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Twisted Lies: Hidden Truth Book 2

By Robin Patchen

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Nathan Walter Boyle had come to New York City with a handful of dreams. He was leaving with a truck full of nightmares.
Well, not a truck, exactly. He stopped at the bay window and looked out front. There in his driveway sat the weird container his father’d had delivered. The Pod was as big as a Dumpster, only shiny and white.
Nate had called his father before the delivery truck pulled away. “A U-Haul would have been fine, Dad.”
“This will give you time to sort it all out.”
Nate had a lot more to sort out than just the paraphernalia he’d accumulated in the fourteen years he’d lived in the city. If only he could figure out how to pack the nightmares away along with the detritus of his life.
He grabbed a packed box from the kitchen table and headed for the front door. He stepped onto the front porch, where he took a deep breath and blew it out slowly, like he did a thousand times a day. All was well. The guys who’d taken him were dead. He was safe.
Tell his pounding heart that.
It was sunny and chilly, mild for late March in New York. Spring had always been his favorite season in the city. The once slushy streets were clear. Trees budded along the sidewalks. Flowers bloomed. Even the people seemed to reawaken after their long grouchy winters. As the weather warmed more, kids would soon skateboard along the sidewalks, cords dangling from their ears. In city parks, the thump-thump of dribbling basketballs would serve as the rhythm for the season, while little children’s laughter would supply the melody.
For just a moment, Nate wished he could stay.
He looked up the street. Cars were lined in both directions in front of the 1920s-era houses so similar to his own. His neighbor pushed her double stroller on the sidewalk, heading away from him, out for her daily walk. A couple of houses down in the other direction, a woman walked toward him. Frizzy brown hair hung over her tan raincoat. A big black purse dangled from her shoulder.
He ignored his racing pulse and maneuvered down the porch steps toward the storage container. At least he was out here, doing this, all by himself. A small victory, but he’d take it. There’d been a time just stepping outside the door was a battle he could barely win.
In the Pod, he deposited the box on a pile of others.
Outside, the roll of tires crunched on loose gravel. The car slowed and stopped.
He was stepping out of the Pod when he heard a scream.
The frumpy woman was on the sidewalk in front of the house next door to Nate’s. A man was trying to wrest her bag from her shoulder, but she held on tight. A silver sedan, its door standing open, idled beside them. The man was easily eight inches taller than the woman, and muscular. He had a crew cut and wore a goatee. Though the woman had screamed, now they were both quiet as they tugged on the bag. The man landed a punch to the woman’s shoulder, but she didn’t let go.
Every instinct told Note to run into his house and lock the door, but that wasn’t who he was, no matter how loudly fear pulsed in his ears. He forced his mouth to open. Forced a shout.
“Hey!”
The man spotted him, gave one last yank on the bag.
The woman, arms hooked in the straps, stumbled forward and landed on the sidewalk. Her head hit the cement with a thud.
The man gave up on the purse, jumped in his car, and squealed away.
Nate looked at the car as he ran to the woman’s side. Newish Chevy, silver. No plate.
He reached the woman and helped her sit. Blood trickled from a wound on her forehead.
“Are you okay?”
She winced and squinted. “I...I think so.”
He recognized the signs of a pounding head. He crouched beside her. “Don’t try to move yet. Just take a deep breath. I’ll call 9-1-1.”
“Did you get a plate number?”
“There wasn’t one.”
“Don’t bother. They won’t care.” While she calmed herself, he looked for other wounds. A little blood had dripped into her eyebrow. She had plain brown eyes and a pale complexion. Aside from the bleeding head wound, she seemed all right.
“You sure you don’t want me to call the police?”
“They’ll never find the guy.”
She wasn’t wrong. “Does anything else hurt? Your shoulder? Looked like he hit you.”
She rubbed the shoulder. “Just bruised, I think.”
“Can you stand?”
She started to nod, stopped herself with a wince, and said, “Yeah.”
He helped her to her feet. “Do you live far?”
“Kind of.”
He looked at his front door, then back at the woman. She seemed harmless, and she was injured. He had nothing to fear. “Why don’t you come inside, and I’ll help you clean up that cut.”
He expected her to protest. What intelligent woman goes into a house with a man she’s never met?
“Thanks.”
Okay, then. A risk taker. He walked beside her to his door. “I’ve already packed a lot of my furniture.”
She stepped inside and looked at the nearly empty living room. “I see that.”
“There’s a chair in the kitchen.”
He led her into the kitchen and indicated the single chair, then pulled a paper towel off the roll and handed it to her. “You’re bleeding.”
