Page 86 of Devil's Riches

“Apparently you have a boyfriend.”

My heart skipped a beat. “What?”

“When Edward called to invite me to this dinner thing, he told me he ran into you somewhere, and you were with a guy. He said his name is Nate, and you introduced him as your boyfriend.”

“Oh.” Shit.

Sascha gently poked my right arm. “Why didn’t you tell me you were seeing someone?” she asked.

Her tone was lighthearted, but I detected a note of hurt in there as well. We used to tell each other everything, so it must’ve come as quite a shock for her to hear about Nate from our estranged grandfather instead of me.

I gripped the steering wheel tighter and swallowed thickly as I tried to think of a response. “It’s just… new. Very new,” I ended up saying. “And he’s quite private. So we decided not to say anything just yet.”

I hated lying to my sister, but what else could I say in this situation? There was no way I could tell her the truth about Nate. She’d lose her mind.

She nodded, seemingly satisfied by my answer. “Well, I’m glad you’re dating someone. It’s a good distraction.”

“From what?”

“All that stuff you’ve been doing with Dad’s case.” She paused and sniffed. “No offense, but you’ve always been a little obsessed with it.”

“I’m still doing it,” I said, trying to keep the irritation out of my voice. “Nate’s actually helping with it.”

Sascha swung her legs off the dash and sat up straight. “What?” she said, eyes flashing with astonishment. “You told him about Dad? About us?”

“It’s fine. He won’t tell anyone.”

Her eyes narrowed into a glare. “You said you basically just met this guy. That it was very new,” she said, putting the last two words in air quotes. “Why would you tell him anything at all?”

I sighed and lifted a palm from the steering wheel. “I didn’t actually tell him. He guessed.”

“Oh.” Sascha slumped back in her seat, seemingly mollified. “How?”

“He recognized me from when we were kids. Apparently he was at Dad’s arraignment hearing.”

“Right. And he’s really not going to tell anyone?”

“No. Like I said, he’s helping me with my investigation,” I said. “He thinks Dad was innocent.”

“Why?”

“Long story,” I said, knowing I couldn’t get into any of the details without telling her literally everything that had happened over the last few weeks. “But we’re actually making some headway.”

“Really?”

I turned to briefly glance at her again. “You can’t tell anyone about this. Especially anyone at the party tonight. Okay?”

“Okay. I wasn’t going to, anyway,” she replied. The note of hurt had crept back into her voice. “You know you can trust me.”

I nodded slowly. “All right, well, like I said before, Nate has been really helpful. He has a ton of useful connections,” I said. I took a deep breath before continuing. “We think we might be onto something big. If we’re right, it wouldn’t just vindicate Dad and solve the 2009 murders—it would solve the new murders, too.”

Sascha’s eyes widened. “You mean the whole copycat thing?”

“Yeah.”

“Wow. That’s crazy.” She shook her head and leaned back again. “It’s great, though. If you really solve it, I mean. It’ll make your whole career.”

“It’s not about making my career.”

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