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What was her endgame? Money, obviously.
Based on the fact that she’d chosen to live in one of downtown Charleston’s priciest neighborhoods, she obviously had expensive taste. After meeting Ethan, she’d obviously targeted him, using their grandfather’s illness to ingratiate herself. Was she planning on getting Ethan to pay off her debt or to invest in some sort of business?
“Ophelia Marsh, born March first—” he began, determined to unnerve her with a quick rundown of her vital statistics.
“Fun fact,” she interrupted. “I was almost a leap-day baby. My mom went into labor late on February twenty-eighth and everyone thought for sure I would be born the next day, which that year was February twenty-ninth. But I didn’t want to have a birthday every four years. I mean, who would, right?”
Her rambling speech, sparkling with energetic good humor, soured his mood even more. “Right.” He had no idea why he was agreeing. “Born March first in Occidental, California...”
“A Pisces.”
He shook his head. “A what?”
“A Pisces,” she repeated. “You know, the astrological sign. Two fish swimming in opposite directions. Like you’re a goat,” she concluded.
Paul exhaled harshly. Horoscopes were nothing but a bunch of nonsense. Yet that didn’t stop him from asking, “I’m a goat?”
“A Capricorn. You just had a birthday.”
He felt her words like a hit to his solar plexus. “How did you know that?”
Her knowing his birthday filled him
with equal parts annoyance and dismay. He was the security expert, the brilliant investigator who hunted down cybercriminals and kept his clients’ data safe. To have this stranger know something as personal as his birth date sent alarm jolting through him.
“Ethan told me.”
“Why would he do that?” Paul demanded, directing the question to the universe rather than Lia.
“Why wouldn’t he?” She cocked her head and regarded him as if that was obvious. “He likes to talk about his family and it helps me to picture all of you if I know your signs. You’re a Capricorn. Your mother is a Libra. She’s the peacekeeper of the family. Your father is a Sagittarius. He’s a talker and tends to chase impossible dreams. Ethan is a Taurus. Stubborn, reliable, with a sensual side that loves good food.”
This quick summary of his family was so spot-on that Paul’s suspicions reached even higher levels. Obviously, this woman had been researching the Wattses for some nefarious purpose. What was she up to? Time to turn up the volume on his questioning.
“You don’t stay in one place for very long,” he said, remembering what he’d managed to dig up on her. “New York, Vermont, Massachusetts, now South Carolina, all visited in the last twelve months. Why is that?”
In his experience grifters liked to work an area and move on when things became too hot. Her pattern fit with someone up to no good. She might be beautiful and seem to possess a sweet, generous nature, but in his mind her obvious appeal worked against her. He knew firsthand how easily people were taken in by appearances. He was more interested in substance.
“I’m a nomad.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I like life on the road. It’s how I grew up.” She paused to assess his expression and whatever she glimpsed there made her smile slightly. “I was born in the back of a VW camper van and traveled nearly five thousand miles in the first year of my life. My mother has a hard time staying put for any long period of time.”
Paul was having a difficult time wrapping his head around what she was saying. For someone who belonged to a family that had lived within ten square miles of Charleston for generations, he couldn’t fathom the sort of lifestyle she was talking about.
“Was your mother on the run from someone? Your father? Or a boyfriend?”
“No.” Her casual shrug left plenty of room for Paul to speculate. “She was just restless.”
“And you? Are you restless, too?”
“I guess.” Something passed over her features, but it was gone too fast for him to read. “Although I tend to stay longer in places than she did.”
Follow-up questions sprang to Paul’s mind, but he wasn’t here to dig into her family dynamic. He needed to figure out what she was up to so he could determine how much danger she represented to his family. He changed subjects. “Where did you and Ethan meet?”
“He’s been a client of mine for about a month now.”
“A client?” Paul digested this piece of information.