She pressed it over the wound.
“Be right back.”
In the bathroom, he located bandages and antibacterial gel, thankful he hadn’t packed these things yet. Back in the kitchen, the woman was looking around at the cluttered space.
“Where you moving?” she asked.
“Home. New Hampshire.”
“How come?”
“Time for a change. How’s your head feel?”
She took the paper towel off and looked at the blood that had soaked it. Her skin paled even more. “I’m not good with blood.”
“You’re doing fine.” He urged her hand back to the wound. “Let’s get the bleeding stopped before we bandage it. You want me to get you a Tylenol or something.”
“It doesn’t hurt that bad.” She smiled. “Thanks for not letting me bleed to death on the street.”
He chuckled at her attempt at humor and leaned against the countertop. “Were you on your way somewhere? Is there someone I can call?”
Her pale skin turned slightly pink. “Actually, I was on my way to visit you.”
He pushed away from the counter. Glanced toward the door and forced his gaze back at the woman. He was being paranoid, but he couldn’t help it. Nor could he help the demanding tone in his voice when he said, “Why?”
“You’re Walter Boyle, right?”
He crossed his arms, clenched his fists. Made himself take a deep breath. “It’s Nate, but yeah. Walter’s my middle name.”
“But in the Times—”
“I’m Walter Boyle. Who are you?”
She smiled, but he didn’t return it. “We’ve never met. A few years ago, you worked on a story with my sister. Marisa Vega. Do you remember?”
The name had him steadying himself against his counter again. Remember her? She’d sat beside him on the bus, given him the story of a lifetime, and then, after a few weeks in hiding and with a little help from him, she’d disappeared.
Marisa. Her name rose like a crocus blooming after a long cold winter, changing the gray tones of his world into a bright hopeful spring.
Sheesh. He sounded like a bad poet.
She’d been twenty, five years younger than he. About five-five, shiny brown hair cut to shoulder length, deep brown eyes he’d not allowed himself to dive into. She’d looked like a cross between a younger Eva Longoria and an angel with wings unsullied and eyes unspoiled.
Not that he’d noticed. It was all about the job. At least that’s what he told himself as he’d listened to her story, trying desperately to focus on her words and not on her pink lips forming the sounds. He’d been planning their future when she’d dropped the bomb.
The word fiancé had caused his pencil to stall. The word murder had him dropping it on his lap. Her story had launched his career. And ended life as she’d known it. Over the course of the next few weeks, Marisa had told Nate the facts as she understood them in an effort to bring down the people responsible for her fiancé’s death. And in doing so, she’d placed herself in the crosshairs of some very dangerous men. Then she’d escaped.
Marisa’s image faded. The woman at the table was staring at him as she dabbed at the wound on her forehead. “I take it you remember her.”
He hated to think what emotions had crossed his features during that sprint down memory lane.
“How could I forget her? Thanks to her, I got a job at the Times.” He couldn’t imagine that the Marisa in his memory and this woman were related. “Marisa is your sister?”
“Half-sister. She’s seven years younger than me. We have the same mother.” The woman’s lopsided expression didn’t do anything for her plain features. “Marisa looks like her father.”
Had his thoughts been that obvious? “So what can I do for you, uh...?”
“Leslie. Leslie Johnson.”
He stepped forward and held out his hand. “Nice to meet you.”
She shook it, held on tight. “I have to find her.”
He pulled out of her grasp. “I wish I could help.”
“She left a clue with you.”
He shook his head. “The feds combed through my files after she disappeared. She left nothing.”
“Trust me, she left a clue with you, and I have to find it.”
“There’s nothing—”
“Not to be cliché,” she said, “but it’s a matter of life and death.”
“Is that so? Whose life is on the line?”
She sat taller, swallowed hard. “Mine.”
Nate studied the woman. “How so?”
Leslie took a shaky breath. “Last night, somebody broke into my house.” Her voice trembled. “It was late, and I was in bed. There were two of them, a man and a woman. I’d been asleep. I woke up when the man grabbed my hair.” She stopped and set the bloody paper towel on the table.
Nate handed her a fresh one. “Go on.”
“He held a knife to my throat and told me not to move. He said that I had seven days to return the money that my sister had stolen, or I would die. I told him she didn’t steal it.” She wiped tears with her trembling fingers. “He laughed and said I’d better get the money or find out exactly what happened to it.”
Leslie’s tears fell faster now, and she lowered her gaze. She used the fresh paper towel to wipe her cheeks. “I don’t know what else to do. I could hide, but my life is here. And anyway, I’m afraid they’ll find me. But if I find Marisa, what if I put her in danger?”
