Seduced by the Enemy (Blaze, 41) Read online

  She looked at him as if he’d lost his mind, or as if her current premarital status didn’t even belong in the conversation. “When did you have time to find yourself a wife and get a divorce?” She took a step backward, resting her bottom against the cheap, laminated dresser. “Why didn’t they find you when you filed for divorce?”

  A coldness crept into his veins that he couldn’t have kept out of his voice if he’d wanted to…which he didn’t. “Generally when one’s wife is murdered, divorce isn’t exactly a necessity.”

  Peyton’s hands fell to her sides as she stared at him for what seemed like an eternity. “By whom?” she finally asked.

  The doubt filling her eyes pushed that damned hot button again. “Who the hell do you think?” he snapped, coming off the bed toward her. The fact that she still believed him capable of murder chafed not only his pride, but had his heart stinging, as well. Once upon a time they’d meant the world to each other. Now she circled him like a hand-shy puppy.

  She held her ground, though—he gave her credit for that much, especially considering she’d made a habit out of taking the path of least resistance whenever her personal life was involved.

  “I wish I knew.”

  “Dammit, Peyton. You just can’t trust me, can you?”

  “You haven’t given me much reason to.” She fired the accusation back at him. She stood toe-to-toe with him, and dammit if the flash of heat in her eyes didn’t have his gut clenching with what he recognized as desire. Guilt continued to nudge him, but he sidestepped it and clung to the anger simmering below the surface instead. Anger was good. It not only let him know he was still alive, but it gave him something else to concentrate on other than the need he had no right to feel.

  He reached for her and held her upper arms in a tight grip. “You’re going to have to learn. Your life depends on it.”

  She struggled, but he refused to let her go. The soft floral scent of her perfume teased his senses, threatening to slam him back to a time when angry words between them were about as common as a blizzard in August.

  “The evidence against you is staggering,” she argued. “And you haven’t told me a damned thing since you dragged me here. If you want me to trust you, then start talking, Jared. And you can start by telling me who killed your wife.”

  “The same people that are now after you are responsible for Beth’s murder.”

  As if he’d slapped her, she flinched, and something in her eyes died. “Her name was Beth?” she asked, her voice suddenly quiet.

  He let go of her and his hands fell to his sides. “Yeah,” he said, “her name was Beth.” Sweet, caring Beth. Sadness weighed him down. She hadn’t deserved to die. He might not have been the one to pull the trigger, but he was to blame for her death. All because he’d gotten tired, and been arrogant enough to believe that maybe they’d finally given up trying to find him.

  He’d underestimated them, a mistake he would never make again.

  “Was she very young?” Peyton asked.

  He knew where this was going—straight down a path where the tracks were still fresh. Ignoring her questions was a possibility, but he understood that if he’d been completely honest with Beth, she might be alive today. A wrong he could never right.

  He nodded before moving to the edge of the bed to sit. “She was only twenty-six.”

  The next question was inevitable. He could see it in Peyton’s face when he looked up at her. The one that would compound the guilt he already felt, the one that would hurt them both when she asked it.

  “Were you in love with her?”

  A direct shot, right to the heart of the matter. No wonder she made a great prosecuting attorney. She didn’t hedge bets when she wanted information.

  He could easily lie. Doing so had become second nature to him. He could even attempt to protect Peyton’s feelings, if she had any left for him, but why? They were the past. He was with her now only to keep her from ending up with a bullet through the back of her head. Wasn’t he?

  Then what was that kiss about?

  He settled his elbows on his thighs and let his hands dangle between his knees as he stared down at the worn carpet and chose to ignore his conscience. Lifting his gaze to hers, he said, “I cared about her. Love?” He shrugged. “I thought I knew what it was. Once.”

  She winced, and it filled him with a morbid sense of satisfaction. “Any other questions?” he asked sarcastically.

  “Just one,” she said, crossing her arms. “You stopped running, didn’t you?”

