A Beautiful Lie (Unlocked #1) Read online

  “I’m better than ever,” I lied.

  Her narrowed eyes and slight smile told me she saw right through me. “Well then, don’t be a stranger.” She stood up. “I just came to HQ to drop off some paperwork but I have to head back.”

  “Hey, wait.” An idea had occurred to me. “I have a friend who would love to see the Center. Do you think you can arrange a tour for us tomorrow?”

  “Wow, look at you, making plans ahead of time and everything.” She cracked a smile. It was a subtle jab at our time together. During those few months, I had been as inconsistent and last minute as possible. “How about three o’clock?”

  “Perfect.” Nina wouldn’t have to know that I had ulterior motives in mind when I texted her to ask if she would meet me there. The important thing was to get her there.

  I spent the remainder of the morning preparing the proposal for the investigation into Patrick Blake. With an investigation of this nature, the Board of Directors was likely to be more discerning than usual. After all, we were preparing to go after a well-known, respected, and powerful businessman.

  My focus was only interrupted when my phone vibrated with an incoming text.

  CARTER: Meet at Trinity for lunch in 15?

  His invitation could only mean that he’d come to a decision about joining my team.

  LUKE: I’ll be there.

  The walk down Third Avenue toward the pub was dizzying. New York City was hung over from the holidays. Most businesses still had Christmas decorations adorning their buildings. Others, in more of a hurry to get on with things, were in the process of taking them down. I hadn’t had adequate time to prepare for the conversation with Carter, and the electricity in the street wasn’t helping me gather my thoughts on the short walk.

  It was easy to pick him out of the busy lunch crowd. He was the only one not wearing a business suit. “Please tell me you brought me here to deliver good news,” I begged. “You know I wouldn’t insist if I didn’t need you with me on this.”

  Carter nodded. “I’ll do it on two conditions.”

  “Anything.”

  “Are you sober?”

  Recovering addicts simultaneously loathed and accepted this question. The affirmation of sobriety seemed to be a prerequisite for anything.

  “I’ve passed every monthly drug test since starting at Watchtower.” I didn’t dare mention that the month Joanna and I broke up I swapped my sample with a clean one I’d bought for fifty bucks. Or the small slip-up I’d had at the Brass Lounge when I tracked down Nina.

  “That’s not a yes.” He crossed his arms, unconvinced.

  I appreciated the position he was in. Carter was a guy who’d spent time building up his reputation as the best. I’d been just like him once, a young guy with everything to lose. The only difference was, I’d lost it all.

  “You have my word. Next condition.”

  “Fine, and I get to put the rest of the team together myself.”

  “Sold.” The truth was, I didn’t care who else joined us. Carter was the crucial piece – anyone else was secondary.

  After a waitress came to take our order, Carter leveled with me. “So, what’s the case? People are saying a lot of things around the office. I admit, the mystery is part of why I agreed.”

  I had failed to mention that the case was connected to my visit to Pennsylvania on Christmas Eve. As far as Carter knew, I’d only tracked down Adam’s mother.

  “I found Adam’s sister.”

  “Alright, you’ve got my attention now.” He leaned in over the table, wide-eyed. “So Adam has a sister?”

  “That’s only the beginning.”

  I spent the lunch relaying the details of Patrick Blake’s proximity to a growing list of missing or dead girls.

  “We’re gonna need twenty-four seven monitoring on the Jasper Hotel,” Carter concluded. “There’s an apartment building right across the street from there. I’ll see if there’s any availability for rooms with a good view. We’ll set up shop in there.”

  He amazed me with the level of knowledge he could retain about the city’s layout. I needed him around to think of things like this that hadn’t crossed my mind.

  “Good plan.” I held my hand up to stop him from grabbing the check. “In the meantime, I’m working on Nina. It’s risky, but I want to get her reunited with Blake.”

  “Long-lost daughter angle.” Carter raised his eyebrows. “That is risky.”

  “If we can get someone on the inside to gain his trust, the information we get would be invaluable.” He nodded in agreement, and I continued. “Next step, get the team together. Have a preliminary meeting Thursday night. I go in front of the Board on Friday. Once we have the okay, we’ll put it into action.”

  Carter slammed the rest of his water, then leveled his gaze with mine. “Just don’t make me regret this, Nolan.”

  8

  Nina

  I was relieved to be back in my small apartment. The mismatched sheets and the odd way the sun shone through the windows felt like home to me. My plan was to spend an uninterrupted day of rest in the little hideaway.

  Until my phone vibrated.

  LUKE: Can we meet up tomorrow? Need my book back.

  I rolled my eyes. Luke and the fantastic tapestry he’d conjured up about my life were the last things I wanted to think about. Deep down, I knew he was using the book as a ruse to get another chance to talk to me. Still, I relented.

  NINA: Fine. I’ll come to you. What time?

  LUKE: 2:45pm.

  NINA: Ok.

  LUKE: Bring the book.

  I let out an exasperated sigh and tossed my phone onto the floor. He wasn’t going to steal this moment from me. Agreeing to meet him was against my better judgment, but with Tomas gone until further notice, I needed a distraction.

