Page 73 of Perfect Fling
Knowing whose jurisdiction he was in, Cole deferred to Mike. “Well?”
The other man shrugged. “Tell her what she wants to know.”
Cole did. From the shooting to disabling Erin’s security, breaking into her home and destroying her clothes, he ran down a laundry list of what they believed Victoria had done to Erin.
Nicole Farnsworth’s face paled. “It’s worse than I thought,” she said, more to herself than to him.
“Now will you tell us what’s going on with your sister? When you last spoke to her, what you know, and why you were at Erin Marsden’s, looking into her side window?” Sam asked, his voice gentler than Cole had ever heard him.
Cole shook his head, hoping the other man knew what he was doing.
“First, drop the charges against me,” she said, taking all three of them by surprise.
Cole stiffened. “That wasn’t the agreement. You asked what your sister had done, and we told you.”
“Well, forgive me for not thinking about everything important all at once. It’s not like I’ve been arrested before! Cuffed, printed, humiliated—” She scowled at Sam. “I’ll tell you this. I was trying to find out what was going on with my sister, and if she’d gone looking for this Erin. And I was going to warn Erin if I saw her.”
“By lurking at her windows and scaring her?” Cole asked in disbelief.
“If I rang the doorbell and either one of you saw my face, would you have let me in for conversation and coffee?” she asked, her sarcasm thick.
Sam let out an unexpected chuckle. “She’s got a point.”
“Shut up,” Cole muttered.
“Drop the charges or I want my lawyer.” Ignoring Cole and Mike, Nicole’s gaze settled on Sam, as if she’d already figured out he was the key to getting what she wanted.
Or she was just responding to the same mental deficiency that had hit Sam.
Mike groaned. “I’ll take care of it. Meanwhile,you.” He pointed at Nicole. “Talk. This is my sister’s life we’re talking about.” Mike stormed out and slammed the door without looking back.
Silence surrounded them, until Sam cleared his throat. “We’ve all got a personal interest in this case. Erin’s my sister too. We need whatever information you can give us about your sister and her plans. Start from the last time you heard from her.”
Nicole ran a shaking hand through her hair. “It’s not that simple. Vicky’s always been...unstableis the best word I can give you. She has emotional issues.” She hesitated, as if debating how much to reveal.
Cole decided to let her do this her own way in the hope of slowly gaining her trust, and with it, more details.
“To start with, she’s always been needy, and transferred that need from man to man.”
“Her husband treated her like dirt,” Cole said bluntly.
Nicole swallowed hard. “Well, she didn’t get much attention from our parents, but going out with Vincent got them to notice her enough to forbid the relationship. She ran off with him anyway. I didn’t hear from her often over the years, but after the raid and Vincent’s death, we had the first long talk we’d had in ages.”
“What did she say?” Sam asked.
Nicole clasped her hands tightly together on the table. “She called against orders, I’m guessing, to tell me she was going into Witness Protection because she had to testify in a federal case against some of Vincent’s business associates. But once it was over, she was going after the one man who really loved her and treated her like a queen.” Her blue eyes leveled Cole with an icy glare. “I’m not saying she’s rational, but if you led her on in any way, so help me—”
Damn, Cole was tired of that accusation. “I was nice to her,” he said through gritted teeth. “I talked to her like she was a lady, something she didn’t find much in her husband’s crowd. I felt sorry for her, if you want to know the truth, but no sane person would mistake my behavior for anything more than simple human kindness or friendship. And once she learned I was there undercover, it should have been perfectly obvious why I befriended her in any way.”
“You needed information from her.” She scowled.
“That, and frankly, once I realized she wasn’t in on anything within the organization, I thought I could protect her when things went down. That’s it.” Cole spread his hands wide, indicating he’d done what he could to help her sister.
She stared at her intertwined hands for a while. Finally she looked up at Cole, but let her gaze settle on Sam when she spoke next. “He just said no sane person would mistake his behavior as genuine interest. Well, Vicky’s bipolar.” She choked over the word.
And there it was, Cole thought as he leaned against the wall. Finally they’d gotten the truth. Now to find out whether, beyond wanting to help her sister, Nicole would be willing to help them too.
“Thank you for that,” Sam said, his hand covering hers. “Is she on medication?”