  “I didn’t plan to,” he said after a moment. “I hired on as a cook in a truck stop when I ended up in some small town I didn’t even know the name of, somewhere between Manhattan and Topeka, Kansas. Beth managed the place at night and waited tables on the graveyard shift. The cook walked out and I was in the right place at the right time. She hired me on the spot without asking a lot of questions I made a habit of evading.”

  Still leaning against the dresser, Peyton crossed her slim ankles. “You couldn’t have used your social security number or they’d have been on you right away. How’d you get around that?”

  “I’d give a phony number, then stall for a week or two, saying I lost my wallet and was waiting for a replacement card. By the time they handed me my second paycheck I’d tell them I got my card a couple of days before, but just forgot to bring it with me. I’d promise to have it the next day, but I’d move on to the next town and the next job under another name and fake social. Until Kansas, I never stayed longer than six weeks in any location.”

  She looked at him thoughtfully. “Why was Kansas different? Because of Beth?”

  He pulled in a breath and let it out slowly. Her questions were no less grilling than the ones he tortured himself with every night. Only now he had to face the answers. No more dishonesty. Not if it could cost another person he cared about her life.

  “She was part of the reason,” he admitted. “That, and I’d been on the run just under two years. I was tired of always looking over my shoulder, and frustrated because after twenty-some months, I was no closer to finding out who the bad guys really were. In all that time, I had zero leads and couldn’t come up with a scrap of information that would bring me any closer to clearing my name. I hadn’t planned on sticking around long, just enough to make some cash so I could keep moving. Moving and looking.”

  “But you stayed.”

  “I stayed. I knew in my gut I shouldn’t, but like I said, I was tired and I hadn’t had any close scrapes in almost a year. Maybe I’d hoped they’d given up. Besides, if I never surfaced, then their dirty little secrets would be kept. With an assumed identity, marriage would keep me safe for longer than usual. And for a while, it did.”

  “How long did it last?”

  “Almost eight months.” Eight months during which he’d foolishly believed he could maybe have a semblance of a normal life, although nothing like what he’d once envisioned for himself. If it meant staying alive, he was more than willing to make a few concessions.

  “How long…”

  Before the bastards got to her? “We were married four months,” he said.

  “Did she know?” Peyton asked as she straightened and pushed away from dresser. “Did she know about your…past?”

  “No. Not all of it,” he said with a shake of his head. “I told her I had some trouble once, but that that life was behind me.”

  Peyton stopped halfway between the dresser and the faded velour rocking chair in the corner nearest the bathroom. “And she accepted that?” she asked incredulously.

  He shot her a meaningful look. “She did. But Beth wasn’t the type of woman to take anything at surface value. She knew I wasn’t telling her everything, but she trusted me.”

  And it had cost her her life.

  “I’m sorry, Jared,” Peyton said, once she removed her briefcase from the chair and sat. Whether she apologized because she hadn’t trusted him, or as an offer of sympathy, he couldn’t say, so he remained silent a
nd waited for her next question.

  She slipped off her pumps and tucked her feet beneath her. “How did they find you?” she asked as she smoothed her hands over her slim navy skirt.

  “I’m not really sure. You know what the bureau’s computer system is like and what they can access. Nothing is private anymore, I don’t care what line the public is fed. You know it and I know it. How else would they have known where to find me?”

  “But, Jared, you know how to hide. You were once Navy Intel. Black Ops. Surely you had contacts.”

  “I didn’t have the money for a complete new identity,” he said. “Plus, I figured they’d know most of my contacts, so instead of creating a new me without a past that could trigger something in the computer, I crossed the border into Missouri, then hit the big cemetery in Independence in search of a male who’d roughly be around my age if he were still alive. A trip to the county registrar’s office for a copy of the birth certificate, then back across the border for a social security number and Kansas driver’s license, and Sean Barnett was reincarnated.”

  “Let me guess. You found someone who’d recently died.”