Unfortunately, Nate knew exactly how Leslie felt. “Do you think you could identify them?”
She shook her head, winced, and rubbed her temples. “They wore masks.”
“So how do you know the other person was a woman?”
Leslie blinked. “Her voice. She told the guy to hurry up. That’s when they left.”
He nodded slowly, thinking fast. “That guy who just tried to grab your purse. You think he was connected—?”
“No. No, that was just… I don’t think that had anything to do with it. Just bad luck. I’m a magnet for bad luck.”
“Why don’t you think they’re connected?”
“Why would they try to snatch my purse? They could have stolen that when they broke into my house.”
A good point. “Did you call the police last night?”
“No! They told me not to, or they’d kill me.”
But they wouldn’t kill her, because Leslie was their only link to Marisa. And for some reason, Leslie believed Nate knew where her sister was.
If he wasn’t careful, he’d get pulled into this.
Marisa’s image filled his mind’s eye. He shook it off. The last thing he needed was another drama. After what he’d been through, he knew he was meant to be on the sidelines of life, not in the thick of it. The reporter telling the world about the good and bad deeds of others. Always the by-line, never the hero. That was his fate.
“They think Marisa stole the money?”
“They were sure of it.”
That’s what everyone had thought. Everyone but Nate.
“I’m sorry, Leslie, but I have no idea where your sister is.”
“She left a clue with you. She told me she would.”
“When?” His skepticism must’ve been obvious in his voice, because her eyebrows lifted. He had secured Marisa a hotel room until he got the whole story, but she wasn’t supposed to have contacted anybody. Maybe she’d risked contacting her sister.
“Through your stories,” Leslie said. “Remember the false name you used for her?”
He thought back. The name had been important to her. “Piper, right?”
“I had a doll when we were growing up. We played a game with her—like hide-and-seek. One of us would hide the doll, and the other would try to find it. It was a silly game, but our apartment was too small to play real hide-and-seek, so this was our variation. The doll was named Piper. So the game was called Peek-A-Piper.”
Nate couldn’t help but smile.
“Maybe it sounds stupid to you, but she could’ve used a thousand names. She insisted you use Piper, right?”
She had.
“It was her way of telling me you’d be the way to find her.”
“All of which sounds so sweet and nostalgic, but how do I know any of it’s true? You don’t exactly look like her.”
Leslie pulled a little photo album out of her purse and handed it to him. “I carry this with me everywhere, just to remember…”
Her words trailed off while he flipped through the photos. There was a young Marisa, beautiful even as a child. And beside her in picture after picture, this woman.
“Okay, so you’re sisters. Doesn’t change anything. Like I said, the FBI—”
“They would have missed it. Did she give you anything? A painting or a drawing, a letter? Anything like that?”
She’d given him a little drawing. It was a pencil sketch of a cabin by a lake, created after he’d shared with her that if he had to run, he’d like to find a place like that. From his description, Marisa had drawn a work of art. She’d made him promise to keep it forever, a keepsake. And he had.
“A sketch.”
She dropped the paper towel on the table. “Can I see it?”
“I think it’s in the Pod.”
Her pale brown eyes brightened, and she stood. “Let’s go.”
“Wait.” He waited until Leslie sat again. What he wanted to tell her was that no, he wasn’t going to help her find Marisa. No, he wasn’t getting involved. And no, he didn’t think it was a good idea to pull Marisa into whatever drama was unfolding in New York. But he couldn’t miss the hope in Leslie’s eyes, the fear just behind it. He knew what it felt like to be threatened, and he knew how he’d feel if it were someone he loved in danger, someone he loved who needed his help. He’d do anything for his brother. It wasn’t his place to decide for Marisa what should be done.
“Let me bandage that wound.”
Her foot tapped while he squeezed out the antibacterial gel. As he pressed the bandage to Leslie’s forehead, he said. “I don’t want her to get hurt.”
“They threatened to kill me.”
“I know. I’m not... It’s not okay if you get hurt, either. But pulling your sister in puts you both in danger. How do you know they won’t kill both of you? And besides, Marisa doesn’t have the money.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“She told me—”
“Stealing that money was a federal offense. You really think she’d confess to a reporter?”
“I protect my sources.”
“How could she have known for sure?”
“She trusted me with her whereabouts. With her life.”
Leslie stood. “I know. And I never thought she took it either. But this guy—he seemed really sure. And Marisa knew everything. She knew—”
“I know the story, Leslie. I wrote it, remember? I’m just saying, I never thought she stole the money.”