  Thankfully, I had a show that night. My body itched to step back into Gigi’s skin. I wanted to rip off Nina’s skin and never have anything to do with her again. Everything about Nina was sad and depressing. Gigi brought a new, mysterious energy with her into the world.

  Too excited to sit still, I made my way back down into the empty loft. The place was a goddamn mess and Eden was still passed out. I walked over to her to make sure she was still breathing. Unfortunately, she was.

  She and Tomas had done some damage, that was for sure. I busied myself picking up bottles and gathering the small, half-empty bags of white powder.

  “You don’t have to do that,” Eden finally groaned from the couch. My chucking of the empty glass bottles into the trash must have woken her. “In fact, please don’t.” She grabbed her head in agony.

  I smashed another bottle into the trash.

  “Tomas said he wanted me home last night.” The act of picking up the mess they’d made was the only thing keeping me from strangling her. “That’s not exactly the message you conveyed in your text,” I accused her.

  “You saw him this morning?” She was slumped over now, trying to will herself up.

  “Yes, he went out west. Looks like you two had a hell of a party celebrating the fact that he finished my collection.”

  I continued clattering bottles and making as much noise as possible. I’d stood in Eden’s shadow for so long, and the moment Tomas paid a small amount of attention to me, she pushed me out.

  “Gigi, it wasn’t like that…” Her voice was spacey, like she wasn’t fully aware of where she was. I grabbed the remaining bottles off the counter and smashed them loudly.

  “Back off,” I challenged her. “You’ve had your time with him, and now it’s mine. I respected your relationship with him, and now you have to respect mine.”

  Eden glared at me, fully alert now. She stood up and hobbled her way toward me, her silk robe slipping off one shoulder.

  “Let’s get one thing straight, you little bitch. Don’t get used to the attention from him. He does this with every muse who comes through here. He sweeps them off their feet, promises them the world, and when the show closes, he goes radio
silent and comes home to me, where he belongs.”

  Her words stung, but I raised my chin, meeting her ice-cold eyes.

  “That’s adorable,” she continued. “You thought you were different from the rest.” She laughed and started wandering toward the bedroom she shared with Tomas.

  “You have no idea what you’re talking about,” I shouted after her.

  “Here’s a tip.” She paused, looking back at me over her shoulder. “Don’t bite the hand that feeds you.”

  I watched her walk down the hall and vanish into the dark bedroom. Her prediction left me chilled to the bone. That was the lore of Tomas – that he treated his muses like revolving doors. Still, he’d never painted Eden, and all of his time at the moment was focused on debuting a collection of paintings in which I starred.

  Upper hand: Me.

  9

  Luke

  Now that Carter was officially on board, things were going to start moving quick. My research was proving to be fruitful. Thanks to a bridge I hadn’t burned in the FBI, fifteen years of Jasper Hotel employment records were delivered to my email inbox. It was crucial to prepare a mountain of evidence for the Board before I met with him. I had to make it impossible for them to say no.

  So I shut myself away in the apartment and began the meticulous work of filtering out employees based on certain demographics. I separated the female employees between the ages of sixteen and twenty-five from everyone else. It seemed unlikely that a girl of sixteen would be working in New York City. But sure enough, Patrick Blake had no problem hiring girls that young.

  The work kept me occupied until it was time to meet Nina again.

  The first thing you noticed about Nina was the way she carried herself. Every movement she made was light and quick, as though she was trying to avoid being seen. She emerged from around the corner dressed down in jeans and a thick sweatshirt. It was a side of her I hadn’t seen yet, the undone Nina Parker.

  Since I’d gotten her to agree to meet me, I wasn’t going to take any chances that she might change her mind. So I waited to intercept her in front of my building.

  “You came,” I shouted when she was still twenty feet away.

  In response, she held out my copy of Patrick Blake’s book, as though she wanted to take care of business and get on her way.

  “Oh, that old thing?” I joked. “You can keep it.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Why the hell am I here, Luke?” She shoved the book into my chest, walking past me in annoyance.

  “I want to show you something.”

  “I’m not going up to your apartment with you.” She stopped, turned to face me, and folded her arms across her chest.

  “You don’t have to.” I grabbed her hand and started pulling her toward where I’d parked my car on the street. “We need to take a drive up to Midtown for this.”

  “No.” She yanked her hand out of mine. “The deal was I came to return the book, and now you have it. We’re done here.”

  “Nina, don’t make a scene. Just come with me for fifteen minutes. If after that you decide I’m still full of shit, I’ll never contact you again.” That was a complete lie. I was going to do anything to repair my reputation. As much as it irritated me, Nina was my ticket to redemption.

  She sighed, tossing her head back and looked toward the sky. “Fifteen minutes,” she agreed. “That’s it, I swear.”

  I raised my hands in surrender as she rejoined me. Once in my car, I drove toward Watchtower headquarters. We rode the entire way in silence. As we passed the building and continued to make our way a few blocks farther up on Third Avenue, I wondered if Nina would still be with me for the team meeting that evening. Carter had selected an expert team of Watchtower specialists; my presentation was ready to go. The only missing piece was getting Nina on board.

