Page 41 of Duplicity

Did that need to change?

Cat gasped. “She was two-timing you both?”

Simon nodded. “She got fired not long after. Clare didn’t want someone with low morals working for her. She needs people on her payroll that have integrity and don’t lie about huge things.”

Cat said, “Seriously. That’s crazy.”

He took another bite, trying to figure out what else he should tell her. If she didn’t write him off after what he’d been through and that he hadn’t been able to fight off the initial abduction, then the fact he’d killed a man in order to save his own skin…

She would probably call it quits with this friendship, plus a whole lot of attraction, now that she knew he was even more of a loser than she thought.

She pulled out her phone, not saying anything while she tapped and swiped through to a screen that she turned to show him.

A stupidly good-looking guy with a model-attractive woman and a tiny baby, all smiling at the camera.

He swallowed the bite he’d been working on and sipped his soda. “Who are they?”

Cat made a face. “That is my ex-boyfriend. Ex fiancé. Ex—whatever we were, because we exchanged promise rings, and we were making plans for the future.”

Simon stared at her.

“He’s the youth pastor at the church I used to go to, and that is his wife and their new baby. One minute, he’s making promises to me, and then suddenly, we’re over. Three weeks later, he’s married to her, and seven months after that, she has their baby.”

He had been two-timing her the way Lena did with Simon? He winced. “Ouch.”

“Yeah.” Cat shot him a sardonic look. “When I confronted him, he straight up told me I wasn’t the kind of woman built to be a pastor’s wife.”

Simon couldn’t believe it.

“I’m not sure if it’s the fact I’m not blonde or that I’m not stick thin. Or the fact I wouldn’t…”

“Uh-huh.” No need to talk about boundaries and how they seemed to have been nonexistent with Lena. Thankfully, he’d been smart about it, but it wasn’t his finest moment. Especially knowing now she’d also been trying to have the same kind of relationship with Peter.

His brother had been more upstanding their whole lives, so it wasn’t entirely a surprise.

He said, “We’ve all done things we aren’t proud of. It probably feels pretty good you stuck to your guns on that one.”

How could he find the balance between living under a silent cloud of shame and telling the whole world about his fears and failures? Not talking about things that happened to him or things that he’d done probably wasn’t helping him to be free of the past. He could only do his best in the present. No expectations, no obligations. No one else got to tell him what to do, because everything he had learned about the world and the people who lived in it had taught him not to give up control over his choices.

She studied him for a second. What was she thinking? It might be better not to know. She obviously had faith and probably had something to say about the way he’d lived his life. As far as he could tell, it wasn’t about good or bad and which a person claimed they were. It was more about what you had to show for it—like the fruit of good works the Bible talked about.

Her attention shifted to the side, and he turned just in time to see his brother slide in on the bench seat next to him. “Hey.”

Peter leaned over and grabbed his fork, stealing a bite of Simon’s dinner. “Hey.” He shoved the huge forkful of pasta into his mouth, swallowing before he asked, “Ready for an update?”

This wasn’t exactly an update, more like a sharing of information. But if he asked for that, then Peter—and the rest of Vanguard—might want him to share everything he knew. Maybe he could tell Peter and have his brother relay the information. No one would let him get away with that, though.

Peter glanced over and gave him a look.

Simon said, “Tell us the update.”

His brother dug a flash drive out of his pocket and handed it to Cat. “Three other missing girls. So that gives us five totalin the last two weeks. Plus, something else we’re trying to track down, but the information for that isn’t on the drive. What’s there is everything we’ve dug up about the missing girls. Each one is between fifteen and nineteen.”

“And they all appear to have been abducted by the same person?” Cat tucked the flash drive into her pocket.

“There is barely anything as far as intel on where they were taken or how, so we have no idea. We also don’t have any witnesses who might have seen the abductor.” Peter took another bite of Simon’s dinner and dragged over the little electronic tablet, where he scrolled through the menu to order a meal of his own.

Simon used the distraction to retrieve his fork and slide the huge bowl of pasta back in front of him. Peter grabbed his drink and helped himself.

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