“Maybe I want her to have it because if she doesn’t, I’m dead.” She lowered her gaze and covered her face with her hands. He barely heard her next words. “I don’t know what else to do.”
“And you want to find your sister.”
She looked up. “I need to know she’s okay.”
He imagined his little brother. Also a half-sibling, also much younger than he. Nate had never lived with Finn, but he loved him just the same.
“Okay.” He snatched a box cutter from off the counter. “Let’s see if we can find it.”
They searched the Pod until they found the box marked photos, then dug inside. The item they uncovered was a color sketch on cream-colored paper. He’d had it professionally mounted in a thick gilded frame. The drawing depicted a little log cabin surrounded by tall trees and nestled against a sparkling blue lake. In the bottom corner, Marisa had written her initials in tiny letters.
The artwork was simple. And it wasn’t. With her talent and a box of colored pencils, Marisa had made the scene come alive. Nate could almost smell the flowers she’d drawn in the dainty window boxes, hear the lapping of ripples on the serene lake.
“May I?”
He handed Leslie the picture. “Your sister is immensely talented.”
“I know.” Her tone was flat. “She’s good at everything.”
Was that jealousy? Probably, but who could blame Leslie? Her little sister wasn’t just talented, she was beautiful. The kind of beautiful a man couldn’t forget. Not that Nate hadn’t tried over the years, knowing he’d never seen her again.
Leslie stepped out of the Pod, and Nate followed, closed the door, and locked it behind him.
Back in the kitchen, Leslie opened her purse and pulled out a magnifying glass.
Nate stared at the top of her frizzy head while she studied the picture. He couldn’t imagine she’d find anything. That picture had hung over his bureau for years. He’d looked at it a thousand times, and he’d never seen anything out of the ordinary.
“Got it.” Leslie didn’t look up. “Can you write this down for me?”
Just like that? So much for his powers of observation. He snatched a Sharpie and an old newspaper from his pile of packing supplies. “Go.”
She recited an email address, and he wrote it down, a random scattering of numbers and letters at a Yahoo account.
She looked up, triumphant. “We got her.”
He wasn’t so sure. “May I see?”
She handed him the magnifying glass and pointed to a spot on one of the logs that made up the cabin. He looked at the spot with his naked eye and saw nothing. But through the magnifying glass...
He looked up. “How did you know it would be there?”
She shrugged. “She’s my sister.”
He handed her the magnifying glass and ripped away the edge of the newspaper where he’d written the email address. He held it out. “Here you go.”
She looked at it, looked at him. “I think you should email her.”
He took a step back. “Why me?”
“They might be monitoring my email.”
“But if I email her, then when she emails back, I’ll have to contact you. Won’t that be just as dangerous?”
“I’ll wait.”
He stepped back, lifted his hands. “Whoa. Look, I was happy to help, but now I’m out.”
“Marisa trusts you.”
“She trusts you, too.” He pointed to the drawing. “Or she wouldn’t have left you that message.”
“She left it with you, Nate.”
“It doesn’t matter. I can’t—”
“I’m scared to go home, okay?” She paused, swallowed, as if the admission had cost her. “I just...can I please just stay here. I’ll help you pack. I’ll be quiet, I promise, and...Marisa trusts you. So I trust you.”
He glared. He didn’t need this woman here, cluttering up his life. He’d planned to finish packing the next day and and move for good. The house was already under contract. With no job in Manhattan, no former coworkers who cared to keep in touch, no friends here in Queens, there was no reason to hang around. Certainly not to help this woman with whatever wild goose chase she was on. Even if she was in danger.
Even if Marisa was in danger.
The thought made his pulse race, and he pulled in a deep breath, then another until he thought he could talk again.
As Leslie watched, her eyes filled with fear and pleading. “I’m a good packer. And I own a cleaning company. When you’re through, I can have my crew clean the house for you, no charge.”
Was she crazy? Did she think he’d risk his life to avoid cleaning his own house?
Okay, he was being melodramatic, and her offer was tempting. He could use the extra set of hands. And the woman needed his help.
And to communicate with Marisa again...
He could practically hear his counselor’s voice. “To not risk is to not live. The world isn’t that dangerous.”
It was, though. Danger lurked around every corner. And perhaps right here, right now.
But Leslie was in danger. God knew, he wanted to send the woman away. But no matter how much the thought of helping her terrified him, he couldn’t live with the alternative.
“Fine. Let me get my computer.”

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