  He made a sound that roughly resembled a laugh. “I’m not stupid, Peyton. No, I used the name of a child who died roughly thirty years ago, one who wouldn’t have a traceable past. I honestly don’t know how they found me, but they did.

  “Since Beth and I both worked graveyard at the truck stop, afternoons were free. I’d left her at home and had taken her car in to have the brakes done. Normal everyday stuff. While I was waiting, I spotted a couple of suits coming out of the sheriff’s office. I knew they were agents, so I called Beth right away, told her the jig was up and we should meet at the location we’d discussed, about an hour after sunset.”

  “How much did she know? You had to have told her something, or was she really operating on blind trust?”

  He shook his head. “By this time, I’d told her I was wanted by the FBI for crimes I didn’t commit. That was good enough for her,” he said with a condescending lift of one eyebrow.

  Peyton kept silent. A smart move, since she couldn’t very well argue with him when his word hadn’t been enough for her, not without him calling her a hypocrite yet again.

  “I played it cautious,” he continued, “and parked the car in the brush, about a mile and a half away from where we were supposed to meet, then stayed off the road as I made my way down toward the lake. Only about a half mile ahead, the place was crawling with agents. A couple I recognized from the D.C. office, but the rest were probably locals from Kansas City. My first instinct was to double back and get the hell out of there, but I couldn’t leave without Beth. I didn’t know if she had told them about the house or the lake and they were holding her there, but I know if it’d been me, I’d have taken her to the house, where there was less of a chance of her being injured if anything went down. So that’s where I went first. If she wasn’t there, then I’d approach the lake from another location and find a way to get us both out of there.”

  He ran his hand through his hair and released a short, impatient breath. With each memory he dredged up, his guilt mounted. He’d been foolish to believe that keeping Beth in the dark might save her life if they ever did catch up with him.

  “By the time I made it back to the house, I knew something was wrong, especially since there wasn’t a single agent near the place. I searched the perimeter before going in, then made my way toward the bungalow.

  “I went in through the back, and found her in the kitchen. She’d been shot, and the place looked as if we’d had some huge fight.”

  Peyton gasped. “To make it look like you did it. But why? And who in the bureau would do such a thing to an innocent woman?”

  Restless energy or a vain attempt to escape the guilt had him off the bed and pacing the room again. “Someone with something to hide. And they want to keep it that way.”

  She straightened and wrapped her arms around her middle once more as she leaned forward. “But why kill Beth?” she asked. “If you didn’t tell her anything important, what could she possibly know?”

  He stopped his pacing and listened, then shook his head in dismissal when he realized it was just the brake of some 18-wheeler coming off the highway. “Considering we were married, everything, as far as they knew. Or nothing. Obviously Beth was a loose end someone wasn’t willing to risk.”

  “Do you think it’s one person?”

  Jared continued his contribution in wearing out the already worn carpet. “I don’t know yet. And until I do know who is pulling the strings, your life, and mine, aren’t worth shit.”

  “But why me?” That hint of fear reappeared in her eyes. “We haven’t seen each other since you left. It just doesn’t make sense that they’d come after me instead of your sister.”

  Peyton was light years away from dim-witted, but she sure as hell was stubborn on the issue of her own safety. “It makes perfect sense,” he argued. “They couldn’t get to Dee. And now she has someone who’d give his life to protect her. Plus they already know there’s nothing she can tell them. They’ve tried and they’ve never been able to get to her. They got to Beth and now they’re coming after you for the same reason.”

  Peyton shook her head in denial. “You can’t know that.”

  He knelt on the floor beside the bed. “Yes, I can. And they’ve already started.” He lifted the mattress and pulled out the material Chase had given him. “They’ve been building a case against you from the very beginning.”

  “Building a case? But I’ve done nothing wrong,” she railed. “There’s nothing to build a case with.”

  He emitted an abrupt bark of laughter as he stood and crossed the room. “Neither have I, and look where I’ve been the last three years.” He handed her the envelope. “I promised you an explanation and here it is. Everything I know so far.”

