Page 13 of Dangerous Lies

Hours later, Megan said goodbye to the last client of the day and then dropped into her desk chair. The building was quiet, since most of the staff had left thirty minutes ago. Weariness sank into her. The constant string of appointments had kept her mind away from the latest threatening emails, but now that the hustle of the day had faded, worry crept in. She opened her laptop and a string of new messages loaded. Thankfully, none were from her stalker.

Megan pulled a tattered Bible from her desk drawer. Page markers and bookmarks littered the pages. She opened to one of her favorite verses and read aloud, “So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”

The words soothed her. She touched the handwritten note in the margin, feeling the indentation of the words on the page.You are never alone. God is always with you.The message had been written decades ago by her father. Megan had never known him. He’d died before she was born in a military training accident, but having his Bible, reading his handwritten notes in the margins, provided a connection she cherished.

A knock on her open doorframe jerked her head up. Jax stood in the doorway. A tan blazer hugged his broad shoulders and his jaw was clean-shaven, but his slacks were wrinkled, as if he’d been wearing them for hours. His badge hung from his belt. Exhaustion and stress had added worry lines to the corners of his mouth, and shadows lingered under his piercing blue eyes.

“Sorry to intrude.” His gaze dropped to the Bible in her hands. “The receptionist said I could come straight back.” He hesitated. “I could wait if you need a few minutes.”

“No, it’s okay.” She waved him in. Nerves jittered her insides. She’d reported the latest emails to Noah this morning but hadn’t heard anything back yet. To her knowledge, Wesley was still missing. “I was just…” Megan touched her father’s note in the margin of the Bible. “Reminding myself that God is always watching over me.”

“Noah told me about the latest emails.”

Megan nodded. “Has there been any progress in finding out who sent them?”

“Penelope, our cyber specialist, tried tracing the origin, but whoever sent the emails was smart enough to filter them through a virtual private network. We can’t identify who sent them or where they were sent from.”

Jax crossed to the window and gazed out on Main Street. It was bustling with traffic, despite the gloomy weather and frigid temperatures. “Technicians are still going through your Toyota, but so far, they’ve come up empty-handed. No fingerprints. No DNA other than yours. We haven’t found any witnesses who saw someone breaking into your vehicle. None of the cameras on Main Street capture a view of your workplace parking lot. We can’t identify the boat the attacker used to escape. The only lead we have at the moment is the photograph dropped during the tussle with you.”

The photograph of Oliver with his brothers. Megan had spent a fair share of time over the weekend thinking about that too. “Were you able to trace when the picture was taken?”

He turned to face her. “I went through my mom’s photo albums. As best I can tell, it was during my last trip home before graduating from college. I’ve been racking my brain trying to pinpoint the day, but the timeline doesn’t match any of the weekend games Oliver played. It’s probably from an after-school practice.”

“Then it was definitely taken before I knew Oliver. When I met him, he had already stopped playing football.” She paused, then gently asked, “Have you spoken to Wesley?”

“No one knows where he is. My parents are calling up family members and soldiers he served with, but I doubt anything will come of it. Wesley goes off the grid from time to time.” Jax circled the chair and pointed to the Bible, still resting open on her desk. “May I?”

Surprised, she handed it to him. He read the highlighted verse she’d been reading and then flipped through the pages. “I’ve always been fond of Ephesians 4:25.” Jax set the Bible on the desk, turned toward her, and tapped on the page. “Therefore each of you must put off falsehood, and speak truthfully to your neighbor, for we are all one body.”

Megan’s gaze lifted to his. His expression was hard and unyielding, nothing like the man who’d been so kind to her in the hospital after the assault. This was the Jax she was familiar with—untrusting and wary.

Her heart skipped a beat. “What’s going on, Jax?”

“I need you to be honest with me.”

She straightened to her full height, letting conviction bleed into her voice. “I have been.”

He didn’t bat an eyelash, didn’t look away. “Someone ran you and Oliver off the road on the night of the accident?” He tapped the Bible again with his finger. “You swear it. As a Christian. As Oliver’s friend.”

“Yes.” Megan held his gaze, praying he was open-minded enough to listen this time. “I’ve made mistakes, Jax. Lots of them. Not telling the truth about what happened that night right away was one of them. I was scared. Oliver was high and paranoid, and a lot of what he said didn’t make sense, but he was convinced someone was out to kill him. Then we were run off the road. I was terrified whoever was after Oliver would come for me next. It took days for me to share what had happened to Pops and my sponsor. They convinced me to revise my statement, but by then, no one believed me. I?—”

Tears lodged in her throat, and it took a second to swallow them back down. “I cared about Oliver. It haunts me that my mistakes—my falsehoods—are the reason his killer is still out there. I’m deeply sorry for everything that happened. I wish…”

She wished for a lot of things. The what-ifs were difficult to live with. She should’ve worked harder to convince Oliver to get clean. Or ignored the speed limit that night and arrived five minutes earlier to pick him up. Or somehow been a better driver when they were rammed.

Most of all, she wished Oliver was still alive.

Her chin trembled. “I’d do anything to change what happened.”

Jax’s gaze scanned her face, as if searching for any sign of deception. Then the hard mask hiding his emotions disappeared and a pain she’d never seen before darkened his eyes. “Me too.”

Her heart shattered at the devastation in his voice, and for the first time, Megan understood she wasn’t the only who blamed themselves for Oliver’s death. She struggled to find any words that might bring him comfort. “Jax…”

“I need your help.” He turned away and paced the length of the office. “Chief Garcia believes my brother is responsible for the threatening emails and the attack on you, but Wesley wouldn’t do this. Yes, he’s struggled since being discharged from the military. He’s more secretive now. More reclusive. But he’s not a murderer.”

Megan wasn’t sure whether to argue with Jax. She also wanted to believe Wesley was innocent, but the photograph found at the scene of the attack, along with his disappearance, was concerning. “It’s not uncommon for soldiers to suffer from PTSD or have issues readjusting to civilian life.”

She’d counseled several former military members who’d abused drugs or alcohol to cope with trauma. “Wesley may not be thinking clearly. Oliver was his twin. They loved each other deeply, and it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that Wesley blames me for his brother’s death. Anger and grief can twist into a need for vengeance.”

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