Page 39 of The Fragile Truth
He got hung up on the worddeath. “Do you think Brent is dead?”
Anguish darkened her eyes to ebony. “I do.”
“Me too,” he uttered.
Her voice picked up its pace. “You can tell Talon Chasing that you have already hired me. That’s the real reason why I was outside when the car came charging at Effie.”
“Why were you outside?” He eyed her, willing her to be straight with him.
“I wanted to observe them, get a read on Talon. Also, I wanted to see what kind of car he drove, so I could gather more information. In the old days, I could have the tag run, but now, I have to do everything the hard way.”
“I need someone I can trust.”
She didn’t skip a beat. “Check out my story.”
Urgency pricked at him. “There’s no time now. I need to get to the hotel. I’m sure Talon is fit to be tied.”
Her voice went high. “What about Callie?”
“Huh?”
“Call her and get her to put my information into the system. She’ll be able to give you a report before we even get to the hotel.”
He quirked an eyebrow. “We?”
A tiny smile formed over her mouth. “You need me.” The sultry insinuation in her voice let him know that she was talking about much more than just investigative work. Desire wove through him as he traced the outline of her full lips. Her thick, dark lashes framed her wide eyes in a tantalizing exoticness. Her slim nose had a dainty tilt on the end that fit well with her sprinkle of freckles. She was both girlish and very much a woman. She drew closer, her lips parting. “I meant what I said about how I feel about you.”
For a second, he was caught in her spell, and then a warning bell went off in his head. He jerked back, a spasm of anger overtaking him. “No,” he roared.
She blinked, her expression going distraught. Then, he could almost see her bottling up her emotions as she cinched her lips into an icy smile. “Have it your way.” He could feel a wall going up between them. That was good because Ian didn’t have enough willpower to keep pushing her away. Even now, everything in him wanted to take her in his arms and satisfy the incredible urge he had to kiss her. Her eyes pinged with the fierce determination of a soldier facing down her foe. “One way or another, I’m going to find my brother’s killer.” Triangles formed in the corners of her jaw as she enunciated her words. “I would certainly like to help keep Effie Romeo safe in the process. But that decision is yours.”
A thick, dense silence descended over them.
Sadie was right. She was much better suited for the task of keeping Effie safe than one of his deputies. “I’ll call Callie. If your story checks out, then you can help.”
Her face lit up as her voice took on a lilt. “My cover of a personal chef will work well, giving me access to people on the island. I can get to know Banks and Madeline, as well as Carter and Lizette Laramie. Oh, and Wesley, of course.” She stood, a sense of purpose overtaking her expression.
A feeling of horror washed over Ian. The last person he wanted Sadie to get to know was Wesley Laramie. Was Wesley the notoriousShadow? The guy had never struck Ian as being particularly smart. Maybe his rich kid persona was an act. WasThe Shadowthe same person who was blackmailing Lina? The one who killed Brent? So many questions and so few answers.
Sadie was carrying her laptop as she walked. She stopped and turned back around. “Can Callie be trusted? We don’t want news of my real identity leaking out.”
“I would trust Callie with my life.”
She relaxed. “Okay, that’s good enough for me.”
He pointed. “I’ll need that flash drive.”
“Sure, I have a copy of it saved on my computer.” She opened her laptop and pushed a key to eject it. A second later, she pulled it out and handed it to him.
His phone buzzed again. It was Talon Chasing. “I’d better get this,” he said flatly. As soon as he settled Talon down, he would call Callie and get her to verify Sadie’s story. “I guess we’re doing this,” he grumbled. He still wasn’t sure if he could trust everything that Sadie/Robyn said, but his instinct argued that it would be better to have her with him than against him.
11
It was when she was in prison that Sadie had the epiphany about how similar the journey of life was to prison bars. The space in between the bars represented those stretches of inconsequential events that blurred into oblivion, whereas the bars marked those critical moments seared into memory. A few of Sadie’s bars were the day she graduated from college. Walking across the stage and seeing her mother’s proud tears as she collected her diploma. There was the time she made detective. Danny was there, wearing a gargantuan smile. Those agonizing moments when Danny struggled to gasp his last breath would forever remain with her. The look of realization and fear that leached into Vince Romano’s eyes when he realized that she was going to kill him.
She remembered the moment when Danny first told her he loved her. Or the time when she read the Bible and felt a quiet feeling of peace come over her. Sadie’s time spent on the beach and sharing her first kiss with Ian would take a revered place in the annals of her mind. The euphoria could only be paralleled by the sense of security and belonging she’d felt in his arms. A whisper of something had settled into her mind, giving her the impression that perhaps she’d finally found home—a place where she could break free of the past.
And then there was today, the moment when her heart was torn to bits. It was the look of shock and even horror on Ian’s face when she told him that she’d shot Vince that had shattered her confidence. During her trial, her attorney had argued that her decision to shoot Vince was brought on by the trauma of watching her partner die right before her eyes. He asserted that Sadie had experienced a temporary lapse of sanity, that her emotional state was fragile. All those things were true, but Sadie had come to realize that she had to own up to her actions.