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She took another step away from him. “Tristan…this can’t happen.”
He frowned, and she could almost see the tycoon walls go up. “It’s because of what I told you—that I could have Huntington’s.”
“No.” Tristan had not inherited Huntington’s—a burner’s extraordinary energy level made them virtually immune to most illness, even genetic ones. But if she told him he was safe from the disease, would he believe her?
“So, you do have someone in Denver. Which is it? An ex-boyfriend, or”—his frown deepened—“a husband?”
She couldn’t bring herself to lie outright, but she wouldn’t bother denying his accusation. It was easiest if he believed she was taken. “I’m not free to start a relationship.”
“I see.” His voice sounded clipped and cold. His expression chilled and then froze.
“I do appreciate everything you’ve done for me.”
His demeanor didn’t lighten, but something changed in it—grew more intense, like his logical mind was analyzing the problem from all angles, determined to find a loophole. And the crazy thing was, she wanted him to discover the truth and convince her to stay, which was dangerous.
“Say your goodbyes, then, and I’ll take you back to the house. I have a call to make first. I’ll come back and get you in, say, twenty minutes? Is that enough time?”
She nodded, and without another word, he turned and left her, his long strides eating up the hallway. All she could do was stare after him, swallowing the hard knot in her throat, which felt a lot like heartache.
ChapterThirteen
Tristan found a seat on a blue swivel chair in a private lounge he sometimes frequented when he accompanied his mom on one of her routine hospital visits. Tall glass windows let in the sun but were frosted to offer privacy. A thrill of nervous anticipation moved through his veins as he found Brian’s number in his favorites.
“What do you have for me?” he asked as soon as Brian answered.
“Hang onto your hat. Or in your case, your computer,” Brian joked, but there was a gritty edge to his voice. He’d been in the military before leaving to start his own security firm, and he was always calm, always in control, and always joking. Tristan suspected he used humor as a way of coping with a mighty stressful job. “You were right to be suspicious of the woman.”
Tristan straightened, pulse leaping. “Why? What have you discovered?”
“I can’t find a Zoey Mills who is a registered nurse working in Denver that fits your description.”
She’d lied to him. Hadn’t he known it? A doomed feeling settled in his stomach, and he rested his head in one hand, his other still clutching the phone by his ear. “She’s not a nurse?”
“We ran a computer program that matches Social Security Numbers with nurses in the United States who go by the name Zoey Mills and matched those with the photo you sent. Your girl is not among them.”
Tristan thought of Zoey as he’d last seen her—denying any attraction between them. Who was she? His instincts had been right. She was on the run, obviously desperate and alone, lying to him about her identity and occupation and yet…and yet, she’d come to Cleveland for her sick friend.
“Still there?” Brian interrupted his thoughts.
“Yes.”
“Good, because there’s more.”
Tristan waited. What more could there be? Was she an escaped felon dodging law enforcement? Perhaps she’d had a run of bad luck and ditched her name along with a pile of debt?
“I did some checking on the friend…Hannah Milano, you said.”
He gripped the phone tighter if that were possible. “What about her?”
“Don’t worry. She appears to be legitimate. But her family has had more than their share of tragedy. The mother was killed in a car crash a few years ago, and an older sister died in a freak boating accident shortly afterward.”
“That’s unfortunate.”
“It is. But something told me it was a little too much of a coincidence, so I dug a little deeper.”
Tristan held the phone closer to his ear. This was what made Brian Townsend one of the best investigators in the country. And Tristan knew him well enough to know, when he got a certain ring in his voice, a bombshell was about to drop. “You found something.”
“Let’s call them odd coincidences. Hannah Milano’s mother was a nurse. She’d been away from home, volunteering on a mission trip in the Appalachian Mountains in West Virginia when she died. The older sister was also a nurse.”
