Page 47 of Deadly Lust

She eased over to me and sat so close I could inhale her floral perfume. “You shouldn’t repeat that. And remember, I was with you the night of the murder. I know for certain that you didn’t murder Tiffany. And for you, Grant, I would blow my cover and risk my career to ensure you were never charged.” She cast a downward glance. “As for Joaquín’s name drop, I have a different theory.”

I hated that she was making me ask exactly what she thought, but I did it anyway. “Would you care to share?”

“No, I wouldn’t. And I don’t want to speculate until I have proof. We need to stick to the facts.”

I exhaled, realizing she had been running most of this investigation on her gut instinct with few facts to back her theories up.

“And the facts are that your son is missing, Joaquín has been involved with a cartel, and we aren’t sure of Mia’s involvement.”

“This doesn’t point to her being involved. It’s consistent with her obsession with freeing Joaquín. As for your pictures of her and Mitch at Rafael’s,” I closed my eyes and tried to push away the thoughts of Mitch’s hand riding up her thigh, her lips covering his mouth, his cock pressed against her as she straddled his lap, “they don’t prove that Mia or Mitch are involved with a cartel. I know Mitch. He’s a jackass, but he probably brought her there so she could scan Rafael’s place. Hell, he even told me that he thought Ksenya could make Rafael open up.”

“You knew Joaquín well, also. Did you know he was involved with a cartel?”

I sneered at her.

“That’s what I thought. Whatever Mia’s motives are, she’s lying to you. About how much, we aren’t sure.”

Ashley sat on her desk and crossed her legs. I scanned the room and made a mental note of the lack of personal effects in her office. On her desk, there was a steel nameplate and a framed picture of a little girl. But the picture seemed dated, from the nineties, judging by the clothes the girl was wearing. There were no other pictures on her desk.

At the party where I met her, she’d told me she’d been a screwup in school, dated some abusive guy, and didn’t talk to her parents. I realized now that her story was probably a pack of lies as part of her cover, but the way she’d told me made me think there’d been an ounce of truth in her lies.

She noticed me looking around the room and hopped off the desk.

“I thought we were dealing with facts now, Ashley. What kind of proof do you have that she’s still lying?”

“She’s crazy, Grant. She’s gone too far and done some incredibly outlandish things to free her brother. Why is she doing this? Yes, she loves him, but it isn’t normal for a sister to do this for her brother. Their relationship is atypical. Maybe… Never mind.”

“Say it, dammit. Maybe what?”

“Maybe she gave your child to Tiffany. After all, she hid the pregnancy from you, the baby’s father. Have you considered that she’s plotting something with Joaquín?”

I let out a bark of laughter. “No, I haven’t considered that. If you believe that, you’re crazier than she is. She loves her son and would never have considered giving him away.”

I knew she had lied to me, but I also knew why she lied. I could feel her love for me. She loved people so deeply that she was blinded by her devotion. To me, to Joaquín, and to our son.

“You don’t have a fucking clue about what happened to Mia. She left me because she had been raped, and then she almost died in the hospital after giving birth. Mia is elated that her son is alive. Do you have any other theories?”

Ashley’s eyes bugged. “I had no idea she had been raped. I’m sorry to hear that. Did she press charges?”

“No. She doesn’t know who did it.”

“You just need to consider everything. You’re a good man, Grant. Better than most of the SEALs I’ve met. I can’t find anything negative in your background. You deserve better than her.”

I shot a look at her. “Like you? You’ve targeted me from day one, and haven’t given me a single reason to think Mia is lying about anything she knows. You were at the party when Tiffany got killed. All over me…but you were just using me. You came with Tiffany! Why were you even there, dammit?”

“Because we were investigating Joaquín’s connection to the cartel. Tiffany had been arrested for prostitution with a SEAL and in order to get the charges dropped, she traded us information.”

“Which SEAL?”

Ashley shook her head. “I’m not going to divulge his name, but he has been disciplined and is being cooperative. It isn’t relevant to finding your son.”

The hell it wasn’t. It wasn’t a secret that SEALs frequented hookers. But if the SEAL was with Tiffany, maybe that SEAL was involved with Joaquín’s shady deals. Maybe that SEAL was Paul. “And you didn’t know she had a kid?”

“At the time we made the deal with her, we were unaware that she had given a boy to her mother to raise. If we had known, we would have investigated that before we allowed her to go undercover for us. She tipped us off that Rafael dealt to some SEALs, who also smuggled drugs. We believe Joaquín pirated drugs in Aruba and Afghanistan.”

I believed that, too. Kyle had mentioned that Joaquín had snuck off one night in Afghanistan. It made perfect sense. I kept my thoughts to myself and let Ashley finish.

“That night, Tiffany was supposed to just wear a wire and try to get him to talk. We think Joaquín saw the wire and killed her. Unfortunately, she’s dead and Joaquín’s a psychopath, so we’ll probably never know exactly why he killed her.”