  Peyton’s insides trembled as she stared at the envelope, afraid to open it. Afraid to see the truth? Maybe. Or maybe her fear stemmed from something much more simple and a whole lot more complex. Such as once she reviewed the documents contained inside, she knew her life would be forever changed. And not necessarily for the better.

  Jared leaned against the wall once more. “Take a look, and you’ll see for yourself, Peyton. This is a whole lot bigger than even I imagined. It doesn’t justify what they did to Beth, but I do understand why they went to such extreme measures.”

  Each time he said the name of the woman he’d turned to, Peyton’s heart ripped just a little more. She didn’t think she could claim jealousy as the culprit. Certainly she had no right to feel anything in that regard, but even the knowledge did zilch to stop the ache squeezing her heart.

  She was still reeling from the shock that Jared had actually married another woman. A woman he’d felt safe with, one who’d accepted him at face value and loved him despite his alleged criminal past. To Peyton, it only underscored her own lack of faith in him and added to the bitter taste of betrayal already on her tongue.

  If she didn’t stop thinking of Jared married to another woman, she’d go crazy, no matter how much of a hypocrite it made her. Forcing herself to concentrate on the envelope in her hands, she lifted the flap and pulled the documents from inside. She stared in shock at a bank statement for an account in her name that didn’t even belong to her. The account had been opened two months after Jared left, right around the time the feds had finally left her alone. Her gaze skimmed to the balance and she nearly choked at the astronomical figure.

  “This isn’t mine,” she said. “Federal Union handles all of my financial needs. I don’t even bank here.”

  He leaned over her and pointed to the top of the bank statement, which indicated her name on the account, sent to the care of William Minor, a lawyer on Capitol Hill. “According to this, it sure as hell is.”

  “No,” she said, with a shake of her head. “It’s wrong. I don’t know William Minor. This can’t be mine.” She tapped the attached copy of the signature
card. “This isn’t my signature.”

  “No, but it’s close, isn’t it?”

  She examined the reproduction. “Yes, it’s close,” she finally said. “Very close.”

  He crouched beside her and pulled another document from the stack in her hands. “This isn’t a coincidence, Peyton. Someone has gone to a lot of trouble to make sure you were linked to the money they claim I made off with when I ran. Someone with a lot of power.”

  “I admit it doesn’t look good, but it’d be easy to prove the money, and the account, for that matter, aren’t mine.” She tapped the card again. “This is not my signature.”

  He shrugged, as if the obvious was of no consequence whatsoever. “Maybe. A handwriting expert could corroborate your claim, but they’d have their own expert who says that it is, without a doubt, yours, and before you know it, you’re just one more innocent person behind bars.”

  She closed her eyes and leaned her head against the back of the chair.

  “It gets worse. Look at this.”

  She let out a sigh and took the documents from Jared, surprised to see the financial records of the Elaine Chandler Foundation and the Biddeford Home for Girls. Dread filled her. She’d been placed in Biddeford when she was twelve. When Peyton was five, her mother had died from complications of pneumonia. With no other living relatives, and no idea of the whereabouts of her father, who took off when she was only a toddler, she’d been shuffled from one bad foster home after another, until her social worker had pulled strings and had her placed in the privately run orphanage for girls. Biddeford had saved her life, and from the day she started her first job, she’d sent a little something to the home every six months. As her salary grew, so did the amount of the donation. But according to the documents in front of her, two donations were recorded as received within a day or two of each other: one from Peyton for the fifteen hundred dollars she always donated semiannually, and the other from an anonymous donor in the sum of fifty thousand dollars, an amount she hadn’t made and couldn’t afford.

  She compared the date of the donations to Biddeford to the bank statement in her name and her heart took a dive. Every six months one-hundred thousand dollars was deposited into “her” account. Within about ten days, a check for fifty grand cleared the account, and a donation of the same amount appeared on Biddeford’s books.