Perfect Fling (Serendipity's Finest 2)

Sam let out an unexpected chuckle. “She’s got a point.”

“Shut up,” Cole muttered.

“Drop the charges or I want my lawyer.” Ignoring Cole and Mike, Nicole’s gaze settled on Sam, as if she’d already figured out he was the key to getting what she wanted.

Or she was just responding to the same mental deficiency that had hit Sam.

Mike groaned. “I’ll take care of it. Meanwhile, you.” He pointed to Nicole. “Talk. This is my sister’s life we’re talking about.” Mike stormed out and slammed the door without looking back.

Silence surrounded them, until Sam cleared his throat. “We’ve all got a personal interest in this case. Erin’s my sister too. We need whatever information you can give us about your sister and her plans. Start from the last time you heard from her.”

Nicole ran a shaking hand through her hair. “It’s not that simple. Vicky’s always been . . . unstable is the best word I can give you. She has emotional issues.” She hesitated, as if debating how much to reveal.

Cole decided to let her do this her own way in the hope of slowly gaining her trust, and with it, more details.

“To start with, she’s always been needy, and transferred that need from man to man.”

“Her husband treated her like dirt,” Cole said bluntly.

Nicole swallowed hard. “Well, she didn’t get much attention from our parents, but going out with Vincent got them to notice her enough to forbid the relationship. She ran off with him anyway. I didn’t hear from her often over the years, but after the raid and Vincent’s death, we had the first long talk we’d had in ages.”

“What did she say?” Sam asked.

Nicole clasped her hands tightly together on the table. “She called against orders, I’m guessing, to tell me she was going into Witness Protection because she had to testify in a federal case against some of Vincent’s business associates. But once it was over, she was going after the one man who really loved her and treated her like a queen.” Her blue eyes leveled Cole with an icy glare. “I’m not saying she’s rational, but if you led her on in any way, so help me—”

Damn, Cole was tired of that accusation. “I was nice to her,” he said through gritted teeth. “I talked to her like she was a lady, something she didn’t find much in her husband’s crowd. I felt sorry for her, if you want to know the truth, but no sane person would mistake my behavior for anything more than simple human kindness or friendship. And once she learned I was there undercover, it should have been perfectly obvious why I befriended her in any way.”

“You needed information from her.” She scowled.

“That, and frankly, once I realized she wasn’t in on anything within the organization, I thought I could protect her when things went down. That’s it.” Cole spread his hands wide, indicating he’d done what he could to help her sister.

She stared at her intertwined hands for a while. Finally she looked up at Cole, but let her gaze settle on Sam when she spoke next. “He just said no sane person would mistake his behavior as genuine interest. Well, Vicky’s bipolar.” She choked over the word.

And there it was, Cole thought as he leaned against the wall. Finally they’d gotten the truth. Now to find out whether, beyond wanting to help her sister, Nicole would be willing to help them too.

“Thank you for that,” Sam said, his hand covering hers. “Is she on medication?”

Nicole swallowed hard. “Supposed to be. But she has a history of stopping when she’s feeling good, of refusing to believe she needs to live on them in order to function in the same world as the rest of us.”

So they were dealing with a sick woman. Cole hoped that was better than her being purely delusional. Maybe there were threads of humanity in there that they could work with.

“Did she tell you where she was going when she left the program?” Cole asked.

Nicole shook her head. “I asked, and she said that Cole was meant to be hers and she was going after him. That’s when I knew she was probably off her medication and I tried to keep closer tabs on her, but she never answered her phone, and her contact was sporadic.” She twisted her hands together in a way that had to be painful. “Then, a few days ago, she called in the middle of the night, hysterical. She was rambling about how this Erin Marsden was ruining all her plans. She said something about watching Cole, waiting for the right time to approach him, but Erin was in the way.”

“That’s another thing that doesn’t make sense. Why didn’t she just come find me right away?” Cole asked.

“From what I could understand of her rambling, when she first came to town, she watched. She wanted to get an idea of your life. And she saw Erin leaving your apartment.”

“That was over four months ago!” Cole’s head nearly exploded.

“I know. Like I said . . . bipolar. She’s always spent more time plotting and planning than doing. But when she makes a move, it’s big.”

“Like running away with Vincent,” Sam said.

Nicole nodded.

“When did you hear from her again?”