digging into her palm. With a psychopath on the loose, it was comforting to know there was a way to escape.

  “I’m going to walk the campground and scope out escape routes.”

  She tried not to let the bubble of anxiety show in her eyes. “You think he’s coming here?”

  Ian lifted a hand to touch her cheek and then stopped himself. “No, I don’t. We’re only staying one night. But it’s better to be over prepared than sorry.”

  She nodded. “Okay. What happens if you trip and break your ankle or something? How will I find you?”

  He blinked in surprise. “Are you worried about me?”

  Leah crossed her arms over her chest. “Even men like you are bested by nature occasionally.”

  “I’ll be fine. I’ll be back by four. If I’m not, then you can come looking for me.” He grabbed a bottle of water, gave her a two-fingered salute, and disappeared into the woods.

  Alone, Leah took the opportunity to sort through and re-pack her carry-on, wishing again for a steamy hot shower or even a running tap. Then it occurred to her that she had an entire ocean at her disposal. It wasn’t fresh water, but it was better than nothing.

  She didn’t have a swimsuit, but they were God knew how far from humanity and Ian was off in the forest doing his woodsman thing, so she stripped naked. The breeze whispered across her bare skin, and she had a brief flashback to the last time she’d been in the ocean and had almost drowned.

  She hesitated at the edge of the water, her arms crossed beneath her breasts and the soles of her feet sinking into sand comprised mostly of rocky pebbles. She knew the longer she waited the more likely she was to talk herself out of it, so she took a deep breath and waded in.

  Once she adjusted to the frigid temperature, she rinsed her hair with seawater and shaved with the razor from her toiletries bag. When she emerged from the water, droplets sluicing from her breasts and belly, she felt almost human again. She toweled off with a spare t-shirt and combed out her hair before winding it into a French twist. Her legs burned from shaving in the ocean, so she applied what was left of the lotion in her travel-sized bottle. She hadn’t brought much in the form of lotions and shampoos, having expected to stay in hotels during her trip with Vincente. While she used a bottle of drinking water to wet her toothbrush and brush her teeth, she thought how far off those expectations had been.

  Feeling as clean as possible under the circumstances, she tugged on a blue lace bra and matching panties and was just about to step into a pair of cargo shorts when she glanced at her watch and reconsidered. It was only two o’clock. Ian would be another hour, possibly two, which meant she still had time to doze in the sun and get a little tan, maybe even pretend she was on a real vacation.

  She searched through her bag and found the perfect substitute for a beach towel: a long, flowy green dress that she sure as heck wasn’t going to find the occasion to wear while camping in the woods.

  She trekked back to the rocky strip of beach, spread the dress out, and lay on her back. She set the alarm on her watch for thirty minutes, propped her head on her folded arm, and promptly fell asleep. When the watch beeped she flipped to her stomach, and out of habit reached behind her back, unhooked her bra, and tossed it to the side. Warmed by the sun, she drifted asleep again.

  Chapter 30

  When Ian returned to the campsite he wasn’t surprised to find it quiet. He figured Leah was napping in the tent, but when he unzipped it and didn’t see her inside, his next guess was that she was reading by the water.

  He was silent out of habit, so when he reached the sliver of shoreline he hadn’t woken her. She was sleeping on a bright green piece of fabric, her hair pulled over her shoulder and her back naked to the sun. His eyes followed the indent of her spine to her generous ass, which was barely covered by a tiny scrap of blue lace. Her bra had been tossed carelessly to the side, which meant she was entirely nude except for the itty-bitty piece of fabric.

  It was almost as if she were purposely torturing him.

  Ian told himself to close his eyes, turn around, and walk back to the tent. He was nearing burnout and desperately needed sleep, not to mention the fact that he was hot, sweaty, and probably smelled like an old gym sock.

  He took a step forward. Apparently his legendary will power was nonexistent when it came to Leah.

  His boots were soundless on the sand as he crossed to her and dropped to his knees. Leaning forward he stroked his hand down her spine. Her skin felt satiny and smooth, and he wondered if the rest of her was just as soft. She stirred and arched into his touch like a cat, and if possible, his jeans became tighter. He let his hand glide over her ass, cupping one cheek, and her eyes fluttered open. She lifted her head and her eyes met his.

  He waited. She bit her full bottom lip.

  His fingers trailed back to the waistband of her panties and slid underneath the elastic, stroking the velvety skin of her lower back. Leah’s lips parted and her eyes darkened. He watched her reactions closely, half expecting her to jump up and remind him they’d agreed to keep it professional.

  She didn’t.

  Ian bent forward and brushed his lips over the pulse at her throat. He stroked his hand over her ass again, and in a surprise move she rolled onto her back, baring her breasts to his view and spreading her knees.

  Ian’s own pulse quickened and his breath caught in his throat. She was beautiful. Her breasts were on the smaller side but would fit perfectly in the palms of his hands. Her nipples were rosy peaks atop wide areolas, already pebbled and begging for attention.

  She was a buffet spread before him, her legs slightly parted in offering, her eyes heavy with desire.

  Ian discovered he was a starving man.

  He bent forward, burying his face in her neck, kissing and licking and tasting every inch of the sensitive skin. She tasted like the sea. His hand cupped her breast and his thumb tweaked the nipple.

  Leah moaned and writhed beneath him. Ian took her other nipple into his mouth and sucked. Her fingers speared through his hair, urging him to continue.

  He lavished both breasts until her nipples stood stiff in the breeze. His hand traveled to the apex of her thighs and he rubbed her center through the material of her panties, causing a moan to escape from between her lips. The soft, feminine sound tore through him, clawing at the last of his self-control. He clamped down on his lust with an iron will and nu
dged aside the damp strip of lace to finally touch her.

  She was slick and warm, and he easily pushed his finger inside her. When she gasped he withdrew and slid his fingertips through her wet folds. Finding her sensitive bundle of nerves, he gently rubbed circles around it before sliding his finger back inside her. He repeated the process, the scent and wetness of her arousal coating his fingers and nearly driving him mad.

  She breathed heavily and bucked against his hand. He could tell her release was just out of reach, so using his thumb and forefinger, he gently pinched her clitoris and tugged. Her orgasm was immediate and powerful and she didn’t bother muffling her scream.

  It was the hottest thing he’d ever witnessed.

  After a few moments her body went limp under his hand, and before he ripped off her panties and buried himself deep inside her, Ian forced himself to his feet.

  Not trusting himself to say a single word, he turned and walked back to the campsite.

  Chapter 31

  Leah knew he’d left but she couldn’t move a muscle. Her entire body felt as liquid as the saltwater sloshing against the shore. She hadn’t had an orgasm that strong in . . . ever?

  Ian Haugen was magnetic; she couldn’t seem to tell him no. He hadn’t said a single word to her and yet had given her the best orgasm of her life in five minutes flat. She figured if they ever had sex it would be an explosive, mind-bending encounter she might never recover from.

  She regretted his departure since it meant she was denied the chance to explore him as he’d explored her. She’d known when she locked eyes with him and his finger had slid inside her that he’d wanted her with an intensity that should have scared her. No man could fake the raw, animalistic desire she’d glimpsed in his cobalt gaze. So why had he left?

  She couldn’t vouch for Ian’s motivations, but she knew on her part she’d spent an ungodly amount of time during the drive trying to convince herself an affair with him would be a mistake. Flings had never been her thing; she’d always been more of a long-term relationship sort of woman. For the first time in her life though, she was reconsidering her stance.