  From the sidewalk, nothing about the Hope Center stood out. It blended in with all the other gray buildings around it. A passerby would write it off as just another business building littering the streets of New York City. The only detail that gave it away was the small sign that hung above the door, and you really had to squint to see it.

  I held the front door open for Nina, who shot me a look that said This better be worth my time before crossing the threshold.

  “Luke, you made it!” Joanna greeted us from her spot at the front desk behind a glass partition. I took small offense at the surprise in her voice. Of course I’d shown up. She opened the door to let us in the back.

  “Thanks again for doing this, Joanna.” I kissed her cheek. “This is Nina.” After a slight hesitation, the two women shook hands.

  “Sorry, what is this place?” Nina asked abruptly. Her eyes were glued to Joanna, surveying her up and down. Was I mistaken, or was there a glimmer of jealousy hiding in her stare?

  “Your brother built this place,” I beamed.

  Joanna raised her eyebrows. “I’m sorry, what?”

  “I’ll fill you in later, Jo.” There was too little time to cover all the details with her. The main goal was to get Nina to connect with her brother and see who he was as a person. “Nina, as you know, Watchtower’s goal is to recover missing persons. And we’re very good at that. However, a few years ago, your brother started to recognize the need to offer extended support to recovered individuals.” I paused to evaluate her reaction but she simply looked around, taking in the administrative section of the center. I motioned for Joanna to continue.

  “Right…” Joanna paused, trying to regain her composure after the bomb I’d just dropped. “Like Luke mentioned, any of our recovered victims can enroll here to receive continued support. We offer both daytime and residential programs.”

  Joanna led us through administration to the education wing where a few GED classes were in session. Nina’s interest was clearly piqued, as she hung on every word Joanna spoke. The fifteen minutes she’d promised me quickly turned into a half hour as we moved on to the medical wing. By the time we had snaked our way through the entire Center and stopped to chat with some of the residents, it was nearly four-thirty. I’d managed to get her to stick around much longer than I anticipated.

  “This must have something to do with the secret mission Alicia has you on,” Joanna muttered under her breath while Nina explored the recreation wing.

  “Something big is coming, Jo, and Alicia put me in charge.”

  “Does Adam know?”

  I shook my head. “He’s still off the grid.”

  Joanna observed Nina in silence. She’d gotten roped into a game of checkers by one of the long-term residents. Sounds of pure, unbridled laughter drifted back to us from her corner.

  “She’s gorgeous, Luke.” The statement sounded more like a warning.

  “It’s not like that, Jo. This is Adam’s sister we’re talking about.” Even as I said it, I couldn’t help but focus on the way Nina’s long golden hair appeared to shimmer in the light.

  “You better be careful then.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “Luke, I see the way she looks at you. The entire tour her eyes were glued to you, giving you looks Adam would probably kill you over.”

  Perhaps my earlier reading of her jealousy had been correct. I stared at Nina, smiling and laughing. For the first time since barging into her life, I saw her move with ease. She was comfortable and carefree. I rewound the tape in my mind and replayed each interaction we’d had over the last few days, searching for evidence to back up Joanna’s claim. Sure, we’d locked eyes a few times, but so what?

  Nina waved goodbye to her new friend and made her way back to us. “Thank you for the tour.” Her tone was cool but courteous toward Joanna. “This seems like a wonderful place.”

  “It was a pleasure having you. Both of you are welcome back anytime. We always need volunteers.” Joanna would probably have better luck recruiting Nina for volunteer work than I would have recruiting her to work against her father.

  Nina said her goodbyes to the residents she’d befriend
ed in her short time at the Center and together we emerged back out onto the sidewalk.

  “God, I’m hungry,” I announced, trying my best to make it sound like a random observation. “Do you want to go grab something to eat?” There were still two hours before the team meeting would take place. It was my final window to get Nina to come with me, and I whispered a silent prayer that the tour of the Center had brought her closer to Adam.

  “We could do that.” Her tone mimicked the way she’d spoken toward Joanna moments earlier. As much as I wanted to dig into her change in demeanor, there was work to be done. I guided us into Le Bateau Bleu, a small, dimly-lit French restaurant just across the street from headquarters.

  “Mr. Nolan, welcome back,” Henri, the maître d’, greeted us. When I first started at Watchtower, I ate dinner here at least three nights a week. It was the kind of restaurant you felt okay eating alone in. You could sit at the long mahogany bar and go completely unnoticed by diners the entire evening.

  “Good to see you. Table for two please.”

  He nodded and motioned for us to follow him. He put us into a small booth in the far corner of the restaurant. Had this been a date, the ambiance provided by the lighting, mixed with the intoxicating aromas wafting from the kitchen, would have created the perfect romantic atmosphere.

  “This place is too nice,” Nina whispered, gesturing to her jeans and sweatshirt.

  “You look perfect.” The reassurance came with more weight than I’d anticipated. Her cheeks turned red and she looked down at the menu.

  After placing drink orders (I went with iced tea, she went with red wine), I decided it was now or never.

  “So what did you think?” She was still here, so that had to mean something good had come out of the tour.