Flirting with Disaster (Jackson: Girls' Night Out 2)

She shrugged.

He reached for the cuffs, cringing when her hands jerked away from him, but when she stilled, he held one wrist in his hand and unlocked the cuff. It felt strange to touch her, as though he was violating her even though they’d touched so intimately only a few hours before. He unlocked the other cuff and watched as she rubbed her wrists.

“He’s going to ask for a search warrant,” Tom said.

Her eyes flew up to meet his, finally. They went wide with fear.

“Is he going to find something?”

“I have money,” she said. “Cash. I need it.”

“Is it yours?”

“Of course it’s mine! Who do you think I am?”

Tom sat down across from her. “I’m not sure. You’ve never actually told me.”

She bared her teeth in a smile. “I lied about my name. You lied about everything else.”

“Not everything,” he said, but moved on quickly. “They obviously want something from you. Maybe it’s something you don’t even know you know. Something your dad said once. Or maybe he gave you something that seemed meaningless at the time. A piece of jewelry. A picture.”

“There’s nothing,” she said, the words clipped.

“Then why are they so sure of it?”

“They’re not sure. They’re desperate. My dad obviously knew something important.”

“Like what?”

She shrugged, but she was more nervous now. Her fingers plucked at the sleeves of her shirt. The same shirt he’d taken off her the night before. “He told me not to trust anyone.”

“He didn’t give you names?”

“No. He just said ‘Don’t trust anyone. Not the police. Not the FBI. Not even family.’”

Tom leaned forward. “Family?”

“Yes, but we didn’t have any family left.”

That couldn’t be right. And she was frowning hard at her hands. “He must have meant something, Isabelle.”

“I was engaged. My fiancé worked in the DA’s office, but he’d only been there a year.”

“But it had to have been him. There weren’t any cousins or uncles?”

She cleared her throat. He’d never seen her nervous before. Hostile, yes. Pissed. Even scared. But not this. “My fiancé’s father,” she started, then swallowed hard. “It was how I met him. Patrick, I mean. His father was my dad’s captain.”

Tom sat back, the air leaving his lungs. “It was him.”

“I don’t know,” she said, but he could see she didn’t mean it. “I thought he was trying to help at first. He came around a lot after my dad left. To take care of me, he said. They were the only family I had left. I actually tried to talk my fiancé into eloping in the middle of all of it, just because I needed them to be my family.

“But I noticed Patrick’s father kept telling me not

to report things, or that I was only imagining the danger. I made the mistake of telling my fiancé that I was feeling nervous about it. It was stupid, and I was scared. But I asked if his dad might be involved. That was the end of the help.”

“What do you mean?”

“My fiancé broke it off. They cut me off entirely. Defense attorneys started bad-mouthing me to the press. Saying I’d helped my father escape.”