Page 27 of The Liar

“Conti…”

“What?” I snapped.

“You haven’t gone and caught real feelings for this woman, have you?” He asked the question with more tact than I’d have expected.

“I couldn’t help it,” I admitted.

“Fuck me.” He muttered something again. “Keeping an emotional distance is the first rule of undercover work.”

I rolled my eyes, annoyed by his self-righteousness. “Yeah, well, you try resisting a beautiful woman with a heart of fucking gold and a moral compass that always points due north.”

Adam sighed. “You know, that really isn’t my type. I prefer the crazy ones who aren’t afraid to break a few rules. That said, do you think it would help win her over if you tell her about your father? Maybe you’ll get sympathy points?”

“Maybe.”

I didn’t want sympathy points. Nor did I want to manipulate Joanna any more than I already had. I recognized that I might have to though. I’d never hesitated to do my job before, whatever it took, but I’d never met anyone like Joanna Lee either.

“If you need to, you have my permission. Do you know where she is now?” Adam asked.

“Her friend’s place. Don’t worry. The friend won’t be an issue.”

“She’d better not. But if the worst comes to the worst and your pretend wife blows your cover, we’d better decide what we’re going to do.”

“I really don’t think she will.” Joanna might not want to see me or speak to me again—and I wanted to scream even considering that possibility—but she wouldn’t do something so pointless and petty.

“If she does, you need to get out of there,” Adam said. “Take the identifying documents for one of your older aliases and pass over the border into Canada. We have a safe house in Toronto you can use to lie low until we’re sure you’re safe to return. The dirty cops will be after blood if they find out about you.”

I nodded. I already had the GPS coordinates for the safe house programmed into my phone—the untraceable one. “What about if she kicks me out but doesn’t blow the case?”

Adam was quiet for a moment. “We can probably salvage that, but we’ll have to take another angle. We can play the spurned ex card. Haven’t you told me there are plenty of cops who aren’t fond of her? Perhaps you could use the supposed separation as fuel to bond with them.”

My stomach soured. The cops who didn’t like Joanna were, for the most part, bigoted and misogynistic assholes who were threatened by a biracial female detective who refused to tolerate being called “sweetheart” and asked to fetch coffee.

“I will if it comes to it.” The last thing I wanted to do was compound my betrayal of her by befriending those that were stains on the police force, but Adam was right that I had to make the best of the situation.

“Good. I’m going to make some calls. Let me know as soon as you hear from her.”

“I will.”

Adam hung up.

I tossed the phone aside and headed for the shower. When I was finished, I sat on the sofa with my laptop on my lap and opened the tab showing Joanna’s call history. I’d had a tap on her phone since we’d first met, and it would be useful now to narrow down who had blabbed to her about my true identity.

I scrolled through the call log, pausing when I got to a number she didn’t call often. The number would display as private during a call, but thanks to my tracking technology, I could see exactly who it belonged to.

Goddamn Ezekiel Watts.

According to the call log, Zeke and Joanna had spoken for several minutes, and it hadn’t been long afterward that she’d arrived home and confronted me.So, yeah. I think it was safe to say that Zeke was the reason I’d woken without my wife in my arms.

But what had made him decide to investigate me? Had it been a whim, or had Joanna reached out to him after she’d seen me with Portia because she thought I was cheating on her?

I scrolled farther back in the call log, grimacing when I saw that Joanna had called him first. She must have asked for help. At least the fact she’d gone to him directly meant I might only have to warn one person off, and Zeke understood the importance of secrets. I just had to cross my fingers he’d done the investigative work himself.

I grabbed my cover phone and dialed Zeke’s number. It rang out. The second time I called, he answered just as I was about to give up.

“What do you want?” he demanded.

Great. He sounded about as thrilled to speak to me as I was to speak to him.

---