“I wouldn’t have blamed you for leaving,” she said softly.
He dropped down next to her on the bed and reached for her hand, finding her skin clammy. “I’d be a shitty person if I left you, Lottie.” He didn’t care if her real name was Marissa; he only cared about thewhy.“I want to understand, that’s all.” He’d seen fear on a victim’s face before. The moment she saw her brother, real,rawfear crossed her face. That couldn’t be faked. He tried to reel in his questions for her, keeping focused on the danger she was presently in. “Do you have any idea why your brother would break into your condo?”
“I stole money from their business,” she said, her head bowed. “That’s what I used to escape. I used it to get out of Chicago, pay for a new identity and have my old one erased. So yeah, it seems logical he’d come looking for the money I stole. But it’s been seven years since I left Chicago, and believe me when I tell you, Leo isn’t the type of man to be sneaky. If he wanted the money, he’d come ask me for it”—she paused and then remembered—“but…”
Desperate to get to the bottom of this, he squeezed her hand. “I need the truth to help you. No more secrets between us, yeah?”
Tears welled in her eyes again, but she nodded. “Yeah, okay.” She pulled her hand from his, and he fought against letting her go, holding her close. He refused to get quick to anger over this. Not until he had all the facts and understood why a woman who valued close friendships would lie to everyone around her. From his experience on the job, two things usually motivated people to lie: guilt or fear.
Hunt suspected, for Lottie, it was the latter.
After she entered the closet, she came back out with the box that he’d seen her holding before. “This was the package that came for me the other day. It’s from my dad.” She handed him the box, taking a seat next to him on the bed, the mattress bouncing beneath her.
He opened the lid, only finding a note from her father:
My darling, Marissa:
I have many regrets. Losing you is one of them.
Dad
“I didn’t know what to think of this at the time, besides just being shocked that after seven years he found me,” she said. “But now”—her breath hitched—“now that he's gone. And with Leo breaking in—”
“Leo’s your oldest brother?” Hunt interjected, needing to take this step by step. Until it all made some lick of sense.
She gave a slow nod, her voice trembling. “Yes. Then there’s Matteo, who’s the middle child, and I’m the youngest.”
“All right,” Hunt said, making a mental note. He examined the box. Besides the note, there was nothing special about the box. “Do you think this box has something to do with the break-in?”
“I can’t see why; it’s a wooden box,” she said, staring at the box like it was a puzzle she couldn’t quite solve. “Maybe it’s something from my childhood. Or it was my mother’s and my father wanted me to have it.” She finally looked up at him, with the saddest eyes he’d ever seen, and shrugged. “I don’t know, but it seems a bit coincidental, that my dad passes away, Leo breaks into my place, and then this box is delivered afterward.”
“I agree, it is too coincidental for my liking.” He pulled out his cell phone, taking a picture of the box and then fired off a text. “I’m sending this to Elise and getting her to investigate who sent it. Hopefully that will shed some light on what it is and why it was sent to you.”
Elise’s response pinged on his cell:On it.
He set his cell phone down on the nightstand with a sigh, then said, “If it’s all right with you, I think it’s wise to leave this box at my house for the time being. Until we have an answer for why, let’s keep it safe.”
Her eyes searched his, and then she gave a slow nod. “Okay, yes, I guess that makes sense.”
Scooping up her hand, he held it tight, feeling the hard trembles rocking her. “When you left your family, do you know how your brothers felt about that?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I never saw them again.”
“They never came looking for you?”
“They weren’t given the chance to. The day after my mother’s funeral, I left. I was so furious that my family’s operation had gotten my mom killed. I was also scared to death. I didn’t want to be in that house, in that world anymore. I took twenty thousand dollars from my dad’s safe. Five thousand got me to New York City and into an apartment. Fifteen was spent to get my new identity.” She stared at their held hands for a moment. When she lifted her head, her chin trembled.“I’m sure if they had caught me, they would have killed me for the money I stole.”
“How did you get the new identity?”
“I was dating a guy named Jack at the time,” she explained, her gaze going far away from there. “I only learned after that he was part of my family’s operation. But it was him. He helped me get away because he cared about me. While I was standing over my mom’s grave, he was picking up my new ID and birth certificate.”
Hunt caught what she wasn’t saying. “He knew the right people who could help you?”
She nodded. “It’s why I’m surprised Elise found anything. I was assured my old identity and any evidence of me was erased.”
“Technology changes on the daily,” Hunt explained. He saw it every day on the job. “Things people thought buried can get unearthed again.” Hunt paused, considering all this. He almost hated to ask. “Do you know if anything happened to Jack?”
She shrugged. “I never heard from him again.”
